Electrochemical corrosion property of nanostructure layer of Ti-5Al-2Sn-2Zr-4Mo-4Cr titanium alloy

Ti-5Al-2Sn-2Zr-4Mo-4Cr titanium alloy was nanocrystallized with supersonic fine particles bombarding (SFPB). The microstructure features of nanocrystalline layer were determined by XRD, TEM, and microhardness tester. The electrochemical corrosion properties of the surface of original sample and the nanocrystallized sample surface were tested by CHI660 tester. That random crystallographic oriented particles (average grain size of 16 nm) were observed in the top surface layer of Ti-5Al-2Sn-2Zr-4Mo-4Cr titanium alloy, which could be attributed to the surface nanocrystallization. The electrochemical corrosion results show that the impedance of the sample nanolayer is reduced after SFPB with 30 min, and the corrosion resistance is lower than the original sample. The residual internal stress from the process of SFPB is one of the main factors to decrease the nanolayer corrosion resistance of Ti-5Al-2Sn-2Zr-4Mo-4Cr titanium alloy. However, the corrosion resistance is significantly recovered after stress relief annealing with 250–350 °C.     

Active control of hydraulic oil contamination to extend the service life of aviation hydraulic system

The hydraulic system is the control center of aircraft, the performance of which is critically dependent on the purity of the oil that flows through it. Contamination of hydraulic system oil has been known to be the primary cause of catastrophic failure and accidents. A review of literature in the area of hydraulic oil contamination reveals three facts: (i) there is a dearth of effective methods to prevent intrusion of external contaminants into the hydraulic oil, (ii) there are no effective purification methods for liquid and gaseous contaminants of oil, and (iii) there is an absence of real-time monitoring for major contaminants. This work systematically reviews the hazards, sources, and removal methods of major contaminants, especially of gaseous contaminants. An active method to control oil contamination is proposed instead of the existing passive maintenance techniques that are ridden with problems. In a case study of aviation hydraulic system, our active control system comprises (i) a closed hydraulic circuit and a closed oil tank to prevent the intrusion of external contaminants, (ii) a vacuum centrifuge to efficiently remove contaminants without creating consumption costs, and (iii) monitoring devices installed to actively monitor the contaminant content in oil during operation. The results from the purification experiments and three-dimensional modeling indicate that the active control of hydraulic oil contamination can effectively remove 98.4% solid contaminants and reduce the water content below 50 ppm, and in particular reduce the gas content below 2%. It is obvious that this method can improve the continuous operation capability of aviation hydraulic systems and extend the intermaintenance period of aircrafts by reducing the contaminant content in oil.     

Microstructure and performance of multi-dimensional WC-CoCr coating sprayed by HVOF

WC-based coatings deposited by high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) spraying have been widely used in many industrial fields, where mechanical components are subjected to severe abrasive wear. Much attention has been especially paid to nanostructured and multimodal WC-based coatings due to their excellent abrasive wear resistance. In this study, a new kind of multi-dimensional WC-10Co4Cr coating, composed of nano, submicron, micron WC particles and CoCr alloy, was developed by HVOF. The microstructure, porosity, microhardness, fracture toughness, and electrochemical properties of the coating were investigated in comparison with nanostructured WC-10Co4Cr coating deposited by HVOF. Abrasive wear resistance of both WC-10Co4Cr coatings was evaluated on wet sand rubber wheel abrasion tester. The results show that the multi-dimensional coating possesses low porosity (0.31 ± 0.09%), excellent microhardness (1126 ± 115 HV_0.3), fracture toughness (4.66 ± 0.51 MPa m^1/2), and outstanding electrochemical properties. Moreover, the multi-dimensional coating demonstrates approximately 36% wet abrasive resistance enhancement than the nanostructured coating. The superior abrasive wear resistance originates from the coating’s multi-dimensional structure and excellent mechanical and electrochemical properties.     

Real-time cutting tool state recognition approach based on machining features in NC machining process of complex structural parts

Cutting tool state recognition plays an important role in ensuring the quality and efficiency of NC machining of complex structural parts, and it is quite especial and challengeable for complex structural parts with single-piece or small-batch production. In order to address this issue, this paper presents a real-time recognition approach of cutting tool state based on machining features. The sensitive parameters of monitored cutting force signals for different machining features are automatically extracted, and are associated with machining features in real time. A K-Means clustering algorithm is used to automatically classify the cutting tool states based on machining features, where the sensitive parameters of the monitoring signals together with the geometric and process information of machining features are used to construct the input vector of the K-Means clustering model. The experiment results show that the accuracy of the approach is above 95% and the approach can solve the real-time recognition of cutting tool states for complex structural parts with single-piece and small-batch production.     

Design and fabrication of a new micro ball-end mill with conical flank face

Micro ball-end milling is an efficient method for the fabrication of micro lens array molds. However, it is difficult to meet the machining quality of micro dimple molds due to the wear and breakage of the milling cutter, which presents large challenges for designing geometric structure and edge strength of micro ball-end mills. In this study, a new configuration of a micro ball-end mill for micro dimple milling is designed and named the micro conical surface ball-end mill. The cutting edge is formed by intersecting the conical surface and the inclined plane. A practical grinding method is proposed based on the kinematic principle of the six-axis computer numerical control (CNC) grinding machine for micro conical surface ball-end mills and is validated by grinding simulations and experiments. Micro dimple milling experiments are conducted on the hardened die steel H13 to investigate the cutting performance of the mill. The milling force, the micro dimple roundness error, and the tool wear morphology are observed and analyzed. The results show that the radial milling force is more stable and the wear resistance is improved for the micro conical surface ball-end mill compared to the traditional micro spiral blade ball-end mill. Therefore, a more stable roundness at the entrance hole of the micro dimple can be obtained by using this design after a number of micro dimples have been milled.     

Effect of forces on dynamic metal transfer behavior of cable-type welding wire gas metal arc welding

A cable-type welding wire (CWW) gas metal arc welding (GMAW) method was proposed as a novel approach, using CWW for the consumable electrode. Droplet transfer influences the welding process, and the forces on the droplet were analyzed to elucidate the metal transfer phenomenon observed during the welding process. The effects of the arc pressure, rotating force, and welding parameters were analyzed to understand the metal transfer. The special structure of the CWW affected the arc characteristics and forces during metal transfer as part of the welding process. The droplet formed by droplets from each thin wire, the arc, and electromagnetic forces on droplet formation and the coupling process were analyzed. The arc pressure and rotating forces are beneficial to metal transfer and increase the droplet transfer frequency. The droplet size decreases with increasing welding parameters.     

Investigation of the grinding temperature and energy partition during cylindrical grinding

In this study, the distribution of temperature and energy under the process parameter conditions and thermal physical parameters are investigated using a physics-based model via the finite element modeling (FEM) simulation and experimental validation during cylindrical grinding. A cylindrical grinding model is modeled to simulate the chip removal behavior in the grinding process and to measure the workpiece and chip temperatures by refining the temperature field. Workpiece speed affects the energy partition into chip more obviously than other grinding parameters. Reasonable selection of grinding parameters greatly reduces the energy partition into the workpiece from 80% to 50–30% or even lower. This study offers a comprehensive understanding of heating mechanisms during grinding and thus is very beneficial for process optimization.     

Towards a tolerance representation model for generating tolerance specification schemes and corresponding tolerance zones

In this paper, a tolerance representation model for generating tolerance specification schemes and corresponding tolerance zones is proposed to meet the requirement of the representation of tolerance information semantics. This model is hierarchically organized and consists of five layers. They are component, geometric feature, variational geometric constraint, tolerance specification scheme, and tolerance zone layers. The mating relations between components in the component layer, the mating relations between geometric features in the geometric feature layer, the variational geometric constraints between geometric features in the variational geometric constraint layer, the tolerance specification schemes of component in the tolerance specification scheme layer, and the tolerance zones of tolerance specification schemes in the tolerance zone layer are formally defined by one or more adjacency matrices, respectively. Based on the model, a method for generating tolerance specification schemes for component and their resultant tolerance zones is designed. This method shows how to adopt a top-down strategy to carry out tolerance specification for an arbitrary assembly designed in a CAD system. The paper also provides a practical example to illustrate how the method works.     

The optimal cutting times of multipass abrasive water jet cutting

Cutting is one of the most important applications of abrasive water jet. However, there are always some quality defects in the cross section cut by abrasive water jet. It is found that multipass abrasive water jet cutting can effectively improve the cutting quality. In this paper, two types of multipass water jet cutting were summarized and redefined clearly first. Then, taking AISI 304 stainless steel as the workpiece, the cross sections after cutting with different cutting times were analyzed and compared with that after single cutting. The overall roughness and the overall taper of the section were obtained by a reasonable method. Besides, in order to give consideration to both the cutting quality and the processing time, the concept of quality improvement rate was put forward. On this basis, with the improvement rate as the index, the optimal cutting times for cutting AISI 304 stainless steel with multipass abrasive water jet were analyzed from two aspects of surface quality and kerf taper, and the optimal cutting times of cutting other materials by multipass abrasive water jet can be studied according to the same idea. The study of this paper provides important reference for the application of multipass abrasive water jet cutting.     

Optimized bending angle distribution function of contour plate roll forming

Regarding the roll forming of contour plates, traditional roll forming techniques often result in peak longitudinal strain during the forming process, which causes defects such as longitudinal bowing and springback. The bending angle, sheet thickness, and the number of forming passes are all important process parameters that cause the aforementioned problems. This study proposes quantifying the projection track regarding the edge of the profile section in the horizontal plane that follows a cubic curve and uses the curve function to reasonably distribute the bending angle to study the maximum forming strain and the average strain for all passes of the sheet between the forming passes. Simultaneously, the influence law of the sheet thickness and number of forming passes was studied. Based on theoretical simulation and experimental verification, the optimal bending angle distribution function is A1: y?=?x³?+?x²?+?x. When the thickness of the sheet is 1.5 mm, both the maximum forming strain between the passes during roll forming and the average strain of all passes are the smallest, which are 3.91 and 0.609%, respectively. Moreover, with the increase in the number of passes, the longitudinal bowing and springback decrease to varying degrees.