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In this research, microhardness variations of subsurface in hole making on a AISI4340 steel workpiece was studied experimentally. For this purpose, four hole making methods were used including; helical milling, profile milling, drilling with and without predrilling. The design of experiments utilized full factorial method in which two main cutting parameters including cutting speed (Vc) and feed rate (fz) were changed in three levels. Nine experiments were performed for each process and Hardness variations of substrate layer along the hole radial and axial distances were investigated (216 hardness measurements points). Results showed that the measured hardness in all of the experiments were higher than bulk material hardness, regardless of cutting conditions and the maximum hardness value was found in the upper levels of cutting parameters of traditional drilling method (729 Vickers). In addition, due to workpiece temperature and work hardening increasing with prolongation of the process time, the maximum hardness value was obtained on the exit surface of hole in all processes. Also, least microhardness variations was found when using traditional drilling with predrill which represents superiority of non-continues, multistage hole making processes and conventional drilling using predrill in creation of holes with more uniform properties.

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In this paper, finite element modeling of friction welding of two ASTM A106-B and AISI 4140 dissimilar pipes is investigated. The effect of the friction welding parameters including rotation speed, friction pressure, friction time, forging pressure and forging time on the axial shortening are investigated using a fractional factorial design method. Because of the extreme material deformation, an innovative remeshing technique was scripted in Abaqus CAE to prevent the creation of distorted elements. 27 models were solved and 3 validation experimental tests were carried out. Results showed that increasing the all parameters cause larger axial shortening. Friction pressure with 33.9% had the most effect on the axial shortening. Moreover, an increase in forging pressure and forging time has a limited effect on the axial shortening. After about 2 seconds from the beginning of the welding, the temperature of the interface becomes steady at about 1250°C. The validation tests revealed that the simulation error was about 5.6% which shows a good agreement between the finite element results and the experimental data.

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In this study, the effect of surface roughness on fatigue life was investigated in drilling process of AISI4340 steel. Three hole making methods including drilling with and without pre-drill and helical milling were utilized. In order to study the effect of surface roughness and process parameters on fatigue strength, the two main cutting parameters including cutting speed (Vc) and feed rate (fz) were changed at 5 levels using the response surface method. Five main parameter of surface roughness profile including Rz, Rt, Ra, Rq, and Rsm were measured in each experiment. Then, the fatigue life of specimens were obtained using fatigue tests. Regarding the validation experiments, 13 fatigue tests were carried out for each drilling strategy (39 fatigue tests totally). Investigation of surface texture showed the signs of the tool path, scratches by the chip collisions and ploughing on hole surfaces in the conventional drilling. These effects were negligible in other processes. Accordingly, the highest roughness was observed in conventional drilling, drilling with pre-drill and helical milling processes respectively. Also, the fatigue life estimation model based on Rz had the best estimation with an average error of 4.4%. In fact, the fatigue life is more dependent on the difference between adjacent peaks and valleys. It was also observed that a model based on the roughness parameter will predict the fatigue life with lower error compared to a model based on the cutting parameters.