Using material behavior models to develop process control strategies

Advances in material behavior modeling have enabled the explicit incorporation of material phenomena into process design and control methodologies. A new approach to material behavior modeling, in which stability analysis has been combined with the analysis of activation energy, can be used to identify processing regimes within which the material behavior is essentially deterministic and is amenable to process control. This articles illustrates the application of this dynamic material modeling approach through the example of deformation processing of a δ-TiAl alloy. Additionally, a new control-system design strategy explicitly based on the knowledge of the state of the material under hot-deformation conditions is explored.