Iranian Journal of Materials science and Engineering
Volume:2 Issue: 1, Mar 2005

Improved structures of MgO carbon bonded materials due to new binder systems and due to the application of electrical currents during operation have been achieved for advanced applications in the secondary metallurgy and during near net shape metal casting.

In this research, the mechanism of joining three sheets of metals, i.e. brass-steel-brass, by cold roll welding process has been studied. For this purpose, the two surfaces of steel sheets were roughened with stainless steel wire brush by different amounts, then the brass sheets were put on both sides of the steel sheets, before they were subjected to cold roll process. During rolling, peaks of the asperities on the surfaces of the steel sheet were pressurized, i.e. deformed, much more than that of trough. Hence, more hardening due to formation of higher dislocation density in the peaks regions were detected in comparison to the trough regions. Therefore, due to the differences in the amounts of work hardening occurred during cold rolling in the peaks & trough of the scratches and also due to the nature of the rough surfaces of the steel sheets, which causes the smooth surface of soft brass sheets laied over the rough surface of the steel sheet to be shappend according to the profile of the steel sheet scratches during cold rolling, mechanical locking occurred at the interface of brass & steel sheets. In addition, while the extrusion of brass took place through cracks within the surface of hardend peaks and metal bonding occurred on the contact points of the brass sheet & the vergin steel. Therefore, it seems two mechanisms were in operation is making a suitable joining between the sheets. One was a locking mechanism due to the roughness of the steel sheets & the other was bonding mechanism due to the bonding between the peak points of the scratches &soft brass surface. The strength of the bonded points in the interface were later increased by annealing the composite, so that by annealing the samples within the 500-900°C range for aperiod of 1 1/2 hr the interface strength increase substantially. The results of peeling test indicated that the interface strength of the samples annealed at 700°C or more increased so much that the brass sheet toms during peeling & the fracture did not pass through the interface.

The mold-filling behavior in the casting of aluminum alloy (A413) using lost foam casting (LFC) was explored. The effects of gate numbers, type of gating and casting thickness on the filling behavior were evaluated. Although, unlike convectional casting process, the gating system showed little effect onfilling ability, casting thickness created a greater effect on the mold filling. In contrast with convectional casting process, the mold filling seems to be controlled by castinggeometry as a consequence of combined influence of heat and mass transfer. The melt used to enter from the first gate instead of last gate which is in contrast with convectional casting process.

The synergistic behavior of molybdate and phosphate ions in mitigating the corrosion of mild steel in simulated cooling water was evaluated performing potentiodynamic polarization and impedance spectroscopy tests. Phosphate and molybdate showed a synergistic effect on corrosion inhibition of steel in simulated cooling water. The observed reduction in anodic and cathodic current densities could be the consequence of incorporation of both phosphate and molybdate ions in forming a protective layer on the surface. The charge transfer resistance of the protective layer formed on steel surface was much greater in presence of both ions in solution than that when each inhibitor used alone.

Effect of MgO addition on reaction sintering of aluminium titanate was investigated using equimolar Al2O3 and TiO2 after firing the samples at 1400 C for four hours. Results showed that MgO addition enhanced the sintering process by magnesium aluminates formation, which led to lower porosity and improved densification of the samples. Physical and mechanical properties showed that samples containing 5 wt% MgO was the optimum composition.

Anodes are critical component of cathodic protection systems. As part of this effort, three different anodes were tested in a cathodic protection system that was designed and constructed to prevent further corrosion of reinforced concrete. This anodic system includes an electrically conductive coating composition applied in fluid form over an outer surface of the concrete mix. The composition further includes a predetermined amount of electrically conductive carbon material (coke, carbon black, graphite) uniformly distributed in the epoxy resin (as a binder) whereby the coating composition has a predetermined value of resistively. This investigation attempts to find the best type and optimum content of conductive carbon filler in poxy coating, to ensure optimal anode working parameters for marine environments (basically marine and sewer environments) and if any of the coating systems tested in this study excel over the other. In this study, electric and electrochemical parameters of three layer (with average coating thickness of 300µm) coke-epoxy, carbon black-epoxy and graphite-epoxy conducting paints (with different amount of filler) have been determined during long-term anodic polarization (70 days) in a seawater solution. During this test, on the basis of impedance measurements, the electrical resistances of these coatings have been calculated every 14 days. if conductive paints exhibit good electric and electrochemical stability, they will be attractive for cathodic protection of reinforced concrete.

In the present work, a model was proposed to predict the thermal history during rapid solidification (RS) of metal droplets in the gas atomization process. The classical theory of heterogeneous nucleation was based on Newtonian heat flow and enthalpy method. Solving the governing numerical equations by the finite difference method (FDM) gave up the opportunity of analyzing the temperature-time history of the droplets during cooling in the RS process. Here, cooling in the liquid state, nucleation and recalescence, segregated solidification, eutectic solidification and cooling in the solid state were considered. To verify the model, the gas atomization of Al-4.5% Cu alloy was studied and the results were compared with the Shukla''s model [1]. Convincing agreement was obtained between the predicted undercoolings and the experimental results reported previously.