| 1. |
- Johansen, Marcus, 1994
(författare)
-
Microstructure of Carbon Fibres for Multifunctional Composites: 3D Distribution and Configuration of Atoms
- 2021
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Lightweight energy storage is a must for increased driving range of electric vehicles. “Mass-less” energy storage can be achieved by directly storing energy in structural components. In such multifunctional devices called structural composite batteries, carbon fibres carry mechanical load and simultaneously act as negative battery electrode by hosting lithium ions in its microstructure. Little is known of how the microstructure of carbon fibres is optimised for multifunctionality, and deeper understanding of the configuration and the distribution of atoms in carbon fibres is needed. Here synchrotron hard X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and atom probe tomography are used to reveal the chemical states and three-dimensional distribution of atoms in commercial carbon fibres. This thesis presents the first ever guide for how to perform atom probe tomography on carbon fibres, and the first ever three-dimensional atomic reconstruction of a carbon fibre. The results show that the chemical states and distribution of nitrogen heteroatoms in carbon fibres affect the electrochemical performance of the fibres. Carbon fibres performed electrochemically better with higher amount of nitrogen with pyridinic and pyrrolic configurations. Additionally, the nitrogen concentration varies throughout the carbon fibre, which may suggest that the electrochemical properties also vary throughout the carbon fibre. The knowledge provided by this thesis can lead to future carbon fibre designs with enhanced electrochemical performance for multifunctional applications.
|
|
| 2. |
- Jaladurgam, Nitesh Raj, 1993
(författare)
-
Heterogeneous deformation of multi-phase engineering materials - an in-situ neutron diffraction study
- 2019
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Gas turbines are complex power generation systems used in aerospace or land-based-power stations. Materials such as Ni-base superalloys are involved in the combustion zone of these machines, which continuously experiences harsh environments with loading at high temperatures. Moreover, the continuous demand for increasing operating temperature to achieve higher efficiencies and reduced emission levels opens the scene to new heat resistant materials like the state-of-the-art high entropy alloys (HEAs), which require a thorough understanding of the structure-process-property relationships. The microstructures of these advanced multi-phase, multi-component alloys are complex, and the deformation is generally heterogeneous both with respect to the different phases and to the crystallographic orientation within each phase. Hence, it is important to understand their behavior and performance during processing and service. In-situ neutron diffraction is a unique technique to probe the deformation behaviour during service/processing-like conditions, including plastic deformation at various temperatures, in order to provide insights into the structure-property relations. In the first part of this work the deformation mechanisms of a newly developed Ni-base superalloy was investigated using in-situ neutron diffraction and electron microscopy at room temperature. In addition, elasto-plastic self-consistent (EPSC) crystal plasticity simulations are used to obtain insights into the operating deformation mechanisms. In the second part, the as-cast eutectic high entropy alloy AlCoCrFeNi2.1 was studied using in-situ neutron diffraction at temperatures from 77 to 673 K. These investigations provide unique insights into the complex heterogeneous deformation behavior of these high-performance multi-phase engineering materials.
|
|
| 3. |
- Shoja, Siamak, 1980
(författare)
-
Microstructure and plastic deformation of textured CVD alumina coatings
- 2020
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- It is known that the wear performance of α-alumina coatings produced by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) is significantly influenced by the type and degree of texture. However, the main reasons behind this behavior are not fully understood. This thesis contains studies of two related topics for increasing the understanding of α-alumina coatings. The first topic concerns the microstructure and texture development of CVD α-Al2O3 coatings, and the second topic concerns calculations and analysis of the Schmid factors ( m ) for coatings with different textures. By combining different analysis methods (such as XRD, SEM, FIB/SEM, TKD, TEM, STEM, XEDS), and theoretical and experimental Schmid factor analysis by MATLAB and EBSD, the microstructure and plastic deformation of α-alumina coatings were investigated. The microstructures of three different CVD α-Al2O3 layers deposited onto a Ti(C,N,O) bonding layer were studied. Grain boundary diffusion of heavy elements from the substrate to the bonding layer/α-Al2O3 interface was observed. This may be the cause of a disturbance in the early growth of α-Al2O3. Additionally, it was found that the number of interfacial pores at the bonding layer/α-Al2O3 interface increased by introducing the H2S gas. The H2S gas also promoted an earlier development of the (0001) texture. The orientation of the grains was developed to the desired texture both as a gradual change over several grains and as an abrupt transformation from one grain to another. The probability of plastic deformation in different wear zones on the rake face of a cutting tool was investigated theoretically and experimentally by analyzing Schmid factors for textured α-Al2O3 coatings. Schmid factor diagrams were constructed using MATLAB/MTEX and used to extract frequency distributions for different slip systems and textures. The results were compared with lateral distribution maps of Schmid factors obtained from experimental coatings. It was observed that basal slip is most easily activated in the transition zone, followed by prismatic slip systems 1 and 2 in coatings with an (0001)-texture. The homogeneous plastic deformation behavior observed in this coating is also connected to mostly high Schmid factors in the m -value distribution. The differences between the m -value distributions for the three slip systems are not that pronounced in the (01-12) and (11-20) textures, and the distributions are relatively wide. The low wear rate and more homogeneous deformation of the coating with (0001) texture compared to the other coating textures may be the result of the high plasticity, offered by the easy activation of basal slip and prismatic 1 slip, and the low spread of Schmid factor values at the transition zone. In conclusion, the results presented in this thesis form a knowledge platform that can be used to understand the microstructure and wear mechanisms of textured CVD α-alumina coatings.
|
|
| 4. |
- Cabo Rios, Alberto, 1990
(författare)
-
Experimental study and simulation of sintering of 316L components produced by binder jetting
- 2023
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Binder Jetting (BJT) is a multi-step Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique that is used for producing components with highly complex geometries and competitive final properties with high productivity when compared to other AM technologies. The first step provides the basic part geometric shape (BJT printing), and the next step (debinding and sintering) consolidates the part to reach final geometry and intended basic material properties. Due to the low density of green BJT components after printing (~50-60%), significant shrinkage (~20%) occurs during the sintering process along different directions. Also, sintering may lead to distortion of the external shape of the components. During BJT printing, the powder is being deposited layer-by-layer and binder is selectively placed to create a 3D geometry. Therefore, the metal particle’s arrangement of the green BJT components is influenced by the layer-by-layer buildup nature of the printing process. This impacts the behavior of the components during the debinding and sintering process. The first part of this study aims to develop the understanding of densification development during the sintering of 316L stainless-steel BJT samples. The intensity of the dimensional evolution anisotropy was characterized by multi-axial dilatometry experiments. Measured shrinkages were up to 15% higher along the building direction, while minor variation was found between the other two orthogonal directions. Only small shrinkages (<0.5%) were observed during debinding without significant anisotropy. A rapid increase of the shrinkage rate was observed at high temperature (~1310°C), related to the formation of δ-ferrite phase. This boost of densification is critical to achieve high densities (96-99%) of 316L BJT sintered components. The second part consists of the microstructural evolution analysis. The EBSD phase maps showed the formation of δ-ferrite at temperatures >1300°C. The porosity characterization within different cross-sections demonstrated that some anisotropic distribution of porosity may be developed during sintering. The last part of this study introduces the application of the continuum theory of sintering for modelling the sintering behavior of 316L BJT components. The identification of model parameters was done from dilatometry data. Then, a new material viscosity expression was proposed to account for the effect of δ-ferrite transformation. The model was proved to accomplish good predictions of the density evolution during sintering of BJT samples.
|
|
| 5. |
- Fazi, Andrea, 1992
(författare)
-
Cold spray Cr-coated Optimized ZIRLO claddings: an option for accident tolerant fuels
- 2021
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Accident tolerant fuel development has started with the aim of providing nuclear fuels able to endure severe accident conditions. Research in this field has also sparked a wave of material renewal in the nuclear industry that had being delayed for the last few decades. Climate change is an ever-growing public concern, and policies about greenhouse gas emissions are becoming more stringent both at the national and international level. Nuclear energy produces very low carbon emissions and the successful development of new accident tolerant materials might play a role in making this technology a viable solution to this global issue. Cr-coated zirconium claddings are one of the most promising candidates as near-term response to the need for accident tolerant materials. These coatings can be produced via a range of different technologies, but the two main designs being currently developed are obtained with physical vapour deposition or cold spray (CS) deposition. In cold spray, high pressure gas is fed through a nozzle together with Cr powder. The Cr particles are accelerated up to 1200 m/s and directed to the substrate, in this case cladding tubes made of Optimized ZIRLO™ alloy. The resulting Cr-coated zirconium cladding is the subject of this work. As-fabricated samples and autoclave tested material are characterized with atom probe tomography and a range of electron microscopy techniques. The scope of the investigation is to evaluate the performances of Cr-coated claddings under operating conditions. Additionally, the nature of the adhesion in cold spray coating and the effects of this deposition method on the substrate are explored. A 10-20 nm thick intermixed bonding region was observed at the Cr/Zr interface of the as-fabricated cladding. This region is deemed to play an important role in the strong adhesion of CS coatings. When exposed to operating conditions, ZrCr2-Laves phase was found to nucleate in the intermixed bonding region. CS deposition involves severe plastic deformation of both coating and substrate. As a result, a 1-2 μm thick nanocrystalline layer can be found in the substrate adjacent to the Cr/Zr interface. After autoclave exposure, a Zr-Cr-Fe phase was discovered precipitating in this nanocrystalline layer at the Zr grain boundaries.
|
|
| 6. |
- Ewest, Daniel
(författare)
-
Modelling and experimental evaluation of non-linear fatigue crack propagation in a ductile superalloy
- 2016
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Fatigue life evaluation is an important part in the design process of an industrial gas turbine. The fatigue life can be divided into crack initiation and crack propagation, and not to address the crack propagation part usually yields a non-conservative and overcomplicated design. Historically a lot of attention has been directed towards the crack initiation, but the crack propagation part in an industrial gas turbine context has not been given the same attention due to limitations in theoretical modelling, lack of test possibilities and that the design requirements have been fulfilled within the initiation life. However, with the need to reduce service down time and to improve performance, the crack propagation life needs to be further accounted for. As an example, cracks that emerge from notches or other stress concentrations grow under non-elastic conditions, which cannot be modelled with linear theories.In this Licentiate of Engineering thesis a non-linear approach is put forward in which the plastic contribution in fatigue crack propagation is addressed and accounted for. The theoretical background is not new, but the finite element implementation done was, to the author knowledge, not available. This numerical post processing tool can calculate the non-linear ΔJ value for an arbitrary 2D-geometry. It was used to produce an expression for a non-linear geometry factor used in a simple expression for estimation of ΔJ in a test evaluation context. Room temperature tests were performed on a single notch specimen, under both displacement and force control. The latter were carried out in order to show the behaviour under small scale yielding conditions, while the displacement controlled testing was to show large scale yielding at the beginning of the tests. It was shown that all the test results could be collected in a Paris law type plot with ΔJ if the crack closure effect is taken into account. Furthermore, a study was performed where both a linear and a non-linear approach are applied on the displacement controlled tests. It was concluded that for the studied test series, the linear fatigue fracture parameter ΔK underestimates the crack growth behaviour if the elasto-plastic stresses from the tests are used, hence yielding non-conservative results.Since this project focuses on non-linear crack propagation at thermo-mechanical conditions a crack length description is put forward, which simplifies and increases the accuracy of crack length measurements in fatigue crack propagation tests. It has also been shown that irrespectively of the crack initiation location in a single edge notch specimen the data fall on one curve, meaning that no care has to be taken regarding this aspect when evaluating crack length with the modified compliance method put forward in Paper III.This Licentiate of Engineering thesis consists of two parts, where Part I gives an introduction to the subject, while Part II consists of three papers.
|
|
| 7. |
- Jänis, Anna, 1970
(författare)
-
Investigation of electrical and magnetic properties of nanoparticles and nanofibers with the aim to tailor material properties of nanocomposites
- 2008
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Nanocomposites are the subject of interest in this study which can be explained by the factum that using building blocks with dimensions in the nanosize range makes it possible to design and create new materials which can satisfy several functions at the same time for many applications. The applications of interest in this study belong to the microwave frequency region and for that reason a number of materials were investigated to define their microwave absorbing properties. The aim is to tailor material properties of nanocomposites by using fillers with different electromagnetic properties. Two types of filler were investigated during the study: fillers with electrical- and magnetic-field losses.Among fillers with electrical-field losses SiC nanowires were investigated together with SiC microcrystalline particles. The results presented in this study show that fillers in form of particles and fibers of nanometer size introduce higher level of energy loss in comparison with micrometer sized particles and fibers. It has also been found that in the case of SiC nanowires the higher carbon content introduces higher level of electrical-field losses.Among fillers with magnetic-field losses manganese-ferrite (soft) and cobalt-ferrite (hard) nanoparticles were investigated. The results show that soft and hard magnetic ferrites have absorbing properties in different frequency regions. Thus, manganese- and cobalt-ferrite nanoparticles can be used together to achieve absorption in a wide frequency band. To achieve higher magnetic-field losses in the composite, the nanoparticles with higher initial permeability and lower coercivity are preferable as filler.To connect microwave properties of nanoparticles/nanofibers and nanocomposites to their microstructure two types of materials characterization were always performed: microstructural characterization by applying optical and electron microscopy and characterization in microwave region using an Automatic Network Analyzer (ANA).
|
|
| 8. |
|
|
| 9. |
- Strååt, Martin, 1978
(författare)
-
On the Dielectric Losses of Polyethylene at Medium and High Frequencies
- 2008
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- AbstractAs mobile communication moves from 3G to 4G, the bandwidth used will be extended from 2 GHz to 5 GHz. The propagation loss is related to the 2.6:th power of frequency, thus a large increase in power consumption may be expected. The dielectric properties of the insulation in coaxial cables are of increasing importance for the propagation losses at high frequencies. “Electrically clean” polyethylene grades have very good dielectric properties up to 1 GHz after which the dielectric losses can increase. Foaming of polyethylene improves the dielectric properties even further. The aim of the present work is to gain an improved understanding of the dielectric losses in polyethylene foams.The dielectric properties of solid high density polyethylene (HDPE) as well as foamed blends of low density polyethylene (LDPE) with HDPE were evaluated at medium and high frequencies using a broadband high-resolution dielectric spectrometer, a split post dielectric resonator and a cavity resonator equipped with a rectangular waveguide.The foamed samples were prepared by extrusion through a slit die using a laboratory scale single screw extruder. It was found that foaming reduced both the dielectric constant and the dielectric loss factor at medium and high frequencies and increasing porosity led to a better performance. However, increasing the porosity further than 50% would require improved strain hardening properties of the melt. Useful die temperatures for foaming were between 195°C and 210°C. Incorporation of the chemical blowing agent azodicarbonamide increased significantly the dielectric loss factor of both the processed and unprocessed foaming blends. Deformation of foam cells occurred when the consolidating melt was subjected to drawing and compression. The cells became elongated and flattened which can reduce the dielectric losses.In order to study the dielectric properties of solid HDPE, eight technical grades differing in molecular characteristics, catalyst types, co-monomer types and additive content were used. Samples were prepared by compression moulding the materials into plaques. The dielectric losses, as given by the dielectric loss tangent, decreased more or less linearly with an increasing degree of crystallinity for this series of polyethylenes. Lower dielectric losses were also associated with a higher melting point. An increased dielectric loss tangent could furthermore be related to a higher content of carbonyl and trans-vinylene groups. To some extent, this could be associated with a corresponding reduction in the crystallinity.Key words: Dielectric properties, polyethylene, frequency, foaming, crystallinity, porosity.
|
|
| 10. |
- Sun, Xun, 1992-
(författare)
-
Ab initio Investigation of Al-doped CrMnFeCoNi High-Entropy Alloys
- 2019
-
Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- High-entropy alloys (HEAs) represent a special group of solid solutions containing five or more principal elements. The new design strategy has attracted extensive attention from the materials science community. The design and development of HEAs with desired properties have become an important subject in materials science and technology. For understanding the basic properties of HEAs, here we investigate the magnetic properties, Curie temperatures, electronic structures, phase stabilities, and elastic properties of paramagnetic (PM) body-centered cubic (bcc) and face-centered cubic (fcc) AlxCrMnFeCoNi (0 ≤ x ≤ 5, in molar fraction) HEAs using the first-principles exact muffin-tin orbitals (EMTO) method in combination with the coherent potential approximation (CPA) for dealing with the chemical and magnetic disorder.Whenever possible, we compare the theoretical predictions to the available experimental data in order to verify our methodology. In addition, we make use of the previous theoretical investigations carried out on AlxCrFeCoNi HEAs to reveal and understand the role of Mn in the present HEAs. The theoretical lattice constants are found to increase with increasing x, which is in good agreement with the available experimental data. The magnetic transition temperature for the bcc structure strongly decreases with x, whereas that for the fcc structure shows a weak composition dependence. Within their own stability fields, both structures are predicted to be PM at ambient conditions. Upon Al addition, the crystal structure changes from fcc to bcc with a broad two-phase field region, in line with the observations. Bain path calculations suggest that within the duplex region both phases are dynamically stable.Comparison with available experimental data demonstrates that the employed approach describes accurately the elastic moduli of the present HEAs. The elastic parameters exhibit complex composition dependences, although the predicted lattice constants increase monotonously with Al addition. The elastic anisotropy is unusually high for both phases. The brittle/ductile transitions formulated in terms of Cauchy pressure and Pugh ratio become consistent only when the strong elastic anisotropy is accounted for. The negative Cauchy pressure of CrMnFeCoNi is found to be due to the relatively low bulk modulus and C12 elastic constant, which in turn are consistent with the relatively low cohesive energy. Our findings in combination with the experimental data suggest anomalous metallic character for the present HEAs system.The work and results presented in this thesis give a good background to go further and study the plasticity of AlxCrMnFeCoNi type of HEAs as a function of chemistry and temperature. This is a very challenging task and only a very careful pre-study concerning the phase stability, magnetism and elasticity can provide enough information to turn my plan regarding ab initio description of the thermo-plastic deformation mechanisms in AlxCrMnFeCoNi HEAs into a successful research.
|
|
