A newly proposed multi-directional forging (MDF) was successfully applied to a commercially pure titanium (CP Ti). Severe plastic deformation would result in significant and complex changes of microstructure and mechanical properties, so microstructure characterization and a mechanical test of CP Ti were conducted after different cycles of MDF. The results demonstrated that dynamic recrystallization was the dominant grain refinement mechanism of MDF CP Ti. With increasing the cycles of MDF, grain size, fraction of low angle grain boundaries and dislocations density decreased due to grain refined. After three cycles of MDF, the mean grain size was about 200 nm. The values of tensile strength and hardness increased significantly from zero cycles to one cycle of MDF, but increased slowly after one MDF cycle. Numerous dimples and tear ridges were present, but the dimples were smaller and shallower with increasing cycles of MDF.

In this paper, a low-cycle-fatigue (LCF) crack initiation life prediction approach that explicitly distinguishes nucleation and small crack propagation regimes is presented for ultrafine-grained (UFG) aluminum alloy by introducing two fatigue indicator parameters (FIPs) at the grain level. These two characterization parameters, the deformation inhomogeneity measured by the standard deviation of the dot product of normal stress and longitudinal strain and the microscale multiaxial strain considering the non-proportional cyclic additional hardening and mean strain effect, were proposed and respectively regarded as the driving forces for fatigue nucleation and small crack propagation. Then, the nucleation and small crack propagation lives were predicted by correlating these FIPs with statistical variables and cyclic J-integrals, respectively. By constructing a microstructure-based 3D polycrystalline finite element model with a free surface, a crystal plasticity finite element-based numerical simulation was carried out to quantify FIPs and clarify the role of crystallographic anisotropy in fatigue crack initiation. The numerical results reveal the following: (1) Nucleation is prone to occur on the surface of a material as a result of it having a higher inhomogeneous deformation than the interior of the material. (2) Compared with the experimental data, the LCF initiation life of UFG 6061 aluminum alloy could be predicted using the new parameters as FIPs. (3) The predicted results confirm the importance of considering the fatigue behavior of nucleation and small crack propagation with different deformation mechanisms for improving the fatigue crack initiation life prediction accuracy.

In the serviced components of a 7075 aluminum alloy, the propagation of fatigue crack can be retarded because of the overload effect; however, the corresponding retardation mechanisms are complex. To provide further insights into the retardation mechanisms of 7075 aluminum alloys, this study addresses the crack tip damage response of a cracked 7075 aluminum alloy under an overload effect. Based on the dual-scale modeling approach and the damage-coupled crystal plasticity model, the effect of the microstructure of a 7075 aluminum alloy on the damage behavior ahead of the crack tip under an overload was studied. The factors affecting fatigue damage accumulation ahead of the crack tip, such as dislocation density, the variation in the activities of slip systems, and the orientation effect of the nearest neighbor grains, are described. The results show that for the 7075 aluminum alloy, the compressive residual stress induced by the overload effect not only decreases the number of activated slip systems, but also lowers the rate of increase in dislocation density. This causes a decrease in fatigue damage accumulation during deformation. Moreover, the overload effect decreases the slip system activity as well as the resultant plastic slip; however, the decrease in plastic slip varies with the grain orientation, indicating that the overload effect depends on the grain orientation. It can also be found that both the damage strain energy release rate and lattice strain are influenced by the orientation of the nearest neighbor grains, which can eventually affect the overload effect. These findings contribute to understanding the retardation mechanisms from a microscopic perspective and provide guidance on improving the material design of a 7075 aluminum alloy to some extent.

The wafer transfer robot is a key part of integrated circuit equipment which performs the transit of wafers precisely, quickly and steadily. The dynamic accuracy of the manipulator of the wafer transfer robot directly affects the quality of transferring and processing wafers and even the scheduling and control of the cluster tools. Thus, it is essential to study the influence of the dynamic accuracy of the manipulator of wafer transmission robots on the scheduling and control of cluster tools. In this paper, single-arm cluster tools are taken as the research object. The horizontal torsional vibration equations of the manipulator of the R -θ robot are constructed, and the torsional vibration attenuation characteristics of the manipulator are analyzed. Based on the torsional vibration equations, the intrinsic relationships between the dynamic accuracy of the manipulator and the waiting times of the manipulator are explored when the manipulator loads and unloads the wafers. Then the two-stage approach is proposed for the scheduling and control of single-arm cluster tools. The first stage determines the minimum waiting times of the manipulator according to the intrinsic relationships between the dynamic accuracy of the manipulator and the waiting times of the manipulator when the manipulator is waiting for loading and unloading wafers in each processing module and load lock. The second stage achieves the scheduling optimization and control of single-arm cluster tools with dynamic accuracy constraints and wafer residency time constraints by establishing a mathematical programming model for the scheduling and control of single-arm cluster tools. Finally, illustrative examples are presented to analyze the influence of the dynamic accuracy of the manipulator on the scheduling and control of single-arm cluster tools.