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The purpose of this paper is to assess the technical state of old and repair steels of Shukhov’s tower elements after operation during ~ 110 and 70 years of the water tower in Nikolaev, basing on their mechanical tests, metallography and fractography investigations.

For their certification, the fractographic and structural features and mechanical properties (hardness, strength, plasticity and impact toughness) were analyzed. Both the steels under consideration were characterized by low values of hardness and brittle fracture resistance. The mechanical characteristics of the old steel are lower compared with the repair one. It cannot be only explained by the quality of metal rolling. Moreover, the plasticity characteristics of both steels, defined in synthetic acid rain environment, are lower than in the air. Using fractography investigation, the operational damages in the bulk metal in the form of the elements of cleavage fracture in the central part of the fracture surfaces of specimens tested at the hydrogenation condition by synthetic acid rain environment were revealed.

The results of this study suggested a degradation of steels’ characteristics caused by the development of scattering damages during their operation. Higher relative elongation of the old steel at lower hardness and impact toughness were also evidenced in that. The metallography and fractography investigations also supported this finding.

This original study aimed at characterizing the microstructural and mechanical degradation of mild steels that was collected from Shukhov’s tower structural elements.

Introduction Visual inspection or observation at low magnification with an optical microscope has been of great help in analysing fracture surfaces. Optical microscopy, however, has distinct limitations, such as low resolution and small depth of field. The transmission electron microscope does not have these limitations.

The purpose of this paper is to quantify the corrosion damage evolution that has occurred on the aircraft aluminum alloy 2024 after the exposure to Exfoliation Corrosion Test (EXCO) solution. Moreover, the effect of the evolving corrosion damage on the materials mechanical properties has been assessed. The relevance of the corrosion damage induced by the exposure to the laboratory EXCO for linking it to the damage developed after the exposure of the material on several outdoor corrosive environments or in service is discussed.

To induce corrosion damage the EXCO has been used. For the quantification of corrosion damage the metallographic features considered have been pit depth, diameter, pitting density and pit shape. The effect of the evolving corrosion damage on the materials mechanical properties has been assessed by means of tensile tests on pre corroded specimens.

The results have shown that corrosion damage starts from pitting and evolves to exfoliation, after the development of intergranular corrosion. This evolution is expressed by the increase of the depth of attack, as well as through the significant growth of the diameter of the damaged areas. The results of the tensile tests performed on pre corroded material made an appreciable decrease of the materials tensile properties evident. The decrease of the tensile ductility may become dramatic and increases on severity with increasing corrosion exposure time. SEM fractography revealed a quasi-cleavage zone beneath the depth of corrosion attack.

The results underline the impact of corrosion damage on the mechanical behavior of the aluminum alloy 2024 T3 and demonstrate the need for further investigation of the corrosion effect on the structural integrity of the material. This work provides an experimental database concerning the quantification of corrosion damage evolution and the loss of material properties due to corrosion.

In the development of powder bed additive manufacturing (AM) process parameters, the characterization of mechanical properties is generally performed through relatively large mechanical test samples that represent a bulk response. This provides an accurate representation of mechanical properties for equivalently sized or larger parts. However, as feature size is reduced, mechanical properties transition from a standard bulk response to a thin wall response where lower power border scans and surface roughness have a larger effect.

For this study, samples of wall thickness varying between 4.0 and 0.25 mm were built in 304L on the selective laser melting (SLM) platform and Ti-6Al-4V on the electron beam melting (EBM) platform. Samples were then mechanically tested, and fractography was performed for analysis.

This study experimentally identifies the threshold between bulk and thin wall mechanical properties for 304L SS on the SLM platform and Ti-6Al-4V on the EBM platform. A possible method for improving those properties and shifting the transition from bulk to thin wall response to smaller wall thicknesses by manipulation of scan pattern was investigated.

This study is a novel investigation into the effect of reduced wall thickness on the mechanical properties of a part produced by powder bed AM.

This paper aims to accomplish friction stir welding (FSW) of Al–Li alloy AA8090 to determine optimal settings of the process parameters for higher tensile strength and higher micro-hardness (MH) to achieve the objective of adequate butt-joint strength.

An empirical relation is implemented to govern the utmost influence parameters, i.e. tool rotation speed (TRS), tool transverse speed (TTS) and dwell time (DT). Taguchi grey relational analysis (GRA) was applied for multi-response optimization of response parameters. The grey relational grades (GRs) have been calculated for both the responses MH and ultimate tensile strength to get optimal parametric settings. The variance test has been performed to check the adequacy of the model.

The Taguchi L9 orthogonal array design was used in establishing the relation between input parameter and output parameter (tensile and MH). TTS and DT have been predicted to be the two most important parameters that influence the extreme quality features of joints by using friction stir welding. Scanning electron microscopy fractography shows the ductile failure of the welded joints.

The experimental trials provided the followings results, maximum ultimate tensile strength (UTS) of 219 MPa and MH 107.1 HV under 1,400 rpm of TRS, 40 mm/min of TTS and 8 s of DT founded the optimum value through GRA.

The purpose of this study is to calibrate a microstructure-based fatigue model for its use in predicting fatigue life of additively manufactured (AM) Ti-6Al-4V. Fatigue models that are capable of better predicting the fatigue behavior of AM metals is required to further the adoption of such metals by various industries. The trustworthiness of AM metallic material is not well characterized, and fatigue models that consider unique microstructure and porosity inherent to AM parts are needed.

Various Ti-6Al-4V samples were additively manufactured using Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS), a direct laser deposition method. The porosity within the LENS samples, as well as their subsequent heat treatment, was varied to determine the effects of microstructure and defects on fatigue life. The as-built and heat-treated LENS samples, together with wrought Ti-6Al-4V samples, underwent fatigue testing and microstructure and fractographic inspection. The collected microstructure/defect statistics were used for calibrating a microstructure-sensitive fatigue model.

Fatigue lives of the LENS Ti-6Al-4V samples were found to be consistently less than those of the wrought Ti-6Al-4V samples, and this is attributed to the presence of pores/defects within the LENS material. Results further indicate that LENS Ti-6Al-4V fatigue lives, as predicted by the used microstructure-sensitive fatigue model, are in close agreement with experimental results. The used model could predict upper and lower prediction bounds based on defect statistics. All the fatigue data were found to be within the bounds predicted by the microstructure-sensitive fatigue model.

To further test the utility of microstructure-sensitive fatigue models for predicting fatigue life of AM samples, future studies on additional material types, additive manufacturing processes and heat treatments should be conducted.

This study shows the utility of a microstructure-sensitive fatigue model for use in predicting the fatigue life of LENS Ti-6Al-4V with various levels of porosity and while in a heat-treated condition.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of build orientation on the tensile properties of PolyJet 3D printed parts. Effects on manufacturing time and total cost per part are the secondary objectives.

Solid tensile specimens were prepared as per the American Society for Testing and Materials D638 standards and were manufactured in six different orientations by using the Objet260 Connex 3D printer. VeroWhitePlus RGD835 was used as the build material, with FullCure 705 as the support material. The specimens were tested for their tensile strength and elongation. The side surface and the fracture surface were analyzed using the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope-SIGMA HV-Carl Zeiss with Bruker Quantax 200-Z10 EDS detector. Scanning electron microscope images of each surface were obtained at various magnifications.

From the study, it can be concluded that build orientation has an influence on the tensile strength and the manufacturing cost of the parts. The microstructural analysis revealed that the orientation of surface cracks/voids may be the reason for the strength.

From literature survey, it is inferred that this study is sure to be among the first few under this topic. These results will help engineers to decide upon the right build orientations with respect to print head so that parts with better mechanical properties can be manufactured.

IN 1950 Zapffe and Worden used the metal‐lurgical microscope for the examination of fatigue fracture surfaces, a technique which they called fractography. They suggested, as a result of their observations, that fatigue fractures showed two characteristics:

Conventional solder materials are generally low temperature and low strength materials which are particularly vulnerable to temperature and stress. Even under ambient temperature, 298±5°K, the homologous temperature of most soft solder compositions exceeds 0.5. It is therefore anticipated that the properties and behaviour of such solder compositions could alter significantly when they are exposed to temperature change, temperature rise and/or a moderate level of stresses. With the continued innovation and development of microelectronic packages along with the intense global competition, the reliability of solder joints and the quality and yield of making solder joints in production become increasingly important. This research is to address the fundamental material deficiencies of conventional solders in an effort to develop superior solder materials. Several material principles have been considered including both intrinsic material and soldering process approaches. This paper presents the preliminary results of strengthening effects from the intrinsic material approach. The soldering process effects will be presented in a separate paper. The strengthening effects were evaluated by the combined consideration of monotonic shearing, creep and isothermal low cycle fatigue tests. Fatigue fractography and microstructure of the strengthened solder were characterised in comparison with conventional 63Sn/37Pb solder. The results showed that the proprietary solder system possesses a higher monotonic flow resistance as cyclic frequency decreases to 10−4 Hz. Deformation mechanisms and fatigue failure modes are also discussed in this paper.

To discover if stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of C−Mn steel is possible at ambient pressure and temperature in a CO−CO₂−H₂O environment.

Approach involved electrochemical testing, slow strain rate testing (SSRT) and fractography. The chemistry within a crack or crevice during SCC differs from that of the bulk environment. To simulate this condition, a specimen was designed containing a steel plate, microelectrodes and artificial crevice. Electrochemical tests were performed to discover if conditions likely to cause SCC could be achieved. Slow strain rate tests and fractography was also carried out to support the electrochemical data.

Results indicated that CO can adsorb onto the metal and that localized corrosion occurred at defects in the adsorbed CO layer due to CO₂, which led to the onset of SCC. Consequently, larger anodic and cathodic currents were measured with or without a crevice, when CO₂ was in solution. Similar behaviour was observed on the microelectrodes. Regions of brittle fracture were discovered on the specimen surface after SSRT were conducted in a vapour phase environment. After such tests, the ductility of the steel was found to be impaired.

Practically the results could help to predict the potential range in which SCC may occur.

Paper is new because previous results were at high pressures. However, results indicate that SCC is a danger at atmospheric pressure. The paper is of value to people in the oil and gas industry.