The application of the small punch tensile test to evaluate the ductile to brittle transition of a thermally sprayed CoNiCrAlY coating

Thermally sprayed MCrAlY bond coats are important elements of thermal barrier coating (TBC) systems which are applied to the surface of gas turbine components to protect them in high temperature environments. Knowledge of their mechanical properties is essential in preventing TBC failure which can have catastrophic consequences. However, limited data on modulus, strength and ductility are available for such coatings. In this work, the ductile to brittle transition behaviour of a CoNiCrAlY coating has been investigated via the small punch tensile test (SPTT). Displacement controlled tests were carried out on free standing coatings at room temperature (RT) and between 400-750 °C at a rate of 1 μms-1. At low temperatures there was evidence of elastic-brittle behaviour and at high temperatures there was clear evidence of yielding and plastic deformation. The ductile to brittle transition temperature was found to be between 500-750 °C. The yield stress ranged from 1000-1500 MPa below 600 °C to less than 500 MPa above 650 °C. The elastic modulus was found to be approximately 200-230 GPa at 500 °C and 55 GPa above 700 °C. At room temperature the fracture surface showed flat, smooth features indicating brittle failure whereas at 700 °C there was evidence of ductile tearing

An evaluation of the capability of data conversion of impression creep test

High temperature power plant components are now working far beyond their operative designed life. Establishing their in-service material properties has become a matter of significant concern for power generation companies. Advantages for the assessment of creep material properties may come from miniature specimen creep testing techniques, like impression creep testing method, which can be treated as a quasistatic non-destructive technique and requires a small volume of material that can be scooped from in-service critical components, and can produce reliable secondary creep data. This paper presents an overview of impression creep testing method to highlight the capability in determining the minimum creep strain rate data by use of conversion relationships that relates uniaxial creep test data and impression creep test data. Stepped-load and stepped-temperature impression creep tests are also briefly described. Furthermore, the paper presents some new impression creep test data and their correlation with uniaxial data, obtained from P91, P92 and ½CrMoV steels at different stresses and temperatures. The presented data, in terms of creep strain rate against the reference uniaxial stress, are useful for calibration of impression creep testing technique and provide further comparative results for the evaluation of the reliability of the method in determining secondary creep properties

Wettability and osteoblast cell response modulation through UV laser processing of nylon 6,6

With an ageing population the demand for cheap, efficient implants is ever increasing. Laser surface treatment offers a unique means of varying biomimetic properties to determine generic parameters to predict cell responses. This paper details how a KrF excimer laser can be employed for both laser-induced patterning and whole area irradiative processing to modulate the wettability characteristics and osteoblast cell response following 24 hour and 4 day incubation. Through white light interferometry (WLI) it was found that the surface roughness had considerably increased by up to 1.5 µm for the laser-induced patterned samples and remained somewhat constant at around 0.1 µm for the whole area irradiative processed samples. A sessile drop device determined that the wettability characteristics differed between the surface treatments. For the patterned samples the contact angle, θ, increased by up to 25° which can be attributed to a mixed-state wetting regime. For the whole area irradiative processed samples θ decreased owed to an increase in polar component, γP. For all samples θ was a decreasing function of the surface energy. The laser whole area irradiative processed samples gave rise to a distinct correlative trend between the cell response, θ and γP. However, no strong relationship was determined for the laser-induced patterned samples due to the mixed-state wetting regime. As a result, owed to the relationships and evidence of cell differentiation one can deduce that laser whole area irradiative processing is an attractive technology for employment within regenerative medicine to meet the demands of an ageing population

The high temperature creep properties of a thermally sprayed CoNiCrAlY coating via small punch creep testing

Thermal barrier coatings (TBC’s) protect superalloy components from excessively high temperatures in gas turbines. TBC’s comprise of a ceramic top coat, a metallic bond coat and a thermally grown oxide (TGO). The creep behaviour of the MCrAlY bond coat, which is sensitive to the composition and the method of deposition, has a significant effect on the life of the TBC. High velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) thermal spraying is a popular deposition method for MCrAlY bond coats however the creep properties of HVOF MCrAlY coatings are not well documented. The creep behaviour of a HVOF thermally sprayed CoNiCrAlY coating has been determined by small punch creep (SPC) testing. Tests were conducted between an equivalent uniaxial stress range of 37-80 MPa at 750 °C on two different SPC rigs and between 30-49 MPa at 850 °C on a single SPC rig. The measured steady-state creep deformation rates at 750 °C were consistent across the two rigs. A comparison with previous work demonstrated that the creep behaviour of HVOF CoNiCrAlY coatings is not sensitive to the manufacturing variability associated with HVOF thermal spraying. The CoNiCrAlY coating exhibited typical SPC deformation at 750 °C. At 850 °C the CoNiCrAlY coating showed significantly different creep behaviour which could be attributed to the onset of superplasticity

Correlation and capability of using site inspection data and small specimen creep testing for a service-exposed CrMoV pipe section

This paper presents for the first time an investigation on the creep damage evolution of an ex-service CrMoV pipe section through impression creep test and metallurgical inspection data. The study emphasises the importance of correlating the operating conditions (temperature and stress) of power plant components with the results from metallurgical examinations and small specimen creep tests. The paper seeks for a correlation among micro- and macro-hardness measurements, surface replicas data and minimum creep strain rates (obtained by impression creep tests) of the parent material of the pipe section. Also, optical and SEM micrographs have been used to assess possible metallurgical differences through the thickness of the pipe section. This investigation shows how miniature creep test specimen data could be practically used in a holistic approach for the evaluation of life consumption of power plant components and concludes that the studied parent material could have been retired from service too early

Integer quantum Hall effect for hard-core bosons and a failure of bosonic Chern-Simons mean-field theories for electrons at half-filled Landau level

Field-theoretical methods have been shown to be useful in constructing simple effective theories for two-dimensional (2D) systems. These effective theories are usually studied by perturbing around a mean-field approximation, so the question whether such an approximation is meaningful arises immediately. We here study 2D interacting electrons in a half-filled Landau level mapped onto interacting hard-core bosons in a magnetic field. We argue that an interacting hard-core boson system in a uniform external field such that there is one flux quantum per particle (unit filling) exhibits an integer quantum Hall effect. As a consequence, the mean-field approximation for mapping electrons at half-filling to a boson system at integer filling fails.Comment: 13 pages latex with revtex. To be published in Phys. Rev.

Short-Range Interactions and Scaling Near Integer Quantum Hall Transitions

We study the influence of short-range electron-electron interactions on scaling behavior near the integer quantum Hall plateau transitions. Short-range interactions are known to be irrelevant at the renormalization group fixed point which represents the transition in the non-interacting system. We find, nevertheless, that transport properties change discontinuously when interactions are introduced. Most importantly, in the thermodynamic limit the conductivity at finite temperature is zero without interactions, but non-zero in the presence of arbitrarily weak interactions. In addition, scaling as a function of frequency, $\omega$, and temperature, $T$, is determined by the scaling variable $\omega/T^p$ (where $p$ is the exponent for the temperature dependence of the inelastic scattering rate) and not by $\omega/T$, as it would be at a conventional quantum phase transition described by an interacting fixed point. We express the inelastic exponent, $p$, and the thermal exponent, $z_T$, in terms of the scaling dimension, $-\alpha < 0$, of the interaction strength and the dynamical exponent $z$ (which has the value $z=2$), obtaining $p=1+2\alpha/z$ and $z_T=2/p$.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Physical Review