Abstract
Thermal residual stresses often arise due to a manufacturing process, involving localised thermal induction, or to the existence of structural components with different thermal expansion coefficients. The existence of thermal residual stresses within a structural member is usually undesired, as it decreases the mechanical resistance of structures. Hence, it is desirable to obtain both a minimum level of residual stresses and smoother stresses transitions in the materials interfaces. Regarding the mitigation of thermal residual stress concentration, the use of materials which properties can vary along the component directions has great interest. This work addresses the use of dual-phase functionally graded materials, which microstructure varies gradually from a material to another according to a given gradation function. On the order hand, it is also addressed the use of a population based optimization algorithm in order to attain the referred minimum stress level. Summarizing, the current work presents an educational platform directed to structural mechanics students, which aims to give the tools to understand both the influence of design parameters in the thermal residual stress level and distribution along the material and the advantages of using a structural optimization technique in order to minimize the drawback thermal residual stresses effects.
Highlights
Several usual industrial material processing and manufacturing processes involve localized plastic deformation or thermal induction, such as in the case of structures welding or composite laminates curing, where localized addition or residual energy, in conjunction with the use of components made of different constituents, leads to the growth of thermal residual stresses
The present work is intended to give a holistic view of mechanical engineering, where each student can be motivated to work not confined to a specific course curricular content [5]
Being aware of the capabilities of virtual experiments to reach and to encompass students in educational or research activities, the current work intends to present an educational platform built in LabVIEW® [6] and integrated with MATLAB® [7] in order to study the phenomena of thermal residual stresses in functionally graded structures http://www.i-joe.org and its minimization regarding structural optimization
Summary
Several usual industrial material processing and manufacturing processes involve localized plastic deformation or thermal induction, such as in the case of structures welding or composite laminates curing, where localized addition or residual energy, in conjunction with the use of components made of different constituents, leads to the growth of thermal residual stresses. Since functionally graded materials (FGM) appeared, they are known to provide superior thermal and mechanical performances when compared to the traditional laminated composites [2]. Besides the opportunity to test and analyse several material and structural configurations, the authors consider the use of the differential evolution (DE) algorithm [3] in order to attain an optimized structure, regarding the minimization of the thermal residual stress level [4]. Being aware of the capabilities of virtual experiments to reach and to encompass students in educational or research activities, the current work intends to present an educational platform built in LabVIEW® [6] and integrated with MATLAB® [7] in order to study the phenomena of thermal residual stresses in functionally graded structures.
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