Yes / Brittleness in manganese steels can be associated with processing in a "wet¿ [micro]climate resulting in the formation of continuous oxide networks. The formation of these networks can be prevented by sintering in an atmosphere, also ¿local¿ in a semiclosed container, adhering to the Ellingham-Richardson oxide reduction criteria. When this requirement is satisfied, however, further types of ductile ¿ brittle transitions are observed. Rapid cooling, typically above 40°C/min, produces enough martensite to render Fe-(3-4)Mn-(0·6-0·7)C material macroscopically brittle. Quenched and conventionally tempered structures remain brittle. It is tentatively suggested that segregation of minor alloying/tramp element(s), as in cast materials, is responsible for this temper embrittlement. To overcome it, heat treatment at a temperature no higher than 200°C, recovery/stress relief, is recommended.

The work presented has the ultimate aim to increase dynamic mechanical properties by improvements in density and optimisation of microstructure of ultra high carbon PM steels by careful selection of processes, i.e. mixing, binding, alloying, heating profile and intelligent heat treatment. ThermoCalc modelling was employed to predict liquid phase amounts for two different powder grades, Astaloy 85Mo or Astaloy CrL with additive elements such as (0.4-0.6wt%)Si, (1.2-1.4wt%)C and (1-1.5wt%)Mn, in the sintering temperature range 1285-1300ºC and such powder mixes were pressed and liquid phase sintered. In high-C steels carbide networks form at the prior particle boundaries, leading to brittleness, unless the steel is heat-treated. To assist the breaking up of these continuous carbide networks, 0.4-0.6% silicon, in the form of silicon carbide, was added. The water gas shift reaction (C + H2O = CO + H2, start from ~500ºC) and Boudouard reaction (from ~500ºC complete ~930ºC) form CO gas in the early part of sintering and can lead to large porosity, which lowers mechanical properties. With the use of careful powder drying, low dew point atmospheres and optimisation of heating profiles, densities in excess of 7.70g/cm3 were attained. The brittle microstructure, containing carbide networks and free of cracks, is transformed by intelligent heat treatment to a tougher one of ferrite plus sub-micron spheroidised carbides. This gives the potential for production of components, which are both tough and suitable for sizing to improve dimensional tolerance. Yield strengths up to 410 MPa, fracture strengths up to 950 MPa and strains of up to 16 % were attained. Forging experiments were subsequently carried out for spheroidised specimens of Fe-0.85Mo+06Si+1.4C, for different strain rates of 10-3, 10-2, 10-1 and 1sec-1 and heated in argon to 700ºC, density ~7.8g/cm3 and 769 MPa yield strength were obtained.

The experimental alloy powders of 1% Mg treated Al-8Fe-1.8V-8Si were obtained by air atomization. The screen analysis of powders was made by sieves with meshes ranging from +90&micro / m, +63&micro / m, +53&micro / m, +45&micro / m, +38&micro / m to -38&micro / m. Unreinforced and TiC particulate reinforced specimens were produced by hot dynamic consolidation which is known as hot swaging. Powders were canned into pure aluminium tubes of about 10cm length and 2.2cm diameter. Single action and double action cold pressing were applied to some of the specimens before hot dynamic compaction and some specimens of canned loose powder were also processed. The diameters of the hot compacts were decreased in a two step process by swaging machine (rotary dynamic compaction). During the first step, after canning, compacts had been held at 480&deg / C for 1 hour and swaged, thus the diameter decreased from 2.2 cm to 1.97cm. Secondly, the compacts were reheated to 480&ordm / C and held for 1 hour and further swaged to obtain a diameter decrease from 1.97cm to 1.54cm. Generally, the microstructures of the hot dynamic compacted specimens were homogeneous except the specimens produced by using -63 &micro / m +53 &micro / m powder size fraction. By SEM study, a vanadium free cross like AlFeSi phase was observed near the outer regions of the specimen. No considerable coarsening of the dispersoids was observed after hot dynamic compaction of +63 &micro / m size powder. For -90&micro / m +63&micro / m size powders, maximum flexural strength values obtained by three point bending test increased by addition of 10% TiC to from 152 MPa to 285 MPa at double pressed condition and from 76MPa to 190MPa at loose powder canning condition. By hardness tests, it was observed that hardness values were inversely proportional to powder size and increased from 107 BHN to 147 BHN for corresponding powder size range of +90&micro / m to -38&micro / m. Porosity values obtained by Archimedes principle for single pressing varied between 0.03 % and 1.10% for corresponding size range of +38&micro / m to +90&micro / m. No considerable porosity was detected for double pressing. Porosity values of canned loose powder were between 3% and 10% for the range of +38 &micro / m- +45 &micro / m. By X-Ray analysis, it was revealed that Mg2Si reaction did not form after artificial aging of specimens up to 8 hours at 190&deg / C. Also, x-ray analysis of individual powders and specimens obtained by hot dynamic compaction of the same powder showed that / after hot dynamic compaction, the alloy powders were stable and no new phase formation was detected for +63&micro / m size. DSC examination of the specimens produced from +90&micro / m, +63&micro / m, +53&micro / m, -38&micro / m powder confirmed the microstructure stability up to the melting temperature. Melting temperature was detected to be in the range of 560&deg / C-575&deg / C by DSC.

The work presented has the ultimate aim to increase dynamic mechanical properties by improvements in density and optimisation of microstructure of ultra high carbon PM steels by careful selection of processes, i.e. mixing, binding, alloying, heating profile and intelligent heat treatment. ThermoCalc modelling was employed to predict liquid phase amounts for two different powder grades, Astaloy 85Mo or Astaloy CrL with additive elements such as (0.4-0.6wt%)Si, (1.2-1.4wt%)C and (1-1.5wt%)Mn, in the sintering temperature range 1285-1300ºC and such powder mixes were pressed and liquid phase sintered. In high-C steels carbide networks form at the prior particle boundaries, leading to brittleness, unless the steel is heat-treated. To assist the breaking up of these continuous carbide networks, 0.4-0.6% silicon, in the form of silicon carbide, was added. The water gas shift reaction (C + H2O = CO + H2, start from ~500ºC) and Boudouard reaction (from ~500ºC complete ~930ºC) form CO gas in the early part of sintering and can lead to large porosity, which lowers mechanical properties. With the use of careful powder drying, low dew point atmospheres and optimisation of heating profiles, densities in excess of 7.70g/cm3 were attained. The brittle microstructure, containing carbide networks and free of cracks, is transformed by intelligent heat treatment to a tougher one of ferrite plus sub-micron spheroidised carbides. This gives the potential for production of components, which are both tough and suitable for sizing to improve dimensional tolerance. Yield strengths up to 410 MPa, fracture strengths up to 950 MPa and strains of up to 16 % were attained. Forging experiments were subsequently carried out for spheroidised specimens of Fe-0.85Mo+06Si+1.4C, for different strain rates of 10-3, 10-2, 10-1 and 1sec-1 and heated in argon to 700¿C, density ~7.8g/cm3 and 769 MPa yield strength were obtained. / Libyan Education Ministry Office

Recent years have witnessed a surge in demand for infrastructure and services to cover high demands on processing big chunks of data and applications resulting in a mega Cloud Datacenter. A datacenter is of high complexity with increasing difficulties to identify, allocate efficiently and fast an appropriate host for the requested virtual machine (VM). Establishing a good awareness of all datacenter’s resources enables the allocation “placement” policies to make the best decision in reducing the time that is needed to allocate and create the VM(s) at the appropriate host(s). However, current algorithms and policies of placement “allocation” do not focus efficiently on awareness of the resources of the datacenter, and moreover, they are based on conventional static techniques. Which are adversely impacting on the allocation progress of the policies. This thesis proposes a new Agent-based allocation/placement policy that employs some of the Multi-Agent system features to get a good awareness of Cloud Datacenter resources and also provide an efficient allocation decision for the requested VMs. Specifically, (a) The Multi-Agent concept is used as a part of the placement policy (b) A Contract Net Protocol is devised to establish good awareness and (c) A verification process is developed to fully dimensional VM specifications during allocation. These new results show a reduction in response time of VM allocation and the usage improvement of occupied resources. The proposed Agent-based policy was implemented using the CloudSim toolkit and consequently was compared, based on a series of typical numerical experiments, with the toolkit’s default policy. The comparative study was carried out in terms of the time duration of VM allocation and other aspects such as the number of available VM types and the amount of occupied resources. Moreover, a two-stage comparative study was introduced through this thesis. Firstly, the proposed policy is compared with four state of the art algorithms, namely the Random algorithm and three one-dimensional Bin-Packing algorithms. Secondly, the three Bin-Packing algorithms were enhanced to have a two-dimensional verification structure and were compared against the proposed new algorithm of the Agent-based policy. Following a rigorous comparative study, it was shown that, through the typical numerical experiments of all stages, the proposed new Agent-based policy had superior performance in terms of the allocation times. Finally, avenues arising from this thesis are included.