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This contribution reports on an experimental polishing procedure, that is comprised of early grinding in Al2O3 slurries and late polishing in colloidal silica, which is used for preparing the nitrided region of a plasma nitrided austenitic stainless steel, for crystallographic analysis via electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The suitability of the polished surfaces for conducting EBSD characterization was assessed through an analysis of both the surface roughness (appraised by atomic force microscopy) and the quality of the Kikuchi diffraction patterns. We observed that as-nitrided virgin surfaces were not suitable for EBSD characterization, due to intense surface roughening, which was induced by the nitriding process itself. At the subsurface region, exposed by on-top mechanical polishing, the flatter nature of the polished surfaces allowed the acquisition of EBSD patterns with enough quality for microtexture analysis. A resolution of 100 nm in the total removed layer was attainable via careful control of the polishing parameters. Close parallelism between the polished and original surfaces was verified.

This contribution presents a theoretical discussion on phase hierarchy stability between face-centered cubic (FCC), austenite, and body-centered cubic (BCC), ferrite, lattice structures of stainless steel (SS) films that are sputter-deposited from austenitic targets under non-reactive atmospheres. Data published in literature on both phase characterization and chemical composition of diverse SS films are interpreted anew in this contribution in the light of lattice stability thermodynamic simulations. For films obtained from 304 and 316 steel targets, thermodynamic simulations predict that the ferrite phase is more stable than the austenite phase at low thermal energies. In contrast, simulations forecast thermodynamic stability at low thermal energies of the austenite phase in films that are sputtered from 330 steel targets. The criterion of lattice stability reveals that structures observed in the experiments cannot be described comprehensively by thermodynamic states where either full atomic partitioning among phases is established or zero atomic partitioning takes place. Thereby, a description of an equilibrium with incomplete atomic partitioning is proposed here, with the aim of depicting the structures reported in the literature. Such an equilibrium with incomplete atomic partitioning adequately describes the gradual destabilization of ferrite and the increased fraction of austenite (up to fully austenitic structures), when either the substrate heating is intensified, or the Ni content of the alloy is increased, with an 73Fe18Cr9Ni, wt%, initial alloy as a basis.

This work presents a complete multirobot solution for signal searching tasks in large outdoor scenarios. An evaluation of two different coverage path-planning strategies according to field size and shape is presented. A signal location system developed to simulate mines or chemical source detections is also described. The solution presented is a pioneer in evaluating multimaster robotics operative system architectures with a fleet of robots in real scenarios. This solution minimizes the use of communications bandwidth required for full operation. Finally, field results are provided, and the advantages of the implemented solution are analyzed.

The productivity of greenhouses highly depends on the environmental conditions of crops, such as temperature and humidity. The control and monitoring might need large sensor networks, and as a consequence, mobile sensory systems might be a more suitable solution. This paper describes the application of a heterogeneous robot team to monitor environmental variables of greenhouses. The multi-robot system includes both ground and aerial vehicles, looking to provide flexibility and improve performance. The multi-robot sensory system measures the temperature, humidity, luminosity and carbon dioxide concentration in the ground and at different heights. Nevertheless, these measurements can be complemented with other ones (e.g., the concentration of various gases or images of crops) without a considerable effort. Additionally, this work addresses some relevant challenges of multi-robot sensory systems, such as the mission planning and task allocation, the guidance, navigation and control of robots in greenhouses and the coordination among ground and aerial vehicles. This work has an eminently practical approach, and therefore, the system has been extensively tested both in simulations and field experiments., The research leading to these results has received funding from the RoboCity2030-III-CM project (Robótica aplicada a la mejora de la calidad de vida de los ciudadanos. fase III; S2013/MIT-2748), funded by Programas de Actividades I+ D en la Comunidad de Madrid and co-funded by Structural Funds of the EU, and from the DPI2014-56985-Rproject (Protección robotizada de infraestructuras críticas) funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad of Gobierno de España. This work is framed on the SAVIER (Situational Awareness Virtual EnviRonment) Project, which is both supported and funded by Airbus Defence & Space. The experiments were performed in an educational greenhouse of the E.T.S.I.Agrónomos of Technical University of Madrid.

High nitrogen stainless steels (HNSS) are being considered a new promising class of engineering materials. When nitrogen is added to austenitic steels it can simultaneously improve fatigue life, strength and wear and localized corrosion resistance. In this work, a single pass pendulum scratch test was used to study the effect of nitrogen on the scratch resistance of an UNS S30403 austenitic stainless steel. Samples with increasing nitrogen contents at the surface were obtained through high temperature gas nitriding. The thermochemical treatments were performed at 1473 K in (N2CAr) gas atmospheres for 36.0 ks, obtaining fully austenitic cases (surface nitrogen contents up to 0.5 wt%) ca. 1.5 mm in depth. The scratch tests were performed in a single-pass pendulum, equipped with strain gages to measure normal and tangential forces during scratching. The specific absorbed energy was calculated as the ratio between the measured absorbed energy and the amount of mass removed from the specimen. An increase of the specific absorbed energy with increasing nitrogen content was observed. The results of the scratch tests were analyzed taking into account the stress–strain behavior during depth sensing indentation tests and the energy absorbed during Charpy impact tests. The improvement in scratch resistance due to nitrogen alloying was attributed to the strong hardening effect of nitrogen in solid solution, which does not affect significantly work hardening and toughness. A comparison between the scratch resistance and the cavitation-erosion resistance, measured in previous work, was made too. q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A dual phase ferritic – martensitic AISI 410S stainless steel was nitrided in high purity N2 atmosphere between 1373 and 1473 K. After this treatment a high nitrogen martensitic case, free of precipitates, was formed. The growth kinetics of these fully martensitic cases during high temperature gas nitriding is studied with the aim of predicting martensitic case depths as functions of nitriding times, temperatures and N2 partial pressures. Thermocalc and Dictra software were used to calculate the equilibrium conditions and to solve the diffusion equations respectively. The results showed that the growth rate of the martensitic case is diffusion controlled and it can be calculated assuming local equilibrium. For the nitriding conditions used in this paper, the martensitic case depth is proportional to the square root of the nitriding time t1/2 proportional to the nitriding temperature and roughly proportional to the logarithm of the N2 partial pressure.

El acero inoxidable UNS S31600 fue recubierto con películas de la aleación Ti6Al4V, por medio de la técnica pulverización catódica magnetrón rf. La superficie de los materiales obtenidos se sometió a ensayos de macroindentación, de acuerdo con el procedimiento VDI 3198, para caracterizar la adherencia película-sustrato. Se realizaron experimentos de depósito variando tanto la presión del gas al interior de la cámara de depósito como la potencia aplicada al blanco. La adherencia película-sustrato varío no monotónicamente con la presión y la potencia; la menor adherencia se observó para las presiones y las potencias intermedias. En términos generales se observó una excelente adherencia película-sustrato, la cual se atribuyó principalmente al carácter nanométrico de los cristalitos de las películas (diámetro promedio alrededor de 20 ± 10 nm), a su carácter monofásico y a su elevado grado de uniformidad tanto química como morfológica.

This paper presents a novel approach defined as laboratory on phone “Lab-on-Phone” which include the main features of “Human Centric Sensing”, “Participatory Sensing” and “Ubiquitous Computing” paradigms in a multiuser and multipurpose acquisition, processing, storage and analysis chain infrastructure. Lab-On-Phone includes a generic sensing module which shares data with a Smartphone via Near Field Communication (NFC). The sensor measurements are processed and displayed by an Android application running in the same Smartphone, a web server stores the measured information sent by multiple Smartphones, considering privacy and security. Lab-on-Phone also uses a set of web applications which allow accessing data from many different places and in any platform with Internet access.

This paper presents a human detection system that can be employed on board a mobile platform for use in autonomous surveillance of large outdoor infrastructures. The prediction is based on the fusion of two detection modules, one for the laser and another for the vision data. In the laser module, a novel feature set that better encapsulates variations due to noise, distance and human pose is proposed. This enhances the generalization of the system, while at the same time, increasing the outdoor performance in comparison with current methods. The vision module uses the combination of the histogram of oriented gradients descriptor and the linear support vector machine classifier. Current approaches use a fixed-size projection to define regions of interest on the image data using the range information from the laser range finder. When applied to small size unmanned ground vehicles, these techniques suffer from misalignment, due to platform vibrations and terrain irregularities. This is effectively addressed in this work by using a novel adaptive projection technique, which is based on a probabilistic formulation of the classifier performance. Finally, a probability calibration step is introduced in order to optimally fuse the information from both modules. Experiments in real world environments demonstrate the robustness of the proposed method., This work was supported by the Robotics and Cybernetics Group at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain) and funded under the projects: ROTOS—multi-robot system for outdoor infrastructures protection—sponsored by Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (DPI2010-17998), and ROBOCITY 2030, sponsored by the Community of Madrid (S-0505/DPI/000235/ROBOCITY 2030).

Previous research has suggested that significant improvement in ductility-dip cracking resistance of ERNiCrFe-7 weld metal can be obtained if sec-ond phase precipitation during welding is optimized with some carbide and nitride forming element additions. Therefore, a theoretical and experimen-tal work has been conducted to address the effect of Nb and Ti additions to the precipitation of second-phase particles during welding of a ERNiCrFe-7-like alloy. The critical precipitation temperatures, phase fractions and atomic partitioning in the microstructure were among the factors analyzed in the light of DDC resistance improvement.

Os aços inoxidáveis de alto teor de nitrogênio constituem hoje uma classe promissora de materiais de engenharia. Quando se adiciona nitrogênio aos aços austeníticos, consegue-se aumentar, simultaneamente, a vida em fadiga, a resistência mecânica, a resistência ao desgaste e à corrosão. Nesse trabalho, estudam-se a resistência ao desgaste e a usinabilidade de um aço inoxidável austenítico UNS S30403 nitretado em alta temperatura. A nitretação gasosa em alta temperatura (1200ºC) em atmosferas (N2+Ar) foi realizada para obter amostras com teores crescentes de nitrogênio na superfície, desde 0,05 até aproximadamente 0,45% em peso. Os ensaios de esclerometria foram realizados em um pêndulo instrumentado de um único passe, com possibilidade de medir as forças normais e tangenciais durante o ensaio. A energia específica absorvida foi calculada através da relação entre a energia absorvida no ensaio e a perda de massa observada no ensaio. Observou-se que o aumento do teor de nitrogênio causou um aumento da energia específica absorvida. Os resultados dos ensaios foram analisados levando em consideração o comportamento da curva tensão deformação desses aços, inferida a partir de ensaios de indentação instrumentada, e da energia absorvida em ensaios de impacto Charpy. O aumento da resistência ao risco e a diminuição da usinabilidade devida à adição de nitrogênio foram atribuídos ao forte efeito endurecedor do nitrogênio em solução sólida, sem afetar, significativamente, a taxa de encruamento e a tenacidade. High nitrogen stainless steels (HNSS) are being considered a new promising class of engineering materials. When nitrogen is added to austenitic steels it can simultaneously improve fatigue life, strength and wear and localized corrosion resistance. In this work, a single pass pendulum scratch test was used to study the effect of nitrogen on the scratch resistance and on the machinability of an UNS S30403 austenitic stainless steel. Samples with increasing nitrogen contents at the surface were obtained through high temperature gas nitriding. The thermochemical treatments were performed at 1473 K in (N2+Ar) gas atmospheres for 36.0 ks, obtaining fully austenitic cases (surface nitrogen contents up to 0.5 wt%) ca. 1.5 mm in depth. The scratch tests were performed in a single-pass pendulum, equipped with strain gages to measure normal and tangential forces during scratching. The specific absorbed energy was calculated as the ratio between the measured absorbed energy and the amount of mass removed from the specimen. An increase of the specific absorbed energy with increasing nitrogen content was observed. The results of the scratch tests were analyzed taking into account the stress-strain behavior during depth sensing indentation tests and the energy absorbed during Charpy impact tests. The improvement in scratch resistance due to nitrogen alloying was attributed to the strong hardening effect of nitrogen in solid solution, which does not affect significantly foundry hardening and toughness. A comparison between the scratch resistance and the pitting-erosion resistance, measured in previous work, was made too.

High nitrogen stainless steels (HNSS) are being considered a new promising class of engineering materials. When nitrogen is added to austenitic steels it can simultaneously improve fatigue life, strength and wear and localized corrosion resistance. In this work a single pass pendulum scratch test was used to study the effect of nitrogen on the scratch resistance of an UNS S30403 austenitic stainless steel. Samples with increasing nitrogen contents at the surface were obtained trough high temperature gas nitriding. The thermo-chemical treatments were performed at 1473 K in (N2 + Ar) gas atmospheres for 10 hrs, obtaining fully austenitic cases (surface nitrogen contents up to 0.5 wt-%) circa 1.5 mm in depth. The scratch tests were performed in a single-pass pendulum, equipped with strain gages to measure normal and tangential forces during scratching. The specific absorbed energy was calculated as the ratio between the measured absorbed energy and the amount of mass removed from the specimen. An increase of the specific absorbed energy with increasing nitrogen content was observed. The results of the scratch tests were analyzed taking into account the stress – strain behavior during depth sensing indentation tests and the energy absorbed during Charpy impact tests. The improvement in scratch resistance due to nitrogen alloying was attributed to the strong hardening effect of nitrogen in solid solution, which does not affect significantly work hardening and toughness. A comparison between the scratch resistance and the cavitation-erosion resistance, measured in previous work, was made too.

Ti"6Al"4V thin films were grown by magnetron sputtering on a conventional austenitic stainless steel. Five deposition conditions varying both the deposition chamber pressure and the plasma power were studied. Highly textured thin films were obtained, their crystallite size being around 10-30nm and their hardness being around 10GPa.