Mechanical Engineering Research Works
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1661
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Item The Hardness and Strength Properties of WC-Co Composites(MDPI, 2011-07-14) Armstrong, Ronald W.The industrially-important WC-Co composite materials provide a useful, albeit complicated materials system for understanding the combined influences on hardness and strength properties of the constituent WC particle strengths, the particle sizes, their contiguities, and of Co binder hardness and mean free paths, and in total, the volume fraction of constituents. A connection is made here between the composite material properties, especially including the material fracture toughness, and the several materials-type considerations of: (1) related hardness stress-strain behaviors; (2) dislocation (viscoplastic) thermal activation characterizations; (3) Hall-Petch type reciprocal square root of particle or grain size dependencies; and (4) indentation and conventional fracture mechanics results. Related behaviors of MgO and Al2O3 crystal and polycrystal materials are also described for the purpose of making comparisons.Item Crystal Engineering for Mechanical Strength at Nano-Scale Dimensions(MDPI, 2017-10-18) Armstrong, Ronald W.The mechanical strengths of nano-scale individual crystal or nanopolycrystalline metals, and other dimensionally-related materials are increased by an order of magnitude or more as compared to those values measured at conventional crystal or polycrystal grain dimensions. An explanation for the result is attributed to the constraint provided at the surface of the crystals or, more importantly, at interfacial boundaries within or between crystals. The effect is most often described in terms either of two size dependencies: an inverse dependence on crystal size because of single dislocation behavior or, within a polycrystalline material, in terms of a reciprocal square root of grain size dependence, designated as a Hall-Petch relationship for the researchers first pointing to the effect for steel and who provided an enduring dislocation pile-up interpretation for the relationship. The current report provides an updated description of such strength properties for iron and steel materials, and describes applications of the relationship to a wider range of materials, including non-ferrous metals, nano-twinned, polyphase, and composite materials. At limiting small nm grain sizes, there is a generally minor strength reversal that is accompanied by an additional order-of-magnitude elevation of an increased strength dependence on deformation rate, thus giving an important emphasis to the strain rate sensitivity property of materials at nano-scale dimensions.Item The Dislocation Mechanics of Crystal/Polycrystal Plasticity(MDPI, 2022-08-25) Armstrong, Ronald W.A brief history and update are given in four examples demonstrating that polycrystals are generally stronger than their individual component crystal grains because of obstructed dislocation pile-ups at grain boundaries. The example cases constitute diverse applications of a Hall–Petch dependence involving one or another aspects of the full polycrystal stress–strain behavior: (1) a Hall–Petch based description for a compilation of delayed yielding measurements compiled for steel; (2) computations for an H-P grain size dependent, tensile, plastic instability behavior of copper; (3) an H-P relationship for the true maximum stress for the limit of uniform straining of aluminum; and (4) the onset of a ductile-to-brittle transition in steel cleavage fracturing measurements that are connected to the material fracture toughness properties.