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The effect of temperature on the wear particles produced by vibratory cavitation erosion tests on Al-99.92 in distilled water was analyzed. Scanning electron microscope images of wear particles were obtained, forming a database for further analysis. This study showed that the variation of average particle size with temperature was very much similar to the variation of weight loss with temperature. The average particle size was maximum at 40[degrees]C, It was also observed that the average particle size was time dependent. The particle's morphology features revealed that the predominant erosion mechanism was fatigue failure, irrespective of the temperature. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4002069] Keywords: cavitation erosion, temperature, erosion particles, characterization of particles, erosion mechanism, Al-99.92

The article investigates the enhanced heat transfer characteristics of aluminum-foam heat sinks under impinging-jet flow conditions. The flow outlet height is stronger than the height of aluminum heat sinks and pore density.

In this paper, we present our recent experimental results on buoyancy- induced convection in aluminum metal foams of different pore densities [corresponding to 5, 10, 20, and 40 pores per in. (PPI)] and porosities (0.89-0.96). The results show that compared to a heated surface, the heat transfer coefficients in these heat sinks are five to six times higher. However, when compared to commercially available heat sinks of similar dimensions, the enhancement is found to be marginal. The experimental results also show that for a given pore size, the heat transfer rate increases with porosity, suggesting the dominant role played by conduction in enhancing heat transfer. On the other hand, if the porosity is held constant, the heat transfer rate is found to be lower at higher pore densities. This can be attributed to the higher permeability with the larger pores, which allows higher entrainment of air through the porous medium. New empirical correlations are proposed for the estimation of Nusselt number in terres of Rayleigh and Darcy numbers. We also report our results on novel finned metal foam heat sinks in natural convection. Experiments were conducted on aluminum foams of 90% porosity with 5 and 20 PPI with one, two, and four aluminum fins inserted in the foam. All of these heat sinks were fabricated in-house. The results show that the finned rueral foam heat sinks are superior in thermal performance compared to the normal metal foam and conventional finned heat sinks. The heat transfer increases with an increase in the number of fins. However, the relative enhancement is found to decrease with each additional fin. The indication is that there exists an optimum number of fins beyond which the enhancement in heat transfer, due to increased surface area, is offset by the retarding effect of over-lapping thermal boundary layers. Similar to normal metal foams, the 5 PPI samples are found to give higher values of h compared to the 20 PPI samples due to higher permeability of the porous medium. Future work is planned to arrive at the optimal heat sink configuration for even larger enhancement in heat transfer. [DOI: 10.1115/1.2229225]

A study is conducted to develop a reliable material data and analysis tool for the design of bolted aluminum joints. Findings convey that after a week at temperature, most bolts lost 100% of their initial prestress.