The present study investigates the influence of degradation effects due to natural aging of a pine wood by using acoustic birefringence measurements. In the present study, the acoustic anisotropy parameter for aged and un-aged Mexican pine (Pinus strobus) wood was calculated by the ultrasonic emission-transmission technique. The experimental measurements were carried out using a shear wave ultrasonic transducer with a central frequency of 0.5MHz. Ultrasonic velocity data and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were performed, establishing a direct correlation with the shear wave velocity and the acoustic anisotropy parameter developed on the naturally aged and un-aged wood.
The article reports a study carried out on metallic samples extracted from a cladded pipe (API5 X65 steel-Inconel 825 alloy) for industrial use in the transport of hydrocarbons, which were subjected to a solubilization treatment at 1200°C and a subsequently aging treatment at 650°C for different times in order to promote microstructural changes in both materials. To monitor these microstructural changes due to the aging process, the thermoelectric potential (TEP) nondestructive technique was used. In addition, microhardness tests were carried out on the metallic materials and micrographs were obtained by means of an optical microscope (OM) images.
The wood elastic constants are of great importance in the design of structural elements. In particular, the elastic modulus in the longitudinal direction is often used for strength estimation and grading of wood. Ultrasonic techniques are commonly applied to determine elastic parameters in laboratory experiments and for condition assessment of existing wooden structures. In the present study, the elastic parameters (elastic modulus and shear modulus) for aged and un-aged Mexican pine (Pinus strobus) wood were measured by the ultrasonic emission-transmission technique. The experimental measurements were carried out using longitudinal and shear ultrasonic transducers with a central frequency of 1 MHz and 0.5 MHz respectively. Ultrasonic data and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were performed, establishing a direct correlation with the measurements of the longitudinal and shear ultrasonic velocities and the elastic properties developed on the naturally aged and un-aged wood. Finally, the elastic and shear modulus of the wood before and after aging conditions were determinate. Therefore, the obtained experimental results not only contribute to the existing knowledge about aged wood but provide useful information about the possibilities of re-using wood as well.
KEYWORDS: Aluminum, Thermoelectric materials, Metals, Electrons, Nondestructive evaluation, Solids, Chemical species, Electrodes, Iron, Chemical elements
This work investigates the effect caused by the aluminum content in a welding metal and its variation in mechanical properties through the use of a non-destructive thermoelectric technique. It is known that aluminum has positive effects as deoxidizer in low percentages and alloying element together with Niobium and Vanadium. Aluminum has a positive and negative effect, initially improves the mechanical properties of the metal, as it acts as a grain refiner, increasing the yield strength, but in larger quantities, important mechanical properties such as hardness and toughness are seriously affected. For this purpose, HSLA ASTM 572 Gr. 50 steel was used as the base metal, where the weld metal was deposited, after which the specimens were fabricated and the mechanical tests and non-destructive tests were carried out. The sensitivity of the thermoelectric potential technique to microstructural and chemical composition changes was confirmed. The evolution of absolute thermoelectric potential (TEP) values with respect to the percentage of aluminum added to the weld was observed, being also quite sensitive to defects such as micro-cracks.
This research work was focused on the laser peening surface process in a metallic Ti-6Al-4V biomaterial. The Ti-6Al- 4V samples were surface treated at different laser conditions varying parameters such as pulse density and wave length. Laser peening induced effects were evaluated by synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction (SR-XRD) to determine the residual stress state; scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to assess microstructural changes and thermoelectric testing (TEP) to sense the subtle material variations such as local texture, increased dislocation density, hardening and residual stresses degree. The TEP measurements demonstrate that the non-contact technique is very sensitive to the compressive residual stresses with increasing the severity of the laser treatment parameters, while the TEP contact results are closely related to grain size, cracks, anisotropy, and work hardening.
In general the ultrasonic techniques have been used to determine the mechanical properties of materials on based of their relationship with metallurgical characteristics. In this research work, the relationship between ultrasonic velocity and phased array and the microstructure of steel pipeline welded joints is investigated. Measurements of ultrasonic wave velocity were made as a function of the location across the weld. Hardness measurements were performated in an attempt to correlate with ultrasonic response. In addition, the coarse and dendritic grain structure of the weld material is extreme and unpredictably anisotropic. Thus, due to the acoustic anisotropy of the crystal itself weld material of studied joints is anisotropic, too. Such structure is no longer direction-independent to the ultrasonic wave propagation; therefore, the ultrasonic beam deflects and redirects and the wave front becomes distorted. Thus, the use of conventional ultrasonic testing techniques using fixed beam angles is very limited and the application of conventional ultrasonic phased array techniques becomes desirable.
Laser peening has recently emerged as a useful technique to overcome detrimental effects associated with other well-known surface modification processes such as shot peening or grit blasting used in the biomedical field. It is worthwhile to notice that besides the primary residual stress effect, thermally induced effects might also cause subtle surface and subsurface microstructural changes that might influence corrosion resistance and fatigue strength of structural components. In this work, plates of Ti-6Al-4V alloy of 7 mm in thickness were modified by laser peening without using a sacrificial outer layer. Irradiation by a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser (9.4-ns pulse length) working at the fundamental 1064-nm wavelength at 2.8 J/pulse and with water as a confining medium was used. Laser pulses with a 1.5-mm diameter at an equivalent overlapping density of 5000 cm−2 were applied. Attempts to analyze the global-induced effects after laser peening were addressed by using the contacting and noncontacting thermoelectric power techniques.
Laser peening has recently emerged as a useful technique to overcome detrimental effects associated to another wellknown surface modification processes such as shot peening or grit blasting used in the biomedical field. It is worth to notice that besides the primary residual stress effect, thermally induced effects might also cause subtle surface and subsurface microstructural changes that might influence corrosion resistance. Moreover, since maximum loads use to occur at the surface, they could also play a critical role in the fatigue strength. In this work, plates of Ti-6Al-4V alloy of 7 mm in thickness were modified by laser peening without using a sacrificial outer layer. Irradiation by a Q-switched Nd-YAG laser (9.4 ns pulse length) working in fundamental harmonic at 2.8 J/pulse and with water as confining medium was used. Laser pulses with a 1.5 mm diameter at an equivalent overlapping density (EOD) of 5000 cm-2 were applied. Attempts to analyze the global induced effects after laser peening were addressed by using the contacting and non-contacting thermoelectric power (TEP) techniques. It was demonstrated that the thermoelectric method is entirely insensitive to surface topography while it is uniquely sensitive to subtle variations in thermoelectric properties, which are associated with the different material effects induced by different surface modification treatments. These results indicate that the stress-dependence of the thermoelectric power in metals produces sufficient contrast to detect and quantitatively characterize regions under compressive residual stress based on their thermoelectric power contrast with respect to the surrounding intact material. However, further research is needed to better separate residual stress effects from secondary material effects, especially in the case of low-conductivity engineering materials like titanium alloys.
Fretting is a wear phenomenon that occurs when cyclic loading causes two surfaces in intimate contact to undergo small oscillatory motions with respect to each other. During fretting, high points or asperities of the mating surfaces adhere to each other and small particles are pulled out, leaving minute, shallow pits and powdery debris. Sometimes these surface conditions are neglected, but they are important in some application such as the aerospace industry. In this research work, non-contacting and contacting thermoelectric power techniques are performed in fretted 7075-T6 and Ti-6Al-4V samples. It has been found that the contacting and non-contacting thermoelectric power measurements are associated directly with the subtle material variations such as work hardening and residual stresses due to plastic deformation produced in the fretting zone but surface topography. Therefore, both techniques could be used for a global characterization of the most relevant fretting induced effects. Potential of these techniques to monitor subsurface changes in other severe surface plastic deformation processes are clearly envisaged.
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