Key Engineering Materials Vol. 716

Abstract: This paper proposes a new blankholder to fine blanking process. V-ring indenter has been widely applied in fine blanking to produce clean cut parts, however, it is difficult to be manufactured, the machining accuracy of which is hard to ensure and the cost is very high. In this approach, the fine blanking process combined with discontinuous dot indenter was put forward and the parameters design for workpiece with different thickness was studied with the finite element simulation and the orthogonal experiment methods. The larger burnished surface zone can be obtained by optimizing discontinuous dot indenter parameters. In addition, the relationship between the discontinuous dot indenter parameters and the workpiece thickness was got from data processing. Finally, applying this relationship to fine blank workpiece with different thickness, nearly full clean cut surface part was obtained.

Abstract: Warm stamping techniques have been employed to solve the formability problem in forming aluminium alloy panels. The formability of sheet metal is a crucial measure of its ability for forming complex-shaped panel components and is often evaluated by forming limit diagram (FLD). Although the forming limit is a simple tool to predict the formability of material, determining FLD experimentally at warm/hot forming condition is quite difficult. This paper presents the artificial neural network (ANN) modelling of the process based on experimental results (different temperature, 20°C-300°C and different forming rates, 5-300 mm.s^-1) is introduced to predict FLDs. It is shown that the ANN can predict the FLDs at extreme conditions, which are out of the defined boundaries for training the ANN. According to comparisons, there is a good agreement between experimental and neural network results

Abstract: In the present work, a powerful modeling tool is developed to predict and analyze the onset of strain localization in polycrystalline aggregates. The predictions of localized necking are based on two plastic instability criteria, namely the bifurcation theory and the initial imperfection approach. In this tool, a micromechanical model, based on the self-consistent scale-transition scheme, is used to accurately derive the mechanical behavior of polycrystalline aggregates from that of their microscopic constituents (the single crystals). The mechanical behavior of the single crystals is developed within a large strain rate-independent constitutive framework. This micromechanical constitutive modeling takes into account the essential microstructure-related features that are relevant at the microscale. These microstructural aspects include key physical mechanisms, such as initial and induced crystallographic textures, morphological anisotropy and interactions between the grains and their surrounding medium. The developed tool is used to predict sheet metal formability through the concept of forming limit diagrams (FLDs). The results obtained by the self-consistent averaging scheme, in terms of predicted FLDs, are compared with those given by the more classical full-constraint Taylor model. Moreover, the predictions obtained by the imperfection approach are systematically compared with those given by the bifurcation analysis, and it is demonstrated that the former tend to the latter in the limit of a vanishing size for the initial imperfection.

Abstract: Powder metallurgy (PM) nickel-based superalloy has been widely used in high temperature applications and is most commonly manufactured using hot isostatic pressing (HIP). However, HIP is an expensive process and takes a long time at high temperature which leads to the formation of networks of prior particle boundaries (PPBs). In this study, a recently developed processing method - direct powder forging (DPF) was employed to produce a PM nickel-based superalloy component, using a single acting hydraulic press under normal atmosphere. EBSD study has been conducted for its microstructure, grains size distribution, and grain boundary misorientation; and mechanical testing has been carried out for its hardness and tensile properties at room temperature and 650°C. It has been found that the DPFed material has reached full density in the whole component. Networks of PPBs have been broken in the direct powder forged FGH96 alloy. Compared with HIPed FGH96 alloy, the DPFed material has a substantially higher recystallisation nucleation degree and more recrystallised sub-grains. After heat treatment, the tensile properties of the direct powder forged FGH96 alloy match or surpass those of the material produced by HIP plus isothermal forging.

Abstract: Powder produced by gas atomisation of metastable beta alloy Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-3Cr has been consolidated using field-assisted sintering technology (FAST) to examine the suitability of the process to produce pre-forged billets as opposed to the conventional multi-step Kroll-VAR-forging route. FAST testing was performed using an FCT Systeme GmbH spark plasma sintering furnace type HP D 25 at The University of Sheffield. The dwell temperature was varied between 800 and 1200°C and the dwell time between 3 and 60 minutes. The process was found to allow very precise control over the beta grain size in Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-3Cr by variation of the dwell time and dwell temperature, producing grain sizes between ~40 and ~350 μm. However, it was found that the grain size was increased more by increasing the dwell temperature than increasing the dwell time. The porosity was found to be between 99.5 and 100 % for all dwell temperatures at dwell times of 30 minutes or above. FAST has the ability to produce almost fully consolidated Ti-5Al-5Mo-5V-3Cr pre-forged material from powder with a controlled beta grain size, which is not possible by other methods.

Abstract: Interfacial bonding has a significant influence on the quality of processed components formed by powder forging. Consequently, modelling the bonding process is important for controlling the condition of the components and predicting optimum forging process parameters (e.g. forming load, temperature, load-holding time, etc.). A numerical model was developed in the present work to simulate diffusion bonding (DB) during the direct powder forging (DF) process. A set of analytical equations was derived and implemented in the finite element (FE) software Abaqus via a user-defined subroutine. The DB model was validated using a two-hemisphere compression simulation. The numerical results demonstrated that the DB model has the ability to: 1) determine the bonding status between powder particles during the forging process, and 2) predict the optimum value for key powder forging process parameters. The DB model was also implemented in a representative volume element (RVE) model which was developed in an earlier work to simulate the powder forging process by considering particle packing and thermo-mechanical effects.

Abstract: In the MIM process the debinding is a long, complicated and polluting step. The supercritical fluid debinding is a new method to reduce the time of debinding, the default of the pieces and the pollution. The goal of this study is to study the behaviour of an environmentally friendly feedstock of Inconel 718. For this, a binder formulation based on polyethylene glycol, because of is water debinding properties, and bio sourced polymer was made. Polylactic acid was investigated as bio sourced polymer. The debinding is realized with supercritical CO₂ as solvent. The results were compared to the traditional debinding method using water at 60°C.

Abstract: In this investigation, three different ways of sintering Inconel 718 MIM samples are compared. The conventional way of sintering in a furnace will be compared to FAHP and microwave sintering. The difficulty of these two methods is to be able to control the shrinkage of the sample and so its shape. These methods have yet not been investigated with a super alloy powder and so, the effects of a high sintering rate on a MIM sample. By accelerating the sintering kinetics, the thermal behavior may be modified. Hence, the behavior of the Inconel 718 sintered by field assisted and microwave sintering has been investigated. The sintered samples were all injected from a feedstock composed of a fine particle Inconel powder and a binder principally composed of CAB and PEG. They were debinded into water for 24h and put in a furnace at 500°C during 2 hours. The heating rate of the furnace was set to 5°C/min until 1290°C during 2 hours. The heating rate of the FAHP was set to 50°C/min until 1250°C during 15 minutes. The microwave samples were sintered around 1300°C during 1 hour, the temperature was increased progressively by steps of 100°C. The effects of the different process on the microstructure and the mechanical properties are then compared. There was no difference in distribution of pores between the conventional sintering and the FAHP sintering but a finer grain size showed better hardness. The microwave sintering of a MIM sample is more complex and the best properties were not obtained.

Abstract: In hot rolling, metal oxides formed on steel surface can generally be classified as primary, secondary and tertiary oxide scales, corresponding to the reheating stages, the roughing stages and the finishing passes of continuous mills, respectively. The tertiary oxide scale grows into the final products on the hot-rolled steel strip during the finishing rolling and the subsequent cooling down to ambient temperature. We provide here a systematic overview of the oxidation mechanism, microstructure and microtexture development of the tertiary oxide scale. Mechanism of oxidation and Fe₃O₄ precipitation in tertiary oxide has been given as the fundamental theory. Three main sections has been divided in this review. The first section includes experimental investigations on microstructure evolution from the formation of oxide scale during hot rolling, then through continuous cooling, to Fe₃O₄ precipitation behaviour in storage cooling of hot-coiled strip. By using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) to characterise both the steel substrate and the oxide scale concurrently, the second section has further dealed with the texture-based analysis of oxide scale: phase identification, orientation analysis and coincident site lattice (CSL) boundaries. The third section has provided the general type of crystallographic texture and its evolutions in deformed Fe₃O₄ and steel substrate. Finally, the upcoming challenges have been addressed in this intriguing and promising research field.

Abstract: In multi-high mills, the slim fixed floating work rolls are supported by primary and secondary intermediate rolls and several supporting rolls mounted pairs-wise on supporting shafts. Over the eccentric adjustment of saddle assemblies and hydraulic adjustment device the roll gap adjusts the specific elastic bending deformation of the support system. Based on a hybrid calculation model the influence and limits of an active adjustment device for 20 roll mill will be presented. Thereby the bending deformations as well as the contact deformations of the complete system including the forming process in settings of the elementary plasticity theory (EPT) will be considered.The modeling of the bending deformations of the roll systems are based on FE-Beam elements. The flattening in the contact zone between the rolls will be formulated by a modified non-linear approach, according to Hertz-Johnson. The contact of the deformed zone is aligned in the discretized EPT-roll model by Alexander with Hitchcock-flattening. The iterative analysis of the compact models leads to “force-deformation-relations”, which provides the influence of the variation of the gap. The force-deformation-relations will be detailed discussed in parameter studies of a real 20 roll mill.