Thesis (M.S.)--Worcester Polytechnic Institute. / Keywords: nitriding; contaminants. Includes bibliographical references (p.58).

"Surface contamination during the heat treatment process can greatly affect the quality of the heat treated parts. Although cleaning the post-heat treated parts is considered a value added process in heat treatment, cleaning parts prior to heat treatment is also important and can influence the outcome of subsequent processes. A series of experiments has been designed to determine the effects of the surface contaminants on nitriding. Nitralloy-135 steel was selected to evaluate the cleaning methods and the effects on the result of subsequent nitriding process. The samples were contaminated with a variety of contaminants, including rust preventive oil, cutting fluid and rust. The contaminated samples were cleaned using either acid or alkaline cleaner. Both cleaned and contaminated samples were nitride in the furnace. To determine the effect of contaminants on gas nitriding, weight gain and the surface hardness were measured. Nitrogen flux was also calculated. The results show that the acid cleaning effectively removes the rust layer. Rusted parts had lower nitrogen absorption than that of the cleaned samples. The parts contaminated by the oil did not reveal any effect on the nitrogen uptake. The surface hardness (Rc) did not show a significant difference between the heavily rusted sample and the clean sample. It has been observed that the nitrogen flux is smaller due to the rust layer on the heavily rusted samples."

Plasma electrolytic oxidation, or PEO, is a surface modification process for the production of ceramic oxide coatings upon substrates of metals such as aluminium, magnesium and titanium. Two methodologies for the quantitative study of electrical breakdown (discharge) events observed during plasma electrolytic oxidation processes were developed and are described in this work. One method presented involves direct measurement of electrical breakdowns during production of an oxide coating within an industrial scale PEO processing arrangement. The second methodology involves the generation and measurement of electrical breakdown events through coatings pre-deposited using full scale PEO processing equipment. The power supply used in the second technique is generally of much lower power output than the system used to initially generate the sample coatings. The application of these techniques was demonstrated with regard to PEO coating generation on aluminium substrates. Measurements of the probability distributions of discharge event characteristics are presented for the discharge initiation voltage; discharge peak current; event total duration; peak instantaneous power; charge transferred by the event and the energy dissipated by the discharge. Discharge events are shown to increase in scale with the voltage applied during the breakdown, and correlations between discharge characteristics such as peak discharge current and event duration are also detailed. Evidence was obtained which indicated a probabilistic dependence of the voltage required to initiate discharge events. Through the scaling behaviour observed for the discharge events, correspondence between the two measurement techniques is demonstrated. The complementary nature of the datasets obtainable from different techniques for measurement of PEO discharge event electrical characteristics is discussed with regards to the effects of interactions between concurrently active discharge events during large scale PEO processing.

No description available.

Yes / Titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V is known for both its excellent mechanical properties and its low surface hardness. This study explores a two-step process for depositing a hard nanocrystalline coating onto the surface of the Ti-alloy, followed by surface melting, which embeds hard nanoparticles into a thin surface layer of the alloy. The treated surface layer was studied using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and Vicker's micro-hardness testing. The results of the study show that the surface of the Ti-6Al-4V alloy can be successfully hardened by embedding nanosized Al2O3 particles into the surface using gas tungsten arc welding to melt the surface of the material. Surface melting the Ti-6Al-4V alloy with a 50A welding current produced the maximum microhardness of 701 HV0.2kg. The micro-hardness of the treated surface layer decreased with the increasing size of the nanoparticles, while the roughness of the surface increased with the increasing welding current. The heat input into the surface during the surface melting process resulted in the formation of various intermetallic compounds capable of further increasing the hardness of the Ti-6Al-4V surface.

Yes / Obtaining closed porosity, i.e. densities >7.4 g.cm-3, is a major target in PM development. To increase density, strength and surface hardness of low-carbon PM steels: cold and warm compaction, sintering and slow cooling through the ferrite transformation region, followed by cold repressing and surface hardening were investigated. The slow cooling resulted in soft, ferritic, microstructure amenable to cold resizing. Repressing at 700-900 MPa densified the samples to ~7.6 g.cm-3. Mechanical properties, after repressing and surface hardening, are characterised by appreciable plasticity following macroscopic yielding at stresses of 400-1200 MPa. Reference is made to possible further increases in strength by incorporation of small additions of clean, fine Mn containing master alloy into the powder mix. Results were verified industrially on hollow cylinders made from Fe-0.5Mo or Fe-1.5Cr-0.2Mo base powders.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:34:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:06:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Dissertação (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:45:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:08:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 07147.pdf: 12707620 bytes, checksum: d34c7b4c7f15cbdacc704d7fb217bf9d (MD5) / Tese (Doutoramento) / IPEN/T / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:34:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:06:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Os desenvolvimentos de novos motores têm resultado no aumento constante dos carregamentos mecânicos e térmicos dos componentes. Além de estarem expostos a condições desfavoráveis ao desgaste, os novos componentes do motor devem garantir desempenho similar, ou muitas vezes superior, aos dos componentes atuais. Para os anéis de pistão, o desempenho é dado pela sua capacidade de vedação e raspagem, que podem ser mensurados em motor pelos resultados de consumo de óleo lubrificante (COL) e fluxo de gases para o cárter (blow-by). Sendo assim, a proposta desse trabalho foi a de avaliar-se a influência do tratamento superficial a laser para endurecimento da pista de desgaste do anel de pistão de segundo canalete, em termos do desempenho de vedação e raspagem. Foram comparados dois protótipos, utilizando como padrão um anel de pistão de produção corrente, comercialmente fornecido a clientes. O efeito do tratamento térmico a laser nos anéis foi avaliado em relação a distorções dimensionais. Após isto, foram realizados testes tribológicos de bancada com o objetivo de conhecer o comportamento do anel depois do tratamento laser. De maneira geral o tratamento superficial por laser na superfície de anéis de pistão mostraram resultados significativos no aspecto aumento de dureza, com alguns deméritos no aspecto dimensional que pode interferir na boa funcionalidade do sistema tribológico anel lubrificante cilindro. / Dissertação (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN-CNEN/SP

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:45:46Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:08:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 07147.pdf: 12707620 bytes, checksum: d34c7b4c7f15cbdacc704d7fb217bf9d (MD5) / Tese (Doutoramento) / IPEN/T / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP