Microstructure and Mechanical properties of transition zone in laser additive manufacturing of TC4/AlSi12 bimetal structure

Ti/Al bimetallic structure (BS) has a good development prospect and broader application potential in aerospace engineering. Considering the limitation that dissimilar welding is only applicable to the thin plate, it is necessary to explore a new manufacturing process for Ti/Al BS. In this study, a TC4/AlSi12 BS was prepared by laser additive manufacturing (LAM). TC4 zone, AlSi12 zone and transition zone were formed in the LAM process. Due to the sufficient diffusion reaction, the transition zone with a width of about 0.8mm was obtained. At the same time, a few micro-cracks were found in the transition zone. The microstructure and phase composition of the transition zone had been emphatically studied. Research results showed that the presence of Si element made the phase composition of the transition zone more complicated. The structure evolution from TC4 to AlSi12 was: α-Ti → Ti3Al → TiAl+(TiAl+Si) → Ti5Si3 → TiAl3+(α-Al+Si) → α-Al+ Si +TiAl3 +(α-Al+Si) → α-Al+Si+(α-Al+Si). The hardness distribution of BS was uneven, with the highest value reaching 524HV. The tensile strength of the TC4/AlSi12 BS was about 110Mpa, and the fracture location was located in the transition zone.

Families’ engagement in making activities related to aerospace engineering: designing for parents as learning partners in pop-up makerspaces

Purpose The researchers conducted a collective case study to investigate how families engaged in making activities related to aerospace engineering in six pop-up makerspace programs held in libraries and one museum. The purpose of this paper is to support families’ engagement in design tasks and engineering thinking, three types of discussion prompts were used during each workshop. The orienting design conjecture was that discussion prompts would allow parents to lead productive conversations to support engineering-making activities. Design/methodology/approach Within a collective case study approach, 20 consented families (22 adults, 25 children) engaged in making practices related to making a lunar rover with a scientific instrument panel. Data included cases of families’ talk and actions, as documented through video (22 h) and photographs of their engineering designs. An interpretivist, qualitative video-based analysis was conducted by creating individual narrative accounts of each family (including transcript excerpts and images). Findings Parents used the question prompts in ways that were integral to supporting youths’ participation in the engineering activities. Children often did not answer the astronomer’s questions directly; instead, the parents revoiced the prompts before the children’s engagement. Family prompts supported reflecting upon prior experiences, defining the design problem and maintaining the activity flow. Originality/value Designing discussion prompts, within a broader project-based learning pedagogy, supports family engagement in engineering design practices in out-of-school pop-up makerspace settings. The work suggests that parents play a crucial role in engineering workshops for youths aged 5 to 10 years old by revoicing prompts to keep families’ design work and sensemaking talk (connecting prior and new ideas) flowing throughout a makerspace workshop.

Helping aerospace engineering students develop their intercultural communicative competence

This paper presents a six-week telecollaborative project carried out between B2 (Common European Framework of Reference for languages – CEFR) level learners of English from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), Spain, and B1 (CEFR) level students of Spanish as a foreign language from the University of Bath (UK). The aim of the project was to help Spanish-speaking students develop their Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC). Students carried out asynchronous discussions focusing on two cultural topics in groups of four through the social network MeWe and participated in synchronous Zoom sessions in pairs. To conclude the project, students completed a collaborative task with their overseas partners. Qualitative data was gathered through the analysis of the transcripts of the Zoom sessions, the students’ posts on MeWe, as well as a final project questionnaire. Results revealed that the students who engaged the most in the synchronous sessions and felt curiosity about their partners’ culture were also the same ones who contributed the most to the cultural discussions on MeWe. At the end of the course all participants felt they had learnt something about their partners’ culture.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)-reinforced ceramic nanocomposites for aerospace applications: a review

Advances in the nanotechnology have been actively applied to the field of aerospace engineering where there is a constant necessity of high durable material with low density and better thermo-mechanical properties. Over the past decade, carbon nanotubes-based composites are widely utilised owing to its fascinating properties resulting in series of multidisciplinary industrial applications. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are rolled up sheets of carbon in nanoscale which offers excellent thermal and mechanical properties at lower density which makes them suitable reinforcement for composites in aerospace applications. Owing to its high Young’s modulus and chemically inert behaviour, CNTs are forefront of material research with applications varying from water purification to aerospace applications where applicational sector remains a mystery. Although there has been numerous research on the CNTs-based materials, there are only limited studies focusing on its utilisation for the field of aerospace engineering. As a result, in this review, we intend to cover the processing and synthesis techniques, thermal and mechanical properties as well as few industrial applications of CNTs-reinforced ceramic composites. Further, any potential development in additive manufacturing-based technique for fabricating CNT/ceramics and its applications in aerospace industries have been highlighted.