International Journal of Modern Physics B

This study attempts to modify the unified strength theory by considering compression as a positive load in geotechnical engineering. It also aims to establish a unified elastoplastic strain softening constitutive model which can accurately describe the strain softening behavior of one kind of soft rocks distributed in Japan. The hardening function parameters of the unified elastoplastic strain softening constitutive model are determined from experiments. In addition, numerical simulations of this model are performed to compare the pre-peak, post-peak and the residual strengths of soft rock predicted by this study and experimental results. Simulation results demonstrated that the proposed constitutive equations in strain space can well describe the softening behavior and accurately predict the peak and residual strengths of soft rock. While the proposed equation is applicative for normally consolidated state and overconsolidated state according to the simulation results.

In this paper, a two-dimensional nonlinear elastic-plastic mass-spring-damper-rod element model is employed to simulate the crush behavior of metallic foams. The density heterogeneity and pore fluid of metallic foams are considered. The metallic foams are compressed by applying a planar pulse loading or by giving a deformation rate. Several numerical results show the deformation patterns and the energy absorption regime of metallic foams under crush loading. The influence of heterogeneous density, cell fluid, loading intensity, deformation rate on the deformation and the energy absorption of metallic foams is assessed.

Two sets of single crystal constitutive equations used for the crystal plasticity finite element analysis are comparatively investigated by simulating simple deformation of oriented single crystals. The first of these consists of conventional constitutive equations, which have been adopted for the prediction of deformation texture and their parameters are generally obtained by back-fitting polycrystalline stress-strain response. The other set uses interactions between moving dislocations on the primary slip system and the corresponding forest dislocations. The idealized Orowan hardening mechanism is adopted for the calculation of the critical force, and constitutive parameters are determined by the geometry of dislocations, thus less fitting procedure is involved. The stress-strain curves of copper single crystal are used to demonstrate how the two models work for the orientation dependent stress-strain responses.

This paper deals with plastic deformations of a high tensile strength steel sheet (HTSS sheet) under biaxial stress condition including strain path. Using a cruciform specimen of a HTSS sheet of 780MPa-TS, experiments under proportional and non-proportional loadings were investigated. Numerical simulations of stress-strain responses for several strain paths after biaxial stretching were conducted using a large-strain cyclic plasticity model (Yoshida-Uemori model). The results of numerical simulation agrees well the corresponding experimental results, which is attributed to the accurate modeling of the backstress evolution of the anisotropic yield function.

We present a full constitutive relation of silicon steel which can describe the anisotropy effect as well. Using a pilot rolling machine, initial silicon strip with thickness of 2.5mm is rolled into sheet with several thicknesses as reduction ratio increases from 10% to 90%. To examine the effect of anisotropy on the stress-strain behavior, the specimen was cut out from the sheet so that the direction of specimen and sheet is 0°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 90°, respectively. A series of tensile test are then performed with the specimens. The stress-strain curves computed from the proposed constitutive relation are compared with the experimental data. Results show that the predicted curves are in overall in a good agreement with measured ones. The work hardening and unstable softening behaviors of silicon steel during rolling are predicted by the proposed full constitutive relation.

Uniaxial and bi-axial tests on tubular specimens are presented. The specimens consist of NiTi alloy exhibiting pseudoelastic behavior at room temperature. A novel device to measure and control axial and torsional strains within a well defined gage section of the specimen was developed. This device, based on inductive transducers, uses the same reference points for both twist and elongation measurements. The viscous and rate dependent behavior of binary, pseudoelastic NiTi is investigated. The main focus is on the decoupling of thermal and viscous effects on the transformation stress as the specimen material is subject to heating and cooling due to latent heat generation and absorption during phase transition. On this account, an active temperature control is proposed to account for swift temperature variations. In addition to uniaxial testing of the sample, two-dimensional tension/torsion experiments are conducted in order to generalize the uniaxial findings. It is concluded that the material under consideration is independent of the rate of deformation for the applied temperature range.

Many materials exhibit a stress range dependent creep behavior. The power-law creep observed for a certain stress range changes to the viscous type creep if the stress value decreases. Recently published experimental data for advanced heat resistant steels indicates that the high creep exponent (in the range 5-12 for the power-law behavior) may decrease to the low value of approximately 1 within the stress range relevant for engineering structures. The aim of this paper is to confirm the stress range dependence of creep behavior based on the experimental data of stress relaxation. An extended constitutive model for the minimum creep rate is introduced to consider both the linear and the power law creep ranges. To take into account the primary creep behavior a strain hardening function is introduced. The material constants are identified for published experimental data of creep and relaxation tests for a 12%Cr steel bolting material at 500°C. The data for the minimum creep rate are well-defined only for moderate and high stress levels. To reconstruct creep rates for the low stress range the data of the stress relaxation test are applied. The results show a gradual decrease of the creep exponent with the decreasing stress level. Furthermore, they illustrate that the proposed constitutive model well describes the creep rates for a wide stress range.

Based on the existed experimental results of 304 stainless steel, the evolution of fatigue damage during the stress-controlled cyclic loading was discussed first. Then, a damage-coupled visco-plastic cyclic constitutive model was proposed in the framework of unified visco-plasticity and continuum damage mechanics to simulate the whole-life ratcheting and predict the fatigue failure life of the material presented during the uniaxial stress-controlled cyclic loading with non-zero mean stress. In the proposed model, the whole life ratcheting was described by employing a non-linear kinematic hardening rule, i.e., the Armstrong-Frederick model combined with the Ohno-Wang model I, and considering the effect of fatigue damage. The damage threshold was employed to determine the failure life of the material. The simulated whole-life ratcheting and predicted failure lives are in a fairly good agreement with the experimental ones of 304 stainless steel.

In this paper, some available analytical models for the complete stress-strain curve for high-strength concrete (HSC) under uniaxial compression are examined and compared with experimental curves published in the literature. Based on these findings, a new analytical constitutive relation is proposed to generate the complete stress-strain curves for normal weight concrete subjected to uniaxial compression with a strength range of 60-120MPa. To demonstrate the validity of the model, comparisons are made with published experimental data for uniaxial compressive tests on high-strength concrete specimens. The present model is shown to give a quite good representation of mean behavior of the actual stress-strain response.

This paper is to understand and model the thermomechanical response of the rotary forged WHA, uniaxial compression and tension tests are performed on cylindrical samples, using a material testing machines and the split Hopkinson bar technique. True strains exceeding 40% are achieved in these tests over the range of strain rates from 0.001/s to about 7,000/s, and at initial temperatures from 77K to 1,073K. The results show: 1) the WHA displays a pronounced changing orientation due to mechanical processing, that is, the material is inhomogeneous along the section; 2) the dynamic strain aging occurs at temperatures over 700K and in a strain rate of 10^-3 1/s; 3) failure strains decrease with increasing strain rate under uniaxial tension, it is about 1.2% at a strain rate of 1,000 1/s; and 4) flow stress of WHA strongly depends on temperatures and strain rates. Finally, based on the mechanism of dislocation motion, the parameters of a physically-based model are estimated by the experimental results. A good agreement between the modeling prediction and experiments was obtained.

As a lead-free solder, Sn96.5Ag3Cu0.5 has a wide application in electronic packaging. Since the solder materials usually work under cyclic temperature surroundings, creep constitutive relationships and cyclic behaviors are necessary to carry out the thermal stress analysis of a package with such a solder for its strength and life evaluations. This paper has investigated the creep constitutive relationships by constant (non-cyclic) loadings firstly, based on the creep test results at various stress and temperature levels. The complete form of the constitutive relationship containing both the linear viscous and hyperbola-sine creeps is proposed. Secondly, through the tests under cyclic stress loadings, the cyclic stress-strain relationships have been illustrated.

Transparent polymer interlayer foils are widely used to increase the safety of glass applications, mainly in construction and automotive industry. In case one or more glass sheets in a laminate fracture, the remaining structural capacity (i.e. stiffness and strength) highly depends on the solicitation and mechanical properties of the interlayer. In such a post-breakage state, the interlayer is subjected to a complex combination of phenomena such as partial delamination, large strain deformation, strain hardening, rupture, etc. In part 1, an analytical model was presented to describe the mechanical behavior of glass laminates in a post-breakage state in which both glass plates are broken. In addition, a comparison of the theoretical model with experimental results is presented in part 2 below.

The fracture behaviors of tungsten alloys 91W-6.3Ni-2.7Fe were investigated by tensile tests and numerical simulations. Firstly, tensile tests were conducted on the S-570 SEM with an in-situ tensile stage. With this system, the process of deformation, damage and evolution in micro-area can be tracked and recorded, and at the same time, the load-strain curve can be drawn. Secondly, the 2D finite element model of a unit cell for the tungsten alloys was established by using finite element program. By copying the unit cell model, the macro-model of the alloys was given. Dozen of cases were performed to simulate the fracture behaviors of tungsten alloys. Thirdly, the random model of the alloys was established. The fracture patterns of the alloys were investigated by the model. The interface between the tungsten particle and the matrix was explored in details. The effect of interface strength on the fracture patterns of the alloys was taken into account. A good agreement was achieved between the experimental results and the numerical predictions.

Drillstring is the most important tool in petroleum drilling engineering. Alternating stress has been found to be responsible for the premature failure of drillstring. Propagation of stress wave, induced by collision between tool-joints of drillstring and borehole wall, is studied in this paper. The condition that all the tool-joints of drill pipes (DPs) strike borehole wall at the same time has been considered. Because of symmetry, the middle cross section of the DP is simplified as fixed end, and mechanical model is established as the beam with both ends fixed. Propagation of lateral displacement wave and stress wave in the DP is investigated by means of Eigen-frequency method and the Finite Element Analysis software ANSYS. The theoretic results coincide with those obtained from numerical modeling very well and also explain the drillstring accidents in gas fields.

Three-dimensional finite element simulation has been carried out to understand better the crack initiation and growth at the edge side of silicon steel sheet during cold rolling, which is attributable to elastic deformation of work roll, i.e., roll bending. Strain-controlled failure model was coupled with finite element method and a series of FE simulation has been carried out while three different roll bending modes are considered. FE simulation shows that the negative roll bending mode during rolling affects significantly the crack initiation behavior. When the strain for failure was reduced by 20%, number of elements removed was increased by about 305%. If an initial crack with 2.5mm in length was assumed on the strip, the initial edge crack propagated toward inner region of strip and the propagated length is about 10times of the initial edge crack length.

We have tried to find out the critical factor governing the delamination in the pearlitic steel filaments. Steel filaments were fabricated depending on the carbon content from 0.72 to 1.02 wt.%. The delamination was identified by a torsion tester specially designed for thin-sized wires and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that as the carbon content increased, the number of twists to fracture decreased, and the delamination only occurred in the filament with 1.02 wt.% C. In order to elucidate this behavior, the microstructure of the filaments was observed using advanced analysis techniques such as 3 dimensional atom probes tomography (3-DAPT).

The crack propagation properties for ultrafine-grained Zn-22wt%Al alloy during low cycle fatigue (LCF) in the superplastic region and the non-superplastic region were investigated and compared with the corresponding results for several other materials. With the Zn- 22wt%Al alloy, it was possible to conduct LCF tests even at high strain amplitudes of more than ±5%, and the alloy appeared to exhibit a longer LCF lifetime than the other materials examined. The fatigue life is higher in the superplastic region than in the non-superplastic region. The rate of fatigue crack propagation in the superplastic region is lower than that in the other materials in the high J-integral range. In addition, the formation of cavities and crack branching were observed around a crack tip in the supereplastic region. We therefore conclude that the formation of cavities and secondary cracks as a result of the relaxation of stress concentration around the crack tip results in a reduction in the rate of fatigue crack propagation and results in a longer fatigue lifetime.

In this study, experimental and numerical studies were performed to examine the effects of thickness of steel plate on the arrest fracture toughness. The ESSO tests were performed with the steel plates having temperature gradient along the crack propagation direction. A temperature dependent crack initiation criterion was proposed as well. A series of three-dimensional FEA was then carried out to simulate the ESSO test while the thickness of the steel plate varies. Results reveal that a temperature dependent brittle criterion proposed in this study can describe the fracture behavior properly.

The fretting fatigue behavior of the Ti811titanium alloy, as influenced by temperature, slip amplitude, and contact pressure, was investigated using a high-frequency fatigue machine and a home-made high-temperature apparatus. The fretting fatigue failure mechanisms were studied by observing the fretting surface morphology features. The results show that the sensitivity to fretting fatigue is high at both 350°C and 500°C. The higher the temperature is, the more sensitive the alloy is to fretting fatigue failure. Creep is an important factor that influences the fretting fatigue failure process at elevated temperature. The fretting fatigue life of the Ti811 alloy does not change in a monotonic way as the slip amplitude and contact pressure increase. This is due to the fact that the slip amplitude affects the action of fatigue and wear in the fretting process, and the nominal contact pressure affects the distribution and concentration of the stress and the amplitude of fretting slip at the contact surface, and thus further influences the crack initiation probability and the driving force for propagation.

Effects of various heat treatment processes, including "Q/T (quenching and tempering)", "Q/CT/T (Quenching, cryogenic treatment and tempering)", "Q/T (quenching and tempering) + Ti-nitriding" and "Q/CT/T (Cryogenic treatment and tempering) + Ti-nitriding", on S-N fatigue behavior of AISI D2 tool steel were investigated. The optical micrographs and Vicker's hardness values at near surface and core area were examined for each specimen. Uniaxial fatigue tests were performed by using an electro-magnetic resonance fatigue testing machine at a frequency of 80 Hz and an R ratio of -1. The overall resistance to fatigue tends to decrease significantly with Ti-nitriding treatment compared to those for the general Q/T and Q/CT/T specimens. The reduced resistance to fatigue with Ti-nitriding is discussed based on the microstructural and fractographic analyses.

Fatigue behavior of rolled AZ31 magnesium alloy, which shows an anisotropic deformation behavior due to the direction dependent formation of deformation twins, was investigated by carrying out stress and strain controlled fatigue tests. The anisotropy in deformation behavior introduced asymmetric stress-strain hysteresis hoops, which make it difficult to use common fatigue life prediction models, such as stress and strain-based models, and induced mean stress and/or strain even under fully-reversed conditions; the tensile mean stress and strain were found to have a harmful effect on the fatigue resistance. An energy-based model was used to describe the fatigue life behavior as strain energy density was stabilized at the early stage of fatigue life and nearly invariant through entire life. To account for the mean stress and strain effects, an elastic energy related to the mean stress and a plastic strain energy consumed by the mean strain were appropriately considered in the model. The results showed that there is good agreement between the prediction and the experimental data.

Transparent polymer interlayer foils are widely used to increase the safety of glass applications, mainly in construction and automotive industry. In case one or more glass sheets in a laminate fracture, the remaining structural capacity (i.e. stiffness and strength) highly depends on the solicitation and mechanical properties of the interlayer. In such a post-breakage state, the interlayer is subjected to a complex combination of phenomena such as partial delamination, large strain deformation, strain hardening, rupture, etc. In partim 1, an analytical model is presented in order to describe the mechanical behavior of glass laminates in post-breakage state for a simple configuration. In addition, the theoretical model is compared to experimental results in part 2, which is published together with part 1.

Load carry capacity of corroded reinforced concrete beams under repeated load was investigated experimentally. A total of fifteen test samples, including three non-corrosion and twelve corroded reinforced concrete (RC) beams, were experimentally evaluated for midspan deflection, cracking of concrete, and failing modes under repeated loading. Beams of different corrosion percentage were tested for the effect of steel corrosion and repeated loading. For corroded RC beams width and spacing of cracks increased significantly with steel corrosion. Before the yielding of the reinforcement steel, midspan deflection for beams of lower corrosion percentage was less than that of non-corrosion beams. However, as the reinforcement steel yielded, the midspan deflection of corroded beams was significantly larger than those of non-corrosion beams, and this tended to increase with corrosion percentage. As the reinforcing steel was severely corroded, the beam showed a mechanical characteristic similar to a camber, where arch action was more obvious.

Galling is a known failure mechanism in sheet metal forming (SMF), especially in the forming of high strength steels. It results in increased cost of die maintenance and scrap rate of products. In this study, U-channel forming tests were conducted to study the galling behavior under the condition of tension-bending. The effects of tool surface characteristics (hardness and surface roughness) and process parameters (blank holder force and sliding distance of the contact surfaces) on galling were investigated. Experimental results indicate that galling tendency can be reduced through hardening and polishing of the forming tool and galling becomes more severe with increasing blank holder force and sliding distance in SMF. A numerical model between the galling and these factors was established through non-linear curve fitting of the large amount of experimental data.

This paper is concerned with the evaluation of the dynamic failure load in the lap-shear tests of a spot weld. Dynamic lap-shear tests of a spot weld in SPRC340R were conducted with different tensile speeds ranging from 5×10^-5 m/sec to 5.0 m/sec. Dynamic effects on the failure load of a spot weld are examined based on the experimental data. Experimental results indicate that failure strength increases with increasing loading rates. Finite element analyses of dynamic lap-shear tests were also performed considering the failure of a spot weld. A spot weld is modeled with a beam element and dynamic failure model is utilized in order to describe the failure of a spot weld in the simulation. The failure loads obtained from the analyses are compared to those from the lap-shear tests. The comparison shows that the failure loads obtained from the analyses are close in consistence with those obtained from the experiments.

Damage due to creep and plastic flow is assessed using destructive and non-destructive methods in steels (40HNMA and P91). In the destructive methods the standard tension tests were carried out after prestraining and variations of the selected tension parameters were taken into account for damage identification. In order to assess a damage development during the creep and plastic deformation the tests for both steels were interrupted for a range of the selected strain magnitudes. The ultrasonic and magnetic techniques were used as the non-destructive methods for damage evaluation. The last step of the experimental programme contained microscopic observations. A very promising correlation between parameters of methods for damage development evaluation was achieved. It is well proved for the ultimate tensile stress and birefringence coefficient.

This study is focused on the fatigue properties of automobile high-strength bolts, including the effect of mean stress level, pre-processing schedule and the residual stresses. And the mean stress levels are 0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 times to the tensile strength (σ_B) of the material respectively. The main results obtained are as follows: 1) the fatigue strength increases under the mean stress loading, but the differences between the loading levels are not so evident; 2) most of the cases in this study are broken from the bottom of the screw thread, and the crack initiated from the impurities.

The paper aims at a numerical study of strength and deformation behaviors of rocks under different loading conditions in uniaxial compression with an elasto-plastic cellular automaton (EPCA^2D) code. Two loading conditions, i.e. with and without considering frictions between loading platens and rock specimen's ends, are used in the failure processes of heterogeneous rocks. Rock specimens are assumed to be the same heterogeneity, i.e. the specimens with different sizes have the same probability of containing flaws. Under this condition, it is concluded that the strength and deformation behaviors of rocks are influenced by the heterogeneity a little. The mismatch of elastic properties of the platen and the rock in influencing the stress distribution at the ends of the specimen is the dominant cause for the so-called strength and deformation size effects, which in turn affects the final failure patterns of rocks.

The plate impact experiments have been conducted to investigate the dynamic behavior of alumina. Based on the experimental observations, the three-dimensional finite element models of flyer and alumina target are established by adopting ANSYS/LS-DYNA, several cases were performed to investigate the fracture behavior of alumina target under impact loading. By analyzing the fracture mechanism and damage process of the alumina target, it is concluded that the nucleation and growth of great number of radial and axial cracks and circumferential cracks play a dominant role in the fracture behavior of alumina target. The stress histories of alumina target are simulated. By the comparison of experimental results with the numerical predictions, a good correlation is obtained.

This paper aims to study dynamic properties of loess. This study is helpful to the subject on how to avoid or decrease the seismic disasters on loess ground. Dynamic triaxial tests are carried out with saturated remoulded soil samples taken form loess sites in Xi'an, China. Dynamic stress and strain relationship as well as the rule of the accumulated residual strain are obtained from the test results. Linear relationship between accumulated residual strain and vibration circle under constant amplitude circular loading is presented. A hypothesis about the accumulated residual strain is proposed. 1D dynamic constitutive relationship model which can well describe the real relationship between dynamic stress and strain under irregular dynamic loading is established. Numerical program with this model is developed and an example is tested. Numerical results of hysteresis loop, accumulated residual strain, amplitude of dynamic stress and damping ratio show good agreement with test results. It is indicated that the hypothesis of accumulated residual strain and the 1D dynamic constitutive relationship model can accurately simulate the dynamic triaxial tests of saturated remoulded loess.

In order to shorten the time of through-the-canopy-ejection, and to ensure pilot safely escape and survive. The application of linear cutting technique using miniature detonation cord( MDC) in through-the-canopy-ejection-system is proposed. A series of different kinds of MDC are designed. Firstly experimental study on the cutting process of the PMMA plate wiht MDC is carried out. Material of metal cover explosive types and the range of charge quantities are determined. Consequently the phenomena of spallation is observed, and the relationship between the cutting depth and charge quantities is obtained. For the comparison, the process of explosion cutting PMMA plate is simulated by means of nonlinear dynamic analysis code LS-DYNA. Spallation phenomena which occurs in the experiment, is also observed in the simulation. Simulation results present the relationship of cutting depth of PMMA plate versus charge linear density, which well agree with experimental ones.

The objective of this paper is to investigate into impact behaviors of a STS 304 sheet with a thickness of 0.7 mm in a free boundary condition subjected to impact loading by a hemispherical impact head using drop impact tests and the three-dimensional FE analyses. The drop impact tests and the FE analyses were conducted with different impact energy ranging from 37.0 J to 45.7 J. From the results of the impact tests, the influence of the impact energy on the force-deflection curve, the absorption mechanism of the impact energy and deformation behaviors of specimen were examined quantitatively. Through the FE analyses, the variation of stress-strain distributions and characteristics of the local deformation during the impact of the specimen were investigated.

This paper deals with the crashworthiness of an aluminum crash box for an auto-body with the various shapes of cross section such as a rectangle, a hexagon and an octagon. First, crash boxes with various cross sections were tested with numerical simulation to obtain the energy absorption capacity and the mean load. In case of the simple axial crush, the octagon shape shows higher mean load and energy absorption than the other two shapes. Secondly, the crash boxes were assembled to a simplified auto-body model for the overall crashworthiness. The model consists of a bumper, crash boxes, front side members and a sub-frame representing the behavior of a full car at the low speed impact. The analysis result shows that the rectangular cross section shows the best performance as a crash box which deforms prior to the front side member. The hexagonal and octagonal cross sections undergo torsion and local buckling as the width of cross section decreases while the rectangular cross section does not. The simulation result of the rectangular crash box was verified with the experimental result. The simulation result shows close tendency in the deformed shape and the load–displacement curve to the experimental result.

This paper deals with a regression model for light weight and crashworthiness enhancement design of automotive parts in frontal car crash. The ULSAB-AVC model is employed for the crash analysis and effective parts are selected based on the amount of energy absorption during the crash behavior. Finite element analyses are carried out for designated design cases in order to investigate the crashworthiness and weight according to the material and thickness of main energy absorption parts. Based on simulations results, a regression analysis is performed to construct a regression model utilized for light weight and crashworthiness enhancement design of automotive parts. An example for weight reduction of main energy absorption parts demonstrates the validity of a regression model constructed.

The impact deformation behavior and the strain sensitivity of structural adhesives are experimentally investigated by using INSTRON-type universal testing machine and split Hopkinson pressure bar apparatus. The experimental results show some fundamental features of the typical compressive stress-strain behavior of polymers with linear elastic and nonlinear inelastic deformation stages. In the inelastic deformation, the peak stress, and the strain-softening stage after the peak can be observed at the entire range of strain-rate from 10^-4 to 10³ /s. In addition, it can be found that the relationship between the peak stress at the strain-softening stage and strain-rate for a semi-logarithm curve is linear in a range of low strain rate, however, that becomes nonlinear at high strain rate. Finally, some constitutive models try to be applied for to describe the stress-strain behavior of structural adhesives.

In this research, the buckling behavior of long columns under dynamic load was investigated both experimentally and numerically, and an effective buckling criterion for dynamic load was derived from the results in terms of the impact velocity and the slenderness ratio. In the experiments, a free fall drop-weight type impact testing machine was employed. The dynamic buckling loads were measured by the load sensing block, and the displacements were measured by a high speed magnetic-resistance device. In the numerical analyses, dynamic FEM code 'MSC-Dytran' was used to simulate the typical experimental results, and the validity and the accuracy of the simulations were checked. The dynamic buckling loads at various impact velocities were then systematically investigated. From both experimental and simulated results, it was found that the dynamic to static buckling load ratios can be successfully described as a square function of the slenderness ratio of the columns, while they can be also described by a power law of the applied impact velocity.

This paper introduces the jig set for the crash test and the crash test results of shear bolts which are designed to fail at train crash conditions. The tension and shear bolts are attached to Light Collision Safety Devices(LCSD) as a mechanical fuse when tension and shear bolts reach their failure load designed. The kinetic energy due to the crash is absorbed by the secondary energy absorbing device after LCSD are detached from the main body by the fracture of shear bolts. A single shear bolt was designed to fail at the load of 250 kN. The jig set designed to convert a compressive loading to a shear loading was installed to the high speed crash tester for dynamic shear tests. Two strain gauges were attached at the parallel section of the jig set to measure the load responses acting on the shear bolts. Crash tests were performed with a carrier whose mass was 250 kg and the initial speed of the carrier was 9 m/sec. From the quasi-static and dynamic experiments as well as the numerical analysis, the capacity of the shear bolts were accurately predicted for the crashworthiness design.

In this paper, the influence of the stamping effect is investigated in the performance analysis of a side structure. The analysis covers the performance evaluation such as crashworthiness and NVH. Stamping analyses are carried out for a center pillar, and then, numerical simulations are carried out in order to identify the stamping effect on the crashworthiness and the natural frequency. The result shows that the analysis considering the forming history leads to a different result from that without considering the stamping effect, which demonstrates that the design of auto-body should be carried out considering the stamping history for accurate assessment of various performances.

In this research, an approach combining the precise time integration method (PTIM) and mode decomposition method is proposed to compute the response of beam structures resting on viscoelastic foundation. The PTIM has high precision, high efficiency, but it still suffers from the problem of large-size matrices when directly computing structure. And this problem can be overcome by mode superposition. Thus, the present paper integrates the PTIM and mode decomposition method together which holds the explicit recurrence form of precise algorithm. Comparing with the other numerical methods, it is found that the presented method is much more precisely and time-saving. The effect of the speed of moving load, the foundation stiffness and the length of the beam on the response of beam have also been studied. These numerical computation results show that the present method is effective and feasible.

In automobile panel manufacturing, the design of a feasible trimming line is crucial in obtaining an accurate edge profile after flanging. In this study, an effective method which combines the robust incremental development method and finite element inverse method is presented. The finite element inverse method is used to analyze the flanging process. In using the finite element inverse method, the main obstacle is the generation of the initial guess. An improved incremental development method is presented to handle badly-shaped element, various element sizes, and undercut parts. This method incrementally develops a 3D triangular mesh onto the drawing tool surface by layer-wise development and smoothing technique. The effectiveness of this method is verified by two numerical examples.

Effects of heat treatments on the on-line service life of a press die manufactured by W-EDM are studied. In this work, four manufacturing processes for a press die are considered: (1) milling and then grinding, (2) wire-cut electric discharge machining (W-EDM), (3) low temperature heat treatment after W-EDM, and (4) high temperature heat treatment after W-EDM. On-line punching experiments for an automobile part of BL646-chain are performed. The amount of wear of the die and punch, roll-over and burnish depth in the punched chain are measured every 1,000 strokes. Overall productivities are carefully compared. Finally, it is concluded that heat treatment after W-EDM for a press die can enhance its on-line service life. Especially, high temperature heat treatment after W-EDM is very attractive as a fast and cheap manufacturing method for a press die.

At present, the failure criteria used in calculating the ultimate bearing capacity of soil slope are the Tresca and Mohr-Coulomb criteria. But the results are conservative and the potential strength of soil mass cannot be utilized sufficiently because these two criteria do not take into account the effect of the intermediate principal stress. In this paper the unified strength theory was used to analyze the ultimate bearing capacity of soil slope. The formula for calculating the ultimate bearing capacity of soil slope using the unified strength theory was established. At the end, a case history was analyzed and it indicated that the result of the unified strength theory is larger than that of the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. This indicates that calculation of ultimate bearing capacity of soil slope with the unified strength theory can sufficiently exploit the strength of material. Therefore, the calculation of ultimate bearing capacity of the soil slope based on the unified strength theory will be of great significance in future applications.

In this paper, top joint method is proposed to solve a practical engineering problem of temperature stress and temperature crack of super-long slab-column structure bearing temperature difference. From the study, it is shown that as for super-long slab-column structure undergoing temperature difference of inside and outside, joint located in bottom stories nearly has no influence on temperature stress and deformation while joint in top stories can significantly reduce temperature stress and deformation of super-long slab-column structures. In addition, comparison of joints located in top one story, top several stories and from bottom to top stories indicates that influences of them on temperature stress and deformation are similar. As for top joint method, among which cantilever plate method, double column method and corbel method are discussed and results indicate that influence effects of these methods on structures are similar.

This paper is concerned with development of a process map for sequential compression-backward extrusion of bulk AZ31 Mg alloy at the warm temperatures. In experiments, metal flows and crack initiations are carefully investigated and formability is examined systematically for various forming conditions such as forming temperature, punch speed, and a gap between a specimen and die. Then, a process map for the sequential compression-backward extrusion of bulk AZ31 Mg alloy at the warm temperature is proposed. In order to further understand deformation behaviors and damage evolution during warm forming process, thermo mechanical finite element analyses coupled with damage evolutions are carried out. In general, finite element predictions support experimental observation. Finally, it is concluded that the process map, proposed for the sequential compression-backward extrusion of AZ31 Mg alloy, is valid.

Shape control is always a key issue in the six-high rolling mill, in which the shifting of the intermediate roll and the work roll have been used to enhance the shape control capability. In this paper, a finite element method (FEM) model has been developed to simultaneously simulate the strip deformation and the roll stack deformation for the six-high rolling mill. The effects of the work-roll bending, the shifting of the intermediate roll and the work roll on the strip crown and edge drop are discussed in details. Results have shown that both higher bending force and more roll shifting will significantly reduce the strip crown. The edge drop is also reduced with the bending force and the roll shifting.

In this paper an explicit dynamic finite element method model has been developed to investigate the strip deformation behavior between two adjacent stands in hot finishing mill. The effect of the roll speed ratio of second stand to first stand on tension and the tailing behavior of the strip has been discussed in details. It has been found that the strip accumulation occurs if the roll speed ratio is small. The tensile stress increases with the roll speed ratio. During the tailing process the accumulated strip caused by the small roll speed ratios knocks onto the roll, while the swing of the strip tail occurs for the large roll speed ratios and it strikes the roll as well. Both tailing phenomena will result in the strip tail pincher or roll damage in the real operation.

A molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) is composed of several stacks of unit cells. A unit cell is composed of two electrodes and a matrix that is inserted between separator plates. Separator plates should properly contact the electrodes to reduce the electricity loss arising from contact resistance. To this end, a pressure of about 2 kgf/cm² is usually applied on the top of the stack, which results in the separator plates being somewhat compacted. Furthermore, the stiffness of the separator plates becomes degraded at elevated temperatures due to softening of the plate materials. Therefore, a nonuniform temperature distribution across the separator plates induced by exothermic reactions of the oxidant and reactant gases leads to a non-uniform plate stiffness. This study has firstly evaluated the change in separator plate stiffness as temperature changes by applying pressure to the plates. Secondly, using the Taguchi method, several design factors that affect stiffness have been investigated to determine which has the most influence. Based on these results, a new design for the separators, which allows for uniform stiffness at elevated temperatures, has been proposed.

Shaving is widely used as a finish process to generate a smooth sheared surface from a sheared surface originally obtained by blanking or piercing. In the sheet metal forming industry, progressive operations are commonly used to increase productivity. However, it is difficult to utilize shaving in a progressive die because a blank is dropped down after blanking. In this study, a method that addresses this issue is introduced, and the two-stage progressive operation of half-blanking and blank-shaving is suggested. For this study, a square part made by blanking and piercing is considered, and a progressive die that includes piercing, pierce-shaving, half-blanking and blank-shaving is prepared for a specimen of cold rolled steel sheet. Experiments are carried out involving the process parameters of the shaving allowance, shaving clearance and the half-blanking penetration depth. It was found that the proposed method using a progressive die offers a completely smooth sheared surface along with feasible working conditions for a cold rolled steel sheet with a thickness of 1.56 mm.

Metal forming processes such as hydroforming and sheet metal forming using tubular material and thin sheet metal have been widely used in lots of industrial fields for manufacturing of various parts that could be equipped with mechanical products. However, it is not easy to design sequential processes properly because there are various design variables that affect formability of the parts. Therefore preliminary evaluation of formability for the given process should be carried out to minimize time consumption and development cost. With the advances in finite element analysis technique over the decades, the formability evaluation using numerical simulation has been conducted in view of strain distribution and final shape. In this paper, the application of forming limit criteria is carried out for the tube hydroforming and sheet metal forming processes using theoretical background based on plastic instability conditions. Consequently, it is confirmed that the local necking and diffuse necking criteria of sheet are suitable for formability evaluation of both hydroforming and sheet metal forming processes.

A small-batch product of large-sized parts is usually manufactured using incremental open-die forging. In order to control the overall change in the shape of a part, it is essential to be able to predict the shape changes that occur during each step. This paper addresses shape changes of a material according to the forging path. Rapid prediction of metal flows for continuing incremental deformation using theoretical methods is difficult. Accordingly, instead of a theoretical approach, an experiment that tests the tendency of the metal flow for development of forming processes is required. For the sake of convenience, simulative experiments are carried out using plasticine at room temperature. In present study, the tool movement is dominant parameters to with respect to changing the shape of the workpiece.

A numerical optimization system for sheet metal forming process has been developed based on a combination of response-surface-based optimization strategy with finite element simulation. The most important feature of the optimization system is introduction of a new fracture criterion to predict fracture limit under non-proportional deformation. In addition, a sheet-edge fracture criterion is also introduced to predict fracture limit under stretch-flanging deformation. The numerical optimization system is developed using the fracture criteria as accurate fracture constraints to avoid sheet breakage. The developed optimization system is applied to the optimum blank design for a square-cup deep drawing process of perforated blank. The optimum blank design, which minimizes the amount of material and avoids the sheet fracture, is obtained successfully. The effect of definition of fracture constraints on optimization calculation is also discussed.

The component of the hot gas path in gas turbines can survive to very high temperatures because they are protected by ceramic Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC); the failure of such coating can dramatically reduce the component life. A reliable assessment of the Coating integrity and/or an Incipient TBC Damage Detection can help both in optimizing the inspection intervals and in finding the appropriate remedial actions.

This study gives the TBC integrity; so other methods are required, like thermography to obtain indications of TBC delamination. Pulsed Thermography detects coating detachments and interface defects, with a large area of view but a spatial resolution of few mm. The mentioned techniques as a whole constitute a powerful tool for the life assessment of thermal barrier coating.

Shear wave velocity (V_s) of soil is one of the key parameters used in assessment of liquefaction potential of saturated soils in the base with leveled ground surface; determination of shear module of soils used in seismic response analyses. Such parameter can be experimentally obtained from laboratory soil tests and field measurements. Statistical relation of shear wave velocity with soil properties based on the surface wave survey investigation, and resonant column triaxial tests, which are taken from more than 14 sites within the depth of 10 m under ground surface, is obtained in Tianjin (China) area. The relationship between shear wave velocity and the standard penetration test N value (SPT-N value) of silt and clay in the quaternary formation are summarized. It is an important problem to research the effect of shear wave velocity on liquefaction resistance of saturated silts (sandy loams) for evaluating liquefaction resistance. According the results of cyclic triaxial tests, a correlation between liquefaction resistance and shear wave velocity is presented. The results are useful for ground liquefaction investigation and the evaluation of liquefaction resistance.

For ensuring the earth dam's stability of Wangqingtuo reservoir when silt liquefaction happens during Tangshan earthquake, a large amount of laboratory soil tests and field measurements have been performed to obtain the mechanic properties of the soil and silt dynamic parameters. On the basis of the soil tests, the equivalent linear constitutive model is employed in the dynamic numerical simulation of the typical dam and the results indicate that the shear deformation is induced by the foundation liquefaction with the help of the geo-slope software. Moreover, the stability analysis is performed using the finite element elasto-plastic model that is considered the Mohr-Coulomb failure criteria to calculate the stability factor. The factors indicate the local instability would take place because of the shear action. At last, the measures are introduced to the designers for preventing the dam from the instability.

Recently, with an increase in the number of studies of the safety of both pedestrians and passengers, computer software, such as MADYMO, Pam-crash, and LS-dyna, has been providing human models for computer simulation. Although such programs have been applied to make machines beneficial for humans, studies that analyze the reconstruction of accidents or crime scenes are rare. Therefore, through computational experiments, the present study presents reconstructions of two questionable accidents. In the first case, a car fell off the road and the driver was separated from it. The accident investigator was very confused because some circumstantial evidence suggested the possibility that the driver was murdered. In the second case, a woman died in her house and the police suspected foul play with her boyfriend as a suspect.

These two cases were reconstructed using the human model in MADYMO software. The first case was eventually confirmed as a traffic accident in which the driver bounced out of the car when the car fell off, and the second case was proved to be suicide rather than homicide.

Customers for cold rolled strip products expect the good flatness and surface finish, consistent metallurgical properties and accurate strip thickness. These requirements demand accurate prediction model for rolling parameters. This paper presents a set-up optimization system developed to predict the rolling force during cold strip rolling. As the rolling force has the very nonlinear and time-varying characteristics, conventional methods with simple mathematical models and a coarse learning scheme are not sufficient to achieve a good prediction for rolling force. In this work, all the factors that influence the rolling force are analyzed. A hybrid mathematical roll force model and an adaptive neural network have been improved by adjusting the adaptive learning algorithm. A good agreement between the calculated results and measured values verifies that the approach is applicable in the prediction of rolling force during cold rolling of thin strips, and the developed model is efficient and stable.

An influence function method has been developed to simulate the asymmetric cold rolling of thin strip with work roll kiss at edges. The numerical simulation model was obtained based on the deformation compatibility of the roll system in rolling and lateral directions. The strip plastic deformation has been considered in the formulation, which is significantly different from the traditional theory of metal rolling. The rolling mechanics and crown of the strip with work roll edge kiss, which are new findings for cold rolling of thin strip, are obtained. A comparison of the rolling force, roll edge kiss force and the strip crown after rolling has been conducted for various cross shear regions in the roll bite. Results show that the calculated strip crown is in good agreement with Ameasured value, and the rolling force and strip crown decrease with an increase of cross shear regions, as well as the work roll edge kiss force and edge wear decrease. The friction also has an influence on the profile of the rolled thin strip.

The difference of elastic springs between the operating side (OS) and driving side (DS) of rolling mill has a significant influence on the strip shape not just the strip thickness. Based on the slit beam and roll deformation theories, the roll force distribution was analysed considering the asymmetric stiffness of the OS and DS of rolling mill, and the work roll and backup roll deformation equations were deduced respectively, and the thickness distribution in lateral direction of the hot rolled strip at exit was discussed. Using the roll elastic deformation analysis software which was developed previously based on the influence coefficient method, the roll flattening distribution, roll pressure distribution and the rolling force distribution caused by the asymmetric stand stiffness were calculated and analysed, and the exit strip profile of the rolling mill was also presented. The relationship between the mill stiffness difference and the strip wedge shape or single wave was obtained. Effect of the upstream asymmetric mill on strip crown and flatness of the downstream stands was discussed.

Basing the displacement-capacity design method and capacity spectrum method, a new rigid-plastic seismic design procedure is proposed to describe the behavior of shear wall structure under strong earthquakes. Firstly the concept of rigid-plastic hinge is used to choose a collapse mechanism of shear wall, then according to the dynamic performance criterion the yield load of structure is determined through rigid-plastic response spectrum. This procedure is used in 11-story reinforced structure shear wall design, the results of comparison with refined Non-Linear Time-History Analysis showing good agreement.

This paper developed a hydro-elasto-plastic method to describe the mechanical behavior of the metal material under explosion load. Based on this method, the EXPLOSION-2D hydrocode was developed, and the shaped charges with steel liner and copper liner were numerically simulated, respectively. The simulation results agree well with experimental ones, which show that the proposed method is efficient for engineering design.

The horizontal press performance of column is deteriorated because of its special-shaped section. Moreover, because the antiseismic performance of column is worse, special-shaped column is only used in regions where seismic intensity is lower. So the main problem is to enhance the ductility and shear capacity. This test study on mechanical performance has been carried out through 14 SRCLSSC and 2 RCLSSC. The study focuses on the impacts of test axial load ratio (n_t), hooped reinforcement ratio (ρ_v), shear span ratio (λ) and steel ratio (ρ_ss) on the shear strength and the antiseismic performance of SRCLSSC. It can be concluded that the shear strength of SRCLSSC is increasing with the increasing of n_t and ρ_ss, but the degree of increasing is small when n_t is a certainty value, and that the shear strength of SRCLSSC is decreasing with increasing of λ; The shear resistance formula of L-shaped column is derived through tests, the calculated results are in correspondence with those of the tests. It also can be concluded that the hysteretic loops of the SRCLSSC are full and the hysteretic behaviors are improved; the displacement ductility is increasing with increasing of ρ_v and ρ_ss, but decreasing with the increasing of n_t; the degree of variety in high axial load ratio is larger than that in low axial load ratio. If steel bars are added, the shear strength and displacement ductility of SRCLSSC are increased in a large degree.

Fe-3.2%Si steel strips were produced using vertical type twin casting process, and the changes of microstructure and texture trough thickness direction were analyzed. The equiaxed grains of approximately 44.6µm were observed in the center layer, the great mass of columnar dendrite was formed near the surface, and the dendrite truck mainly developed in the transverse direction with respect to the casting direction of about 45° or less. From the subsurface to the center, the volume fraction of the Goss texture (110)[001] gradually decreases. The Goss {110} <001> components at the surface are two times those at the center layer, the {001} <100> components are three times those at the center layer, and the overall texture components are similar to that of the hot-rolled oriented silicon steel strip. The minor α texture could be found from the φ₂=45° sections of ODF, and there is no remarkable composition segregation of Si element in the thickness direction of thin strip.

Three-dimensional precision simulation of pore closing during cylinder upsetting is carried out in this paper. A matrix of pores on the longitudinal section of a cylindrical material is traced at the same time. Various ratios of pore-to-cylinder diameter are tested to reveal their effect on the pore closing phenomena. Hydrostatic pressure and effective strain as well as the order of pore closing are investigated in detail to find out major factors affecting pore closing. It is shown that the effective strain has a strong relationship with the pore closing phenomena and that the finishing time of pore closing increases as the ratio of pore-to-cylinder diameter increases but that the pore size effect becomes negligible if the ratio exceeds a critical value. An intelligent metal forming simulator AFDEX 3D is used.

A material identification program AFDEX/MAT is presented in this paper. The program is based on the method for acquiring true stress-strain curves over large range of strains using engineering stress-strain curves obtained from a tensile test coupled with a finite element analysis. In the method, a tensile test is analyzed using a rigid-plastic finite element method combined with a perfect analysis model for its associated simple bar to provide the information of deformation. An initial reference true stress-strain curve, which predicts the necking point exactly, is modified iteratively to minimize the difference in tensile force between the experiments and predictions of the tensile test. It was applied to identifying the mechanical behaviors of two new pre-heat treated steels of ESW95 and ESW105 and a conventional Cr-Mo steel of SCM435. The predictions are compared with the experiments for the tensile test of the three materials, showing an excellent similarity.

A pseudo-elastic local meshless formulation is developed in this paper for elasto-plastic analysis of solids. The moving least square (MLS) is used to construct the meshless shape functions, and the weighted local weak-form is employed to derive the system of equations. Hencky's total deformation theory is applied to define the effective Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio in the nonlinear analysis, which are obtained in an iterative manner using the strain controlled projection method. Numerical studies are presented for the elasto-plastic analysis of solids by the newly developed meshless formulation. It has demonstrated that the present pseudo-elastic local meshless approach is very effective for the elasto-plastic analysis of solids.

Typical seamless tube production processes are an extrusion and a rotary tube piercing. The rotary piercing process is more competitive than the extrusion process from the viewpoint of flexibility. Main components of this equipment are twin rolling mills and a plug. Twin rolling mills are installed on a skew with proper angles in two directions. These angles are called the cross angle and the feed angle. The internal crack initiation and the growth at central area of the billet are gradually progressed due to the Mannesmann effects. The feed angle affects on the position of the crack initiation in the rotary tube piercing process. Adjustable design parameters in the equipment are the feed angle and the plug insertion depth.

In this research, the rotary tube piercing equipment was developed. Finite element analyses with the plug and without the plug were carried out in order to predict the internal crack initiation position under good calculation efficiency. Ductile fracture models with the one variable equation were utilized to crack initiation criteria. The forward distance of the plug was determined to be 5 mm through the analysis. It was testified by experiments of a carbon steel billet.

The high measurement accuracy in dynamic tension testing is required for designs and numerical simulations based on the accurate modeling of stress–strain relations at various strain-rates. The non-coaxial Hopkinson bar method (NCHBM) is one of the recently proposed methods for dynamic tension tests. In this study, the direct measurement of both stress and strain was conducted by using the strain gauges affixed on the special specimen with load cell part. The stress–strain relations obtained by this revised NCHBM were compared with those obtained by the normal NCHBM. In order to verify the experimental results, some numerical models were examined by using the FEM code LS-DYNA, in which the whole finite-element model of the apparatus and the plate-type specimen were made in detail. Furthermore, new appliances for fixing specimen were examined by experiment. The target material employed in this study is SUS316.

This paper is concerned with a methodology to identify the dynamic material properties of the heat-affected zone (HAZ) near the base metal in a resistance spot weld process at various strain rates. In order to obtain the dynamic material properties of the HAZ in the spot-welded steel sheet, specimens are prepared to have similar material properties, hardness and microstructure to the actual HAZ. Such thermally simulated specimens are fabricated with the material thermal cycle simulator (MTCS) and compared with the real one for the hardness and microstructure. Dynamic tensile tests are then conducted with a high speed material testing machine. Stress–strain curves of the thermally simulated HAZ are obtained at various strain rates ranged from 0.001/sec to 100/sec. Obtained material properties are applied to the finite element analysis of the spot-welded tensile-shear specimen in order to verify validity of the proposed testing methodology and obtained results. Analysis results demonstrate that the material properties obtained are appropriate for the FE analysis of spot-welded specimens.

The results concerning the basic mechanical properties are presented for selected metal matrix composites (MMC). Three types of composites were produced by means of squeeze casting and next heat treatment. An influence of reinforcement type on the crack appearance in matrix and composite material was analyzed. Theoretical evaluation of the thermal shock resistance was proposed on the basis of conventional mechanical characteristics. Moreover, the qualitative metallographic investigations were carried out using optical microscopy method. A good consistence between the theoretical evaluation of thermal shock resistance and experimental data was achieved.

Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) has become a frequently used technique for measuring uni-axial compressive stress-strain relationship of various engineering materials under high strain rates. The pulse shape generated in the incident bar is sensitive to the length of the striker bar. In this paper, a finite element simulation of a Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar is performed to estimate the effect of varying length of striker bar on the stress-strain relationship of a material. A series of striker bars with different lengths, from 200mm to 350mm, are employed to obtain the stress-strain response of AL6061-T6 in both simulation and experiment. A comparison is made between the experimental and the computed stress-strain curves. Finally the influence of variation of striker bar length on the sample's stress-strain response is presented.

The steels of different carbon content were tested with respect to their microstructural and selected mechanical parameters variations. The original combinatorial method, based on the phase quanta theory, was applied in the quantitative metallographic assessment. Hence, the adequate geometrical parameters of steel microstructure were possible to be determined. Moreover, the selected mechanical parameters of the materials were evaluated using non-destructive and destructive methods. The results enabled to formulate some significant quantitative relationships between microstructure and mechanical parameters.

A series of dynamic triaxial tests are performed on normal anisotropic consolidation and over anisotropic consolidation specimens of loess. Based on the test results, the variable regularity of dynamic shear stress, axial strain and pore water pressure of loess under dynamic loading are measured and analyzed. The influences of the dynamic shear strength and pore water pressure at different over consolidation ratio are analyzed. The relationship between dynamic shear strength and over consolidation ratio of loess is obtained. The evaluating standard of dynamic shear strength of loess is discussed. Meanwhile, how to determine the effective dynamic shear strength index of normal anisotropic consolidated loess is also discussed in this paper. Several obtained conclusions can be referenced for studying the dynamic shear strength of loess foundation.

During past decades, substantial studies on the external bonding of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) strips to deficient reinforced concrete (RC) beams have been carried out for the well-known superior properties of the FRP. Several shear prediction models have been established by using the effective strain of the FRP or introducing an ultimate stress discount coefficient. And the latest design concept is the use of stress distribution factor. In this paper, an equivalent effective strain model of the FRP is presented, which contains the concepts of maximum strain, stress distribution factor and critical shear crack angle influences. To develop a simple and accurate approach for such equivalent effective strain, major influenced factors are investigated and analyzed by the statistical independent hypothetic tests on a database of 128 RC beams wrapped by the FRP. Finally, a simple and rational shear design proposal is given, which is more accurate than the existing models using the above database.

To investigate the change of loess stress state, a series of triaxial shear tests were performed on normal consolidation and over consolidation loess. From the test results, the stress-strain relationships of loess were obtained and discussed. Based on unified strength theory, the statistical damage constitutive equation was obtained under triaxial stress state assuming distribution statistical probability of micro-units strength. Then the proposed formulation was adopted to study on stress-strain constitutive relationships of loess and to simulate consolidation undrained triaxial test and consolidation drained triaxial test for normal consolidated and over-consolidated specimens. Compared between experimental and theoretical results, it was shown that the proposed constitutive model can well describe stress-strain relationship of loess, whatever the characteristic of strain softening or stain hardening.

The strain path dependence of the compressive flow behavior of cast AZ31 magnesium alloy was investigated. Biaxial compression tests with linear strain paths were conducted using a unique biaxial compression device. It was found that the equivalent stress-strain relations varied according to the strain paths. The work contour for linear strain paths was well described by the Logan-Hosford yield criterion. Biaxial compressions with abrupt strain path change were also carried out to investigate the influences of the prestrain amplitude and angular relation of the sequential strain paths on the flow behavior. Rapid increase in the equivalent stress was observed just after the abrupt strain path change. These specific flow behaviors were discussed with regard to the plastic anisotropy, which showed rapid evolution in the early stage of the biaxial compressions.

A main feature of complex strip - ribbed strip is the significant local residual deformation on a flat strip, resulting in the pulling down of rib height. The interesting issue in this paper shows a developed three-dimensional finite element model of the complex strip rolling, coupling the use of an extremely thin array of elements which is equivalent to the calculation of the additional shear deformation work rate occurred by the velocity discontinuity in the deformation zone. The 3D finite element modelling includes the consideration of the special rib inclined contact surface boundary condition has been carried out on a computer. An examination of the equivalent stress field, forward slip and rib height demonstrates the effectiveness of the developed model. The computed forward slip and rib height are in good agreement with the measured values. The effect of the rib inclined angle on the pulling down of rib height is also discussed.

In this research, molecular dynamics(MD) simulations were used to study the transport properties of small gas molecules in poly(ethylene-co-1-hexene) copolymer. The condensed-phase optimized molecular potentials for atomistic simulation studies (COMPASS) forcefield was applied. The diffusion coefficients were obtained from MD (NVT ensemble). The results indicated that the diffusion coefficient of oxygen increased with increasing 1-hexene content in copolymer membrane.

Semi-solid forging process has many advantages such as long die life, good mechanical properties and energy savings. But rheology material has complex characteristics, i.e., thixotropic behavior. Also, difference of the particle velocity between solid and liquid phase in the semi-solid state material causes a liquid segregation and specific stress variation. A number of simulation tools have been attempted for analyzing these behaviors of rheology material. However, general plastic or fluid dynamic analysis is not suitable. Therefore, we set up the stress equation to include viscosity, in order for investigating on how the moving behavior the solid particle in the rheology material during forging process is affected by viscosity, temperature, and solid fraction. In this study, a dynamics simulation was performed for the control of liquid segregation and the prediction of stresses on particles by changing forming velocity and viscosity in a compression experiment as part of a study on the analysis of the rheology aluminum forming process.

Simulations of single-wall carbon nanotube(SWCNT)s having a different chiral vector under axial compression were carried out based on molecular dynamics to investigate the effect of the helicity on the buckling behavior. Calculation was performed at room temperature for (8,8) armchair, (14,0) zigzag and (6,10) chiral single-wall carbon nanotubes. The Tersoff potential was used as the interatomic potential since it describes the C-C bonds in carbon nanotubes reliably. A conjugate gradient (CG) method was used to obtain the equilibrium configuration. Compressive force was applied at the top of a nanotube by moving the top-most atoms downward with the constant velocity of 10m/s. The buckling load, the critical strain, and the Young's modulus were calculated from the result of MD simulation. A zigzag carbon nanotube has the largest Young's modulus and buckling load, while a chiral carbon nonotube has the lowest values.

Due to the difference of nanotube diameters, the single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) show the different energy and mechanical properties. In order to take the effect of the curvature of nanotubes into account in the modeling of those structures, the present paper proposes an atomistic based continuum model with using a type of modified Cauchy-Born to link the continuum strain energy to the interatomic potential. This modified Cauchy-Born is developed by incorporating the concept of differential mean value theorem into the standard Cauchy-Born rule. The present model not only can bridge the microscopic and macroscopic length scales, but also can investigate the curvature effect of a single layer film on the continuum level. Application of the current model to armchair carbon nanotubes and graphite shows an excellent prediction of the size dependent strain energy which are compared in a good agreement with the existing experimental and theoretical results.

A simple method for the fabrication of polymer master for antireflective surface is presented. In conventional fabrication methods for antireflective surface, coating method with low refractive index have usually been used. However, it is required to have a high cost and a long processing time for mass production. In this paper, antireflective surface was fabricated by using hot embossing process with porous anodized aluminum oxide. Through multi-AAO and etching processes, nano patterned master with high aspect ratio was fabricated at the large area. Size and aspect ratio of nano patterned master are about 175 ± 25nm and 2 ~ 3, respectively. In order to replicate nano patterned master, hot embossing process was performed by varying the processing parameters such as temperature, pressure and embossing time etc. Finally, antireflective surface can be successfully obtained after etching process to remove selectively silicon layer of AAO master. Optical and rheological characteristics of antireflective surface were analyzed by using SEM, EDX and spectrometer inspection. Antireflective structure by replicating hot embossing process can be applied to various displays and automobile components.

The physical, mechanical properties and formability of sheet metal depend on preferred crystallographic orientations (texture). In this research work, we investigated texture development and formability of AA 3003 aluminum alloy sheets after asymmetry rolling and subsequent heat treatment. After asymmetry rolling, the specimens showed fine grain size. We also investigated the change of the plastic strain ratios after asymmetry rolling and subsequent heat-treating condition. The plastic strain ratios of asymmetrically rolled and subsequent heat treated samples are 1.5 times higher than the initial AA 3003 Al alloy sheets. These could be attributed to the formation of ND//<111> texture component through asymmetry rolling in Al sheet.

In this study, the FEM material model based on the crystal plasticity is introduced for the numerical simulation of deep drawing process of A5052 aluminum alloy sheet. For calculating the deformation and stress in a crystal of aluminum alloy sheet, Taylor's model is employed. To find the texture evolution, the crystallographic orientation is updated by computing the crystal lattice rotation. In order to verify the crystal plasticity-based FEM material model, the strain distribution and the draw-in amount are compared with experimental measurements. The crystal FEM strains agree well with measured strains. The comparison of draw-in amount shows less 1.96% discrepancy. Texture evolution depends on the initial texture.

An effort has been made to create an integrated Crystal Plasticity FE (CPFE) system. This enables micro-forming process simulation to be carried out easily and the important features in forming micro-parts can be captured. Firstly, based on Voronoi tessellation and the probability theory, a VGRAIN system is created for the generation of grains and grain boundaries for micro-materials. Numerical procedures have been established to link the physical parameters of a material to the control variable in a gamma distribution equation. An interface has been created, so that the generated virtual microstructure of the material can be inputted in the commercial FE code, ABAQUS, for mesh generation. Secondly, FE analyses have been carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the integrated system for the investigation of uncontrollable curvature and localized necking in extrusion of micro-pins and hydro-forming of micro-tubes.

Partially aligned and oriented polyacrylonitrile(PAN)-based nanofibers were electrospun from PAN and SWNTs/PAN in the solution of dimethylformamide(DMF) to make the carbon nanofibers. The as-spun nanofibers were hot-stretched in an oven to enhance its orientation and crystallinity. Then it were stabilized at 250 °C under a stretched stress, and carbonized at 1000 °C in N₂ atmosphere by fixing the length of the stabilized nanofiber to convert them into carbon nanofibers. With this hot-stretched process and with the introduction of SWNTs, the mechanical properties will be enhanced correspondingly. The crystallinity of the stretched fibers confirmed by X-ray diffraction has also increased. For PAN nanofibers, the improved fiber alignment and crystallinity resulted in the increased mechanical properties, such as the modulus and tensile strength of the nanofibers. It was concluded that the hot-stretched nanofiber and the SWNTs/PAN nanofibers can be used as a potential precursor to produce high-performance carbon composites.

In this study, strong {0002} textured (or strong ND//<0002> textured) AZ31 Mg alloy sheets were prepared. These AZ31 Mg alloy sheets were cut along the angles of 0, 12.5, 25, 30 and 37.5 degrees to the rolling direction or {0002} texture. Prepared samples with different angles to the rolling direction were rolled at room temperature and after subsequent heat treatment, the bendability, ultimate tensile stress, elongation and texture are investigated using the 3-points bending tester, tensile tester and x-ray diffractometer, respectively. The specimen having along the angles of 0 degree to the rolling direction shows the highest load and 45 degrees specimen shows the highest displacement among any other specimens in the bending test. The specimen having along the angles of 12.5 and 25 degrees to the rolling direction shows highest elongation and of 0 degree specimen shows the highest ultimate tensile stress among any other specimens after cold rolling and subsequent heat treatment at 150°C for 30 minutes in bending test.

Formability is very important parameter of magnesium alloy sheets and it would be related to the texture of sheet metals. In this study, magnesium alloy sheets with strong {0002} texture were cut along the angles of 0, 12.5, 25 and 37.5 degrees to rolling direction (RD). Prepared samples were rolled at room temperature condition. Cold rolled AZ31 magnesium alloy sheets along the angles of 0, 12.5, 25, 37.5 and 45 degrees to rolling direction were investigated microstructure and texture with optical microscopy and x-ray diffractometer, respectively.

The microstructure, pole figure and r-value of the frictionally rolled and subsequently heat treated AA 5052 Al sheets were investigated by optical microscopy, x-ray diffractometer and tensile tester, respectively. Frictionally rolled AA 5052 Al specimens showed a fine grain size. After subsequently heat treated specimens, the ND//<111> texture component was increased. The r-values of the frictionally rolled and subsequently heat treated Al alloy sheets were about two times higher than those of the original Al sheets. These could be related to the formation of ND//<111> texture components through frictional rolling in and subsequent heat treatment of AA 5052 Al sheet.

Two types of higher-order stresses work-conjugate to slip gradient in single crystals are investigated to analyze the grain-size dependent yield behavior of polycrystals. The first is the higher-order stress due to the self-energy of geometrically necessary dislocations (GNDs). The second higher-order stress examined is an extension based on the non-recoverable energy that is postulated to be proportional to the accumulated density of incrementally defined GNDs. It is shown that the second higher-order stress is co-directional with the in-plane gradient of slip-rate and consequently causes isotropic hardening, whereas the first higher-order stress is co-directional with the in-plane gradient of slip. These higher-order stresses are incorporated into a strain gradient plasticity theory of single crystals. Subsequently, using a finite element method, 2D model polycrystals are analyzed to demonstrate the influence of the two types of higher-order stresses on the grain-size dependent yield behavior under loading, unloading and reverse loading.

In ultra-precision machining (UPM), the depth of cut is within an extremely small fraction of the average grain size of the substrate materials to be cut. Polycrystalline materials commonly treated as homogeneous in conventional machining have to be considered as heterogeneous. The cutting force, one of the dominant factors influencing the integrity of the machined surface in UPM, is observed to strongly depend on the grain orientations. To accurately capture the intrinsic features and gain insight into the mechanisms of UPM of single crystals, the crystal plasticity constitutive model has been incorporated into the commercial FE software Marc by coding the user material subroutine Hypela2 available within it. The enhanced capability of the FE software will be adopted to simulate factors influencing the micro-cutting processes, such as grain orientation variation, the tool edge radius and the rake angle. The simulation results will provide useful information for the optimization of critical processing parameters and enhancement of quality of machined products.

In this paper, deformation behavior of Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) during thermal indentation was demonstrated by the finite element method using ABAQUS S/W. Forming conditions to reduce the elastic recovery and pile-up were proposed. Thermal nanoindentation experiments were carried out at the temperature range of 110 ~ 150 °C. The indenter was modeled as a rigid surface. The finite element analysis (FEA) approach is capable of reproducing the loading-unloading behavior for a thermal nanoindentation test and thus comparison between the experimental data and numerical results were demonstrated. The result of the investigation will be applied to the fabrication of the hyper-fine pattern.

The mechanical response of spherical indentation of superelastic shape memory alloys (SMAs) was theoretically studied in this paper. Firstly, the friction effect was examined. It was found that the friction influence is negligibly small. Secondly, the influence of the elasticity of the indenter was investigated. Numerical results indicate that this influence can not be neglected as long as the indentation depth is not very small. After that, this paper focused on the effect of transformation volume contraction. Our results show that the transformation volume contraction due to forward martensitic transformation can reduce the maximum indentation force and the spherical indentation hardness. These research results enhance our understanding of the spherical indentation responses, including the hardness of the smart material SMAs.

The austenite phase of low carbon steels can be transformed to various bainitic microstructures such as granular bainite, acicular ferrite and bainitic ferrite during continuous cooling process. In the present study site-specific transmission electron microscope (TEM) specimens were prepared by using focused ion beam (FIB) to identify the bainitic microstructure in low carbon high strength low alloy (HSLA) steels clearly.

Granular bainite was composed of fine subgrains and 2^nd phase constituents like M/A or pearlite located at grain and/or subgrain boundaries. Acicular ferrite was identified as an aggregate of randomly orientated needle-shaped grains. The high angle relations among acicular ferrite grains were thought to be caused by intra-granular nucleation, which could be occur under the high cooling rate condition. Bainitic ferrite revealed uniform and parallel lath structure within the packet. In some case, however, the parallel lathes showed high angle relations due to packet overlapping during grow of bainitic ferrite, resulting in high toughness properties in bainitic ferrite based steels.

Microstructural evolution during compressive deformation of a meta-stable austenitic stainless steel has been investigated using an electron-backscattered diffraction (EBSD) technique. A local area tracking method has been adopted in order to observe the successive changes in local microstructures during the compression. The local microstructures could be observed in-situ from this method without using any in-situ stage, in addition to a precisely-controlled real time deformation process. Successive development of grain orientation spread, grain boundary misorientation and deformation-induced phase in the local areas of interest were successfully investigated from this method.

In order to improve the deep drawability of aluminum and aluminum alloy sheets, it is desirable to increase the ND//<111> component in their textures. The ND//<111> component is known to develop in shear-deformed fcc alloy sheets. The equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP) is a process in which materials undergo approximately simple shear deformation. The deformation texture of ECAPed strips can change depending on process variables such as the texture of starting strips, the oblique angle, the number of pressing passes, and the shear direction. The deformation and deformation texture have been analyzed.

Due to strain-induced martensitic transformation (SIMT), the strength, ductility and toughness of TRIP steel are enhanced. The impact deformation behavior of TRIP steel is very important because it is investigated to apply it for the shock absorption member in automobile industries. However, its behavior is still unclear since it is quite difficult to capture the transformation behavior inside the materials. There are some opinions that the deformation characteristics are not mainly depending on the martensitic transformation due to heat generation by plastic work. Here, the impact compressive deformation behavior of TRIP steel is experimentally studied by Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) method at room temperature. In order to catch SIMT behavior during impact deformation, volume resistivity is measured and a transient temperature is captured by using a quite thin thermocouple. Then, a finite element simulation with the constitutive model for TRIP steel is performed. The finite element equation can be derived from the rate form of principle of virtual work based on the implicit time integration scheme. Finally, the results between the computation and experiment are compared to confirm the validity of computational model.

This paper deals with the crash energy absorption and the local buckling characteristics of the expansion tube during the tube expanding processes. In order to improve energy absorption capacity of expansion tubes, local buckling characteristics of an expansion tube must be considered. The local buckling load and the absorbed energy during the expanding process were calculated for various types of tubes and punch shapes with finite element analysis. The energy absorption capacity of the expansion tube is influenced by the tube and the punch shape. The material properties of tubes are also important parameter for energy absorption. During the expanding process, local buckling occurs in some cases, which causes significant decreasing the absorbed energy of the expansion tube. Therefore, it is important to predict the local buckling load accurately to improve the energy absorption capacity of the expansion tube. Local buckling takes place relatively easily at the large punch angle and expansion ratio. Local buckling load is also influenced by both the tube radius and the thickness. In prediction of the local buckling load, modified Plantema equation was used for strain hardening and strain rate hardening. The modified Plantema equation shows a good agreement with the numerical result.

Microscopic hardness on free surface of polycrystalline metal during plastic deformation is closely related to the inhomogeneous deformation in respective grains. Uniaxial tensile tests were carried out on annealed pure aluminum sheet specimens with different averaged grain size and also on annealed pure titanium sheet specimen. The microscopic hardness was measured with the Vickers type micro-hardness testing machine. The increase in micro-hardness is larger at the grain boundary area than the central area of grains. The increase in the hardness is dependent on the averaged grain size of polycrystalline metals. The experimental results are discussed in relation to Hall-Petch relation concerning the grain size dependence of the yield stress or the flow stress.

Forming Limit Diagrams (FLDs) of a magnesium alloy (AZ31) sheet at various forming speeds (3 to 300 mm·mm^-1) at several temperatures of 100-250°C were investigated by performing a punch stretch-forming test. The forming limit strains increased with temperature rise and with decreasing forming speed, where the effect of forming speed was stronger at higher temperatures. To describe such a characteristic of FLD of AZ31, the Marciniak-Kucznski type forming limit analysis was conducted using the Backofen-type constitutive equation (c = Cεⁿε^m). In this analysis, the damage evolution in the necking zone was taken into account based on Oyane's ductile fracture criterion. The numerical results of the FLD show a good agreement with the corresponding experimental observations.

The effect of high temperature deformation on the low thermal expansion property of Fe-29Ni-17Co alloy was investigated in the compressive temperature range of 900~1300°C at a strain rate range of 25 ~ 0.01 sec.^-1. The thermal expansion coefficient (α_30~400) generally increased with increasing compressive temperature. In particular, α_30~400 increased remarkably as the strain rate decreased at temperatures above 1100°C. Note, however, that α_30~400 at low compressive temperatures (900°C and 1000°C) increased abnormally at high strain rates. Based on the investigation of various possibilities of change in low thermal expansion behavior, the experimental results indicated that both the appearance of the α phase and evolution of grain size due to hot compression clearly influenced the low thermal expansion behavior of this invar-type alloy. The correlation between the microstructural cause and invar phenomena and theoretical explanation for the low thermal expansion behavior of Fe-29%Ni-17%Co were also suggested.

This paper focuses on a fundamental understanding of the plastic deformation mechanism in monocrystalline silicon subjected to nanoindentation. It was found that over a wide range of indentation loads from 100 μN to 30 mN and loading/unloading rates from 3.3 μN/s to 10 mN/s, the plasticity of silicon is mainly caused by stress-induced phase transitions. The results indicate that the critical contact pressure for phase transition at unloading is almost constant, independent of the maximum indentation load (P_max) and loading/unloading rates. However, the shape of the load-displacement curves greatly relies on the loading/unloading conditions. In general, higher P_max and lower unloading/loading rates favor an abrupt volume change and thus a discontinuity in the load-displacement curve, commonly referred to as pop-in and/or pop-out events; whereas smaller P_max and rapid loading/loading processes tend to generate gradual slope changes of the curves. This study concludes that the difference in the curve shape change does not indicate the mechanism change of plastic deformation in silicon.

Electro-rheological (ER) fluid is a smart suspension which can be changed promptly from Newtonian to Bingham plastic material when subjected to a high-intensity electric field. This property of ER fluid makes it possible to be applied in adaptive energy absorbers. As the impact velocity encountered in applications could be very large, it is necessary to characterize the ERF under high shear rate. In this study, a capillary rheo-meter with parallel duct was designed and manufactured which is capable of producing a shear rate as high as 5000(1/s). Two giant ER fluids with mass concentration C = 51% and 44.5% and a commercial density-matched ER fluid with C = 37.5% were characterized. The experimental results show that when the ER fluids are free of electric field (E = 0kV/mm), they are Newtonian. However, for the former two ER fluids, the deposition effect is very remarkable and stirring has to be made continuously to keep the suspension stable. With the increase of the electric field intensity, the yield shear stresses of ER fluids increase exponentially but their viscosities do not change much. It is also found that within the parallel duct, the flow of ER fluids exhibits notable fluctuations, whose period increases with the increase of electric field intensity and is independent of the shear rate.

Microwire made using a straightening process has high added value and has been adopted in many fields of industry. There is much active research on the straightening process. Very straight microwire can be obtained by removing the residual stress induced during the manufacturing process. Generally, the residual stress is removed or minimized through several drawing steps with heat treatment. This study used finite element analysis to calculate the residual stress during each straightening process and investigated the main reason for a change in stress.

Magnesium alloy sheets are usually formed at temperatures between 150 and 300°C because of their poor formability at room temperature. In the present study, the formability of AZ31B magnesium alloy sheets was investigated by the analytical and experimental approaches. First, tensile tests and limit dome height tests were carried out at several temperatures between 25 and 300°C to get the mechanical properties and forming limit diagram (FLD). A FLD-based criterion considering the material temperature during deformation was used to predict the forming limit from a finite element analysis (FEA) of the cross-shaped cup deep drawing process. This criterion proved to be very useful in designing the geometrical parameters of the forming tools and determining optimal process conditions such as tool temperatures and blank shape by the comparison between finite element temperature-deformation analyses and physical try-out. The heating and cooling channels were also optimally designed through heat transfer analyses.

Glass microlens array with lens diameter under 100 µm was replicated by micro thermal forming process using a tungsten carbide micro mold which was imprinted and sintered from an original master. The original master was fabricated by photolithography and thermal reflow process. The effects of forming process conditions on the form accuracy and the surface roughness of the micro formed glass microlens array were examined and analyzed. Finally, to verify the effectiveness of the proposed process, glass microlens array for the purpose of laser beam focusing was designed and fabricated, and a focused laser beam profile using the fabricated microlens array was measured and analyzed.

A simplified one-step inverse analysis of sheet metal forming is a suitable tool to simulate the bending forming since the deformation path of bending forming is an approximately proportion one. A fast spring-back simulation method based on one-step analysis is proposed. First, the one-step inverse analysis is applied to obtain the stress distribution at the final stage of bending. Then, the unloading to get a spring back is simulated by LS-DYNA implicit solver. These processes are applied to the unconstrained cylindrical bending and the truck member rail. The spring-back and member rail widths at the several key sections are compared with experimental ones. It is well demonstrated that the proposed method is an effective way to predict the spring-back by unloading after bending process.

Magnesium alloys still have a lot of technical challenges to be solved for more applications. There have been many research activities to enhance formability of magnesium alloys. One is to design new alloy composition having better formability. Also, low formability of wrought alloys can be improved by optimizing the processing variables. In the present study, effect of process variables such as forging temperature and forging speed were investigated to forgeability of three different magnesium alloys such as AZ31, AZ61 and ZK60. To understand the effect of process variables more specifically, both numerical and experimental works have been carried out on the model which contains both upsetting and extrusion geometries. Forgeability of magnesium alloys was found to depend more on the forging speed rather than temperature. Forged sample showed a significant activity of twinning, which was found to be closely related with flow uniformity.

Springback is a problem in the manufacture of a variety of automotive components. To determine springback, it is necessary to know the strength of the material after plastic deformation and the slope of the unloading curve (i.e. the unloading modulus). Prior investigations have shown that the unloading modulus for steels after plastic deformation has a slope that is lower than the normally accepted value for Young's modulus. Previous studies on the slope of the unloading curve were after uniaxial tensile plastic deformation. In the present study, the unloading modulus for an aluminum killed drawing quality (AKDQ) steel was evaluated after both uniaxial and near plane strain deformation. A tube hydroforming system was used for near plane-strain deformation. The average unloading modulus following uniaxial deformation for the AKDQ steel is approximately 168 GPa. The average unloading modulus for the circumferential stress component after near plane-strain deformation is lower than after uniaxial deformation. For a given amount of overall plastic deformation, the axial component of the unloading modulus is greater than the circumferential component, and with increased plastic strain, the unloading modulus for both components decreases. These results demonstrate that the components of the unloading modulus are dependent on the strain path of the prior plastic deformation.

In this work, the effect of grain size on the spring-back characteristic was investigated by carrying out air-bending test using magnesium alloy ZK60 sheet with thickness of 0.5 mm at the various temperatures from room temperature to 300 °C. The angles of the bent specimen before and after unloading were measured in order to quantify spring-back amount. It was found out from the bending tests that when the specimens with grain sizes of 14.66 and 60.71 µm were bent by 90°, the amount of spring-back was relatively small at the testing temperature range and was in the range between -2.5° and 2.5°. On the other hand, the spring-back amount dramatically increased at room temperature and phenomenon of spring-go was observed at high temperature when the specimen with submicro grain size of 0.98 µm was bent by 90°. From this finding, it was confirmed that the different spring-back characteristics according to the grain size takes place and thus the grain size of material is one of the important factors which have an effect on the spring-back.

A new incremental sheet forming technology with local heating is proposed to form lightweight hard-to-form sheet metals such as aluminum-magnesium alloy (JIS A5083) sheet or magnesium alloy (JIS AZ31) sheet. The newly designed forming tool has a built-in heater to heat the sheet metal locally and increase the material ductility around the tool-contact point. Incremental forming experiments of A5083 and AZ31 sheets are carried out at several tool-heater temperatures ranging from room temperature to 873K using the new forming method. The experimental results show that the formability of A5083 and AZ31 sheets increases remarkably with increasing local-heating temperature. In addition, springback of formed products decreases with increasing local-heating temperature. The developed incremental sheet forming method with local heating has great advantages in not only formability but also shape fixability. It is an effective forming method for lightweight hard-to-form sheet metal for small scale productions.

Equal channel angular pressing provides a convenient procedure for introducing an ultrafine grained microstructure into materials. In this paper, the deformation distribution of cylindrical billet with different diameters during equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) was simulated using 3D finite element models. The plastic strains in three perpendicular planes of the billet are predicted. And the influence of the friction between billet and channel on the equivalent plastic strain is also determined. The results show that the equivalent plastic strains are inhomogeneous in three directions and the inhomogeneity of the strain distribution inside ECAPed materials is slightly related to their diameters, which means larger scale UFG materials can be achieved via ECAP process.

High-speed steels are generally used for the cutting of other hard materials. These are hard materials, and can be used at high temperatures. Therefore, some of them are used for warm metal forming such as forging. However, in the tools used in hot working, an excellent hot hardness and long-life fatigue are strongly required. In the present study, the influence of shot peening on the surface characteristics of high-speed steels was investigated. Shot peening imparts compressive residual stresses on the metal surface, thus improving the fatigue life of the machine parts. In the experiment, the shot peening treatment was performed using an air-type shot peening machine. The shots made of cemented carbide were used. The workpieces were two types, W-type and Mo-type alloys. Surface roughness, compressive residual stress, and hardness of the peened workpieces were measured. It was found that shot peening using the hard shot media was effective in improving the surface characteristics of high-speed steels.

Aluminum and magnesium materials are very attractive for light weight applications. However, their use is complicated by the fact that dissimilar metals are joined by fusion welding. In the present study, the cold butt joining of light metal sheet with dissimilar material sheet by shot peening was investigated. The shot peening process is widely used to improve the performance of engineering components. In this process the substrate undergoes a large plastic deformation near its surface when hit by many shots. The substrate material close to the surface flows during shot peening. When the dissimilar metal sheets with notched edges are connected without a level difference and then the connection is shot peened, the sheets can be joined by the plastic flow generated by the large plastic deformation during shot peening. In this experiment, an air-type shot peening machine was used. The influences of peening time and shot material on joinability were mainly examined. The joinability was evaluated by tensile test. The joint strength increased with the amount of plastic flow. It was found that the present method can be used to enhance the butt joining of the light metal sheets with the dissimilar material sheets.

Cross-roll rolling of AA 5052 sheets was carried out using a rolling mill in which the roll axes are tilted by ±7.5° away from the transverse direction of the rolled sample. Besides cross-roll rolling, normal-rolling using a conventional rolling mill was also carried out with the same rolling schedule for clarifying the effect of cross-roll rolling. The evolution of strain states during cross-roll rolling was investigated by texture measurements and by three-dimensional finite element method (FEM) simulation. Cross-roll rolling gives rise to the operation of all three shear components ε ₁₂, ε ₁₃ and ε ₂₃ in the roll gap. This complex shear states during cross-roll rolling strongly reduce the intensities of the deformation texture components.

The cold thread rolling technology was developed rapidly in recent years due to its high efficiency, low cost and perfect mechanical properties of its production. However, researches on the precise thread rolling of the hollow parts were very few. Traditionally, the minimum thickness of the thin-walled threaded parts by thread rolling was mainly determined by the empirical (trial and error) methods. In this study, the forming process of thin-walled thread parts rolled with three thread rolling dies was analyzed. The stress state of the hollow work piece was obtained by solving the statically indeterminate problems. Then, the equations for the minimum wall thickness were derived. Experiments are also performed. The experimental results are generally in good agreement with those by the current theoretical analysis. It could be concluded that the analysis presented in this study can provide a good guidance for the thread rolling of hollow parts.

Glass hot-embossing is one of essential techniques for the development of high-performance optical, bio, and chemical micro electromechanical system (MEMS) devices. This method is convenient, does not require routine access to clean rooms and photolithographic equipment, and can be used to produce multiple copies of a quartz mold as well as a MEMS component. In this study, quartz molds were prepared by hot-embossing with the glassy carbon (GC) masters, and they were applied to the hot-emboss of borosilicate glasses. The GC masters were prepared by dicing and focused ion beam (FIB) milling techniques. Additionally, the surfaces of the embossed quartz molds were coated with molybdenum barrier layers before embossing borosilicate glasses. As a result, micro-hot-embossed structures could be developed in borosilicate glasses with high fidelity by hot embossing with quartz molds.

Dry sliding wear tests of hot-pressure sintered and wrought cobalt were carried out to compare their wear characteristics. Cobalt powders with average size of 1.5µm were electro-pressure sintered to make sintered-cobalt disk wear specimens. A vacuum-induction melted cobalt ingot was hot-rolled at 800°C to a plate, from which wrought-cobalt disk specimens were machined. The specimens were heat treated at various temperatures to vary grain size and phase fraction. Wear tests of the cobalt specimens were carried out using a pin-on-disk wear tester against a glass (83% SiO₂) bead at 100N with the constant sliding speed and distance of 0.36m/s and 600m, respectively. Worn surfaces, their cross sections, and wear debris were examined by an SEM. The wear of the cobalt was found to be strongly influenced by the strain-induced phase transformation of ε-Co (hcp) to α-Co (fcc). The sintered cobalt had smaller uniform grain size and showed higher wear rate than the wrought cobalt. The higher wear rate of the sintered cobalt was explained by the more active deformation-induced phase transformation than in the wrought cobalt with larger irregular grains.

A nonlinear elasto-plastic phenomenological constitutive model for aluminum alloy foams subjected to quasi-static and dynamic compression is proposed. The six-parameter model can fully capture the three typical features of stress-strain response, i.e., linearity, plasticity-like stress plateau, and densification phases. Moreover, the parameters of the model can be systematically varied to describe the effect of initial density of foams that may be responsible for changes in yield stress and hardening-like or softening-like behavior at various strain rates. The experimental results at various loading rates are provided to validate the model. It is shown that the proposed model can be used in the selection of the optimal-density and energy absorption foam for a specific application based on certain design criteria.

Fracture toughness is a critical input parameter for fracture-mechanics based fitness-for-service assessments, and it is preferable to determine this by experiment. In the present paper, fracture toughness of rock/concrete bimaterial interface was obtained by the tests which were performed on the universal material tester. A beam specimen with single-edge crack is used to form the different fracture mode mixity. The stress intensity factors of specimen per unit load with different combinations of K₁ and K₂ were calculated by the mixed hybrid finite element method on the principals of linear elastic interface fracture mechanics. By regressing the critical stress intensity factors of 7 specimen groups, two experiential fracture criterions of mixed crack interface were derived, and the fracture toughness(, ) of rock/concrete were obtained further.

Fiber metal laminates as one of new hybrid materials with the bonded structure of thin metal sheets and fiber/epoxy layers have been developed for the last three decades. These kinds of materials can provide the characteristics of the excellent fatigue, impact and damage tolerance with a relatively low density. Because metal sheets and fiber/epoxy layers are bonded each other, the bonding between two materials is critical. In this study, the bonding strength is investigated experimentally with respect to surface roughness of metal sheets. The equivalent material properties of carbon reinforced aluminum laminates as the input data in the numerical simulation are also investigated and compared with the experimental result. The application of the equivalent material property to the numerical simulation can provide the high degree of efficiency in the build-up of the finite element model and the numerical simulation.

Understanding the mechanical behaviour of pure titanium (Ti) foam is crucial for the design and development of Ti foam-based load-bearing implants. In this work, pure titanium foam is fabricated by a powder metallurgical process using the space-holder technique with a spacer size of 500 to 800 µm. Experimental data from static compression testing on the Ti foam are presented. The application of theoretical formulae to predict Young's modulus and yield strength of titanium foams is also discussed. A foam with 63% porosity, 87 ± 5 MPa yield strength, and 6.5 ± 1.3 GPa Young's modulus is found to be appropriate for a number of dental and orthopaedic applications.

In this study, creep behavior of a CFRP laminate subjected to a constant stress is analyzed based on the time-dependent homogenization theory developed by the present authors. The laminate is a unidirectional carbon fiber/epoxy laminate T800H/#3631 manufactured by Toray Industries, Inc. Two kinds of creep analyses are performed. First, 45° off-axis creep deformation of the laminate at high temperature (100°C) is analyzed with three kinds of creep stress levels, respectively. It is shown that the present theory accurately predicts macroscopic creep behavior of the unidirectional CFRP laminate observed in experiments. Then, high temperature creep deformations at a constant creep stress are simulated with seven kinds of off-axis angles, i.e., θ = 0°, 10°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75°, 90°. It is shown that the laminate has marked in-plane anisotropy with respect to the creep behavior.

Computational simulations on the thermal analysis of metal matrix composite (MMC) composed of Al and SiC were performed in extended areas of SiC volume fraction. Due to the experimental limitations, only the narrow range of SiC volume fraction has been examined. Through the simulation, which enables current experimental situation to extend, we attempted to explore the dependencies of thermal and mechanical properties on changing the value of volume fraction (V_f). To calculate the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE), variables with temperature and V_f were given in a range from 25°C to 100°C and 0 to 100%, respectively. We obtained quantitative results including CTE as a function of V_f, which are in a good agreement with previous experimental reports. Furthermore, the stress analysis about thermally expanded MMC was performed. At low volume fraction of SiC, the thermal expansion caused the tensile stress at Al near the interface. However, as the volume fraction of SiC was increased, the stress turned to be compressive, it's because the linked SiC particles contracted the expansion of Al. The MMC of Al matrix face centered cubic site SiC particles has more stress evolutions than the MMC of Al matrix simple cubic site SiC particles at same volume fraction.

In this study, multi-scale creep analysis of plain-woven GFRP laminates is performed using the time-dependent homogenization theory developed by the present authors. First, point-symmetry of internal structures of plain-woven laminates is utilized for a boundary condition of unit cell problems, reducing the domain of analysis to 1/4 and 1/8 for in-phase and out-of-phase laminate configurations, respectively. The time-dependent homogenization theory is then reconstructed for these domains of analysis. Using the present method, in-plane creep behavior of plain-woven glass fiber/epoxy laminates subjected to a constant stress is analyzed. The results are summarized as follows: (1) The in-plane creep behavior of the plain-woven GFRP laminates exhibits marked anisotropy. (2) The laminate configurations considerably affect the creep behavior of the laminates.

Metallic sandwich plates are lightweight structural materials with load-bearing and multi-functional characteristics. Previous analytic studies have shown that the bendability of these plates increases as the thickness decreases. Due to difficulty in the manufacture of thin sandwich plates, dimpled cores (structures called egg-box cores) are employed as a sandwich core. High-precision dimpled cores are easily fabricated in a sectional forming process. The cores are then bonded with skin sheets by multi-point resistance welding. The bending characteristics of simply supported plates were observed by the defining measure, including the radius ratio of the small dimple, the thickness of a sandwich plate, and the pattern angle (0°/90°, 45°). Experimental results revealed that sandwich plates with a thickness of 2.2 mm and a pattern angle of 0°/90° showed good bendability as the punch stroke under a collapse load was longer than other cases. In addition, the gap between attachment points was found to be an important parameter for the improvement of the bendability. Finally, sandwich plates with dimpled cores were bent with a radius of curvature of 330 mm for the sheet thickness of 2.2 mm using an incremental bending apparatus.

Aluminum alloy foam offers a unique combination of good characteristics, for example, low density, high strength and energy absorption. During penetration, the foam materials exhibit significant nonlinear deformation. The penetration of aluminum alloy foam struck transversely by cone-nosed projectiles has been theoretically investigated. The dynamic cavity-expansion model is used to study the penetration resistance of the projectiles, which can be taken as two parts. One is due to the elasto-plastic deformation of the aluminum alloy foam materials. The other is dynamic resistance force coming from the energy of the projectiles. The penetration resistance expression is derived and applied to analyze the penetration depth of cone-nosed projectiles into the aluminum alloy foam target. The effect of initial velocity, the geometry of the projectiles on the penetration depth is investigated.

The fully implicit incremental homogenization scheme developed by Asada and Ohno (2007) for elastoplastic periodic solids is applied to two-scale analysis of honeycomb blocks subjected to flat punch indentation. To this end, the scheme is rebuilt by introducing half unit cells based on the point-symmetric distributions of stress and strain in unit cells, so that analysis domains in unit cells are reduced by half. Then, by assuming the zigzag and armchair types of cell-arrangements, the two-scale analysis of honeycomb blocks is performed. The corresponding full-scale finite element analysis is also performed to reveal the cell-arrangement dependence of cell deformation in the honeycomb blocks. It is shown that the two-scale analysis is macroscopically successful in spite of microscopic limitations.

Manufacturing processes for automobile suspension components have generally considered the formability but not the durability of the suspension system, even though the latter is very important in the dynamic performance of the vehicle. Suspension systems should be designed with both formability and durability in mind. This paper describes the design of an optimal forming process to control the cross-sectional properties of the torsion beam in rear suspension systems for increased roll durability. Stamping and hydroforming simulations were performed using the finite element method to determine the optimum tube hydroforming process for producing a torsion beam with the best roll durability performance.

A Molten Carbonate Fuel Cell (MCFC) stack consists of several layered unit cells. In each unit cell, the stiff structure of the separator plate contains the softer components, such as electrodes. When surface pressure acts on the stack over an extended period of time at elevated temperatures, the stiffness of the separator plate tends to degrade. Moreover, the demands for large electrode area (to increase the electric capacity of a unit cell) and thinner separator plates (to reduce weight) complicate the design of a separator plate with high stiffness. To evaluate the stiffness of the separator plate at elevated temperatures, we design and test a tiny, multi-layered separator plate specimen using a three-point bending tool. To determine the optimal structure of the separator plate, we investigate three design factors: angle, pitch and height. We adopt the Taguchi method to evaluate the experiments, and use finite element analysis to examine the experimental results. Based on these results, pitch is the most effective of these factors. As the pitch narrows, the stiffness of the separator plate increases. Therefore, we propose the pitch factor as a design criterion for the separator plate of the MCFC stack.

This paper presents an analysis on magnetic-elasto-plastic buckling and bending of a ferromagnetic rectangular plate with simple supports in applied magnetic fields. A numerical code is built to quantitatively simulate the characteristics of the magnetic-elasto-plastic nonlinear coupling problem by using a finite element method. The numerical results indicate that deformation of a ferromagnetic plate with elastic-plastic deformation is larger than that only with the elastic deformation. The incident angle of the applied magnetic field plays an important role in the deformation of the ferromagnetic rectangle plate: not only affects the magnitude of the deformation; but also the mode of the deformation. The configurations and plastic regions of ferromagnetic rectangular plates for different magnitude of the applied magnetic field are simulated and displayed as well.

This paper is concerned with the load-carrying capacities of a circular sandwich panel with metallic foam core subjected to quasi-static pressure loading. The analysis is performed with a newly developed yield criterion for the sandwich cross section. The large deflection response is estimated by assuming a velocity field, which is defined based on the initial velocity field and the boundary condition. A finite element simulation has been performed to validate the analytical solution for the simply supported cases. Good agreement is found between the theoretical and finite element predictions for the load-deflection response.

In liquid-filled conical shells, the combination of compressive meridional stresses and tensile hoop stresses can lead to instability. The present design rule for these structures is verified in this contribution by means of numerical simulations. Large axisymmetric imperfections are detrimental and may lead to failure by plastic buckling. For these shapes the design rule may be unconservative. The realism of the proposed shape deviations is questioned. However, partially or completely axisymmetric weld depressions can't be excluded from the simulations. This means that an elaborated study is needed and that the design rule must be checked even further.

The objective of this study was to experimentally determine the properties of magnesium alloys during plastic deformation under various temperature regimes. Proportional loading tests combining both axial and torsional loads were performed on cylindrical AZ31 Mg alloys in a range from room temperature to 673 K, where superplasticity has a high probability of occurrence, and the crystalline structures of the samples were observed after these tests. The above observations indicate that the deformation mechanisms in AZ31 Mg alloy are dominated by twinning deformation at 300 K and 423 K, and by grain boundary sliding promoted by dynamic recrystallization at 523 K and higher temperatures.

Plastics is commonly used in consumer electronics because of it is high strength per unit mass and good productivity, but plastic components may often become distorted after injection molding due to residual stress after the filling, packing, and cooling processes. In addition, plastic deteriorates depending on various temperature conditions and the operating time, which can be characterized by stress relaxation and creep. The viscoelastic behavior of plastic materials in the time domain can be expressed by the Prony series using the ABAQUS commercial software package. This paper suggests a process for predicting post-production deformation under cyclic thermal loading. The process was applied to real plastic panels, and the deformation predicted by the analysis was compared to that measured in actual testing, showing the possibility of using this process for predicting the post-production deformation of plastic products under thermal loading.

The strain hardening part of the Preston-Tonks-Wallace (PTW) model, developed for the description of the plastic constitutive behavior of materials at wide ranges of strain, strain rate, and temperature, has been modified by employing the Voce equation. The prediction capability of the modified PTW (MPTW) has been investigated with reference to Taylor impact test results in the literature, and comparison has been made with the models of Johnson-Cook (JC), Steiberg-Guinan (SG), Zerilli-Armstrong (ZA), and PTW. Of the compared existing models, no model was appropriate for describing the results of various Taylor impact tests. However, the modified PTW is shown to predict fairly accurate results in terms of the length, diameter, and shape of the deformed specimen tested at different temperatures and impact velocity.

This paper deals with the temperature and rate-dependent elasto-viscoplasticity behaviour of a highly ductile acrylic adhesive and its effect on plastic bending of adhesively bonded sheet metals. Tensile lap shear tests of aluminium single-lap joints were performed at various temperature of 10-40°C at several tensile speeds. Based on the experimental results, a new constitutive model of temperature and rate-dependent elasto-viscoplasticity of the adhesive is presented. From V-bending experiments and the corresponding numerical simulation, it was found that the gull-wing bend is suppressed by high-speed forming at a lower temperature.

This paper proposes a numerical algorithm of a time-discontinuous variational integrator based on the Hamiltonian in order to obtain more accurate results in the analysis of elasto-plastic stress wave. The algorithm proposed adopts both a time-discontinuous variational integrator and space-continuous Hamiltonian so as to capture discontinuities of stress waves. The algorithm also adopts the limited kinetic energy to enhance the stability of the numerical algorithm so as to solve the discontinuities such as elastic unloading and internal reflection in plastic deformation. Finite element analysis of one dimensional elasto-plastic stress waves is carried out in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the algorithm proposed.

Failure of an electronic package generally initiates from the interface corners, due to the stress and strain singular behaviors near the corners. Since the solder materials are viscous elastic and even maybe viscous plastic, the singular behavior near the solder joint corner is thereby time-dependent, and is quite different from that of an elastic one. It is necessary to clarify such a singular behavior for the strength and life evaluation of an electronic package. This paper firstly has deduced the approximated viscous elastic singular fields theoretically based on the principle of correspondence and the Laplace transformation techniques, and secondly has investigated the viscous plastic singular behavior of an elastic-plastic interface corner by the analogue method; finally the numerical analysis of an electronic package has been carried out to show the details of the singular behaviors.