NON-DESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION OF MECHANICAL DAMAGE OF ADHESIVES USING MAGNETO-ELECTRIC NANOPARTICLES

Adhesive bonding has been shown to successfully address some of the main problems with traditional fasteners, such as the reduction of the overall weight and a more uniformly distributed stress state. However, due to the unpredictability of failure of adhesive bonds, their use is not widely accepted in the aerospace industry. Unlike traditional fastening methods, it is difficult to inspect the health of an adhesive joint once it has been cured. For adhesive bonding to be widely accepted and implemented, there must be a better understanding of the fracture mechanism of the adhesive joints, as well as a way to monitor the health of the bonds nondestructively. Therefore, in-field structural health monitoring is an important tool to ensure optimal condition of the bond is present during its lifetime. This project focuses on the advancement of a non-invasive field instrument for evaluation of the health of the adhesive joints. The tool developed is based on a B-H looper system where coils are arranged into a noise-cancellation configuration to measure the magnetic susceptibility of the samples with a lock-in amplifier. The B-H looper system can evaluate the state of damage in an adhesive bond by detecting changes in surface charge density at the molecular level of an epoxy-based adhesive doped with magneto-electric nanoparticles (MENs). Epoxy-based adhesive samples were doped with MENs and then scanned using the B-H looper system. To evaluate the health of the adhesive joint, microindentation and tensile tests were performed on MENs-doped adhesive samples to understand the relationship between mechanical damage and magnetic signal. Correlations between magnetic signatures and mechanical damage were minimally observed, thus future studies will focus on refining the procedure and damaging methodology.

BOND QUALITY EVALUATION USING ADHESIVE DOPED WITH MAGNETO-ELECTRIC NANOPARTICLES

Adhesive bonding for composite structures offers multiple advantages over mechanical fasteners. Although the use of adhesive bonding has increased in the aerospace industry, it has still not replaced mechanical fasteners due to it being harder to inspect for damage after being manufactured/assembled, causing unreliability. Therefore, intensive quality control is needed while manufacturing to avoid weak bonds or any type of imperfection at the adhesive-adherend interface. To ensure the reliability of an adhesive bond, this project focuses on the advancement of a non-invasive field tool for adhesive quality evaluation. The tool developed is based on a B-H looper system, which can approximate the quality of an epoxy-based adhesive containing magneto-electric nanoparticles (MENs) by detecting changes in electric fields at the molecular level. Epoxy based adhesive samples containing 5 vol. % of MENs were manufactured and then scanned using the B-H looper system to correlate their magnetic signature as a function of curing time. It was determined that the magnetic signal converged between curing hours 10 and 12, indicating proper curing. Plain adhesive dogbone samples were used to determine the maximum tensile stress of the adhesive as a function of curing time, which also started converging at around the same curing hours until reaching ~41 MPa. Additionally, the evolution of the glass transition temperature of the adhesive was evaluated during the first curing hours. Convergence began at a curing time of 10 hours until reaching ~137 ⁰ C for fully cured samples. B-H looper magnetic signatures, tensile stresses testing, and glass transition temperatures were all correlated indicating a fully cured adhesive sample between 10 and 12 curing hours. These studies demonstrate the capabilities of the B-H looper system as a non-invasive inspection tool for adhesive quality.

Dynamic modelling and linear quadratic sliding mode control of a multivariable looper system in hot strip mills

This paper introduces a linear quadratic sliding mode control (LQ-SMC) scheme into a looper control system. First, according to a 1700 mm tandem hot mill, the state-space dynamic model of the looper system was established, and then, the optimal control law of the looper system was obtained based on the established model. Finally, the optimal sliding mode and optimal sliding mode control law of the LQ-SMC scheme were designed such that the sliding motion could satisfy the optimal value of the quadratic performance index. Simulation results show that the proposed control scheme has complete robustness to external disturbances that satisfies certain conditions, and the coupling between the looper angle dynamic and strip tension dynamic is also minimized.

Parametric Robust Control of the Multivariable 2 × 2 Looper System in Steel Hot Rolling: A Comparison between Multivariable QFT and H∞

Two robust mutlivariable controllers, H∞ and a decentralized quantitative feedback theory (QFT), are designed in the frequency domain for the 2 × 2 looper system in a steel hot rolling mill to keep stability in the presence of parametric uncertainties. The H∞ controller is designed by using the mixed sensitivity approach, while the multivariable decentralized QFT is designed by the extension of the sequential loop closing method presented elsewhere. Stability robustness conditions are verified in the frequency domain, while simulations in time domain are carried out to evaluate the controllers and compare their performance along with that of proportional + integral (PI) and single input single output (SISO) QFT controllers designed earlier. The QFT controller shows the best balance among the performance indicators analyzed here; however, at the expenses of using higher power in one of the control inputs.

Decoupling Control and Simulation of Looper MIMO System for Hot Strip Rolling Mill

An optimal multivatiable looper control system based on decoupling strategy has been developed for hot strip finishing mills. Based on the dynamic configuration of the coupling system, we can get the status space expression of the coupling loopers system. Through the tools of Matlab we make out of the transfer function of looper system. Based on Decouping-Inbariable character theory and the transfer function of looper system we gain the transfer function of the decoupling net. By using the Simulink toolbox of the Matlab language, the simulation results have shown that, after decoupled, the loopers control system performance gets much better.