Effects of tempered structure on the near threshold fatigue crack growth behavior of a coarse grained high strength steel

Near threshold fatigue crack growth behavior of a high strength steel under different temper levels was investigated. It is found that the observed variations in ΔKth could predominantly be attributed to roughness induced crack closure. The closure-free component of the threshold stress intensity range, ΔKeff,th showed a systematic variation with monotonic yield strength.

Near-threshold fatigue crack growth in bulk metallic glass composites

A major drawback in using bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) as structural materials is their extremely poor fatigue performance. One way to alleviate this problem is through the composite route, in which second phases are introduced into the glass to arrest crack growth. In this paper, the fatigue crack growth behavior of in situ reinforced BMGs with crystalline dendrites, which are tailored to impart significant ductility and toughness to the BMG, was investigated. Three composites, all with equal volume fraction of dendrite phases, were examined to assess the influence of chemical composition on the near-threshold fatigue crack growth characteristics. While the ductility is enhanced at the cost of yield strength vis-a-vis that of the fully amorphous BMG, the threshold stress intensity factor range for fatigue crack initiation in composites was found to be enhanced by more than 100%. Crack blunting and trapping by the dendritic phases and constraining of the shear bands within the interdendritic regions are the micromechanisms responsible for this enhanced fatigue crack growth resistance.

Ordering near the percolation threshold in models of two-dimensional interacting bosons with quenched dilution

Randomly diluted quantum boson and spin models in two dimensions combine the physics of classical percolation with the well-known dimensionality dependence of ordering in quantum lattice models. This combination is rather subtle for models that order in two dimensions but have no true order in one dimension, as the percolation cluster near threshold is a fractal of dimension between 1 and 2: two experimentally relevant examples are the O(2) quantum rotor and the Heisenberg antiferromagnet. We study two analytic descriptions of the O(2) quantum rotor near the percolation threshold. First a spin-wave expansion is shown to predict long-ranged order, but there are statistically rare points on the cluster that violate the standard assumptions of spin-wave theory. A real-space renormalization group (RSRG) approach is then used to understand how these rare points modify ordering of the O(2) rotor. A new class of fixed points of the RSRG equations for disordered one-dimensional bosons is identified and shown to support the existence of long-range order on the percolation backbone in two dimensions. These results are relevant to experiments on bosons in optical lattices and superconducting arrays, and also (qualitatively) for the diluted Heisenberg antiferromagnet La-2(Zn,Mg)(x)Cu1-xO4.

Effects of temper level on the dependence of fatigue crack growth threshold and crack closure on the prior austenitic grain size

An attempt has been made to systematically investigate the effects of microstructural parameters, such as the prior austenite grain size (PAGS), in influencing the resistance to fatigue crack growth (FCG) in the near-threshold region under three different temper levels in a quenched and tempered high-strength steel. By austenitizing at various temperatures, the PAGS was varied from about 0.7 to 96 μm. The microstructures with these grain sizes were tempered at 200 °C, 400 °C, and 530 °C and tested for fatigue thresholds and crack closure. It has been found that, in general, three different trends in the dependence of both the total threshold stress intensity range, ΔK th , and the intrinsic threshold stress intensity range, ΔK eff, th , on the PAGS are observable. By considering in detail the factors such as cyclic stress-strain behavior, environmental effects on FCG, and embrittlement during tempering, the present observations could be rationalized. The strong dependence of ΔK th and ΔK eff, th on PAGS in microstructures tempered at 530 °C has been primarily attributed to cyclic softening and thereby the strong interaction of the crack tip deformation field with the grain boundary. On the other hand, a less strong dependence of ΔK th and ΔK eff, th on PAGS is suggested to be caused by the cyclic hardening behavior of lightly tempered microstructures occurring in 200 °C temper. In both microstructures, crack closure influenced near-threshold FCG (NTFCG) to a significant extent, and its magnitude was large at large grain sizes. Microstructures tempered at the intermediate temperatures failed to show a systematic variation of ΔKth and ΔKeff, th with PAGS. The mechanisms of intergranular fracture vary between grain sizes in this temper. A transition from “microstructure-sensitive” to “microstructure-insensitive” crack growth has been found to occur when the zone of cyclic deformation at the crack tip becomes more or less equal to PAGS. Detailed observations on fracture morphology and crack paths corroborate the grain size effects on fatigue thresholds and crack closure.

Micromechanics Of Fatigue Crack-Growth At Low Stress Intensities In A High-Strength Steel

An attempt to systematically investigate the effects of microstructural parameters in influencing the resistance to fatigue crack growth (FCG) in the near-threshold region under three different temper levels has been made for a high strength low alloy steel to observe in general, widely different trends in the dependence of both the total threshold stress intensity range, DELTA-K(th) and the intrinsic or effective threshold stress intensity range, DELTA-K(eff-th) on the prior austenitic grain size (PAGS). While a low strain hardening microstructure obtained by tempering at high temperatures exhibited strong dependence of DELTA-K(th) on the PAGS by virtue of strong interactions of crack tip slip with the grain boundary, a high strength, high strain hardening microstructure as a result of tempering at low temperature exhibited a weak dependence. The lack of a systematic variation of the near-threshold parameters with respect to grain size in temper embrittled structures appears to be related to the wide variations in the amount of intergranular fracture near threshold. Crack closure, to some extent provides a basis on which the increases in DELTA-K(th) at larger grain sizes can be rationalised. This study, in addition, provides a wide perspective on the relative roles of slip behaviour embrittlement and environment that result in the different trends observed in the grain size dependence of near-threshold fatigue parameters, based on which the inconsistency in the results reported in the literature can be clearly understood. Assessment of fracture modes through extensive fractography revealed that prior austenitic grain boundaries are effective barriers to cyclic crack growth compared to martensitic packet boundaries, especially at low stress intensities. Fracture morphologies comprising of low energy flat transgranular fracture can occur close to threshold depending on the combinations of strain hardening behaviour, yield strength and embrittlement effects. A detailed consideration is given to the discussion of cyclic stress strain behaviour, embrittlement and environmental effects and the implications of these phenomena on the crack growth behaviour near threshold.

Roy equation analysis of ππ scattering

We analyse the Roy equations for the lowest partial waves of elastic ππ scattering. In the first part of the paper, we review the mathematical properties of these equations as well as their phenomenological applications. In particular, the experimental situation concerning the contributions from intermediate energies and the evaluation of the driving terms are discussed in detail. We then demonstrate that the two S-wave scattering lengths a00 and a02 are the essential parameters in the low energy region: Once these are known, the available experimental information determines the behaviour near threshold to within remarkably small uncertainties. An explicit numerical representation for the energy dependence of the S- and P-waves is given and it is shown that the threshold parameters of the D- and F-waves are also fixed very sharply in terms of a00 and a20. In agreement with earlier work, which is reviewed in some detail, we find that the Roy equations admit physically acceptable solutions only within a band of the (a00,a02) plane. We show that the data on the reactions e+e−→ππ and τ→ππν reduce the width of this band quite significantly. Furthermore, we discuss the relevance of the decay K→ππeν in restricting the allowed range of a00, preparing the grounds for an analysis of the forthcoming precision data on this decay and on pionic atoms. We expect these to reduce the uncertainties in the two basic low energy parameters very substantially, so that a meaningful test of the chiral perturbation theory predictions will become possible.

Percolative switching in transition metal dichalcogenide field-effect transistors at room temperature

We have addressed the microscopic transport mechanism at the switching or `on-off' transition in transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) field-effect transistors (FETs), which has been a controversial topic in TMDC electronics, especially at room temperature. With simultaneous measurement of channel conductivity and its slow time-dependent fluctuation (or noise) in ultrathin WSe2 and MoS2 FETs on insulating SiO2 substrates where noise arises from McWhorter-type carrier number fluctuations, we establish that the switching in conventional backgated TMDC FETs is a classical percolation transition in a medium of inhomogeneous carrier density distribution. From the experimentally observed exponents in the scaling of noise magnitude with conductivity, we observe unambiguous signatures of percolation in a random resistor network, particularly, in WSe2 FETs close to switching, which crosses over to continuum percolation at a higher doping level. We demonstrate a powerful experimental probe to the microscopic nature of near-threshold electrical transport in TMDC FETs, irrespective of the material detail, device geometry, or carrier mobility, which can be extended to other classes of 2D material-based devices as well.

Thermal anomalies in ternary Ge42-xPbxSe58 glasses near the charge carrier reversal threshold

The carrier type reversal (CTR) from p- to n-type in semiconducting chalcogenide glasses is an important and a long standing problem in glass science. Ge-Se glasses exhibit CTR when the metallic elements Bi and Pb are added. For example, bulk Ge42-xSe58Pbx glasses exhibit CTR around 8-9 at. % of Pb. These glasses have been prepared by melt quenching method. Glass transition temperature (T-g), Specific heat change between the liquid and the glassy states (Delta C-p) at T-g and the nonreversing heat flow (Delta H-nr) measured by modulated differential scanning calorimetry exhibit anomalies at 9 at. % of Pb. These observed anomalies are interpreted on the basis of the nano scale phase separation occurring in these glasses.

Unusual metallic-like transport near the percolation threshold

In multiwall carbon nanotube (MWNT)-polystyrene (PS) composites, a weak temperature dependence of conductivity has been observed at a percolation threshold of 0.4 wt %. The power law [sigma(T)proportional to T-0.3] behavior indicates metallic-like behavior, unlike the usual activated transport for systems near the percolation threshold. The low field positive magnetoconductance follows H-2 dependence, due to the weak localization in disordered metallic systems. The marginal metallic nature of MWNT-PS at percolation threshold is further verified from the negligible frequency dependence of conductivity, in the temperature range of 300 to 5 K. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3455895]

Threshold behaviour in the nonisothermal properties of Ge-Sb-Se glasses

Differential scanning calorimetry studies have been performed on GexSb5Se95-x (12.5≤x≤35) and GexSb10Se90-x (10≤x≤32.5) glasses. The observed dependence of the glass transition temperature on the mean coordination number up to =2.60 and the maxima in the glass transition temperature and the activation energy of crystallisation at =2.65 have been interpreted in terms of the mechanical and chemical thresholds occuring near these compositions.

Dynamic Supply and Threshold Voltage Scaling for CMOS Digital Circuits Using In-Situ Power Monitor

A generalized power tracking algorithm that minimizes power consumption of digital circuits by dynamic control of supply voltage and the body bias is proposed. A direct power monitoring scheme is proposed that does not need any replica and hence can sense total power consumed by load circuit across process, voltage, and temperature corners. Design details and performance of power monitor and tracking algorithm are examined by a simulation framework developed using UMC 90-nm CMOS triple well process. The proposed algorithm with direct power monitor achieves a power savings of 42.2% for activity of 0.02 and 22.4% for activity of 0.04. Experimental results from test chip fabricated in AMS 350 nm process shows power savings of 46.3% and 65% for load circuit operating in super threshold and near sub-threshold region, respectively. Measured resolution of power monitor is around 0.25 mV and it has a power overhead of 2.2% of die power. Issues with loop convergence and design tradeoff for power monitor are also discussed in this paper.

Dynamic Supply and Threshold Voltage Scaling for CMOS Digital Circuits Using In-Situ Power Monitor

A generalized power tracking algorithm that minimizes power consumption of digital circuits by dynamic control of supply voltage and the body bias is proposed. A direct power monitoring scheme is proposed that does not need any replica and hence can sense total power consumed by load circuit across process, voltage, and temperature corners. Design details and performance of power monitor and tracking algorithm are examined by a simulation framework developed using UMC 90-nm CMOS triple well process. The proposed algorithm with direct power monitor achieves a power savings of 42.2% for activity of 0.02 and 22.4% for activity of 0.04. Experimental results from test chip fabricated in AMS 350 nm process shows power savings of 46.3% and 65% for load circuit operating in super threshold and near sub-threshold region, respectively. Measured resolution of power monitor is around 0.25 mV and it has a power overhead of 2.2% of die power. Issues with loop convergence and design tradeoff for power monitor are also discussed in this paper.

Low-complexity near-optimal signal detection in underdetermined large-MIMO systems

In this paper, we consider signal detection in nt × nr underdetermined MIMO (UD-MIMO) systems, where i) nt >; nr with a overload factor α = nt over nr >; 1, ii) nt symbols are transmitted per channel use through spatial multiplexing, and iii) nt, nr are large (in the range of tens). A low-complexity detection algorithm based on reactive tabu search is considered. A variable threshold based stopping criterion is proposed which offers near-optimal performance in large UD-MIMO systems at low complexities. A lower bound on the maximum likelihood (ML) bit error performance of large UD-MIMO systems is also obtained for comparison. The proposed algorithm is shown to achieve BER performance close to the ML lower bound within 0.6 dB at an uncoded BER of 10-2 in 16 × 8 V-BLAST UD-MIMO system with 4-QAM (32 bps/Hz). Similar near-ML performance results are shown for 32 × 16, 32 × 24 V-BLAST UD-MIMO with 4-QAM/16-QAM as well. A performance and complexity comparison between the proposed algorithm and the λ-generalized sphere decoder (λ-GSD) algorithm for UD-MIMO shows that the proposed algorithm achieves almost the same performance of λ-GSD but at a significantly lesser complexity.

Temperature dependent vibrational lifetimes in supercritical fluids near the critical point

Vibrational relaxation measurements on the CO asymmetric stretching mode (similar to 1980 cm(-1)) of tungsten hexacarbonyl (W(CO)(6)) as a function of temperature at constant density in several supercritical solvents in the vicinity of the critical point are presented. In supercritical ethane, at the critical density, there is a region above the critical temperature (Tc) in which the lifetime increases with increasing temperature. When the temperature is raised sufficiently (similar to T-c + 70 degrees C), the lifetime decreases with further increase in temperature. A recent hydrodynamic/thermodynamic theory of vibrational relaxation in supercritical fluids reproduces this behavior semiquantitatively. The temperature dependent data for fixed densities somewhat above and below the critical density is in better agreement with the theory. In fluoroform solvent at the critical density, the vibrational lifetime also initially increases with increasing temperature. However, in supercritical CO2 at the critical density, the temperature dependent vibrational lifetime decreases approximately linearly with temperature beginning almost immediately above T-c. The theory does not reproduce this behavior. A comparison between the absolute lifetimes in the three solvents and the temperature trends is made.

Universality in the fast orientational relaxation near isotropic-nematic transition

Detailed molecular dynamics simulations of Lennard-Jones ellipsoids have been carried out to investigate the emergence of criticality in the single-particle orientational relaxation near the isotropic-nematic (IN) phase transition. The simulations show a sudden appearance of a power-law behavior in the decay of the second-rank orientational relaxation as the IN transition is approached. The simulated value of the power-law exponent is 0.56, which is larger than the mean-field value (0.5) but less than the observed value (0.63) and may be due to the finite size of the simulated system. The decay of the first-rank orientational time correlation function, on the other hand, is nearly exponential but its decay becomes very slow near the isotropic-nematic transition, The zero-frequency rotational friction, calculated from the simulated angular Velocity correlation function, shows a marked increase near the IN transition.