Surface modification technique to enhance metallurgical and mechanical properties of alloy C-276 weldment by laser shock peening without coating

Microsegregation of alloying elements is prone to hot cracking in the weldment of alloy C-276. The formation of topologically close packed phases P and µ is largely responsible for the hot cracking. The present study articulates the effect of laser shock peening (LSP) to improve the metallurgical and mechanical properties of the weld joint. The weld joint was fabricated by pulsed current gas tungsten arc welding (PCGTAW) using an ERNiCrMo-3 filler wire. LSP without coating was carried out on the cap surface of the weldment. Microstructural studies were carried out to compare the as-welded and laser-peened microstructure on the fusion zone. The results show that a fine equiaxed dendritic structure was observed in both conditions. EDS analysis was carried out to evaluate the microsegregation of alloying elements. EDS analysis indicates that there are no secondary intermetallic phases. X-ray diffraction analysis was carried out to evaluate the phase change and crystallite size in the as-welded and laser shock peened fusion zone. The result shows 48.99% reduction in crystallite size after LSP. Hardness and tensile strength results indicate there is a consequential increase in laser shock peened specimen compared with as-welded specimen.     

A numerical study on dynamics of cavity growth in nonlinear elasticity

A dynamic cavity growth problem in an isotropic compressible nonlinear hyper-elastic material subject to a gradually applied traction is numerically studied. The effects of three parameters, namely the material mass density, the maximum traction, and the loading rate, on the evolution of the cavity radius, especially the maximum cavity radius, are investigated. The numerical results show that, while both the inertia and loading rate have only marginal effect on the onset of cavitation, they do significantly affect the maximum cavity radius. Furthermore, the applied traction eventually leads to a periodic oscillatory cavity growth, and a square root power law for the vibration period as a function of the material mass density is found to hold.     

A new video magnification technique using complex wavelets with Radon transform application

Magnifying micro-movements of natural videos that are undetectable by human eye has recently received considerable interests, due to its impact in numerous applications. In this paper, we use dual tree complex wavelet transform (DT-CWT), to analyze video frames in order to detect and magnify micro-movements to make them visible. We use DT-CWT, due to its excellent edge-preserving and nearly-shift invariant features. In order to detect any minor change in object’s spatial position, the paper proposes to modify the phases of the CWT coefficients decomposition of successive video frames. Furthermore, the paper applies Radon transform to track frame micro-movements without any temporal band-pass filtering. The paper starts by presenting a simple technique to design orthogonal filters that construct this CWT system. Next, it is shown that modifying the phase differences between the CWT coefficients of arbitrary frame and a reference one results in image spatial magnification. This in turn, makes these micro-movements seen and observable. Several simulation results are given, to show that the proposed technique competes very well to the existing micro-magnification approaches. In fact, as it manages to yield superior video quality in far less computation time.     

On the efficiency of quantization-based integration methods for building simulation

Models describing energy consumption, heating, and cooling of buildings usually impose difficulties to the numerical integration algorithms used to simulate them. Stiffness and the presence of frequent discontinuities are among the main causes of those difficulties, that become critical when the models grow in size. Quantized State Systems (QSS) methods are a family of numerical integration algorithms that can efficiently handle discontinuities and stiffness in large models. For this reason, they are promising candidates for overcoming the mentioned problems. Based on this observation, this article studies the performance of QSS methods in some systems that are relevant to the field of building simulation. The study includes a performance comparison of different QSS algorithms against state-of-the-art classic numerical solvers, showing that the former can be more than one order of magnitude faster.     

Pre-strain effect of on fracture performance of high-strength steel welds

Fracture toughness of pre-strain effect was determined as a function of the temperature in structural steels of the 600 to 780 MPa class. Cyclic loading during earthquakes produces pre-strain in the component, which is enhanced at the region of strain concentration. During the Kobe Great Earthquake in 1995 in Japan, 10 to 15 % pre-strain was recorded at the beam-to-column connection. The relationship between critical CTOD and CGHAZ length was sampled by fatigue pre-crack for pre-strained HAZ, which is a significant decrease compared to that of the base metal. Furthermore, the effect of pre-strain is discussed in terms of the CTOD and Charpy impact energy of the local brittle zone.     

Porosity measurements in suspension plasma sprayed YSZ coatings using NMR cryoporometry and X-ray microscopy

A large variety of coatings are used to protect structural engineering materials from corrosion, wear, and erosion, and to provide thermal insulation. In this work, yttria-stabilized zirconia coatings produced by suspension plasma spraying were investigated with respect to their microstructure and especially their porosity, as the porosity affects the thermal insulation of the underlying component. To determine porosity, pore size distribution, and pore shape, the coatings were investigated using novel advanced characterization techniques like NMR cryoporometry and X-ray microscopy. In general, the porosity is inhomogeneously distributed and the coatings showed a large variety of pore sizes ranging from a few nanometers to micrometers.     

Exploring the recovery of fatigue damage in bituminous mixtures: the role of rest periods

Recovery capability of bituminous materials plays a significant role in the development of new technologies for extending the service life of asphalt pavements. This capability originates from various phenomena such as thixotropy, cooling, relaxation of hardening, or healing. However, their real effect on mechanical response is not clear. This article aims to investigate how rest periods (RPs) available between traffic loads can contribute to the damage recovery of bituminous materials. For this purpose, different types and durations of RPs were applied during the laboratory evaluation of fatigue resistance of these materials using the University of Granada Fatigue Asphalt Cracking Test method. The results indicate that the addition of RPs to the loading regime could lead to an extension in the fatigue life of bituminous materials. Additionally, an increase in the RP duration showed a positive impact on the resistance of the materials against cyclic loading. Nonetheless, these benefits are not only related to the recovery of lost properties during RPs, but also a growth in the amount of plastic deformations as a result of the applying RPs could delay the appearance of damages (i.e. cracking). Consequently, the bituminous material can tolerate a higher number of load cycles during fatigue test.     

Evaluation of piezoelectric energy harvester under dynamic bending by means of hybrid mathematical/isogeometric analysis

In this paper, a novel hybrid mathematical/isogeometric analysis (IGA) scheme is implemented to evaluate the energy harvesting of the piezoelectric composite plate under dynamic bending. The NURBS-based IGA is applied to obtain the structural response exerted by the mechanical loading. The dynamic responses conveniently coupled with the governing voltage differential equations to estimate the energy harvested. The capabilities of the scheme are shown with the comparison against analytical and full electromechanical finite element results. As there is no need of fully coupled electromechanical element, the scheme provides cheaper computational cost and could be implemented with standard computational software. Thus, it gives great benefit for early design stage. Moreover, the robustness of the scheme is shown by the couple with high order IGA element which has been proven less prone to the shear locking phenomena in the literature. The computational results show greater accuracy on structural responses and energy estimation for a very thin plate compared to the couple with standard finite element method.