New Phases in the Mg-Al-Sr System

Abstract. This work presents experimental investigation of 14 different alloys with differential scanning calorimetery (DSC), scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectrometer (SEM/EDS) analysis, quantitative electron probe micro-analysis (EPMA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques to identify the phases in the Mg-Al-Sr system and to determine their compositions. DSC has permitted real time measurement of the phase changes involved in these systems. The temperature ranges for the phase transformations and enthalpy of melting and enthalpy of formation of the compounds are reported. Comparison between these results and the thermodynamic findings has been discussed. The microstructure of the Mg-Al-Sr-based alloys is primarily dominated by (Mg) and (Al 4 Sr). The plate-like structure has been identified as Al 4 Sr. A new ternary intermetallic with chemical composition of 69.9 ± 1.5 at.% magnesium, 19.3 ± 2.0 at.% aluminum and 8.7 ± 0.6 at.% strontium has been identified in three different alloys. This phase was characterized as a large precipitate. Three ternary solid solutions have been observed. The solubility ranges of Al in Mg 38 Sr 9 and Mg 17 Sr 2 are 12.5 and 8.5 at.%, respectively, whereas the solubility of Mg in Al 4 Sr compound is found to be 23 at.% in the investigated samples. Further, Mg was found to dissolve 11.4 at.% Al at room temperature

Experimental study of the Al-Mg-Sr phase diagram at 400°C

TheAl-Mg-Sr systemis experimentally studied at 400∘C using EPMA and XRD techniques. It was determined that the intermetallic phases in the Al-Mg-Sr system have a tendency to form extended substitutional solid solutions. Two ternary phases were found in this system. Solubility limits of binary and ternary phases were determined and the phase equilibria among phases were established. The isothermal section of the Al-Mg-Sr system at 400∘C has been constructed using results of the phase analysis and experimental literature data

Tailoring the pressure-drop in multi-layered open-cell porous inconel structures

This study investigates the pressure-drop behaviour associated with airflow through bulk and structurally tailored multi-layered, open-cell porous Inconel structures over a wide airflow velocity range (0–50 m s-1). The effect of airflow velocity on the pressure-drop behaviour as a function of the sample thickness is presented and related to the flow behaviour corresponding to the relevant flow regimes (Darcy, Forchheimer, Turbulent and Postturbulent). Entrance effects are highlighted as a source of the pressure-drop increase for porous structures with air gaps, regardless of their sizes, as long as they are larger than those generated by loosely-stacked structures. The pressure-drops for gapped porous structures and the mathematical-summation of the pressure drop for the corresponding individual components, were in very good agreement, at lower airflow velocities. The potential for mass-efficient porous structures, providing a high pressure drop, was demonstrated using multiple thin porous laminates separated by air gaps

The equilibria in the AlN−Al 2 O 3 −Y 2 O 3 system -thermodynamics and neutron diffraction

Abstract. The importance of aluminum nitride (AlN) stems from its application in microelectronics as a substrate material. Yttria (Y 2 O 3 ) is the best additive for AlN sintering, and it has been shown that AlN densifies by a liquid-phase mechanism, where the surface oxide, Al 2 O 3 , reacts with the oxide additive, Y 2 O 3 , to form a Y-Al-O-N liquid that promotes particle rearrangement and densification. Construction of the phase relations in this multicomponent system is becoming essential for further development of AlN . The amount of liquid and the phase evolution at a selected sintering temperature can be predicted using equilibrium diagrams. To date, there is little information on the ternary AlNAl 2 O 3 -sintering additives system A system is at equilibrium when its Gibbs energy is at a minimum. If we could calculate the Gibbs energy of all the possible phases of a system at a specified temperature as a function of composition it would be a simple matter to * Corresponding author. (Fax: +1-514/398-4492, E-mail: [email protected]) select the combination of phases, which provides the lowest value of Gibbs energy. By definition these would be the equilibrium phases for the system at that temperature. By repetition of these calculations for the number of temperatures, the phase boundaries of the system can be determined and the phase diagram can be constructed. Once the binary subsystems have been analyzed by a coupled thermodynamic/phase diagram analysis, the phase diagram of a ternary or a quaternary systems can usually be calculate

Experimental investigation of pressure-drop characteristics across multi-layer porous metal structures

This study investigates the effect of airflow (in the range of 0–70 m s-1) on the pressure-drop characteristics for a novel multi-layered, nickel-based porous metal, as a function of thickness (affected by sectioning) and density (affected by compression). In addition to generating unique data for these materials, the study highlights the need for precise pinpointing of the different flow regimes (Darcy, Forchheimer and Turbulent) in order to enable accurate determination of the permeability (K) and form drag coefficient (C) defined by the Forchheimer equation and to understand the complex dependence of length-normalised pressure drop on sample thickness

Finite difference calculations of permeability in large domains in a wide porosity range.

Determining effective hydraulic, thermal, mechanical and electrical properties of porous materials by means of classical physical experiments is often time-consuming and expensive. Thus, accurate numerical calculations of material properties are of increasing interest in geophysical, manufacturing, bio-mechanical and environmental applications, among other fields. Characteristic material properties (e.g. intrinsic permeability, thermal conductivity and elastic moduli) depend on morphological details on the porescale such as shape and size of pores and pore throats or cracks. To obtain reliable predictions of these properties it is necessary to perform numerical analyses of sufficiently large unit cells. Such representative volume elements require optimized numerical simulation techniques. Current state-of-the-art simulation tools to calculate effective permeabilities of porous materials are based on various methods, e.g. lattice Boltzmann, finite volumes or explicit jump Stokes methods. All approaches still have limitations in the maximum size of the simulation domain. In response to these deficits of the well-established methods we propose an efficient and reliable numerical method which allows to calculate intrinsic permeabilities directly from voxel-based data obtained from 3D imaging techniques like X-ray microtomography. We present a modelling framework based on a parallel finite differences solver, allowing the calculation of large domains with relative low computing requirements (i.e. desktop computers). The presented method is validated in a diverse selection of materials, obtaining accurate results for a large range of porosities, wider than the ranges previously reported. Ongoing work includes the estimation of other effective properties of porous media

Pore-scale numerical investigation of pressure drop behaviour across open-cell metal foams

The development and validation of a grid-based pore-scale numerical modelling methodology applied to five different commercial metal foam samples is described. The 3-D digital representation of the foam geometry was obtained by the use of X-ray microcomputer tomography scans, and macroscopic properties such as porosity, specific surface and pore size distribution are directly calculated from tomographic data. Pressure drop measurements were performed on all the samples under a wide range of flow velocities, with focus on the turbulent flow regime. Airflow pore-scale simulations were carried out solving the continuity and Navier–Stokes equations using a commercial finite volume code. The feasibility of using Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes models to account for the turbulence within the pore space was evaluated. Macroscopic transport quantities are calculated from the pore-scale simulations by averaging. Permeability and Forchheimer coefficient values are obtained from the pressure gradient data for both experiments and simulations and used for validation. Results have shown that viscous losses are practically negligible under the conditions investigated and pressure losses are dominated by inertial effects. Simulations performed on samples with varying thickness in the flow direction showed the pressure gradient to be affected by the sample thickness. However, as the thickness increased, the pressure gradient tended towards an asymptotic value

Thermodynamic Modeling of Hydrogen Storage Capacity in Mg-Na Alloys

Thermodynamic modeling of the H-Mg-Na system is performed for the first time in this work in order to understand the phase relationships in this system. A new thermodynamic description of the stable NaMgH3 hydride is performed and the thermodynamic models for the H-Mg, Mg-Na, and H-Na systems are reassessed using the modified quasichemical model for the liquid phase. The thermodynamic properties of the ternary system are estimated from the models of the binary systems and the ternary compound using CALPHAD technique. The constructed database is successfully used to reproduce the pressure-composition isotherms for MgH2 + 10 wt.% NaH mixtures. Also, the pressure-temperature equilibrium diagram and reaction paths for the same composition are predicted at different temperatures and pressures. Even though it is proved that H-Mg-Na does not meet the DOE hydrogen storage requirements for onboard applications, the best working temperatures and pressures to benefit from its full catalytic role are given. Also, the present database can be used for thermodynamic assessments of higher order systems

Distortion and residual stress measurements of induction hardened AISI 4340 discs

10 Induction hardened discs with two initial hardness levels were used for exploring the influences of the variation of initial hardness as well as induction hardening (IH) recipes on the heat treatment distortions and hardening depth. The results show that for the same initial hardness, the larger the energy input, the higher the distortion size as well as the hardening depth. For a given induction hardening recipe, the increase in initial hardness leads to a deeper hardening depth but a smaller distortion. One disc was selected for the residual stress investigation in three orthogonal directions by neutron diffraction (ND). The corresponding stress-free lattice spacing d0 was measured from the same material using both ND and X-ray diffraction (XRD) methods. The ND results show that the variation of d0 in the hardened layer is significant and should be taken into account for stress calculation. However, regarding the core region, the d0 value measured by XRD is more reliable. Accordingly, a combination of the ND-measured d0 profiles in the hardened layer and the XRD-measured d0 value in the core was adopted for the determination of residual stress distributions. \ua9 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye