Quasi-static tensile behavior of large-diameter thin-walled Ti–6Al–4V tubes at elevated temperature

As promising light-weight and high-performance structure components, large-diameter thin-walled(LDTW) Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy(TC4) bent tubes are needed most urgently in many industries such as aviation and aerospace. Warm bending may be a feasible way for manufacturing these components. Understanding their temperature and strain rate dependent tensile behavior is the foundation for formability improvement and warm bending design. In this paper, uniaxial tensile tests were conducted at elevated temperatures ranging from 298 K to 873 K at tensile velocities of 2, 10, 15 mm/min. The main results show that the tensile behavior of LDTW TC4 tubes is different from that of TC4 sheets. The typical elongation of TC4 tubes at room temperature is 10%lower than that of TC4 sheets. The flow stress of TC4 tubes decreases greatly by about 50% with the temperature rising to 873 K. At temperatures of 573–673 K, the hardening exponent is at its highest value, which means the deformation mechanism changes from twining to more dislocation movement by slipping. The fracture elongation of TC4 tubes fluctuates with increasing temperature,which is associated with changes in the deformation mechanism and with the blue brittleness. The fractography of TC4 tubes at various temperatures, especially at 673 K, shows that second phases and impurities significantly influence fracture elongation. By considering the characteristics of the tensile behavior and by properly choosing the die material, the warm bending for TC4 tubes can be achieved at temperatures of 723–823 K.     

Dynamic tensile behavior of AZ31B magnesium alloy at ultra-high strain rates

The samples having {0001} parallel to extruding direction(ED) present a typical true stress–true strain curve with concave-down shape under tension at low strain rate. Ultra-rapid tensile tests were conducted at room temperature on a textured AZ31 B magnesium alloy. The dynamic tensile behavior was investigated. The results show that at ultra-high strain rates of 1.93 · 102 s 1and 1.70 · 103 s 1, the alloy behaves with a linear stress–strain response in most strain range and exhibits a brittle fracture. In this case, {10-12} 10-11 extension twinning is basic deformation mode. The brittleness is due to the macroscopic viscosity at ultra-high strain rate, for which the external critical shear stress rapidly gets high to result in a cleavage fracture before large amounts of dislocations are activated. Because {10-12} tension twinning, {10-11} compressive twinning,basal a slip, prismatic a slip and pyramidal c + a slip have different critical shear stresses(CRSS), their contributions to the degree of deformation are very differential. In addition,Schmid factor plays an important role in the activity of various deformation modes and it is the key factor for the samples with different strain rates exhibit various mechanical behavior under dynamic tensile loading.     

THE INFLUENCE OF DEFORMATIONCONDITIONS ON THE FLOW STRESS ANDMICROSTRUCTURE OF ALLOY GH169

In this paper the dependence of flow stress in alloy GH169 on the deformation temperature, strain and strain rate based on the data of hot working simulation test is defined for the first time. Experimental results indicate that for the alloy GH169 the values of flow stress at high temperatures are much higher than those of alloy steel and the work hardening is remarkable. The deformation conditions have significant influence on the flow stress and microstructure of alloy GH169. It is found that under certain conditions fine grain structure can be obtained even though the deformation processes are carried out at high temperatures. This finding is beneficial to the raise of productivity of forming processes. Increasing the cooling rate after deformation is also favourable to the development of fine grain structure. To sum up, the microstructure of alloy GH169 can be controlled effectively through thermomechanical treatment.     

High Temperature Flow Stress Prediction of Nano-Al_2O_3/Cu Composite Using an Artificial Neural Network

Alumina dispersion strengthened copper composite (nano-Al2O3/Cu composite) was recently emerged as a kind of potentially vi-able and attractive engineering material for applications requiring high strength, high thermal and electrical conductivities and resistance to softening at elevated temperatures. The nano-Al2O3/Cu composite was produced by internal oxidation. The microstructures of the composite were analyzed by the TEM and its hot deformation behavior was investigated by means of continuous compression tests per-formed on a Gleeble 1500 thermo-simulator. Making use of the modified algorithm–Levenberg-Marquardt (L-M) algorithm BP neural network, a model for predicting the flow stresses during hot deformation was set up on the base of the experimental data. Results show that the microstructures of the composite are characterized by uniform distribution of nano-Al2O3 particles in Cu-matrix. The sliding of dislocations is the main deformation mechanism. The dynamic recovery is the main softening mode with the flow stress decreasing gen-tly from 500 ℃ to 850 ℃. The recrystallization of Cu-matrix can be retarded late into as high as 850 ℃, when it happens only partially. The well-trained BP neural network model can accurately describe the influence of the temperature, strain rate, and true strain on the flow stresses, therefore, it can precisely predict the flow stresses of the composite under given deforming conditions and provide a new way to optimize hot deforming process parameters.     

Compression Creep Behavior of High Volume Fraction of SiC Particles Reinforced Al Composite Fabricated by Pressureless Infiltration

The compression creep deformation of the high volume fraction of SiC particles reinforced Al-Mg-Si composite fabricated by pressure-less infiltration was investigated. The experimental results show that the creep stress exponents are very high at temperatures of 673 K, 723 K and 773 K, and if taking the threshold stress into account, the true stress exponent of minimum creep strain rate is still approximately 5, although the volume fraction of reinforcements is very high. The creep strain rate in the high volume fraction rein- forced aluminum alloy matrix composites is controlled by matrix lattice diffusion. It is found that the creep-strengthening effect of high volume fraction of silicon carbide particles is significant, although the particles do not form effective obstacles to dislocation motion.     

Microstructure evolution of a hypereutectic Nb–Ti–Si–Cr–Al–Hf alloy processed by directional solidification

In this work, the Nb–14Si–24Ti–10Cr–2Al–2Hf–0.1Y alloy(at.%) was processed by the liquid–metal-cooled directional solidification(DS) at 1750 C with withdrawal rates of 1.2, 6,18 mm/min and post heat treatment(HT) at 1450 C for 10 h. The microstructures of the directionally solidified and heat treated samples were investigated. The results show that the microstructure of directionally solidified alloy mainly consists of petaloid Nbss+ Nb5Si3eutectics and Ti-rich Nbss+ Nb5Si3+ Cr2Nb eutectics. With the increase of withdrawal rate, the primary Nb5Si3is eliminated, Nbss+ Nb5Si3eutectic cells turn round and connected with the microstructure refinement and Nbss+ Nb5Si3+ Cr2Nb eutectics turn to a river-like morphology. After heat treatment,Nbss+ Nb5Si3+ Cr2Nb eutectics disappeared and petaloid Nbss+ Nb5Si3eutectics turn to a specific fiber-mesh structure gradually, which is promoted by higher withdrawal rates. Furthermore,both the volume fraction of Cr2Nb and the content of Cr in Nbssof Nbss+ Nb5Si3eutectics change regularly with the increase of withdrawal rate and heat treatment at 1450 C for 10 h.     

Processing map of as-cast 7075 aluminum alloy for hot working

The true stress–strain curves of as-cast 7075 aluminum alloy have been obtained by isothermal compression tests at temperatures of 300–500 °C and strain rates of 0.01–10 s 1. The plastic flow instability map is established based on Gegel B and Murthy instability criteria because the deformed compression samples suggest that the combination of the above two instability criteria has more comprehensive crack prediction ability. And the processing map based on Dynamic Material Model(DMM) of as-cast 7075 aluminum alloy has been developed through a superposition of the established instability map and power dissipation map. In terms of microstructure of the deformed samples and whether plastic flow is stable or not, the processing map can be divided into five areas: stable area with as-cast grain, stable area with homogeneous grain resulting from dynamic recovery, instability area with as-cast grain, instability area with the second phase and instability area with mixed grains. In consideration of microstructure characteristics in the above five areas of the processing map, the stable area with homogeneous grain resulting from dynamic recovery, namely the temperatures at 425–465 °C and the strain rates at 0.01–1 s 1, is suggested to be suitable processing window for the as-cast 7075 aluminum alloy.     

High Temperature Flow Stress Prediction of Nano-Al2O3/Cu Composite Using an Artificial Neural Network

Alumina dispersion strengthened copper composite （nano-Al2O3/Cu composite） was recently emerged as a kind of potentially viable and attractive engineering material for applications requiring high strength, high thermal and electrical conductivities and resistance to softening at elevated temperatures. The nano-Al2O3/Cu composite was produced by internal oxidation. The microstructures of the composite were analyzed by the TEM and its hot deformation behavior was investigated by means of continuous compression tests performed on a Gleeble 1500 thermo-simulator. Making use of the modified algorithm-Levenberg-Marquardt （L-M） algorithm BP neural network, a model for predicting the flow stresses during hot deformation was set up on the base of the experimental data. Results show that the microstructures of the composite are characterized by uniform distribution of nano-Al2O3 particles in Cu-matrix. The sliding of dislocations is the main deformation mechanism. The dynamic recovery is the main softening mode with the flow stress decreasing gently from 500℃ to 850 ~C. The recrystallization of Cu-matrix can be retarded late into as high as 850 ℃, when it happens only partially. The well-trained BP neural network model can accurately describe the influence of the temperature, strain rate, and true strain on the flow stresses, therefore, it can precisely predict the flow stresses of the composite under given deforming conditions and provide a new way to optimize hot deforming process parameters.     

Investigation of the steam-cooled blade in a steam turbine cascade

With the increasing demand for electricity,an efficiency improvement and thereby reduced CO2 emissions of the coal-fired plants are expected in order to reach the goals set in the Kyoto protocol.It can be achieved by a rise of the process parameters.Currently,live steam pressures and temperatures up to 300 bars and 923 K are planned as the next step.Closed circuit steam cooling of blades and vanes in modern steam turbines is a promising technology in order to establish elevated live steam temperatures in future steam turbine cycles.In this paper,a steam-cooled test vane in a cascade with external hot steam flow is analyzed numerically with the in-house code CHTflow.A parametric analysis aiming to improve the cooling effectiveness is carried out by varying the cooling mass flow ratio.The results from two investigated cases show that the steam cooling technique has a good application potential in the steam turbine.The internal part of the vane is cooled homogeneously in both cases.With the increased cooling mass flow rate,there is a significant improvement of cooling efficiency at the leading edge.The results show that the increased cooling mass flow ratio can enhance the cooling effectiveness at the leading edge.With respect to trailing edge,there is no observable improvement of cooling effectiveness with the increased cooling mass flow.This implies that due to the limited dimension at the trailing edge,the thermal stress cannot be decreased by increasing the cooling mass flow rate.Therefore,impingement-cooling configuration at the trailing edge might be a solution to overcome the critical thermal stress there.It is also observed that the performance of the cooling effective differs on pressure side and suction side.It implicates that the equilibrium of the cooling effectiveness on two sides are influenced by a coupled relationship between cooling mass flow ratio and hole geometry.In future work,optimizing the hole geometry and cooling steam supply conditions might be the solutions for an equivalent cooling effectiveness along whole profile.      

Deformation Behavior of Mg-8 wt%Li Alloy under High-speed Impact

Deformation behavior of the Mg-8 wt%Li alloy at high strain rate was studied by means of the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar （with strain rate of 10^3 s^-1）. It is found that shear localization proves to be the main damage mode for the alloy during dynamic loading. Strain and strain rate arc the two necessary parameters affecting the occurrence of deformation and shear bands. Deformation bands begin to form when the strain and strain rate reach 0.20 and 1 900 s^-1 respectively and will develop gradually with the strain rate increasing. Besides, deformation bands will transform into shear bands when the strain and strain rate reach above 0.25 and 3 500 s^-1 separately.     

Deformation Behavior of Mg-8 wt%Li Alloy under High-speed Impact

Deformation behavior of the Mg-8 wt%Li alloy at high strain rate was studied by means of the Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (with strain rate of 103 s-1). It is found that shear localization proves to be the main damage mode for the alloy during dynamic loading. Strain and strain rate are the two necessary parameters affecting the occurrence of deformation and shear bands. Deformation bands begin to form when the strain and strain rate reach 0.20 and 1 900 s-1 respectively and will develop gradually with the strain rate increasing. Be-sides, deformation bands will transform into shear bands when the strain and strain rate reach above 0.25 and 3 500 s-1 separately.     

Advanced multiple response surface method of sensitivity analysis for turbine blisk reliability with multi-physics coupling

To reasonably implement the reliability analysis and describe the significance of influencing parameters for the multi-failure modes of turbine blisk, advanced multiple response surface method(AMRSM) was proposed for multi-failure mode sensitivity analysis for reliability. The mathematical model of AMRSM was established and the basic principle of multi-failure mode sensitivity analysis for reliability with AMRSM was given. The important parameters of turbine blisk failures are obtained by the multi-failure mode sensitivity analysis of turbine blisk. Through the reliability sensitivity analyses of multiple failure modes(deformation, stress and strain) with the proposed method considering fluid–thermal–solid interaction, it is shown that the comprehensive reliability of turbine blisk is 0.9931 when the allowable deformation, stress and strain are3.7*10~(-3)m, 1.0023*10~9 Pa and 1.05*10~(-2)m/m, respectively; the main impact factors of turbine blisk failure are gas velocity, gas temperature and rotational speed. As demonstrated in the comparison of methods(Monte Carlo(MC) method, traditional response surface method(RSM), multiple response surface method(MRSM) and AMRSM), the proposed AMRSM improves computational efficiency with acceptable computational accuracy. The efforts of this study provide the AMRSM with high precision and efficiency for multi-failure mode reliability analysis, and offer a useful insight for the reliability optimization design of multi-failure mode structure.     

Study on ballistic penetration resistance of titanium alloy TC4, Part II: Numerical analysis

Enhancing containment capability and reducing weight are always great concerns in the design of casings. Ballistic tests can help to mitigate a catastrophic event after a blade out, yet taking time and costing money. A wise way is to hunt for a validated numerical simulation technology, through which the material dynamic behavior over the strain rate range in the ballistic tests should be represented and reasonable failure strain should be defined. The simulation results show that the validation of the numerical simulation technology based on the test data can accurately estimate the absorption energy, describe the physical process and failure mode during the penetration, as well as the failure mechanism. It is found that energy dissipation of projectiles is in manner of compression stage, energy conversion stage, and interactive scrap stage. An effect indicator is proposed, where the factors of critical velocity including impact orientation and mass of projectiles and thickness of casings are considered. The critical velocity presents a linear relation with the effect indicator, which implies the critical velocity obtained by the flat casing could underestimate the capability of the real casing.     

Experimental validation of a new morphing trailing edge system using Price – Païdoussis wind tunnel tests

This paper presents the design and manufacturing of a new morphing wing system carried out at the Laboratory of Applied Research in Active Controls, Avionics and AeroServoElasticity(LARCASE) at the ETS in Montréal. This first version of a morphing wing allows the deformation of its trailing edge, denote by Morphing Trailing Edge(MTE). In order to characterize the technical impact of this deformation, we compare its performance with that of a rigid aileron by testing in the LARCASE's price-Pa?doussis subsonic wind tunnel. The first set of results shows that it is possible to replace an aileron by a MTE on a wing, as an improvement was observed for the MTE aerodynamic performances with respect to the aileron aerodynamic performances.The improvement consisted in the fact that the drag coefficient was smaller, and the lift-to-drag ratio was higher for the same lift coefficient.     

Dependence of creep age formability on initial temper of an Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy

The initial temper of the material may directly affect the whole creep age forming(CAF)process. In terms of creep deformation and stress relaxation, using the constant-stress creep aging and constant-strain stress relaxation aging tests, the relationship between initial temper and CAF formability is investigated for an Al-Zn-Mg-Cu alloy at 165 °C for 18 h. Three tempers are selected as the initial tempers in CAF, viz., solution, retrogression and re-solution. The CAF formability of this alloy with initial temper of retrogression is the best, and the creep strain of the retrogression tempered specimen after creep aging of 18 h is about 1.21 and 1.34 times than that of the solution and the re-solution tempered specimens, respectively. The calculated stress exponents of this alloy with three initial tempers range from 7.3 to 9.5, indicating that the CAF of this alloy is mainly controlled by the dislocation creep. The various formability for three initial tempers are attributed to different inhibitions of the transgranular precipitates on the dislocation movement. For the retrogression temper, the initial fine and uniformly distributed precipitates are seriously coarsened after6 h of CAF, which minimally inhibit the dislocation movement. While, for the re-solution temper,the fine precipitates are re-precipitated in the matrix of the alloy, which observably hinder the dislocation movement and lead to the worst formability.     

High-order implicit discontinuous Galerkin schemes for unsteady compressible Navier–Stokes equations

Efficient solution techniques for high-order temporal and spatial discontinuous Galerkin(DG) discretizations of the unsteady Navier–Stokes equations are developed. A fourth-order implicit Runge–Kutta(IRK) scheme is applied for the time integration and a multigrid preconditioned GMRES solver is extended to solve the nonlinear system arising from each IRK stage. Several modifications to the implicit solver have been considered to achieve the efficiency enhancement and meantime to reduce the memory requirement. A variety of time-accurate viscous flow simulations are performed to assess the resulting high-order implicit DG methods. The designed order of accuracy for temporal discretization scheme is validate and the present implicit solver shows the superior performance by allowing quite large time step to be used in solving time-implicit systems. Numerical results are in good agreement with the published data and demonstrate the potential advantages of the high-order scheme in gaining both the high accuracy and the high efficiency.     

SCC investigation of low alloy ultra-high strength steel 30CrMnSiNi2A in 3.5wt%NaCl solution by slow strain rate technique

To evaluate stress corrosion cracking(SCC) mechanism of low alloy ultra-high strength steel 30CrMnSiNi2 A in environment containing NaCl, SCC behavior of the steel in 3.5wt% NaCl solution is investigated by slow strain rate technique(SSRT) with various strain rates and applied potentials, surface analysis technique, and electrochemical measurements. SCC susceptibility of the steel increases rapidly with strain rate decreasing from 1 · 10 5s 1to 5 · 10 7s 1, and becomes stable when strain rate is lower than 5 · 10 7s 1. SCC propagation of the steel in the solution at open circuit potential(OCP) needs sufficient hydrogen which is supplied at a certain strain rate.Fracture surface at OCP has similar characteristics with that at cathodic polarization 1000 mVSCE, which presents characteristic fractography of hydrogen induced cracking(HIC).All of these indicate that SCC behavior of the steel in the solution at OCP is mainly controlled by HIC rather than anodic dissolution(AD).     

Numerical analysis for the matching of the core driven compression system in a double bypass engine

The numerical analysis for the matching of the core driven compression system in a double bypass variable cycle engine was presented in this paper.The system consists of a one-stage-core driven fan stage(CDFS),an inner bypass duct and a five-stage high pressure compressor(HPC),providing two basic operating modes: the single bypass mode and the double bypass mode.Variable vanes are necessary to realize the mode switch of the system.The correct matching in the double bypass mode requires a proper combination of the mass flow,total pressure ratio and blade speed.The work capacity of the system decreases in the double bypass mode and the pressure ratio tends to decrease more for the CDFS and the front stages of the HPC.The overall system efficiency is higher in the double bypass mode.The radial distributions of aerodynamic parameters are similar in different modes.The notable redistribution of mass flow downstream the CDFS in the single bypass mode leads to strong radial flows and additional mixing losses.The absolute flow angles into the inner bypass increase for the inner span and decrease for the outer span when the system is switched from the single bypass mode to the double bypass mode.     

Damage characteristics and constitutive modeling of the 2D C/SiC composite: Part Ⅱ–Material model and numerical implementation

In this work, a macroscopic non-linear constitutive model accounting for damage, inelastic strain and unilateral behavior is proposed for the 2D plain-woven C/Si C composite. A set of scalar damage variables and a new thermodynamic potential expression are introduced in the framework of continuum damage mechanics. In the deduced constitutive equations, the material's progressive damage deactivation behavior during the compression loading is described by a continuous function, and different deactivation rates under uniaxial and biaxial compression loadings are also considered. In damage evolution laws, the coupling effect among the damage modes and impediment effect of compression stress on the development of shear damage in different plane stress states are taken into account. Besides, the general plasticity theory is applied to describing the evolution of inelastic strain in tension and/or shear stress state. The Tsai–Wu failure criterion is adopted for strength analysis. Additionally, the material model is implemented as a user-defined material subroutine(UMAT) and linked to the ABAQUS finite element software, and its performance is demonstrated through several numerical examples.     

Horn–Schunck optical flow applied to deformation measurement of a birdlike airfoil

Current deformation measurement techniques suffer from limited spatial resolution. In this work, a highly accurate and high-resolution Horn–Schunck optical flow method is developed and then applied to measuring the static deformation of a birdlike flexible airfoil at a series of angles of attack at Reynolds number 100,000 in a low speed, low noise wind tunnel. To allow relatively large displacements, a nonlinear Horn–Schunck model and a coarse-to-fine warping process are adopted. To preserve optical flow discontinuities, a nonquadratic penalization function, a multicue driven bilateral filtering and a principle component analysis of local image patterns are used.First, the accuracy and convergence of this Horn–Schunck technique are verified on a benchmark.Then, the maximum displacement that can be reliably calculated by this technique is studied on synthetic images. Both studies are compared with the performance of a Lucas–Kanade optical flow method. Finally, the Horn–Schunck technique is used to estimate the 3-D deformation of the birdlike airfoil through a stereoscopic camera setup. The results are compared with those computed by Lucas–Kanade optical flow, image correlation and numerical simulation.