Numerical investigation of the edge profile in hot-rolling

During the hot-rolling of aluminium ingot into sheet, the material elongates in the rolling direction as it is reduced vertically. The spread which occurs in the lateral direction during the multiple pass schedules used in industry is minimal. However, the deformation on these edges is important. During the initial passes a concave profile develops - the material near the surfaces spreads outward while the material at the centre moves inward. The concave profile can lead to defects in the final product; these are the 'roll over' of material from the edges to the top and bottom surfaces, the fold over of material in the centre of the edge, and the formation of vertical edge cracks. To remove these the edges are trimmed at the end of the process. Research work in this area was motivated by the possibility of identifying means of reducing the amount of material that needs to be trimmed. The objectives of this thesis are to develop techniques of simulating the rolling, and to use these to investigate the deformation mechanisms which lead to the concave edge profile. Models of the rolling were developed using the general purpose, non-linear finite element code ABAQUS. To reproduce the edge profiles accurately requires large three-dimensional models, for which the explicit dynamic method was found to be the most suitable. The results of the analyses were used to investigate the mechanisms which lead to the concave edge profile. In the roll-gap the work-load arches through the ingot; and for roll passes with small reductions a stress pattern occurs which leads to the concave edge profile. In this pattern the stresses of highest magnitude at the surfaces are compressive stresses in the vertical direction, while in the centre of the ingot they are orientated in the rolling direction and are tensile. Thus deformation occurs by vertical compression near the surfaces, and by stretching in the rolling direction at the centre. At the edges the material is not constrained laterally; and due to the Poisson effect, the material spreads outward near the surfaces, and moves inward at the centre. The effect of certain variables on the edge profile were investigated with the modelling. The friction between the work-rolls and the ingot was found to have significant influence on the amount of lateral surface spread. Work hardening, strain rate and temperature effects in the material lead to variations in the yield stress through the height of the ingot. These effects were included in the modelling and were found to affect the shape of the profile, but to a lesser extent than the friction

Regulating Clothing Outwork: A Sceptic's View

By applying the strategies of international anti-sweatshop campaigns to the Australian context, recent regulations governing home-based clothing production hold retailers responsible for policing the wages and employment conditions of clothing outworkers who manufacture clothing on their behalf. This paper argues that the new approach oversimplifies the regulatory challenge by assuming (1) that Australian clothing production is organised in a hierarchical ‘buyer-led’ linear structure in which core retail firms have the capacity to control their suppliers’ behaviour; (2) that firms act as unitary moral agents; and (3) that interventions imported from other times and places are applicable to the contemporary Australian context. After considering some alternative regulatory approaches, the paper concludes that the new regulatory strategy effectively privatises responsibility for labour market conditions – a development that cries out for further debate

Integration of dual-clutch transmissions in hybrid electric vehicle powertrains

This dissertation presents a study focused on exploring the integration of Dual-Clutch Transmissions (DCTs) in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEVs). Among the many aspects that could be investigated regarding the electrification of DCTs, research efforts are undertaken here to the development of control strategies for improving vehicle dynamic performance during gearshifts and the energy management of HEVs. In the first part of the dissertation, control algorithms for upshift and downshift maneuvers are developed for a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) architecture in which an electric machine is connected to the output of the transmission, thus obtaining torque filling capabilities during gearshifts. Promising results, in terms of the vehicle dynamic performance, are obtained for the two transmission systems analyzed: Hybrid Automated Manual Transmission (H-AMT) and Hybrid Dual-Clutch Transmission (H-DCT). On the other hand, the global optimal solution to the energy management problem for a PHEV equipped with a DCT is found by developing a detailed Dynamic Programing (DP) formulation. The main control objective is to reduce the fuel consumption during a driving mission. Based on the DP results, a novel real-time implementable Energy Management Strategy (EMS) is proposed. The performance of such controller, in terms of the overall fuel usage, is close to that of the optimal solution. Furthermore, the developed approach is shown to outperform a well-known causal strategy: Adaptive Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (A-ECMS). One of the main aspects that differentiates the EMSs proposed here to those presented in previous works is the introduction of a model to estimate the energy consumption during gearshifts in DCTs. Thus, this dissertation illustrates how through the electrification of powertrains equipped with DCTs both the vehicle dynamic performance and the energy consumption can be improved

Finite Element Models of Elastic Earthquake Deformation

The Earth’s surface deforms in response to earthquake fault dislocations at depth. Deformation models are constructed to interpret the corresponding ground movements recorded by geodetic data such GPS and InSAR, and ultimately characterize the seismic ruptures. Conventional analytical and latest numerical solutions serve similar purpose but with different technical constraints. The former cannot simulate the heterogeneous rock properties and structural complexity, while the latter directly tackles these challenges but requires more computational resources. As demonstrated in the 2015 M7.8 Gorkha, Nepal earthquake and the 2016 M6.2 Amatrice, Italy earthquake, we develop state-of-art finite element models (FEMs) to efficiently accommodate both the material and tectonic complexity of a seismic deformational system in a seamless model environment. The FEM predictions are significantly more accurate than the analytical models embedded in a homogeneous half-space at the 95% confidence level. The primary goal of this chapter is describe a systematic approach to design, construct, execute and calibrate FEMs of elastic earthquake deformation. As constrained by coseismic displacements, FEM-based inverse analyses are employed to resolve linear and nonlinear fault-slip parameters. With such numerical techniques and modeling framework, researchers can explicitly investigate the spatial distribution of seismic fault slip and probe other in-depth rheological processes

A Reduced Order Model for Preliminary Design and Performance Prediction of Tapered Inducers: Comparison with Numerical Simulations

The article recalls the recent development of a reduced order model for the preliminary design, geometric definition and noncavitating performance prediction of tapered-hub, variable-pitch, mixed-flow inducers, and illustrates its application to a typical three-bladed, high-head inducer for liquid propellant rocket engines. The mean axisymmetric flow field at the trailing edge of the inducer blades and the noncavitating head coefficient at both design and off-design conditions are then compared with those obtained from the numerical flow simulations generated by a commercial CFD code. Together with earlier experimental validations, the results dramatically confirm the capability of the proposed model to generate interpretative and useful engineering solutions of the inducer preliminary design problem at a negligible fraction of the computational cost required by 3D numerical simulations

Mechanical behaviour of aluminium-lithium alloys

Aluminium-lithium alloys hold promise of providing a breakthrough response to the crying need for lightweight alloys for use as structurals in aerospace applications. Considerable worldwide research has gone into developing a range of these alloys over the last three decades. As a result, substantial understanding has been developed of the microstructure-based micromechanisms of strengthening, of fatigue and fracture as well as of anisotropy in mechanical properties. However, these alloys have not yet greatly displaced the conventionally used denser Al alloys on account of their poorer ductility, fracture toughness and low cycle fatigue resistance. This review aims to summarise the work pertaining to study of structure and mechanical properties with a view to indicate the directions that have been and can be pursued to overcome property limitations

Index to NASA tech briefs, 1971

The entries are listed by category, subject, author, originating source, source number/Tech Brief number, and Tech Brief number/source number. There are 528 entries

Rapid Interactive Design-to-Performance of Mixed-Flow Space Inducers

The article illustrates the invited lecture given by the author at International Symposium on Pump and Fan Technology, September 26-28, 2018, ShenYang, China, on the development and experimental validation of a reduced order model for preliminary design and noncavitating performance prediction of mixed-flow tapered-hub inducers for space propulsion applications. The model expresses the 3D incompressible, inviscid, irrotational flow in the blade channels by superposing a 2D axial vorticity correction to a fully-guided axisymmetric flow with radially uniform axial velocity. Suitable redefinition of the diffusion factor for bladings with non-negligible radial flow simultaneously allows for the control of the blade loading and the estimate of the boundary layer blockage and viscous blade losses at the specified design flow coefficient, providing a simple criterion for matching the hub profile to the axial variation of the blade pitch angle. Carter’s rule is employed to account for flow deviation at the inducer trailing edge. Mass continuity, angular momentum conservation and the Euler equation are used to derive a simple 2nd order boundary value problem whose numerical solution defines the far-field axisymmetric flow velocity at the inducer discharge. The noncavitating pumping characteristic is then obtained using suitably adapted semi-empirical corrections for incidence, casing and tip clearance losses. The model has been verified to closely approximate the geometry and noncavitating head characteristics of two space inducers tested in the Cavitating Pump Rotordynamic Test Facility, as well as those of a number of tapered-hub inducers documented in the literature

Modelling and optimising micro-nozzle resin injection repair of impacted composites using CFD

Resin injection repair is identified to have a gap of knowledge and rigour in the modelling and execution of the process. We outline the strategy of our proposed predictive modelling strategy of ‘reconstruction-simulation-injection’ to simulate real cases to improve repair outcomes. We model the damage zone using Darcy’s law and determine permeability using two methods applied on the Kozeny-Carman equation. We then discuss how we evaluate porosity and detail two proposed methods on reconstructing the porosity field. We verify the model through simulation, and demonstrate verification using a novel comprehensive 2D porosity liquid-ideal gas phase flow model after deriving the analytical solution, which is a contribution of our work. Next, we apply the now-established model to reconstruct real damage cases using the two methods and compare them. We also calibrate the permeability parameter for the model by comparison to a simulation accuracy index, and also calibrate an ultrasonic scanning parameter to minimise reconstruction artefacts as well as the sensitivity of the reconstructed geometry characteristics to scan parameter variations. Then, we validate the model by simulating real repair cases and comparing them to the experimental outcomes, achieving simulation accuracy indices of about 70% or more. We demonstrate the application of the resin injection model by applying resin injection in a proof-of-concept simulation and use it for a case study, and examine the importance of hole configuration, vacuum usage as well as resin flow behaviour between inlet and outlet holes in the context of a given damage area geometry. It is important to maximise the total length of resin flow paths available, through carefully placing inlet and outlet holes, to allow resin to infiltrate the damage zone as much as possible. Vacuum increases the minimum achievable filling, and it is still invariably better to use vacuum with an optimal hole placement, instead of one or the other. In a second case study, we improve the predicted outcome by the model after intentionally changing the hole configuration to maximise resin infiltration, demonstrating that filling can be improved by placing holes intelligently (e.g. by using gathered information on the damage area, together with knowledge of how resin would flow). Using this, we conduct an optimisation study of the resin injection model by first setting up the optimisation strategy and carefully determining the methodology. The optimisation procedure is verified by using one and two degree-of-freedom optimisation cases, with known optima. Then, the optimisation strategy is applied to reconstructed repair cases to demonstrate and assess the efficacy of the optimisation procedure, with average reductions in unfilled volumes of approximately 28% compared to initial configurations.Open Acces