Sharif Digital Repository

A series of bifunctional Cu-ZnO-ZrO2/H-Y catalysts of different compositions were prepared by coprecipitating sedimentation method and were characterized by surface area and XRD analyses. The catalytic performance in synthesis of tetrahydrofuran was evaluated and optimized in a three-phase slurry batch reactor. The experimental results showed that the appropriate ratio of Cu/ZnO in the hydrogenation catalyst was 50/45, for which the conversion of maleic anhydride (MA) and selectivity of tetrahydrofuran (THF) reached 100% and 46%, respectively, at 50 bar and 493 K after 6 h of operation. Also, according to these results, it was demonstrated that the incorporation of zirconium oxide in the... 

Microstructural evolution of the spray atomized and powder thixoformed hyper-eutectic A390 aluminum alloy was investigated. The spray atomized powder revealed homogeneous and very fine silicon particles distribution, due to the rapid solidification of the alloy. The semi-solid powders were extruded into a closed die cavity through a hole for the plastic deformation of the powder particles. A drop forge of 45kg weight at different heights was used in this investigation. Remarkable rearrangement and growth of the silicon rich phase was revealed in the final stage  

In this investigation a theoretical model based on artificial neural network (ANN) has been developed to predict porosity percent and correlate the chemical composition and cooling rate to the amount of porosity in Al-Si casting alloys. In addition, the sensivity analysis was performed to investigate the importance of the effects of different alloying elements, composition, grain refiner, modifier and cooling rate on porosity formation behavior of Al-Si casting alloys. By comparing the predicted values with the experimental data, it is demonstrated that the well-trained feed forward back propagation ANN model with eight nodes in hidden layer is a powerful tool for prediction of porosity... 

In this investigation a theoretical model based on artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA) has been developed to optimize effective parameters on porosity formation in Al-Si casting alloys. The ANN theory was used to correlate the chemical composition and cooling rate to the amount of porosity. The GA and ANN were incorporated to find the optimal conditions for achieving the minimum porosity percent. By comparing the predicted values with the experimental data - earlier deduced by Dash et al. - it is demonstrated that the combined GA-ANN model is a useful and efficient method to find the optimal conditions for casting of Al-Si alloys associated with the minimum porosity... 

Production of NiTi alloy from elemental powders was conducted by mechanical alloying (MA) and sintering of the raw materials. Effects of milling time and milling speed (RPM) on crystallite size, lattice strain, and XRD peak intensities were investigated by X-ray analysis of the alloy. Powder compaction and sintering time and temperature effects on pore percentage of the as-mixed and the mechanically alloyed samples were empirically evaluated. The crystallite size of the mechanically alloyed Ni50Ti50 samples decreased with MA duration and with the milling speed. Depending on the crystal structure of the raw materials, the lattice strain increases with the milling duration. Metallographic... 

The mechanical properties of Mg-4wt.% Zn alloy single crystals along the [0001] orientation were measured through micropillar compression at 23 °C and 100 °C. Basal slip was dominant in the solution treated alloy, while pyramidal slip occurred in the precipitation hardened alloy. Pyramidal dislocations pass the precipitates by forming Orowan loops, leading to homogeneous deformation and to a strong hardening. The predictions of the yield stress based on the Orowan model were in reasonable agreement with the experimental data. The presence of rod-shape precipitates perpendicular to the basal plane leads to a strong reduction in the plastic anisotropy of Mg. © 2020 Elsevier B.V  

The mechanical properties of Mg-4wt.% Zn alloy single crystals along the [0001] orientation were measured through micropillar compression at 23 °C and 100 °C. Basal slip was dominant in the solution treated alloy, while pyramidal slip occurred in the precipitation hardened alloy. Pyramidal dislocations pass the precipitates by forming Orowan loops, leading to homogeneous deformation and to a strong hardening. The predictions of the yield stress based on the Orowan model were in reasonable agreement with the experimental data. The presence of rod-shape precipitates perpendicular to the basal plane leads to a strong reduction in the plastic anisotropy of Mg. © 2020 Elsevier B.V  

The dendritic structure of a cast ZA27 alloy can be transformed into a globular structure, if it is cold worked prior to being held in a semi-solid condition. The globular or the equiaxed particles are surrounded by the lower melting matrix. The dendritic structure was swaged and recrystallised prior to holding in a semi-solid state in this investigation. The semi-solid holding of the alloy at temperatures above and below that of peritectic reaction was carried out for various lengths of time. It was shown that the liquid fraction is decreased to below the peritectic temperature which leads to a reduction of lubrication between the solid globules and an increasing deformation force. Holding... 

Aluminum matrix nanocomposites were fabricated by friction stir processing of Al–Mg alloy sheets with pre-placed TiO2 nanoparticles at a concentration of 2 to 6 vol%. Microstructural studies showed that solid state reactions between the metal matrix and TiO2 particles caused in situ formation of MgO and Al3Ti nanophases with an average size ~50 nm. These nanophases were homogenously distributed in an ultra-fine grain structure (0.2–2 µm) of the base metal. The results of pole figures evaluation obtained by electron back scattered diffraction studies revealed that the random orientation of initial annealed sheet was changed to components near to shear and silver texture in the friction stir... 

Al86Ni10MM4 (MM: Mischmetal) amorphous ribbons were prepared by melt spinning on a child copper wheel. Non-isothermal crystallization kinetics of the amorphous alloy was studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The crystallized phases were determined by X-ray diffraction method and transmission electron microscopy. DSC traces were analyzed by Kissinger method to determine the apparent activation energy of crystallization. Changes in the activation energy (Eα) with progression of crystallization were also evaluated by differential iso-conversional method of Friedman. For the precipitation of nanometer-sized Al particles, the activation energy slightly increased with increasing the... 

Effect of Al2O3 nanoparticles (80 nm) on the grain structure and phase formation in Ni-50Ti system during high-energy mechanical alloying (MA) was studied. While the formation of NiTi B2 phase occurs progressively during MA, it is shown that the hard inclusions cause abrupt phase formation at short milling times, particularly at higher nano-Al2O3 contents. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy showed significant grain refinement in the presence of alumina nanoparticles to sizes less than 10 nm, which precedes the formation of semicrystalline structure and reduces the diffusion length and thus accelerates the phase formation. The composite powder reached steady-state MA condition... 

Nanostructured AA6063 (NS-Al) powder with an average grain size of ∼100 nm was synthesized by high-energy attrition milling of gas-atomized AA6063 powder followed by hot extrusion. The microstructural features of the consolidated specimen were studied by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) techniques and compared with those of coarse-grained AA6063 (CG-Al) produced by hot powder extrusion of gas-atomized powder (without using mechanical milling). The consolidated NS-Al alloy consisted of elongated ultrafine grains (aspect ratio of ∼2.9) and equiaxed nanostructured grains. A high fraction (∼78%) of high-angle grain boundaries with average... 

To improve the hydrogen kinetics of magnesium hydride, TiCr1.2Fe0.6 alloy was prepared by vacuum arc remelting (VAR) and the alloy was co-milled with MgH2 to process nanostructured MgH2–5 at.% TiCr1.2Fe0.6 powder. The hydrogen desorption properties of the composite powder were studied and compared with pure magnesium hydride. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis showed that the composite powder prepared by VAR/mechanical alloying (MA) procedure consisted of β-MgH2, γ-MgH2, bcc Ti–Cr–Fe alloy, and small amount of MgO. The average size of particles and their grain structure after 4 h MA were determined by a laser particle size analyzer and XRD method and found to be 194 nm and 11 nm, respectively.... 

The cast-decant-cast is a new method for the preparation of the functionally graded components that has been developed in recent years. The functionally graded cylindrical shape component with a radial gradient, e.g. the first alloy (A390) with high wear resistance on the surface of the piece and toughness and the second alloy (A356) of low machining costs in the core of the piece can be produced via this melt process. The effect of the second alloy superheat at temperatures of 750, 820 and 860 °C as well as the effect of the first alloy solidified layer at 25, 35 and 45 s decanting time on achieving the perfect interface between the two alloys was investigated. The characterization of the... 

In this study, rhodium-copper alloys of different compositions are electrodeposited on graphite electrode from aqueous solutions. The bulk compositions of these alloys are determined using energy dispersive X-ray analysis and surface morphologies are investigated by scanning electron microscopy. The catalytic performance of these alloys in oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in alkaline media is investigated by linear sweep voltammetry on rotating disk electrode assembly. The number of electrons transferred per O 2 molecule (n) obtained at different potentials is four indicating full reduction of oxygen to hydroxide ion. It is shown that Rh-Cu alloys are better electrocatalysts than Rh with... 

The ever increasing number of shape memory alloy applications has motivated the development of appropriate constitutive models taking into account large rotations and moderate or finite strains. Up to now proposed finite-strain constitutive models usually contain an asymmetric tensor in the definition of the limit (yield) function. To this end, in the present work, we propose an improved alternative constitutive model in which all quantities are symmetric. To conserve the volume during inelastic deformation, an exponential mapping is used to arrive at the time-discrete form of the evolution equation. Such a symmetric model simplifies the constitutive relations and as a result of less... 

A novel constitutive equation has been proposed to predict the effect of aging treatment on mechanical properties of AA6082 aluminum alloy. Considering that aging phenomenon affects the distribution of alloying element in matrix, and the fact that different distribution of alloying elements has different impediments to dislocation movement, a material model based on microstructure, has been developed in this research. A relative volume fraction or mean radius of precipitations is introduced into the flow stress by using the appropriate relationships. The GA-based optimization technique is used to evaluate the material constants within the equations from the uni-axial tensile test data of... 

Adsorption of molecular and atomic oxygen on neutral and negatively charged PdxCu3-x (x=0-3) nano-clusters have been studied by density functional theory. It has been observed that modes and energies of adsorption strongly depend on the charge and composition of the nano-clusters. The most stable adsorption mode for molecular oxygen on neutral Pd/Cu nano-clusters is to bridge Pd-Cu site (adsorption energy=-103.7kJmol-1) while on negatively charged nano-clusters bridging of Pd-Pd or Cu-Cu are more stable adsorption modes (adsorption energies=-140.9 and -172.9kJmol-1). Also, the most stable adsorption mode for atomic oxygen on neutral Pd/Cu nano-clusters is on the hollow site (adsorption... 

As one of the key technologies for high performance electronic devices, composite solders have been recently developed to improve thermal and mechanical properties of solder joints. In this research, melt spinning was employed to fabricate a lead-free based nanocomposite solder for electronic application materials via introducing Ni-coated Al2O3 nanoparticles (0.1 wt%) into a Sn-Ag-Cu ternary eutectic alloy during rapid solidification. These surface-modified nanoparticles were synthesized by an in situ chemical reduction method. The effect of rapid solidification on the distribution of reinforcing nanoparticles, microstructural evolution, and solderability of the tin alloy were studied.... 

Improvement of mechanical properties and microstructure of 2024 aluminum alloy by performing a severe plastic deformation method, called multidirectional forging (MDF), and heat treatment was the aim of this research. In this work, the effects of different heat treatments such as annealing, solid solution, peak ageing and over ageing before MDF on mechanical properties and microstructure of the alloy were studied. Microstructure evolution during severe plastic deformation was considerably affected by the precipitates and non-shearable particles. On the other hand, the severe plastic deformation had different effects on precipitates in the microstructure. Fragmentation, scattering and...