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In this work, millimeter-scale tubular combustion channels were fabricated from ceramic precursor materials. Co-extrusion of structured feedrods holds promise for the development of multi-layered, functionally graded and/or textured combustor walls, but requires a polymer binder that is difficult to remove before structures can be sintered to full density. In conventional thermal debinding, cracking is a major issue, where crack formation is attributed to a lack of pore space for outgassing of pyrolysis products. The main focus of this study is to validate a manufacturing process that uses a combination of solvent de-binding and thermal debinding, which is applied to a simple combustor geometry. Alumina powder was batched with a mixture of polyethylene butyl-acrylate (PEBA) and polyethylene glycol (PEG) in a torque rheometer. A 19mm feedrod, consisting of a carbon-black/binder mixture as core, and a surrounding ceramic/binder mixture forming the wall, was extruded through a 5.84 mm die. The binder removal involves two processing steps, where the PEG content was removed by solvent extraction (SE) to initiate pore formation, after which thermal de-binding by pyrolysis removes the remaining binder and carbon-black. Solvent extraction was performed in water at three different temperatures for various times. The 1:1 mixture of PEG:PEBA showed the highest PEG removal of 80wt% for 6 hrs extraction. The thermal de-binding cycle was designed based on thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) and successfully performed with a ramping rate of 1.25°C/min to 1000°C without any crack formation. After de-binding, samples were sintered at 1600°C for 1 hr. SEM analysis showed some void spaces in the solvent extracted samples but confirmed that solvent extraction followed by thermal de-binding yielded the best results. The viability of sintered ceramic tubes was tested for conditions typical for thermal cycling in a combustion environment.

A series of aromatic polyimide-phosphoric anhydride composite membranes loaded with fumed silica (FS) nanoparticles were prepared from polyamic acid (PAA). First, the influence of the percentage loading of phosphoric anhydride (PA) on the proton conductivity of polyimide (PI) membranes was studied. The PA-PI film containing 45% of PA showed proton conductivity of 1.31 Â 10 À4 S/cm at 80 C, whereas the conductivity of neat PI films was 1.80 Â 10 À6 S/cm at room temperature. Next, the effects of the FS nanoparticles on the proton conductivity, the mechanical and thermal properties of the formulated PA-PI membranes were studied. Forty-five percent of the PA-PI membrane loaded with 1% FS (45% PA-PI/1% FS) showed an enhanced conductivity of 2.78 Â 10 À4 S/cm at 80 C when compared to the neat 45% PA-PI membrane. The tensile strength of the 45% PA-PI/1% FS nanocomposite membrane was comparable to the Nafion proton conductive membranes. The thermal analysis of 45% PA-PI/1% FS nanocomposite membranes showed that these membranes were thermally stable and suitable for high-temperature applications.

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Friction Stir Welding (FSW) offers significantly better performance on aluminum alloy joints compared to the conventional fusion arc welding techniques; however, plastic deformation, visco-plastic flow of metals, and complex non-uniform heating cycles during FSW processes, result in dissolution of alloying elements, intrinsic microstructural changes, and post-weld residual stress development. As a consequence, about 30% reduction in ultimate strength (UTS) and 60% reduction in yield strength (YS) were observed in defect-free, as-welded AA2219-T87 joints. PWHT is a common practice to refine grain-coarsened microstructures which removes or redistributes post-weld residual stresses; and improves mechanical properties of heat-treatable welded aluminum alloys by precipitation hardening. An extensive experimental program was undertaken on PWHT of FS-welded AA2219-T87 to obtain optimum PWHT conditions and improvement of the tensile properties. Artificial age-hardening (AH) helped in the precipitation of supersaturated alloying elements produced around weld nugget area during the welding process. As a result, an average 20% improvement in YS and 5% improvements in UTS was observed in age-hardened (AH-170°C-18h) specimens as compared to AW specimens. To achieve full benefit of PWHT, solution-treatment followed by age-hardening (STAH) was performed on FS-welded AA2219-T87 specimens. Solution-treatment (ST) helps in the grain refinement and formation of supersaturated precipitates in aluminum alloys. Age-hardening of ST specimens help in the precipitation of alloying elements around grain boundaries and strengthen the specimens. Optimum aging period is important to achieve better mechanical properties. For FS-welded AA2219-T87 peak aging time was 5 hours at 170°C. STAH-170°C -5h treated specimens showed about 78% JE based on UTS, 61% JE based on yield strength, and 36% JE based on tensile toughness values of base metal.