In Situ Observations On The Fracture Process Of Metallic Glassy Ribbons

Crack propagation and strain field evolution in two metallic glassy ribbons are studied using in situ scanning electron microscopy and the white digital speckle correlation method. Strain state at the crack tip, which depends heavily on the fracture toughness, plays a key role in fracture. A high degree of shear strain concentration in tough glassy ribbon can satisfy the critical shear strain, resulting in shear fracture, whereas a high degree of linear strain concentration in brittle glassy ribbon can initiate normal tensile fracture. (C) 2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In Situ Synthesis of Nanocrystalline Intermetallic Compound Layer During Surface Mechanical Attrition Treatment of Zirconium

The surface mechanical attrition treatment (SMAT) technique was developed to synthesize a nanocrystalline (NC) layer on the surface of metallic materials for upgrading their overall properties and performance. In this paper, by means of SMAT to a pure zirconium plate at the room temperature, repetitive multidirectional peening of steel shots (composition (wt%): 1C, 1.5Cr, base Fe) severely deformed the surface layer. A NC surface layer consisting of the intermetallic compound FeCr was fabricated on the surface of the zirconium. The microstructure characterization of the surface layer was performed by using X-ray diffraction analysis, optical microscopy, scanning and transmission electron microscopy observations. The NC surface layer was about 25 mu m thick and consisted of the intermetallic compound FeCr with an average grain size of 25 +/- 10 nm. The deformation-induced fast diffusion of Fe and Cr from the steel shots into Zr occurred during SMAT, leading to the formation of intermetallic compound. In addition, the NC surface layer exhibited an ultrahigh nanohardness of 10.2 GPa.

Measurements Of In Situ Stress And Mining-Induced Stress In Beiminghe Iron Mine Of China

In order to obtain the distribution rules of in situ stress and mining-induced stress of Beiminghe Iron Mine, the stress relief method by overcoring was used to measure the in situ stress, and the MC type bore-hole stress gauge was adopted to measure the mining-induced stress. In the in situ stress measuring, the technique of improved hollow inclusion cells was adopted, which can realize complete temperature compensation. Based on the measuring results, the distribution model of in situ stress was established and analyzed. The in situ stress measuring result shows that the maximum horizontal stress is 1.75-2.45 times of vertical stress and almost 1.83 times of the minimum horizontal stress in this mineral field. And the mining-induced stress measuring result shows that, according to the magnitude of front abutment pressure the stress region can be separated into stress-relaxed area, stress-concentrated area and initial stress area. At the -50 m mining level of this mine, the range of stress-relaxed area is 0-3 m before mining face; the range of stress-concentrated area is 3-55 m before mining face, and the maximum mining-induced stress is 16.5-17.5 MPa, which is 15-20 m from the mining face. The coefficient of stress concentration is 1.85.

Optimization of Air Staging In A 1 Mw Tangentially Fired Pulverized Coal Furnace

This paper deals with an experimental study of air staging in a 1 MW (heat input power) tangentially fired pulverized coal furnace. The influences of several variables associated with air staging on NOx reduction efficiency and unburned carbon in fly ash were investigated, and these variables included the air stoichiometric ratio of primary combustion zone (SR1), the locations of over-fire air nozzles along furnace height, and the ratio of coal concentration of the fuel-rich stream to that of the fuel-lean one (RRL) in primary air nozzle. The experimental results indicate that SR1 and RRL have optimum values for NOx reduction, and the two optimum values are 0.85 and 3:1, respectively. NO, reduction efficiency monotonically increases with the increase of OFA nozzle location along furnace height. On the optimized operating conditions of air staging, NOx reduction efficiency can attain 47%. Although air staging can effectively reduce NOx emission, the increase of unburned carbon in fly ash should be noticed. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effect of coal-over-coal reburn on furnace temperature and heat flux distributions in 1 MW tangentially fired furnace

The furnace temperature and heat flux distributions of 1 MW tangentially fired furnace were studied during coal-over-coal reburn, and the influences of the position of reburn nozzle and reburn fuel fraction on furnace temperature and heat flux distributions were investigated. Compared with the baseline, the flue gas temperature is 70–90 C lower in primary combustion and 130–150 C higher at furnace exit, and the variations of the flue gas temperature distributions along furnace height are slower. The temperature distribution along the width of furnace wall decreases with the increase of the relative furnace height. In the primary combustion zone and the reburn zone, the temperature and heat flux distributions of furnace wall are much non-uniform and asymmetric along the width of furnace wall, those of furnace wall in the burnout zone are relatively uniform, and the temperature non-uniformity coefficients of the primary combustion zone, the reburn zone and the burnout zone are 0.290, 0.100 and 0.031, respectively.

Temperature dependence of dark lines in coherent population trapping

We measure the signal amplitude and linewidth of a dark line in coherent population trapping in the Rb vapour cell filled with mixed buffer gas N-2 and Ar as a function of cell temperature. We find that the dark line signal amplitude increases with temperature up to a maximum at 49 degrees C and then drops at higher temperatures due to quenching effects of N-2. The linewidth of the dark line remains basically constant, at 1080 Hz. We also measure the linewidth of the dark line as a function of laser intensity. The linewidth increases linearly with laser intensity. An intrinsic linewidth (FWHM=896 Hz at 3.4 GHz) of the Rb cell is obtained.

Measurement technique for in situ characterizing aberrations of projection optics in lithographic tools

As the feature size decreases, degradation of image quality caused by wavefront aberrations of projection optics in lithographic tools has become a serious problem in the low-k1 process. We propose a novel measurement technique for in situ characterizing aberrations of projection optics in lithographic tools. Considering the impact of the partial coherence illumination, we introduce a novel algorithm that accurately describes the pattern displacement and focus shift induced by aberrations. Employing the algorithm, the measurement condition is extended from three-beam interference to two-, three-, and hybrid-beam interferences. The experiments are performed to measure the aberrations of projection optics in an ArF scanner. (C) 2006 Optical Society of America.

In situ surface topography measurement method of granite base in scanning wafer stage with laser interferometer

Topography of a granite surface has an effect on the vertical positioning of a wafer stage in a lithographic tool, when the wafer stage moves on the granite. The inaccurate measurement of the topography results in a bad leveling and focusing performance. In this paper, an in situ method to measure the topography of a granite surface with high accuracy is present. In this method, a high-order polynomial is set up to express the topography of the granite surface. Two double-frequency laser interferometers are used to measure the tilts of the wafer stage in the X- and Y-directions. From the sampling tilts information, the coefficients of the high-order polynomial can be obtained by a special algorithm. Experiment results shows that the measurement reproducibility of the method is better than 10 nm. (c) 2006 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

In situ synthesis of ZrO2/ZrW2O8 composites with near-zero thermal expansion

In this paper, ZrO2 and WO3 were used as the raw materials to prepare ZrO2/ZrW2O8 composites by in situ reaction method and the thermal expansion property of the composites was studied. This novel method included a heating step up to 1473 K for 24 h, which combines the synthesizing and sintering of ZrW2O8. The result indicates that ZrO2/ZrW2O8 composite shows near-zero thermal expansion when the weight ratio of ZrO2 and WO3 is 2.5:1. Compared with composites prepared previously by non-reactive sintering of ZrO2 and ZrW2O8, the composites show higher relative density and lower porosity.

Ontogeny of IgM-producing cells in the mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi identified by in situ hybridisation

The ontogeny of IgM-producing cells was studied in juvenile mandarin fish Simperca chuatsi, an important fish in China's aquaculture sector. The IgM-producing cells were localised through in situ hybridisation with a probe complementary to the Ig mu-chain in lymphoid-related tissues, including head kidney, spleen, thymus, intestine and gills. In head kidney, transcripts of Ig mu were first detected at 20 days post-hatching (dph) with a few positive signals. and the number of IgM-producing cells increased obviously from 39 dph onwards. At 136 dph, a large amount of positive cells were observed in the entire organ with clusters of these cells located around the blood vessels. In spleen, IgM-producing cells were found from 26 dph onwards, followed by an increase until 67 dph: clusters of positive cells were also detected around blood vessels at 102 dph. In thymus, IgM-producing cells were first observed at 39 dph; thereafter, no obvious increase was detected until 78 dph. The positive cells in thymus were distributed mainly in the outer zone of thymus. A few IgM-producing cells were still observed in thymus of 1-year-old mandarin fish. IgM-producing cells were not detected in the intestine until 87 dph, with several discrete positively stained cells distributed in the lamina propria. IgM-producing cells, scattered mainly in primary gill filaments around blood vessels, were detected in gills from 90 dph. As in other teleosts, these results indicated that the head kidney appears to be the primary organ for IgM production in mandarin fish, and IgM-producing cells exist in all organs examined in the present study, implying their lymphoid role in fish. In addition, it is suggested that vaccination after 20 dph may be much more effective in mandarin fish. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In situ nutrient removal from aquaculture wastewater by aquatic vegetable Ipomoea aquatica on floating beds

Nutrient-rich effluents caused rising concern due to eutrophication of aquatic environment by utilization of a large amount of formula feed. Nutrient removal and water quality were investigated by planting aquatic vegetable on artificial beds in 36-m(2) concrete fishponds. After treatment of 120 days, 30.6% of total nitrogen (TN) and 18.2% of total phosphorus (TP) were removed from the total input nutrients by 6-m(2) aquatic vegetable Ipomoea aquatica. The concentrations of TN, TP, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and chlorophyll a in planted ponds were significantly lower than those in non-planted ponds (P<0.05). Transparency of water in planted ponds was much higher than that of control ponds. No significant differences in the concentration of total ammonia nitrogen (TAN), nitrate nitrogen (NO3-N) and nitrite nitrogen (NO2--N) were found between planted and non-planted ponds. These results suggested that planting aquatic vegetable with one-sixth covered area of the fishponds could efficiently remove nutrient and improve water quality.

Identification of Prorocentrum minimum and Takayama pulchella by fluorescence in situ hybridization through epifluorescence microscopy and flow cytometry

Partial rDNA sequences of Prorocentrum minimum and Takayama pulchella were amplified, cloned and sequenced. and these sequence data were deposited in the GenBank. Eight oligonucleotide probes (DNA probes) were designed based on the sequence analysis. The probes were employed to detect and identify P. minimum and T. pulchella in unialgal and mixed algal samples with a fluorescence in situ hybridization method using flow cytometry. Epifluorescence micrographs showed that these specific probes labeled with fluorescein isothiocyanate entered the algal cells and bound to target sequences, and the fluorescence signal resulting from whole-cell hybridization varied from probe to probe. These DNA probes and the hybridization protocol we developed were specific and effective for P. minimum and T. pulchella, without any specific binding to other algal species. The hybridization efficiency of different probes specific to P. minimum was in the order: PM18S02 > PM28S02 > PM28S01 > PM18S01, and that of the probes specific to T. pulchella was TP18S02 > TP28S01 > TP28S02 > TP18S01. The different hybridization efficiency of the DNA probes could also be shown in the fluorescent signals between the labeled and unlabeled cells demonstrated using flow cytometry. The DNA probes PM18S02, PM28S02; TP18S02 and TP28S01, and the protocol, were also useful for the detection of algae in natural samples.