NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF B.ENG. (Semester I: 2008/2009) ME2151 - PRINCIPLES OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING MATERIALS November 2008 ~ Time Allowed: 2 Hours INSTRUCTIONS TO CANDIDATES 1. This examination paper contains SEVEN (7) questions and comprises SIX (6) printed pages. 2. Answer ALL questions. 3. Questions DO NOT carry equal marks. 4, This is a CLOSED BOOK examination.ME2151 Question 1 Answer A (for TRUE) or B (for FALSE) to each of the following questions. On the separate answer sheet provided, shade the appropriate circle (A or B only) using a 2B pencil. Submit the answer sheet separately, ensuring that you have also shaded your matriculation number. DO NOT write your answers in the answer booklet(s). N.B. Each correct answer will be awarded 2 marks; each wrong answer will incur a penalty of 1 mark; i.e. -1 mark. No marks will be awarded or deducted for leaving the answer blank; i.e. 0 mark. (a) During tensile testing, the true strain is always higher than the engineering strain. (b) At temperatures above absolute zero (0 K), the potential well represents the total energy between a pair of bonding atoms. (© Ina polycrystal, grain boundaries separate areas of different crystal structures. @ A process that exhibits an Arrhenius relationship is sensitive to temperature. (©) Aslip system in BCC metals always contains a member of <111>. (® ABCC metal that contains interstitial solute atoms will manifest the yield point phenomenon during tensile testing. (@) _ Recrystallization cannot occur in a metal that has few dislocations. (h) Adimpled facture surface is indicative of fatigue crack growth in metals. () An oxide with P-B ratio << 1 is usually non-protective because compressive stresses build within the oxide, causing it to spall and expose fresh metal to oxidation. @ The ability to cross-slip gives BCC metals good ductility at temperatures above its ductile-brittle transition temperature. (&) Single crystals are used for turbine blades in order to minimize dislocation creep at high temperatures, @ Liquid penetrant testing is an easy and inexpensive non-destructive inspection technique for subsurface fatigue cracks. (m) A solid solution between gold and silver contains two phases. (n) Cored solid solutions are likely to exhibit local variations in properties. (©) Martensite has a different crystal structure from its parent austenite, but shares the same composition. (30 marks) Page 2‘MB2151 Question 2 (a) A steel pipe used in oil drilling operations is suspended vertically into a well from ground level, as shown schematically in Fig. 1. If the inner and outer diameters of the pipe are 5 and 7.5 cm, respectively, calculate the maximum length of pipe that might be used safely, if a factor of safety of 2 is applied to the yield strength of the steel. The stress- strain behaviour of the steel during tensile testing is shown in Fig. 2, its density is 7.9 g/cm®, and g = 9.81 m/s?, Assume that the support suspending the pipe would not fail Explain briefly whether the actual length of the — °<°* ON suspended pipe is different from its calculated length. Fig. 1 Schematic showing (8 marks) steel pipe suspended vertically in oil well. 600 0 s00 © 400 - & 200 we g a 200 3 ~» 0 0.05 0.10 0.15 Strain Fig. 2 Tensile stress-strain behaviour of a steel. ‘The inset is a magnified view of the stress-strain curve at small strains, () Discuss briefly why elastic deformation in crystalline materials results in an increase in volume, but the volume remains constant during plastic deformation. (5 marks) Page 3ME2I51 Question 3 State the common measure of toughness that is derived from both the tensile test and the Charpy impact test. By considering the mechanism of crack growth in ceramics and metals, explain the differences in toughness between ceramics and metals. (10 marks) Question 4 Ina turbine, the initial clearance between the ends of its 200 mm-length blades and the housing is 5 mm. The turbine operates under a constant load at 650°C, during which the elastic strain in the blades is 0.5 x 10°. Creep testing of the blade alloy shows that under this load and temperature, the primary creep strain of 0.25 x 10° occurs during the initial 30 h, while the secondary creep rate is 2.5 x 10 per hour. If the minimum allowable clearance between blade and housing is 1 mm, determine the life of the turbine blades. (8 marks) Question 5 A portion of a water tank made by forming mild steel sheet is shown in Fig. 3. Assuming that the tank is open to air, and that the water level in the tank is constant, identify 3 locations at which corrosion is localized in the system shown, and discuss the associated mechanisms. Suggest one method, which might be applied to the current tank assembly, that would minimize the corrosion at all 3 locations, and explain its principle. The standard electrode potentials of some metals are listed in Table 1. Table 1 Standard electrode potentials Mild stee! ‘Standard Electrode fonk: Electrode Reaction Potential, Y) ‘Aur + 37 Au +1420 Pit + Qe —+ Pt ~t12 Ag +e Ag +0800 01 + 21,0 + 4 — (0H) +0401 spper Cu + 2e° —> Cu +0.340, Copper 2H" + 2e° —> He Poe + 2e — Po Sn + 2e—+ Sn Nit + 2e — Ni Fe + 2e° + Fe CP" + 3° 5 Cr Zn®* +26 —> Zn AP! + 3e°—> Al Matt + 2e"—s Mg Fig. 3 Schematic of relevant portion of mild steel sheet- metal water tank. (15 marks)ME2I51 Question 6 (a) The copper-rich portion of the copper-aluminium equilibrium phase diagram is shown in Fig. 4. Label the phase fields (j)-(vi), and write down reactions (vii) and (viii). (8 marks) 1100 800 8 Temperature 8 500) 409. 0 4 8 1216 cw) Composition (wt% Al) Fig. 4 The copper-rich portion of the copper-aluminium equilibrium phase diagram. (b) Describe briefly the room-temperature microstructure of a 6 wt% Al-94 wt% Cu alloy, and a 11.5 wt% Al-78.5 wt% Cu alloy, both of which are very slowly cooled from1200°C to room temperature. (4 marks) Page 5ME2161 Question 7 Annealing of hypoeutectoid steels typically involves heating the steel into the single- phase austenite field for a few hours, after which the steel is left in the furnace to cool very slowly to room temperature. However, the very long transformation times in this process has prompted a modified annealing technique, in which the heating process remains the same, but instead of furnace cooling, the steel is cooled rapidly from the austenite phase to about 650°C and held isothermally until transformation is completed, followed by air cooling to room temperature. Using the TTT diagram for a steel shown in Fig. 5, explain whether there are any differences in the room-temperature microstructure and mechanical properties resulting from these two types of annealing treatments, and if so, discuss the reasons for the differences, (12 marks) 200, T T A -}1400 Evtectoid temperature eee | 1200 600} >} 1000 500 = s00 § {100 i i \ E \ {600 300; Mista) M(50%) Mra = -Mi90%) : 200} 400 100 }— ™ — 200 ° r 1 L L L 1 10 CSCS Time s) Fig. 5 The time-temperature-transformation (TTT) diagram for a steel. ‘A: austenite; B: bainite; F: ferrite; M: martensite; P: pearlite, END OF PAPER Page 6