Macrosegregation and nucleation in undercooled Pb-Sn alloys

A technique resulting in large undercoolings in bulk samples (23g) of lead-tin alloys was developed. Samples of Pb-12.5 wt percent Sn, Pb-61 wt percent Sn, and Pb-77 wt percent Sn were processed with undercoolings ranging from 4 to 34 K and with cooling rates varying between 0.04 and 4 K/sec. The nucleation behavior of the Pb-Sn system was found to be nonreciprocal. The solid Sn phase effectively nucleated the Pb phase of the eutectic; however, large undercoolings developed in Sn-rich eutectic liquid in the presence of the solid Pb phase. This phenomenon is believed to be mainly the result of differences in interfacial energies between solid Sn-eutectic liquid, and solid Pb-eutectic liquid rather than lattice misfit between Pb and Sn. Large amounts of segregation developed in the highly undercooled eutectic ingots. This macrosegregation was found to increase as undercooling increases. Macrosegregation in these undercooled eutectic alloys was found to be primarily due to a sink/float mechanism and the nucleation behavior of the alloy. Lead-rich dendrites are the primary phase in the undercooled eutectic system. These dendrites grow rapidly into the undercooled bath and soon break apart due to recalescence and Sn enrichment of the liquid. These fragmented Pb dendrites are then free to settle to the bottom portion of the ingot causing the macrosegregation observed in this study. A eutectic Pb-Sn alloy undercooled 20 K and cooled at 4 K/sec had a composition of about Pb-72 wt percent Sn at the top and 55 percent Sn at the bottom

Crystal Growth Using MEPHISTO

The shuttle flight experiment "In Situ Monitoring of Crystal Growth Using MEPHISTO" was accomplished during STS-87 as part of the fourth flight of the United States Microgravity Payload (USMP-4), which was flown from November 19 to December 5, 1997. The data returned from that flight are just now beginning to yield quantitative results. This project is an international collaboration: the furnace system known as MEPHISTO was built in France by CNES (French National Space Agency) and CEA (French Atomic Energy Commission); the principal investigator, Prof. Reza Abbaschian, is from the University of Florida at Gainesville; and numerical and analytical modeling support includes collaborators from the University of New South Wales, Australia, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the NASA Lewis Research Center. MEPHISTO is a French acronym that translates into English as Materials for the Study of Interesting Phenomena of Solidification on Earth and in Orbit. Since this was the fourth flight of the MEPHISTO furnace, the experiment is referred to as MEPHISTO-4. MEPHISTO-4 was a directional solidification experiment that studied the liquid-to-solid transformation of bismuth alloyed with tin. Directional solidification is a freezing technique common to the processing of the electronic materials used in integrated circuits and detectors, such as silicon and germanium. When liquids are frozen on Earth, they must be cooled. The cooling causes stirring because of density variations in the liquid. This stirring, known as natural convection, influences the quality of the resulting solid. During freezing, regions of high and low concentrations of tin are created. This introduces another important phenomenon: diffusion, or the movement by molecular action of matter from regions of high concentration to regions of lower concentration. In MEPHISTO-4, it is tin that diffuses from the high-concentration region in front of the solid-liquid interface to more distant low-concentration regions

Development of Laser Fabricated Ti-6Al-4V

Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) depositions with Ti-6Al-4V gas-atomized powder were accomplished at five different temperatures, ranging from 30 to 400 C, imposed on the base plate. These base plate temperatures were employed in an effort to relieve stresses which develop during the deposition. Warpage of the base plate was monitored. Only a slight decline in warpage was observed as the base plate temperature was increased. Results indicate that substrate temperatures closer to the stress relief minimum of 480 C would relieve deposition stresses, though process parameters would likely need to be modified to compensate for the higher base plate temperature. The compositions of the as-received powder and the LENS deposited material were chemically analyzed. The oxygen content of the LENS material was 0.154 wt.% which is less than the maximum impurity limit of 0.2 percent for commercial Ti-6Al-4V alloys, but is over the limit allowed in ELI grade (0.13 percent). The level of oxygen in the commercial base plate used was only 0.0635 percent. Tensile specimens were machined from the LENS deposited material and tested in tension at room temperature. The ultimate and yield tensile stresses of the LENS material were about 1200 and 1150 MPa respectively, which is about 20 percent higher than the strengths of wrought Ti-6Al-4V. The higher strength of the LENS material was due to its fine structure and high oxygen content. The LENS deposits were not fully dense; voids were frequent at the interfaces between deposited layers. These dispersed sheets of voids were parallel to the longitudinal axis of the resulting tensile specimens. Apparently there was sufficient continuous, fully dense material longitudinally to enable the high strengths. Ductility was low in the LENS material. Percent elongation at failure in the LENS material was near 4 percent, which is less than half of what is usually expected from Ti-6Al-4V. The low ductility was caused by high oxygen levels, and the presence of voids. It is likely that the relatively high scan speeds used in our depositions contributed to the lack of full density in our LENS material

Effects of crucible wetting during solidification of immiscible Pb-Zn

Many industrial uses for liquid phase miscibility gap alloys are proposed. However, the commercial production of these alloys into useful ingots with a reasonable amount of homogeneity is arduous because of their immiscibility in the liquid state. In the low-g environment of space gravitational settling forces are abated, thus solidification of an immiscible alloys with a uniform distribution of phases becomes feasible. Elimination of gravitational settling and coalescence processes in low-g also makes possible the study of other separation and coarsening mechanisms. Even with gravitational separation forces reduced, many low-g experiments have resulted in severely segregated structures. The segregation in many cases was due to preferential wetting of the crucible by one of the immiscible liquids. The objective was to analyze the wetting behavior of Pb-Zn alloys on various crucible materials in an effort to identify a crucible in which the fluid flow induced by preferential wetting is minimized. It is proposed that by choosing the crucible for a particular alloy so that the difference in surface energy between the solid and two liqud phases is minimized, the effects of preferential wetting can be diminished and possibly avoided. Qualitative experiments were conducted and have shown the competitive wetting behavior of the immiscible Pb-Zn system and 13 different crucible materials

Software Computes Tape-Casting Parameters

Tcast2 is a FORTRAN computer program that accelerates the setup of a process in which a slurry containing metal particles and a polymeric binder is cast, to a thickness regulated by a doctor blade, onto fibers wound on a rotating drum to make a green precursor of a metal-matrix/fiber composite tape. Before Tcast2, setup parameters were determined by trial and error in time-consuming multiple iterations of the process. In Tcast2, the fiber architecture in the final composite is expressed in terms of the lateral distance between fibers and the thickness-wise distance between fibers in adjacent plies. The lateral distance is controlled via the manner of winding. The interply spacing is controlled via the characteristics of the slurry and the doctor-blade height. When a new combination of fibers and slurry is first cast and dried to a green tape, the shrinkage from the wet to the green condition and a few other key parameters of the green tape are measured. These parameters are provided as input to Tcast2, which uses them to compute the doctor-blade height and fiber spacings needed to obtain the desired fiber architecture and fiber volume fraction in the final composite

Undercooling, Rapid Solidification, and Relations to Processing in Low Earth Orbit (A Review of the Works of Bingbo Wei)

This is a survey of the published works of Prof. Bingbo Wei of the Department of Applied Physics at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xian P.R. China. Transformations among solid - liquid - and vapor are fundamental to the foundations of life and culture on Earth. The development and understanding of materials has lead the evolution and advancement of the human race since antiquity. Materials and fluids research is continuing today, with us standing on the shoulders of those that have gone before us. Technological and scientific breakthroughs continue due to studies of greater and greater complexity, that include for example, research done at high pressures, in high magnetic fields, at temperatures near absolute zero, and in the low gravity environment of low Earth orbit. Of particular technological importance is the liquid to solid transformation of metals and alloys. Solidification processing is generally the most important factor in the final properties of objects made of metal; and undercooling is the fundamental driving force for all solidification. The interest and resources dedicated to the study of solidification and undercooling are great and World wide. For many years B. Wei and his coworkers have been studying undercooling and rapid solidification and have amassed a significant body of published research in this important field, contributing to the leading edge of the state-of-the-art. It is the goal of this memorandum to provide a review of the research of B. Wei et al.; publications in Chinese are included in the reference list but are not discussed. The bulk of Wei's work has been in the area of undercooling and rapid solidification [1-11, 13-16, 24-36] with papers dating back to 1989, the same year he earned his Ph.D. Below, discussions of Wei's undercooling and rapid solidification research have been grouped together mostly on the basis of alloy type, such as eutectic, intermetallic, or monotectic

Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Threats to NASA's Docking Seals: Initial Assessment and Methodology

The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will be exposed to the Micrometeoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) environment in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) during missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and to the micrometeoroid environment during lunar missions. The CEV will be equipped with a docking system which enables it to connect to ISS and the lunar module known as Altair; this docking system includes a hatch that opens so crew and supplies can pass between the spacecrafts. This docking system is known as the Low Impact Docking System (LIDS) and uses a silicone rubber seal to seal in cabin air. The rubber seal on LIDS presses against a metal flange on ISS (or Altair). All of these mating surfaces are exposed to the space environment prior to docking. The effects of atomic oxygen, ultraviolet and ionizing radiation, and MMOD have been estimated using ground based facilities. This work presents an initial methodology to predict meteoroid and orbital debris threats to candidate docking seals being considered for LIDS. The methodology integrates the results of ground based hypervelocity impacts on silicone rubber seals and aluminum sheets, risk assessments of the MMOD environment for a variety of mission scenarios, and candidate failure criteria. The experimental effort that addressed the effects of projectile incidence angle, speed, mass, and density, relations between projectile size and resulting crater size, and relations between crater size and the leak rate of candidate seals has culminated in a definition of the seal/flange failure criteria. The risk assessment performed with the BUMPER code used the failure criteria to determine the probability of failure of the seal/flange system and compared the risk to the allotted risk dictated by NASA's program requirements

Effects of Hypervelocity Impacts on Silicone Elastomer Seals and Mating Aluminum Surfaces

While in space silicone based elastomer seals planned for use on NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) are exposed to threats from micrometeoroids and orbital debris (MMOD). An understanding of these threats is required to assess risks to the crew, the CEV orbiter, and missions. An Earth based campaign of hypervelocity impacts on small scale seal rings has been done to help estimate MMOD threats to the primary docking seal being developed for the Low Impact Docking System (LIDS). LIDS is being developed to enable the CEV to dock to the ISS (International Space Station) or to Altair (NASA's next lunar lander). The silicone seal on LIDS seals against aluminum alloy flanges on ISS or Altair. Since the integrity of a seal depends on both sealing surfaces, aluminum targets were also impacted. The variables considered in this study included projectile mass, density, speed, incidence angle, seal materials, and target surface treatments and coatings. Most of the impacts used a velocity near 8 km/s and spherical aluminum projectiles (density = 2.7 g/cubic centimeter), however, a few tests were done near 5.6 km/s. Tests were also performed using projectile densities of 7.7, 2.79, 2.5 or 1.14 g/cubic centimeter. Projectile incidence angles examined included 0 degrees, 45 degrees , and 60 degrees from normal to the plane of the target. Elastomer compounds impacted include Parker's S0383-70 and Esterline's ELA-SA-401 in the as received condition, or after an atomic oxygen treatment. Bare, anodized and nickel coated aluminum targets were tested simulating the candidate mating seal surface materials. After impact, seals and aluminum plates were leak tested: damaged seals were tested against an undamaged aluminum plate; and undamaged seals were placed at various locations over craters in aluminum plates. It has been shown that silicone elastomer seals can withstand an impressive level of damage before leaking beyond allowable limits. In general on the tests performed to date, the diameter of the crater in either the elastomer, or the aluminum, must be at least as big as 80% to 90% of width of the bulb of the seal before significant leakage occurs

Numerical simulation of heat and mass transport during space crystal growth with MEPHISTO

The MEPHISTO space experiments are collaborative United States and French investigations aimed at understanding the fundamentals of crystal growth. Microgravity experiments were conducted aboard the USMP-1 and -2 missions on STS-52 and 62 in October 1992 and March 1994 respectively. MEPHISTO is a French designed and built Bridgman type furnace which uses the Seebeck technique to monitor the solid/liquid interface temperature and Peltier pulsing to mark the location and shape of the solid/liquid interface. In this paper the Bridgman growth of Sn-Bi and Bi-Sn under terrestrial and microgravity conditions is modeled using the finite element code, FIDAP*. The numerical model considers fully coupled heat and mass transport, fluid motion and solid/liquid phase changes in the crystal growth process. The primary goals of this work are: to provide a quantitative study of the thermal buoyancy-induced convection in the melt for the two flight experiments; to compare the vertical and horizontal growth configurations and systematically evaluate the effects of various gravity levels on the solute segregation. Numerical results of the vertical and horizontal Bridgman growth configurations are presented

Meteoroid and Orbital Debris Threats to NASA's Docking Seals: Initial Assessment and Methodology

The Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will be exposed to the Micrometeoroid Orbital Debris (MMOD) environment in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) during missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and to the micrometeoroid environment during lunar missions. The CEV will be equipped with a docking system which enables it to connect to ISS and the lunar module known as Altair; this docking system includes a hatch that opens so crew and supplies can pass between the spacecrafts. This docking system is known as the Low Impact Docking System (LIDS) and uses a silicone rubber seal to seal in cabin air. The rubber seal on LIDS presses against a metal flange on ISS (or Altair). All of these mating surfaces are exposed to the space environment prior to docking. The effects of atomic oxygen, ultraviolet and ionizing radiation, and MMOD have been estimated using ground based facilities. This work presents an initial methodology to predict meteoroid and orbital debris threats to candidate docking seals being considered for LIDS. The methodology integrates the results of ground based hypervelocity impacts on silicone rubber seals and aluminum sheets, risk assessments of the MMOD environment for a variety of mission scenarios, and candidate failure criteria. The experimental effort that addressed the effects of projectile incidence angle, speed, mass, and density, relations between projectile size and resulting crater size, and relations between crater size and the leak rate of candidate seals has culminated in a definition of the seal/flange failure criteria. The risk assessment performed with the BUMPER code used the failure criteria to determine the probability of failure of the seal/flange system and compared the risk to the allotted risk dictated by NASA s program requirements