Structural Materials Commons^™

Efficient Sintering Of Lunar Soil Using Concentrated Sunlight, Diprajit Biswas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Construction material is one crucial need for long-term habitation on the moon. When concentrated for high heat flux, solar radiation can heat lunar soil or regolith until it sinters at temperatures above 900°C. The solid, sintered soil simulant can be used as construction material. This work explores the conditions leading to effective lunar soil sintering for both direct and indirect irradiated sintering. Lunar soil simulants were sintered using concentrated light from a xenon-arc lamp with varying heat flux intensity. During direct sintering of LHS-1, a sintering range of 860°C-1140°C corresponding to a peak heat flux of 105-120 kW/m2 was identified …

Atomistic Simulation Studies Of Thin Film Growth And Plastic Deformation In Metals And Metal/Ceramic Nanostructures, Reza Namakian

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Despite the significant improvements in manufacturing and synthesis processes of metals and ceramics in the past decades, there are still areas in which the procedure is still frequently more of an art or skill rather than a science. Therefore, systematic and combined experimental and computational studies are required to facilitate the development of techniques that offer thorough understanding of the events taking place during manufacturing and synthesis processes. With regard to these issues, it is paramount to address microscale characterizations and atomic scale understanding of the events during fabrication processes. One of the focuses of this study is unraveling fundamental …

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 …

Evaluating The Effects Of Granulated Rubber And Glass Fibers In Polymer Concrete As A Structural Material For Wafer Grinding Machines, Kevin Gabriel Kuehn, Philip Randall Streeter

Materials Engineering

Polymer concrete is a composite material used to replace cast iron and steel in wafer grinding machines for vibration damping. During the grinding and lapping processes of manufacturing silicon wafers, excessive vibrations may cause subsurface damage which requires additional polishing and reduces yield. Nine compositions containing various levels of granulated rubber and glass fibers were manufactured. CRM WRF-10 granulated rubber was examined at 0%, 5%, and 10% and Corning Cem-Fil glass fibers were added at 0%, 0.5%, and 1% by weight. Smooth-On EpoxAcast 690 epoxy resin was held constant at 16% for each composition. Crushed granite aggregate from Martin Marietta, …

Review: Factors Affecting Composite Laminates Against Lightning Strikes, Aaryan Manoj Nair

Publications and Research

Lightning strike protection (LSP) have recently been a newly developing field particularly with the emergence of graphene thin film integration into carbon fiber composite structures. This technology has a widespread application in airplanes, wind turbines, and other instruments which are susceptible to frequent lightning strikes. Electrical discharge of the instrument in a safe manner is vital for the safety of the passengers (in the case of flights) as well as the integrity of the aircraft structures because of their specific mechanical and structural properties, which are essential for their functioning. The purpose of the study is to fabricate graphene thin …

Research Trend Of Metal Matrix Composites Reinforced With Silica Extracted By Green Route: A Bibliometric Analysis, Rinku Datkhile, Meena Laad, Babaji Ghule

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Metal Matrix Composites have acquired an important place in the engineering applications due to their distinctive characteristics such as high specific strength, lower specific gravity, improved material stiffness, better durability, enhanced creep and fatigue strength etc. Worldwide scientists are working on the improvement of mechanical properties of composite materials. The present work attempts to summarise all the research carried out on metal matrix composites reinforced with silica extracted by green route and provides up-to-date research material for researchers who are interested in the field of composites with metal matrices. Scopus databases and software such as Gephi Vos Viewer and Table2Net …

Effect Of Applied Pressure During Sintering On The Densification And Mechanical Properties Of Sicf/Sic Composites Prepared By Electrophoretic Infiltration, Alfian Noviyanto

Makara Journal of Science

SiC-fiber-reinforced SiC matrix ceramic (SiC_f/SiC) composites were successfully fabricated by electrophoretic infiltration and sintering at various applied pressures. The effect of applied pressure (i.e., 5, 10, and 20 MPa) was thoroughly examined, and applied pressure appears to influence the densification and mechanical properties of SiC_f/SiC composites. The densities of SiC_f/SiC composites prepared at applied pressure of 5, 10, and 20 MPa were 2.99, 3.10, and 3.16 g/cm³, respectively. All samples showed dense microstructures in their matrix areas; however, many closed pores were found with increasing pressure. Pressure induced densification in the fiber …

Simultaneous Effects Of Rice Husk Silica And Silicon Carbide Whiskers On The Mechanical Properties And Morphology Of Sodium Geopolymer, Akm Rahman, Chirag Shah, Nihkil Gupta

Publications and Research

The current research is focused on developing a geopolymer binder using rice husk ash–derived silica nanoparticles. Four types of rice husks were collected directly from various rice fields of Bangladesh in order to evaluate the pozzolanic activity and compatibility of the derived rice husk ashes with precursors of sodium-based geopolymers. Silicon carbide whiskers were introduced into sodium-based geopolymers in order to evaluate the response of silicon carbide whiskers to the interfacial bonding and strength of sodium-based geopolymers along with rice husk ashes. Compression, flexural and short beam shear tests were performed to investigate the synergistic effect of rice husk ashes–derived …

Effect Of Incorporating Pottery And Bottom Ash As Partial Replacement Of Cement, Bassam A. Tayeh, Doha M. Alsaffar, Lawend K. Askar, Asmahan Issa Jubeh

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

This study addressed the environmental constraints in cement produc­tion. Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was replaced with pottery powder (PP, produced by grinding locally available pottery) and bottom ash (BA) at 10%, 20% and 30% of cement mass. Moreover, 4% calcium chloride solution (CaCl₂.2H₂O) was used as mixing water. Material properties, such as standard consistency, setting time and compressive strength, were measured with different percentages of OPC replacement with PP and BA. Results indicated that the replacement with PP and BA increased the water demand to achieve the standard consistency. These results revealed that the strength evolution …

Vanadium-Based Nanomaterials For Improved Zn Ion Storage, Jianwei Lai

LSU Master's Theses

Rechargeable aqueous zinc-ion batteries (ZIBs) have been intensively studied as novel promising large-scale energy storage systems recently, owing to their advantages of high abundance, cost effectiveness, and high safety. However, the development of suitable cathode materials with superior performance are severely hampered by the sluggish kinetics of Zn²⁺ with divalent charge in the host structure.

Our Work demonstrates boosting the electrochemical performances of nanostructured cathode materials for aqueous ZIBs. The first project is focused on the interlayer-expanded V₆O₁₃∙nH₂O nanosheets as promising cathodes. Benefiting from the synthetic merits of its favorable architecture and expanded …

Synthesis Of Amorphous Hydrogenated Boron Carbide From Orthocarborane Using Argon Bombardment: A Reaxff Molecular Dynamics Study, Nirmal Baishnab

MSU Graduate Theses

In this study, the synthesis process of a-B­_xC:H_y using argon bombardment from the orthocarborane precursor was modeled by using reactive molecular dynamics (MD). Utilizing the MD simulations, the formation of free radicals as a result of ion bombardment was identified and quantified. Then, the densification process that is aided by the mixture of free radicals and orthocarborane was analyzed. The densification process by creating the initial structure composed of free radicals and orthocarborane with active sites created by partially removing some of the hydrogen atoms from the icosahedral cage was also modelled. Overall, a better understanding of …

Spark Plasma Sintering Of 2d Nitride And Carbide Based Ceramics, Archana Loganathan

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials have stimulated significant interest among materials community due to a wide variety of application ranging from functional to structural properties. Boron nitride nanosheets (BNNS), boron-carbon-nitride (BCN), and MXene (M_n+1X_n, transition metal carbides, nitrides or carbonitrides) belongs to 2D materials family with van der Waals bonding between the layers. The research on synthesis and properties of BNNS, BCN and MXene have been predominantly explored for single- or multi-layered 2D nanosheets. In this study, the focus is to synthesize bulk layered BNNS and BCN using single or multilayered 2D nanomaterials by spark plasma sintering (SPS). …

Experimental And Numerical Simulation Of Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar Test On Borosilicate Glass, Mayank K. Bagaria

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This study is an extension to the design of ceramic materials component exposed to bullet impact. Owing to the brittle nature of ceramics upon bullet impact, shattered pieces behave as pellets flying with different velocities and directions, damaging surrounding components. Testing to study the behavior of ceramics under ballistic impact can be cumbersome and expensive. Modeling the set-up through Finite Element Analysis (FEA) makes it economical and easy to optimize. However, appropriately incorporating the material in modeling makes laboratory testing essential. Previous efforts have concentrated on simulating crack pattern developed during 0.22 caliber pellet impact on Borosilicate glass. A major …

Assisted Development Of Mesophase Pitch With Dispersed Graphene And Its Resulting Carbon Fibers, Aaron Owen

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical Engineering

The efficacy of dispersed reduced graphene oxide (rGO) as a nucleation site for the growth of mesophase in an isotropic pitch was investigated and quantified in this study. Concentrations of rGO were systematically tested in an isotropic petroleum and coal-tar pitch during thermal treatments and compared to pitch without rGO. The mesophase content of each thermally treated pitch was quantified by polarized light point counting. Further characterization of softening temperature and insolubles were quantified. Additionally, the pitches with and without rGO were melt spun, graphitized, and tensile tested to determine the effects of rGO on graphitized fiber mechanical properties and …

Thermodynamic Investigation Of Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia (Ysz) System, Mohammad Asadikiya

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) system has been extensively studied because of its critical applications, like solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), oxygen sensors, and jet engines. However, there are still important questions that need to be answered and significant thermodynamic information that needs to be provided for this system. There is no predictive tool for the ionic conductivity of the cubic-YSZ (c-YSZ), as an electrolyte in SOFCs. In addition, no quantitative diagram is available regarding the oxygen ion mobility in c-YSZ, which is highly effective on its ionic conductivity. Moreover, there is no applicable phase stability diagram for the nano-YSZ, which …

First-Principles Study Of Point Defect Behavior At Interfaces And In-Plane Strain Fields, Jianqi Xi

Doctoral Dissertations

Interfaces in solid materials are the so-called boundaries, separating crystals with the same structure and chemistry but different orientations, e.g. grain boundaries (GBs), different stacking sequences, e.g. stacking faults (SFs), or crystals with different structures and/or chemistries as well as orientations, e.g. the interface between substrate and thin film. In this study, first-principles calculations are used to investigate the defect behavior at different interfaces and in-plane strain fields, such as stacking fault (SF) in silicon carbide (SiC), in-plane strain field near interfaces in potassium tantalate (KTaO₃), and grain boundary in ceria (CeO₂).

Results show that the …

Microstructural Analysis Of Thermoelastic Response, Nonlinear Creep, And Pervasive Cracking In Heterogeneous Materials, Alden C. Cook

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is concerned with the development of robust numerical solution procedures for the generalized micromechanical analysis of linear and nonlinear constitutive behavior in heterogeneous materials. Although the methods developed are applicable in many engineering, geological, and materials science fields, three main areas are explored in this work. First, a numerical methodology is presented for the thermomechanical analysis of heterogeneous materials with a special focus on real polycrystalline microstructures obtained using electron backscatter diffraction techniques. Asymptotic expansion homogenization and finite element analysis are employed for micromechanical analysis of polycrystalline materials. Effective thermoelastic properties of polycrystalline materials are determined and compared …

High Temperature Oxidation Study Of Tantalum Carbide-Hafnium Carbide Solid Solutions Synthesized By Spark Plasma Sintering, Cheng Zhang

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tantalum carbide (TaC) and hafnium carbide (HfC) possess extremely high melting points, around 3900 ^oC, which are the highest among the known materials. TaC and HfC exhibit superior oxidation resistance under oxygen deficient and rich environments, respectively. A versatile material can be expected by forming solid solutions of TaC and HfC. However, the synthesis of fully dense solid solution carbide is a challenge due to their intrinsic covalent bonding which makes sintering challenging.

The aim of the present work is to synthesize full dense TaC-HfC solid solutions by spark plasma sintering with five compositions: pure HfC, HfC-20 vol.% TaC …

Wetting And Interfacial Microstructure Of Porous Si3n4/Si3n4 Joint After Silver Metallization, Yanli Zhuang, Tiesong Lin, Shengjin Wang, Peng He, Dusan P. Sekulic, Dechang Jia, Hongmei Wei

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Review On Joining Of Advanced Materials And Dissimilar Materials In Harbin Institute Of Technology, Jun Qu, Yongping Lei, Peng He, Yunlong Chang

The 8th International Conference on Physical and Numerical Simulation of Materials Processing

No abstract provided.

Improving The Capacity, Durability And Stability Of Lithium-Ion Batteries By Interphase Engineering, Qinglin Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

This dissertation is focus on the study of solid-electrolyte interphases (SEIs) on advanced lithium ion battery (LIB) anodes. The purposes of this dissertation are to a) develop a methodology to study the properties of SEIs; and b) provide guidelines for designing engineered SEIs. The general knowledge gained through this research will be beneficial for the entire battery research community.

Ion Irradiation-Induced Microstructural Change In Sic, Chien-Hung Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

The high temperature radiation resistance of nuclear materials has become a key issue in developing future nuclear reactors. Because of its mechanical stability under high-energy neutron irradiation and high temperature, silicon carbide (SiC) has great potential as a structural material in advanced nuclear energy systems.

A newly developed nano-engineered (NE) 3C SiC with a nano-layered stacking fault (SFs) structure has been recently considered as a prospective choice due to enhanced point defect annihilation between layer-type structures, leading to outstanding radiation durability.

The objective of this project was to advance the understanding of gas bubble formation mechanisms under irradiation conditions in …

Ion Irradiation Characterization Studies Of Max Phase Ceramics, Daniel William Clark

Masters Theses

The family of layered carbides and nitrides known as MAX phase ceramics combine many attractive properties of both ceramics and metals due to their nanolaminate crystal structure and are promising potential candidates for application in future nuclear reactors. This thesis reports on the background, design, and analysis of an experiment focused on determining the effects of energetic heavy ion irradiations on polycrystalline samples of titanium silicon carbide 312, titanium aluminum carbide 312, and titanium aluminum carbide 211. The irradiation conditions consisted of ion doses between 10 and 30 displacements per atom at temperatures of 400 and 700 degrees Celsius, conditions …

Microstructure Development Of Granular System During Compaction, Chen Shang, Marcial Gonzalez

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Granular materials is the second most manipulated material in the industry today. They are easy to transport and more and more newly developed materials cannot stand the process of traditional casting, like energetic materials and bio-materials, but will survive the powder compaction process. Having a better understanding of the microstructure development of granular systems during compaction process, especially for particles that will heavily deform under loading, will give an insight of how to better process the powders to produce materials with overall better performance comparing to bulk materials. The main theory and mechanism applied are Hertz law and nonlocal contact …

Radiation-Induced Radicals In Polyurea-Crosslinked Silica Aerogel, Benjamin Michael Walters

Masters Theses

Free radicals are atoms or molecules with an odd number of electrons in an outer shell. Since electrons typically occur in pairs, this leaves one electron that is unpaired. In seek of another electron to pair with, free radicals react with and steal electrons from neighboring molecules, which then become free radicals themselves. This can start a chain reaction, cascading into large scale damage.

Ionizing radiation can tear through molecules, just as bullets can tear through things that we see. If free radicals can be detected, and seen to increase in a material upon radiation exposure, this can indicate molecular …

Characterizing The Pore Structure Of Carbonated Natural Wollastonite, Chiara Villani, Robert Spragg, Raikhan Tokpatayeva, Jan Olek, W. Jason Weiss

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

This paper focuses on examining the pore structure of a cementitious paste made with a calcium silicate (wollastonite) that reacts with carbon dioxide and water to form a hardened solid. The pore structure of the hardened solid has been characterized using vapor sorption and desorption, low-temperature differential scanning calorimetry (LT-DSC), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The total porosity was also measured using mass measurement in oven-dry and vacuum-saturated conditions. Evidence exists that support the hypothesis that the solid has two main pore sizes: large macropores (>10 nm) appear to form between the initial calcium silicate particles and small micropores …

Freeze Thaw Durability Of Internally Cured Concrete Made Using Superabsorbent Polymers, Wesley A. Jones, W. Jason Weiss

International Conference on Durability of Concrete Structures

The use of superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) to produce internally cured concrete has been shown to be effective in reducing the potential for restrained shrinkage cracking of high performance concrete mixtures. However, not much is known regarding the freeze–thaw durability of concrete mixtures that incorporate SAPs for internal curing (IC). When SAP particles desorb (or partially desorb) the “water” (pore fluid) they contain for the purposes of IC, some believe that the void space created by these particles can provide enough empty voids to accommodate the additional volume caused by water expansion upon freezing. This paper investigates the freeze–thaw durability of …

Studies Of Dynamic Crack Propagation And Crack Branching With Peridynamics, Youn Doh Ha Ph.D., Florin Bobaru Ph.D.

Florin Bobaru Ph.D.

In this paper we discuss the peridynamic analysis of dynamic crack branching in brittle materials and show results of convergence studies under uniform grid refinement (m-convergence) and under decreasing the peridynamic horizon (δ-convergence). Comparisons with experimentally obtained values are made for the crack-tip propagation speed with three different peridynamic horizons.We also analyze the influence of the particular shape of themicro-modulus function and of different materials (Duran 50 glass and soda-lime glass) on the crack propagation behavior. We show that the peridynamic solution for this problem captures all the main features, observed experimentally, of dynamic crack propagation and branching, as well …

Capturing Ultrasmall Emt Zeolite From Template-Free Systems, Eng-Poh Ng Dr.

Eng-Poh Ng

No abstract provided.

Porosity Reduction Model In Titanium– Hydroxyapatite Fgm Composites Using Shrinkage Measurement, Ahmed A. Madfa

Ahmed A. Madfa

A multilayered titanium (Ti)–hydroxyapatite (HA) functionally graded material was produced via pressureless sintering at 1100uC. The initial and final porosities were determined via shrinkage measurements. The final porosity verification was carried out by the Archimedes method. The experimental porosity measurements were compared with two proposed models. The macroscopic and microstructure features and the measured porosities confirmed that the volume fraction porosity was associated with both matrix and reinforcing particles in all cases. The percolation threshold was observed at x50?75 in the xTiz(12x)HA mixture.