Noise and vibration damping of Fe-Cr-x alloys

Noise and Vibration Damping of Fe-Cr-X Alloys

Débora Pulino-Sagradi

Marcello Sagradi

Departamento de Materiais. Faculdade de Engenharia

Universidade Estadual de Campinas

13083-970 Campinas, SP. Brazil

Jean-Luc Martin

Département de Physique

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Switzerland

The aim of the present work is to study the noise and vibration damping capacity of ferromagnetic Fe-16%Cr base alloys (before and after heat treatment) with different Al and Mo contents. The noise damping was evaluated by the level of sound emission after an impact. The vibration damping was studied using a cantilever device. In addition to these tests, the magnetic structure of the materials was also investigated by Kerr effect. It was verified that the materials can decrease noise level in the frequency range of human earring. The vibration damping is influenced by heat treatment and chemical composition of the alloy. The improvement of vibration damping after heat treatment is ascribed to the decrease of internal stresses in materials and changes in magnetic domain structures.

Keywords: High damping alloys, smart materials, magneto-mechanical damping, magnetic structure

Introduction

Mechanical systems under cyclic loading normally present structural vibrations. These vibrations can cause noise and fatigue problems. The reduction of vibration amplitudes can be partially avoided by using rigid and massive structures or applying springs or other kind of dampers. (Humbeeck, 1985). However, these solutions can not be always used, because they can change the system design or its weight. In such cases, the problems associated with vibrations can be solved by selecting suitable materials.

Materials able to absorb the mechanical energy related to vibrations are called damping materials. Rubber is an example of damping material, but its use is restrict due to temperature and strength limitations. Another class of damping materials is the metallic alloys. Among these alloys, the ferromagnetic materials, such as Fe-Cr base alloys, play an important role.(Kawabe and Kuwahara, 1981). Since these alloys have high corrosion resistance and high mechanical strength (Masumoto et al., 1986; Hinai et al., 1988), they are employed to reduce vibrations in turbine blades (Amano et al., 1977), in mechanical and electronic sensitive instruments to maintain their precision (Ritchie et al., 1987), in public transports such as railways (mainly in urban areas, where not only the vibration is a problem, but also the noise is important) (Barbezat et al., 1996), etc.

The ferromagnetic materials are composed by magnetic domains. Each domain is separated of its neighbor by a so-called domain wall. These walls can move under external magnetic fields or stresses. When this movement is irreversible, a fraction of energy provided to the material is dissipated as an internal friction. This mechanism (by which the mechanical energy is transformed into heat) is responsible for the intrinsic damping of the material and it is called magneto-mechanical damping.(Cochardt, 1953) Thus, the damping level in ferromagnetic alloys depends on magnetic domains. However, the structure of domains is influenced by the microstructure of the material. The presence of dislocations, second phase particles, alloying elements, etc., create internal stresses. These internal stresses change locally the magnetic properties of the material, influencing the magnetic domains and therefore the damping capacity of the material. (Träuble, 1969)

To improve magneto-mechanical damping many authors have studied the effect of heat treatment and some alloy elements additions in Fe-Cr base alloys. It was verified that Al additions (Kawabe and Kuwahara, 1977; Amano et al., 1977; Schneider at al., 1981; Golovin et al., 1990; Golovin et al., 1992; Golovin and Rokhmanov, 1993; Golovin, 1994) and Mo (Suzuki et al., 1977; Schneider et al., 1981; Golovin et al., 1990; Golovin et al., 1992; Golovin and Rokhmanov, 1993; Golovin, 1994) increase damping capacity. However, the exact heat treatment to obtain the maximum damping is not yet defined.

The aim of this work is to study the noise and vibration damping of Fe-16%Cr alloys with different Al and Mo contents. For this purpose, the mentioned alloys were heat treated at different temperatures for several times and then tested to evaluate noise and vibration damping capacity and magnetic domain structure.

Experimental

The work was conducted with as cast Fe-16%Cr-(2-8%)Al, Fe-16%Cr-(2 and 4%)Mo, and Fe-16%Cr-2%Mo-1%Cu alloys (wt.%) melted in a vacuum induction melting furnace. All alloys are ferritic. These materials were heat treated in vacuum (~ 2x10^-6 mbar) at various temperatures (900 to 1200°C) for different times (1 to 6h) followed by slow cooling (2°C/min). The mechanical properties of these materials were studied by measuring their Vickers hardness.

The noise damping was investigated by sound emission measurements. In these tests, cylindrical bars of 100 mm in length and 10 mm in diameter were let fall down on a non-resonant surface and the noise level emitted at the moment of the impact was recorded by a microphone connected to a signal analyzer. In addition to the Fe-Cr alloys, a bar of an austenitic AISI 304 stainless steel was also tested, since this material does not present magnetomechanical damping.

The vibration damping capacity was evaluated using a cantilever device at room temperature. In this procedure, samples with dimensions of 65x7x0.8 mm were used. For each test the sample was fixed by one end to the sample holder while the other end was kept free. This assembly was then made to oscillate (on mode one of vibration) over a range of frequencies around the resonant frequency with a constant drive-force amplitude. The oscillation of the free end of sample was detected by an optical sensor above the specimen without any physical contact. A plot of vibration amplitude of the sample as a function of frequency provides a curve that allow the damping capacity measurement. The damping was calculated by the inverse of quality factor given by: Q^-1 = Df/fr where Df is the half-width of a resonance peak of the resonant frequency fr. The damping calculated by this way refers to a single drive-force amplitude employed to excite the sample and, thus, to a certain strain amplitude at root beam (e). Applying this procedure for several drive-force amplitudes, a plot of Q^-1 versus e could be obtained.

Magnetic domain structures were observed by the magneto-optical Kerr effect (Rave et al., 1993). This effect is based on the interaction between an incident polarized light with the magnetic moment of domains in the material.(Williams et al., 1951) An optical microscope was suitably arranged for this purpose. The Kerr images were directly obtained by a charged coupled device (CCD) camera connected to a computer. Static and dynamic observations of domain structure were performed. For each observation, samples were previously electrochemically polished to avoid work hardening of their surfaces. Following, an interference layer (Buscher and Reimer, 1993) of ZnSe was evaporated on the polished surface to improve the image contrast.

Static observations provide volume-fraction of 90° magnetic domains. The volume-fraction of 90° magnetic domains was investigated since damping capacity is directly related with them (Xiaodong and Baorong, 1993). To perform this task, images of 40 fields of 2.2x10⁴mm² (~ 0.9 mm²) were acquired from each sample. The volume-fraction was defined as the number of pixels related to 90° magnetic domain area divided by the total pixels related to the total surface observed.

Application of magnetic field causes movement of domains and thus provide dynamic observations. To estimate the domain mobility, the magnetic field necessary to move the majority of the domains was recorded. For this measurement, 15 fields of 2.2x10⁴ m² were tested in each sample.

Results and Discussion

Noise damping

The results of sound emission from some as received materials are presented in figure 1. It was noted that the AISI 304 stainless steel provided two peaks of high intensity, one around 4 kHz and another around 11 kHz. The ratio between the frequencies of the first and the second peak is equal to the ratio between the natural frequencies in mode I and mode II of a free-free excited bar. (Harris and Crede, 1976) Therefore, these peaks correspond to the modal frequencies of the bar tested.

Natural frequencies are function of beam configuration, vibration mode, sample geometry, Young’s modulus and density of the material. However, for the same base alloy the Young’s modulus and density are practically the same and since the sample geometry was always the same, these two modal peaks should be presented in the other materials tested. In fact, the Fe-16%Cr-2%Mo, Fe-16%Cr-2%Mo-1%Cu, Fe-16%Cr-2%Al and Fe-16%Cr-8%Al show these peaks, but the peak intensity is much lower. On the other hand, in the Fe-16%Cr-(4%Al and 6%Al) alloys the second peak was suppressed. The sharp decrease of noise level of ferritic alloys (with a suppression of the second peak in some cases) indicates loss of energy due to their high damping capacity. Moreover, it is interesting to point out that this reduction in the noise level occurs in the frequency range of human earring (less than 16 kHz)(Everest, 1991).

Vibration damping

The curves of resonant peaks at modal frequencies are the first results provided by cantilever method. Examples of these curves are presented in figure 2. It can be seen a non-linear behavior (Broch, 1984), i.e., as the drive-force of excitation increases, the resonant frequency shifts towards lower values. As mentioned before, the natural frequency is a function of beam configuration, vibration mode, sample geometry, Young’s modulus and density of the material. Nevertheless, for a given test, the beam configuration, vibration mode, sample geometry and material density are constant. Therefore, the decrease in resonant frequency can be explained by a change in Young’s modulus of the material with the increase of drive-force. In fact, Masumoto et al. (1979) realized a decrease (up to 10 % of its initial value) of Young’s modulus for Fe-Cr alloys with the increase of vibration amplitude.

The increase of drive-force of excitation increases the amplitude of resonant peak. Since increasing drive-force provides higher energy levels to the lame, the amplitude of resonant peaks tend to increase. However, considering the same drive-force, the increase of resonant peak is less pronounced after heat treatment. This reflects the damping enhancement that occurs after heat treatment because the materials after heat treatment absorb much more energy than the other at the same drive-force level.

The curves showed in figure 2 allow calculate the intrinsic damping of the material by means of the quality factor. Figure 3 shows the curves of damping (as Q^-1) versus strain amplitude (e) occurring in the fixed end of the sample of as received materials. It can be noted that damping depends strongly on strain. This behavior is well known in ferromagnetic materials and it is related to the difference between the energy provided to the system and the energy absorbed by magnetic domains, as discussed in details elsewhere (Smith and Birchak, 1968; Smith and Birchak, 1969).

The effect of heat treatment on damping vibration is illustrated in figure 4. It was verified that the heat treatments always improved damping capacity of the as received materials. Probably during these heat treatments the number of defects, such as dislocations, decreases and, thus, the internal stresses in the material decreases. As a consequence of the internal stress relief, the damping increase. (Smith and Birchak, 1968). This effect is suggested by the initial slope of the Q^-1 versus e curves. It was verified that the initial slope of these curves increase as damping increase. According to Coronel and Beshers (1988), the increase in the initial slope of damping curves is caused by the decrease in internal stresses of the material.

Besides the decrease in internal stresses, it was also observed that the magnetic domain structure changes after heat treatment. Figure 5 shows an example of one kind of magnetic domain structure with 90° domains found in the heat treated materials. A statistical analysis of such structures indicated that volume-fraction of 90° magnetic domains increases after heat treatment (for example, in a as received Fe-16%Cr-2%Mo alloy the volume-fraction is 0.57%, while after heat treatment at 1100°C for 6h the volume-fraction is 3.6%). Udovenko et al. (1993) also realized that a high-damping state of Fe-Cr alloys is really obtained when the amount of 90° domains increases.

However, this is not the only change in the magnetic domain structure with heat treatment. It was also noted an increase in the mobility of magnetic domain. Figure 6 shows the movement of the magnetic domains under an external magnetic field (similar behavior may be obtained under an external stress). Since internal stresses decrease after heat treatment, probably the number of obstacles to the movement of domains decreases. Moreover, the susceptibility to create 90° domains may be changed after heat treatment. However, the exact reasons for the differences in the magnetic domain structures are not yet clear.

The effect of chemical composition on damping vibration can be seen in table 1, which presents the maximum damping obtained for each alloy and the related Vickers hardness. It was observed that in the alloys with Al addition, as the Al content increases, the damping decreases. Similar results were found in the alloys with Mo, i.e., increasing alloy element makes damping to decrease. Since addition of alloy elements introduce elastic distortions into the crystal lattice (Golovin et al., 1990), internal stresses are created and, thus, the magnetic domain structures change (Luborsky et al., 1983). In fact, as the alloy element content increases, the hardness also increase. Moreover, the alloy elements may change the magnetic moment of the neighbor atoms (Gittsovich et al., 1995) and, hence they may change magnetic domain structures.

Conclusions

The study of noise and vibration damping of Fe-16%Cr base alloys with different additions of Al and Mo (before and after heat treatment), allows to obtain the following conclusions:

1. The as received alloys can decrease noise level in the frequency range of human earring.

2. The vibration damping of the investigated alloys can be improved by heat treatment. This fact is ascribed to the decrease of internal stress and changes in magnetic domain structures (increase of volume-fraction of 90° domains and increase of domain mobility).

3. Alloying with Al or Mo over than 2% (in weight) decreases the vibration damping of the studied alloys.

4. The highest vibration damping was obtained in the following materials: Fe-16%Cr-2%Al alloy heat treated at 1000°C for 6h (Q^-1 = 146x10^-3) and Fe-16%Cr-2%Mo alloy heat treated at 1000°C for 3h (Q^-1 = 163x10^-3).

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Swiss Priority Program on Materials (PPM) and São Paulo State Foundation for Research, Brazil (FAPESP) for financial support of this work.

Manuscript received: March 1998. Technical Editor: Leonardo Goldstein Júnior.

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Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 Oct 2001
• Date of issue
  2001

History

• Received
  Mar 1998