Compressive and wear behaviors of bulk nanostructured Al2024 alloy

Compressive and wear properties of bulk nanostructured Al2024 alloy prepared by mechanical milling and hot pressing methods were investigated. Al2024 powders were subjected to high-energy milling for 30 h to produce nanostructured alloy. As-milled powders were compacted at 500 °C under 250 MPa in a uniaxial die. Consolidated sample had an average hardness and relative density values of 207.6 HV and 98%, respectively. Uniaxial compression tests at strain rates in the range of 1.67 × 10⁻⁴–1.67 × 10⁻² s⁻¹ were performed using an Instron-type machine. The wear behavior of nanostructured sample was investigated using a pin-on-disk technique under an applied load of 20 N. The compression and wear experiments were also executed on samples of commercial coarse-grained Al2024-O (annealed) and Al2024-T6 (artificially-aged) alloys, for comparison. The structure of consolidated Al2024 was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The yield strength and compressive strength of nanostructured Al2024 reached a value of 698 MPa and 712 MPa at strain rate of 1.67 × 10⁻⁴ s⁻¹, respectively, which was considerably higher than those for coarse-grained Al2024-O and Al2024-T6 counterparts. Worn surfaces and the wear debris were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and XRD. Nanostructured Al2024 revealed a low friction coefficient of 0.3 and a wear rate of 12 × 10⁻³ mg/m, which are significantly lower than those obtained for Al2024-O and Al2024-T6 alloys. This enhanced wear resistance was mainly caused by nanocrystalline structure with high hardness value. The dominating wear mechanism of nanostructured Al2024 appeared to be delamination mechanism.     

Thermal Stability of <Emphasis Type=Italic>α</Emphasis> Phase of Titanium by Using X-Ray Diffraction

At room temperature and ambient pressure, crystalline titanium has a hexagonal-close-packed (hcp) lattice and at high temperature appears as a body-centered-cubic (bcc) structure. In fact, the phase transitions of titanium have been investigated under various pressures and temperatures. However, the phase transitions of titanium have been mostly reported at high pressure, while less attention has been paid to various ranges of high temperature. Therefore, in this study, we have considered the thermal stability of α phase of titanium by using X-ray diffraction (XRD) at high temperature. The observed experimental results of the diffraction show that the stability range of α phase varies between room temperature to around 923 K (650 °C).     

Influence of Gating System,Sand Grain Size,and Mould Coating on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Thin-Wall Ductile Iron

 In this study, the effect of gating systems, mould coating and sand grain size on metallurgical and mechanical properties of TWDI casting were investigated. Two different gating systems; stepped and tapered runners, were used to cast strip samples. The thicknesses of the samples cast were 2.3, 3.3, 4.5, 5.4, 6.5, 7.5 and 8.5 mm. The samples were cast in CO2/silicate process moulds of two different sand grain sizes of 151 and 171 according to the AFS standard. To assess the effect of mould coat on the properties of TWDI, half of the moulds were coated with graphite-based zircon whilst the rest were left uncoated. The carbon equivalent (CE) of the molten metal prepared was 4.29% and poured at the temperatures of 1450°C. The microstructure of the cast specimens was analyzed by optical and scanning electron microscopes. Clemex Image Analyzer (CIA) was used to evaluate graphite nodule count, graphite nodules area fraction, roundness and diameter of the nodules of the TWDI cast samples. Brinell hardness and tensile tests were also conducted on all the samples. The results show that by using stepped runner gating system with uncoated and coarse sand grain size mould, roundness and graphite nodule counts decrease. However, graphite nodules diameter and area fraction increase. The results also show that finer sand grain size and coated mould produce longer distance of molten metal travel.     

Optical properties of quantum dots versus quantum antidots: Effects of hydrostatic pressure and temperature

The effects of hydrostatic pressure and temperature on the linear, nonlinear and total absorption coefficients (ACs) of a hydrogenic impurity in the center of spherical quantum dot (QD) and quantum antidot (QAD) have been investigated. The comparative approach is used for presenting the results of both models. Our numerical results indicate that for QD nano-systems, by increasing the pressure, the resonance peak positions (RPPs) of ACs shift towards higher energies, while for QAD nano-systems, RPPs of ACs approximately remain unchanged. Furthermore, the larger pressure leads to the smaller height of resonance peak in both models. Also, our results show that the temperature increasing imposes the opposite effect on RPPs than the pressure increasing to the both models.     

Curing cycle modification for RTM6 to reduce hydrostatic residual tensile stress in 3D woven composites

Triaxial residual tensile stresses resulting after cooling a 3D woven composite from the curing temperature cause cracking in the resin pockets for weave architectures that have high through‐the‐thickness constraint. We show how curing cycle modifications can reduce the hydrostatic tensile stress generated by thermal mismatch during cooling of Hexcel RTM6 epoxy resin constrained in a quartz tube which simulates extreme constraint in a composite. The modified curing schedule consists of a high temperature cure to just before the glass transition, a lower temperature hold that takes the resin through the glass transition thereby freezing in the zero stress state, followed by high temperature cure to bring the resin to full conversion. We show that this process is sensitive to heating rates and can reduce the zero stress state of non‐toughened RTM6 resin to a temperature similar to a commercial rubber‐toughened resin, Cycom PR520. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43373.     

Experiments with a Low-Cost Hot Isothermal Pressing Machine Developed for Superplastic Forming

Hot isothermal/isostatic pressing machines are technically good candidates for superplastic forming (SPF) of otherwise hard-to-shape materials such as superalloys. These machines are, however, very expensive so that small or medium-size enterprises can not afford them. This has impeded widespread use of SPF processing. In an attempt to alleviate the problem, the authors have developed a laboratory model of an affordable hot isothermal pressing machine with differential gas pressure as the forming medium. Careful selection of process parameters such as temperature, gas pressure, strain rate, and process time as well as monitoring of thickness changes in a workpiece has a pivotal role in successful operation of such machine. It has been illustrated in this article that SPF can be successfully performed with this machine on the basis of process parameters estimated with existing analytical relations. The performance of this machine has been verified by several experiments on SPF of titanium-based sheets, as reported in this article.     

Performance modeling of a manufacturing cell with a single material transporter: An approximation

We consider a flexible manufacturing system with a number of workstations, a single material transporter, and a common storage space of finite capacity. The material handling delay times are explicitly considered in the model and assumed to follow a two-stage Coxian distribution. The material processing times on a workstation also have a two-stage Coxian distribution. The routing of parts within the system follows a Markov chain. An approximate performance model is developed and the results are compared with the exact or simulation results. We also investigate how this performance model compares to a simulation with deterministic routing and processing times. Finally, we study the effect, on the performance measures, of ignoring the material transporter or of modeling the transporter as a central server with aggregation of routing information.     

Thermal analysis of a 2-D heat recovery system using porous media including lattice Boltzmann simulation of fluid flow

The present work deals with the fluid flow simulation and thermal analysis of a two-dimensional heat recovery system using porous media. A basic high-temperature flow system is considered in which a high-temperature non-radiating gas flows through a random porous matrix. The porous medium, in addition to its convective heat exchange with the gas, may absorb, emit and scatter thermal radiation. It is desirable to have large amount of radiative heat flux from the porous segment in the upstream direction (towards the thermal system). The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is used to simulate fluid flow in the porous medium. The gas and solid phases are considered in non-local thermal equilibrium, and separate energy equations are applied to these phases. Convection, conduction and radiation heat transfers take place simultaneously in solid phase, but in the gas flow, heat transfer occurs by conduction and convection. In order to analyze the thermal characteristics of the heat recovery system, volume-averaged velocities through the porous matrix obtained by LBM are used in the gas energy equation and then the coupled energy equations for gas and porous medium are numerically solved using finite difference method. For computing of radiative heat flux in the porous medium, discrete ordinates method is used to solve the radiative transfer equation. Finally the effect of various parameters on the performance of porous heat recovery system is studied.     

Serendipity in Recommender Systems: A Systematic Literature Review

A recommender system is employed to accurately recommend items,which are expected to attract the user's attention.The over-emphasis on the accuracy of the recommendations can cause information over-specialization and make recommendations boring and even predictable.Novelty and diversity are two partly useful solutions to these problems.However,novel and diverse recommendations cannot merely ensure that users are attracted since such recommendations may not be relevant to the user's interests.Hence,it is necessary to consider other criteria,such as unexpectedness and relevance.Serendipity is a criterion for making appealing and useful recommendations.The usefulness of serendipitous recommendations is the main superiority of this criterion over novelty and diversity.The bulk of studies of recommender systems have focused on serendipity in recent years.Thus,a systematic literature review is conducted in this paper on previous studies of serendipity-oriented recommender systems.Accordingly,this paper focuses on the contextual convergence of serendipity definitions,datasets,serendipitous recommendation methods,and their evaluation techniques.Finally,the trends and existing potentials of the serendipity-oriented recommender systems are discussed for future studies.The results of the systematic literature review present that the quality and the quantity of articles in the serendipity-oriented recommender systems are progressing.