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The electrode-electrolyte interface in electrochemical environments involves the understanding of complex processes relevant for all electrochemical applications. Some of these processes include electronic structure, charge storage, charge transfer, solvent dynamics and structure and surface adsorption. In order to engineer electrochemical systems, no matter the function, requires fundamental intuition of all

The electrode-electrolyte interface in electrochemical environments involves the understanding of complex processes relevant for all electrochemical applications. Some of these processes include electronic structure, charge storage, charge transfer, solvent dynamics and structure and surface adsorption. In order to engineer electrochemical systems, no matter the function, requires fundamental intuition of all the processes at the interface. The following work presents different systems in which the electrode-electrolyte interface is highly important. The first is a charge storage electrode utilizing percolation theory to develop an electrode architecture producing high capacities. This is followed by Zn deposition in an ionic liquid in which the deposition morphology is highly dependant on the charge transfer and surface adsorption at the interface. Electrode Architecture: A three-dimensional manganese oxide supercapacitor electrode architecture is synthesized by leveraging percolation theory to develop a hierarchically designed tri-continuous percolated network. The three percolated phases include a faradaically-active material, electrically conductive material and pore-former templated void space. The micropores create pathways for ionic conductivity, while the nanoscale electrically conducting phase provides both bulk conductivity and local electron transfer with the electrochemically active phase. Zn Electrodeposition: Zn redox in air and water stable N-ethyl-N-methylmorpholinium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, [C2nmm][NTf2] is presented. Under various conditions, characterization of overpotential, kinetics and diffusion of Zn species and morphological evolution as a function of overpotential and Zn concentration are analyzed. The surface stress evolution during Zn deposition is examined where grain size and texturing play significant rolls in compressive stress generation. Morphological repeatability in the ILs led to a novel study of purity in ionic liquids where it is found that surface adsorption of residual amine and chloride from the organic synthesis affect growth characteristics. The drivers of this work are to understand the processes occurring at the electrode-electrolyte interface and with that knowledge, engineer systems yielding optimal performance. With this in mind, the design of a bulk supercapacitor electrode architecture with excellent composite specific capacitances, as well as develop conditions producing ideal Zn deposition morphologies was completed.
ContributorsEngstrom, Erika (Author) / Friesen, Cody (Thesis advisor) / Buttry, Daniel (Committee member) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
ABSTRACT The behavior of the fission products, as they are released from fission events during nuclear reaction, plays an important role in nuclear fuel performance. Fission product release can occur through grain boundary (GB) at low burnups; therefore, this study simulates the mass transport of fission gases in a 2-D

ABSTRACT The behavior of the fission products, as they are released from fission events during nuclear reaction, plays an important role in nuclear fuel performance. Fission product release can occur through grain boundary (GB) at low burnups; therefore, this study simulates the mass transport of fission gases in a 2-D GB network to look into the effects of GB characteristics on this phenomenon, with emphasis on conditions that can lead to percolation. A finite element model was created based on the microstructure of a depleted UO2 sample characterized by Electron Backscattering Diffraction (EBSD). The GBs were categorized into high (D2), low (D1) and bulk diffusivity (Dbulk) based on their misorientation angles and Coincident Site Lattice (CSL) types. The simulation was run using different diffusivity ratios (D2/Dbulk) ranging from 1 to 10^8. The model was set up in three ways: constant temperature case, temperature gradient effects and window methods that mimic the environments in a Light Water Reactor (LWR). In general, the formation of percolation paths was observed at a ratio higher than 10^4 in the measured GB network, which had a 68% fraction of high diffusivity GBs. The presence of temperature gradient created an uneven concentration distribution and decreased the overall mass flux. Finally, radial temperature and fission gas concentration profiles were obtained for a fuel pellet in operation using an approximate 1-D model. The 100 µm long microstructurally explicit model was used to simulate, to the scale of a real UO2 pellet, the mass transport at different radial positions, with boundary conditions obtained from the profiles. Stronger percolation effects were observed at the intermediate and periphery position of the pellet. The results also showed that highest mass flux happens at the edge of a pellet at steady state to accommodate for the sharp concentration drop.
ContributorsLim, Harn Chyi (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis advisor) / Dey, Sandwip (Committee member) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
A full understanding of material behavior is important for the prediction of residual useful life of aerospace structures via computational modeling. In particular, the influence of rolling-induced anisotropy on fatigue properties has not been studied extensively and it is likely to have a meaningful effect. In this work, fatigue behavior

A full understanding of material behavior is important for the prediction of residual useful life of aerospace structures via computational modeling. In particular, the influence of rolling-induced anisotropy on fatigue properties has not been studied extensively and it is likely to have a meaningful effect. In this work, fatigue behavior of a wrought Al alloy (2024-T351) is studied using notched uniaxial samples with load axes along either the longitudinal or transverse direction, and center notched biaxial samples (cruciforms) with a uniaxial stress state of equivalent amplitude about the bore. Local composition and crystallography were quantified before testing using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy and Electron Backscattering Diffraction. Interrupted fatigue testing at stresses close to yielding was performed on the samples to nucleate and propagate short cracks and nucleation sites were located and characterized using standard optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy. Results show that crack nucleation occurred due to fractured particles for longitudinal dogbone/cruciform samples; while transverse samples nucleated cracks by debonded and fractured particles. Change in crack nucleation mechanism is attributed to dimensional change of particles with respect to the material axes caused by global anisotropy. Crack nucleation from debonding reduced life till matrix fracture because debonded particles are sharper and generate matrix cracks sooner than their fractured counterparts. Longitudinal samples experienced multisite crack initiation because of reduced cross sectional areas of particles parallel to the loading direction. Conversely the favorable orientation of particles in transverse samples reduced instances of particle fracture eliminating multisite cracking and leading to increased fatigue life. Cyclic tests of cruciform samples showed that crack growth favors longitudinal and transverse directions with few instances of crack growth 45 degrees (diagonal) to the rolling direction. The diagonal crack growth is attributed to stronger influences of local anisotropy on crack nucleation. It was observed that majority of the time crack nucleation is governed by the mixed influences of global and local anisotropies. Measurements of crystal directions parallel to the load on main crack paths revealed directions clustered near the {110} planes and high index directions. This trend is attributed to environmental effects as a result of cyclic testing in air.
ContributorsMakaš, Admir (Author) / Peralta, Pedro D. (Thesis advisor) / Davidson, Joseph K. (Committee member) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
Dealloying induced stress corrosion cracking is particularly relevant in energy conversion systems (both nuclear and fossil fuel) as many failures in alloys such as austenitic stainless steel and nickel-based systems result directly from dealloying. This study provides evidence of the role of unstable dynamic fracture processes in dealloying induced stress-corrosion

Dealloying induced stress corrosion cracking is particularly relevant in energy conversion systems (both nuclear and fossil fuel) as many failures in alloys such as austenitic stainless steel and nickel-based systems result directly from dealloying. This study provides evidence of the role of unstable dynamic fracture processes in dealloying induced stress-corrosion cracking of face-centered cubic alloys. Corrosion of such alloys often results in the formation of a brittle nanoporous layer which we hypothesize serves to nucleate a crack that owing to dynamic effects penetrates into the un-dealloyed parent phase alloy. Thus, since there is essentially a purely mechanical component of cracking, stress corrosion crack propagation rates can be significantly larger than that predicted from electrochemical parameters. The main objective of this work is to examine and test this hypothesis under conditions relevant to stress corrosion cracking. Silver-gold alloys serve as a model system for this study since hydrogen effects can be neglected on a thermodynamic basis, which allows us to focus on a single cracking mechanism. In order to study various aspects of this problem, the dynamic fracture properties of monolithic nanoporous gold (NPG) were examined in air and under electrochemical conditions relevant to stress corrosion cracking. The detailed processes associated with the crack injection phenomenon were also examined by forming dealloyed nanoporous layers of prescribed properties on un-dealloyed parent phase structures and measuring crack penetration distances. Dynamic fracture in monolithic NPG and in crack injection experiments was examined using high-speed (106 frames s-1) digital photography. The tunable set of experimental parameters included the NPG length scale (20-40 nm), thickness of the dealloyed layer (10-3000 nm) and the electrochemical potential (0.5-1.5 V). The results of crack injection experiments were characterized using the dual-beam focused ion beam/scanning electron microscopy. Together these tools allow us to very accurately examine the detailed structure and composition of dealloyed grain boundaries and compare crack injection distances to the depth of dealloying. The results of this work should provide a basis for new mathematical modeling of dealloying induced stress corrosion cracking while providing a sound physical basis for the design of new alloys that may not be susceptible to this form of cracking. Additionally, the obtained results should be of broad interest to researchers interested in the fracture properties of nano-structured materials. The findings will open up new avenues of research apart from any implications the study may have for stress corrosion cracking.
ContributorsSun, Shaofeng (Author) / Sieradzki, Karl (Thesis advisor) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
The focus of this investigation includes three aspects. First, the development of nonlinear reduced order modeling techniques for the prediction of the response of complex structures exhibiting "large" deformations, i.e. a geometrically nonlinear behavior, and modeled within a commercial finite element code. The present investigation builds on a general methodology,

The focus of this investigation includes three aspects. First, the development of nonlinear reduced order modeling techniques for the prediction of the response of complex structures exhibiting "large" deformations, i.e. a geometrically nonlinear behavior, and modeled within a commercial finite element code. The present investigation builds on a general methodology, successfully validated in recent years on simpler panel structures, by developing a novel identification strategy of the reduced order model parameters, that enables the consideration of the large number of modes needed for complex structures, and by extending an automatic strategy for the selection of the basis functions used to represent accurately the displacement field. These novel developments are successfully validated on the nonlinear static and dynamic responses of a 9-bay panel structure modeled within Nastran. In addition, a multi-scale approach based on Component Mode Synthesis methods is explored. Second, an assessment of the predictive capabilities of nonlinear reduced order models for the prediction of the large displacement and stress fields of panels that have a geometric discontinuity; a flat panel with a notch was used for this assessment. It is demonstrated that the reduced order models of both virgin and notched panels provide a close match of the displacement field obtained from full finite element analyses of the notched panel for moderately large static and dynamic responses. In regards to stresses, it is found that the notched panel reduced order model leads to a close prediction of the stress distribution obtained on the notched panel as computed by the finite element model. Two enrichment techniques, based on superposition of the notch effects on the virgin panel stress field, are proposed to permit a close prediction of the stress distribution of the notched panel from the reduced order model of the virgin one. A very good prediction of the full finite element results is achieved with both enrichments for static and dynamic responses. Finally, computational challenges associated with the solution of the reduced order model equations are discussed. Two alternatives to reduce the computational time for the solution of these problems are explored.
ContributorsPerez, Ricardo Angel (Author) / Mignolet, Marc (Thesis advisor) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Spottswood, Stephen (Committee member) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Jiang, Hanqing (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
This research focuses on the stress and structure evolution observed in-situ during the earliest stages of thin film growth in Cu on Au(111)-reconstruction. For the research, an ultra high vacuum-scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV-STM) system was modified to have the additional capabilities of in-situ deposition and in-situ stress evolution monitoring. The

This research focuses on the stress and structure evolution observed in-situ during the earliest stages of thin film growth in Cu on Au(111)-reconstruction. For the research, an ultra high vacuum-scanning tunneling microscopy (UHV-STM) system was modified to have the additional capabilities of in-situ deposition and in-situ stress evolution monitoring. The design and fabrication processes for the modifications are explained in detail. The deposition source enabled imaging during the deposition of Cu thin films, while also being columnar enough to avoid negatively impacting the function of the microscope. It was found that the stress-induced changes in piezo voltage occurred over a substantially longer time scale and larger piezo scale than used during imaging, allowing for the deconvolution of the two sources of piezo voltage change. The intrinsic stress evolution observed at the onset of Cu growth was tensile in character and reached a maximum of 0.19 N/m at approximately 0.8ML, with an average tensile slope of 1.0GPa. As the film thickness increased beyond 0.8 ML, the stress became less tensile as the observation of disordered stripe and trigon patterns of misfit dislocations began to appear. The transport of atoms from the surface of enlarged Cu islands into the strained layer played an important role in this stage, because they effectively reduce the activation barrier for the formation of the observed surface structures. A rich array of structures were observed in the work presented here including stripe, disordered stripe and trigon patterns co-existing in a single Cu layer. Heteroepitaxial systems in existing literature showed a uniform structure in the single layer. The non-uniform structures in the single layer of this work may be attributed to the room temperature Cu growth, which can kinetically limit uniform pattern formation. The development of the UHV-STM system with additional capabilities for this work is expected to contribute to research for the stress and structure relationships of many other heteroepitaxial systems.
ContributorsNah, Jungwoo (Author) / Friesen, Cody (Thesis advisor) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Bennett, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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Description
In this research, the effect of the crystal structure of the parent phase on the morphology of nanoporous gold is explored. Specifically, Cu-Au alloys are studied. For this experiment, Cu0.75Au0.25 is heat treated to achieve an ordered phase Cu3Au and a disordered random solid solution, face centered cubic, Cu0.75Au0.25 phase,

In this research, the effect of the crystal structure of the parent phase on the morphology of nanoporous gold is explored. Specifically, Cu-Au alloys are studied. For this experiment, Cu0.75Au0.25 is heat treated to achieve an ordered phase Cu3Au and a disordered random solid solution, face centered cubic, Cu0.75Au0.25 phase, which are then dealloyed to form nanoporous gold (NPG). Using a morphology digital image analysis software called AQUAMI, SEM images of the NPG morphology were characterized to collect data on the ligament length, ligament diameter, porosity size, etc. of the samples. It was determined that the NPG formed from the ordered parent phase had an average ligament diameter that was 10 nm larger than the NPG formed from the disordered parent phase. This may be due to the ordered crystal structure allowing for faster gold diffusion and coarsening resulting in an increased average ligament size. Further future work is needed in order to obtain further evidence to support this hypothesis.
ContributorsTse, Ariana Yusof (Author) / Sieradzki, Karl (Thesis director) / Wang, Qing Hua (Committee member) / Materials Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Walter Cronkite School of Journalism & Mass Comm (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
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Description
Microstructure refinement and alloy additions are considered potential routes to increase high temperature performance of existing metallic superalloys used under extreme conditions. Nanocrystalline (NC) Cu-10at%Ta exhibits such improvements over microstructurally unstable NC metals, leading to enhanced creep behavior compared to its coarse-grained (CG) counterparts. However, the low melting point of

Microstructure refinement and alloy additions are considered potential routes to increase high temperature performance of existing metallic superalloys used under extreme conditions. Nanocrystalline (NC) Cu-10at%Ta exhibits such improvements over microstructurally unstable NC metals, leading to enhanced creep behavior compared to its coarse-grained (CG) counterparts. However, the low melting point of Cu compared to other FCC metals, e.g., Ni, might lead to an early onset of diffusional creep mechanisms. Thus, this research seeks to study the thermo-mechanical behavior and stability of hierarchical (prepared using arc-melting) and NC (prepared by collaborators through powder pressing and annealing) Ni-Y-Zr alloys where Zr is expected to provide solid solution and grain boundary strengthening in hierarchical and NC alloys, respectively, while Ni-Y and Ni-Zr intermetallic precipitates (IMCs) would provide kinetic stability. Hierarchical alloys had microstructures stable up to 1100 °C with ultrafine eutectic of ~300 nm, dendritic arm spacing of ~10 μm, and grain size ~1-2 mm. Room temperature hardness tests along with uniaxial compression performed at 25 and 600 °C revealed that microhardness and yield strength of hierarchical alloys with small amounts of Y (0.5-1wt%) and Zr (1.5-3 wt%) were comparable to Ni-superalloys, due to the hierarchical microstructure and potential presence of nanoscale IMCs. In contrast, NC alloys of the same composition were found to be twice as hard as the hierarchical alloys. Creep tests at 0.5 homologous temperature showed active Coble creep mechanisms in hierarchical alloys at low stresses with creep rates slower than Fe-based superalloys and dislocation creep mechanisms at higher stresses. Creep in NC alloys at lower stresses was only 20 times faster than hierarchical alloys, with the difference in grain size ranging from 10^3 to 10^6 times at the same temperature. These NC alloys showed enhanced creep properties over other NC metals and are expected to have rates equal to or improved over the CG hierarchical alloys with ECAP processing techniques. Lastly, the in-situ wide-angle x-ray scattering (WAXS) measurements during quasi-static and creep tests implied stresses being carried mostly by the matrix before yielding and in the primary creep stage, respectively, while relaxation was observed in Ni5Zr for both hierarchical and NC alloys. Beyond yielding and in the secondary creep stage, lattice strains reached a steady state, thereby, an equilibrium between plastic strain rates was achieved across different phases, so that deformation reaches a saturation state where strain hardening effects are compensated by recovery mechanisms.
ContributorsSharma, Shruti (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis advisor) / Alford, Terry (Committee member) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
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Description
The relationships between the properties of materials and their microstructures have been a central topic in materials science. The microstructure-property mapping and numerical failure prediction are critical for integrated computational material engineering (ICME). However, the bottleneck of ICME is the lack of a clear understanding of the failure mechanism as

The relationships between the properties of materials and their microstructures have been a central topic in materials science. The microstructure-property mapping and numerical failure prediction are critical for integrated computational material engineering (ICME). However, the bottleneck of ICME is the lack of a clear understanding of the failure mechanism as well as an efficient computational framework. To resolve these issues, research is performed on developing novel physics-based and data-driven numerical methods to reveal the failure mechanism of materials in microstructure-sensitive applications. First, to explore the damage mechanism of microstructure-sensitive materials in general loading cases, a nonlocal lattice particle model (LPM) is adopted because of its intrinsic ability to handle the discontinuity. However, the original form of LPM is unsuitable for simulating nonlinear behavior involving tensor calculation. Therefore, a damage-augmented LPM (DLPM) is proposed by introducing the concept of interchangeability and bond/particle-based damage criteria. The proposed DLPM successfully handles the damage accumulation behavior in general material systems under static and fatigue loading cases. Then, the study is focused on developing an efficient physics-based data-driven computational framework. A data-driven model is proposed to improve the efficiency of a finite element analysis neural network (FEA-Net). The proposed model, i.e., MFEA-Net, aims to learn a more powerful smoother in a multigrid context. The learned smoothers have good generalization properties, and the resulted MFEA-Net has linear computational complexity. The framework has been applied to efficiently predict the thermal and elastic behavior of composites with various microstructural fields. Finally, the fatigue behavior of additively manufactured (AM) Ti64 alloy is analyzed both experimentally and numerically. The fatigue experiments show the fatigue life is related with the contour process parameters, which can result in different pore defects, surface roughness, and grain structures. The fractography and grain structures are closely observed using scanning electron microscope. The sample geometry and defect/crack morphology are characterized through micro computed tomography (CT). After processing the pixel-level CT data, the fatigue crack initiation and growth behavior are numerically simulated using MFEA-Net and DLPM. The experiments and simulation results provided valuable insights in fatigue mechanism of AM Ti64 alloy.
ContributorsMeng, Changyu (Author) / Liu, Yongming (Thesis advisor) / Hoover, Christian (Committee member) / Li, Lin (Committee member) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Wang, Liping (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
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Description
The design of energy absorbing structures is driven by application specific requirements like the amount of energy to be absorbed, maximum transmitted stress that is permissible, stroke length, and available enclosing space. Cellular structures like foams are commonly leveraged in nature for energy absorption and have also found use in

The design of energy absorbing structures is driven by application specific requirements like the amount of energy to be absorbed, maximum transmitted stress that is permissible, stroke length, and available enclosing space. Cellular structures like foams are commonly leveraged in nature for energy absorption and have also found use in engineering applications. With the possibility of manufacturing complex cellular shapes using additive manufacturing technologies, there is an opportunity to explore new topologies that improve energy absorption performance. This thesis aims to systematically understand the relationships between four key elements: (i) unit cell topology, (ii) material composition, (iii) relative density, and (iv) fields; and energy absorption behavior, and then leverage this understanding to develop, implement and validate a methodology to design the ideal cellular structure energy absorber. After a review of the literature in the domain of additively manufactured cellular materials for energy absorption, results from quasi-static compression of six cellular structures (hexagonal honeycomb, auxetic and Voronoi lattice, and diamond, Gyroid, and Schwarz-P) manufactured out of AlSi10Mg and Nylon-12. These cellular structures were compared to each other in the context of four design-relevant metrics to understand the influence of cell design on the deformation and failure behavior. Three new and revised metrics for energy absorption were proposed to enable more meaningful comparisons and subsequent design selection. Triply Periodic Minimal Surface (TPMS) structures were found to have the most promising overall performance and formed the basis for the numerical investigation of the effect of fields on the energy absorption performance of TPMS structures. A continuum shell-based methodology was developed to analyze the large deformation behavior of field-driven variable thickness TPMS structures and validated against experimental data. A range of analytical and stochastic fields were then evaluated that modified the TPMS structure, some of which were found to be effective in enhancing energy absorption behavior in the structures while retaining the same relative density. Combining findings from studies on the role of cell geometry, composition, relative density, and fields, this thesis concludes with the development of a design framework that can enable the formulation of cellular material energy absorbers with idealized behavior.
ContributorsShinde, Mandar (Author) / Bhate, Dhruv (Thesis advisor) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Liu, Yongming (Committee member) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Kwon, Beomjin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023