Materials Science Forum Vols. 706-709

Abstract: Brittle crack arrestability is extremely important in welded joints of heavy gauge steel plates used in large container ships. Recently, much attention has been focused on potential crack propagation along welds using large heat input. This paper examines the application of a T-joint to the strength deck structure of container ships to enhance crack arrestability. The crack arrest toughness, Kca, for crack arrest was varied. The ESSO test of T-joint components showed that brittle crack was arrested at the T-joint if the steel plate used for the flange had a high Kca value in the range from 4900 to 7300N/mm^3/2. FE-analysis of the stress intensity factor K indicated that brittle crack propagation was arrested under the condition that the K-value at the running crack tip was less than the Kca of the material. In the T-joint, it was noted that the K-value around the area of the deepest point of the crack decreased and was finally less than the Kca of the flange plate when the brittle crack penetrated suddenly into the flange plate to a 10mm depth. This phenomenon shows the advantage of using a T-joint for brittle crack arrest in the flange plates of strength deck structures.

Abstract: The occurrence of various instabilities at very high speed is well known to occur in brittle fracture and significant advances have recently been obtained in the understanding of their origin. On the other hand, low speed brittle crack propagation under pure tension loading (mode I) is usually thought to yield smooth crack surfaces. The experimental investigation reported here questions this statement. Steady cracks were driven in brittle glassy polymers (PolyMethyl Methacrylate - PMMA) using a wedge-splitting geometry over a wide range of low velocities (10^-9-10^-1 m/s). Three distinct patterns can be observed on the post-mortem fracture surfaces as crack velocity decreases: perfectly smooth at the highest speed, regularly fragmented at intermediate speed and macroscopically rough at the lowest speed. The transition between the two latter is reminiscent of chaotic transition. ^ahattali.lamine@gmail.com, ^bjonathan.bares@cea.fr, ^cponson@caltech.edu, ^ddaniel.bonamy@cea.fr,

Abstract: AHSS (Advanced High Strength Steels) combine high strength and good ductility. Their outstanding forming and work-hardening behavior predestines these steels for fabrication of strength relevant structural elements and automobile body parts. To characterize a material, not only tensile, but also hole-expansion and bending behavior are important and help predict the stretch-flange-formability. In this study, detailed analyses of the correlation between these three tests and the damage mechanisms during forming have been performed for selected steels. The results show that for AHSS one should differentiate between “local” and “global” failure. Furthermore, not only are certain materials more sensitive to local or global damage, but also various testing methods tend to provoke either local or global damage. Tensile testing provokes global failure whereas hole-expansion tends to induce local failure. A specimen fails during bending with a mixture of local and global modes. These failure modes are strongly attributed to the microstructure. DP-steels yield high elongation during tensile testing and poorer hole-expansion values. High-resolution EBSD has revealed that the microstructure of DP-steels is sensitive to localized damage, which is compensated by work-hardening around damaged regions and thus shifts the loading to un-hardened regions. This makes DP-microstructures well-suited to tensile loading but sensitive to hole-expansion. CP-steels of comparable strength show poorer tensile elongation and higher hole-expansion ratios due to a microstructure which is not sensitive to localized failure (but has limited capacity for work-hardening). The failure mode in TRIP-steels exhibits a similar character as in DP-steels, but only after the martensitic transformation of retained austenite.

Abstract: Semi-solid slurry of phosphor bronze with fine solid granules for rheocasting was tried to make by passing the low-superheat melt through an opening between a rotating regular octagonal rotor and a circumscribed chill block. The effect of rotational speed on the structure of a solidified small ingot was mainly investigated. The ingot structures were changed from the dendrite of rotor-free condition to the rosette at the rotational speed of 50rpm, and the granular with a mean size of about 50μm at higher than150rpm. The slurries made at 150rpm were rheocast to a cylindrical shape cavity within a die kept at different temperatures from 573 to 1173K by the use of a high pressure casting machine. Microstructures of rheocast cylindrical shape products were granular at the die temperatures lower than 773K and changed to grained one as like recrystallized at higher than 973K. Together with the microstructure change, poor tensile ductility less than 3% at the lowest die temperature was improved up to about 60% at 973K.

Abstract: The study was carried out in order to evaluate the effect of the pulsed electric current (PEC) treatment on the corrosion as well as on static strength of Polish reinforcing steel. As-received St3SX was used for investigations. Two kinds of specimens were manufactured by turning from 20 mm diameter re-bars: cylinders of 10 mm diameter and 28 mm length for corrosion tests and standard cylindrical specimens of 6 mm diameter and 30 mm length for static tension tests. Corrosion tests was performed according to the ASTM B117-97 standard. As-received steel tensile specimens and the specimens after PEC treatment were tested using a servo-hydraulic universal testing machine at the strain rate of 10^-2 s^-1.

Abstract: The microstructure behavior during high temperature deformation of Ni-base alloys based on alloy 690 modified with Nb, Mo, and Hf additions were studied. Optical and electron microscopy were used to characterize these materials and the results were compared with Calphad-based modeling results. The alloys behavior was studied between 500 and 1000 °C using an in-situ high temperature deformation test. The role of precipitates on the grain boundary morphology and their effect on grain boundary sliding and the mechanism of ductility-dip cracking are discussed. Both, undulated grain boundaries and primary intra-granular precipitates improved the alloy DDC resistance.

Abstract: Cleavage fracture in steel is usually evaluated by using the stress criterion. However, some researchers indicated the necessity of strain in the stress criterion according to the cleavage fracture test results of steel base metal. If so, the cleavage fracture criterion should be also applicable to steel welded joints. In this study, cleavage fracture tests, SEM fracture surface observations and FEA were conducted using the smooth and notched round bar tensile specimens of the simulated HAZ microstructure of JIS SM490A. Cleavage trigger types did not influence the cleavage fracture properties of the specimens obviously. FEA results suggested that the critical condition of cleavage fracture initiation was associated not only with stress but also with strain.

Abstract: The current work focuses on the particular case of dissimilar 6082 Al alloy/pure copper butt-friction stirred joints. It takes advantage of voluntarily non optimized welding conditions in order to test the potential of an original approach of identification of the welding defects by means of a single tensile test. The sequence and mechanism of the fracture events arise from their localization on the fracture surfaces thanks to strain maps obtained by digital image correlation. This technique of flaws identification is proved to be particularly efficient at least with the present highly damaged welds.

Abstract: Friction Stir Processing (FSP) is a variant of Friction Stir Welding, and can be used to modify the materials microstructure to functionalize it. Superplastic forming is a technological process used to produce components with very complex shapes. In the last two decades it has been a topic of major development. In Fine Structure Superplasticity (FSSP), the initial grain size exerts a strong influence on the superplastic strain rate and temperatures. Refining grain size (GS) the parameters (temperature and strain rate) of superplastic forming could be optimized. Thermal stability is also an important factor to obtain superplasticity. FSP is used to refine GS, but the optimum processing parameters are still under study over different materials. Corrosion resistance can be affected by FSP too, but the information about it is scarce. In the present study, 7075-T651 aluminium alloy was friction stir processed under different conditions in order to improve superplastic behavior. Tool profile, rotation rate and traverse speed were analyzed. Microstructures with <4 μm grain size were obtained. The maximum superplastic elongations, in a range of 740 to 900%, at 400°C were obtained at 1x10^-2s^-1 strain rate. The results were discussed in terms of constitutive equations and microstructure evolution. Localized corrosion potentials were obtained. Localized corrosion resistance was affected by friction stir processing.

Abstract: Elimination of porosity and refinement of the normally coarse cast microstructure ofaluminium cast alloys by the intensive plastic deformation during friction stir processing (FSP) iswell known. However less is known about the mechanical behavior of the FS processed regionwhich contains zone/pass boundaries and macro/microstructure segregations. In the present study ofFS processed cast Al-7Si-0.3Mg alloy, microstructures featuring the deformed α-Al, fragmented Siparticles and their distribution in the processed region were related to the fracture paths duringtensile testing. It has been found that under the condition of a high rotation speed and minimum pinoverlap there is a strong upward flow of deformed cast material in thermomechanial affected zone.The arrays of Si particles in that flow have provided favorable paths for crack propagation duringtensile testing. As a result, tensile elongation and thus UTS values are low. The mechanism of thatupward flow and FSP conditions for reducing the flow and thus for improving properties of theprocessed region are discussed.