Machining is among the most versatile material removal processes in the manufacturing industry. To better optimize the machining process, the knowledge of shear strains and shear strain rates within the primary shear zone (PSZ) during chip formation has been of great interest. The objective of this study is to study the strain and strain rate progression within the PSZ both in the chip flow direction and along the thickness direction during machining equal channel angular extrusion (ECAE) processed titanium (Ti). ECAE-processed ultrafine-grained Ti has been machined at cutting speeds of 0.1 and 0.5 m/s, and the shear strain and the shear strain rate have been determined using high speed imaging and digital image correlation (DIC). It is found that the chip morphology is saw-tooth at 0.1 m/s while continuous at 0.5 m/s. The cumulative shear strain and the incremental shear strain rate of the saw-tooth chip morphology can reach approximately 3.9 and 2.4 × 103 s−1, respectively, and those of the continuous chip morphology may be approximately 1.3 and 5.0 × 103 s−1, respectively. There is a distinct peak shift in the shear strain rate distribution during saw-tooth chip formation while there is a stable peak position of the strain rate distribution during continuous chip formation. The PSZ thickness during saw-tooth chip formation is more localized and smaller than that during continuous chip formation (28 versus 35 μm).

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Additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, is a promising approach for the fabrication of biological structures for regenerative medicine applications using tissue-like materials such as hydrogels. Herein, inkjet printing is implemented as a model droplet-based 3D printing technology for which interfaces have been shown to form between printed lines within printed layers of hydrogel structures. Experimental samples with interfaces in two orientations are fabricated by inkjet printing and control samples with and without interfaces are fabricated by extrusion printing and casting, respectively. The formation of partial and full interfaces is modeled in terms of printing conditions and gelation parameters, and an approach to predicting the ratio of interfacial area to the total contact area between two adjacent lines is presented. Digital image correlation is used to determine strain distributions and identify regions of increased localized deformation for samples under uniaxial tension. Despite the presence of interfaces in inkjet-printed samples, strain distributions are found to be homogeneous regardless of interface orientation, which may be attributed to the multi-layer nature of samples. Conversely, single-layer extrusion-printed samples exhibit localized regions of increased deformation between printed lines, indicating delamination along interfaces. The effective stiffness, failure strength, and failure strain of inkjet-printed samples are found to be dependent on the orientation of interfaces within layers. Specifically, inkjet-printed samples in which tensile forces pull apart interfaces exhibit significantly decreased mechanical properties compared to cast samples.

Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys are among the lightest metallic structural materials, making them very attractive for use in the aerospace and automotive industries. Recently, Mg has been used in metal matrix composites (MMCs), demonstrating significant improvements in mechanical performance. However, the machinability of Mg-based MMCs is still largely elusive. In this study, Mg-based MMCs are machined using a wide range of cutting speeds in order to elucidate both the chip morphology and chip formation mechanism. Cutting speed is found to have the most significant influence on both the chip morphology and chip formation mechanism, with the propensity of discontinuous, particle-type chip formation increasing as the cutting speed increases. Saw-tooth chips are found to be the primary chip morphology at low cutting speeds (lower than 0.5 m/s), while discontinuous, particle-type chips prevail at high cutting speeds (higher than 1.0 m/s). Using in situ high-speed imaging, the formation of the saw-tooth chip morphology is found to be due to crack initiation at the free surface. However, as the cutting speed (and strain rate) increases, the formation of the discontinuous, particle-type chip morphology is found to be due to crack initiation at the tool tip. In addition, the influences of tool rake angle, particle size, and particle volume fracture are investigated and found to have little effect on the chip morphology and chip formation mechanism.

Diametrical compression testing is an important technique to evaluate fracture properties of the SiC layer in TRISO-coated nuclear fuel particles. This study was conducted to expand the understanding and improve the methodology of the test. An analytic solution and multiple FEA models are used to determine the development of the principal stress fields in the SiC shell during a crush test. An ideal fracture condition where the diametrical compression test best mimics in-service internal pressurization conditions was discovered. For a small set of empirical data points, results from different analysis methodologies were input to an iterative Weibull equation set to determine characteristic strength (332.9 MPa) and Weibull modulus (3.80). These results correlate well with published research. It is shown that SiC shell asphericity is currently the limiting factor of greatest concern to obtaining repeatable results. Improvements to the FEA are the only apparent method for incorporating asphericity and improving accuracy.