Abstract:The most important difficulties when the behaviour of a part that is subjected to external mechanical forces is simulated deal with the determination of both the material thermo-mechanical properties and its boundary conditions. The accuracy of the results obtained from the simulation is directly related to the knowledge of the flow stress curve. Therefore, the determination of a material flow rule which is valid for both a wide temperature range and different initial deformation conditions in the starting material presents a great deal of interest when simulation results close to the experimental values are required to be obtained. In this present study, a novel flow stress curve is proposed that is able to accurately predict the behaviour of both materials with no previous accumulated strain and materials that have been previously subjected to severe plastic deformation processes. Moreover, it is possible to use it both for hot and cold working. The results are analysed in a wide test temperature range, which varies from room temperature to 300 • C, and from material previously processed by angular channel extrusion or with no previous strain accumulated. It is shown that the flow rule proposed is effective to model the material behaviour in a wide temperature range and it makes it possible to take the recrystallization phenomena that appear in previously deformed materials into account. In addition, the results obtained are compared with those predicted by other flow rules that exist in the prior literature. Furthermore, the study is complemented with finite element simulations and with a comparison between simulation and experimental results.

In this work, the electrospinning technique is used for the fabrication of electrospun functional fibers with desired properties in order to show a superhydrophobic behavior. With the aim to obtain a coating with the best properties, a design of experiments (DoE) has been performed by controlling several inputs operating parameters, such as applied voltage, flow rate, and precursor polymeric concentration. In this work, the reference substrate to be coated is the aluminum alloy (60661T6), whereas the polymeric precursor is the polyvinyl chloride (PVC) which presents an intrinsic hydrophobic nature. Finally, in order to evaluate the coating morphology for the better performance, the following parameters—such as fiber diameter, surface roughness (Ra, Rq), optical properties, corrosion behavior, and wettability—have been deeply analyzed. To sum up, this is the first time that DoE has been used for the optimization of superhydrophobic or anticorrosive surfaces by using PVC precursor for the prediction of an adequate surface morphology as a function of the input operational parameters derived from electrospinning process with the aim to validate better performance.

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Severe plastic deformation (SPD) processes have attracted a great deal of both scientific and technological interest over the last few years as a consequence of the improvements that are possible to obtain in the microstructure and mechanical properties of the materials manufactured through the use of these kind of processes. However, the practical applications of such materials to obtain mechanical components are significantly fewer. As a direct consequence, the same thing has been observed in the development of studies that show the in-service behaviour of the mechanical components developed in this way. Since one of the industrial objectives of these SPD processes is to obtain functional parts, it is necessary to carry out studies to fill this gap. Therefore, in this study, an analysis of the wear that cams undergo when manufactured from an AA5083 aluminium-magnesium alloy is carried out. The cams were isothermally-forged from materials with and without previous SPD processing by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). Subsequently, the wear behaviour of these cams was analysed by using specific equipment, which may have been considered to have a block-on-ring configuration, developed for testing in-service wear behaviour of mechanical parts. From this comparative wear study with cams, it is shown that previously-processed materials by ECAP have a better wear performance. Moreover, finite element modelling (FEM) simulations were also included to predict wear in the cams processed in this way. A good agreement between FEM and experimental results was obtained. It is this aspect of performing the wear tests on functional and real mechanical components, and not on laboratory samples, which makes this present research work novel.

Assessing the damage produced in plastic deformation processes permits the optimum manner to shape a material that could avoid any cracks appearing. In this present research work, the absolute critical damage in the following aluminium alloys: AA5754, AA5083 and AA3103 is to be determined. In order to do this, compression tests between plane-shape dies will be performed for the above-mentioned alloys at a temperature range which varies from 25 ºC to 300 ºC and using Cockroft-Latham's prediction model. Furthermore, the results obtained by finite volume simulations will be compared with those obtained by experimental tests with isothermal upsetting. Given that in these last few years there has been a growing interest in obtaining mechanical components from submicrometric and/or nanometric structure materials which have been previously-processed by severe plastic deformation (SPD), this present research work deals with the determination of absolute critical damage for the above-mentioned alloys once they have been ECAP (Equal Channel Angular Pressing) processed. This is considered to be of interest since it could allow the prediction of optimal processing conditions in advance.