Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) are one of the most promising clean technologies under development. However, the main obstacles for commercialising PEMFCs are largely attributed to the technical limitations and cost of current PEM materials such as Nafion. Novel poly(2,5-benzimidazole) (ABPBI)/POSS based polymer composite electrolyte membranes with excellent mechanical and conductivity properties were developed in this project including (I) ABPBI, polybenzimidazole (PBI) and their copolymers were synthesised by solution polymerisation and their chemical structures were confirmed by FTIR and elemental analysis. ABPBI/ActaAmmonium POSS (ABPBI/AM) and ABPBI/TriSilanolPhenyl POSS (ABPBI/SO) composites were also synthesised in situ. High quality polymer and composite membranes were fabricated by a direct cast method; and (II) The mechanical and thermal properties, microstructure and morphology, water and H3PO4 absorbility and proton conductivity of phosphoric acid doped and undoped ABPBI and ABPBI/POSS composite membranes were investigated. SEM/TEM micrographs showed that a uniform dispersion of POSS nano particles in ABPBI polymer matrix was achieved. The best performances on both mechanical properties and proton conductivities were obtained from the ABPBI/AM composite membrane with 3 wt% of POSS (ABPBI/3AM). It was found that both the water and H3PO4 uptakes were increased significantly with the addition of POSS due to formation of hydrogen bonds between the POSS and H2O/H3PO4, which played a critical role in the improvement of the conductivity of the composite membranes at temperatures over 100oC. ABPBI/3AM membranes with H3PO4 uptake above 117% showed best proton conductivities at both hydrous and anhydrous conditions from room temperature to 160oC, which is comparable with the conductivity of commercial Nafion 117 at 20oC in water-saturated condition, indicating that these composite membranes could be excellent candidates as a polymer electrolyte membrane for high temperature applications. A new mechanism for illustrating the improved proton conductivity of composite membranes was also developed.

Conventional casting alloys Al-7Si-Mg A356/7 contain between 6.5 and 7.5% Si, together with 0.25-0.7% Mg and are used for critical castings in the automotive and aerospace industries. These alloys are also the most popular alloys used for semi-solid metal (SSM) forming due to good castability and fluidity imparted by the large volumes of the Al-Si eutectic. Despite their industrial importance, there is a lack of detailed research work revealing precipitate micro- and nanostructural evolution during aging of these alloys compared with the Al-Mg-Si 6000 series wrought alloys. This study characterises the heat treatment response of SSM-processed Al-7Si-Mg alloys in comparison with conventionally liquid cast alloys (investment casting and gravity die casting). It is shown that, provided that the maximum quantity of the alloy’s Mg is placed into solid solution during solution treatment, and that the alloy’s Fe content is within specification, the response to age hardening of Al-7Si-Mg alloys is independent of the processing technique used. The nanostructural evolution of Al- 7Si-Mg alloys after artificial aging with and without natural pre-aging has been characterized using transmission electron microscopy and atom probe tomography and correlated with hardness and mechanical tensile properties. The number densities and Mg:Si ratios of solute clusters, GP zones and β"-needles were determined. The heat treatment response of SSM-processed casting alloys A356/7 alloys are also compared with SSM-processed Al-Mg-Si 6000 series wrought alloys, with the advantage of having similar globular microstructures. The high Si-content of the casting alloys compared to the wrought alloys offers several advantages, including a faster artificial aging response (shorter T6 aging cycles), higher strength for comparable Mg contents and less sensitivity to prior natural aging on peak strength. Finally, an age-hardening model was developed for the Al-7Si-Mg alloys, including a method of incorporating the effects of changes in Mg-content on the aging curves. / Thesis (PhD(Eng))--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Materials Science and Metallurgical Engineering / unrestricted

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The challenges of weight reduction and good strength in automotive industry have drawn considerable interest in thixocasting technologies. Joining of such components with conventional fusion welding creates voids, hot cracking, distortion in shape, and more importantly evolution of dendritic microstructure that ultimately would lead to inferior mechanical properties of the weld region. Thus, the purpose of making thixocast component is lost. The friction welding which is a solid state joining process can avoid defects associated with melting and solidification in a typical fusion weld and can be a promising alternative. This process produces a weld under compressive force at the contact of workpieces rotating or moving relative to one another to produce heat and plastically displacing material from the faying surfaces. Research on semisolid processing has its origin in the early 1970s. However, from the literature survey on semisolid processing it is clear that, till date, not much work has been done in field of joining of semisolid processed components. In the area of solid state welding, in particular, it is not at all explored. In view of this, the present work is focused on exploration of joining of Thixocast A356 Aluminium alloy component by friction welding and comparison of its performance with friction weld of conventionally cast sample of the same alloy. The study is carried out experimentally as well as numerically. Moreover, the material behaviour of thixocast component at elevated temperature in solid state is also described with the help of processing maps and constitutive modelling. The hot workability of thixocast and conventionally cast A356 alloy is evaluated with the help of processing maps developed on the basis of the dynamic materials model approach using the flow stress data obtained from the isothermal compression test in wide range of temperature (300-500℃) and strain rates (0.001s-1-10s-1). The domains of the processing map are interpreted in terms of the associated microstructural mechanism. On comparing the flow stress at elevated temperature of thixocast and conventionally cast A356 alloy samples, it is observed that the flow stress of the latter showed higher value at different strain level, temperature and strain rates. This indicates that the flow property of the thixocast alloy sample is better than that of the conventionally cast one (i.e. response to plastic flow is better for the former); while at room temperature thixocast sample has higher strength. Moreover to investigate the general nature of the influence of strain, strain rate and temperature on the compressive deformation characteristics of thixocast A356 and conventionally cast A356 aluminium alloy, a comprehensive model describing the relationship of the flow stress, strain rate and temperature of the alloys at elevated temperatures is proposed by hyperbolic-sine Arrhenius-type equation and Johnson-Cook model. The validity of descriptive results based on the proposed constitutive equation is also investigated and a comparison between two constitutive models is also made. In order to numerically model the friction welding process of a thixocast A356 aluminium alloy and conventionally cast alloy of same material using a finite element method (FEM), temperature dependent physical properties, mechanical properties as well as viscoplastic constitutive equations were used in the model. A two- dimensional axisymmetric finite element model has been developed. The modelling is based on a coupled thermomechanical approach. First, a nonlinear, transient two-dimensional heat transfer model is developed to determine the temperature fields. Later, the temperature fields are used as input for a nonlinear, two-dimensional structural model in order to predict the distortions and von Mises stress. The finite element models are parametrically built using APDL (ANSYS Parametric Design Language) provided by ANSYS. The validation of the model is carried out by comparing with the experiment. Once validated, the thermomechanical model was used to perform parametric studies in order to investigate effects of various process parameters on temperature and stress distribution in the workpieces. This helps in deciding the range of parameters for friction welding experiments in order to get good weld. Both thixocast and conventionally cast samples exhibited similar temperature distribution during the friction welding process, because of identical thermophysical properties. The magnitude of von Mises stress distribution during friction welding of thixocast A356 sample is found to be lower than that of the conventionally cast sample. It is because of their different constitutive behaviour at elevated temperature. Moreover, the developed FEM model can be successfully used to predict the residual stress at various locations for different set of parameters and geometry for friction welding of thixocast and conventionally cast A356 alloy. This helps in reducing time consuming and expensive experiments on residual stress measurement. The chosen experiments based on Taguchi L27 orthogonal array were conducted on the friction welding machine which works on the principles of continuous drive-mechanism. The experimental specimens were machined from thixocast A356 aluminium alloy connecting rods as well as conventionally cast A356 aluminium alloy ingot in the form of cylindrical bars of dimensions 85mm length and 20mm diameter. The parameters used for welding were friction pressure, rpm, forge pressure, burn-off, and upset pressure. The effects of welding parameters on performance characteristics (i.e. tensile strength and weld efficiency) were evaluated. Taguchi method was applied to investigate the influence of each parameter on strength of joints and evaluate the combination of parameters that leads to the highest weld strength. Accordingly optimum process parameters was identified which helps in achieving the tensile strength of more than parent material. The optimized process parameters for friction welding of thixocast A356 aluminium alloy are rpm = 500, friction pressure = 60, upset time = 5, upset pressure = 100 and burn off = 5. The empirical relationships were also developed to predict the tensile strength. The developed relationship can be effectively used to predict the tensile strength of welded joint with a correlation coefficient of 0.86, which indicates the strong positive relationship between predicted and experimental data. Friction welding of thixocast A356 aluminium alloy helps to achieve very fine eutectic silicon particles of the order of 0.4 at the interface due to severe plastic deformation taking place during welding. Obtaining such fine eutectic silicon particles is difficult to be achieved within few seconds of processing by any other method. The hardness variation of friction welded thixocast alloy shows higher value as compared to that of a conventionally cast sample in the heat affected zone, which indicates better weld strength of the former. This was also confirmed by the tensile strength studied and fatigue test. This indicates that weldability of cast alloys will get improved if the microstructure is modified to globular type.

This thesis work is an experimental study of one type of Semi-Solid Metal casting (SSM) process which is called RheoMetalTM. This method is an efficient type of Rheocasting that creates a semi-solid slurry within 30 seconds that is used for a high pressure die casting machine. The purpose of using a slurry in a high pressure die casting machine is that the slurry has a higher viscosity due to its solid fraction. This makes the filling of the die cavity more laminar which reduces air entrapment in the casting. The difficulty with this type of casting is to control the process parameters to be able to insure a casting with desired properties. A few studies within RheoMetalTM has already been made but there is still a lack of knowledge of to what extent the process parameters affect the slurry. The goal in this work is to study how the different RheoMetalTM process parameters influence the primary α-Al solid fraction, shape and size. The process parameters that were studied in this work was the stirring rate, superheat and EEM amount. In this study, the so called growth layer has been removed to make more precise calculations of the primary α-Al. This work also aims to study how grain refinement affect the primary α-Al which is commonly used to improve the quality of castings. To be able to perform this study, both practical and theoretical work has been implemented. The casting process involved making of ladles and preparation of various equipment. The cast samples were then prepared by standard metallurgy procedure for optical analyse of the microstructure. A special etching reagent was used to analyse the microstructure in a microscope. The etching is called Weck’s reagent and its purpose is to differentiate the growth layer from the primary α-Al. The growth layer is formed during quenching and by excluding it, the calculation of the slurry’s primary α-Al becomes more precise. This is because the slurry is not quenched before it is inserted into the high pressure die casting machine, therefore no growth layer is formed. To analyse the cast samples, a special program was used to identify and to calculate the solid fraction, shape and size of the primary α-Al. The result from the calculations made by the program gave different tendencies when changing the EEM amount. The stirring rate showed a tendency to decrease the solid fraction and increase the shape factor. The superheat decreased the solid fraction and increased the shape factor. The grain refinement also decreased the solid fraction and increased the shape factor. There was no clear tendency showing that the equivalent circular diameter of the primary α-Al was affected by any of the parameters.

In the continuous casting of steel, the Submerged Entry Nozzle (SEN), in particular the SEN geometry, has a primary influence on the flow pattern: the SEN controls the speed, direction and other characteristics of the jet entering the mould. The SEN is however relatively inexpensive to change (in comparison with other continuous casting equipment). Thus; there is a feasible incentive to exactly understand and predict the flow of molten steel through the SEN and into the mould, in order to maximise the quality of the steel by altering the design of the SEN. By changing the SEN geometry and SEN design, the flow pattern in the mould will also change: it is thus possible to obtain an optimum SEN design if (or when) the desired flow patterns and/or certain predetermined temperature distributions are achieved. Expensive and risky plant trials were traditionally utilised to “perfect” continuous casting processes. As opposed to the plant trials, this dissertation is concerned with the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling of the SEN and mould, which, when used in conjunction with the Mathematical Optimiser LS-OPT, will enable the optimisation of the SEN design to achieve desired results. The CFD models are experimentally verified and validated using 40%-scaled (designed and built in-house) and full-scale water model tests. This dissertation proves that the CFD modelling of the SEN and mould can be quite useful for optimisation and parametric studies, especially when automated model generation (geometry, mesh and solution procedures) is utilised. The importance of obtaining reliable and physically correct CFD results is also emphasised; hence the need for CFD model verification using water modelling. / Dissertation (MEng (Mechanical Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

O processo de fundição sob pressão de alumínio tem se desenvolvido significativamente nas últimas décadas, ocupando um lugar de destaque na indústria por produzir componentes de engenharia inovadora. Dentre os problemas de qualidade deste processo, o mais recorrente é a porosidade causada por vários fatores, dentre eles os parâmetros do processo que são de difícil determinação, sendo comumente selecionados por meio da abordagem de tentativa e erro. A presente dissertação buscou responder a pergunta: Como determinar a melhor configuração de parâmetros do processo de fundição sob pressão de alumínio para minimizar a porosidade nas peças produzidas? Tendo como objetivo a melhoria da qualidade de uma peça de alumínio, fundida sob pressão, por meio da redução da porosidade. A principal contribuição desta dissertação concentra-se na aplicação do método de Taguchi utilizando dados categóricos ordinais (classes de porosidades) como característica de qualidade, por meio da análise da relação sinal-ruído ponderada. Os resultados dos experimentos foram analisados a partir do efeito médio dos fatores e da análise de variância (ANOVA). Como conclusão os parâmetros de temperatura do metal e velocidade de primeira e segunda fase de injeção foram os mais significativos na redução da porosidade da peça estudada. E ainda, o método de Taguchi alcançou o resultado esperado, trazendo significativa redução de porosidade na peça estudada por meio da otimização dos parâmetros do processo. / The aluminum die casting process has developed significantly in recent decades, occupying a prominent place for producing innovative engineering components. Among quality problems of this process is porosity due to several factors, including the process parameters that are difficult to determine, and are commonly selected by trial and error approach. This paper sought to answer the question: How to determine the best set of parameters of the aluminum die casting process to minimize porosity in the parts produced? Aiming improving die casting aluminum parts quality through reducing porosity. The main contribution of this paper focuses on the application of Taguchi method using ordinal categorical data (porosity classes) as a quality characteristic, by analyzing the weighted signal-to-noise ratio. The experimental results were analyzed from the average effect of factors and analysis of variance (ANOVA). In conclusion parameters metal temperature and speed of the first and second injection phase were the most significant in reducing the porosity of the part studied. Also, the Taguchi method achieved the expected result, bringing significant reduction of porosity in the part studied by optimizing the process parameters.

Há uma clara tendência na indústria para eliminar o flúor dos pós fluxantes usados durante o lingotamento contínuo de aços, pois, embora o flúor seja importante no comportamento de fusão, infiltração e cristalização do filme de escória, ele evolui facilmente a partir de escórias para substâncias gasosas prejudiciais à saúde, como o ácido fluorídrico. Além disso, os compostos contendo flúor ocasionam problemas de armazenamento, de utilização de resíduos sólidos e contribui para a corrosão dos equipamentos. Com a finalidade de retirar o flúor da formulação desses pós, foi desenvolvida uma formulação isenta de flúor, para a aplicação em aços baixo carbono, utilizando óxido de boro. A fim de comparar o comportamento do produto desenvolvido com o do produto tradicional, foram realizados testes laboratoriais e industriais. Nos testes laboratoriais, o produto isento de flúor apresentou menor velocidade de fusão, temperatura de fusão mais baixa, menor cristalinidade e menor viscosidade que o pó tradicional. Nos ensaios industriais, a absorção de alumina foi maior para o produto sem flúor que também obteve uma redução significativa da corrosão da válvula submersa, porém apresentou um menor consumo de pó. Com a finalidade de corrigir o baixo consumo de pó, realizou-se um ajuste na viscosidade da formulação desenvolvida e um novo ensaio, no qual o consumo de pó foi similar ao do produto tradicional. Dessa forma, conclui-se que a formulação desenvolvida e testada pode ser utilizada em substituição da formulação tradicional. / There is a clear trend in the industry to eliminate fluorine from mould powders used during continuous casting of steel, even fluorine is important in the melting behavior, infiltration and slag film crystallization, it evolves from the slags to gases that are harmful to health, such as hydrofluoric acid. Furthermore, the compounds that contain fluorine can cause storage problems, use of solid residues and contribute to the corrosion of the equipment. In order to remove fluorine from the formulation of these powders, a fluor free formulation has been developed for use in low carbon steels, by using boron oxide. For the purpose of to compare the behavior of the product developed with the traditional products, industrial and laboratory tests were performed. In the lab tests the fluor free material showed lower melting speed, lower melting temperature, lower crystallinity, lower viscosity and higher fluidity than the recipe with fluorine. In the industrial tests, the alumina absorption was higher for recipe without fluorine which also obtained a significant reduction in corrosion of the submerged valve, SEN, but presented a lower powder consumption. In order to correct the low consumption, an adjustment of the viscosity of this recipe was made, and a new industrial test showed that the powder consumption of the recipe without fluorine was similar to the recipe with fluorine. Thus, it demonstrates that the recipe without fluorine can be used in an industrial scale replacing the recipe with fluorine.

Dysphagia is a serious eating disorder currently affecting around 100 thousand people in Sweden and it’s estimated that 1 in 10 people will develop some form of dysphagia during their lifetime around the world. The condition occurs mainly in elders and people who’ve suffered a stroke. The disorder prohibits proper swallowing of food, impairing the ability to close airways and let food enter the proper pathways. Patients with dysphagia have to eat grounded food in order to not suffer from malnutrition. The food is usually served in timbales which are sometimes decorated but might not look as appealing or realistic as one might think. The repetitive and unrealistic food creates further appetite loss which may lead to malnutrition. This is the case amongst many elderly in home care and the complications maybe very serious indeed, leading to organ dysfunction, hospitalization and eventually death. The current timbales made at the kitchens for elderly care in Helsingborg are punched with a tool in rectangular, circular shapes and often decorated. A solution would be to increase the aesthetics of the served timbales and make them realistically looking. 3D printing offers numerous new opportunities for food production and may very well set a standard in the future for producing aesthetically pleasing food. Silicone molds may also provide the same, if not better results at the time being at a fraction of the price, sufficing to revert any negative impacts of the current timbale appearance. In the hopes of proving both concepts the work will initially be focused on preparing a broccoli but also applying one of the concepts on a cinnamon bun providing additional application. This report presents the progress of designing a realistic 3D broccoli model, product development of a realistic broccoli food mold, 3D scanning, 3D food printing and a literature study. The designed model could not be printed due to the printing gel’s incapability of supporting complex structures. Instead master shapes created for shaping the food mold were scanned, sliced and printed. The same masters were used as means for a second food mold. Both food molds did manage to cast realistic shapes with a broccoli puré and of a soft gelatine suspension. Material alternatives were evaluated as well as manufacturing possibilities. The designed broccoli and a refined scanned broccoli were both offered for free as means for further research and development.

El texto completo de este trabajo no está disponible en el Repositorio Académico UPC por restricciones de la casa editorial donde ha sido publicado. / The contribution of the metalworking sector to the gross domestic product is decreased by 8.6% in the 2017–2018 period because of problems such as high rejection rates, lead times, and raw material losses. Consequently, the sector’s production was reduced by PEN 1,200,000 while demand remained flat. Thus, this article proposes a production control model using 5S, Single-Minute Exchange of Dies, and tools such as Kanban and Constant Work-in-Progress (CONWIP) to increase the productivity of a sand casting line in a Peruvian metalworking enterprise that manufactures parts for mining on request. The improvement proposal involves the implementation of lean manufacturing tools and analyzes low productivity effects. The problems identified are typical of the Peruvian metalworking sector; thus, this study may contribute to finding possible solutions for issues faced by other enterprises. / Revisión por pares