A four-phase confocal elliptical cylinder model for predicting the effective thermal conductivity of coated fibre composites

A four-phase confocal elliptical cylinder model is proposed from which a generalised self-consistent method is developed for predicting the thermal conductivity of coated fibre reinforced composites. The method can account for the influence of the fibre section shape ratio on conductivity, and the physical reasonableness of the model is demonstrated by using the fibre distribution function. An exact solution is obtained for thermal conductivity by applying conformal mapping and Laurent series expansion techniques of the analytic function. The solution to the three-phase confocal elliptical model, which simulates composites with idealised fibre-matrix interfaces, is arrived at as the degenerated case. A comparison with other available micromechanics methods, Hashin and Shtrikman's bounds and experimental data shows that the present method provides convergent and reasonable results for a full range of variations in fibre section shapes and for a complete spectrum of the fibre volume fraction. Numerical results show the dependence of the effective conductivities of composites on the aspect ratio of coated fibres and demonstrate that a coating is effective in enhancing the thermal transport property of a composite. The present solutions are helpful to analysis and design of composites.

Influence of vapor transport equilibration on the crystal quality and thermal-expansion coefficients of gamma-LiAlO2

gamma-LiAlO2 (LAO) single crystal has been grown by the Czochralski method. However, its quality was deteriorated due to lithium volatilization during the crystal growth. The full width at half maximum value drops from 116.9 to 44.2 arc sec after the LAO slice was treated by vapor transport equilibration at 1000, 1100, and 1200 degrees C/48 h in sequence. The treated slice shows higher optical transmission than the as-grown one in the measured wavelength range of 190-1900 nm, meanwhile, its absorption edge exhibits a blueshift. According to Raman spectra, the treated slice has homogeneous quality at different depths from surface to 0.01 mm. The expansion coefficient of the treated slice for a axis drops from 17.2398x10(-6)/degrees C to 16.5240x10(-6)/degrees C, and that for c axis drops from 10.7664x10(-6)/degrees C to 10.0786x10(-6)/degrees C.

Thermoelastic Stresses in SiC Single Crystals Grown by the Physical Vapor Transport Method

A finite element-based thermoelastic anisotropic stress model for hexagonal silicon carbide polytype is developed for the calculation of thermal stresses in SiC crystals grown by the physical vapor transport method. The composite structure of the growing SiC crystal and graphite lid is considered in the model. The thermal expansion match between the crucible lid and SiC crystal is studied for the first time. The influence of thermal stress on the dislocation density and crystal quality is discussed.

Modeling Ammonothermal Growth of GaN Single Crystals: The Role of Transport

Single crystal gallium nitride (GaN) is an important technological material used primarily for the manufacture of blue light lasers. An important area of contemporary research is developing a viable growth technique. The ammonothermal technique is an important candidate among many others with promise of commercially viable growth rates and material quality. The GaN growth rates are a complicated function of dissolution kinetics, transport by thermal convection and crystallization kinetics. A complete modeling effort for the growth would involve modeling each of these phenomena and also the coupling between these. As a first step, the crystallization and dissolution kinetics were idealized and the growth rates as determined purely by transport were investigated. The growth rates thus obtained were termed ‘transport determined growth rates’ and in principle are the maximum growth rates that can be obtained for a given configuration of the system. Using this concept, a parametric study was conducted primarily on the geometric and the thermal boundary conditions of the system to optimize the ‘transport determined growth rate’ and determine conditions when transport might be a bottleneck.

Size-Dependent Interface Phonon Transmission And Thermal Conductivity Of Nanolaminates

An analytical model for size-dependent interface phonon transmission and thermal conductivity of nanolaminates is derived based on the improved acoustic mismatch theory and the Lindemann melting theory by considering the size effect of phonon velocity and the interface lattice mismatch effect. The model suggests that the interface phonon transmission is dominant for the cross-plane thermal conductivity of nanolaminates and superlattices, and the intrinsic variety of size effect of thermal conductivity for different systems is proposed based on the competition mechanism of size effect of phonon transport between two materials constituting the interfaces. The model's prediction for thermal conductivity of nanolaminates agrees with the experimental results. (C) 2008 American Institute of Physics.

Information Preservation Modeling of Rayleigh-Benard Transition from Thermal Conduction to Convection

Onset and evolution of the Rayleigh-Benard (R-B) convection are investigated using the Information Preservation (IP) method. The information velocity and temperature are updated using the Octant Flux Splitting (OFS) model developed by Masters & Ye based on the Maxwell transport equation suggested by Sun & Boyd. Statistical noise inherent in particle approaches such as the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method is effectively reduced by the IP method, and therefore the evolutions from an initial quiescent fluid to a final steady state are shown clearly. An interesting phenomenon is observed: when the Rayleigh number (Ra) exceeds its critical value, there exists an obvious incubation stage. During the incubation stage, the vortex structure clearly appears and evolves, whereas the Nusselt number (Nu) of the lower plate is close to unity. After the incubation stage, the vortex velocity and Nu rapidly increase, and the flow field quickly reaches a steady, convective state. A relation of Nu to Ra given by IP agrees with those given by DSMC, the classical theory and experimental data.

Characteristics of recording and thermal fixing in lithium niobate

We present a theoretical model in which the band-transport equations and the coupled-wave equations are considered to study the two thermal-fixing methods (simultaneous fixing and postfixing) in Fe:LiNbO3. We found that, in simultaneous fixing, the existing ionic-grating affects the writing of the electronic grating by reduction of the coupling gain, and the grating envelope of the fixed-index grating is quite uniform inside the photorefractive crystal in comparison with the method of postfixing. The resulting diffraction efficiency of the fixed-volume grating is dependent mainly on the initial intensity modulation of the two writing beams. A set of experiments is also presented. (C) 1998 Optical Society of America.

Melting of Au and Al in nanometer Fe/Au and Fe/Al multilayers under swift heavy ions: A thermal spike study

Knowing that Fe is sensitive to swift heavy ion irradiations whereas Au and Al are not, the behavior of nanometric metallic multilayer systems, like [Fe(3 nm)/Au(x)](y) and [Fe(3 nm)/Al(x)](y) with x ranging between 1 and 10 mn, were studied within the inelastic thermal spike model. In addition to the usual cylindrical geometry of energy dissipation perpendicular to the ion projectile direction, the heat transport along the ion path was implemented in the electronic and atomic sub-systems. The simulations were performed using three different values of linear energy transfer corresponding to 3 MeV/u of Pb-208, Xe-132 and Kr-84 ions. For the Fe/Au system, evidence of appearance of a molten phase was found in the entire Au layer, provided the Au thickness is less than 7 nm and 3 nm for Pb and Xe ions, respectively. For the Fe/Al(x) system irradiated with Pb ions, the Al layers with a thickness less than 4 nm melt along the entire ion track. Surprisingly, the Fe layer does not melt if the Al thickness is larger than 2 nm, although the deposited energy surpasses the electronic stopping power threshold of track formation in Fe. For Kr ions melting does not occur in any of the multilayer systems.

Transport parameters in neutron stars from in-medium N N cross sections

We present a numerical study of shear viscosity and thermal conductivity of symmetric nuclear matter, pure neutron matter, and beta-stable nuclear matter, in the framework of the Brueckner theory. The calculation of in-medium cross sections and nucleon effective masses is performed with a consistent two- and three-body interaction. The investigation covers a wide baryon density range as needed in the applications to neutron stars. The results for the transport coefficients in beta-stable nuclear matter are used to make preliminary predictions on the damping time scales of nonradial modes in neutron stars.

Preparation and transport properties of a bulk icosahedral quasicrystalline Ti45Zr35Ni17Cu3 alloy

A bulk alloy which consists of the single icosahedral quasicrystalline phase (I-phase) in Ti45Zr35Ni17CU3 alloy has been fabricated by mechanical alloying and subsequent pulse discharge sintering technique. Crystallographic structure analyses show that the bulk alloy is an I-phase. The transport properties of the bulk alloy are examined, and the results show that the room-temperature thermal conductivity is 5.347 W K-(1) m(-1), and the electrical conductivity decreases with increasing the temperature from 300 to 450K. The Seebeck coefficient is negative at the temperature range from 300 to 360K, and changes to positive from 370 to 450K. Hall effect measurements indicate the bulk I-phase alloy has a high carrier concentration. The specific heat capacity increases when the temperature increases from 280 to 324 K.

Study on the two class glass transition and ion transport of a comb polymer electrolyte

The thermal behaviour and ion-transport properties of a comb polymer electrolyte CP350/LiSCN based on methyl vinyl ether/maleic anhydride copolymer with oligo-oxyethylene side chains were studied by means of DSC and ac impedance method. The two glass transition temperatures which can be attributed to side chains and main chains respectively were found to increase with increasing salt concentration. Conductivities which displayed non-Arrhenius behaviour were analyzed by using Vogel-Tammann-Fulcher equation and interpreted on the basis of the configurational entropy model derived by Gibbs and coworkers. The optimum ionic conductivity at 25 degrees C achieved was 2.19x10(-5)S/cm.