Dynamic behaviors of mode III interfacial crack under a constant loading rate

In an earlier study on intersonic crack propagation, Gao et al. (J. Mech. Phys. Solids 49: 2113-2132, 2001) described molecular dynamics simulations and continuum analysis of the dynamic behaviors of a mode II dominated crack moving along a weak plane under a constant loading rate. The crack was observed to initiate its motion at a critical time after the onset of loading, at which it is rapidly accelerated to the Rayleigh wave speed and propagates at this speed for a finite time interval until an intersonic daughter crack is nucleated at a peak stress at a finite distance ahead of the original crack tip. The present article aims to analyze this behavior for a mode III crack moving along a bi-material interface subject to a constant loading rate. We begin with a crack in an initially stress-free bi-material subject to a steadily increasing stress. The crack initiates its motion at a critical time governed by the Griffith criterion. After crack initiation, two scenarios of crack propagation are investigated: the first one is that the crack moves at a constant subsonic velocity; the second one is that the crack moves at the lower shear wave speed of the two materials. In the first scenario, the shear stress ahead of the crack tip is singular with exponent -1/2, as expected; in the second scenario, the stress singularity vanishes but a peak stress is found to emerge at a distance ahead of the moving crack tip. In the latter case, a daughter crack supersonic with respect to the softer medium can be expected to emerge ahead of the initial crack once the peak stress reaches the cohesive strength of the interface.

Influence of processing temperature on microstructure and microhardness of copper subjected to high-pressure torsion

Cu samples were subjected to high-pressure torsion (HPT) with up to 6 turns at room temperature (RT) and liquid nitrogen temperature (LNT), respectively. The effects of temperature on grain refinement and microhardness variation were investigated. For the samples after HPT processing at RT, the grain size reduced from 43 mu m to 265 nm, and the Vickers microhardness increased from HV52 to HV140. However, for the samples after HPT processing at LNT, the value of microhardness reached its maximum of HV150 near the center of the sample and it decreased to HV80 at the periphery region. Microstructure observations revealed that HPT straining at LNT induced lamellar structures with thickness less than 100 nm appearing near the central region of the sample, but further deformation induced an inhomogeneous distribution of grain sizes, with submicrometer-sized grains embedded inside micrometer-sized grains. The submicrometer-sized grains with high dislocation density indicated their nonequilibrium nature. On the contrary, the micrometer-sized grains were nearly free of dislocation, without obvious deformation trace remaining in them. These images demonstrated that the appearance of micrometer-sized grains is the result of abnormal grain growth of the deformed fine grains.

Detection of Copper Ion with Laser-Induced Fluorescence in A Capillary Electrophoresis Microchip

A capillary electrophoresis microchip coupled with a confocal laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) detector was successfully constructed for the analysis of trace amounts of heavy metals in environmental sources. A new fluorescence dye, RBPhOH, synthesized from rhodamine B, was utilized in a glass microchip to selectively determine copper with high sensitivity. A series of factors including running buffer concentration, detection voltage, and sample loading time were optimized for maximum LIF detector response and, hence, method sensitivity.

Understanding the branching ratios of chi(c1) -> phi phi,omega omega,omega phi observed at BES-III

In this work, we discuss the contribution of the mesonic loops to the decay rates of chi(c1) -> phi phi, omega omega, which are suppressed by the helicity selection rules and chi(c1) -> phi omega, which is a double- Okubo- ZweigIizuka forbidden process. We find that the mesonic loop effects naturally explain the clear signals of chi(c1) -> phi phi, omega omega decay modes observed by the BES Collaboration. Moreover, we investigate the effects of the omega - phi mixing, which may result in the order of magnitude of the branching ratio BR(chi(c1) -> omega phi) being 10(-7). Thus, we are waiting for the accurate measurements of the BR(chi(c1) -> omega omega), BR(chi(c1) -> phi phi) and BR(chi(c1) -> omega phi) which may be very helpful for testing the long- distant contribution and the omega - phi mixing in chi(c1) -> phi phi, omega omega, omega phi decays.

Highly enantioselective resolution of terminal epoxides with cross-linked polymeric salen-Co(III) complexes

Crosslinked polymeric salen-Co(III) complexes derived from a novel dialdehyde and a trialdehyde were synthesized and employed in the hydrolytic kinetic resolution (HKR) of terminal epoxides. Up to 99%, ee were obtained with only 0.16-0.02 mol%,, of catalyst (based on catalytic unit). (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.