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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 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
Description
Aluminum alloys and their composites are attractive materials for applications requiring high strength-to-weight ratios and reasonable cost. Many of these applications, such as those in the aerospace industry, undergo fatigue loading. An understanding of the microstructural damage that occurs in these materials is critical in assessing their fatigue resistance. Two distinct experimental studies were performed to further the understanding of fatigue damage mechanisms in aluminum alloys and their composites, specifically fracture and plasticity. Fatigue resistance of metal matrix composites (MMCs) depends on many aspects of composite microstructure. Fatigue crack growth behavior is particularly dependent on the reinforcement characteristics and matrix microstructure. The goal of this work was to obtain a fundamental understanding of fatigue crack growth behavior in SiC particle-reinforced 2080 Al alloy composites. In situ X-ray synchrotron tomography was performed on two samples at low (R=0.1) and at high (R=0.6) R-ratios. The resulting reconstructed images were used to obtain three-dimensional (3D) rendering of the particles and fatigue crack. Behaviors of the particles and crack, as well as their interaction, were analyzed and quantified. Four-dimensional (4D) visual representations were constructed to aid in the overall understanding of damage evolution. During fatigue crack growth in ductile materials, a plastic zone is created in the region surrounding the crack tip. Knowledge of the plastic zone is important for the understanding of fatigue crack formation as well as subsequent growth behavior. The goal of this work was to quantify the 3D size and shape of the plastic zone in 7075 Al alloys. X-ray synchrotron tomography and Laue microdiffraction were used to non-destructively characterize the volume surrounding a fatigue crack tip. The precise 3D crack profile was segmented from the reconstructed tomography data. Depth-resolved Laue patterns were obtained using differential-aperture X-ray structural microscopy (DAXM), from which peak-broadening characteristics were quantified. Plasticity, as determined by the broadening of diffracted peaks, was mapped in 3D. Two-dimensional (2D) maps of plasticity were directly compared to the corresponding tomography slices. A 3D representation of the plastic zone surrounding the fatigue crack was generated by superimposing the mapped plasticity on the 3D crack profile.
ContributorsHruby, Peter (Author) / Chawla, Nikhilesh (Thesis advisor) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Liu, Yongming (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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 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
Description
The stability of nanocrystalline microstructural features allows structural materials to be synthesized and tested in ways that have heretofore been pursued only on a limited basis, especially under dynamic loading combined with temperature effects. Thus, a recently developed, stable nanocrystalline alloy is analyzed here for quasi-static (<100 s-1) and dynamic loading (103 to 104 s-1) under uniaxial compression and tension at multiple temperatures ranging from 298-1073 K. After mechanical tests, microstructures are analyzed and possible deformation mechanisms are proposed. Following this, strain and strain rate history effects on mechanical behavior are analyzed using a combination of quasi-static and dynamic strain rate Bauschinger testing. The stable nanocrystalline material is found to exhibit limited flow stress increase with increasing strain rate as compared to that of both pure, coarse grained and nanocrystalline Cu. Further, the material microstructural features, which includes Ta nano-dispersions, is seen to pin dislocation at quasi-static strain rates, but the deformation becomes dominated by twin nucleation at high strain rates. These twins are pinned from further growth past nucleation by the Ta nano-dispersions. Testing of thermal and load history effects on the mechanical behavior reveals that when thermal energy is increased beyond 200 °C, an upturn in flow stress is present at strain rates below 104 s-1. However, in this study, this simple assumption, established 50-years ago, is shown to break-down when the average grain size and microstructural length-scale is decreased and stabilized below 100nm. This divergent strain-rate behavior is attributed to a unique microstructure that alters slip-processes and their interactions with phonons; thus enabling materials response with a constant flow-stress even at extreme conditions. Hence, the present study provides a pathway for designing and synthesizing a new-level of tough and high-energy absorbing materials.
ContributorsTurnage, Scott Andrew (Author) / Solanki, Kiran N (Thesis advisor) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Committee member) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Darling, Kristopher A (Committee member) / Mignolet, Marc (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Fracture phenomena have been extensively studied in the last several decades. Continuum mechanics-based approaches, such as finite element methods and extended finite element methods, are widely used for fracture simulation. One well-known issue of these approaches is the stress singularity resulted from the spatial discontinuity at the crack tip/front. The requirement of guiding criteria for various cracking behaviors, such as initiation, propagation, and branching, also poses some challenges. Comparing to the continuum based formulation, the discrete approaches, such as lattice spring method, discrete element method, and peridynamics, have certain advantages when modeling various fracture problems due to their intrinsic characteristics in modeling discontinuities.
A novel, alternative, and systematic framework based on a nonlocal lattice particle model is proposed in this study. The uniqueness of the proposed model is the inclusion of both pair-wise local and multi-body nonlocal potentials in the formulation. First, the basic ideas of the proposed framework for 2D isotropic solid are presented. Derivations for triangular and square lattice structure are discussed in detail. Both mechanical deformation and fracture process are simulated and model verification and validation are performed with existing analytical solutions and experimental observations. Following this, the extension to general 3D isotropic solids based on the proposed local and nonlocal potentials is given. Three cubic lattice structures are discussed in detail. Failure predictions using the 3D simulation are compared with experimental testing results and very good agreement is observed. Next, a lattice rotation scheme is proposed to account for the material orientation in modeling anisotropic solids. The consistency and difference compared to the classical material tangent stiffness transformation method are discussed in detail. The implicit and explicit solution methods for the proposed lattice particle model are also discussed. Finally, some conclusions and discussions based on the current study are drawn at the end.
A novel, alternative, and systematic framework based on a nonlocal lattice particle model is proposed in this study. The uniqueness of the proposed model is the inclusion of both pair-wise local and multi-body nonlocal potentials in the formulation. First, the basic ideas of the proposed framework for 2D isotropic solid are presented. Derivations for triangular and square lattice structure are discussed in detail. Both mechanical deformation and fracture process are simulated and model verification and validation are performed with existing analytical solutions and experimental observations. Following this, the extension to general 3D isotropic solids based on the proposed local and nonlocal potentials is given. Three cubic lattice structures are discussed in detail. Failure predictions using the 3D simulation are compared with experimental testing results and very good agreement is observed. Next, a lattice rotation scheme is proposed to account for the material orientation in modeling anisotropic solids. The consistency and difference compared to the classical material tangent stiffness transformation method are discussed in detail. The implicit and explicit solution methods for the proposed lattice particle model are also discussed. Finally, some conclusions and discussions based on the current study are drawn at the end.
ContributorsChen, Hailong (Author) / Liu, Yongming (Thesis advisor) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Mignolet, Marc (Committee member) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Improved knowledge connecting the chemistry, structure, and properties of polymers is necessary to develop advanced materials in a materials-by-design approach. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations can provide tremendous insight into how the fine details of chemistry, molecular architecture, and microstructure affect many physical properties; however, they face well-known restrictions in their applicable temporal and spatial scales. These limitations have motivated the development of computationally-efficient, coarse-grained methods to investigate how microstructural details affect thermophysical properties. In this dissertation, I summarize my research work in structure-based coarse-graining methods to establish the link between molecular-scale structure and macroscopic properties of two different polymers. Systematically coarse-grained models were developed to study the viscoelastic stress response of polyurea, a copolymer that segregates into rigid and viscous phases, at time scales characteristic of blast and impact loading. With the application of appropriate scaling parameters, the coarse-grained models can predict viscoelastic properties with a speed up of 5-6 orders of magnitude relative to the atomistic MD models. Coarse-grained models of polyethylene were also created to investigate the thermomechanical material response under shock loading. As structure-based coarse-grained methods are generally not transferable to states different from which they were calibrated at, their applicability for modeling non-equilibrium processes such as shock and impact is highly limited. To address this problem, a new model is developed that incorporates many-body interactions and is calibrated across a range of different thermodynamic states using a least square minimization scheme. The new model is validated by comparing shock Hugoniot properties with atomistic and experimental data for polyethylene. Lastly, a high fidelity coarse-grained model of polyethylene was constructed that reproduces the joint-probability distributions of structural variables such as the distributions of bond lengths and bond angles between sequential coarse-grained sites along polymer chains. This new model accurately represents the structure of both the amorphous and crystal phases of polyethylene and enabling investigation of how polymer processing such as cold-drawing and bulk crystallization affect material structure at significantly larger time and length scales than traditional molecular simulations.
ContributorsAgrawal, Vipin (Author) / Oswald, Jay (Thesis advisor) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Chamberlin, Ralph (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Jiao, Yang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Characterization and modeling of deformation and failure in metallic materials under extreme conditions, such as the high loads and strain rates found under shock loading due to explosive detonation and high velocity-impacts, are extremely important for a wide variety of military and industrial applications. When a shock wave causes stress in a material that exceeds the elastic limit, plasticity and eventually spallation occur in the material. The process of spall fracture, which in ductile materials stems from strain localization, void nucleation, growth and coalescence, can be caused by microstructural heterogeneity. The analysis of void nucleation performed from a microstructurally explicit simulation of a spall damage evolution in a multicrystalline copper indicated triple junctions as the preferred sites for incipient damage nucleation revealing 75% of them with at least two grain boundaries with misorientation angle between 20-55°. The analysis suggested the nature of the boundaries connecting at a triple junction is an indicator of their tendency to localize spall damage. The results also showed that damage propagated preferentially into one of the high angle boundaries after voids nucleate at triple junctions. Recently the Rayleigh-Taylor Instability (RTI) and the Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability (RMI) have been used to deduce dynamic material strength at very high pressures and strain rates. The RMI is used in this work since it allows using precise diagnostics such as Transient Imaging Displacement Interferometry (TIDI) due to its slower linear growth rate. The Preston-Tonks-Wallace (PTW) model is used to study the effects of dynamic strength on the behavior of samples with a fed-thru RMI, induced via direct laser drive on a perturbed surface, on stability of the shock front and the dynamic evolution of the amplitudes and velocities of the perturbation imprinted on the back (flat) surface by the perturbed shock front. Simulation results clearly showed that the amplitude of the hydrodynamic instability increases with a decrease in strength and vice versa and that the amplitude of the perturbed shock front produced by the fed-thru RMI is also affected by strength in the same way, which provides an alternative to amplitude measurements to study strength effects under dynamic conditions. Simulation results also indicate the presence of second harmonics in the surface perturbation after a certain time, which were also affected by the material strength.
ContributorsGautam, Sudrishti (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis advisor) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
Structural stability and performance of structural materials is important for energy production, whether renewable or non renewable, to have uninterrupted energy supply, that is economically feasible and safe. High temperature metallic materials used in the turbines of AORA, an Israel-based clean energy producer, often experience high temperature, high stress and foreign object damage (FOD). In this study, efforts were made to study the effects of FOD on the fatigue life of these materials and to understand their failure mechanisms. The foreign objects/debris recovered by AORA were characterized using Powder X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) to identify composition and phases. To perform foreign object damage experiment a gas gun was built and results of XRD and EDS were used to select particles to mimic FOD in lab experiments for two materials of interest to AORA: Hastelloy X and SS 347. Electron Backscattering Diffraction, hardness and tensile tests were also performed to characterize microstructure and mechanical properties. Fatigue tests using at high temperature were performed on dog bone samples with and without FOD and the fracture surfaces and well as the regions affected by FOD were analyzed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) to understand the failure mechanism. The findings of these study indicate that FOD is causing multiple secondary cracks at and around the impact sites, which can potentially grow to coalesce and remove pieces of material, and the multisite damage could also lead to lower fatigue lives, despite the fact that the FOD site was not always the most favorable for initiation of the fatal fatigue crack. It was also seen by the effect of FOD on fatigue life that SS 347 is more susceptible to FOD than Hastelloy X.
ContributorsDobaria, Nirmal (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis advisor) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
The use of solar energy to produce power has increased substantially in the past few decades. In an attempt to provide uninterrupted solar power, production plants may find themselves having to operate the systems at temperatures higher than the operational capacity of the materials used in many of their components, which affects the microstructural and mechanical properties of those materials. Failures in components that have been exposed to these excessive temperatures have been observed during operations in the turbine used by AORA Solar Ltd. A particular component of interest was made of a material similar to the Ni-based superalloy Inconel 718 (IN 718), which was observed to have damage that is believed to have been initiated by Foreign Object Damage (FOD) and worsened by the high temperatures in the turbine. The potential links among the observed failure, FOD and the high temperatures of operation are investigated in this study.
IN718 is a precipitation hardened nickel superalloy with resistance to oxidation and ability to withstand high stresses over a wide range of temperatures. Several studies have been conducted to understand IN 718 tensile and fatigue properties at elevated temperatures (600- 950°C). However, this study focuses on understanding the behavior of IN718 with FOD induced by a stream of 50 μm Alumina particles at a velocity of 200 m/s. under high cycle fatigue at an elevated temperature of 1050 °C. Tensile tests were conducted for both as-received and heat treated (1050 °C in air for 8hrs) samples at room and high temperature. Fatigue tests were performed at heat treated samples at 1050 °C for samples with and without ablation. The test conditions were as similar as possible to the conditions in the AORA turbine. The results of the study provide an insight into tensile properties, fatigue properties and FOD. The results indicated a reduction in fatigue life for the samples with ablation damage, where crack nucleation occurred either at the edge or inside the ablation region and multisite cracking was observed under far field stresses that were the same than for pristine samples, which showed single cracks. Fracture surfaces indicate intergranular fracture, with the presence of secondary cracks and a lack of typical fatigue features, e.g., beach marks which was attributed to environmental effects and creep.
IN718 is a precipitation hardened nickel superalloy with resistance to oxidation and ability to withstand high stresses over a wide range of temperatures. Several studies have been conducted to understand IN 718 tensile and fatigue properties at elevated temperatures (600- 950°C). However, this study focuses on understanding the behavior of IN718 with FOD induced by a stream of 50 μm Alumina particles at a velocity of 200 m/s. under high cycle fatigue at an elevated temperature of 1050 °C. Tensile tests were conducted for both as-received and heat treated (1050 °C in air for 8hrs) samples at room and high temperature. Fatigue tests were performed at heat treated samples at 1050 °C for samples with and without ablation. The test conditions were as similar as possible to the conditions in the AORA turbine. The results of the study provide an insight into tensile properties, fatigue properties and FOD. The results indicated a reduction in fatigue life for the samples with ablation damage, where crack nucleation occurred either at the edge or inside the ablation region and multisite cracking was observed under far field stresses that were the same than for pristine samples, which showed single cracks. Fracture surfaces indicate intergranular fracture, with the presence of secondary cracks and a lack of typical fatigue features, e.g., beach marks which was attributed to environmental effects and creep.
ContributorsShenoy, Sneha (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis advisor) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Nanocrystalline (nc) thin films exhibit a wide range of enhanced mechanical properties compared to their coarse-grained counterparts. Furthermore, the mechanical behavior and microstructure of nc films is intimately related. Thus, precise control of the size, aspect ratio and spatial distribution of grains can enable the synthesis of thin films with exceptional mechanical properties. However, conventional bottom-up techniques for synthesizing thin films are incapable of achieving the microstructural control required to explicitly tune their properties. This dissertation focuses on developing a novel technique to synthesize metallic alloy thin films with precisely controlled microstructures and subsequently characterizing their mechanical properties using in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Control over the grain size and distribution was achieved by controlling the recrystallization process of amorphous films by the use of thin crystalline seed layers. The novel technique was used to manipulate the microstructure of structural (TiAl) and functional (NiTi) thin films thereby exhibiting its capability and versatility. Following the synthesis of thin films with tailored microstructures, in situ TEM techniques were employed to probe their mechanical properties. Firstly, a novel technique was developed to measure local atomic level elastic strains in metallic glass thin films during in situ TEM straining. This technique was used to detect structural changes and anelastic deformation in metallic glass thin films. Finally, as the electron beam (e-beam) in TEMs is known to cause radiation damage to specimen, systematic experiments were carried out to quantify the effect of the e-beam on the stress-strain response of nc metals. Experiments conducted on Al and Au films revealed that the e-beam enhances dislocation activity leading to stress relaxation.
ContributorsSarkar, Rohit (Author) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Thesis advisor) / Peralta, Pedro (Committee member) / Sieradzki, Karl (Committee member) / Crozier, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017