Influence of welding processes on microstructure, tensile and impact properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy joints

Titanium alloys have been successfully applied for aerospace, ship and chemical industries because they possess many good characteristics such as high specific strength, superior corrosion resistance and excellent high temperature resistance. Though these alloys show reasonable weldability characteristics, the joint properties are greatly influenced by the welding processes. Weld thermal cycle of the processes will control the weld metal solidification and subsequent phase transformation and resultant microstructure. The welded joints of Ti-6Al-4V alloy were fabricated by gas tungsten arc welding （GTAW）, laser beam welding （LBW） and electron beam welding （EBW） processes. The joints fabricated by EBW process exhibit higher strength compared with the GTAW and LBW joints; but the joints by GTAW process exhibit higher impact toughness compared with the LBW and EBW joints. The resultant tensile and impact properties of the welded joints were correlated with the weld metal microstructures.

Modeling and analysis of surface roughness on machining of Nimonic C-263 alloy by PVD coated carbide insert

The effects of the cutting parameters （cutting speed, feed rate and depth of cut） on the surface roughness in machining the Nimonic C-263 alloy were investigated. The experiments were conducted using Taguchi＇s experimental design. The effect of cutting parameters on surface roughness was evaluated and the optimum cutting conditions for minimizing the surface roughness were determined. A second order model was established between the cutting parameters and surface roughness, using the response surface methodology. The experimental results revealed that among the parameters considered, the feed rate is the most significant which influences the surface roughness, followed by the cutting speed. The predicted values and measured values are fairly close, which indicates that the developed model can be effectively used to predict the surface roughness in machining the Nimonic C-263 alloy. The predicted values are validated using the additive law.

Effect of Welding Processes and Consumables on Tensile and Impact Properties of High Strength Quenched and Tempered Steel Joints

Quenched and tempered steels are prone to hydrogen induced cracking in the heat affected zone after welding. The use of austenitic stainless steel consumables to weld the above steel was the only available remedy because of higher solubility for hydrogen in austenitic phase. In this investigation, an attempt was made to determine a suitable consumable to replace expensive austenitic consumables. Two different consumables, namely, austenitie stain less steel and low hydrogen ferritic steel, were used to fabricate the joints by shielded metal are welding （SMAW） and flux cored arc welding （FCAW） processes. The joints fabricated by using low hydrogen ferritic steel consumables showed superior transverse tensile properties, whereas joints fabricated by using austenitic stainless steel consumables exhibited better impact toughness, irrespective of the welding process used. The SMAW joints exhibited superior mechanical and impact properties, irrespective of the consumables used, than their FCAW counterparts.

Optimization of piezoelectric MEMS process on Sr and La co-doped PZT thin films

Doped lead-zirconate-titanate(PZT)thin films are preferred for the development of micro-electro-mechanical systems(MEMS)-based acoustic sensors because of their inherent higher dielectric and piezoelectric coefficients.Patterning process is used to develop such MEMS devices which is highly complex even for undoped PZT thin films;therefore,the problem is further cumbersome for doped PZT thin films due to the presence of added dopant elements and their associated chemistry.This paper presents patterning of strontium(Sr)and lanthanum(La)co-doped PZT thin film(PSLZT)deposited on platinized silicon substrate using wet and dry etching processes for fabricating a diaphragm structure with thickness of 15-25μm and diameter of 1.4-2 mm,suitable for acoustic sensing applications.The effects of various etching conditions have been studied and the results are reported.It is found that the dry etching is the most suited process for realizing the piezoelectric MEMS structure due to its higher etching resolution.An appreciable etching rate of 260-270 nm/min with smooth vertical sidewalls is achieved.The silicon diaphragm with patterned PSLZT thin film is found to retain more than 80%of its dielectric and piezoelectric coefficients and has a resonance of 1.43 MHz.

Evaluation of Zero and Sub-zero Temperature Tensile and Impact Properties of Quenched and Tempered Steel Weldments

Combat vehicles using armour grade quenched and tempered （Q＆T） steel are needed to be operated under different climatic conditions. However, the properties meeting the room temperature test conditions may not neces-sarily be required to meet the low temperature operating conditions. The influences of shielded metal arc welding （SMAW） process, flux cored arc welding （FCAW） processes and test temperatures below room temperature up to 60℃ on tensile and impact toughness properties of armour grade Q＆T steel welds were reported. The tensile and impact properties of the joints showed incremental trend with respect to the decrement in test temperature up to -40℃ irrespective of the welding processes used. The increment in tensile and impact properties of SMAW and FCAW joints subjected to the low temperature environment is due to plastic strain-induced phase transformation of retained austenite into martensite phase. Among the two processes, SMAW process welded joint showed better tensile and impact properties than its FCAW counterpart joints.