Iranian Journal of Materials science and Engineering
Volume:3 Issue: 1, Oct 2006

Wear of various basic refractory materials to substitute to currently used magnesia chrome bricks has been studied, measuring matte and slag penetration and dissolution, through different cup and rotary slag tests. High magnesia with and without impregnation, magnesia graphite, magnesia-alumina spinel with and without impregnation, olivine-magnesia and olivine magnesia- graphite bricks, as well as magnesia-graphite and olivine magnesia castables, have been tested. It has been shown that carbon impregnation and graphite introduction into basic refractories are feasible ways to enhance their corrosion-dissolution and penetration resistance against fayalite as well as calcium-ferrite slags. Olivine-based refractories (castables or bricks) may be considered as viable candidates to use in copper-making furnaces. At this point, evaluation of the thermo-mechanical properties of this new class of materials is still missing.

Partially stabilized zirconia (PSZ) has been proven to be an excellent candidate as a thermal barrier coating (TBe) for hot sections in, for instance, heat or internal combustion engines and gas turbine parts. The main functions of these coatings are reducing heat losses, reducing fuel consumption, increasing efficiency, and extending durability and life. One of the main problems involved is wear behavior in the development of such coatings for these applications. Using the air plasma spraying (APS) technique, conventional and nanostructured 8 wt % yttria partially stabilized zirconia (Y-PSZ) coatings were deposited on austenitic stainless steel (AISI304) disc-shaped substrates. The coated substrates were subjected to pin-on-disc wear tests, using 10 mm silicon nitride and zirconia balls as the pin. The coefficient of friction was recorded in real time. The weight loss of coated substrates was measured. Coatings were characterized before and after being subjected to wear testing by various techniques including optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Effects of various experimental parameters such as wear distance, test temperature, and counter face material were also investigated. Results obtained revealed that, regardless of experimental conditions applied, the nanostructured zirconia coating shows better wear and tribological properties than that of the conventional one.

A mixture of Tio2+Al+C powders was mechanically activated using a planetary ball mill under different milling conditions wherein the milled powders were further subjected to combustion synthesis to produce TiC+Al2O3 composite. The mechanically alloyed powders were characterized by X-Ray diffraction analysis and TEM investigations. XRD analysis of milled powder mixture showed no significant reaction between TiO2, Al and C while a significant amorphization of powder mixtures was observed. TEM analysis indicated the formation of a composite structure of powder particles after milling. The subsequent thermal treatment of the milled powder mix showed that the milling of initial powder mixture under dry environment using mixed large and small balls had a great effect on reaction efficiency and yielded to the highest TiC + Al2O3 ratio in the synthesized products

The hot cracking susceptibility can be determined by establishing the transition temperature between brittle and ductile fracture at high temperature tensile testing of in situ solidified samples. High temperature tensile properties were determined for commercial cathodic pure Cu and Cu- 30%Zn alloy. The transition temperatures for pure Cu and Cu-30%Zn were evaluated from ultimate tensile stress, true strain and area reduction at different testing temperatures. The results show that hot cracking in pure Cu also occurred below and near to its melting temperature. It can be proposed that in this case excess vacancies and vacancy diffusion and condensation are the dominating mechanisms for hot crack formation. The transition temperature for Cu- 30%Zn was much lower than its solidus temperature and this alloy has more susceptibility to hot cracking as compared to pure Cu. The effect of two different cooling rates (15 °C/min and 60 °C/min) on the transition temperature was investigated. The results show that by increasing cooling rate, the transition temperature will increase. The morphology of fracture surfaces for both ductile and brittle modes were evaluated by SEM Two different morphologies, i.e. interdendiritic and intergranual fracture, was found.

In this research, rotating bending fatigue test at minimum to maximum stress ratio of R=-1 was used for investigating the fatigue behavior of Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Both smooth and notched specimens, with elastic concentration factor, kt, of approximately 3.6 and 4.1 were used for this purpose.In addition, the effect of variation in ultimate tensile strength, UTS, on the fatigue behavior of this alloy was studied. S-N curves were drawn and the value of notch sensitivity was obtained or each case.The results showed that the presence of notch in Ti-6Al-4V alloy has a different amount of sensitivity when the notched specimens were subjected to high cycle fatigue (HCF) and low cycle fatigue (LCF) tests. However, the notch sensitivity of this alloy was shown generally to be much lower than steel alloys with similar UTS values. Thus, considering the high compatibility of this alloy with the body environment and its low sensitivity to notch, one can strongly recommend this alloy for use in biomedical application.

plasma-sprayed silicon layers have been used to produce silicon nitride layers with fibrous microstructure which optimizes fracture toughness and strength. SEM examination of the specimens shows that the surface is covered by fine needles and whiskers of Si3N4.In order to study the oxygen contamination effect as well as other contaminants introduced during spraying and nitridation processes, surface sensitive analysis techniques like AES and XPS have been used to determine concentration of these contaminants.

Ultrafine hydroxyapatite (HAp) powders with crystallite size in the range of 10-90 nm were synthesized by chemical precipitation process using Ca(OH)2 and H3PO4 solutions as starting materials. Molar ratio of Ca/P=1.68 was kept constant throughout the process and alkaline condition for the reaction was maintained using ammonium hydroxide. The role of raw material concentration on HAp crystallite size and morphology were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) techniques. The results revealed that variations in crystallite size and morphology of synthesized HAp are strongly affected by the concentration of acid solution. To study the sintering behavior of HAp particles, the powders were pressed at 200 MPa using a uniaxial press. Sintering experiments were carried out at temperatures of 1100, 1250 and 1300°C with various soaking times at maximum temperatures. XRD was also used in determining thephases present after sintering process. The results indicated the decomposition of HAp into a-tricalcium phosphate (TCP) and b-TCP phases at 1300°C. The microstructure of the sintered HAp ceramics was characterized by SEM.