Funded PhD studentship - Flow forming of aeroengine materials

School of Materials

University of Manchester

Flow forming is an attractive process of producing tubular components with varying wall thickness form Titanium and Nickel-base Superalloys. However, the process induces high levels of residual stress in the component, which are important to characterise and mitigate by subsequent annealing. The post processing heat treatment cycle is therefore crucial to the successful application of flow forming.
In order to characterise residual stresses deep inside the material advanced diffraction techniques such as neutron and high energy synchrotron x-ray diffraction will be used within the PhD project. The PhD student will utilise these facilities to generate non-destructive data relating to the residual stress distribution within specially flow formed material. In addition, detailed microstructural characterisation will be carried out to determine the effect of flow forming on microstructure and texture. The aim will be to determine the fundamental requirements for relieving residual stress without distortion whilst producing microstructures, which provide good mechanical properties.