Development and demonstration of suspended droplet alloying

Hauptstein, Bastian Rene (2016). Development and demonstration of suspended droplet alloying. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis documents the development and the first use of the Suspended Droplet Alloying process. This novel technique makes it possible to deposit a single discrete alloy specimen from its constituting elements every few seconds. Wire is used as a feedstock and the energy is provided by a laser beam. During alloying the melt is suspended from the feedstock itself eliminating all sources of contamination while the surface tension provides the vessel. While the technique has been designed as a tool for efficient alloying with potential use in combinatorial research environments. Its capabilities are comparable to laboratory scale argon arc melting and as such there is no limitation in the postsynthesis use of the created ingots. The thesis can be thought of as being divided into three virtual sections. The first section consisting of the development of the suspended alloying process itself including a study of the obtained samples. This includes the development of an efficient preparation strategy from the ingot to metallurgical specimen. In the second part the technique is used to deposit a large set of samples to demonstrate a possible real world application in screening for Tc transition temperatures across the ternary diagrams of Nb- Ti-Zr and Nb-Ti-Hf. The final part miniaturises the sample size and studies the changed process and the influencing factors on a series of Ti-Cu alloys. This miniaturisation not only improves the efficiency even further but can also deliver rapidly quenched samples.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):