An Investigation of Microwave Furnace Effects on Mechanical Properties of Standard Specimens used in Tensile and Fatigue Tests due to different type of Manufacturing

The new technique including the use of Microwave Furnace is a novel technique take advantage of heat caused by the microwave and materials ability of absorbing this microwave heat converting it to energy. A major goal of the study was to investigate effects of microwave furnace on the residual stresses though study the changes in mechanical properties variation for standard specimens used in tensile and fatigue tests due to different types of manufacturing it like (Leaser, Plasma, CNC and Press Stamp Machine). These specimens suffering a severe problem at the edges of the outside circumference perimeters due to different methods of manufacturing which eventually leads to extreme residual stresses at these edges. These residual stresses might be positive and/or negative according to manufacturing type. This residual stresses extremally effecting any treatment needs to be applied to the specimen in the future and leads to error results. So, it’s very important to disposal of these residual stresses before applying any treatments in the future. Many techniques were used to eliminate these residual stresses but as far as knowing, no one use microwave furnace before, so, this is a novel technique. The technique takes advantage of these microwave furnace heat energy effects over two types of standard specimens of AA5454-T0 (tensile and fatigue specimens), manufactured by laser, plasma, CNC cutting machine and press stamp machine with two duration times 30min and 60min. Studying its effects upon the mechanical properties. The results of the experimental tests using microwave furnace heat energy show that there were clear variations in these mechanical properties including fatigue life, fatigue strength, ultimate stress, yielding stress, and hardness with different variation of duration times than the specimens without microwave treatment. The variation in mechanical properties were illustrated in both figures and tables in this study.