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open access

Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene coatings on steel: Adhesion and wear.

Description: Polymeric coatings are being used in a growing number of applications, contributing to protection against weather conditions and localized corrosion, reducing the friction and erosion wear on the substrate. In this study, various polypropylene (PP) coatings were applied onto steel substrates by compression molding. Chemical modification of PP has been performed to increase its adhesion to metallic surfaces by grafting of maleic anhydride (MAH) onto PP in the presence of dicumyl peroxide (DCP). … more
Date: May 2010
Creator: Mahendrakar, Sridhar
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Atomistic Studies of Point Defect Migration Rates in the Iron-Chromium System

Description: Generation and migration of helium and other point defects under irradiation causes ferritic steels based on the Fe-Cr system to age and fail. This is motivation to study point defect migration and the He equation of state using atomistic simulations due to the steels' use in future reactors. A new potential for the Fe-Cr-He system developed by collaborators at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was validated using published experimental data. The results for the He equation of state ag… more
Date: August 2010
Creator: Hetherly, Jeffery
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Microstructure Evolution in Laser Deposited Nickel-Titanium-Carbon in situ Metal Matrix Composite

Description: Ni/TiC metal matrix composites have been processed using the laser engineered net shaping (LENS) process. As nickel does not form an equilibrium carbide phase, addition of a strong carbide former in the form of titanium reinforces the nickel matrix resulting in a promising hybrid material for both surface engineering as well as high temperature structural applications. Changing the relative amounts of titanium and carbon in the nickel matrix, relatively low volume fraction of refined homogeneou… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Gopagoni, Sundeep
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Bioresorbable Polymer Blend Scaffold for Tissue Engineering

Description: Tissue engineering merges the disciplines of study like cell biology, materials science, engineering and surgery to enable growth of new living tissues on scaffolding constructed from implanted polymeric materials. One of the most important aspects of tissue engineering related to material science is design of the polymer scaffolds. The polymer scaffolds needs to have some specific mechanical strength over certain period of time. In this work bioresorbable aliphatic polymers (PCL and PLLA) were… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Manandhar, Sandeep
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Piezoresistive Polyvinylidene Fluoride/Carbon Filled Nanocomposites

Description: This thesis examines the value of using dispersed conductive fillers as a stress/strain sensing material. The effect of the intrinsic conductivity of the filler on the ability to be effective and the influence of filler concentration on the conductivity are also examined. To meet these objectives, nanocomposites of polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) with carbon nanofibers (CNFs) and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were prepared by melt-blending using a twin screw extruder. Since PVDF has a potential to be … more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Vidhate, Shailesh
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Void Growth and Collapse in a Creeping Single Crystal

Description: Aircraft engine components can be subjected to a large number of thermo-mechanical loading cycles and to long dwell times at high temperatures. In particular, the understanding of creep in single crystal superalloy turbine blades is of importance for designing more reliable and fuel efficient aircraft engines. Creep tests on single crystal superalloy specimens have shown greater creep strain rates for thinner specimens than predicted by current theories. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a … more
Date: August 2011
Creator: Srivastava, Ankit
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

First Principle Calculations of the Structure and Electronic Properties of Pentacene Based Organic and ZnO Based Inorganic Semiconducting Materials

Description: In this thesis, I utilize first principles density functional theory (DFT) based calculations to investigate the structure and electronic properties including charge transfer behaviors and work function of two types of materials: pentacene based organic semiconductors and ZnO transparent conducting oxides, with an aim to search for high mobility n-type organic semiconductors and fine tuning work functions of ZnO through surface modifications. Based on DFT calculations of numerous structure comb… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Li, Yun
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Molecular Dynamics Simulations of the Structures of Europium Containing Silicate and Cerium Containing Aluminophosphate Glasses

Description: Rare earth ion doped glasses find applications in optical and photonic devices such as optical windows, laser, and optical amplifiers, and as model systems for immobilization of nuclear waste. Macroscopic properties of these materials, such as luminescence efficiency and phase stability, depend strongly on the atomic structure of these glasses. In this thesis, I have studied the atomic level structure of rare earth doped silicate and aluminophosphate glasses by using molecular dynamics simulati… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Kokou, Leopold Lambert Yaovi
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Scratch Modeling of Polymeric Materials with Molecular Dynamics

Description: It is impossible to determine the amount of money that is spent every replacing products damaged from wear, but it is safe to assume that it is in the millions of dollars. With metallic materials, liquid lubricants are often used to prevent wear from materials rubbing against one another. However, with polymeric materials, liquid lubricants cause swelling, creating an increase in friction and therefore increasing the wear. Therefore, a different method or methods to mitigate wear in polymers sh… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Hilbig, Travis
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

An Integrated Approach to Determine Phenomenological Equations in Metallic Systems

Description: It is highly desirable to be able to make predictions of properties in metallic materials based upon the composition of the material and the microstructure. Unfortunately, the complexity of real, multi-component, multi-phase engineering alloys makes the provision of constituent-based (i.e., composition or microstructure) phenomenological equations extremely difficult. Due to these difficulties, qualitative predictions are frequently used to study the influence of microstructure or composition o… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Ghamarian, Iman
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Laser Modified Alumina: a Computational and Experimental Analysis

Description: Laser surface modification involves rapid melting and solidification is an elegant technique used for locally tailoring the surface morphology of alumina in order to enhance its abrasive characteristics. COMSOL Multiphysics® based heat transfer modeling and experimental approaches were designed and used in this study for single and multiple laser tracks to achieve densely-packed multi-facet grains via temperature history, cooling rate, solidification, scanning electron micrographs, and wear rat… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Moncayo, Marco Antonio
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Solid Lubrication Mechanisms in Laser Deposited Nickel-titanium-carbon Metal Matrix Composites

Description: A Ni/TiC/C metal matrix composite (MMC) has been processed using the laser engineered net shaping (LENS) process from commercially available powders with a Ni-3Ti-20C (atomic %) composition. This processing route produces the in-situ formation of homogeneously distributed eutectic and primary titanium carbide and graphite precipitates throughout the Ni matrix. The composite exhibits promising tribological properties when tested in dry sliding conditions with a low steady state coefficient of fr… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Mogonye, Jon-Erik
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Effect of Retting on Surface Chemistry and Mechanical Performance Interactions in Natural Fibers for High Performance Polymer Composites

Description: Sustainability through replacement of non-renewable fibers with renewable fibers is an ecological need. Impact of transportation costs from South-east Asia on the life cycle analysis of the composite is detrimental. Kenaf is an easily grown crop in America. Farm based processing involves placing the harvested crop in rivers and ponds, where retting of the fibers from the plant (separation into fibers) can take 2 weeks or more. The objective of this thesis is to analyze industrially viable proce… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Ramesh, Dinesh
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Interspecimen Study of Bone to Relate Macromechanical, Nanomechanical and Compositional Changes Across the Femoral Cortex of Bone

Description: Mechanics of bone is widely studied and researched, mainly for the study of fracture. This has been done mostly on a macro scale. In this work hierarchical nature of bone has been explored to investigate bone mechanics in more detail. Flexural test were done to classify the bones according to their strength and deflection. Raman spectroscopy analysis was done to map the mineralization, collagen crosslinking changes across the thickness of the bone. Nanoindentation was done to map indentation ha… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Nar, Mangesh
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Corrosion Protection of Aerospace Grade Magnesium Alloy Elektron 43™ for Use in Aircraft Cabin Interiors

Description: Magnesium alloys exhibit desirable properties for use in transportation technology. In particular, the low density and high specific strength of these alloys is of interest to the aerospace community. However, the concerns of flammability and susceptibility to corrosion have limited the use of magnesium alloys within the aircraft cabin. This work studies a magnesium alloy containing rare earth elements designed to increase resistance to ignition while lowering rate of corrosion. The microst… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Baillio, Sarah S.
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Dislocation Dynamics Simulations of Plasticity in Cu Thin Films

Description: Strong size effects in plastic deformation of thin films have been experimentally observed, indicating non-traditional deformation mechanisms. These observations require improved understanding of the behavior of dislocation in small size materials, as they are the primary plastic deformation carrier. Dislocation dynamics (DD) is a computational method that is capable of directly simulating the motion and interaction of dislocations in crystalline materials. This provides a convenient approach t… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Wu, Han
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Laser Deposition, Heat-treatment, and Characterization of the Binary Ti-xmn System

Description: The present research seeks to characterization of an additively manufactured and heat-treated Ti-xMn gradient alloy, a binary system that has largely been unexplored. In order to rapidly assess this binary system, compositionally graded Ti-xMn (0<x<15 wt%) specimens were fabricated using the LENS (Laser Engineered Net Shaping) and were subsequently heat-treated and characterized using a wide range of techniques. Microstructural changes with respect to the change in thermal treatments, hardness … more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Avasarala, Chandana
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Study of Mechanisms to Engineer Fine Scale Alpha Phase Precipitation in Beta Titanium Alloy, Beta 21S

Description: Metastable b-Ti alloys are titanium alloys with sufficient b stabilizer alloying additions such that it's possible to retain single b phase at room temperature. These alloys are of great advantage compared to a/b alloys since they are easily cold rolled, strip produced and can attain excellent mechanical properties upon age hardening. Beta 21S, a relatively new b titanium alloy in addition to these general advantages is known to possess excellent oxidation and corrosion resistance at elevated t… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Behera, Amit Kishan
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

A Study of Power Generation From a Low-cost Hydrokinetic Energy System

Description: The kinetic energy in river streams, tidal currents, or other artificial water channels has been used as a feasible source of renewable power through different conversion systems. Thus, hydrokinetic energy conversion systems are attracting worldwide interest as another form of distributed alternative energy. Because these systems are still in early stages of development, the basic approaches need significant research. The main challenges are not only to have efficient systems, but also to conve… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Davila Vilchis, Juana Mariel
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Surface Modifications to Enhance the Wear Resistance and the Osseo-integration Properties of Biomedical Ti-alloy

Description: The current study focuses on improving the wear resistance of femoral head component and enhancing the osseo-integration properties of femoral stem component of a hip implant made of a new generation low modulus alloy, Ti-35Nb-7Zr-5Ta or TNZT. Different techniques that were adopted to improve the wear resistance of low-modulus TNZT alloy included; (a) fabrication of graded TNZT-xB (x= 0, 1, 2 wt%) samples using LENS, (b) oxidation, and (c) LASER nitriding of TNZT. TNZT-1B and TNZT-O samples hav… more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Kami, Pavani
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Dynamic Precipitation of Second Phase Under Deformed Condition in Mg-nd Based Alloy

Description: Magnesium alloys are the lightweight structural materials with high strength to weigh ratio that permits their application in fuel economy sensitive automobile industries. Among the several flavors of of Mg-alloys, precipitation hardenable Mg-rare earth (RE) based alloys have shown good potential due to their favorable creep resistance within a wide window of operating temperatures ranging from 150°C to 300°C. A key aspect of Mg-RE alloys is the presence of precipitate phases that leads to str… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Dendge, Nilesh Bajirao
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Laser Surface Modification on Az31b Mg Alloy for Bio-wettability

Description: Laser surface modification of AZ31B Magnesium alloy changes surface composition and roughness to provide improved surface bio-wettability. Laser processing resulted in phase transformation and grain refinement due to rapid quenching effect. Furthermore, instantaneous heating and vaporization resulted in removal of material, leading the textured surface generation. A study was conducted on a continuum-wave diode-pumped ytterbium laser to create multiple tracks for determining the resulting bio-w… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Ho, YeeHsien
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Tribological Behavior of Spark Plasma Sintered Tic/graphite/nickel Composites and Cobalt Alloys

Description: Monolithic composites are needed that combine low friction and wear, high mechanical hardness, and high fracture toughness. Thin films and coatings are often unable to meet this engineering challenge as they can delaminate and fracture during operation ceasing to provide beneficial properties during service life. Two material systems were synthesized by spark plasma sintering (SPS) and were studied for their ability to meet these criteria. A dual hybrid composite was fabricated and consisted of… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Kinkenon, Douglas
Partner: UNT Libraries
open access

Thermoplastic and Thermoset Natural Fiber Composite and Sandwich Performance

Description: The objective of this thesis is to investigate the effects of adding natural fiber (kenaf fiber, retted kenaf fiber, and sugarcane fiber) into polymer materials. The effects are obtained by considering three main parts. 1. Performance in thermoplastic composites. The effect of fiber retting on polymer composite crystallization and mechanical performance was investigated. PHBV/PBAT in 80/20 blend ratio was modified using 5% by weight kenaf fiber. Dynamic mechanical analysis of the composites was… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Yang, Bing
Partner: UNT Libraries
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