Role of slice thickness quantification in the 3D reconstruction of FIB tomography data of nanoporous materials.

In focused ion beam (FIB) tomography, a combination of FIB with a scanning electron microscope (SEM) is used for collecting a series of planar images of the microstructure of nanoporous materials. These planar images serve as the basis for reconstructing the three-dimensional microstructure through segmentation algorithms. However, the assumption of a constant distance between consecutively imaged sections is generally invalid due to random variations in the FIB milling process.

Coherent Phase Change in Interstitial Solutions: A Hierarchy of Instabilities.

Metal hydrides or lithium ion battery electrodes can take the form of interstitial solid solutions with a miscibility gap. This work discusses theory approaches for locating, in temperature-composition space, coherent phase transformations during the charging/discharging of such systems and for identifying the associated transformation mechanisms. The focus is on the simplest scenario, where instabilities derive from the thermodynamics of the bulk phase alone, considering strain energy as the foremost consequence of coherency and admitting for stress relaxation at free surfaces.

High-Temperature Melt Stamping of Polymers Using Polymer/Nanoporous Gold Composite Stamps.

Parallel lithographic deposition of polymers onto counterpart substrates is a widely applied surface manufacturing operation. However, polymers may only be soluble in organic solvents or are insoluble at all. Solvent evaporation during stamping may trigger hardly controllable capillarity-driven flow processes or phase separation, and polymer solutions may spread on the counterpart substrates.

Feasibility of orbital friction stir welding on clad pipes of API X65 steel and Inconel 625.

Orbital friction stir welding (FSW) has been applied to clad pipes, which is certainly of interest to the oil and gas industry. In this context, an FSW system capable of performing sound joints in one pass with full tool penetration was developed. Orbital FSW was executed in 6 mm thick API X65 PSL2 steel clad pipes with 3 mm thick Inconel 625 using a polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (pcBN) tool.

Nanoporous Gold: From Structure Evolution to Functional Properties in Catalysis and Electrochemistry.

Nanoporous gold (NPG) is characterized by a bicontinuous network of nanometer-sized metallic struts and interconnected pores formed spontaneously by oxidative dissolution of the less noble element from gold alloys. The resulting material exhibits decent catalytic activity for low-temperature, aerobic total as well as partial oxidation reactions, the oxidative coupling of methanol to methyl formate being the prototypical example. This review not only provides a critical discussion of ways to tune the morphology and composition of this material and its implication for catalysis and electrocatalysis, but will also exemplarily review the current mechanistic understanding of the partial oxidation of methanol using information from quantum chemical studies, model studies on single-crystal surfaces, gas phase catalysis, aerobic liquid phase oxidation, and electrocatalysis.

Self-Detachment and Subsurface Densification of Dealloyed Nanoporous Thin Films.

Experiment shows thin films of dealloyed nanoporous gold (NPG) spontaneously detaching from massive gold base layers. NPG can also densify near its external surface. This is naturally reproduced by kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulation of dealloying and coarsening and so appears generic for nanoscale network materials evolving by surface diffusion.

Generalized pole figures from post-processing whole Debye-Scherrer patterns for microstructural analysis on deformed materials.

Debye-Scherrer patterns, obtained from X-ray diffraction experiments using synchrotron light in transmission geometry, were analysed to construct generalized pole figures, and further used as input for an orientation distribution function inversion algorithm. By using Langford's method for separating strain and size contributions to peak broadening, it was possible, for the first time, to obtain full domain size and dislocation density generalized distribution functions (GDFs). This method was applied to cold-rolled and annealed interstitial-free steel.

Mitigating the susceptibility to intergranular corrosion of alloy 625 by friction-stir welding.

In this work, friction-stir welding (FSW) was employed to alloy 625 grade I (soft annealed) sheets. Therefore, solid-state based welding was undertaken with a tool rotational speed of 200 rpm and a welding speed of 1 mm/s. Microstructural features were analyzed by light optical and scanning electron microscopy (LOM and SEM).

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Refill Friction Stir Spot Welding of Thin AA7075-T6 Sheets.

The refill friction stir spot welding (refill FSSW) process is a solid-state joining process to produce welds without a keyhole in spot joint configuration. This study presents a thermo-mechanical model of refill FSSW, validated on experimental thermal cycles for thin aluminium sheets of AA7075-T6. The temperatures in the weld centre and outside the welding zone at selected points were recorded using K-type thermocouples for more accurate validation of the thermo-mechanical model.

Fatigue Performance of Metal-Composite Friction Spot Joints.

Friction spot joining is an alternative technique for joining metals with polymers and composites. This study investigated the fatigue performance of aluminum alloy 2024/carbon-fiber-reinforced poly(phenylene sulfide) joints that were produced with friction spot joining. The surface of the aluminum was pre-treated using various surface treatment methods.

Empowering Materials Processing and Performance from Data and AI.

Third millennium engineering is addressing new challenges in materials sciences and engineering [...

Grain boundary formation through particle detachment during coarsening of nanoporous metals.

Grain boundary formation during coarsening of nanoporous gold (NPG) is investigated wherein a nanocrystalline structure can form by particles detaching and reattaching to the structure. MicroLaue and electron backscatter diffraction measurements demonstrate that an in-grain orientation spread develops as NPG is coarsened. The volume fraction of the NPG sample is near the limit of bicontinuity, at which simulations predict that a bicontinuous structure begins to fragment into independent particles during coarsening.

Hybrid Modelling by Machine Learning Corrections of Analytical Model Predictions towards High-Fidelity Simulation Solutions.

Within the fields of materials mechanics, the consideration of physical laws in machine learning predictions besides the use of data can enable low prediction errors and robustness as opposed to predictions only based on data. On the one hand, exclusive utilization of fundamental physical relationships might show significant deviations in their predictions compared to reality, due to simplifications and assumptions. On the other hand, using only data and neglecting well-established physical laws can create the need for unreasonably large data sets that are required to exhibit low bias and are usually expensive to collect.

A Strategy for Dimensionality Reduction and Data Analysis Applied to Microstructure-Property Relationships of Nanoporous Metals.

Nanoporous metals, with their complex microstructure, represent an ideal candidate for the development of methods that combine physics, data, and machine learning. The preparation of nanporous metals via dealloying allows for tuning of the microstructure and macroscopic mechanical properties within a large design space, dependent on the chosen dealloying conditions. Specifically, it is possible to define the solid fraction, ligament size, and connectivity density within a large range.