You Feng Zhang

Study on Fracture Properties of High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) Pipe

Butt-fusion welding is the main technology to join high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic pipes, which are widely used in transport the water, gas and corrosive liquid. Investigation shows that one of the failure modes of HDPE pipe is the crack slowly grows across the thick direction and leads to failure at last, so that it is very important to study the resistance to crack initiation of HDPE pipe and its butt-fusion welded joint. In this study, the elastic-plastic fracture mechanics parameter, crack opening displacement (COD) is used to describe the fracture initiation behaviors for the HDPE materials and its butt-fusion welded joints. The resistance to initiation fracture of HDPE pipe materials and butt-fusion welded joints were investigated at different temperature by using multiple specimen resistance curve method and silicon-rubber replica method. The results show that saturation initial crack COD- δis of HDPE pipe materials and butt-fusion welded joints decreases with the decreasing temperature. The δis of butt-fusion welded joints is lower than that of HDPE pipe materials. Investigation also proved that the silicon-rubber replica method is more suitable for HDPE engineering material than the multiple specimen method. At the same time the statistic distribution of the δis of HDPE butt-fusion welded joint was conducted. The results show that the value of the δis has the statistic variance inherently. The optimum fitting distribution of COD is Weibull distribution with three parameters.

Simulation and Analysis of a Micro-Fluidics Cooling System

The paper presents a micro-fluidics cooling system which is designed on a silicon substrate including a micro-pump, two temperature sensors, a flow sensor and some microchannels. To design the cooling system optimally, a finite element model is built. The temperature distribution on the silicon substrate is analyzed using the model. Moreover, the quantitative relation is given of the temperature distribution, flow velocity and driving capability of the micro pump. Consequently, the structure parameters and design requirements of the cooling system are obtained.

Effect of Sintering Process on Microstructure of Al2O3/LiTaO3 Composite Ceramics

Effects of different sintering methods such as pressureless sintering and hot press sintering on relative density and microstructure of the Al2O3p/LiTaO3 (ALT) composite ceramics were investigated to obtain a preferable sintering process. Relative densities of all ALT composites are below 90% when sintered with the cold isostatical pressing followed by pressureless sintering at temperatures of 1250 to 1350°C. The relative densities and microstructure of ALT composite ceramics with the hot press sintering process in a N2 atmosphere at 1150 and 1300°C were investigated. The relative density of ALT composite hot pressed at 1150°C is only 77%, and almost theoretical density at 1300°C. This indicates that sintering pressure plays an important role in the densification of ALT composite ceramics in temperature range of 1150 to 1350°C. Investigation on morphologies of the composites shows that the Al2O3 particles distributed along grain boundaries of LiTaO3, which leads to a fine-grained microstructure in the ALT composite ceramics

An Improved FOSM Method for Calculating the Failure Probability of Welded Pipes with Cracks

To increase the accuracy of R-F method, it is necessary to solve the problems of the linear expansion of failure function and non-normal variables. In this paper, the improved FOSM method was applied to calculate the failure probability of welded pipes with cracks. The examples show that this method is simple, efficient and accurate for reliability safety assessment of welded pipes with cracks. It can save more time than the Monte Carlo method does, so that the improved FOSM method is recommended for general engineering reliability safety assessment of welded pipes with cracks.