TY - JOUR
T1 - Surface hardening of metals at room temperature by nanoparticle-laden cavitating waterjets
AU - He, Xingliang
AU - Song, Miao
AU - Du, Yao
AU - Shi, Yi
AU - Johnson, Blake A.
AU - Ehmann, Kornel F.
AU - Chung, Yip Wah
AU - Wang, Q. Jane
N1 - Funding Information:
We sincerely thank Mr. Joe Kuechel, Robert Taglia, and Scott Simpson in Ford Engineering Design Center at Northwestern University for their help in conducting the waterjet experiments. The authors would also like to thank Ms. Jie Ren and the Office for Research Safety at Northwestern University for assistance with sample preparation and waste disposal, respectively.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019
PY - 2020/1
Y1 - 2020/1
N2 - Reported in this paper is a novel and facile room-temperature surface-hardening technique, capable of providing five-fold increase in the hardness of an aluminum alloy, by utilizing a cavitating waterjet laden with hard nanoparticles. Microstructural and composition analyses reveal several mechanisms responsible for surface hardening: strain hardening, grain refinement, and dispersion strengthening. The hardened alloy surface also exhibits about 50% reduction in friction in a series of microscale friction measurements. Without the need to treat the alloy at elevated temperatures, this technique obviates such problems as additional energy usage, part distortion, microstructural and composition changes, and thermal shock-induced cracking. Equally important, this new method could be further tailored to impart metals, polymers, composites, etc. with different surface functional properties.
AB - Reported in this paper is a novel and facile room-temperature surface-hardening technique, capable of providing five-fold increase in the hardness of an aluminum alloy, by utilizing a cavitating waterjet laden with hard nanoparticles. Microstructural and composition analyses reveal several mechanisms responsible for surface hardening: strain hardening, grain refinement, and dispersion strengthening. The hardened alloy surface also exhibits about 50% reduction in friction in a series of microscale friction measurements. Without the need to treat the alloy at elevated temperatures, this technique obviates such problems as additional energy usage, part distortion, microstructural and composition changes, and thermal shock-induced cracking. Equally important, this new method could be further tailored to impart metals, polymers, composites, etc. with different surface functional properties.
KW - Cavitation
KW - Low-temperature processing
KW - Oxide dispersion strengthening
KW - Surface hardening
KW - Waterjet
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2019.116316
DO - 10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2019.116316
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85069909419
SN - 0924-0136
VL - 275
JO - Journal of Materials Processing Technology
JF - Journal of Materials Processing Technology
M1 - 116316
ER -