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- Creators: Peralta, Pedro
Description
Uranium Dioxide (UO2) is a significant nuclear fission fuel, which is widely used
in nuclear reactors. Understanding the influence of microstructure on thermo-mechanical behavior of UO2 is extremely important to predict its performance. In particular, evaluating mechanical properties, such as elasticity, plasticity and creep at sub-grain length scales is key to developing this understanding as well as building multi-scale models of fuel behavior with predicting capabilities. In this work, modeling techniques were developed to study effects of microstructure on Young’s modulus, which was selected as a key representative property that affects overall mechanical behavior, using experimental data obtained from micro-cantilever bending testing as benchmarks. Beam theory was firstly introduced to calculate Young's modulus of UO2 from the experimental data and then three-dimensional finite element models of the micro-cantilever beams were constructed to simulate bending tests in UO2 at room temperature. The influence of the pore distribution was studied to explain the discrepancy between predicted values and experimental results. Results indicate that results of tests are significantly affected by porosity given that both pore size and spacing in the samples are of the order of the micro-beam dimensions. Microstructure reconstruction was conducted with images collected from three-dimensional serial sectioning using focused ion beam (FIB) and electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) and pore clusters were placed at different locations along the length of the beam. Results indicate that the presence of pore clusters close to the substrate, i.e., the clamp of the micro-cantilever beam, has the strongest effect on load-deflection behavior, leading to a reduction of stiffness that is the largest for any location of the pore cluster. Furthermore, it was also found from both numerical and i
analytical models that pore clusters located towards the middle of the span and close to the end of the beam only have a very small effect on the load-deflection behavior, and it is concluded that better estimates of Young's modulus can be obtained from micro- cantilever experiments by using microstructurally explicit models that account for porosity in about one half of the beam length close to the clamp. This, in turn, provides an avenue to simplify micro-scale experiments and their analysis.
in nuclear reactors. Understanding the influence of microstructure on thermo-mechanical behavior of UO2 is extremely important to predict its performance. In particular, evaluating mechanical properties, such as elasticity, plasticity and creep at sub-grain length scales is key to developing this understanding as well as building multi-scale models of fuel behavior with predicting capabilities. In this work, modeling techniques were developed to study effects of microstructure on Young’s modulus, which was selected as a key representative property that affects overall mechanical behavior, using experimental data obtained from micro-cantilever bending testing as benchmarks. Beam theory was firstly introduced to calculate Young's modulus of UO2 from the experimental data and then three-dimensional finite element models of the micro-cantilever beams were constructed to simulate bending tests in UO2 at room temperature. The influence of the pore distribution was studied to explain the discrepancy between predicted values and experimental results. Results indicate that results of tests are significantly affected by porosity given that both pore size and spacing in the samples are of the order of the micro-beam dimensions. Microstructure reconstruction was conducted with images collected from three-dimensional serial sectioning using focused ion beam (FIB) and electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) and pore clusters were placed at different locations along the length of the beam. Results indicate that the presence of pore clusters close to the substrate, i.e., the clamp of the micro-cantilever beam, has the strongest effect on load-deflection behavior, leading to a reduction of stiffness that is the largest for any location of the pore cluster. Furthermore, it was also found from both numerical and i
analytical models that pore clusters located towards the middle of the span and close to the end of the beam only have a very small effect on the load-deflection behavior, and it is concluded that better estimates of Young's modulus can be obtained from micro- cantilever experiments by using microstructurally explicit models that account for porosity in about one half of the beam length close to the clamp. This, in turn, provides an avenue to simplify micro-scale experiments and their analysis.
ContributorsGong, Bowen (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis advisor) / Rajagopalan, Jagannathan (Committee member) / Solanki, Kiran (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Measuring the dynamic strength of a material based on stress and strain data is challenging due to the diculty in recording strain and stress under the short times and large loads typical of dynamic events, such as impact and shock loading. The research involved in this study aims to perform nite element simulations for a new experimental method that can provide information on material dynamic strength, which is crucial for many engineering applications. In this method, a shock wave is applied to a metallic sample with a perturbed surface, i.e, one with periodic ripples machined or etched on the surface. The speed and magnitude of the change of am- plitude of the ripples are recorded. It is known that these parameters are functions of both geometry and material strength. The experimental data are compared with the simulation results produced. The dynamic yield strength of a material is taken to be the same as the strength used in simulations when a close match is found. The simulations have produced results that closely matched the experimental data and predicted the dynamic yield strength of metallic samples and have led to the discov- ery of a new experimental technique to lower the impact velocity required to induce amplitude changes in surface perturbations under shock loading. Thus, shock experi- ments to measure strength using surface perturbations will become easier to conduct and span a wider range of conditions. However, the existing simulation models are not adequate to examine the relations among hardening behavior and the change of amplitude and velocity on the sample surface. Thus, the models should be further modied to study dierent material hardening behaviors under dynamic loadings.
ContributorsChen, Yan (Author) / Peralta, Pedro (Thesis director) / Oswald, Jay (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-12
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