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Aluminum is a very commonly used material at present, and roughly half of the produced aluminum products undergo forming during manufacturing. Galling is a severe form of wear that occurs during sheet metal forming operations and is a common failure mode of materials in sliding contact; however, the causes and mechanisms of galling are poorly understood. In this work, sliding wear experiments were conducted to produce galling wear between a tool steel ball bearing and aluminum alloy Al5083, to study the relationship between the coefficient of friction, the lump growth on the tool and the scratch morphology. Whilst the characteristic friction regimes were observed, the characteristic damage (grooves running parallel to the scratch direction) was not observed. Instead, when galling was developed on the indenter, the scratch surface morphology displayed a series of peaks and grooves perpendicular to the scratch direction. It is likely that the difference in scratch morphology observed once galling was initiated is due to the lower hardness and reduced work hardening behavior of the Al5083 alloy, compared to the high strength steels previously examined in sheet metal forming applications. The evolution of the scratch morphology has been characterized in a novel way by investigating the distribution of the longitudinal cross-section profile height along the scratch length in relation to the three-stage friction regime observed. This showed that, as the galling wear progressed, the longitudinal cross-section profile height distribution shifts towards negative values, with a corresponding shift in the distribution of material transferred to the tool shifting to the positive. This indicates that, as the amount of material adhered to the indenter increased, the depth of the grooves on the scratch surface perpendicular to the sliding direction also increased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vibration isolation performance at low-frequency ranges before resonance is a vital characteristic that conventional springs cannot exhibit. This paper introduces a novel zero Poisson's ratio graded cylindrical metamaterial to fulfill two main goals: (1) vibration isolation performance in low-frequency bands prior to resonance and (2) global buckling control of a long cylindrical tube. For this purpose, "soft and stiff" re-entrant unit cells with varying stiffness were developed. The cylindrical metamaterials were then fabricated using a multi-jet fusion HP three-dimensional (3D) printer. The finite element analyses (FEA) and experimental results demonstrate that the simultaneous existence of multi-stiffness unit cells leads to quasi-zero stiffness (QZS) regions in the force-displacement relationship of a cylindrical metamaterial under compression. They possess significant vibration isolation performance at frequency ranges between 10 and 30 Hz. The proposed multi-stiffness re-entrant unit cells also offer global buckling control of long cylindrical tubes (with a length to diameter ratio of 3.7). The simultaneous existence of multi-stiffness re-entrant unit cells provides a feature for designers to adjust and control the deformation patterns and unit cells' densification throughout cylindrical tubes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effect of grain size and composition on the material properties and forming limits of commercially supplied stainless steel foil for bipolar plate manufacture via tensile, stretch forming and micro-stamping trials. It is shown that in commercially supplied stainless steel the grain size can vary significantly and that 'size effects' can be influenced by prior steel processing and composition effects. While the forming limits in micro-stamping appear to be directly linked to the plane strain forming limits of the individual stainless steel alloys, there was a clear effect of the tensile anisotropy. In contrast to previous studies, forming severity and the likelihood of material failure did not increase with a decreasing channel profile radius. This was related to inaccuracies of the forming tool profile shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the sheet metal stamping process, during sliding contact between the tool and sheet, it is expected that severe events such as tool wear or fracture on the sheet generate acoustic emission (AE) burst waveforms. Attempts have been made in the literature to correlate the AE burst waveform with the wear mechanisms. However, there is a need for additional studies to understand the frequency characteristics of the AE burst waveform due to the severity and progression of the galling wear. This paper will determine the AE frequency characteristics that can be used to monitor galling wear, independent of the experimental process examined. The AE burst waveforms generated during the stamping and scratch tests are analysed in this paper to understand the change in the AE frequency characteristics with the galling severity. These AE burst waveforms were investigated using the Hilbert Huang Transform (HHT) time-frequency technique, band power, and mean-frequency. Subsequently, these AE frequency features are correlated with the wear behaviour observed via high-resolution profilometer images of the stamped parts and scratch surfaces. Initially, the HHT technique is applied to the AE burst waveform to understand the influence of wear severity in the power distribution over the wide AE frequency range. Later, the AE bandpower feature is used to quantitatively analyse the power in each frequency interval during the unworn and worn tool conditions. Finally, the mean-frequency of AE signal is identified to be able to determine the onset of galling wear. The new knowledge defined in this paper is the AE frequency features and wear measurement feature that can be used to indicate the onset of galling wear, irrespective of the processes examined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]