Papers by Author: Darren J. Hughes

Abstract: Neutron diffraction and curvature measurements were conducted to investigate the residual stresses associated with Plasma Transferred Arc Cladding (PTA) of Ti-6Al-4V on a substrate of the same material. The wire-feed PTA coupled with 3-axis CNC machine was used as an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique to build parts. A combination of the process parameters was chosen to investigate their effects on residual stress evolution. Neutron Diffraction (ND) measurements of residual strains were performed on the SALSA instrument at the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL), Grenoble, France. Longitudinal stresses were also inferred by using a Coordinate Measurement Machine (CMM) and Euler-Bernoulli beam theorem. Furthermore, Optical Microscopy (OM) of the cross section of the parts was used to analyse the microstructural evolution. The results show the effect of shorter and longer ‘dwell time’ between layers on the evolution of residual stresses.

Abstract: In this study, the mechanical behavior of porous thermally microcracked ceramics has been compared with that of solely porous materials, under compressive applied stress. The different aspects of the micro and macroscopic stress-strain curves have been inserted into a coherent analytical model and compared with finite element modeling calculations. The agreement between experiments and models is very good. It is shown that mechanical microcracking, as opposed to thermal, introduces an irreversible aspect in the deformation mechanisms of porous ceramics. In this concern, mechanical loads differentiate themselves from thermal cycling. This leads for instance to a change of the Young’s modulus as a function of applied load, which qualifies those materials as visco-elastic.

Abstract: Experimental errors in neutron residual strain imaging are often underestimated, mis-understood or simply ignored. The choice of beam defining optics can play a large role in the magnitude of these errors. In this paper we show that the use of a traditional slit beam defining system with large specimens can lead to several sources of errors. Large specimens usually require necessarily large distances between the slits and the instrument reference point (gauge volume). At large distances, the slit system can lead to significant underestimation of the residual strain magnitude as well as poor definition of the gauge volume. We show that for large specimens, the use of radial focussing collimators reduces these effects, leading to significant improvement in measurement reliability. Specifically, we show application of radial collimators at the SALSA instrument of the Institut Laue Langevin neutron source in Grenoble, France.