The WC-5wt.% TiC compacts, which was fabricated by pulsed current activated sintering process (PCAS), were cryogenically treated to improve the mechanical performance. The densely consolidated specimens were exposed to liquid nitrogen for 6, 12, and 24 h. All cryogenically treated samples exhibited compressive stress in the sintered body compared with the untreated sample. The cryogenically treated samples exhibited significant improvement in mechanical properties, with a 9% increase in Vickers hardness and a 52.6% decrease in the fracture toughness compared with the untreated samples. However, excessive treatment of over 12 h deteriorates the mechanical properties due to tensile stress in the specimens. Therefore, the cryogenic treatment time should be controlled precisely to obtain mechanically enhanced hard materials.

The munitions industry uses high-strength carbon fiber composites imported from other countries because of the lack of the information about the properties that should be satisfied by the domestic high-strength carbon fiber composites. Verification of the applicability of domestic high-strength carbon fiber composites to the munitions industry requires comparison of the fiber strength transition rate between the carbon fiber composites imported from other countries and domestically. A strand test was performed to evaluate in the unit of a fiber the mechanical properties of the imported high-strength carbon fiber composites and domestically. Additionally, a composite pressure vessel was prepared using the filament winding method to perform a hydrostatic pressure test and calculate the fiber strength in the unit of a structure. Comparison of the fiber strength results showed that the fiber strength transition rates of the domestic carbon fiber composites H2550 and H3055, were 86.35 and 74.19%, respectively. Domestic carbon fiber composite material H2550 is expected to be replaceable in the munitions industry.

The importance of environmentally-friendly energy production has been growing globally, and studies on energy storage technologies are underway, to supply produced energy to consumers. Flywheel Energy Storage System (FESS) is physical energy storage technology, that stores generated electric energy into kinetic energy in the rotor. To design the FESS with a high-strength steel rotor, that is inexpensive, recyclable and easy to manufacture, mechanical and electrical components such as a rotor, bearings, etc. are required. Among these, safety of rotor and bearings is critical, because the rotor with high rotating speed may cause axis failure or fracture of the rotating body. Proper size of a rotor for required energy storage and radial, axial forces generated by the spinning rotor was calculated, considering gyroscopic forces acting on the rotating body. Based on the calculation, adequately sustainable angular ball bearings were selected. As a result, by conducting structural, modal and critical speed analysis, safety verification is presented pursuant to the American Petroleum Institute (API) publication 684.

In this paper, the reliability-based parameter study is carried out for the stamping process of a front rail roof member with the ultra high strength steel, considering the scatters of the material properties and the process parameters. With the reliability-based design optimization (RBDO) scheme, the springback tendency is investigated from the perturbation of the process parameters such as the sheet thickness, ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, Coulomb friction coefficient, and applied padding force. The amount of the elastic recovery along the height direction is quantified to describe the springback tendency from the analysis. The analysis shows the springback-amount scattering is not ignorable when the yield stress scatters within the similar range of the ultimate tensile strength. The analysis results fully explain the importance of controlling the scatters as well as the average yield-strength amount in the mass production of the stamped products.

Recently the application of high strength steel sheets, such as DP, TRIP, and TWIP, is rapidly increasing in the automotive industry. Despite this trend, springback is still one of major obstacles that has yet to be overcome. In this study, we conducted U-draw bending experiments and analyzed the process with FEM, focusing on the springback. In the FE analysis, the effects of the hardening model ware studied by comparing the results among an isotropic hardening model, a combined isotropic-kinematic hardening model and the experiment. The effects of the restriking process on shape correction was also =studied by comparing the results of the springback analysis and the experiment.

We have designed the structural shapes of a spiral blade and the frame to be used in an Archimedes wind-power system with the objective of increasing its mechanical strength. A conical roll-bending forming process was introduced to fabricate a metallic spiral blade, based on an incremental stepwise approach. From this process, the complicated spiral blade was constructed, and it could be applied to the wind-power mill. We proposed a few structural design concepts for improvement of the mechanical strength of the blade and frame. Fixing rods between the blades increased the natural frequency of the blades three-fold, compared to the original model with no rods. Also, the strength of the frame was increased by introducing edge-flanges with a height greater than 20 mm. This study will be helpful to industrial engineers interested in the structural design of a wind-power system in understanding the structural design process.

CP (Commercially Pure) titanium has been widely used in various industries such as in energy plants and bio-materials because of an excellent corrosion resistance and its non-toxicity to the human body. But there are limitations for usage as structural materials due to low strength. The tensile properties of CP titanium could be improved by microstructure refinement such as in a SPD (Severe Plastic Deformation) process. However, high strengthening of CP titanium wire is impossible by SPD processes like ECAP (Equal Channel Angular Pressing), HPT (High-Pressure Torsion), and the ARB (Accumulative Roll Bonding) process. The study purposes are to increase the strength of CP titanium wire by optimization of the cold drawing process and the harmonization with mechanical properties by heat treatments for the next forming process. The optimization process was investigated with regard to the design of drawing dies and the reduction ratio of cross sections. The elongations of high strength CP titanium were controlled by heat treatment.