Journal of Multiscale Modelling

With the advancements in additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, it is expected that fast and efficient production using the AM techniques will gradually replace the traditional manufacturing processes. An important consideration in the design and life assessment of AM-built parts is the asset integrity management and in particular fatigue life enhancement of such components. Surface rolling treatment is known to be an efficient way to introduce deep compressive residual stresses into engineering components, and therefore it has been considered as a practical and effective life enhancement technology. In this study, the surface rolling effects on the fatigue life enhancement of wire arc additively manufactured (WAAM) parts have been investigated. For this purpose, a compact tension specimen geometry was modeled in ABAQUS and the rolling process was simulated by means of finite element simulations to predict the extent of compressive residual stresses induced into a WAAM built part. The simulation results have been discussed in terms of the beneficial effects of surface rolling on fatigue life enhancement of WAAM built parts.

Transport mechanisms of small droplets on walls in micropores become significant for applications in energy, resource and biomedical engineering, however, a suitable numerical tool remains challenging. Macroscopic approach is ideal both in computing cost and simplicity but its applicability is doubted for nanoscale droplet, yet no clear evaluation on when exactly does it become invalid has been made. This work evaluates the applicability of macroscopic approach for the displacing process of droplet in a micropore and investigates relevant size effects, by comparing the simulation results of multiscale modeling and macroscopic method. Three types of size effects affecting the displacement results are identified: Laplace pressure, low interfacial density, and breakdown of macroscopic description. For the system studied, the Laplace pressure dominates for relatively big droplet, then low density region becomes significant for drop diameter smaller than 18 times molecule diameter, and finally macroscopic description gradually fails for drop diameter smaller than 13 times molecule diameter. We further investigate the influences of system scale and fluid type on these size effects and discuss the relative importance of each size effect under different conditions. Results indicate that traditional macroscopic approach may be invalid even when continuum assumption still holds due to other size effects, and corrections for those effects can be made to extend the applicability of macroscopic method.

Improving and stabilizing the life of the die has always been the key to increasing the output of cold precision forging products and reducing the production cost of forgings. The stress state in pre-stressed composed dies during cold extrusion process is investigated in this paper, it shows that the combined die can greatly reduce the tangential tensile stress of the inner wall of the die and reduce the strain energy density of the die, thereby improving the strength of the die and extending the life of the die. By increasing the number of pre-stressed rings, the amount of interference can be changed, which indirectly changes the pre-stress applied to the die. The relationship between the die fatigue life and the number of pre-stressed rings indicates that the design of the pre-stressed composed structure above the inflection point is an excess design, and the optimal design should be near the inflection point.

To reduce the time of simulation for rotating Eddy current testing (RECT) technique, a simplified model without modeling probe was proposed previously. However, the applicability of the simplified simulation model was unknown. In this paper, the applicability of the simplified model for the RECT technique was investigated. The application condition of the simplified model was provided by comparing it with the results of the traditional simulation model. The simplified model was suitable for the study of cracks shorter than 70% size of the uniform Eddy current induced by the probe in a traditional model or experiment. The experiment was conducted to validate the simplified model. Moreover, using the simplified model, the effects of crack depth, orientation, and exciting frequency were studied. The deeper the crack depth was, the greater peak value of $B_z$ signal was. The crack angle was linear with the phase of signal. The exciting frequency affected the amplitude and phase of the signal at the same time.