Quantitative analysis of laser-generated ultrasonic wave characteristics and their correlation with grain size in polycrystalline materials

Quantitative relationship between nanosecond pulsed laser parameters and the characteristics of laser-generated ultrasonic waves in polycrystalline materials was evaluated.The high energy of the pulsed laser with a large irradiation spot simultaneously generated ultrasonic longitudinal and shear waves at the epicenter under the slight ablation regime.An optimized denoising technique based on wavelet thresholding and variational mode decomposition was applied to reduce noise in shear waves with a low signal-to-noise ratio.An approach for characterizing grain size was proposed using spectral central frequency ratio(SCFR)based on time-frequency analysis.The results demonstrate that the generation regime of ultrasonic waves is not solely determined by the laser power density;even at high power densities,a high energy with a large spot can generate an ultrasonic waveform dominated by the thermoelastic effect.This is ascribed to the intensification of the thermoelastic effect with the proportional increase in laser irradiation spot area for a given laser power density.Furthermore,both longitudinal and shear wave SCFRs are linearly related to grain size in polycrystalline materials;however,the shear wave SCFR is more sensitive to finer-grained materials.This study holds great significance for evaluating metal material properties using laser ultrasound.

Effect of Strain Ratio on Fatigue Model of Ultra-fine Grained Pure Titanium

The ultra-fine grained(UFG)pure titanium was prepared by equal channel angular pressing(ECAP)and rotary swaging(RS).The strain controlled low cycle fatigue(LCF)test was carried out at room temperature.The fatigue life prediction model and mean stress relaxation model under asymmetrical stress load were discussed.The results show that the strain ratio has a significant effect on the low cycle fatigue performance of the UFG pure titanium,and the traditional Manson-coffin model can not accurately predict the fatigue life under asymmetric stress load.Therefore,the SWT mean stress correction model and three-parameter power curve model are proposed,and the test results are verified.The final research shows that the threeparameter power surface model has better representation.By studying the mean stress relaxation phenomenon under the condition of R≠-1,it is revealed that the stress ratio and the strain amplitude are the factors that significantly afiect the mean stress relaxation rate,and the mean stress relaxation model with the two variables is calculated to describe the mean stress relaxation phenomenon of the UFG pure titanium under different strain ratios.The fracture morphology of the samples was observed by SEM,and it was concluded that the final fracture zone of the fatigue fracture of the UFG pure titanium was a mixture of ductile fracture and quasi cleavage fracture.The toughness of the material increases with the increase of strain ratio at the same strain amplitude.

An improved sodium silicate binder modified by ultra-fine powder materials

This paper presents a new method of modifying sodium silicate binder with ultra-fine powders. The sodium silicate binder modified by ultra-fine powder A and the organic B can reduce the addition amount of the binder. The results indicate that the 24 h strength has increased by 39.9% at room temperature and the residual strength has decreased by 30.7% at 800℃, compared to the conventional sodium silicate. An available material to improve the moisture resistance was also found by adding about 2% more inorganic C, and it can increase the moist strength by 20%. In the end, the microanalyses are given to explain the modifying machanism, i. e., the ultra-fine powder A can refine the sodium silicate binder to avoid holes in the binder bond, which can increase the 24 h strength at room temperture, and can lead to more cracks in the bond after the molding sand is heated to 800℃. This is because of the stress caused by the new eutectic complex of modified sodium silicate binder.

Preparation of ultra-fine grain Ni-Al-WC coating with interlocking bonding on austenitic stainless steel by laser clad and friction stir processing

The ultra-fine structured Ni?Al?WC layer with interlocking bonding was fabricated on austenitic stainless steel by combination of laser clad and friction stir processing (FSP). Laser was initially applied to Ni?Al elemental powder preplaced on the austenitic stainless steel substrate to produce a coating for further processing. The as-received coating was subjected to FSP treatment, processed by a rotary tool rod made of WC?Co alloy, to obtain sample for inspection. Microstructure, phase constitutions, hardness and wear property were investigated by methods of scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) microanalysis, and X-ray diffraction (XRD), hardness test alongside with dry sliding wear test. The results show that the severe deformation effect exerted on the specimen resulted in an ultra-fine grain layer of about 100μmin thickness and grain size of 1?2μm. Synergy between introduction of WC particles to the deformation layer and deformation strengthening contributes greatly to the increase in hardness and friction resistance. An interlocking bonding between the coating and matrix which significantly improves bonding strength was formed due to the severe deformation effect.

Evaluation of ultra-fine grained tungsten under transient high heat flux by high-intensity pulsed ion beam

Pure tungsten, oxide dispersion strengthened tungsten and carbide dispersion strengthened tungsten were fabricated by high-energy ball milling and spark plasma sintering process. In order to evaluate the properties of the tungsten alloys under transient high heat flues, four tungsten samples with different grain sizes were tested by high-intensity pulsed ion beam with a heat flux as high as 160 MW/（m^2·s^-1/2）. Compared with the commercial tungsten, the surface modification of the oxide dispersion strengthened tungsten by high-intensity pulsed ion beam is completely different. The oxide dispersion strengthened tungsten shows inferior thermal shock response due to the low melting point second phase of Ti and Y2O3, which results in the surface melting, boiling bubbles and cracking. While the carbide dispersion strengthened tungsten shows better thermal shock response than the commercial tungsten.

Microstructures of ultra-fine grained FeCoV alloys processed by ECAP plus cold rolling and their evolutions during tempering

A new processing method,equal channel angular pressing(ECAP)plus cold rolling(CR),was applied to producing ultra-fine grained FeCoV alloy.The microstructures of ultra-fine grained FeCoV alloy after ECAP,ECAP plus CR,and the effect of tempering treatment on the microstructure of FeCoV alloy produced by ECAP plus CR were investigated.The results show that an elongated substructure with a width of about 0.3μm is obtained after four-pass ECAP using Route A.Cold rolling after ECAP cannot change the morphologies of elongated substructure,and it results in higher fraction of high-angle boundaries and higher dislocation density compared with the identical ECAP without rolling.Subsequent tempering for 30 min at 853 K brings about many nano-phases precipitating at subgrain boundaries and insides the grains,and the size of precipitated phase is measured to be about 10 nm.Nano-phases grow up with increasing tempering temperature and equiaxed structure forms at 883 K.

Isothermal Growth Kinetics of Ultra-fine Austenite Grains in a Nb-V-Ti Microalloyed Steel

Ultra-fine austenite grains with size of i-3 μm were prepared in a Nb-V-Ti steel through repetitive treatment of rapid heating and quenching. A model for the growth kinetics of these ultra-fine austenite grains was successfully created through successive 2 processes, and the activation energy Q for growth was estimated to be about 693.2 kJ/mol, which directly shows the inhibition effect of microalloy elements on the growth of ultra-fine austenite grains.

Improving the Fatigue Performance of the Welded Joints of Ultra-Fine Grain Steel by Ultrasonic Peening

Contrast tests were carried out to study the fatigue performance of the butt joints treated by ultrasonic peening, aiming at the improvement of ultrasonic peening treatment(UPT) on welded joints of a new material. The material is a new generation of fine grain and high purity SS400 steel that has the same ingredients as the traditional low carbon steel. The specimens are in two different states:welded and ultrasonic peening conditions. The corresponding fatigue testing data were analyzed according to the regulation of the statistical method for fatigue life of the welded joints established by International Institute of Welding(IIW). Welding residual stress was considered in two different ways: the constant stress ratio R=0.5 and the Ohta method. The nominal stress-number (σ-N)curves were corrected because of the different plate thickness compared to the standard and because there was no mismatch or angular deformation. The results indicated that: 1) Compared with the welded specimens, when the stress range was 200 MPa, the fatigue life of the SS400 steel specimens treated by ultrasonic peening is prolonged by over 58 times, and the fatigue strength FAT corresponding to 106 cycles is increased by about 66%; 2) As for the SS400 butt joint (single side welding double sides molding), after being treated by UPT, the nominal S-N curve (m=10) of FAT 100 MPa(R=0.5) should be used for fatigue design. The standard S-N curves of FAT 100 MPa(R=0.5, m=10) could be used for fatigue design of the SS400 steel butt joints treated by ultrasonic peening.

Effect of welding heat input on HAZ character in ultra-fine grain steel welding

In this essay, we studied how heat input affected the microstructure, hardness, grain size and heat-affected zone(HAZ) dimension of WCX355 ultra-fine grain steel which was welded respectively by the ultra narrow-gap welding (UNGW) process and the overlaying process with CO 2 as protective atmosphere and laser welding process. The experimental results show when the heat input changed from 1.65 kJ/cm to 5.93 kJ/cm, the width of its HAZ ranged from 0.6 mm to 2.1 mm.The average grain size grew up from 2～5 μm of base metal to 20～70 μm and found no obvious soften phenomenon in overheated zone. The width of normalized zone was generally wide as 2/3 as that of the whole HAZ, and the grain size in this zone is smaller than that in base metal. Under the circumstance of equal heat input, the HAZ width of UNGW is narrower than that of the laser welding.

Modeling of material deformation behavior in micro-forming under consideration of individual grain heterogeneity

This study aims to develop a model to characterize the inhomogeneous material deformation behavior in micro-forming.First,the influence of individual grain heterogeneity on the deformation behavior of CuZn20 foils was investigated via tensile and micro-hardness tests.The results showed that different from thick sheets,the hardening behavior of grains in the deformation area of thin foils is not uniform.The flow stress of thin foils actually only reflects the average hardening behavior of several easy-deformation-grains,which is the reason that thinner foils own smaller flow stress.Then,a composite modeling method under consideration of individual grain heterogeneity was developed,where the effects of grain orientation and shape are quantitatively represented by the method of flow stress classification and Voronoi tessellation,respectively.This model provides an accurate and effective method to analyze the influence of individual grain heterogeneity on the deformation behavior of the micro-sized material.

Dependence of Effective Anisotropy on Grain Size in Nanocrystalline Nd_2Fe_(14)B Hard Magnetic Material

Taking nanocrystalline Nd_2Fe_(14)B as a typical sample, based on Herzer′s random anisotropy theory and the cubic grain model, the partial exchange-coupling interaction model was established and the dependence of effective anisotropy constant K_(eff) on grain size was investigated. Calculation results reveal that the exchange-coupling interaction enhances and the effective anisotropy of material K_(eff) decreases with the reduction of grain size. The variation of K_(eff) is basically the same as that of coercivity. The decrease of effective anisotropy is the main reason of the reduction of coercivity for nanocrystalline Nd_2Fe_(14)B permanent magnetic material.

Investigation on relations between grain crushing amount and void ratio change of granular materials in one-dimensional compression and creep tests

Grain crushing plays an important role in one-dimensional (1D) compression and creep behaviors of granular materials under high stress. It is clear that the macro-properties of granular materials are closely related to the micro-fracture properties of grains in 1D compression and creep tests. In this paper, a series of 1D compression and creep tests were performed on Ottawa sand to investigate the deformation and grain crushing properties of granular materials, and it shows that the void ratio is correlated to the grain crushing amount (the quantity of crushed grains) for granular materials subjected to grain crushing. The test results, combining with the existing test data related to grain crushing of granular materials, were used to verify the relation. Moreover, the implications of these relations on the yield of granular material, and the equivalent effect of stress and time in changing soil fabric are presented.

Microstructural Evolution and Thermal Stability of Ultra-fine Grained Al-4Mg Alloy by Equal Channel Angular Pressing

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the grain refinement and thermal stability of ultra-fine grained Al-4Mgalloy introduced by equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) at 473 K. The results show that the intensities of X-ray(111/222) and (200/400) peaks for the alloy processed by ECAP decrease significantly and the peak widths of halfheight become broadening compared with the corresponding value in the annealed alloy. The microstructure of 2passes ECAPed alloy consists of both elongated and equiaxed subgrains. The residual strain in the alloy increaseswith increasing passes numbers, that appears as increasing dislocation density and lattice constant of matrix. Anequiaxed ultra-fine grained structure of～0.2μm is obtained in the present alloy after 8 passes. The ultra-fine grainsare stable below 523 K, because the alloy retains extremely fine grain size of～1μm after static annealing at 523 Kfor 1 h.

Effect of upsetting force on microstructure of welds in resistance spot welding of 400 MPa ultra-fine grain steel

The ultra-fine grain （UFG） steel is welded by using resistance spot welding technique with or without requirement of upsetting force. Metallographic inspection shows that the grain size of weld nugget is larger than that of the base metal and the microstructure is altered significantly. In addition, contracting defects such as air holes can be found in the nugget center. The experiments show that the defects can be effectively avoided by the technique of adding upsetting force during the nugget cooling and crystallizing processes. In tensile shear tests, the welding joint starts to crack from the inner edge of the corona bond. The results of micro-hardness tests show that the newly born martensite structure dramatically improves the hardness of the joint. Under the interactions between residual stresses and regenerated fine grains, the micro-hardness of the heat-affected zone （ HAZ ） is lower than that of the nugget, but evidently higher than that of the base metal.

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Grain Refinement in a Polycrystalline Material under Severe Compressive Deformation

Grain refinement in a polycrystalline material resulting from severe compressive deformation was simulated using molecular dynamics. A simplified model with four square grains surrounded by periodic boundaries was prepared, and compressive deformation was imposed by shortening the length in the y direction. The model first deformed elastically, and the compressive stress increased monotonically. Inelastic deformation was then initiated, and the stress decreased drastically. At that moment, dislocation or slip was initiated at the grain boundaries or triple junction and then spread within the grains. New grain boundaries were then generated in some of the grains, and sub-grains appeared. Finally, a microstructure with refined grains was obtained. This process was simulated using two types of grain arrangements and three different combinations of crystal orientations. Grain refinement generally proceeded in a similar fashion in each scenario, whereas the detailed inelastic deformation and grain refinement behavior depended on the initial microstructure.

Surface Cracking Behaviors of Ultra-Fine Grained Tungsten Under Edge Plasma Loading in the HT-7 Tokamak

Tests of the candidate plasma facing materials（PFMs） used in experimental fusion devices are essential due to the direct influence of in-situ plasma loading.A type of ultrafine grained（UFG） tungsten sintered by resistance sintering under ultra-high pressure（RSUHP） method has been exposed in the edge plasma of the HT-7 tokamak to investigate its performance under plasma loading.Under cychc edge plasma loading,the UFG tungsten develops both macro and micro cracks.The macro cracks are attributed to the low temperature brittleness of the tungsten material itself,while the micro cracks are generated from local intense power flux deposition.

Improvement and Application of Grain Size Distribution Characteristics Calculation of Bed Material

Grain size distribution of bed material is an important characteristic for studying evolution of natural river channel by means of experimental ways and numerical modeling of flow and sediment process.In this study,the fractal characteristic of sediment particle has been defined by means of fractal theory based on ana- lyzing the property of grain size distribution of bed material in the river channel.Furthennore,the fractal prop- erty of sediment particle has been applied to judge the process of armorin...

Investigation on fracture behavior of the welded joint HAZ of ultra-fine grain steel SS400

The critical crack dimensions of both base-metal specimen and HAZ specimen are measured via wide-plate tensile tests. Based on the “fitness for purpose” principle, the fracture behavior of the ultra-fine grain steel SS400 welded joint HAZ is assessed. The test results indicate that overmatching is benefit for the whole capability’s improvement of ultra-fine grain steel SS400. The test results are confirmed by using finite element method (FEM).

Generalized plasticity model considering grain crushing and anisotropy for rockfill materials

Rockfill materials have been widely used in the construction of rockfill dam,railway and highway subgrade due to its high filling density,good compaction performance,strong water permeability,small settlement deformation and high bearing capacity.A reasonable constitutive model for rockfill materials is very important for engineering computation and analysis,and has a great development space.Based on the crushing stress and spatial mobilized plane(SMP),a state parameter that can comprehensively reflect the anisotropy and grain crushing is proposed.This state parameter is used to improve the MPZ model(a modifed ZienkiewiczⅢmodel),so that a generalized plastic model is constructed to describe the stress and deformation characteristics of rockfill materials in engineering.The validity of the developed model is verified by a series of conventional triaxial tests with different inclination angles of the compaction plane.The variation trend of the constructed anisotropy indexωcan reflect the non monotonic variation of the deformation and strength of rockfill with the direction angle of large principal stress,so the model can reflect the obvious difference caused by the initial anisotropy of rockfill on the mechanical properties.

Grain size and structure distortion characterization of α-MgAgSb thermoelectric material by powder diffraction

Nanostructuring, structure distortion, and/or disorder are the main manipulation techniques to reduce the lattice thermal conductivity and improve the figure of merit of thermoelectric materials. A single-phase α-MgAgSb sample, MgAg0.97Sb0.99, with high thermoelectric performance in near room temperature region was synthesized through a high-energy ball milling with a hot-pressing method. Here, we report the average grain size of 24–28 nm and the accurate structure distortion, which are characterized by high-resolution neutron diffraction and synchrotron x-ray diffraction with Rietveld refinement data analysis. Both the small grain size and the structure distortion have a contribution to the low lattice thermal conductivity in MgAg0.97Sb0.99.