A model-based process control of material production processes demands realistic material models describing the local evolution of the thermal and mechanical state variables, i.e., temperature, stress, strain, or plastic strain, for the relevant microstructure state. In the present work, a material model for the specific microstructure in a continuously cast strand shell, viable for reproducing cyclic viscoplastic effects, was developed for a 0.17 wt.% C steel. Experimental data was generated using directly-cast samples and a well-controllable testing facility to apply representative loading conditions. Displacement- and force-controlled experiments in the temperature range of 700–1100 °C were conducted, with a special focus on the relevant strain rates documented for the straightening operation. A temperature-dependent constitutive material model combining elastic, plastic, and viscoplastic effects was parameterized to fit the whole set of experimentally-determined material response curves. In order to account for the cyclic plastic material response, a combination of isotropic and kinematic hardening was considered. The material model sets a new standard for the material description of a continuously cast strand shell, and it can be applied in elaborate continuous casting simulations.

Chemical vapor deposited (CVD) TiN and TiB₂ are both commonly used as wear-resistant hard coatings. The two materials exhibit pronounced differences in their properties, which can be exploited by combining them in a multilayer architecture. Thus, two multilayer coatings with different bilayer periodicities of ~80 and ~220 nm were synthesized. The multilayer architecture constrains the TiN grain size to dimensions comparable to the individual sublayer thickness, which are substantially smaller than those observed in the single-layer TiN reference coating. This grain refinement leads to significantly higher hardness of the TiN sublayers within the multilayer system compared to the single-layer coating. In contrast, the low grain size of the TiB₂ coating appears unaffected, and the hardness of the TiB₂ layers in the multilayer and corresponding bilayer reference coating is also comparable. The compressive residual stress in the TiB₂ layers decreases with decreasing layer thickness, while the tensile residual stress in the TiN layers increases, resulting in a roughly constant stress difference between the sublayers, which is also comparable to the conventional TiN/TiB₂ bilayer reference coating. However, while the tensile stress in the TiN sublayers is constant over coating thickness, TiB₂ exhibits a pronounced gradient with only low compressive stress at the interface to the substrate, which increases significantly with increasing coating thickness. The fracture properties of the multilayers range between the values obtained for the corresponding reference coatings. Complementary finite element method simulations revealed that, for the multilayer coatings, the common assumption of a stress-free state of micro-cantilevers used for bending tests is not valid.

Chemical gas sensors are operated at elevated temperatures and the actual temperature has a tremendous influence on sensitivity and selectivity. From that perspective, precise temperature control over the chip is an absolute requirement. Next to a stable heating system, a controlled gas flow in the test box is required. The test gases should not cool down the sensor surface too much and not be heated up by the heater. To make the material integration easy and reduce the costs for sensor platforms, often rather large sensor devices are fabricated. We demonstrate that a combined approach of thermal analysis and computational fluid dynamics enables the co-design of gas flow path and heater to archive precise temperature conditions at the sensor material and in the surrounding test gas atmosphere.