The behavior of aluminum alloy ship deck panels under the thermal loads of Vertical Take-off-and Landing (VTOL) capable aircraft has become a question of interest with the introduction of new primarily aluminum alloy ships to the U.S. Naval Fleet. This study seeks to provide an initial investigation of this question by examining the transient transfer of heat through aluminum alloy ship deck panels under application of the local heat transfer similar to that of a VTOL aircraft exhaust plume core in typical operation. In this study, a jet stream intended to replicate the key physics of the core of a VTOL aircraft plume was impinged onto the upper surface of aluminum alloy corrugated deck panel test specimen. Temperature measurements are taken via thermocouples on the face of the specimen opposite the impingement to evaluate heat transfer through the specimen. This data is used to assess the effects of variation in the geometry of the corrugation between specimen. Qualitative temperature distributions were also gathered on the impingement surface via thermal imaging. A quantitative assessment of the heat paths for transverse and vertical heat transfer was made based on a thermal resistance model, leading to a conceptual description of predominant heat flow paths in the specimen, specifically weld lines between the corrugation and the flat plate surfaces. In support of this, thermal images indicated that the weld lines provided paths for heat to be pulled away from the center of heat application more rapidly than over the rest of the surface. Ultimately, heat transfer through the specimen was found to be more dependent on the flow conditions than the variations in geometry of the deck panels due to the low variation in thermal resistance across the plate. A recommendation is made based upon this observation to use the deck panels similarly to heat exchanges by adding a small amount of through-deck airflow in the areas of high heat load. / Master of Science

Fatigue and fracture testing and analyses were performed on four engineering materials: a low-strength aluminum alloy (D16CzATWH), a high-strength aluminum alloy (Al7050-T7351), a low-strength steel (A36 steel), and a high-strength steel (9310 steel). Large-crack testing included compression precracked constant amplitude and compression precracked load reduction over a wide range of stress ratios. Single- and multiple-spike overload tests were conducted on some of the materials. Fatigue and small-crack testing were also performed at constant amplitude loading at a constant load ratio on the newly designed single edge notch bend specimen. Using the FADD2D boundary element code, two-dimensional stress analysis was performed on the new specimen to determine the stress intensity factor as a function of crack size for surface and through cracks at the edge notch. Collected fatigue crack growth rate data was used to develop a material model for the FASTRAN strip-yield crack growth code. FASTRAN was used to simulate the constant amplitude and spike overload tests, as well as the small-crack fatigue tests. The fatigue crack growth simulation results have shown that both low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue can be modeled accurately as fatigue crack growth using FASTRAN and that FASTRAN can be used to accurately predict the acceleration and retardation in fatigue crack growth rates after a spike overload. The testing has shown that the starting fatigue crack growth rate of any load-shedding test has significant influence on load history effects, with lower starting rates yielding lower crack growth thresholds and faster rates. Through inspection of fatigue surfaces, it has been shown that beveling of pin-holes in the crack growth specimens is necessary to ensure symmetric crack fronts and that the presence of debris along the fatigue surfaces can cause considerable crack growth retardation.

<p>Aluminum-Silicon (Al-Si) alloys are often preferred in the die casting industry due to excellent castability, high strength, corrosion resistance and low cost. Commonly, iron (Fe) is alloyed with the alloys to prevent die soldering. However, the addition of Fe in most of Al-Si alloys leads to formation of the intermetallic β-AlFeSi. The β-AlFeSi is harmful to the alloy structural integrity due to its needle-like morphology that creates stress concentration at the microscopic level. The phase presence is unfavorable to the mechanical properties and significantly reduces the elongation of the alloys. This research attempted to find viable way to control the morphology and formation of the β-AlFeSi phase.</p> <p>Thermodynamic simulations were done to investigate the sequence of intermetallic formation and other phases at different alloy compositions. The analysis of solidification paths of different alloys provided the correlation between the phase formation sequence and the fraction of the β-AlFeSi phase. The analysis also identified the feasible region of alloy design for minimizing the β-AlFeSi formation. Based on the thermodynamics simulation analysis, five alloys of different compositions were designed to validate the finding of the simulation. </p> <p>The tensile test results of the alloys indicated that lowering the Fe content increases the elongation of the alloy. The results also showed that elongation was reduced with the increase of Si level due to the formation of eutectic Silicon. The change of both Fe and Mn did not significantly affect the mechanical property of the alloy when the ratio of Fe to Mn was constant. Microscopic analysis showed that lowering the Fe level had effectively altered the morphology of the β-AlFeSi needle like structure. The β-AlFeSi was found to be smaller in terms of size when Fe is lower, subsequently reducing the probability of β-AlFeSi phase to be stress riser and crack initiation. </p> <p>The influence of heat treatment to the mechanical property of the alloys was also studied. The mechanical result on the heat-treated samples indicated that heat treatment is a viable method to improve the elongation property of the alloy. Microscopic observations showed that the β-AlFeSi phase was broken into shorter structures over the solution heat treatment process, resulting in better elongation. </p>

The purpose of thesis aims to investigate the mechanical behavior and properties of a centrally notched hybrid Al alloy/Carbon-Fiber/PEEK(APC-2) laminate at elevated temperature. The high performance hybrid composite laminates of 0.5mm Aluminum alloy sheets sandwiched by APC-2 cross-ply and guasi-isotropic laminates were fabricated. The prepregs of APC-2 were stacked into cross-ply [0/90]s and quasi-isotropic [0/45/90/-45] laminates spread uniformly with nanoparticles SiO2. The sheet surface was treated by chromic acid anodic method to achieve perfectly bonding with matrix PEEK. The modified diaphragm curing process was adopted to fabricate Al/APC-2 hybrid nanocomposite laminates. The panels were cut into the specimens and then drilled an diameter hole in the center with diameters of 1,2,4,6 mm. The MTS 810 material testing machine was used to conduct the tension and fatigue tests. In addition, the MTS 651 environmental chamber was installed to control and keep the specific testing temperatures, such as ,25¢XC(RT), 75¢XC, 100¢XC, 125¢XC and 150¢XC. At first, the nominal stress(£mnom) and stress-strain diagram were obtained due to static tension tests at elevated temperature. The constant stress amplitude tension-tension cyclic tests were carried out by using load-control mode at a sinusoidal loading with frequency of 5Hz and stress ratio R=0.1. The received fatigue data were plotted in normalized S-N curves at variously elevated temperature. For the tensile tests, at the same temperature the nominal stress of cross-ply specimens was higher than that of quasi-isotropic specimens. Comparing with the notched and unnotched of cross-ply specimens, the nominal stress of notched specimens was about 60% to 80% that of unnotched specimens. Besides, as for the notched and unnotched quasi-isotropic specimens, the nominal stress of notched specimens was about 75% to 85% that of unnotched specimens. Then, the fatigue life and stress-cycles (S-N) curves of notched specimens were obtained often tension-tension fatigue tests. In the case of the same loading, notched specimens possess worse fatigue behavior, but in the same normalized stress ratio, the S-N curves of the unnotched were below the notched ones. The fatigue resistance of notched samples decrease as the temperature rising.

The objective of this work is to investigate the influence of hot rolling process on the mechanical properties of AA 5052 aluminum alloy. Hot-rolled band fabricated by tandem mill (hot-band A) will be compared with that fabricated by reverse mill hot-band C). Optical microscopic observations revealed that hot-band A has a uniform microstructure throughout the thickness, while hot-band C exhibits non-uniform microstructure, fine grains near the surface and coarser grains in the center. Both hot-bands were subjected to cold-rolling and annealing to O-temper. Two annealing processes were used: (a) annealing in 500oC salt bath, which may simulate the high heating rate of continuous annealing line (CAL), and (b) annealing in 320oC conventional air furnace with heating rate of 30oC/h, which may simulate the slow heating rate of batch-type annealing. In general, both materials annealed in 320oC air furnace exhibit higher yield strength than those annealed in 500oC salt bath do, however, both materials exhibit better tensile ductility after annealed in 500oC salt bath as compared with those annealed in 320oC air furnace.TEM examinations indicated that the cold-rolled sheet after annealing in 320oC air furnace contains larger number of precipitates comparing with its 500oC salt bath annealed counterpart. This observation may account for the higher yield strength of cold-rolled sheet annealed in 320oC air furnace. After cold-rolling and annealing in 320oC air furnace, the material C shows higher yield strength than the material A does. However, after annealing in 500oC salt bath, both materials have similar yield strength. XRD pole-figure analysis indicated that hot-band A exhibited stronger texture than hot-band C did. The texture intensity for both materials decreased considerably after cold-rolling and annealing. Orientation image mapping (OIM) obtained by EBSD (electron backscattered diffraction) analysis indicated that the grain boundaries in both materials after cold-rolling and annealing were mainly high angle boundaries, and the 500oC salt bath annealed specimens have more equiaxed grain shape as compared with the 320oC air furnace annealed specimens.

In this study, the fundamental mechanism of friction stir welding was investigated to establish the relationship among the three components of the forces acting on the work pieces, the variation of the stirring energy, and the joint characteristics of the materials. A dynamometer designed by Chiou et al., was used to measure the axial force (z-direction), the feed force (x-direction), and the clamping force (y-direction). The output energy of servo motor was monitored by power meter. Experimental results show that with increasing welding speed, the feed force increases obviously, the axial force increases slightly, and the energy almost remains constant for the fixed rotation speed of the spindle. At the rotation speed of spindle of 800 rpm, the spindle angle of 1¢X, the pre-clamping force of 2kN and the welding speed of 60 mm/min, results show that the feed force is about 1kN when the probe is plunged into the specimens but the shoulder does not be in contact with the surface of the specimen. However, when the probe is plunges into the specimens entirely and the shoulder is in contact with the surface slightly, the feed force is reduced to 0.48kN. Moreover, when the shoulder is in contact with the surface heavily, the feed force is reduced to 0.2kN. This result indicates that the contact force between the shoulder and the specimen causes the material to become soft and to backfill into the weld, and then decreases the feed force. After the specimen of the 6061-T6 aluminum has been welding, the micro hardness measurements are made. Results show that the distribution of the hardness is quite consistent along the welding as the feed force approaches to 0.2kN. Furthermore, the appearance on the surface of the weld is quite fine, and thereby it is able to get the high and uniform quality. The spacing distance of the weld surface can be theoretically analyzed. It is found that the spacing distance increases with welding speed and decreases with rotation speed of spindle. The theoretical predictions are in very good agreement with the experimental measurements.

The thesis is to fabricate Al/APC-2 hybrid nanocomposite laminates and investigate their mechanical properties at elevated temperature. The prepregs of Carbon /PEEK were stacked into cross-ply [0/90]s and quasi-isotropic [0/45/90/-45] laminates spread uniformly with nanoparticles SiO2. The sheet surface was treated by chromic acid anodic method to achieve perfectly bonding with matrix PEEK. The prepregs were sandwiched with the Al alloy sheets. The modified diaphragm curing process was adopted to produce Al/APC-2 hybrid nanocomposite laminates. The hybrid nanocomposite laminates were a five-layer composite with two 0.55 mm thick Carbon/PEEK layers sandwiched by three 0.5 mm thick 2024-T3 Aluminum alloy sheets. The MTS 810 material testing machine was used to conduct the tension and fatigue tests. In addition, the MTS 651 environmental chamber was installed to control and keep the specific testing temperature, which was room temperature, 75¢XC, 100¢XC, 125¢XC and 150¢XC. The mechanical proper&not;ties, such as ultimate tensile strength and longitudinal stiffness of hybrid cross-ply and quasi-isotropic nanocomposite laminates, were obtained from the static tensile test, and the stress-strain diagrams were plotted in the corresponding temperature. The constant stress amplitude tension-tension cyclic tests were carried out by using load-control mode at a sinusoidal loading with frequency of 5Hz and stress ratio R=0.1. The received fatigue data were plotted in normalized S-N curves at variously elevated temperature. In order to observe the failure mechanism of samples, the scanning electron microscope was used. From the summarized results, some conclusions were made. First, the slope changed at strain=0.1% in the stress-strain diagram, and led to a noticeable error between the experimental data and ones calculated according to Rule of Mixtures. Second, the Al/APC-2 cross-ply nanocomposite laminates were less resistant to fatigue than quasi-isotropic. Third, the ultimate tensile strength of both hybrid composite laminates was the lowest at 150¢XC. Fourth, the Al/APC-2 quasi-isotropic nanocomposite laminates were more resistant to the temperature effect. Finally, The mechanical proper&not;ties were better for the surface treated by chromic acid anodic method than chemical etching.

To investigate the fundamental mechanism of friction stir welding to form a butt joint, two additional tests are performed, one using the rotating probe pin only, the other using the rotating shoulder only. In the first case, the pin tool is plunged into the joint interface, but the shoulder is not in contact with the workpiece. When the pin tool is feeding, the material in the vicinity of the pin tool is scratched and piled on the retreating side, but a butt joint is not formed by this test on two thin plates of aluminum alloy 6061-T6. In the second case, when the shoulder is feeding, the plastic shear deformation of the material in the vicinity of the shoulder can be observed and then it is joined together due to the heat generated from the shoulder to cause the material diffusion. According to these additional experiments and the friction stir welding process, the mechanism to form a butt joint is as following. When the probe plunge into the material and the shoulder is in contact with the workpiece, a large amount of frictional heat is generated from the shoulder and the pin. When the tool moves forward, the soft material in front of the pin is squeezed, so that the material is refilled into the space behind the pin by the rotating pin and shoulder. According to the observation of cross-section of butt joint, an interface curve can be found. This curve is formed by the plastic shear deformation of the material in the vicinity of the shoulder and the pin at high frictional temperature. It can be explained by the boundary layer theory.

The aim of this thesis is to establish the extent to which materials can be deformed under shear-dominant loadings. Custom Al-6061-T6 tubular specimens are loaded under radial and corner paths of tension and shear to failure. During the experiments, the deformation is monitored in a test section designed to have nearly uniform stress and deformation at large strains while providing minimum constraint to the development of localization that precedes failure. The recorded shear stress-rotation and axial stress-displacement responses exhibit maxima beyond which deformation localizes in a narrow band that is of the order of the 1 mm wall thickness of the test section. For the mainly shear dominated stress paths followed, deformation remained nearly planar allowing for the establishment of both the true stresses and the local deformation strictly from measurements. Results from thirteen radial path experiments as well as from four corner path experiments show the strain at failure to monotonically increase as the mean stress decreases, a result that is in contrast with previously reported results for Al alloys. Also, the measured failure strains are significantly larger than previously reported values. Analysis of corner stress paths investigates the path dependence of localization and failure. Results show little path dependence on the failure strains, but some path dependence on stress maxima and failure stresses. Furthermore, statistical grain-level strain estimates from five of the stress paths revealed a significant variation in strain across the macroscopically observed localization zone. In the neighborhood of the crack tip strains with 25-100% higher levels than the macroscopic values were recorded. This indicates that localization also occurs at a smaller scale than hitherto understood. The difference between the macro strain at failure and the average grain level values increased as the axial/shear stress ratio increased. / text

The research in this thesis aims to develop new mechanistic knowledge for coating processes at 2024-Al alloy surfaces, ultimately to aid the design of new protective coatings. Coatings formed by phosphating, chromating, and permanganating were characterized especially by scanning Auger microscopy (SAM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy . The objective was to learn about growth (nm level) as a function of time for different coating baths, as well as a function of lateral position across the different surface microstructural regions, specifically on the μm-sized Al-Cu-Mg and Al-Cu-Fe-Mn particles which are embedded in the alloy matrix . The research characterizes coating thickness, composition, and morphology. The thesis emphasizes learning about the effect of different additives in zinc phosphating baths . It was found that the Ni²⁺ additive has two main roles : first, the rate of increase in local solution pH is limited by the slower kinetics of reactions involving Ni²⁺ compared to Zn²⁺, leading to thinner zinc phosphate (ZPO) coatings when Ni²⁺ is present. Second, most Ni²⁺ deposition occurs during the later stages of the coating process in the form of nickel phosphate and a Ni-Al oxide in the coating pores on the alloy surface, increasing the corrosion resistance. Aluminum fluoride precipitates first during the initial stages of the coating process, followed by aluminum phosphate, zinc oxide, and finally ZPO. When Ni²⁺ is present in the coating solution at 2000 ppm, ZnO predominates in the coating above the A-Cu-Fe-Mn particle while ZPO dominates on the rest of the surface. The Mn²⁺ additive gives a more even coating distribution (compared with Ni²⁺) across the whole surface. The Mn²⁺ -containing ZPO coating is similar to the chromate coating in terms of evenness, while there is more coating deposition at the second-phase particles for permanganate coatings. The oxides on the Al-Cu-Fe-Mn and matrix regions are similar before coating, thereby confirming that a variety of observed differences in ZPO coating characteristics at these regions arise from the different electrochemical characteristics of the underlying metals. Upon exposure to a corrosive solution, the ZPO coating provides more protection to the second-phase particles compared to the matrix.