Engineering Science and Materials Commons^™

Investigation Of Microstructure And Mechanical Behavior Of Novel Powder-Extruded Al-Ce-Mg Alloys, Mairym Vazquez

Doctoral Dissertations

Pursuing advanced structural materials with enhanced performance, reduced weight, and lower costs is a constant endeavor in the aerospace and automotive industries. Conventional structural alloys, such as cast irons, carbon steels, and titanium alloys, have strength, weight, and cost limitations. Aluminum-based alloys, known for their lightweight and high strength, have gained popularity in these industries. This dissertation focuses on investigating microstructure and mechanical behavior of novel powder-extruded Al-Ce-Mg alloys as potential candidates for high-performance structural materials.

This research explores using powder extrusion, a well-established forging methodology in the steel industry, to produce Al-Ce-Mg alloys with improved properties and aims to …

Development And Characterization Of Stable Low-Cost Salt Hydrate-Based Phase Change Materials For Thermal Energy Storage Applications, Damilola Olayinka Akamo

Doctoral Dissertations

Energy storage technologies are gaining attention due to rising utilization of renewable energy sources. One of the viable energy storage technologies is thermal energy storage (TES) in which system stores and releases thermal energy for various uses. Applications for TES systems include building systems, space heating and cooling, and refrigeration. Several TES systems use phase change materials (PCMs) to operate near-isothermally owing to phase change latent heat. Inorganic salt hydrate PCMs are popular because to their inexpensive cost, high energy density, and near ambient phase transition temperature. However, salt hydrate PCMs have phase separation, low thermal conductivity, and supercooling issues …

Fabrication, Thermophysical, And Mechanical Properties Of Cermet And Cercer Fuel Composites For Nuclear Thermal Propulsion, Neal D. Gaffin

Doctoral Dissertations

Nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) utilizes nuclear fission to double the efficiency of
in-space propulsion systems compared with traditional combustion rocket systems.
NTP systems are limited primarily by the fuel material choice, due to the extreme
conditions they will need to endure, including temperatures up to 3000 K, multiple
thermal cycles with rapid heating and cooling, exposure to hot flowing hydrogen,
large thermal gradients, and high neutron flux. Particle based fuels, namely ceramic-
metallic (cermet) and ceramic-ceramic (cercer) composites are both promising fuel
element material candidates for NTP. Given the high temperature nature, these
materials are difficult to fabricate and very …

Frontiers In The Self-Assembly Of Charged Macromolecules, Khatcher O. Margossian

Doctoral Dissertations

The self-assembly of charged macromolecules forms the basis of all life on earth. From the synthesis and replication of nucleic acids, to the association of DNA to chromatin, to the targeting of RNA to various cellular compartments, to the astonishingly consistent folding of proteins, all life depends on the physics of the organization and dynamics of charged polymers. In this dissertation, I address several of the newest challenges in the assembly of these types of materials. First, I describe the exciting new physics of the complexation between polyzwitterions and polyelectrolytes. These materials open new questions and possibilities within the context …

Pinless Friction Stir Spot Welding Of Ti-6al-4v Alloy For Aerospace Application, Hyojin Park

Doctoral Dissertations

Friction Stir Spot Welding (FSSW) is a newly developed solid-state joining technique with considerable merits over conventional spot-welding techniques, such as relatively simple procedure and excellent welding properties. It has been successfully implemented for the joining of light-weight structural materials, such as Al- and Mg-based alloys, with superior weldability and reduction of the manufacturing costs and energy consumption. In addition, by removing the pin from the friction stir spot welding tool, the pinless FSSW (p-FSSW) has minimized the formation of welding defects such as keyhole and hooking, which resulted in further improvements in the mechanical properties of weldments. However, the …

Forecasting Nigeria's Electricity Demand And Energy Efficiency Potential Under Climate Uncertainty, Olawale Olabisi

Doctoral Dissertations

The increasing population and socio-economic growth of Nigeria, coupled with the current, unmet electricity demand, requires the need for power supply facilities expansion. Of all Nigeria’s electricity consumption by sector, the residential sector is the largest and growing at a very fast rate. To meet this growing demand, an accurate estimation of the demand into the future that will guide policy makers to adequately plan for the expansion of electricity supply and distribution, and energy efficiency standards and labeling must be made. To achieve this, a residential electricity demand forecast model that can correctly predict future demand and guide the …

Structural Stability Of Thermosets During Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing, Stian K. Romberg

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past decade, the scale of polymer additive manufacturing has been revolutionized with machines that print massive thermoplastic parts with greater geometric complexity than can be achieved by traditional manufacturing methods. However, the heat required to print thermoplastics consumes energy and induces thermal gradients that can reduce manufacturing flexibility and final mechanical properties. With the ability to be extruded at room temperature and excellent compatibility with fibers and fillers, thermoset resins show promise to decrease the energy consumption, expand the manufacturing flexibility, and broaden the material palette offered by large-scale polymer additive manufacturing. However, structural instability in the uncured …

Interfacial Bonding Between Thermoset And Thermoplastic Polyurethane Reinforced Textile Grade Carbon Fiber: Structure Property Relationships, Surbhi Subhash Kore

Doctoral Dissertations

The research work focused on examining the interfacial adhesion of unsized, epoxy, and urethane-sized textile grade carbon fiber (TCF) reinforced in different classes of polyurethane (PU) thermoplastic (TPU) and thermoset (TSU) polyurethane (PU) through the structure-property relationship. The Carbon Fiber Technology Facility (CFTF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has produced TCF to reduce the cost of commercial-grade carbon fiber. The first part of the research examined the fundamental relationships between (a) soft segment thermoplastic polyurethane (S-TPU), (b) hard segment thermoplastic polyurethane (H-TPU), (c) thermoset polyurethane (TSU) and TCF reinforcement’s molecular behavior at the interface using the surface and thermal …

Innovations In Aligned And Overmolded Long Fiber Thermoplastic Composites, Shailesh P. Alwekar

Doctoral Dissertations

Long fiber thermoplastic (LFT) composite materials are increasingly used in high performance lightweight automotive, sporting, and industrial applications. LFT composites are processed with extrusion-compression molding (ECM) and/or injection molding (IM). Melt extrusion offers unique opportunities to align long fibers in a thermoplastic polymer melt. The properties of LFT materials are highly influenced by processing techniques which leads to different porosity content, fiber length distribution, and fiber orientation distribution. Hence, it is important to understand the various LFT processing techniques and their effect on mechanical, thermal, and microscopic properties.

The fundamental process-property relationships in LFT composites are investigated in this dissertation. …

Numerical Modeling Of Advanced Propulsion Systems, Peetak P. Mitra

Doctoral Dissertations

Numerical modeling of advanced propulsion systems such as the Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) is of great interest to the community due to the magnitude of compute/algorithmic challenges. Fuel spray atomization, which determines the rate of fuel-air mixing, is a critical limiting process for the phenomena of combustion within ICEs. Fuel spray atomization has proven to be a formidable challenge for the state-of-the-art numerical models due to its highly transient, multi-scale, and multi-phase nature. Current models for primary atomization employ a high degree of empiricism in the form of model constants. This level of empiricism often reduces the art of predictive …

Development Of Density-Functional Tight-Binding Methods For Chemical Energy Science, Quan Vuong

Doctoral Dissertations

Density-functional tight-binding (DFTB) method is an approximation to the popular first-principles density functional theory (DFT) method. Recently, DFTB has gained considerable visibility due to its inexpensive computational requirements that confer it the capability of sustaining long-timescale reactive molecular dynamics (MD) simulations while providing an explicit description of electronic structure at all time steps. This capability allows the description of bond formation and breaking processes, as well as charge polarization and charge transfer phenomena, with accuracy and transferability beyond comparable classical reactive force fields. It has thus been employed successfully in the simulation of many complex chemical processes. However, its applications …

Material Property Heterogeneity In Dimensional Lumber And Its Relationship To Mass Timber Performance, Fiona O'Donnell

Doctoral Dissertations

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, buildings account for 38% of the United States' carbon dioxide emissions, providing architects and structural engineers a unique opportunity to mitigate a significant factor driving climate change by implementing innovative and sustainable technology in infrastructure design. Wood and mass timber products are becoming an increasingly popular alternative building material due to their economic and environmental benefits. The natural growth of wood leads to highly heterogeneous material properties. Defects such as checks, knots, and localized slope of grain contribute to some of this variation; however, wood properties vary significantly even in clear wood. Using mass …

Process-Structure-Property Relationships In 3d-Printed Epoxy Composites Produced Via Material Extrusion Additive Manufacturing, Nadim S. Hmeidat

Doctoral Dissertations

Extrusion-based additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, such as direct ink writing (DIW), offer unique opportunities to create composite materials and novel multi-material architectures that are not feasible using other AM technologies. DIW is a novel 3D-printing approach in which viscoelastic inks, with favorable rheological properties, are extruded through fine nozzles and patterned in a filament form at room temperature.

Recent developments in DIW of polymer composites have led to expanding the range of materials used for printing, as well as introducing novel deposition strategies to control filler orientation and create improved functional/structural composite materials. Despite these substantial advancements, the successful and …

Experimental Study Of Viscoelastic Fluid-Structure Interactions, Anita Anup Dey

Doctoral Dissertations

It is well known that when a flexible or flexibly-mounted structure is placed perpendicular to a Newtonian fluid flow, it can oscillate due to the shedding of vortices at high Reynolds numbers. Unlike Newtonian fluids, viscoelastic fluid flow can become unstable even at infinitesimal Reynolds numbers due to a purely elastic flow instability occurring at large Weissenberg numbers. This thesis focuses on exploring the mechanisms of viscoelastic fluid-structure interactions (VFSI) through experimental investigations on several different combinations of flexible and flexibly-mounted circular cylinders, micro and macro-scale cantilevered beams and viscoelastic fluids such as wormlike micelle solutions and polymer solutions. VFSI …

Mechanics Of The Solid-State Bonding Under Severe Thermomechanical Processes, Xue Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Friction stir welding (FSW) has found increased applications in automotive and aerospace industries due to its advantages of solid-state bonding, no fusion and melting, and versatility in various working conditions and material combinations. The extent and quality of the solid-state bonding between workpieces in FSW is the ultimate outcome of their industrial applications. However, the relationship among processing parameters, material properties, and bonding extent and fidelity remains largely empirical, primarily because of the lack of the mechanistic understanding of (1) tool-workpiece frictional behavior, and (2) bonding formation and evolution.

In this dissertation, to study the underlying mechanism of tool-workpiece frictional …

Development Of A Novel Casting Alloy Composed Of Aluminum And Cerium With Other Minor Additions, Zachary Cole Sims

Doctoral Dissertations

Eutectic casting alloys of aluminum and cerium are a recent discovery and early research describes an alloy with great potential to meet the growing demand for a lightweight, economical, high specific strength material for use in high-temperature or extremely corrosive environments. The broad application of aluminum alloys across industry sectors is driven by their collection of balanced properties including economical cost, high specific strength, and flexibility of their production pathways. Additionally, their high corrosion resistance makes them a good choice for structural materials. Despite this, the push to use aluminum alloys in ever more extreme environments with higher temperatures, stresses, …

Design And Development Of Strong And Ductile Single Bcc Refractory High-Entropy Alloys For High-Temperature Applications, Chanho Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

The objectives of this proposed study are to (1) design and develop single BCC phase refractory high-entropy alloys (HEAs) for the high-temperature applications, (2) investigate the deformation mechanisms of refractory HEAs, (3) improve an integrated approach, coupling focused experiments and theoretical modeling, to design, discover, and develop HEAs, and (4) understand the alloy design-microstructure-property-performance links underlying the mechanical behavior of refractory HEA systems for gas-turbine applications

A traditional alloy system generally includes one or two principal elements that form the matrix with other additional elements, e.g., iron or aluminum alloys, to strengthen some specific properties, such as strength and corrosion …

The Effect Of Oxygen On Properties Of Zirconium Metal, Jie Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

The influence of oxygen on the thermophysical properties of zirconium has been investigated using MSL-EML (Material Science Laboratory Electromagnetic Levitator) on ISS (International Space Station) in collaboration with NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration), ESA (European Space Agency), and DLR (German Aerospace Center). Zirconium samples with different oxygen concentrations was subjected to multiple melt cycles during which the thermophysical properties, such as density, viscosity and surface tension, have been measured at various undercooled and superheated temperatures. Also, there are melt cycles for verifying the solidification mechanism. Similar samples were found to show anomalous nucleation of the solid for certain ranges …

Computational Modeling Of Laminated Veneer Bamboo (Lvb) Dowel Joints, Niloufar Khoshbakht

Doctoral Dissertations

Laminated veneer bamboo (LVB) is a sustainable building material that has been gaining interest in the construction industry of late. As a relatively new product, little is known about its connection performance, specifically, its failure behavior in dowel type joints and possible similarities it may have to engineered wood products in terms of failure mechanisms. Research is needed to aid in the understanding of LVB dowel connection failure behavior and to quantify the failure mechanism and key factors associated with LVB dowel connection strength. Modeling, as conducted in this research, is a valuable tool to help devise safe standards and …

Modeling And Simulation Of Driven Nanopatterning Of Bulk-Material And Thin-Film Surfaces, Ashish Kumar

Doctoral Dissertations

Material nanostructures such as nanowires, quantum dots, and nanorings have a wide variety of applications in electronic and photonic devices among numerous others. Assembling uniformly arranged and consistently sized nanostructure patterns on solid material surfaces is a major challenge for nanotechnology. This dissertation focuses on developing predictive models capable of simulation and analysis of such nanopattern formation on bulk material and strained thin film surfaces. Single-layer atomic clusters (islands) of sizes larger than a critical size on crystalline conducting substrates undergo morphological instabilities when driven by an externally applied electric field or thermal gradient. We have conducted a systematic and …

Polymeric Impulsive Actuation Mechanisms: Development, Characterization, And Modeling, Yongjin Kim

Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advances in the field of biomedical and life-sciences are increasingly demanding more life-like actuation with higher degrees of freedom in motion at small scales. Many researchers have developed various solutions to satisfy these emerging requirements. In many cases, new solutions are made possible with the development of novel polymeric actuators. Advances in polymeric actuation not only addressed problems concerning low degree of freedom in motion, large system size, and bio-incompatibility associated with conventional actuators, but also led to the discovery of novel applications, which were previously unattainable with conventional engineered systems. This dissertation focuses on developing novel actuation mechanisms …

Finite Element Simulation Of Bonded And Mechanically Anchored Shear Interfaces Of Externally Applied Frp Sheets To Concrete And Wood-Concrete Composites, Alaa Al-Sammari

Doctoral Dissertations

Composite construction is prevalent in advanced structural systems where components of different materials are combined in the same structure to improve the performance of strong and economic structural sections. Maintaining continuity between the different structural components to produce monolithic structural behavior is challenging because of differences in the mechanical properties of these materials in terms of stiffness, strength, and ductility. The different components of the composite section are typically joined using adhesives and/or mechanical anchors to produce partial or full composite action. This dissertation discusses two types of shear interfaces intended to result in structural composite behavior. The first type …

Northeastern Species In Hybrid Cross Laminated Timber, Hamid Kaboli

Doctoral Dissertations

Known in the building industry throughout the world, Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) is a massive timber building material with outstanding structural, fire, and seismic properties. CLT is a cost-competitive, sustainable construction material is a good candidate as a substitute material for concrete, masonry, and steel, in mid-rise and high-rise buildings. CLT is perpendicular layers of dimensional lumbers usually laminated together and forming a massive structural panel. This dissertation explores the viability of utilizing Massachusetts grown Eastern Hemlock and Eastern White Pine in CLT panels as pure or in conjunction with other high-value wood products. 59% of Massachusetts’ lands are covered …

Effective Magnetic And Electric Response Of Composite Materials, Mona Hassan Alsaleh

Doctoral Dissertations

Metamaterials (MMs) are nanocomposite materials consisting of metal-dielectric resonators much smaller in size than the wavelength of the incident light. Common examples of metamaterials are based on split ring resonators (SRRs), parallel wires or strips and fishnet structures. These types of materials are designed and fabricated in order to provide unique optical responses to the incident electromagnetic radiation that are not available in naturally existing materials. The MMs can exhibit unusual properties such as strong magnetism at terahertz (THz) and optical frequencies. Additionally, negative index materials (NIMs) can provide negative index of refraction which can be used in many applications …

Engineering Next Generation Anisotropic Materials And Composites, Nihal Kanbargi

Doctoral Dissertations

Polymer-based composite systems have been developed for a wide variety of applications ranging from aerospace to electronics. My work has focused on the structure-process-property relationships of anisotropic polymeric materials and composites, aimed primarily for structural applications. Anisotropic materials such as fibers have superior mechanical properties along the axial direction and this property can be exploited to engineer exceptionally strong and light materials. In the first chapter, we discuss the physics of degradation of Poly(p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole) (PBO) fibers. PBO, a fiber of extraordinary tensile modulus and strength has been found to degrade rapidly under moderate conditions of humidity and heat. Solid-state NMR …

Modeling Deformation Behavior And Strength Characteristics Of Sand-Silt Mixtures: A Micromechanical Approach, Mehrashk Meidani

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is comprised of six chapters. In the first chapter the motivation of this research, which was modeling the deformation behavior and strength characteristics of soils under internal erosion, is briefly explained. In the second chapter a micromechanis-based stress-strain model developed for prediction of sand-silt mixtures behavior is presented. The components of the micromechanics-based model are described and undrained behavior of six different types of sand-silt mixtures is predicted for several samples with different fines contents. The need for a more comprehensive compression model for sand-silt mixtures is identified at the end of this chapter. This desired compression model …

Computational Dynamics And Virtual Dragline Simulation For Extended Rope Service Life, Muhammad Wardeh

Doctoral Dissertations

"The dragline machinery is one of the largest equipment for stripping overburden materials in surface mining operations. Its effectiveness requires rigorous kinematic and dynamic analyses. Current dragline research studies are limited in computational dynamic modeling because they eliminate important structural components from the front-end assembly. Thus, the derived kinematic, dynamic and stress intensity models fail to capture the true response of the dragline under full operating cycle conditions. This research study advances a new and robust computational dynamic model of the dragline front-end assembly using Kane's method. The model is a 3-DOF dynamic model that describes the spatial kinematics and …

Computational Studies Of Structure–Function Relationships Of Supported And Unsupported Metal Nanoclusters, Hongbo Shi

Doctoral Dissertations

Fuel cells have been demonstrated to be promising power generation devices to address the current global energy and environmental challenges. One of the many barriers to commercialization is the cost of precious catalysts needed to achieve sufficient power output. Platinum-based materials play an important role as electrocatalysts in energy conversion technologies. In order to improve catalytic efficiency and facilitate rational design and development of new catalysts, structure–function relationships that underpin catalytic activity must be understood at a fundamental level. First, we present a systematic analysis of CO adsorption on Pt nanoclusters in the 0.2-1.5 nm size range with the aim …

Analyses Of Densely Crosslinked Phenolic Systems Using Low Field Nmr, Jigneshkumar Patel

Doctoral Dissertations

A uniform dispersion of reactants is necessary to achieve a complete reaction involving multi-components, especially for the crosslinking of rigid high-performance materials. In these reactions, miscibility is crucial for curing efficiency. This miscibility is typically enhanced by adding a third component, a plasticizer. For the reaction of the highly crystalline crosslinking agent hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) with a strongly hydrogen-bonded phenol formaldehyde resin, furfural has been traditionally used as the plasticizer. However, the reason for its effectiveness is not clear. In this doctoral thesis work, miscibility and crosslinking efficiency of plasticizers in phenolic curing reactions are studied by thermal analysis and spectroscopic …

Correlating Long-Term Lithium Ion Battery Performance With Solid Electrolyte Interphase (Sei) Layer Properties, Seong Jin An

Doctoral Dissertations

This study was conducted to understand effects of some of key factors (i.e., anode surface properties, formation cycling conditions, and electrolyte conditions) on solid electrolyte interphase (SEI) formation in lithium ion batteries (LIBs) and the battery cycle life. The SEI layer passivates electrode surfaces and prevents electron transfer and electrolyte diffusion through it while allowing lithium ion diffusion, which is essential for stable reversible capacities. It also influences initial capacity loss, self-discharge, cycle life, rate capability and safety. Thus, SEI layer formation and electrochemical stability are primary topics in LIB development. This research involves experiments and discussions on key factors …