Impact Analysis of Microscopic Defect Types on the Macroscopic Crack Propagation in Sintered Silver Nanoparticles

Sintered silver nanoparticles(AgNPs)arewidely used in high-power electronics due to their exceptional properties.However,the material reliability is significantly affected by various microscopic defects.In this work,the three primary micro-defect types at potential stress concentrations in sintered AgNPs are identified,categorized,and quantified.Molecular dynamics(MD)simulations are employed to observe the failure evolution of different microscopic defects.The dominant mechanisms responsible for this evolution are dislocation nucleation and dislocation motion.At the same time,this paper clarifies the quantitative relationship between the tensile strain amount and the failure mechanism transitions of the three defect types by defining key strain points.The impact of defect types on the failure process is also discussed.Furthermore,traction-separation curves extracted from microscopic defect evolutions serve as a bridge to connect the macro-scale model.The validity of the crack propagation model is confirmed through tensile tests.Finally,we thoroughly analyze how micro-defect types influence macro-crack propagation and attempt to find supporting evidence from the MD model.Our findings provide a multi-perspective reference for the reliability analysis of sintered AgNPs.

Formation and control of the surface defect in hypo-peritectic steel during continuous casting:A review

Hypo-peritectic steels are widely used in various industrial fields because of their high strength,high toughness,high processability,high weldability,and low material cost.However,surface defects are liable to occur during continuous casting,which includes depression,longitudinal cracks,deep oscillation marks,and severe level fluctuation with slag entrapment.The high-efficiency production of hypo-peritectic steels by continuous casting is still a great challenge due to the limited understanding of the mechanism of peritectic solidification.This work reviews the definition and classification of hypo-peritectic steels and introduces the formation tendency of common surface defects related to peritectic solidification.New achievements in the mechanism of peritectic reaction and transformation have been listed.Finally,countermeasures to avoiding surface defects of hypo-peritectic steels duiring continuous casting are summarized.Enlightening certain points in the continuous casting of hypo-peritectic steels and the development of new techniques to overcome the present problems will be a great aid to researchers.

Elimination of cracks in stainless steel casings via 3D printed sand molds with an internal topology structure

The important supporting component in a gas turbine is the casing,which has the characteristics of large size,complex structure,and thin wall.In the context of existing 3DP sand casting processes,casting crack defects are prone to occur.This leads to an increase in the scrap rate of casings,causing significant resource wastage.Additionally,the presence of cracks poses a significant safety hazard after the casings are put into service.The generation of different types of crack defects in stainless steel casings is closely related to casting stress and the high-temperature concession of the sand mold.Therefore,the types and causes of cracks in stainless steel casing products,based on their structural characteristics,were systematically analyzed.Various sand molds with different internal topology designs were printed using the 3DP technology to investigate the impact of sand mold structures on high-temperature concession.The optimal sand mold structure was used to cast casings,and the crack suppression effect was verified by analyzing its eddy current testing results.The experimental results indicate that the skeleton structure has an excellent effect on suppressing cracks in the casing.This research holds important theoretical and engineering significance in improving the quality of casing castings and reducing production costs.

A Model for Diagnosing the Formation of Internal Cracks in Continuously CastSlabs

The internal cracks in continuously cast slabs are attributed to the excessive tensile strain occurring at the solidifying frontduring the continuous casting process. Based on the understanding, a model for diagnosing the formation of the internal cracks was established, in which the strains at the solidifying front caused by' bulging, straightening or unbending, and roll misalignment were calculated and compared with a critical strain value to estimate whether the internal cracks form. Moreover, the established model was appliedto a real slab caster to reveal the distribution of the strains in casting direction and its effect on the internal cracks. It was proved that themodel was reliable and useful for optimizing the operation of continuous casting.

Studies on the effect of weld defect on the fatigue behavior of welded structures

Structural integrity isstated as the science and technology of margin between safety and disaster. Systematic prediction of structural integrity of critical structures such ascombustion chambers,pressure vessels,nuclear reactor components,boilers etc.,ensures the human safety,environmental protection,and the economical considerations.The present work aims at prediction of fatigue behaviour of symmetric structures like pressure vessels in the presence of common welding defects such as lack of fusion( LOF),lack of penetration( LOP) and porosity.A ring type specimen which replicates the stress pattern in thepressure vessel is considered for the study of severity of weld imperfections. Initial dimensions of weld defects are arrived by performing NDT inspection.Crack growth analysis is carried out to determine the remaining life of the welded joint with defects.

Behavior of Transversal Crack on Slab Corner During V-H Rolling Process

The behavior of transversal cracks on the surface of the slab corner during vertical and horizontal （V-H） rolling process with flat vertical roll and groove vertical roll was simulated by explicit dynamic finite element method. The closure and growth of crack and the contact pressure on surfaces of the crack in contacting zone between slab and roll during rolling process were analyzed. The results showed that during vertical rolling process, when the groove vertical roll is used, the maximum contact pressure on surfaces of the crack is 115 MPa, and the closure of crack is stable when the flat vertical roll is used, the maximum contact pressure on surfaces of the crack is 70 MPa, and it fluctuates greatly. During horizontal rolling process, when groove vertical roll is used, the contact pressure becomes zero which may accelerate the growth of crack when flat vertical roll is used, there is still contact pressure. The cal culated results are in good agreement with the results of test.

Formation mechanism of internal cracks in continuously cast slab

In order to make clear the formation mechanism of centerline cracks incontinuously cast slabs, the form, distribution and other characteristics of the cracks wereanalyzed. The final solidification point, surface temperature of the slabs and strain in solidifyingshell were investigated. The results were that: (1) Five relatively low temperature zones exist onslab surface below the three water spraying nozzles and near the two edges, respectively, whichcorresponds to the places of centerline cracks and triangle-zone cracks. (2) Centerline cracks andtriangle-zone cracks occur because of weak secondary cooling, uneven cooling along slab width, andlarge variation of roll gap. (3) After minimizing the variation of roll gap and applying the newsecondary cooling pattern, the occurring frequency of centerline and triangle-zone cracks minimizesto zero.

Analysis of the cause of crack in cold rolling of QSn6.5-0.1 strip

In order to know the cause of cracks in cold rolling of QSn6.5 0.1 copper alloy strip, a lot of experiments and analysis were done. The microstructure changes of QSn6.5 0.1 were investigated by means of metallurgical microscope. The morphology of cracks and surface defects were examined using scanning electron microscope. Macroscopic residual stresses produced in every process during manufacturing in the QSn6.5 0.1 strip were measured by X ray diffraction method and hole drilling method. The results show that the cracks in the QSn6.5 0.1 cold rolling strip were caused due to the derivation of metallurgical defects, such as SnO 2, S, fine looses,the inverse segregation unable to clear up when milling, and the accumulation of all kinds of resi dual stresses. When the accumulation of the residual stress reaches the material′s breaking strength, the cracks will be generated. Several measures to avoid the development of these kinds of cracks were put forward, such as: controlling the casting technology, improving homogenization annealing procedure (680 ℃/7 h) and milling quality(using the second milling when necessary), working out a more reasonable rolling technology to ensure intermediate annealing in time.

Longitudinal surface cracks on continuous casting slabs of P and Cu containing container steel

The fact that the amount of the mold flux components differs at differentlocations on the cracking surface indicates that the longitudinal surface cracks are initiallyformed in the mold and are enlarged in the secondary cooling zone. Based on the hot ductilitymeasurement of two typical container used steels, it is known that the steels are in severeembrittlement state in the temperature range of 825-775 deg C. By means of increasing Cr/Ni platingthickness on the upper part of the mold, reducing mold heat flux, adopting new secondary coolingpattern, etc., the occurrence of the surface longitudinal cracks on the steel CC (continuouscasting) slabs has been significantly reduced.

Longitudinal crack on slab surface at straightening stage during continuous casting using finite element method

Deformation behavior of slab at the straightening stage during continuous casting was simulated by the explicit dynamic finite element method,and the stress distribution along the width direction of the slab and its change regularity at slab center during continuous casting were obtained.The influence of distribution and change of stress on the propagation of longitudinal cracks on slab surface was discussed.The results show that the tensional stress appears on slab surface at the inner arc side and the compressive stress appears on slab surface at the outer arc side at stages 6-8 in straightening zone during continuous casting.Longitudinal cracks generally appear on slab top surface and do not appear on slab bottom surface,which are also observed in industry.

Longitudinal surface cracks of thin slabs

把中等的碳的实践基于生产在为纵的裂缝的形成的 CSP 植物，原因和影响因素的薄平板被调查，并且工业措施被采取消除 cracks.The 结果的一些证明减少纵的裂缝的有效答案正在改进模子粉末的表演，稳定模子热流动，并且维持一合适在倒温度并且第二等的冷却的 casting.Proper 期间模子逐渐变细也演

Preventing Occurrence of Transverse Corner Cracks on Nb, V and Ti Microalloying Steel CC Slabs

Based on their hot ductilities, Nb, V and Ti microalloying steels can be classified into two groups. The first group includes steels with lower carbon content (≤0.10%). Ductilities of steels of this group recover and rise with decreasing temperature when temperature lowers to below 825℃. Another group includes steels which contain more carbon (>0.12%) or contain more Nb and V. The low ductility temperature Region Ⅲ for steels of mis group extends to temperature as low as 725℃. The occurrence of the transverse corner cracks of the Nb, V and Ti microalloying steel CC slabs has be considerably decreased by stabilizing casting speed, increasing mold steel level automatic control ratio,enhancing caster segment radial alignment and adopting proper secondary cooling patterns to make slab corner temperature at straightening out off the low ductility temperature region.

Damage response of conventionally reinforced two-way spanning concrete slab under eccentric impacting drop weight loading

Reinforced concrete(RC)structures are generally designed to carry quasi-static gravity loads through almost indispensable components namely slab,however,it may be subjected to high intense loads induced from the impact of projectiles generated by the tornado,falling construction equipment,and also from accidental explosions during their construction and service lifespan.Impacts due to rock/boulder falls do occur on the structures located especially in hilly areas.Such loadings are not predictable but may cause severe damage to the slab/structure.It stimulates structural engineers and researchers to investigate and understand the dynamic response of RC structures under such impulsive loading.This research work first investigates the performance of 1000×1000×75 mm^(3)conventionally reinforced two-way spanning normal strength concrete slab with only tension reinforcement(0.88%)under the concentric impact load(1035 N)using the finite element method based computer code,ABAQUS/Explicit-v.6.15.The impact load is delivered to the centroid of the slab using a solid-steel cylindroconical impactor(drop weight)with a flat nose of diameter 40 mm,having a total mass of 105 kg released from a fixed height of 2500 mm.Two popular concrete constitutive models in ABAQUS namely;Holmquist-Johnson-Cook(HJC)and Concrete Damage Plasticity(CDP),with strain rate effects as per fib MODEL CODE 2010,are used to model the concrete material behavior to impact loading and to simulate the damage to the slab.The slab response using these two models is analyzed and compared with the impact test results.The strain rate effect on the reinforcing steel bars has been incorporated in the analysis using the Malvar and Crawford(1998)approach.A classical elastoplastic kinematic idealization is considered to model the steel impactor and support system.Results reveal that the HJC model gives a little overestimation of peak displacement,maximum acceleration,and damage of the slab while the predictions given by the CDP model are in reasonable agreement with the experimental test results/observations available in the open literature.Following the validation of the numerical model,analyses have been extended to further investigate the damage response of the slab under eccentric impact loadings.In addition to the concentric location(P1)of the impacting device,five locations on a quarter of the slab i.e.,two along the diagonal(P2&P3),the other two along the mid-span(P4&P5),and the last one(P6)between P3 and P5,covering the entire slab,are considered.Computational results have been discussed and compared,and the evaluation of the most damaging location(s)of the impact is investigated.It has been found that the most critical location of the impact is not the centroid of the slab but the eccentric one with the eccentricity of 1/6th of the span from the centroid along the mid-span section.

The influence of defects on the effective Young's modulus of a defective solid

It is difficult to establish structure-property relationships in a defective solid because of its inhomogeneous-geometry microstructure caused by defects. In the present research, the effects of pores and cracks on the Young’s modulus of a defective solid are studied. Based on the law of the conservation of energy, mathematical formulations are proposed to indicate how the shape, size, and distribution of defects affect the effective Young’s modulus. In this approach, detailed equations are illustrated to represent the shape and size of defects on the effective Young’s modulus. Different from the results obtained from the traditional empirical analyses, mixture law or statistical method, for the first time, our results from the finite element method （FEM） and strict analytical calculation show that the influence of pore radius and crack length on the effective Young’s modulus can be quantified. It is found that the longest crack in a typical microstructure of ceramic coating dominates the contribution of the effective Young’s modulus in the vertical direction of the crack.

Evaluation of the performance of mold powder for continuous casting of plate slabs

The No. 3 slab caster,which mainly provides slabs to the 5000 mm plate mill at Baosteel, was put into production in December,2004. The size of the biggest slab produced by this caster is 2300 mm in width and 300 mm in thickness. The designed output of the caster is 2.3 Mt/a. Slab surface longitudinal crack defects,which were related to the heat flux of the mold, frequently occurred in the early stage of the startup of the caster. As mild cooling powder is beneficial to the uniformity of the shell of initial slabs ,the concentration of stress is reduced, and the longitudinal cracking on the surface is avoided. This study evaluates the performance of several kinds of powder, and the results show that mold powder of high basicity, high crystallization proportion and low heat flux is to the benefit of the reduction of the longitudinal cracks on the surface and the defects of slabs.

Corner crack mechanism of boron-containing LCAK steel slabs

At Baoshan Iron ＆ Steel Co., Ltd., comer cracks of boron containing LCAK steel slabs had caused remarkable quality loss and mass flow disorder. With the help of fractography and thermodynamics analysis, the embrittlement mechanism of this steel grade was studied and the results are as follows： 1 The transformation from 3＇ to a starts at the austenite grain boundaries and a layer of thin ferrite film gradually forms around the austenite grains. Strain concentration will preferentially start inside the ferrite phase when the stress accumulates to a certain level. 2 The coarse BN particles acceleratedly precipitated at the γ/α interfaces further deteriorate the ductility of the ferrite film, and brittleness results in strain concentration and microvoid coalescence inside the ferrite film. Therefore the austenite grain boundaries are prone to intergranular failure. 3 The stoichiometry among Al, N and B is a very important factor influencing the hot ductility of this steel grade. By controling the B-to-N atomic ratio to above 1, all N can be fixed by B instead of A1. Thus coarsegrained steel is available and fewer grain boundaries and higher ductility can reduce the risk of comer cracks. （4） By adjusting the B-to-N atomic ratio,Baoshan Iron ＆ Steel Co.,Ltd. successfully reduced the number of cracks to nearly one tenth of that in the past and the hot tensile tests confirmed remarkable improvement in the hot ductility of this steel.

The optimization of mold fluxes used for casting the peritectic steel of heavy slabs at Baosteel

In order to solve the problem of the high surface longitudinal crack ratio of heavy peritectic steel slabs produced by the No. 3 continuous caster at Baosteel,the physical properties of the original mold flux and the optimized mold flux were compared in a comprehensive way by using analytical measures, such as a slag film heat-flow simulator, a thermowire molten flux crystallization tester and an X-ray diffractometer in the laboratory. The results reveal that one of the major reasons for the cracks is the poor heat transfer ability of the original mold flux. However, the optimized mold flux with a high basicity features a high crystallizing rate,low crystallization temperature and low heat-flow density. Therefore, the optimized mold flux is more suitable for casting peritectic steel by the heavy slab continuous caster. The test results show that the slabs produced by using the optimized mold flux had no surface longitudinal crack in four test casts, while the surface longitudinal crack ratio of the slabs produced by using the original mold flux was 5%. The optimized mold flux can effectively prevent slab surface longitudinal cracks from occurring.

Analytical solution for the stress field of hierarchical defects:multiscale framework and applications

Hierarchical defects are defined as adjacent defects at different length scales.Involved are the two scales where the stress field distribution is interrelated.Based on the complex variable method and conformal mapping,a multiscale framework for solving the problems of hierarchical defects is formulated.The separated representations of mapping function,the governing equations of potentials,and the stress field are subsequently obtained.The proposed multiscale framework can be used to solve a variety of simplified engineering problems.The case in point is the analytical solution of a macroscopic elliptic hole with a microscopic circular edge defect.The results indicate that the microscopic defect aggregates the stress concentration on the macroscopic defect and likely leads to global propagation and rupture.Multiple micro-defects have interactive effects on the distribution of the stress field.The level of stress concentration may be reduced by the coalescence of micro-defects.This work provides a unified method to analytically investigate the influence of edge micro-defects within the scope of multiscale hierarchy.The formulated multiscale approach can also be potentially applied to materials with hierarchical defects,such as additive manufacturing and bio-inspired materials.

COPLANAR CRACKS IN A FINITE TRANSVERSELY ISOTROPIC ELASTIC SLAB UNDER ANTIPLANE SHEARL STRESSES

An antiplane crack problem concerning a pair of coplanar cracks in a finite transversely isotropic elastic slab is considered. Using Fourier integral transform together with singular integral equation which can be solvel numerically by suing a collocation technique. Once the integral equation is solved, the relevant crack energy and stress intensity factors of the problem are given. The analysis present can be easily extended to include cases where there are two or more pairs of coplanar cracks in the slab.

TWO COPLANAR CRACKS IN A TRANSVERSELY ISOTROPIC ELASTIC SLAB SUBJECTED TO ANTIPLANE SHEAR STRESSES

The problem of a transversely isotropic elastic slab containing two coplanar cracks subjected to an antiplane deformation is considered. With the aid of an integral transform technique, we formulate the problem in terms of a finite-part singular integral equation which can be solved numerically, Once the integral equation is solved, relevant quantities such as the crack energy can be readily computed.