Melting metallurgy is still the most frequently used and simplest method for the processing of metallic materials. Some of the materials (especially intermetallics) are very difficult to prepare by this method due to the high melting points, poor fluidity, or formation of cracks and pores after casting. This article describes the processing of Ti-Al-Si alloys by arc melting, and shows the microstructure, phase composition, hardness, fracture toughness, and compression tests of these alloys. These results are compared with the same alloys prepared by powder metallurgy by the means of a combination of mechanical alloying and spark plasma sintering. Ti-Al-Si alloys processed by melting metallurgy are characterized by a very coarse structure with central porosity. The phase composition is formed by titanium aluminides and titanium silicides, which are full of cracks. Ti-Al-Si alloys processed by the powder metallurgy route have a relatively homogeneous fine-grained structure with higher hardness. However, these alloys are very brittle. On the other hand, the fracture toughness of arc-melted samples is immeasurable using Palmqvist’s method because the crack is stopped by a large area of titanium aluminide matrix.

Properties Comparison of Ti-Al-Si Alloys Produced by Various Metallurgy Methods

Air Pollution Control (APC) residues from Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) is considered a problematic hazardous waste, with no current viable reuse, within the UK Therefore, it is often treated before being deposited into a landfill This research explores a number of novel techniques to mitigate the hazardous properties of this waste by investigating thermal treatment and cold bonding Thermal treatment was investigated to manufacture inert Light Weight Aggregate (LWA) by sintering APC residues with clay The addition of 20% APC residue produced the highest fracture strength of 578MPa Treatment through cold bonding was achieved using the geopolymerisation process The developed material achieved a compressive strength of approximately 235 MPa The data from the APC residues based geopolymer experimentation was used to develop a machine learning model to predict the compressive strength of the geopolymer
In addition, it was observed through a comprehensive literature review, that complexities arising due to significant variations in the composition of the residue, makes it very difficult to produce a commercially stable product Therefore, the research tackles this problem by developing an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model to identify and classify different types of residues/ashes based on their chemical composition as determined by X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy Overall this research showed that machine learning could be very beneficial to this field to determine the capabilities for various reuse applications for ash waste

An Investigation into the treatment and modelling of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) Air Pollution Control (APC) residues

A fusion process based on low-frequency induction heating has been developed to treat mixed radioactive waste and produce biphasic glass/metal canisters compatible with a storage in a geological repository. The direct transfer of inductive power to the metal load ensures that fusion occurs directly in the final container and avoids a pouring stage. A thermal equilibrium develops during fusion between the power transmitted by induction and the power evacuated in the furnace's cooling circuits. The generator's electrical parameters are used to determine the amount of metal present in the canister.

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757-899X/424/1/012063/pdf

Nuclear waste treatment by induction heating and stirring of a metal/glass bath: the PIVIC process

Non-contact measurement of the level of molten glass is demonstrated in an engineering scale induction-heated glass melter using microwaves. The microwave sensor is a corrugated horn used in mono static RADAR (RAdio Detection and Ranging) mode operating over 20 to 24 GHz with 20 dB gain. The ability to measure the level of the glass melt is demonstrated using an off-centered port in an induction glass melting furnace.

K. Banerjee

Papers

Indigenous development of induction skull melting technology for electromagnetic processing of refractory and reactive metals and alloys