Open Access

Hot working tools are subjected to complex thermal and mechanical loads during service. Locally, the stresses can exceed the material’s yield strength in highly loaded areas. During production, this causes cyclic plastic deformation and thus thermomechanical fatigue, which can significantly shorten the lifetime of hot working tools. To sustain this high loads, the hot working tools are typically made of tempered martensitic hot work tool steels. While the annealing temperatures of the tool steels usually lie in the range of 400 to 600 °C, the steels may experience even higher temperatures during hot working, resulting in softening of the material due to changes in microstructure. Therefore, the temperature-dependent cyclic mechanical properties of the frequently used hot work tool steel 1.2367 (X38CrMoV5-3) after tempering are investigated in this work. To this end, hardness measurements are performed. Furthermore, the Institute of Forming Technology and Machines (IFUM) provides test results from cyclic tests at temperatures ranging from 20 °C (room temperature) to 650 °C. To describe the observed time- and temperature-dependent softening during tempering, a kinetic model for the evolution of the mean size of secondary carbides based on Ostwald ripening is developed. In addition, both mechanism-based and phenomenological relationships for the cyclic mechanical properties of the Ramberg- Osgood model depending on carbide size and temperature are proposed. The stress-strain hysteresis loops measured at different temperatures and after different heat treatments can be well described with the proposed kinetic and mechanical model. Furthermore, the model is suitable for integration in advanced mechanism-based lifetime models. However, since the Ramberg-Osgood model is not suitable for finite element implementation, a temperature-dependent incremental cyclic plasticity model is presented as well. Thus, softening due to particle coarsening can be applied in the finite element method (FEM). Therefore, a kinetic model is coupled with a cyclic plasticity model including kinematic hardening. The plasticity model is implemented via subroutines in the finite element program ABAQUS for implicit integration (subroutine called UMAT) and explicit integration (subroutine called VUMAT). The implemented model is used for the simulation of an exemplary hot working process to assess the effects of softening due to particle coarsening. It shows that the thermal softening at high temperatures, which occur over a long time at a mechanically highly loaded area, has a great influence. If this influence is not considered in tool design, an unexpected tool failure might occur bringing the production to a standstill.

In users of a cochlear implant (CI) together with a contralateral hearing aid (HA), so-called bimodal listeners, differences in processing latencies between digital HA and CI up to 9 ms constantly superimpose interaural time differences. In the present study, the effect of this device delay mismatch on sound localization accuracy was investigated. For this purpose, localization accuracy in the frontal horizontal plane was measured with the original and minimized device delay mismatch. The reduction was achieved by delaying the CI stimulation according to the delay of the individually worn HA. For this, a portable, programmable, battery-powered delay line based on a ring buffer running on a microcontroller was designed and assembled. After an acclimatization period to the delayed CI stimulation of 1 hr, the nine bimodal study participants showed a highly significant improvement in localization accuracy of 11.6% compared with the everyday situation without the delay line (p < .01). Concluding, delaying CI stimulation to minimize the device delay mismatch seems to be a promising method to increase sound localization accuracy in bimodal listeners.

High temperature components in internal combustion engines and exhaust systems must withstand severe mechanical and thermal cyclic loads throughout their lifetime. The combination of thermal transients and mechanical load cycling results in a complex evolution of damage, leading to thermomechanical fatigue (TMF) of the material. Analytical tools are increasingly employed by designers and engineers for component durability assessment well before any hardware testing. The DTMF model for TMF life prediction, which assumes that micro-crack growth is the dominant damage mechanism, is capable of providing reliable predictions for a wide range of high-temperature components and materials in internal combustion engines. Thus far, the DTMF model has employed a local approach where surface stresses, strains, and temperatures are used to compute damage for estimating the number of cycles for a small initial defect or micro-crack to reach a critical length. In the presence of significant gradients of stresses, strains, and temperatures, the use of surface field values could lead to very conservative estimates of TMF life when compared with reported lives from hardware testing. As an approximation of gradient effects, a non-local approach of the DTMF model is applied. This approach considers through-thickness fields where the micro-crack growth law is integrated through the thickness considering these variable fields. With the help of software tools, this method is automated and applied to components with complex geometries and fields. It is shown, for the TMF life prediction of a turbocharger housing, that the gradient correction using the non-local approach leads to more realistic life predictions and can distinguish between surface cracks that may arrest or propagate through the thickness and lead to component failure.

Background: Pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) using cryoballoon catheters are a recognized method for the treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF). This method offers shorter treatment duration in contrast to the classical therapy with high-frequency (HF) ablation. Purpose: The aim of this study was to integrate different cryoballoon catheters and a HF catheter into a heart rhythm model and to compare them by means of static and dynamic electromagnetic and thermal simulation in use under AF. Methods: The cryoballoon catheters from Medtronic and the HF ablation catheter from Osypka were modelled virtually with the aid of manufacturer specifications and the CST (Computer Simulation Technology, Darmstadt) simulation program. The cryoballoon catheter was located in the lower left pulmonary vein of the virtual heart rhythm model for the realization of pulmonary vein isolation (PVI) by cryoenergy. The simulated temperature at the balloon surface was -50°C during the simulation. Results: During a simulated 20 second application of a cryoballoon catheter at -50°C, a temperature of -24°C was measured at a depth of 0.5 mm in the myocardium. At a depth of 1 mm the temperature was -3°C, at 2 mm depth 18°C and at 3 mm depth 29°C. Under the 15 second application of a RF catheter with a 8 mm electrode and a power of 5 W at 420 kHz, the temperature at the tip of the electrode was 110°C. At a depth of 0.5 mm in the myocardium, the temperature was 75°C, at a depth of 1 mm 58°C, at 2 mm depth 45°C and at 3 mm depth 38°C. Conclusions: The simulation of temperature profiles during the virtual application of several catheter models in the heart rhythm model allows the static and dynamic simulation of PVI by cryoballoon ablation and RF ablation. The three-dimensional simulation can be used to improve ablation applications by creating a model in personalized cardiac rhythm therapy from MRI or CT data of a heart and finding a favourable position for ablation of AF.