A Technique for Tensile Fatigue and Creep Testing of Fiber-Reinforced Ceramics

An experimental technique for the elevated temperature tensile fatigue and creep testing of fiber-reinforced ceramics is discussed. The experimental approach utilizes edge-loaded specimens with rectangular gage-sections. Novel furnace and grip designs which allow testing in air to 1500°C are provided. The specimen, furnace and grip designs discussed in the paper have been successfully used to test unidirectional and cross-ply SiCf/Si3N 4, SiCf/SiC, Cf/SiC and SiCf/calcium-aluminosilicate composites.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66679/2/10.1177_002199839202600608.pd

An iterative agent bidding mechanism for responsive manufacturing

In today's market, the global competition has put manufacturing businesses in great pressures to respond rapidly to dynamic variations in demand patterns across products and changing product mixes. To achieve substantial responsiveness, the manufacturing activities associated with production planning and control must be integrated dynamically, efficiently and cost-effectively. This paper presents an iterative agent bidding mechanism, which performs dynamic integration of process planning and production scheduling to generate optimised process plans and schedules in response to dynamic changes in the market and production environment. The iterative bidding procedure is carried out based on currency-like metrics in which all operations (e.g. machining processes) to be performed are assigned with virtual currency values, and resource agents bid for the operations if the costs incurred for performing them are lower than the currency values. The currency values are adjusted iteratively and resource agents re-bid for the operations based on the new set of currency values until the total production cost is minimised. A simulated annealing optimisation technique is employed to optimise the currency values iteratively. The feasibility of the proposed methodology has been validated using a test case and results obtained have proven the method outperforming non-agent-based methods

Oxidation and degradation of a plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coating system

The isothermal oxidation behavior of thermal barrier coating (TBC) specimens consisting of single-crystal superalloy substrates, vacuum plasma-sprayed Ni-22Cr-10Al-1Y bond coatings and air plasma-sprayed 7.5 wt.% yttria stabilized zirconia top coatings was evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis at 1150{degrees}C for up to 200 hours. Coating durability was assessed by furnace cycling at 1150{degrees}C. Coatings and reaction products were identified by x-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy

Differences in creep performance of a HIPed silicon nitride in ambient air and inert environments

High temperature tensile creep studies of a commercially available hot isostatically pressed (HIPed) silicon nitride were conducted in ambient air and argon environments. The creep performance of this HIPed silicon nitride was found to be different in these environments. The material crept faster (and had a consequential shorter lifetime) in argon than in ambient air at 1370{degrees}C at tensile stresses between 110-140 MPa. The stress dependence of the minimum creep rate was found to be {approx} 6 in argon and {approx} 3.5 in air, while the minimum creep rates were almost an order of magnitude faster in argon than in air at equivalent tensile stresses. Differences in the creep performance are explained with reference to the presence or absence of oxygen in the two environments

Interface oxidation and stress-rupture of Nicalon{trademark}/SiC CFCCs at intermediate temperatures

The effect of oxidation of the carbonaceous fiber coating on the intermediate temperature stress-rupture behavior of a Nicalon{trademark}/C/SiC continuous fiber composite was modeled. The model, that was reduced to the analysis of a general ideal bundle composed of classical fibers subjected to constant loading, predicts that the oxidation of the fiber coating triggers a sequence of processes that can lead, under certain conditions, to composite failure. These processes involve loss of stress transfer between the fiber and the matrix, fiber overloading, and fiber failure. The implications of the model predictions are discussed in relation to experimental measurements at 425 C in air that show that Nicalon{trademark}/C/SiC exhibits time-dependent loss of strength

Effect of cyclic loading on the creep performance of silicon nitride

Tension-tension cyclic fatigue tests (triangular waveform, {sigma}{sub max} = 100 MPa, R = 0.1) were conducted on hot isostatically pressed (HIPed) silicon nitride at frequencies spanning several orders of magnitude (5.6 {times} 10{sup {minus}6} to 0.1 Hz or 10{sup {minus}3} MPa/s to 18 MPa/s) at 1,370 C in air. The amount of cyclic creep strain was found to be a function of the frequency or stressing rate with greater strains to failure observed as the frequency or stressing rate decreased. The total strain was viewed as the sum of elastic, anelastic (or transient recoverable), and plastic (viscous or non-recoverable) strain contributions, after the empirical Pao and Marin model. The plastic strain was found to be the dominant component of the total creep and was unsatisfactorily represented by the Pao and Marin model. To circumvent this, a time exponent was introduced in the plastic strain term in the Pao and Marin model. This modification resulted in good correlation between model and experiment at the slower frequencies examined but over-predicted the cyclic creep strain at the faster frequencies. The utility of using the modified Pao and Marin model to predict cyclic creep response from static creep and strain relaxation tests is described

Specimen Size Effect on the Creep of Si3N4

The effect of specimen size on the measured tensile creep behavior of a commercially available gas pressure sintered Si3N4 was examined. Button-head tensile test specimens were used for the testing, and were machined to a variety of different gage section diameters (ranging from 2.5 to 6.35 mm) or different surface-area-to-volume ratios. The specimens were then creep tested at 1350 Degrees C and 200 MPa with tensile creep strain continuously measured as a function of time. The steady-state creep rate increased and the lifetime decreased with an increase in diameter (or decrease in the ratio of gage section surface area to volume). The time and specimen size dependence of transformation of a secondary phase correlated with the observed creep rate and lifetime dependence