Academic literature on the topic 'Aluminous multilayer materials'

Thermal transport properties of multilayer thin films both normal and parallel to the layers were measured. Al/Ti multilayer films 3 μm thick, with individual layers systematically varied from 2.5 to 40 nm, were studied on Si substrates. Layers of Al and Ti were nominally equal in thickness, with actual composition determined for each specimen using energy dispersive spectroscopy. The thermal diffusivity both in the plane and normal to the plane of the films (thermal conductivity divided by specific heat per volume) was found to decrease significantly with decreasing bilayer thickness. Pure Ti and Al films as well as Cu films from 0.1 to 5 μm thick were also studied. In-plane electrical conductances of the Al/Ti multilayers were also measured.

Advanced materials such as aluminum alloys and composites offer great potential for weight reduction applications in automotive and aerospace vehicles construction. In order to investigate the feasibility of using such materials in the form of laminates, sheet bulging with single-layer aluminum and the aluminum/Composite laminate with the carbon cloth as the middle layer is investigated under uniform liquid pressure conditions. The aluminum sheet stress-strain, wall thickness distribution, carbon fiber radius stress-strain distribution and the effect of die entrance radius etc. are discussed and compared in details. FE results validate that the numerical method can predict the same fracture regions for bulging-blank as observed in experimental tests. Furthermore, the study validates that multi-layer sheet hydro-bulging process with composite fiber as a middle layer is not feasible to form laminates due to rupture of composite fibers near edge regions. Further study is needed to improve the methodology.

There has been a significant interest in the development of dispersion-hardened aluminum for many years for high specific strength and modulus. Such materials are usually processed by powder or ingot metallurgy routes. In this study, Al3 Ti dispersion hardened Al was obtained by annealing Al-Ti multilayers. Al-Ti multilayered films have been characterized in the past by observing the structure of the layers, as well as tensile properties and hardness. This paper reports the structure of Al-Ti multilayers and the evolution of matrix and dispersoid microstructure on annealing.The Al-Ti multilayered structures were prepared by magnetron sputtering using Al and Ti as targets and either Si (100) or NaCl as substrates. The bi-layer thickness was maintained around 16 nm with Ti constituting 12% of the total. The substrate was alternately moved below the Al and Ti targets for the purpose of deposition. The as-deposited film on the substrate and NaCl salts were annealed at 400°C for periods between 1 and 24 h in a vacuum (10−5 torr) furnace.

In this research, alternative deposition process of ZnO-based thin films have been studied for transparent conducting oxide (TCO) application. To improve the electrical and optical properties of transparent oxide thin films, alternatively stacked Al-doped ZnO and In-doped ZnO thin films were investigated. Multilayer structure of alternative 6 layers of thin films were prepared in this research. Especially, Aluminum and Indium were chosen as dopant materials. Thin films of Al-doped ZnO (AZO) and In-doped ZnO (IZO) were alternatively deposited by spin coating with sol-gel method. After deposition of multilayered thin films, multi steps of furnace (F), rapid thermal annealing (R) and CO2 laser annealing (L) processes were carried out and investigated thin film properties by dependence of post-annealing sequence and thin film structures. The electrical and optical properties of thin films were investigated by 4-point probe and UV-vis spectroscopy and its shows the greatest sheet resistance value of 0.59 kΩ/sq. from AZO/IZO multilayered structure and upper 85% of transmittance. The structural property and surface morphology were measured by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). The Al- and In-doped ZnO thin film shows the highest intensity value at (002) peak of AZO/IZO multilayer structure which was performed FRL process.

Yield stresses, ultimate tensile strengths, and specific strengths of aluminum/titanium multilayer thin films are determined from the results of uniaxial tensile tests. The plasticity in the stress-strain curves, the nature of the fracture surfaces, and the relationship of the yield stress and the bilayer thickness are discussed. Properties are compared with those of other multilayer materials published in the literature.

Abstract In this work, multilayer nanostructured thermite materials are considered - a new type of local heat sources. Aluminium and copper oxide were chosen as components of the thermite mixture. The formation of multilayer structures was carried out on the surface of the substrate by the method of magnetron sputtering. The features of the deposition process as well as the energy properties of the formed materials have been investigated. The results obtained confirm the prospects of using this class of materials as local heat sources.

Multilayer intermetallic composite materials of the aluminum-copper system are obtained using a complex technology, including explosion welding, rolling and diffusion heat treatment. The structure, composition and properties of the obtained 9 and 15-layer systems were studied and it was shown that the applied technology makes it possible to obtain qualitative multilayer systems with a large proportion of intermetallide phases, that have properties that are significantly different from the base metals, which makes it possible to expand significantly the areas of application of aluminum composites-copper.

An alternative solution to the problem of aluminum–plastic multilayer waste utilization was suggested. The process can be used for hydrogen generation and layer separation. Three different sorts of aluminum–plastic sandwich materials were treated with an alkali solution. In the temperature range of 50–70 °C, for tablet blisters of polyvinylchloride and aluminum (14.8 wt.%), the latter thoroughly reacted in 15–30 min. For sheets of paper, polyethylene, and aluminum (20 wt.%), full hydrogen ‘recovery’ from reacted aluminum component took 3–8 min. From the lids of polyethylene terephthalate, aluminum (60 wt.%), and painted polyethylene with perforations, the aluminum was consumed after 45–105 min. The effect of perforations was the reduction of the process duration from nearly 90 min for the lids with no perforations to nearly 45 min for the perforated ones (at 70 °C). Perforations provided better contact between the aluminum foil, isolated between the plastic layers, and the alkali solution. Hydrogen bubbles originating near those perforations provided foil separation from the upper painted plastic layer by creating gas gaps between them. The remaining components of the composite multilayer materials were separated and ready for further recycling.

It is generally accepted that severe plastic deformation (SPD) has the ability to produce ultrafinegrained (UFG) and nanocrystalline materials in bulk. Recent developments in high pressure torsion (HPT) processes have led to the production of bimetallic composites using copper, aluminum or magnesium alloys. This article outlines a new approach to fabricate multilayered Ni-Ti nanocomposites by a patented SPD technique, namely, high speed high pressure torsion (HSHPT). The multilayered composite discs consist of Ni-Ti alloys of different composition: a shape memory alloy (SMA) Ti-rich, whose Mf > RT, and an SMA Ni-rich, whose Af < RT. The composites were designed to have 2 to 32 layers of both alloys. The layers were arranged in different sequences to improve the shape recovery on both heating and cooling of nickel-titanium alloys. The manufacturing process of Ni-Ti multilayers is explained in this work. The evolution of the microstructure was traced using optical, scanning electron and transmission electron microscopes. The effectiveness of the bonding of the multilayered composites was investigated. The shape memory characteristics and the martensitic transition of the nickel-titanium nanocomposites were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). This method opens up new possibilities for designing various layered metal-matrix composites achieving the best combination of shape memory, deformability and tensile strength.

Les architectures céramiques multicouches présentent généralement des propriétés mécaniques améliorées par rapport à leurs constituants monolithiques. Dans les matériaux à base d'alumine, l'ajout de kaolin peut avantageusement permettre de promouvoir i) la cristallisation de la mullite et ii) des contraintes résiduelles internes notamment par le contrôle du différentiel d'expansion thermique entre couches. À partir de poudres préparées par granulation cryogénique dont les formulations contiennent une quantité réduite d'additifs organiques, des composites alumine/mullite mis en forme par pressage uniaxial ont été élaborés et caractérisés. Deux kaolins différents sont utilisés dans cette étude avec des caractéristiques différentes en termes de cristallinité, de forme de grains, d'empilement de feuillets et de rapport face basale/latérale. L'originalité de ce travail a consisté à étudier en détail les mécanismes de dispersion des suspensions de kaolinite en milieu aqueux par acoustophorèse et de mettre en évidence la relation entre les propriétés électrocinétiques de la kaolinite, les caractéristiques physico-chimiques et le prétraitement thermique entre 200 et 800 °C. Les propriétés de frittage de formulations mixtes alumine/kaolinite ont été étudiées en fonction de la teneur en kaolinite (0-25%vol). Ce travail de thèse étudie la chaîne intégrée d'un procédé céramique en commençant par la sélection de la kaolinite comme matière première (acoustophorèse, RMN MAS), sa transformation cristallochimique en mullite (analyses thermiques, dilatométrie) et son incorporation dans une matrice d'alumine pour une architecture originale de matériaux multicouches aux propriétés modifiées de ténacité et de résistance à la rupture. Les matériaux multicouches élaborés présentent une bonne adhésion interfaciale malgré la présence d'une zone poreuse proche de l'interface des couches. Certaines configurations multicouches élaborées présentent une contrainte à la rupture améliorée de 30% par rapport aux matériaux monolithiques
Multilayer ceramic architectures generally exhibit improved mechanical properties in regards with individual monolithic constituents. In alumina-based materials, addition of kaolin can advantageously promote i) mullite crystallisation and ii) internal residual stresses by monitoring thermal expansion mismatch between layers. From powders prepared by freeze granulation whose formulations contain a reduce amount of organic additives, alumina/mullite composites shaped by uniaxial pressing have been developed and characterized. Two different kaolins are used in this study, with different characteristics in terms of crystallinity, grain shape, layering and basal/lateral face ratio. The originality of this work consisted in studying in detail the dispersion mechanisms of kaolinite suspensions in aqueous media by acoustophoresis, and in highlighting the relationship between kaolinite's electrokinetic properties, physicochemical characteristics and thermal pretreatment between 200 and 800°C. The sintering properties of mixed alumina/kaolinite formulations were studied as a function of kaolinite crystallinity and content (0-25%vol). This thesis studies the integrated chain of a ceramic process, starting with the selection of kaolinite as a raw material (acoustophoresis, MAS NMR), its crystallochemical transformation into mullite (thermal analyses, dilatometry) and its incorporation into an alumina matrix for an original architecture of multilayer materials with modified properties of toughness and fracture resistance. The multi-layer materials developed show good interfacial adhesion despite the presence of a porous zone close to the layer interface. Compared to the monolithic materials, the most efficient multilayer configurations exhibit a failure stress improved by 30%

Les couches minces de (ti, al)n font l'objet d'attentions particulieres a cause de l'amelioration significative de la resistance a l'oxydation qu'elles presentent par rapport aux revetements durs de tin. Nous avons teste l'utilisation de precurseurs organo-metalliques pour synthetiser des films de (ti, al)n a des temperatures inferieures a 400 c par la technique de depot chimique en phase vapeur omcvd. Les precurseurs choisis sont le tetradimethylamide de titane (tdmat), l'hexadimethylamide de dialuminium (hdmada) et le tri-isobutyl aluminium (tiba). Compte tenu des donnees thermodynamiques disponibles, nous avons pu, a l'aide d'un programme de simulations thermodynamiques, determiner certaines plages de parametres favorables au depot de phases pures de nitrures de titane - aluminium. Les diagrammes d'equilibre de phases stables et metastables du systeme ternaire ti-al-n ont ete etablis entre 200 et 1600 c. L'etude experimentale des depots des phases binaires tin et ain nous a permis d'optimiser les parametres et de voir leur influence sur la contamination des films. En fonction de ces resultats les depots de (ti,al)n ont ete realises a l'aide de deux melanges reactionnels : - tetradimethylamide de titane + hexadimethylamide de dialuminium + ammoniac - tetradimethylamide de titane + tri-isobutyl aluminium + ammoniac le premier melange reactionnel nous a permis de deposer a basse temperature (400 c) a une pression de 25 mbar, des films de (ti,al)n ; de structure cubique, ces films sont composes de grains de taille nanometrique. Le parametre le plus interessant pour faire varier le rapport al/ti est le debit d'ammoniac. Le deuxieme melange reactionnel semble pratique pour deposer des multicouches tin/aln.

Sélectionner des traitements de surface pour l’industrie nécessite de prendre en compte :les propriétés à conférer au substrat, la nature et la géométrie de celui-ci et les caractéristiques du milieu extérieur. Certaines combinaisons de ces paramètres rendent difficile la sélection d’un traitement unique, d’où le recours à des multitraitements de surface. Dès lors, se posent les questions suivantes :

- Utiliser des multitraitements de surface peut se faire en scindant les différentes requêtes en sous-ensembles, de manière à ce que chaque traitement réponde à l’un d’eux. Dans quel ordre ces requêtes doivent-elles être introduites par rapport au substrat ?

- Comment sélectionner les traitements de surface répondant à chaque requête individuelle ?

- Comment classer des multitraitements en termes d’adéquation au problème posé ?

Dans ce travail, les première et troisième questions sont abordées, en explorant les requêtes concernant habituellement les dispositifs de moulage de l’aluminium :

- Résistance aux contraintes d’origine thermique.

- Résistance à la corrosion par les métaux fondus.

- Résistance au frottement.

L’analyse de la bibliographie relative aux traitements de surface utilisés dans ces systèmes a été analysée et des « architectures »-types ont été identifiées (chapitre 3). On prévoit, par exemple, un traitement conférant la résistance à la fatigue superficielle, ainsi qu’un revêtement étanche et résistant à l’aluminium fondu. Une barrière thermique est parfois préconisée.

Pour chacune des architectures, des traitements de surface individuels peuvent être sélectionnés. Un « facteur de performance » permettant de classer les solutions par rapport au problème de la fatigue thermique a été construit (chapitre 4) et discuté dans deux situations :

- Lorsqu’un revêtement est présent, et que les contraintes d’origine thermique (différence de dilatation thermique couche-substrat) menacent de le rompre lors de l’immersion dans un milieu corrosif à haute température. Des essais de corrosion dans de l’aluminium fondu ont été réalisés sur un acier revêtu par du nitrure de chrome dopé à l’aluminium, synthétisé par déposition physique en phase vapeur (chapitre 5 – collaboration :Inasmet).

- Lorsque des variations thermiques rapides menacent de rompre le substrat et la (les) couches. Des essais de fatigue thermique ont été réalisés sur de l’acier à outils pour travail à chaud non traité, boruré ou recouvert d’un multitraitements (zircone yttriée / NiCrAlY / boruration / acier). Le revêtement en zircone yttriée a été obtenu par projection par plasma. L’essai de fatigue thermique a été modélisé et le facteur de performance, discuté (chapitre 6).

Au chapitre 7, les architectures-types ont été introduites dans une méthodologie de sélection des multi-traitements de surface, qui a été appliquée dans deux cas :

- Celui des moules de fonderie, devant résister à la fatigue thermique et à la corrosion par l’aluminium fondu. Le facteur de performance a été extrapolé à d’autres situations qu’aux chapitres 5 et 6. Les solutions habituellement proposées pour résoudre ce problème sont retrouvées.

- Celui de deux pièces en acier frottant l’une contre l’autre en présence d’aluminium fondu.

To select surface treatments, one must account for the required functional properties, the substrate features and the solicitations the substrate must endure. Certain combinations of these parameters make it difficult to select a single surface treatment, a reason why several successive treatments are preferred. To select them, one needs to determine:

- How to divide the several requests into groups and how to stack up these groups from the substrate to the outer surface, so that each treatment deals with one specific group of requests/properties.

- How to select individual layers for each group of properties.

- How to rank the multi-treatments in terms of relevance for a given application.

In this work, one tries to answer the first and the third questions, by studying the case of aluminium foundry, in which the industrial devices frequently face the following solicitations:

- Thermal stress (thermal fatigue, thermal expansion mismatch).

- Presence of corrosive molten metal.

- Sliding wear.

In the literature, several “standard” architectures are proposed (chapter 3), like a diffusion layer reducing superficial fatigue plus a corrosion barrier layer. A thermal barrier coating is also sometimes proposed.

For each of these architectures, one can select individual treatments. To rank them, one devised a “performance index” for thermal stress (chap.4), which is discussed for two cases:

- For large differences between layer and substrate thermal expansion coefficients, when both are put into contact with a high temperature corrosive medium, the layer may be damaged. One discusses this case by examining the corrosion caused by molten aluminium for a steel substrate coated by anticorrosive chromium nitride doped with aluminium. The layer is produced by physical vapour deposition (chap. 5 – cooperation: Inasmet).

- Repeated fast surface temperature transients can also damage the substrate and/or the layer by thermal fatigue. One conducted thermal fatigue tests with samples of hot work tool steel, respectively untreated, simply borided and protected by a multilayer. In the last case, top coat is yttria stabilised zirconia, followed by a nickel superalloy and then a borided layer (undercoat). One synthesized the zirconia coating by plasma spray and one modelled the thermal fatigue (chap. 6).

In chap. 7, architectures from chap. 2 are introduced in a multi-treatment selection routine, which is applied in two cases:

- Foundry moulds for molten aluminium, withstanding both thermal fatigue and corrosion. The devised performance index is extrapolated beyond the tests of chap. 5 and 6 to treatments for this industrial application, thereby quantifying their respective merits.

- A foundry device exposed to molten metal and sliding wear.

Doctorat en Sciences de l'ingénieur
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Ce travail a porte sur la croissance epitaxiale des nitrures d'elements iii gan, aln, et inn, en utilisant l'epitaxie par jets moleculaires assistee par plasma d'azote. Nous avons optimise les premiers stades de la croissance de gan ou aln sur substrat al#2o#3 (0001). Le processus utilise consiste a nitrurer la surface du substrat a l'aide du plasma d'azote, afin de la transformer en aln, puis a faire croitre une couche tampon d'aln ou de gan a basse temperature, avant de reprendre la croissance de gan ou aln a haute temperature (680 a 750c). Nous avons en particulier etudie les proprietes d'une couche de gan en fonction de la temperature a laquelle est realisee l'etape de nitruration. Lorsque les conditions de demarrage de la croissance sont optimisees, nous avons pu observer des oscillations de rheed pendant la croissance de la couche de gan. Nous avons etudie l'effet du rapport v/iii sur la morphologie de surface et les proprietes optiques et structurales de cette couche. Nous avons propose l'utilisation de l'indium en tant que surfactant pour ameliorer ces proprietes. Nous avons ensuite aborde la realisation de superreseaux gan/aln dont nous avons optimise les interfaces. Les mecanismes de relaxation des contraintes de aln sur gan et gan sur aln ont ete etudies. Nous avons egalement elabore les alliages algan et ingan, comme barrieres quantiques dans les heterostructures. Nous avons montre que la relaxation elastique des contraintes de gan en epitaxie sur aln donne lieu a la formation d'ilots de tailles nanometriques, qui se comportent comme des boites quantiques. Leur densite et leur taille dependent de la temperature de croissance, et des conditions de murissement apres croissance. Les proprietes optiques de ces ilots sont gouvernees a la fois par les effets de confinement quantique et par le fort champ piezo-electrique induit par la contrainte dans les ilots.

With the amalgamation of hard coating in cutting tools industries for three decades now, a stage with proven performance has been reached. Today, nearly 40% of all cutting tools used in machining applications are sheltered with coatings. Coatings have proven to dramatically improve wear resistance, increase tool life and enable use at higher speed. Over the years TiN, TiAlN and TiC have emerged as potential materials to coat machining tools. Chemical vapor deposition was the first technology to be used to deposit these coatings followed by physical vapor deposition. Currently, extensive use is being made of cathodic arc evaporation and sputtering for coatings components. The principal limiting factor in the performance of these cutting tools lies in their failure due to the brittleness of these coatings. These hard coatings, usually coated on soft steel substrates, are subjected to contact damage during service. This contact damage is driven by mismatch strain between the elastically deforming film on a plastically deforming substrate. Understanding of the contact damage is the key parameter for improvement in the coating design. Contact damage involves initiation of cracks and subsequent propagation within coating. Multiple cracking modes are seen in nitride coatings on soft substrate and mutual interaction of cracks may lead to spallation of the coating, exposing the substrate to extreme service conditions. Hence visualization of subsurface crack trajectories facilitates the classification of benign and catastrophic modes of failure, which consequently allows us to tailor the coating architecture to eliminate catastrophic failure. Multilayers have shown to perform better then monolayer coatings. In multilayer coatings, application specific particular properties can be engineered by alternately stack-ing suitable layers. The multilayer utilizes benefits of interfaces by crack deflection, crack blunting and desirable transition in residual stress across the interface. Hence, designing interfaces is the key parameter in the multilayer coating. However, very few studies exist that describe experimental visualization of deformation modes in multilayer coatings with different types of interfaces, e.g. nitride/nitride and nitride/metal. Thus the prime objective of the present study is to comprehend the influence of different interface structures as well as its architecture on the various contact damage modes in these coatings. TiAlN/TiN has shown better tribological properties compared to its constituent monolayers. There is an order of magnitude augmentation in loads for cracking without any hardness enhancement relative to monolayers of constituents, with the additional feature that both constituents exhibit similar hardness and modulus. The resistance to cracking is seen to increase with increase in number of interfaces. Hence this uniqueness in toughening without drastic reduction in mechanical properties provides the motivation for understanding the fundamental mechanisms of toughening provided by the interfaces in these hard/hard coatings. Another combination for the present study is with interfaces between hard-soft phases ZrN/Zr, a composite that seeks to compromise hardness in order to achieve greater toughness. The selected combination has potential of providing a model system without any substoichiometric nitrides influencing the interfacial structure. There is a great need to optimize the metal fraction/thickness for exploiting the benefits of toughening without much compromise on hardness and stiffness, since the principal applications of these coatings lies in preventing erosive and corrosive wear. As all the deformation modes in theses coatings are stress driven, the influence of different variables on stress field would dictate the emerging damage. To understand the role of stress fields on contact damage, finite element method and an analytical model was used to predict the stress field within the coating. The TiAlN/TiN coatings were deposited by cathodic arc evaporation, while sputtering was employed to procure the ZrN/Zr multilayer coatings with much finer layer spacing. Microstructural characterization of the as received coatings was done by XRD, scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam cross section machining and transmission electron microscopy. Mechanical properties like hardness and modulus were evaluated by nanoindentation with restricted penetration depths to allow measurements that were not influenced by the substrate. Contact damage was induced by micro indentation at high loads. Indentations were examined from plan view as well as cross section for getting details of crack nucleation as well as propagation trajectories. Focused ion beam was used to examine cross sections of indents as well as to prepare electron transparent thin foils for transmission electron microscopy examination of subsurface damage induced by indentation. To emphasize specific issues in detail, the present work is divided into four sections: 1 Microstructure and mechanical characterization of the as deposited coatings of ZrN/Zr multilayer (while that of TiAlN/TiN has been reported elsewhere) 2 Details of contact damage in ZrN/Zr coating 3 Resolution of micro mechanistic issues in TiAlN/TiN coating utilizing detailed microscopy 4 The effect of change in architecture through heat-treatment of ZrN/Zr multilayer coatings on the mechanical behavior and contact damage Detailed microstructural, compositional and mechanical characterization was done on ZrN/Zr as received multilayer coatings. Thickness of metal layer was seen to influence the texture in the nitride, thick metal acquiring basal texture in turn inducing (111) texture in the nitride to reduce interfacial energy. Microstructure revealed that the nitride grows with interrupted columnar grains, renucleating at each metal/nitride interface. Presence of both phases was confirmed at even very low bilayer spacing, with slight changes in multilayers architecture, from planar interfaces to curved interfaces. The chosen system proved to be an ideal system for multilayer study without formation of secondary nitrides. Residual stress and hardness reduced with increase in metal layer thickness, whereas modulus was seen to follow the rule of mixture value. Detailed contact damage study of ZrN/Zr is reported in section two with influence of volume fraction and metal layer thickness. All the experimental results were corroborated with finite element methods. A comparative study of contact damage of multilayer with monolayer was carried out with cross section as well as plan view of indents. Metal plasticity was able to distribute damage laterally as well as vertically, hence reducing the stress concentration. There lies an optimum thickness of the metal providing maximum toughening by increasing the threshold load required for edge cracking. The sliding of columns is resisted by the metal. However, thick metal layers promote microcracking in individual nitride layers. Cracking is restricted to within individual nitride layers, eliminating through thickness cracking. The intermediate metal thickness was able to provide a mechanism of laterally distributing sliding and hence a higher tolerance level of the indentation strain that can be accommodated without cracking. Thin metal multilayers were seen to show delamination, strongly influenced by the multilayer architecture. We use the finite element method to understand the influence of stress fields in driving these various modes of damage for varying volume fraction and metal layer thicknesses. It is demonstrated how metal plasticity results in stress enhancement in the nitride layer compared to a monolayer and reduces the shear stress, which is the driving force for columnar sliding. The micro cracking to columnar shearing transition with metal thickness was explained with the help of average shear and normal stress across the multilayer which could explain the transition from cracking and sliding to interfacial delamination in thin metal layer multilayers with enhancement in interfacial shear stress. TiAlN/TiN multilayer allowed to exploit a form of compositional contrast to measure the strain with respect to depth. Layers acting as strain markers quantify the amount of sliding in terms of the offset in layers with respect to depth within the coating. We illustrate with transmission electron micrographs, the flaw generation that occurs as a result of sliding of misaligned column boundaries. These boundary kinks,upon further loading, may lead to cracks running at an angle to the indentation axis in an otherwise dense, defect free, as deposited coating. A previous study illustrates the increase in resistance of multilayers to multiple modes of cracking that are seen in the monolayer nitride coatings on steel substrates. We provide evidence of the enhanced plasticity, seen as macroscopic bending, which in reality is column sliding in a series of distributed small steps. We discuss the role of misfit dislocations in spreading the material laterally to accommodate the constraints during indentation and lattice bending. Interfacial sliding is seen to reduce the stress concentration by distributing the vertical column sliding and accommodating the flaws generated by the sliding of misaligned column boundaries. Some preferred boundaries with special orientation relations do slide, while near the substrate, the sliding is facilitated by the relaxation in intrinsic residual stresses. An analytical model which was formulated earlier is used to support our experimental findings. Investigations of the plausible reasons for the naturally occurring multilayer mollusc sea shells to reach stiffnesses equal to the upper bound of the rule of mixture value have concluded that its brick and mortar organization is responsible for its exceptional mechanical properties. Inspired by the same model, heat treatment was used to change the architecture of the soft-hard metal/nitride combination from that of the planar interface of the as deposited multilayer to a brick and mortar arrangement. Such an interconnected ZrN microstructure was successfully achieved and the stiffness and hardness were both seen to increase relative to the as received coatings. The possible reasons for this enhancement are discussed in term of this newly emerged architecture ,change in residual stress as well as changes in stoichiometry after heat treatment. The contact damage, though, was found to be more catastrophic relative to the as deposited coating with increased propensities for edge and lateral cracking. This was attributed to the interconnected nitrides formed in the brick and mortar architecture as well as residual stress changes due to the dissolution of Zr in ZrN to form off-stoichiometric nitrides. The cracks feel the presence of the metal and deviate from the otherwise smooth trajectory and take a path along the interface of the metal packet and the interconnected nitride. Summarizing, the present study clearly illustrates the fact that interfaces play an important role in damage control under contact loading. Fracture and deformation are either controlled by metal plasticity, distributing the column sliding in metal/nitride multilayers or by interfacial sliding mediated by interfacial misfit dislocations in case of the nitride/nitride multilayer coatings. The effective role of interfaces is to distribute damage laterally as well as horizontally to relieve stresses and hence enhance the damage tolerance under indentation. Optimum metal layer thickness has been proposed for maximum toughening in the metal/nitride multilayer coating and the role of interfaces in providing modes of plasticity is presented for the nitride/nitride multilayer coatings by use of extensive transmission electron microscopic investigations. A new interconnected architecture coatings provides a unique way of combining stiffness and toughness along with scope for further developing such configurations with improved mechanical properties.

With the amalgamation of hard coating in cutting tools industries for three decades now, a stage with proven performance has been reached. Today, nearly 40% of all cutting tools used in machining applications are sheltered with coatings. Coatings have proven to dramatically improve wear resistance, increase tool life and enable use at higher speed. Over the years TiN, TiAlN and TiC have emerged as potential materials to coat machining tools. Chemical vapor deposition was the first technology to be used to deposit these coatings followed by physical vapor deposition. Currently, extensive use is being made of cathodic arc evaporation and sputtering for coatings components. The principal limiting factor in the performance of these cutting tools lies in their failure due to the brittleness of these coatings. These hard coatings, usually coated on soft steel substrates, are subjected to contact damage during service. This contact damage is driven by mismatch strain between the elastically deforming film on a plastically deforming substrate. Understanding of the contact damage is the key parameter for improvement in the coating design. Contact damage involves initiation of cracks and subsequent propagation within coating. Multiple cracking modes are seen in nitride coatings on soft substrate and mutual interaction of cracks may lead to spallation of the coating, exposing the substrate to extreme service conditions. Hence visualization of subsurface crack trajectories facilitates the classification of benign and catastrophic modes of failure, which consequently allows us to tailor the coating architecture to eliminate catastrophic failure. Multilayers have shown to perform better then monolayer coatings. In multilayer coatings, application specific particular properties can be engineered by alternately stack-ing suitable layers. The multilayer utilizes benefits of interfaces by crack deflection, crack blunting and desirable transition in residual stress across the interface. Hence, designing interfaces is the key parameter in the multilayer coating. However, very few studies exist that describe experimental visualization of deformation modes in multilayer coatings with different types of interfaces, e.g. nitride/nitride and nitride/metal. Thus the prime objective of the present study is to comprehend the influence of different interface structures as well as its architecture on the various contact damage modes in these coatings. TiAlN/TiN has shown better tribological properties compared to its constituent monolayers. There is an order of magnitude augmentation in loads for cracking without any hardness enhancement relative to monolayers of constituents, with the additional feature that both constituents exhibit similar hardness and modulus. The resistance to cracking is seen to increase with increase in number of interfaces. Hence this uniqueness in toughening without drastic reduction in mechanical properties provides the motivation for understanding the fundamental mechanisms of toughening provided by the interfaces in these hard/hard coatings. Another combination for the present study is with interfaces between hard-soft phases ZrN/Zr, a composite that seeks to compromise hardness in order to achieve greater toughness. The selected combination has potential of providing a model system without any substoichiometric nitrides influencing the interfacial structure. There is a great need to optimize the metal fraction/thickness for exploiting the benefits of toughening without much compromise on hardness and stiffness, since the principal applications of these coatings lies in preventing erosive and corrosive wear. As all the deformation modes in theses coatings are stress driven, the influence of different variables on stress field would dictate the emerging damage. To understand the role of stress fields on contact damage, finite element method and an analytical model was used to predict the stress field within the coating. The TiAlN/TiN coatings were deposited by cathodic arc evaporation, while sputtering was employed to procure the ZrN/Zr multilayer coatings with much finer layer spacing. Microstructural characterization of the as received coatings was done by XRD, scanning electron microscopy, focused ion beam cross section machining and transmission electron microscopy. Mechanical properties like hardness and modulus were evaluated by nanoindentation with restricted penetration depths to allow measurements that were not influenced by the substrate. Contact damage was induced by micro indentation at high loads. Indentations were examined from plan view as well as cross section for getting details of crack nucleation as well as propagation trajectories. Focused ion beam was used to examine cross sections of indents as well as to prepare electron transparent thin foils for transmission electron microscopy examination of subsurface damage induced by indentation. To emphasize specific issues in detail, the present work is divided into four sections: 1 Microstructure and mechanical characterization of the as deposited coatings of ZrN/Zr multilayer (while that of TiAlN/TiN has been reported elsewhere) 2 Details of contact damage in ZrN/Zr coating 3 Resolution of micro mechanistic issues in TiAlN/TiN coating utilizing detailed microscopy 4 The effect of change in architecture through heat-treatment of ZrN/Zr multilayer coatings on the mechanical behavior and contact damage Detailed microstructural, compositional and mechanical characterization was done on ZrN/Zr as received multilayer coatings. Thickness of metal layer was seen to influence the texture in the nitride, thick metal acquiring basal texture in turn inducing (111) texture in the nitride to reduce interfacial energy. Microstructure revealed that the nitride grows with interrupted columnar grains, renucleating at each metal/nitride interface. Presence of both phases was confirmed at even very low bilayer spacing, with slight changes in multilayers architecture, from planar interfaces to curved interfaces. The chosen system proved to be an ideal system for multilayer study without formation of secondary nitrides. Residual stress and hardness reduced with increase in metal layer thickness, whereas modulus was seen to follow the rule of mixture value. Detailed contact damage study of ZrN/Zr is reported in section two with influence of volume fraction and metal layer thickness. All the experimental results were corroborated with finite element methods. A comparative study of contact damage of multilayer with monolayer was carried out with cross section as well as plan view of indents. Metal plasticity was able to distribute damage laterally as well as vertically, hence reducing the stress concentration. There lies an optimum thickness of the metal providing maximum toughening by increasing the threshold load required for edge cracking. The sliding of columns is resisted by the metal. However, thick metal layers promote microcracking in individual nitride layers. Cracking is restricted to within individual nitride layers, eliminating through thickness cracking. The intermediate metal thickness was able to provide a mechanism of laterally distributing sliding and hence a higher tolerance level of the indentation strain that can be accommodated without cracking. Thin metal multilayers were seen to show delamination, strongly influenced by the multilayer architecture. We use the finite element method to understand the influence of stress fields in driving these various modes of damage for varying volume fraction and metal layer thicknesses. It is demonstrated how metal plasticity results in stress enhancement in the nitride layer compared to a monolayer and reduces the shear stress, which is the driving force for columnar sliding. The micro cracking to columnar shearing transition with metal thickness was explained with the help of average shear and normal stress across the multilayer which could explain the transition from cracking and sliding to interfacial delamination in thin metal layer multilayers with enhancement in interfacial shear stress. TiAlN/TiN multilayer allowed to exploit a form of compositional contrast to measure the strain with respect to depth. Layers acting as strain markers quantify the amount of sliding in terms of the offset in layers with respect to depth within the coating. We illustrate with transmission electron micrographs, the flaw generation that occurs as a result of sliding of misaligned column boundaries. These boundary kinks,upon further loading, may lead to cracks running at an angle to the indentation axis in an otherwise dense, defect free, as deposited coating. A previous study illustrates the increase in resistance of multilayers to multiple modes of cracking that are seen in the monolayer nitride coatings on steel substrates. We provide evidence of the enhanced plasticity, seen as macroscopic bending, which in reality is column sliding in a series of distributed small steps. We discuss the role of misfit dislocations in spreading the material laterally to accommodate the constraints during indentation and lattice bending. Interfacial sliding is seen to reduce the stress concentration by distributing the vertical column sliding and accommodating the flaws generated by the sliding of misaligned column boundaries. Some preferred boundaries with special orientation relations do slide, while near the substrate, the sliding is facilitated by the relaxation in intrinsic residual stresses. An analytical model which was formulated earlier is used to support our experimental findings. Investigations of the plausible reasons for the naturally occurring multilayer mollusc sea shells to reach stiffnesses equal to the upper bound of the rule of mixture value have concluded that its brick and mortar organization is responsible for its exceptional mechanical properties. Inspired by the same model, heat treatment was used to change the architecture of the soft-hard metal/nitride combination from that of the planar interface of the as deposited multilayer to a brick and mortar arrangement. Such an interconnected ZrN microstructure was successfully achieved and the stiffness and hardness were both seen to increase relative to the as received coatings. The possible reasons for this enhancement are discussed in term of this newly emerged architecture ,change in residual stress as well as changes in stoichiometry after heat treatment. The contact damage, though, was found to be more catastrophic relative to the as deposited coating with increased propensities for edge and lateral cracking. This was attributed to the interconnected nitrides formed in the brick and mortar architecture as well as residual stress changes due to the dissolution of Zr in ZrN to form off-stoichiometric nitrides. The cracks feel the presence of the metal and deviate from the otherwise smooth trajectory and take a path along the interface of the metal packet and the interconnected nitride. Summarizing, the present study clearly illustrates the fact that interfaces play an important role in damage control under contact loading. Fracture and deformation are either controlled by metal plasticity, distributing the column sliding in metal/nitride multilayers or by interfacial sliding mediated by interfacial misfit dislocations in case of the nitride/nitride multilayer coatings. The effective role of interfaces is to distribute damage laterally as well as horizontally to relieve stresses and hence enhance the damage tolerance under indentation. Optimum metal layer thickness has been proposed for maximum toughening in the metal/nitride multilayer coating and the role of interfaces in providing modes of plasticity is presented for the nitride/nitride multilayer coatings by use of extensive transmission electron microscopic investigations. A new interconnected architecture coatings provides a unique way of combining stiffness and toughness along with scope for further developing such configurations with improved mechanical properties.

According to current industrial and societal demands, product manufacturing is now highly competitive. The current research is primarily focused on the creation of functionally graded materials that are essential for automotive cylinders and their internal components. Since aluminum plays a significant role in automobile components, layerwise deposition of the matrix and reinforcements is used. Aluminum alloy (Al 356) was investigated in weight proportions of 100, 95, and 90%, while the reinforcement varied from 0 to 7.5%. The particulate reinforcements were chosen to be silicon carbide (SiC) and nickel (Ni). Zinc stearate is used as lubricating agent to enhance the free-flow compaction process and to avoid the wastage in synthesis. The compressed specimens were examined for various mechanical and microstructural characterization. An ultimate compressive strength of 328 MPa and 68 BHN was achieved at 85% Al, 5% SiC, and 7.5% Ni, as per research criterion. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDAX), and X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) images of the inclusions and matrix are compatible and compact due to the excellent bonding. The process variables were adjusted using Taguchi optimization, which shows that the sintering duration and compaction pressure are crucial for the validation of manufacturing and characterization.

Mimicking the unique hierarchical, multiscale structures of natural biological materials is a promising approach to create novel materials with outstanding properties. One of the challenges, however, is the lack of scalable fabrication methods capable of making such complex structures. In this study, a multilayer nanocomposite has been synthesized by incorporating an ultrasonic spray deposition technique. The spray deposition system was used to deposit nanoparticles on substrate foils, which were consolidated to synthesize the multilayer composite. A patterned mask was used to create micro-patterns with nanoscale structures. A magnesium alloy, AZ31, foils were used as the matrix material. A mixture of nano-silicon carbide (nano-SiC) and aluminum alloy, Al6061, particles was used as the reinforcement phase in the deposited patterns. A three point bend test and a small punch test were carried out to evaluate the mechanical properties. A multilayer composite consisting of circular micro-patterns with SiC nano-structure was successfully created. The patterned composite showed an enhancement in the flexural yield strength and the flexural ultimate strength of 43% and 30% respectively, compared with the uniform multilayer composite without the patterns.

Computer simulation of magneto-optical responses as a function of wavelength (300 - 800 nm), thicknesses, and material were made, based on the scattering matrix formulation for the calculation of optical and magneto-optical response of multilayer systems.1 Results from the following MO materials systems are presented: bismuth substituted garnets, TbFeCo, PtMnSb, and NiMnSb. Silicon nitride and silicon carbide were the dielectrics used in the simulations, and aluminum was assumed for the reflector. The optimum structure for each of these materials systems has been found. The Kerr rotation, ellipticity, reflectance, and figures of merit for recording were calculated.

An explosive welding technique which uses underwater shock wave to weld thin aluminum plate has been studied and the technical advantages were reported. In this research, we propose a method to produce a composite material using an underwater shock wave generated by detonation of explosive. In the production process, a metal plate (flyer plate) accelerates to a high speed by the underwater shock wave, and collided with diamond particles and penetrated the metal plate. Diamonds were used as the particles and aluminum plates (A1050) as the flyer plates. Diamond has high hardness and excellent thermal conductivity, therefore diamond should provide improvement in the thermal conductivity of the composite material. From recovered sample, the multilayer joined surface including diamond particles was observed using an optical microscope. The production of the pipe of composite materials was attempted using this technique as the application. Details of the experimental methods and results are reported in this paper.

This paper deals with the reaction of dense Metastable Intermolecular Composite (MIC) materials. The energy density of MIC nanocomposite materials is much higher than that of conventional energetic materials. The reaction of a multilayer thin film of aluminum and copper oxide has been studied by varying the substrate material and thicknesses, to vary the heat loss during the reaction of the MIC material. The in-plane speed of propagation of the reaction was experimentally determined using a time of-flight technique. The experiment shows that the reaction is completely quenched for a silicon substrate having an intervening silica layer of less than 200 nm. The speed of reaction seems to be constant at 40 m/s for silica layers with thickness greater than 1 μm. Different substrate material such as glass was also used. A numerical analysis of the thermal transport from the reacting film shows that the temperature profiles become self similar for substrate thicknesses larger than 1 μm., the maximum temperature stays constant for both silica and composite silica/silicon substrates, showing the effectiveness of the composite substrates to control the heat lost from the reaction, both experimentally and numerically.

Abstract In this paper, aramid and mullite light fiber fabrics are coated with different ceramics by atmospheric plasma spraying. To check the suitability of the process for as many technical applications as possible, different ceramic materials are used and multilayer coatings are produced as well. Test results for bioinert and biocatalytic materials, such as titanium dioxide and aluminum oxide, and bioactive hydroxyapatite show that the concept has good potential for a range of biomedical applications. Paper includes a German-language abstract.

Abstract A sudden increase in the usage of automotive vehicles results in sudden increases in the fuel consumption which results in an increase in air pollution. To cope up with this challenge federal government is implying the stricter environmental regulation to decrease air pollution. To save from the environmental regulation penalty vehicle industry is researching innovation which would reduce vehicle weight and decrease the fuel consumption. Thus, the innovation related to light-weighting is not only an option anymore but became a mandatory necessity to decrease fuel consumption. To achieve this target, the industry has been looking at fabricating components from high strength to ultra-high strength steels or lightweight materials. With the usage of advanced high strength steels, the lightweight was achieved by reducing a gage thickness without compromising the strength aspect. However due to their high strength property often challenges occurred are higher machine tonnage requirement, sudden fracture, geometric defect, etc. The geometric defect comes from the elastic recovery of a material, which is also known as a springback. Springback is commonly known as a manufacturing defect due to the geometric error in the part, which would not be able to fit in the assembly without secondary operation or compensation in the forming process. It is learned that the springback of the material increases with an increase in the material strength and/or decrease in material thickness. In advanced high strength steels, higher strength and lower gage thickness options make the part prone to higher springback. Due to these many challenges, other research route involved is composite material, where light materials can be used with high strength material to reduce the overall vehicle weight. This generally includes, tailor welded blanks, multilayer material, mechanical joining of dissimilar material, etc. Due to substantial use of dissimilar materials, these parts are also called as hybrid components. It was noted that the part weight decreases with the use of hybrid components without compromising the integrity and safety. In the previously published paper in IMECE2017 the study was focused on equal layer thickness of metal and composite in bilayer material. In this paper, a springback analysis was performed considering bilayer metal by varying the thickness of the metal as well as the composite. For this two dissimilar materials aluminum and composite was considered as bonded material. This material was then bent on a free bend die. The bilayer springback was compared with different layer thickness of metal and composite and in different condition like aluminum layer on punch side and then on die side. These results were then compared with the baseline springback of only aluminum thin and thick layer.

Abstract This paper presents the results of metal dielectric multilayer structures based on aluminum alloys and several oxide ceramics respectively. It investigates thermomechanical and dielectric properties with regard to the use of different powders for thermal spraying as well as a high and a low energy gun for atmospheric spraying. The experimental work of this study is divided into two main parts: the selection of materials and the development of promising coating systems and the manufacturing and testing of novel ozonizer tubes. The investigated coating systems are analysed focusing the application in ozonizers. Therefore, a metallic electrode, an oxide ceramic and the dielectric properties of the metal-ceramic-composite are analysed. Finally, the appropriate metal-ceramic composites are tested in an ozonizer. Paper includes a German-language abstract.

Some particulate unit operations (apparatus engineering) are developed to control the particle morphology. The innovative aspect of this operation is the correspondence between the necessary material properties and their apparatus optimization. Spherical powders of aluminum oxynitride and aluminum nitride are directly prepared by flame synthesis (in spite of the fact that oxygen serves as an indispensable reactant). Non-oxide powders are commonly non-spherical with a size below the submicrometer scale. The major limiting factors in their synthesis are free energy, reaction temperature, and reaction rate. The innovative aspect of this flame synthesis technology assisted by DC arc plasma concerns the reducing gas composition beyond 1500 K. A chemical equilibrium calculation indicates that the plasma heating compensates the lack of reaction temperature under a low oxygen condition. This burner realizes a high-speed reaction with the help of reactive species in the arcs. We also report the multilayer-coated cosmetic powders with regard to material application, and the powder bed shear force evaluation equipment with regard to apparatus optimization.