There are 6 different types of equations that have been formulated to measure friction through the bending under tension test, however, there is no work to show whether these calculations actually represent what is happening in a sheet metal stamping process. This paper aims to make a direct comparison between the bending under tension test and the sheet metal forming of a test piece to see if the friction coefficient reported by the test is able to predict friction in a real part. Several sources of information were used such as computer simulations, bending under tension test with different sensors and sheet metal forming tests of a cylindrical geometry to evaluate the friction. The results indicate that the equations already developed are not able to accurately predict the friction at the sheet interface and, therefore, a new equation was developed for this that is simpler to measure and presented satisfactory results.

Abstract The manufacturing of the gear profile by Metal Forming is widely used in industry due to its quality and production capability. Direct cold extrusion has this characteristic and with support of peripheral technologies allows the development of asymmetric parts with complex geometry and near net shape. These resources, added with the great experience of a Brazilian forging company with strong presence in the cold forging market, allowed to develop a cold extrusion process to produce spur gears using the low carbon steel alloy described as SAE 10B22. The goal of this study was to develop the whole process, precision tooling project and manufacture as well as the experimental availability of the process. The tools were manufactured with high speed steel AISI M2 having a hardness in a range from 61 up to 63 HRc. The shrink rings were manufactured using steels with more toughness, such as S1 and H13. The application of shrink rings for the prestressing of tooling was evaluated using two different methods. The first one is using conventional shrink rings with tool steel, while the second is the stripwinding concept developed by the company STRECON.

Among the applications for protic ionic liquids (PILs), lubrication is one of the newest and the most promising. In this work, ammonium-based protic ionic liquids were tested as lubricant fluids for aluminum-steel contacts. PILs were synthesized with 2-hydroxyethylamine (2HEA) and a carboxylic acid (formic and pentanoic), aiming to understand the effect of two different anion chain lengths on the lubricant behavior. The synthesized PILs were characterized by RMN, FTIR and TGA. Wear tests, conducted using a ball-on-plate configuration, showed that the increase of the anion carbon chain length in the PIL structure reduced significantly the coefficient of friction value. Besides, after the wear tests, the PILs structural integrity was not affected. In the same way, bending under tension (BUT) tests evidenced that the performance for stamping conditions of the PIL with the longest anion carbon chain was similar to that of the commercial lubricant. Since, both formed a uniform tribofilm, developed the same lubrication regime and the drawing forces values were close and constant. Hence, the ionic liquid obtained with 2HEA and pentanoic acid (2HEAPe) is as suitable as the commercial lubricant for metal forming processes.

AbstractIn this study the soft magnetic alloy Fe-3Si-0.75P (wt%) was obtained by mechanical alloying through powder metallurgy. The processing included the formulation of metallic powder, wet milling for 1 h, 3 h, 6h and 9 h, in an attritor mill using alcohol P.A. as a lubricant. Cold compaction was then performed in a floating die under 600 MPa pressure and, finally the ring-shaped test specimens were sintered at 1150 °C for 1h. The electrical, physical and magnetic properties were then analyzed using the following assays: Laser granulometry, density, metallography, hysteresis curve and AC permeability, resistivity and XRD. The results showed a strong influence of milling time on magnetic properties of the alloy. There was a decrease in grain size with the milling time, which is likely the cause of increased in magnetic properties.

An analysis of results, obtained in the development of thermoelectric materials for electricity generation during the last 130 years, shows that they are comparable to those obtained as early as the nineteenth century. One of the main factors responsible for the stagnation in this area is the use of inappropriate criteria for the evaluation of material quality. The most popular criterion used for this purpose is the Thermoelectric Figure of Merit. The criterion of usefulness proposed in this paper is free of imperfections of the Thermoelectric Figure of Merit and may be considered as alternative to it. The criterion of usefulness shows, among other things, that it is reasonable to develop thermoelectric pairs both with high and relatively low thermoelectric efficiency. Its application would make it possible to avoid the creation of useless materials. This is especially important under conditions of limited research funding.

The present work reports a comparative study of cemented carbides of compositions WC-6Co, WC-10Co, WC-20Co, WC-6Co-6Ni and WC-12Ni-6Co. The purpose was to study the powder metallurgical production process of these compositions starting from a commercial WC-6Co powder, obtaining the desired compositions by mass balance with pure Co and pure Ni powders. During the process steps mixing, milling, compacting and sintering the powders were described by its apparent density, green density, shrinkage and sintered density. Lower densities were observed in composites with higher binder content. The process was monitored by scanning electron microscopy and EDS analysis to evaluate the homogeneity of the powders, to detect contaminations by the process and to characterize the microstructure of the sintered materials. A finer microstructure was found when the binder contained Ni. Potentiodynamic polarization tests in sulfuric acid revealed pseudo-passive behavior for all the tested hard metals.

Hard metal is a composite material used in several areas of machining, mining and construction. It can be applied directly on oil and gas drilling equipment components. The main objective of this work was to apply a high energy milling technique to produce the WC-Ni composite and study the effects of milling time in the material properties. The milling of hard metal WC-20Ni, was performed for milling times of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 hours. The starting powders were characterized by laser sedigraphy, SEM and EDS. Microstrutural analysis of the sintered samples was performed by optical microscopy, microhardness and density by Archimedes. The best results for the WC-20%Ni composite were achieved for 8 hours milling, where the density and hardness reached 97.09% and 1058 ± 54 HV, respectively, after sintering.

Elementary Al and Mo powder mixtures have been processed by high energy ball milling up to milling times of 100 hours. The shift of the pitting potential and the X ray analysis of green milled samples showed that part of the Mo has formed a supersaturated solid solution of Mo in Al. Elementary Mo powder, however, was still present after 100 hours of milling. Sintering led to the formation of the intermetallic Al12Mo phase.

Wind energy converters of small size used in isolated units to generate electrical energy must present low maintenance cost to such facilities economically viable. The aspect to be analyzed in cost reduction is the brake system, since in isolated systems the use of brake is more frequent reducing the brake pads life time. This study aims at analyzing the wear behavior of some materials used in brake pads. An organic material was analyzed comparing it with a commercial brake pad, and the sintered material was developed and tested. The materials behaviors were evaluated in both wear and friction coefficient. The sintered samples were made by powder metallurgy. The composition was compacted at 550 MPa and sintered in a furnace with controlled atmosphere to avoid oxidation. Despite the different compositions of the two types of materials, they presented a very similar wear; however, the sintered material presented a higher friction coefficient. An adjustment in the braking system of the wind generator might be proposed to use the sintered brake pad, due to its higher friction coefficient. Consequently, the braking action becomes lower, reducing the wear rate of the material.