Selective laser melting of Al and AlSi10Mg: parameter study and creep experiments

Selective laser melted (SLM) aluminum alloys are widely used for many technical applications. However, the application is limited to low temperatures due to their relatively poor creep resistance. The creep resistance and strength could be enhanced by oxide dispersion-strengthening. A hypothesis is that oxygen intake during selective laser melting can lead to formation of fine aluminum oxides and thus strengthen the SLMed part. To elucidate this in more detail, selective laser melted AlSi10Mg was tested in creep experiments at temperatures of 300 °C. Although, in other studies at lower temperatures, a relatively large stress exponent for creep was found, the high temperatures in this work led to a creep exponent of just 7 to 8, indicating no significant dispersion strengthening. Furthermore, for future research, it was necessary to investigate the feasibility of SLM with pure aluminum. For this purpose, a parameter study was carried out and an optimum parameter set for pure aluminum was found. Dense samples with a porosity below 0.2% were produced. Selective laser melting was carried out with a varying oxygen content in the inert-gas atmosphere to elucidate the hypothetic strengthening effects by oxygen intake. However, even at 800 ppm oxygen in the atmosphere, no effect on hardness and microstructure could be observed.

Influence of High Pressure Sliding and Rotary Swaging on Creep Behavior of P92 Steel at 500 °C

High-pressure sliding (HPS) and rotary swaging (RS) at room temperature were used to form severely deformed microstructures in martensitic creep-resistant P92 steel. The deformed microstructures contained markedly different ratios of low- and high-angle grain boundaries (LAGBs/HAGBs). The application of the RS method, with an imposed equivalent strain of 1.4, led to the formation of a heterogeneous microstructure with a high number of LAGBs, while the HPS method, with an imposed equivalent strain of 7.8, led to the formation of a relatively homogeneous ultrafine-grained microstructure with a significant predominance of HAGBs. Microstructure analyses after creep testing showed that the microstructure of RS- and HPS-processed P92 steel is quite stable, but a slight coarsening of subgrains and grains during creep testing can be observed. Constant load tensile creep tests at 500 °C and initial stresses ranging from 300 to 900 MPa revealed that the specimens processed by HPS exhibited higher creep strength (slower minimum creep rate) and ductility compared to the coarse-grained and RS-processed P92 steel. However, the HPS-processed P92 steel also exhibited lower values of stress exponent n than the other investigated states of P92 steel. For this reason, the differences in minimum creep rates determined for different states decrease with decreasing values of applied stress, and at applied stresses lower than 500 MPa, the creep resistance of the RS-processed state is higher than the creep resistance of the HPS-processed state.

SMITHS Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo-Si

Smiths Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-2Mo-Si is a near-alpha titanium alloy that was developed for use at elevated temperatures. It exhibits high strength and toughness, excellent creep resistance, and high temperature stability at temperatures up 550 °C (1020 °F). This datasheet provides information on composition, physical properties, hardness, elasticity, and tensile properties. It also includes information on corrosion resistance as well as casting, heat treating, and joining. Filing Code: Ti-185. Producer or source: Smiths Metal Centres Limited.

Furan Functionalized Polyesters and Polyurethanes for Thermally Reversible Reactive Hotmelt Adhesives

New reactive hotmelt (RHM) adhesives based on thermally reversible Diels-Alder networks comprising multifunctional furan and maleimide prepolymers are described. The prepolymer mixture is easy to apply in the bulk from the melt and after application to the substrates, the adhesive undergoes polymerization at room temperature resulting in crosslinked bonds. Due to their thermoplastic nature and low melt viscosity at hot melt application temperatures, the adhesives provide processing properties similar to moisture cured polyurethanes (PUR). The technology is isocyanate-free and does not require moisture to initiate the crosslinking. Bonding and tensile properties of the RHM adhesive can be readily tuned by prepolymer design and provide cure rates similar to PUR adhesives. The Diels-Alder adhesives provide versatile adhesion to a variety of substrates and good creep resistance up to the retro temperature. The adhesives show good thermal stability during application and can be recycled multiple times by simple heating/cooling of the bonds providing similar performance. Several furan and maleimide prepolymers were scaled up to multi-Kg quantities to demonstrate the potential for industrial scalability. The results demonstrate that furan-maleimide reversible chemistry can be used for RHM application as a more sustainable alternative to conventional moisture curing PURs which tend to contain harmful residual isocyanate monomers.

Optimal design of a commercial rubber isolator based on creep and creep-resistance analyses

Creep is a common important physical phenomenon in rubber material, which induces the instability of geometrical dimension and deteriorates the mechanical performances. The present work develops an optimal design approach of a commercial rubber isolator based on creep analysis. First and foremost, a nonlinear creep constitutive model of rubber material is established, which can capture the hyper-elastic and time-dependent creep behaviors. Complete mechanical and creep tests of rubber materials are conducted, and material parameters are identified according to the experimental data. Then, the parametric finite element model of a rubber isolator is established, with which the time-dependent creep analysis based on the proposed creep constitutive model is conducted. The accuracy of the numerical creep analysis is validated at material level and structural component level. For engineering application, a sensitivity analysis and optimization design for creep-resistance of the rubber isolator is developed by combing finite element simulation and optimization method. The results show that creep-resistance characteristics of the optimal rubber isolator is largely improved, which provides a long-term stable behavior in vibration attenuation. The proposed method may provide an efficient tool for predicting the creep performance and optimal analysis of other commercial rubber-base products.

Enhanced Elevated-Temperature Strength and Creep Resistance of Dispersion-Strengthened Al-Mg-Si-Mn AA6082 Alloys through Modified Processing Route

In the present work, we investigated the possibility of introducing fine and densely distributed α-Al(MnFe)Si dispersoids into the microstructure of extruded Al-Mg-Si-Mn AA6082 alloys containing 0.5 and 1 wt % Mn through tailoring the processing route as well as their effects on room- and elevated-temperature strength and creep resistance. The results show that the fine dispersoids formed during low-temperature homogenization experienced less coarsening when subsequently extruded at 350 °C than when subjected to a more typical high-temperature extrusion at 500 °C. After aging, a significant strengthening effect was produced by β″ precipitates in all conditions studied. Fine dispersoids offered complimentary strengthening, further enhancing the room-temperature compressive yield strength by up to 72–77 MPa (≈28%) relative to the alloy with coarse dispersoids. During thermal exposure at 300 °C for 100 h, β″ precipitates transformed into undesirable β-Mg2Si, while thermally stable dispersoids provided the predominant elevated-temperature strengthening effect. Compared to the base case with coarse dispersoids, fine and densely distributed dispersoids with the new processing route more than doubled the yield strength at 300 °C. In addition, finer dispersoids obtained by extrusion at 350 °C improved the yield strength at 300 °C by 17% compared to that at 500 °C. The creep resistance at 300 °C was greatly improved by an order of magnitude from the coarse dispersoid condition to one containing fine and densely distributed dispersoids, highlighting the high efficacy of the new processing route in enhancing the elevated-temperature properties of extruded Al-Mg-Si-Mn alloys.