A Review on Dissimilar Friction Stir Welding of Copper to Aluminum: Process,Properties, and Variants

Copper and aluminum materials are extensively used in different industries because of its great conductivities and corrosion resistant nature. It is important to join dissimilar materials such as copper and aluminum to permit maximum use of the special properties of both the materials. The joining of dissimilar materials is one of the most advanced topics, which researchers have found from last few years. Friction stir welding (FSW) technology is feasible to join dissimilar materials because of its solid state nature. Present article provides a comprehensive insight on dissimilar copper to aluminum materials joined by FSW technology. FSW parameters such as tool design, tool pin offset, rotational speed, welding speed, tool tilt angle, and position of workpiece material in fixture for dissimilar Cu–Al system are summarized in the present review article. Additionally, welding defects, microstructure, and intermetallic compound generation for Cu–Al FSW system have been also discussed in this article. Furthermore, the new developments and future scope of dissimilar Cu–Al FSW system have been addressed.     

Study of new flow field geometries to enhance water redistribution and pressure head losses reduction within PEM fuel cell

Efficiency of fuel cell is dependent on reactant distribution, products evacuation, pressure losses and many of these factors is dependent on the design of flow field plate. With an effective design, reactant distribution, pressure drop, and water and heat management can be further improved. In this work, two new designs, as multi-serpentine set-up with additional slots and hybrid geometry, on stainless steel bipolar plates, are presented. Electrical performance, and pressure head losses are analyzed by electrochemical methods such as polarization curve and use of electrochemical noise as a diagnostic tool to further understand the impact of water management on performance. On the one hand, multi-serpentine design shows the best electrical performance with an increase of 0.2 V (66%) at 0.9 A/cm² in comparison of traditional serpentine design. On the other hand, hybrid design reveals the lowest pressure head losses, with a decrease of 2 mbar (about 50%) in comparison of traditional serpentine design, and a higher stability with time that can be useful to downsize compressor and provide lower impact on fuel cell stack durability.     

An outlook on comparison of hybrid welds of different root pass and filler pass of FCAW and GMAW with classical welds of similar root pass and filler pass

In the present study, gas metal arc welding and flux cored arc welding were applied on SA516 Gr70 carbon steel material. Two different hybrid passes were applied, wherein flux cored wire and solid wire were applied to root pass and filler pass one by one and vice versa. Besides, two more welds of similar electrode root pass and filler pass of flux cored arc welding and gas metal arc welding were acquired. The comparative analysis was carried out in terms of macrostructure and microstructure examination, tensile testing, hardness variations, and impact testing for these classical welds and hybrid welds. The results reveal that, hybrid welds lead to better impact properties relative to classical welds. Maximum angular distortion of 2.66° was reported with classical weld of gas metal arc welding with solid wire root pass and same filler pass. The maximum impact toughness of 49 J/m³ was reported for flux cored root pass and solid wire filler pass at the weld zone. Maximum tensile strength of 596 MPa was reported for hybrid weld of solid root pass and flux cored filler pass. Microstructures are reported with the presence of different acicular ferrite and grain boundary ferrite. Maximum acicular ferrite of 61% was reported with classical weld of flux cored arc welding.     

Experimental studies on pressure drop characteristics of cryogenic cross-counter flow coiled finned tube heat exchangers

Cross-counter flow coiled finned tube heat exchangers used in medium capacity helium liquefiers/refrigerators were developed in our lab. These heat exchangers were developed using integrated low finned tubes. Experimental studies have been performed to know the pressure drop characteristics of tube side and shell side flow of these heat exchangers. All experiments were performed at room temperature in the Reynolds number range of 3000-30,000 for tube side and 25-155 for shell side. The results of present experiments indicate that available correlations for tube side can not be used for prediction of tube side pressure drop data due to complex surface formation at inner side of tube during formation of fins over the outer surface. Results also indicate that surface roughness effect becomes more pronounced as the value of di/D_m increases. New correlations based on present experimental data are proposed for predicting the friction factors for tube side and shell side.     

Experimental research on heat transfer coefficients for cryogenic cross-counter-flow coiled finned-tube heat exchangers

The aim of present experimental research is to find out the suitable correlations for designing the coiled finned-tube heat exchangers used in cryogenic applications. In order to conduct above experimental study, cross-counter-flow coiled finned-tube heat exchangers were developed in our lab and used in actual refrigeration cycle. The experiments were conducted in the range of effective Reynolds number 500–1900. The effect of diametrical clearance on the prediction of overall heat transfer coefficient is also investigated experimentally. The results from present study were compared in the form of overall heat transfer coefficient. Results of present experimental research indicate that different correlations selected in the study can be used with reasonable accuracy for designing the coiled finned-tube heat exchangers, if they are applied with suitable method of calculation of free-flow cross-sectional area. A more accurate new correlation has also been proposed that fitted experimental data within ±10% error band.     

Effects of Tilt Angle on the Properties of Dissimilar Friction Stir Welding Copper to Aluminum

In the present investigation, dissimilar materials such as electrolytic tough pitch copper, and aluminum 6061-T651 were welded by friction stir welding technology. Effects of tool tilt angle on the mechanical and metallurgical properties were studied experimentally for dissimilar material systems. In the present study, the tool tilt angle was varied from 0° to 4° with an interval of 1°, while the other parameters such as rotational speed, welding speed, tool pin offset, and workpiece material position were kept constant. Macrostructure analysis, tensile test, macro hardness measurement, scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive x-ray spectrographic tests were performed to evaluate the weld properties of dissimilar copper–aluminum joints. The results revealed that a defect free dissimilar copper–aluminum friction stir welding was achieved by tilt angles 2°, 3°, and 4°. The maximum tensile strength was reported to be 117 MPa and the macro hardness was reported to be 181 VH (in the nugget zone) at a tilt angle of 4°. The macro hardness was increased as the tilt angle increases from 0° to 4°. In addition to this, the thermo-mechanically affected zone (at the copper side) was found to be the weakest zone for a dissimilar copper–aluminum friction stir welding system.     

Evading stepping-stone detection under the cloak of streaming media with SNEAK

Network-based intrusions have become a serious threat to the users of the Internet. To help cover their tracks, attackers launch attacks from a series of previously compromised systems called stepping stones. Timing correlations on incoming and outgoing packets can lead to detection of the stepping stone and can be used to trace the attacker through each link. Prior work has sought to counter the possibility of the attacker employing chaff packets and randomized delays. To date, however, researchers have not accounted for the full range of techniques that a sophisticated attacker could apply. In this work, we show that such an attacker could avoid detection by the best known stepping-stone detection methods. We propose a simple buffering technique that could be used by an attacker on a stepping stone to evade detection. This technique makes the timing of packets in the output flow of the stepping stone entirely independent of the timing of packets from the input flow, thereby eliminating the timing link that makes existing stepping-stone detection methods possible. To accomplish this, we only require buffering at the stepping stone and enough chaff packets to generate a constant-rate flow. This traffic has the characteristics of a multimedia stream, such as Voice over IP (VoIP), which is quite common on the Internet today. To test the effectiveness of our technique, we implemented it in a prototype stepping-stone application and tested its performance on the DETER testbed and the PlanetLab testbed. Our prototype successfully evades watermark-based detection and provides reasonable performance for shell commands over at least three stepping stones.     

Thermistor controlled gunn oscillator at Ka-band

Frequency drift of Gunn oscillators is a major cause of concern in most of the Millimeter wave communication systems. This paper describes a simple and cost effective technique to arrest the frequency drift of a Ka band Gunn oscillator within 15 MHz for the operating temperature range of 0°C to 60°C as against a typical drift of about 50 to 100 MHz for free running Gunn oscillator for the same temperature range. At the ambient, the oscillator remains within ±1 MHz from switching on to stabilization. The temperature variation is sensed with a small thermistor bead placed close to the diode and a correction voltage is applied to the bias to compensate for the frequency drift. This compensation circuit also takes into account the non-linear behaviour of the thermistor and the Gunn oscillator with the temperature.     

APCFS: Autonomous and Parallel Compressed File System

APCFS (Autonomous and Parallel Compressed File System) is a file system that supports fast autonomous compression at high compression rates. It is designed as a virtual layer inserted over existing file system, compressing and decompressing data by intercepting kernel calls. The system achieves enhanced compression ratio by combining two compression techniques. Speed is attained by performing the two compression techniques in parallel. Experimental results indicate good performance.