Efficient energy absorption of functionally-graded metallic foam-filled tubes under impact loading

The deformation behavior and crashworthiness of functionally-graded foam-filled tubes(FGFTs)under drop-weight impact loading were investigated.Closed cell aluminum,A356 alloy and zinc foams fabricated by the liquid state processing were used as axial grading fillers for the manufacture of single-layer and multilayer structures with different configurations.The results indicate that the deformation of multilayer foam filled tubes initiates from the low-strength components,and then propagates in the high-strength components through the gradual increment of stress.The use of more A356 alloy and aluminum foam layers provides greater specific energy absorption(SEA)for the graded structures,whereas the high-strength zinc foam has no positive effect on the crash performance.The progressive collapse of graded structures consisting of the aluminum and A356 alloy foams occurs in a symmetric mode under quasi-static and drop-weight impact conditions.However,the zinc foam causes a combination of symmetric and extension modes as well as greater localized deformation under dynamic loading and greater local rupture in quasi-static loading condition.The Al−A356 foam-filled tubes with a combination of the highest SEA(10 J/g)and the lowest initial peak stress(σmax of 10.2 MPa)are considered as the best lightweight crashworthy structures.

Multi-field coupling and free vibration of a sandwiched functionally-graded piezoelectric semiconductor plate

Sandwiched functionally-graded piezoelectric semiconductor(FGPS)plates possess high strength and excellent piezoelectric and semiconductor properties,and have significant potential applications in micro-electro-mechanical systems.The multi-field coupling and free vibration of a sandwiched FGPS plate are studied,and the governing equation and natural frequency are derived with the consideration of electron movement.The material properties in the functionally-graded layers are assumed to vary smoothly,and the first-order shear deformation theory is introduced to derive the multi-field coupling in the plate.The total strain energy of the plate is obtained,and the governing equations are presented by using Hamilton’s principle.By introducing the boundary conditions,the coupling physical fields are solved.In numerical examples,the natural frequencies of sandwiched FGPS plates under different geometrical and physical parameters are discussed.It is found that the initial electron density can be used to modulate the natural frequencies and vibrational displacement of sandwiched FGPS plates in the case of nano-size.The effects of the material properties of FGPS layers on the natural frequencies are also examined in detail.

Finite deformation analysis of the rotating cylindrical hollow disk composed of functionally-graded incompressible hyper-elastic material

The deformations and stresses of a rotating cylindrical hollow disk made of incompressible functionally-graded hyper-elastic material are theoretically analyzed based on the finite elasticity theory.The hyper-elastic material is described by a new micro-macro transition model.Specially,the material shear modulus and density are assumed to be a function with a power law form through the radial direction,while the material inhomogeneity is thus reflected on the power index m.The integral forms of the stretches and stress components are obtained.With the obtained complicated integral forms,the composite trapezoidal rule is utilized to derive the analytical solutions,and the explicit solutions for both the stretches and the stress components are numerically obtained.By comparing the results with two classic models,the superiority of the model in our work is demonstrated.Then,the distributions of the stretches and normalized stress components are discussed in detail under the effects of m.The results indicate that the material inhomogeneity and the rotating angular velocity have significant effects on the distributions of the normalized radial and hoop stress components and the stretches.We believe that by appropriately choosing the material inhomogeneity and configuration parameters,the functionally-graded material(FGM)hyper-elastic hollow cylindrical disk can be designed to meet some unique requirements in the application fields,e.g.,soft robotics,medical devices,and conventional aerospace and mechanical industries.

Microstructures and mechanical behavior of the bimetallic additively-manufactured structure(BAMS)of austenitic stainless steel and Inconel 625

Bimetallic additively manufactured structures(BAMSs)can replace traditionally-fabricated functionallygraded-components through fusion welding processes and can eliminate locally-deteriorated mechanical properties arising from post-processing.The present work fabricates a BAMS by sequentially depositing the austenitic stainless-steel and Inconel625 using a gas-metal-arc-welding(GMAW)-based wire+arc additive manufacturing(WAAM)system.Elemental mapping shows a smooth compositional transition at the interface without any segregation.Both materials being the face-center-cubic(FCC)austenite,the electron backscattered diffraction(EBSD)analysis of the interface shows the smooth and cross-interfacecrystallographic growth of long-elongated grains in the<001>direction.The hardness values were within the range of 220-240 HV for both materials without a large deviation at the interface.Due to the controlled thermal history,mechanical testing yielded a consistent result with the ultimate tensile strength and elongation of 600 MPa and 40%,respectively,with the failure location on the stainless-steel side.This study demonstrates that WAAM has the potential to fabricate BAMS with controlled properties.