Micro-scale Mechanics of the Surface-Nanocrystalline Al-Alloy Material

Based on the microscopic observations and measurements, the mechanical behavior of the surface-nanocrystallized Al-alloy material at microscale is investigated experimentally and theoretically. In the experimental research, the compressive stress-strain curves and the hardness depth curves are measured. In the theoretical simulation, based on the material microstructure characteristics and the experimental features of the compression and indentation, the microstructure cell models are developed and the strain gradient plasticity theory is adopted. The material compressive stress-strain curves and the hardness depth curves-are predicted and simulated. Through comparison of the experimental results with the simulation results, the material and model parameters are determined.

Characterising Of Internal Stresses In Duplex Coating By Fem

The internal stresses in a duplex coating involving a prequenched layer are believed to change if it is exposed to thermal loading. To characterise the internal stresses in such a duplex coating, a gradient model of finite element method is set up. The initial stress within the substrate developed in as quenching and the internal stresses due to the tempering of the prequenched layer ( TPQL) in such a duplex coating are calculated. The synthetical internal stresses in coating can be estimated by superposing uniform initial stresses developed during plating. The results indicate that the residual tensile stresses due to fabrication in coating will be decreased greatly, or even synthetical compressive internal stresses may arise in the coating.

On The Cyclic Bending Behaviour Of A Hard Coating On A Ductile Substrate With Periodic Surface Hardened Regions

A cyclic bending experiment is designed to investigate the interface fracture behaviour of a hard chromium coating on a ductile substrate with periodic surface hardened regions. The unique deflection pattern of the vertical cracks after they run through the coating and impinge at the interface is revealed experimentally. A simple double-layer elastic beam model is adopted to investigate the interfacial shear stresses analytically. A FE model is employed to compute the stresses of the tri-phase structure under a single round of bending, and to investigate the effect of the loading conditions on the deflection pattern of the vertical cracks at the interface. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Measurement Of Fracture Toughness And Interfacial Shear Strength Of Hard And Brittle Cr Coating On Ductile Steel Substrate

The fracture toughness and interfacial adhesion properties of a coating on its substrate are considered to be crucial intrinsic parameters determining performance and reliability of coating-substrate system. In this work, the fracture toughness and interfacial shear strength of a hard and brittle Cr coating on a normal medium carbon steel substrate were investigated by means of a tensile test. The normal medium carbon steel substrate electroplated with a hard and brittle Cr coating was quasi-statically stretched to induce an array of parallel cracks in the coating. An optical microscope was used to observe the cracking of the coating and the interfacial decohesion between the coating and the substrate during the loading. It was found that the cracking of the coating initiated at critical strain, and then the number of the cracks of the coating per unit axial distance increased with the increase in the tensile strain. At another critical strain, the number of the cracks of the coating became saturated, i.e. the number of cracks per unit axial distance became a constant after this critical strain. Based on the experiment result, the fracture toughness of the brittle coating can be determined using a mechanical model. Interestingly, even when the whole specimen fractured completely under an extreme strain of the substrate, the interfacial decohesion or buckling of the coating on its substrate was completely absent. The test result is different from that appeared in the literature though the identical test method and the brittle coating/ductile metal substrate system are taken. It was found that this difference can be attributed to an important mechanism that the Cr coating on the steel substrate has a good adhesion, and the ultimate interfacial shear strength between the Cr coating and the steel substrate has exceeded the maximum shear flow strength level of the steel substrate. This result also indicates that the maximum shear flow strength level of the ductile steel substrate can be only taken as a lower bound estimate on the ultimate shear strength of the interface. This estimation of the ultimate interfacial shear strength is consistent with the theoretical analysis and prediction presented in the literature.

Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy Of Peo Coating On Aluminum Alloy In Nacl Solution

Various Plasma Electrolytic Oxidation (PEO) ceramic coatings were prepared on LY12 aluminum alloy by adjusting the concentration of sodium silicate solution. Optical microscope (OM), XRD and EIS were used to study their morphology, composition and anti corrosion behavior in NaCl solution. Increasing concentration of sodium silicate leads to the increase of the total coating thickness while too high and too low concentration lead to the decrease of inner dense layer. The main composition of PEO coatings prepared in 20, 40 and above 60g/L concentration solution are correspondingly alumina, alumina with mullite, and amorphous phase. The corrosion resistance is determined by the inner dense layer. Increasing the thickness of inner dense layer can improve the anti-corrosion performance. PEO coating's corrosion resistance in acidic, alkaline and neutral NaCl solution is proved and the corrosion mechanism involved is also discussed.

On The Interaction Of Channeling/Segmentation Cracks Of Coating: Study On The Critical Spacing

Channeling/segmentation cracks may arise in the coating subjected to in-plane tensile stress. The interaction between these multiple cracks, say the effect of the spacing between two adjacent cracks oil the behaviors of channels themselves and the interface around the interface corners, attracts wide interest. However, if the spacing is greater than a specific magniture,, namely the Critical Spacing (CS), there should be no interaction between such channeling/segmentation cracks. In this study, file mechanism of the effect of the crack spacing oil the interfacial stress around the interface corner will be Interpreted firstly. Then the existence of the CS will be verified and the relationship between the CS and the so-called stress transfer length Ill coating will be established for plane strain condition. Finally, the dependence of the stress transfer length, simultaneously of the CS, on the sensitive parameters will be investigated with finite element method and expressed with a simple empirical formula. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of Surface Condition of Electrode on the Surface Melting of Material by Laser-Guided Micro-Arc Discharge

This paper studies the surface melting in the atmosphere by YAG laser-guided micro-arc discharge. In three kinds of surface conditions (free, oiled, and polyethylene covered), we try to control the diameter and the power density of discharge pit. It is found that the power density of 3 x 10(6) W/cm(2) of discharge pit on the oiled surface is moderate to form the melted layer thicker than that of the others, adapting to strengthen the surface of material, and the power density of 1.07 x 10(7) W/cm(2) of discharge pit on the polyethylene-covered surface is highest to form the deepest discharge pit among them, adapting to remove the material.

On the tensile behaviors of a hard chromium coating plated on a steel substrate with periodic subsurface inclusions

The tensile behaviors of a hard chromium coating plated on a steel substrate with periodic laser pre-quenched regions have been investigated by experimental and theoretic analysis. In the experiment, three specimens are adopted to study the differences between homogeneous and periodic inhomogeneous substrates as well as between periodic inhomogeneous substrate of relatively softer and stiffer materials. The unique characteristics have been observed in the specimen of periodic inhomogeneous substrate under quasi-static tension loading. With the periodic laser pre-quenched regions being treated as periodic subsurface inclusions (PSI), the unique stress/strain pattern of the specimen is obtained by analytical modeling and FEM analysis, and the mechanisms accounting for the experimental results is preliminarily illustrated.

Crack propagation in the power-law nonlinear viscoelastic material

An analysis on crack creep propagation problem of power-law nonlinear viscoelastic materials is presented. The creep incompressilility assumption is used. To simulate fracture behavior of craze region, it is assumed that in the fracture process zone near the crack tip, the cohesive stress sigma(f) acts upon the crack surfaces and resists crack opening. Through a perturbation method, i. e., by superposing the Mode-I applied force onto a referential uniform stress state, which has a trivial solution and gives no effect on the solution of the original problem, the nonlinear viscoelastic problem is reduced to linear problem. For weak nonlinear materials, for which the power-law index n similar or equal to 1, the expressions of stress and crack surface displacement are derived. Then, the fracture process zone local energy criterion is proposed and based on which the formulas of cracking incubation time t

Synthesis of thick Ni66Cr5Mo4Zr6P15B4 amorphous alloy coating and large glass-forming ability by laser cladding

A thick amorphous alloy (a-alloy) coating was synthesized by laser cladding. The a-alloy had a multicomponent chemistry, i.e., Ni66Cr5MO4Zr6P15B4 (in atom%). The maximum thickness of the coating is 0.8 mm. The a-alloy coating had large glass-forming ability (GFA) with wide supercooled liquid region (SLR) ranging from 52 to 61 K through the coating. The reason for high GFA in the a-alloy coating was discussed. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.

Torsional impact response of a penny-shaped interface crack in bonded materials with a graded material interlayer

In this paper, the dynamic response of a penny-shaped interface crack in bonded dissimilar homogeneous half-spaces is studied. It is assumed that the two materials are bonded together with such a inhomogeneous interlayer that makes the elastic modulus in the direction perpendicular to the crack surface is continuous throughout the space. The crack surfaces art assumed to be subjected to torsional impact loading. Laplace and Hankel integral transforms are applied combining with a dislocation density,function to reduce the mixed boundary value problem into a singular integral equation with a generalized Cauchy kernel in Laplace domain. By solving the singular integral equation numerically, and using a numerical Laplace inversion technique, the dynamic stress intensity factors art obtained. The influences of material properties and interlayer thickness on the dynamic stress intensity factor are investigated.

Finite element analysis on stresses field of normalized layer thickness within ceramic coating on aluminized steel

Multilayer ceramic coatings were fabricated on steel substrate using a combined technique of hot dipping aluminum(HDA) and plasma electrolytic oxidation(PEO). A triangle of normalized layer thickness was created for describing thickness ratios of HDA/PEO coatings. Then, the effect of thickness ratio on stresses field of HDA/PEO coatings subjected to uniform normal contact load was investigated by finite element method. Results show that the surface tensile stress is mainly affected by the thickness ratio of Al layer when the total thickness of coating is unchanged. With the increase of A] layer thickness, the surface tensile stress rises quickly. When Al2O3 layer thickness increases, surface tensile stress is diminished. 'Meanwhile, the maximum shear stress moves rapidly towards internal part of HDA/PEO coatings. Shear stress at the Al2O3/Al interface is minimal when Al2O3 layer and Al layer have the same thickness.

Effect of a laser pre-quenched steel substrate surface on the crack driving force in a coating-steel substrate system

A mechanical model of a coating/laser pre-quenched steel substrate specimen with a crack oriented perpendicular to the interface between the coating and the hardened layer is developed to quantify the effects of the residual stress and hardness gradient on the crack driving force in terms of the J-integral. It is assumed that the crack tip is in the middle of the hardened layer of the pre-quenched steel substrate. Using a composite double cantilever beam model, analytical solutions can be derived, and these can be used to quantify the effects of the residual stress and the hardness gradient resulting from the pre-quenched steel substrate surface on the crack driving force. A numerical example is presented to investigate how the residual compressive stress, the coefficient linking microhardness and yield strength and the Young's modulus ratio of the hardened layer to the coating influence the crack driving force for a given crack length. (C) 2007 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

On crack path stability in a layered material

Crack paths in an elastic layer on top of a substrate are considered. Crack growth is initiated from an edge crack in the layer. The plane of the initially straight crack forms an angle to the free surface. The load consists of a pair of forces applied at the crack mouth and parallel to the interface. Crack paths are calculated using a boundary element method. Crack growth is assumed to proceed along a path for which the mode II stress intensity factor vanishes. The inclination and the length of the initial crack are varied. The effect of two different substrates on the crack path evolution is demonstrated. A crack path initially leading perpendicularly to the interface is shown to be directionally unstable for a rigid substrate. Irrespective of its initial angle, the crack does not reach the interface, but reaches the free surface if the layer is infinitely long. At finite layer length the crack reaches the upper free surface if the initial crack inclination to the surface is small enough. For an inextendable flexible substrate, on the other hand, the crack reaches the interface if its initial inclination is large enough. For the flexible substrate an unstable path parallel with the sides of an infinitely long layer is identified. The results are compared with experimental results and discussed in view of characterisation of directionally unstable crack paths. The energy release rate for an inclined edge crack is determined analytically.

Numerical analyses for the material bifurcation in plane sheet under tension

The various patterns (shear banding, surface wrinkling and necking) of material bifurcation in plane sheet under tension are investigated in this paper by means of a numerical method. It is found that numerical analysis can provide better ground for searching for the lowest critical loads. The inhomogeneity caused by void damage and the nonuniformity in the stress distribution across sheet thickness are proved to have detrimental effects on the material bifurcation. Nevertheless, material stability can be promoted by any means of depressing void damage or alleviating stress, even locally across the thickness. Besides, the peculiar behaviour of material bifurcation under slight biaxiality state is demonstrated. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd