Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Engineering

Department

Mechanical Engineering

Degree

MSE in Mechanical Engineering

Date Completed

2020

First Committee Member

Zhao, Jingzhou

Second Committee Member

Dini, Said

Third Committee Member

Khosrowjerdi, Mohammad

Additional Committee Member(s)

Benner, Jingru; Li, Zhaojun

Abstract

"The objective of this thesis research was to conduct a feasibility study on a new process for scalable production of Pyrex-coated metal microwires from a preform, namely Vacuum Stabilized Thermal Drawing (VSTD). Existing methods for production of glass coated metal microwires suffer from lack of an effective method to control the flow rate of the molten metal during process, which results in poor diameter control and susceptibility to breakage due to capillary fluid instability. Chapter 1 gives introduction to existing methods and summarizes their drawbacks. VSTD process tackles fluid instability problem and helps in achieving flow rate control of the molten metal core via imposing volume conservation facilitated by introducing a negative pressure difference between the atmosphere and the induced vacuum inside the preform. For the purpose of feasibility study, process was carried out in two major steps. First step was to fabricate a pure consolidated preform by using principle of zone melting. A tin rod was inserted into a glass tube with one end sealed and vacuum attached to the other end, and passed through inductance furnace in multiple cycles to obtain a pure consolidated preform. Second step was to draw this preform into a Pyrex-coated metal microwire using a novel method called VSTD. For preform drawing, first a tower was built using aluminum extrusions and assembling drawing system, feeding system and furnace onto it. Later, the parameters such as the feeding speed, drawing speed, and furnace temperature range were first determined by experience, and then using these parameters preform was passed through the furnace with vacuum stabilization to control the molten metal flow rate."

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