In this investigation, the extensive wear behaviour of materials was studied using SiC reinforced magnesium alloy composites fabricated through the stir casting process. The wear properties of AZ91 alloy composites with a small variation (i.e., 3%, 6%, 9% and 12%) of SiC particulates were evaluated by varying the normal load with sliding velocity and sliding distance. The worn surfaces were examined by scanning electron microscope to predict the different wear mechanisms on the pin while sliding on the hard disk in the dry sliding wear test condition. The microhardness of the SiC reinforced AZ91 composites was found to be more than the un-reinforced AZ91 alloy. Pins tested at load 19.62 N, and 2.6 m/s exhibited a series of short cracks nearly perpendicular to the sliding direction. At higher speed and load, the oxidation and delamination were observed to be fully converted into adhesion wear. Abrasion, oxidation, and delamination wear mechanisms were generally dominant in lower sliding velocity and lower load region, while adhesion and thermal softening/melting were dominant in higher sliding velocity and loads. The wear rate and coefficient of friction of the SiC reinforced composites were lower than that of the unreinforced alloy. This is due to the fact of higher hardness exhibited by the composites. The wear behaviour at the velocity of 1.39 m/s was dominated by oxidation and delamination wear, whereas at the velocity of 2.6 m/s the wear behaviour was dominated by abrasion and adhesion wear. It was also found that the plastic deformation and smearing occurred at higher load and sliding velocity.

In this study, the processing of SiC particulate-strengthened magnesium alloy metal matrix composites via vacuum supported inert atmosphere stir casting process is presented. The effects of small variations in the SiC particulate (average size 20 µm) reinforcement in magnesium alloy AZ91 were examined. It was found that with the addition of SiC particulate reinforcement, the hardness improved considerably, while the ultimate tensile and yield strength improved slightly. The density and porosity of the magnesium alloy-based composites increased with the increase in the wt.% of SiC particulates. The tensile and compressive fracture study of the fabricated composites was also performed. The tensile fractures were shown to be mixed-mode fractures (i.e., ductile and cleavage). The fractured surface also disclosed tiny dimples, micro-crack, and cleavage fractures which increases with increasing reinforcement. For the compression fracture, the surface microstructural studies of AZ91 displayed major shear failure and demonstrated the greater shear bands when compared to AZ91/SiC composites, which instead revealed rough fracture surfaces with mixed-mode brittle and shear features.

Design of critical facilities such as nuclear power plant requires an accurate and precise evaluation of seismic demands, as any failure of these facilities poses immense threat to the community. Design complexity of these structures reinforces the necessity of a robust 3D modeling and analysis of the structure and the soil–foundation interface. Moreover, it is important to consider the multiple components of ground motion during time history analysis for a realistic simulation. Present study is focused on investigating the seismic response of a nuclear containment structure considering nonlinear Winkler-based approach to model the soil–foundation interface using a distributed array of inelastic springs, dashpots and gap elements. It is observed from this study that the natural period of the structure increases about 10 %, whereas the force demands decreases up to 24 % by considering the soil–structure interaction. Further, it is observed that foundation deformations, such as rotation and sliding are affected by the embedment ratio, indicating an increase of up to 56 % in these responses for a reduction of embedment from 0.5 to 0.05× the width of the footing.

Incremental Sheet Hydro-Forming (ISHF) is a hybrid process of Incremental Sheet Forming (ISF) and Sheet Hydro-Forming (SHF). In the ISHF process, a single ball tool moves over one side of the surface of the sheet and hydraulic support is provided in another by using the pressurized hydraulic fluid. In the current research, an attempt has been made to achieve high forming angles using ISHF. The forming strategy, multi-stage & multi-step (MSMS), has been proposed to improve the formability in ISHF. The MSMS has resulted in the improvement in the formability and forming angle achieved is 78.75 o . The primary issue, identified in MSMS forming strategy, is the failure of the product due to thinning of the sheet. To address the failure of the sheet due to thinning, a modified version of MSMS was proposed. This modified version of MSMS has shown tremendous improvement in the formability of the ISHF. The forming angle upto 90 o has been successfully achieved using the modified version of MSMS. Analytical models have been developed for MSMS forming strategy and for the modified version of MSMS forming strategy. The experimental results are closely the same as predicted by analytical models.