Sharif Digital Repository

It is commonly known that the properties of materials are strongly related to their microstructure. This paper introduces a method that is a combination of rapid solidification (melt spinning) and semisolid forming (thixoforming) processes, which are used to refine the microstructure of “as-cast” Al–30Si–5Fe alloy and improve its mechanical properties. Produced Al–30Si–5Fe ribbons by melt-spinning process, were pulverized and subsequently consolidated at 300 °C in argon atmosphere. Prepared specimens were thixoformed at temperatures ranging from 580 to 700 °C in various holding times. Some samples were also directly thixoformed from as-cast condition. Microstructure of the as-cast, meltspun,... 

In this study, a combination of rapid solidification (melt-spinning) and semisolid forming (thixoforming) processes was used to refine the coarse microstructure of “as-cast” Al–30Si–5Fe alloy and improve its mechanical properties. Al–30Si–5Fe ribbons produced by the melt-spinning process were pulverized and subsequently consolidated at 300 °C in an argon atmosphere. Prepared specimens were thixoformed at temperatures ranging from 580 to 700 °C for various holding times. Some cast samples were also directly thixoformed as reference. In all thixoformed samples, microstructures were modified and needle-like intermetallic compounds as well as silicon particles in the as-cast part were changed... 

Semisolid stir joining has been under deliberation as a possible method for joining of copper alloys. In this study, the effect of temperature and rotational speed of stirrer on macrostructure evaluation and mechanical properties of samples were investigated. Optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction were performed for macro and microstructural analysis. A uniform micro-hardness profile was attained by semisolid stir joining method. The ultimate shear strength and bending strength of welded samples were improved in comparison with the cast sample. There is also lower area porosity in welded samples than the cast metal. The mechanical properties were improved by increasing temperature and... 

In this study, the effect of electromagnetic vibration on joining of aluminum alloy 2024 was investigated. Simultaneously applying a static magnetic field and alternating electrical current passing through a conductor produced electromagnetic vibration. Joining was accomplished using constant electric current (60 A) and the magnetic flux of 75, 110, and 145 mT in the presence of argon gas. After joining, samples were cooled first by argon gas as a shielding gas and then by water. The microstructure and mechanical properties of the welded samples were studied for different electromagnetic vibrations. The optimum microstructure and mechanical properties were obtained when applied... 

The development of inexpensive, equipment-free, portable, and user/environmentally-friendly analytical devices that can be efficiently utilized for on-site detection of PA is still a great challenge. To address these unmet demands, we have developed a smartphone-based disposable sensing bioplatform through immobilization of chlorophyll in a cotton thread for fluorescent monitoring of picric acid (PA). The fluorescence quenching of chlorophyll upon increasing the PA concentration based on the inner filter effect was considered as the sensing strategy in the developed sensor. The fabricated thread-based microfluidic sensing bioplatform was further coupled with a compact, low cost, portable,... 

This paper is a counterfactual analysis investigating the consequences of the formation of a currency union for Canada and the USA: whether outputs increase and prices decrease if these countries form a currency union. We use a two-country cointegrated model to conduct the counterfactual analysis, where the conditional forecasts are generated based on the Gaussian assumption. To deal with structural breaks and model uncertainty, conditional forecasts are generated from different models/estimation windows and the model-averaging technique is used to combine the forecasts. We also examine the robustness of our results to parameter uncertainty using the wild bootstrap method. The results show...