| Nov 15, 2023 |
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(Nanowerk Information) Scientists from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the IMDEA Materiales Institute have developed a brand new experimental method in fragmentation checks to judge the power absorption capability within the occasion of influence of metallic constructions manufactured utilizing 3D printing. This method, which is extra versatile, less complicated and quicker than others presently used, makes it attainable to check the mechanical efficiency of those supplies as protecting constructions.
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The principle purposes of this analysis are associated to the aeronautics, aerospace engineering, safety and civil engineering sectors, areas the place it’s important to develop new supplies to construct light-weight, transportable protecting constructions that may be repaired in service and that even have the power to soak up power within the occasion of an influence. For instance, within the occasion of a collision of a chook with an plane, in unintended collisions between motor autos or in explosions that will happen in assaults on authorities buildings and significant infrastructures, corresponding to nuclear energy crops, the researchers say.
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| Sequence of frames taken from a high-speed digicam recording of the influence of the projectile on the tube throughout the experiments. (Picture: UC3M)
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“The thought is to have the ability to manufacture protecting constructions with 3D printing to cut back their price, minimise waste, personalise their design and offshore their manufacturing, provided that it may very well be carried out in-situ, which might be an excellent benefit particularly for aerospace and defence purposes,” explains Juan Carlos Nieto Fuentes, Marie Curie CONEX-Plus researcher (GA 801538) from UC3M’s Division of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Evaluation, who not too long ago revealed this work within the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids (“Excessive-velocity influence fragmentation of additively-manufactured metallic tubes”).
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“The article presents a brand new experimental method launched on the UC3M Impression Laboratory, the place we feature out fragmentation checks at influence speeds of as much as 400 metres per second,” explains one other of the authors, José Antonio Rodríguez Martínez, a Senior Lecturer in the identical UC3M division who has developed this analysis throughout the framework of PURPOSE, a European Union ERC Beginning Grant (GA 758056) undertaking.
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The researchers have filmed these checks with two high-speed cameras and have additionally carried out X-ray tomography of the printed materials constructions, earlier than and after being examined, with the collaboration of colleagues from the IMDEA Materiales Institute, who’ve carried out the microstructural characterisation of the samples.
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“Particularly, now we have decided the distribution in form and dimension of the pores ensuing from the printing course of and now we have investigated their impact on the formation and propagation of cracks, and thus on the power absorption capability of the construction,” says Federico Sket, senior scientist at IMDEA Supplies, who has participated on this research from this analysis institute collectively together with his colleague Jonathan Espinoza, analysis assistant on the institute.
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The fragmentation experiments have been carried out on the UC3M Impression Laboratory utilizing a helium-driven gasoline gun. Particularly, the researchers launched a round, conical-nosed projectile weighing about 150 grams that hit a thin-walled tube at speeds starting from 200 to 400 metres per second (between 720 and 1,440 km/h). On this case, the diameter of the projectile is bigger than the diameter of the tube, which expands radially because the projectile advances, till a number of fractures kind, leading to fragmentation of the pattern.
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“The method is less complicated, quicker to make use of, versatile and has a decrease working price than methods that use explosives or electromagnetic methods. Our system additionally permits us to hold out extra experiments in much less time and thus get hold of a variety of checks that present statistically vital outcomes,” clarify Sergio Puerta and David Pedroche, laboratory technicians from UC3M’s Division of Continuum Mechanics and Structural Evaluation, who have been concerned in finishing up the experiments.
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The researchers say that it is a pioneering methodology and hope to put the foundations for a protocol that can make it attainable to systematically decide whether or not a printed construction is able to absorbing power upon influence, primarily based on the characterisation of its porous microstructure and its correlation with fragmentation mechanisms.
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“This method will in the end inform us whether or not steel 3D printing is a viable method for constructing protecting constructions,” says José Antonio Rodríguez Martínez. “Within the US there are already particular programmes promoted by the Division of Defence and the Division of Vitality to fund this line of analysis, so we hope that the European Union and the Authorities of Spain will even develop a long-term imaginative and prescient that can permit us to deliver the basic analysis we’re finishing up into engineering follow,” he concludes.
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