Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Mechanical Engineering
- Creators: Peralta, Pedro
- Member of: Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Description
The following is a report that will evaluate the microstructure of the nickel-based superalloy Hastelloy X and its relationship to mechanical properties in different load conditions. Hastelloy X is of interest to the company AORA because its strength and oxidation resistance at high temperatures is directly applicable to their needs in a hybrid concentrated solar module. The literature review shows that the microstructure will produce different carbides at various temperatures, which can be beneficial to the strength of the alloy. These precipitates are found along the grain boundaries and act as pins that limit dislocation flow, as well as grain boundary sliding, and improve the rupture strength of the material. Over time, harmful precipitates form which counteract the strengthening effect of the carbides and reduce rupture strength, leading to failure. A combination of indentation and microstructure mapping was used in an effort to link local mechanical behavior to microstructure variability. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) were initially used as a means to characterize the microstructure prior to testing. Then, a series of room temperature Vickers hardness tests at 50 and 500 gram-force were used to evaluate the variation in the local response as a function of indentation size. The room temperature study concluded that both the hardness and standard deviation increased at lower loads, which is consistent with the grain size distribution seen in the microstructure scan. The material was then subjected to high temperature spherical indentation. Load-displacement curves were essential in evaluating the decrease in strength of the material with increasing temperature. Through linear regression of the unloading portion of the curve, the plastic deformation was determined and compared at different temperatures as a qualitative method to evaluate local strength.
ContributorsCelaya, Andrew Jose (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis director) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Understanding damage evolution, particularly as it relates to local nucleation and growth kinetics of spall failure in metallic materials subjected to shock loading, is critical to national security. This work uses computational modeling to elucidate what characteristics have the highest impact on damage localization at the microstructural level in metallic materials, since knowledge of these characteristics is critical to improve these materials. The numerical framework consists of a user-defined material model implemented in a user subroutine run in ABAQUS/Explicit that takes into account crystal plasticity, grain boundary effects, void nucleation and initial growth, and both isotropic and kinematic hardening to model incipient spall. Finite element simulations were performed on copper bicrystal models to isolate the boundary effects between two grains. Two types of simulations were performed in this work: experimentally verified cases in order to validate the constitutive model as well as idealized cases in an attempt to determine the microstructural characteristic that define weakest links in terms of spall damage. Grain boundary effects on damage localization were studied by varying grain boundary orientation in respect to the shock direction and the crystallographic properties of each grain in the bicrystal. Varying these parameters resulted in a mismatch in Taylor factor across the grain boundary and along the shock direction. The experimentally verified cases are models of specific damage sites found from flyer plate impact tests on copper multicrystals in which the Taylor factor mismatch across the grain boundary and along the shock direction are both high or both low. For the idealized cases, grain boundary orientation and crystallography of the grains are chosen such that the Taylor factor mismatch in the grain boundary normal and along the shock direction are maximized or minimized. A perpendicular grain boundary orientation in respect to the shock direction maximizes Taylor factor mismatch, while a parallel grain boundary minimizes the mismatch. Furthermore, it is known that <1 1 1> crystals have the highest Taylor factor, while <0 0 1> has nearly the lowest Taylor factor. The permutation of these extremes for mismatch in the grain boundary normal and along the shock direction results in four idealized cases that were studied for this work. Results of the simulations demonstrate that the material model is capable of predicting damage localization, as it has been able to reproduce damage sites found experimentally. However, these results are qualitative since further calibration is still required to produce quantitatively accurate results. Moreover, comparisons of results for void nucleation rate and void growth rate suggests that void nucleation is more influential in the total void volume fraction for bicrystals with high property mismatch across the interface, suggesting that nucleation is the dominant characteristic in the propagation of damage in the material. Further work in recalibrating the simulation parameters and modeling different bicrystal orientations must be done to verify these results.
ContributorsVo, Johnathan Hiep (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis director) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
The study of the mechanical behavior of nanocrystalline metals using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices lies at the intersection of nanotechnology, mechanical engineering and material science. The extremely small grains that make up nanocrystalline metals lead to higher strength but lower ductility as compared to bulk metals. Effects of strain-rate dependence on the mechanical behavior of nanocrystalline metals are explored. Knowing the strain rate dependence of mechanical properties would enable optimization of material selection for different applications and lead to lighter structural components and enhanced sustainability.
ContributorsHall, Andrea Paulette (Author) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Thesis director) / Liao, Yabin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-05