A Process Modeling System for Heat Treatment of High Temperature Structural Materials

For current high temperature applications, superalloys have been the major structural materials with the intermetallic alloys being the materials for the next generation. Heat treatment is one of the most critical operations in manufacturing components of these materials. Problems such as unacceptable microstructure/properties, distortion, cracking, etc. during heat treatment processes have been the major obstacles preventing these materials from many potential applications in high performance energy conversion devices. This project will develop a computer modeling system for the heat treatment processes in manufacturing demanding structural components of high temperature materials. The objectives of the proposed Phase I work ar to define the functional requirements and to establish the theoretical foundation of a user friendly FEM-based computer simulation system for heat treatment of high temperature structural materials. The framework derived from this work will provide the basis on which a full scale implementation and integration will be performed in the Phase II work. OPTION TASK: $19,800