Size Effects in Micro-bending Deformation of MEMS Devices Based on the Discrete Dislocation Theory

In the present research, the discrete dislocation theory is used to analyze the size effect phenomena for the MEMS devices undergoing micro-bending load. A consistent result with the experimental one in literature is obtained. In order to check the effectiveness to use the discrete dislocation theory in predicting the size effect, both the basic version theory and the updated one are adopted simultaneously. The normalized stress-strain relations of the material are obtained for different plate thickness or for different obstacle density. The prediction results are compared with experimental results.

Laboratory-scale fluidized bed rig for high-temperature tube wastage studies

As part of a study of the wear of candidate heat exchanger tube materials for use in fluidized bed combustors, two similar laboratory-scale rigs have been built and characterized. Specimens of selected alloys are carried on counter-rotating rotors immersed in a fluidized bed, and are exposed to particle impact velocities of up to approximately 3 ms-1 at temperatures up to 1000°C. The performance of this design of apparatus has been investigated in detail. The effects of several experimental variables have been studied, including angle of particle impact, specimen speed, position of the rotor within the fluidized bed, duration of exposure, bed material particle size, degradation of the bed material, degree of fluidization of the bed, and size of specimen. In many cases the results obtained with steel specimens at elevated temperatures are similar to those observed with polymeric specimens at low temperatures.

Size Effect and Geometrical Effect of Solids in Micro-Indentation Test

Micro-indentation tests at scales of the order of sub-micron show that the measured hardness increases strongly with decreasing indent depth or indent size, which is frequently referred to as the size effect. At the same time, at micron or sub-micron scale, another effect, which is referred to as the geometrical size effects such as crystal grain size effect, thin film thickness effect, etc., also influences the measured material hardness. However, the trends are at odds with the size-independence implied by the conventional elastic-plastic theory. In the present research, the strain gradient plasticity theory (Fleck and Hutchinson) is used to model the composition effects (size effect and geometrical effect) for polycrystal material and metal thin film/ceramic substrate systems when materials undergo micro-indenting. The phenomena of the "pile-up" and "sink-in" appeared in the indentation test for the polycrystal materials are also discussed. Meanwhile, the micro-indentation experiments for the polycrystal Al and for the Ti/Si_3N_4 thin film/substrate system are carried out. By comparing the theoretical predictions with experimental measurements, the values and the variation trends of the micro-scale parameter included in the strain gradient plasticity theory are predicted.

Effects of Particle Size on Dilute Particle Dispersion in a Karman Vortex Street Flow

It is shown that in a Karman vortex street flow, particle size influences the dilute particle dispersion. Together with an increase of the particle size, there is an emergence of a period-doubling bifurcation to a chaotic orbit, as well as a decrease of the corresponding basins of attraction. A crisis leads the attractor to escape from the central region of flow. In the motion of dilute particles, a drag term and gravity term dominate and result in a bifurcation phenomenon.

Dislocations And Twins In Nanocrystalline Ni After Severe Plastic Deformation: The Effects Of Grain Size

Deformation microstructures have been investigated in nanocrystalline (nc) Ni with grain sizes in the 50-100 nm range. It was found that deformation twinning started to occur in grains of similar to 90 nm, and its propensity increased with decreasing grain size. In most of the nc grains dislocations were observed as well, in the form of individual dislocations and dipoles. It is concluded that dislocation-mediated plasticity dominates for grain sizes in the upper half, i.e. 50-100 nm, of the nanocrystalline regime. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Size-Dependent Elastic Modulus And Fracture Toughness Of The Nanofilm With Surface Effects

The effective elastic modulus and fracture toughness of the nanofilm were derived with the surface relaxation and the surface energy taken into consideration by means of the interatomic potential of an ideal crystal. The size effects of the effective elastic modulus and fracture toughness were discussed when the thickness of the nanofilm was reduced. And the dependence of the size effects on the surface relaxation and surface energy was also analyzed.

Effects Of Subgrid-Scale Modeling On Lagrangian Statistics In Large-Eddy Simulation

The application of large-eddy simulation (LES) to turbulent transport processes requires accurate prediction of the Lagrangian statistics of flow fields. However, in most existing SGS models, no explicit consideration is given to Lagrangian statistics. In this paper, we focus on the effects of SGS modeling on Lagrangian statistics in LES ranging from statistics determining single-particle dispersion to those of pair dispersion and multiparticle dispersion. Lagrangian statistics in homogeneous isotropic turbulence are extracted from direct numerical simulation (DNS) and the LES with a spectral eddy-viscosity model. For the case of longtime single-particle dispersion, it is shown that, compared to DNS, LES overpredicts the time scale of the Lagrangian velocity correlation but underpredicts the Lagrangian velocity fluctuation. These two effects tend to cancel one another leading to an accurate prediction of the longtime turbulent dispersion coefficient. Unlike the single-particle dispersion, LES tends to underestimate significantly the rate of relative dispersion of particle pairs and multiple-particles, when initial separation distances are less than the minimum resolved scale due to the lack of subgrid fluctuations. The overprediction of LES on the time scale of the Lagrangian velocity correlation is further confirmed by a theoretical analysis using a turbulence closure theory.

Size effects on the melting of nickel nanowires: a molecular dynamics study

The melting process of nickel nanowires are simulated by using molecular dynamics with the quantum Sutten-Chen many-body force field. The wires studied were approximately cylindrical in cross-section and periodic boundary conditions were applied along their length; the atoms were arranged initially in a face-centred cubic structure with the [0 0 1] direction parallel to the long axis of the wire. The size effects of the nanowires on the melting temperatures are investigated. We find that for the nanoscale regime, the melting temperatures of Ni nanowires are much lower than that of the bulk and are linear with the reciprocal of the diameter of the nanowire. When a nanowire is heated up above the melting temperature, the neck of the nanowire begins to arise and the diameter of neck decreases rapidly with the equilibrated running time. Finally, the breaking of nanowire arises, which leads to the formation of the spherical clusters. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The size-dependent bending elastic properties of nanobeams with surface effects

A theoretical model is presented to investigate the size-dependent bending elastic properties of a nanobeam with the influence of the surface relaxation and the surface tension taken into consideration. The surface layer and its thickness of a nanostructure are defined unambiguously. A three-dimensional (3D) crystal model for a nanofilm with n layers of relaxed atoms is investigated. The four nonzero elastic constants of the nanofilm are derived, and then the Young's modulus for simple tension is obtained. Using the relation of energy equilibrium, the size-dependent effective elastic modulus and effective flexural rigidity of a nanobeam with two kinds of cross sections are derived, and their dependence on the surface relaxation and the surface tension is analysed.

Effects of Thermocapillary Convection on the Growth Process in Industrial 8-inch Silicon Czochralski Growth

Czochralski (CZ) crystal growth process is a widely used technique in manufacturing of silicon crystals and other semiconductor materials. The ultimate goal of the IC industry is to have the highest quality substrates, which are free of point defect, impurities and micro defect clusters. The scale up of silicon wafer size from 200 mm to 300 mm requires large crucible size and more heat power. Transport phenomena in crystal growth processes are quite complex due to melt and gas flows that may be oscillatory and/or turbulent, coupled convection and radiation, impurities and dopant distributions, unsteady kinetics of the growth process, melt crystal interface dynamics, free surface and meniscus, stoichiometry in the case of compound materials. A global model has been developed to simulate the temperature distribution and melt flow in an 8-inch system. The present program features the fluid convection, magnetohydrodynamics, and radiation models. A multi-zone method is used to divide the Cz system into different zones, e.g., the melt, the crystal and the hot zone. For calculation of temperature distribution, the whole system inside the stainless chamber is considered. For the convective flow, only the melt is considered. The widely used zonal method divides the surface of the radiation enclosure into a number of zones, which has a uniform distribution of temperature, radiative properties and composition. The integro-differential equations for the radiative heat transfer are solved using the matrix inversion technique. The zonal method for radiative heat transfer is used in the growth chamber, which is confined by crystal surface, melt surface, heat shield, and pull chamber. Free surface and crystal/melt interface are tracked using adaptive grid generation. The competition between the thermocapillary convection induced by non-uniform temperature distributions on the free surface and the forced convection by the rotation of the crystal determines the interface shape, dopant distribution, and striation pattern. The temperature gradients on the free surface are influenced by the effects of the thermocapillary force on the free surface and the rotation of the crystal and the crucible.

Edge and Size Effects in Micro Composite Structure

Because of the load transfer effect of interface layer, the stress distribution inside the composite structure of film/substrate can be very different from the Timoshenko's model. In this paper, we give the derivation and analysis of such load transfer effect of shear-lag (S-L) model. The micro-structure size (boundary conditions) effect together with interface load transfer effect becomes more and more important as the microstructure size including the three dimensions of thickness, width and length shrinks. The microstructure size is also responsible for the so-called edge-induced stress. The edge effect and difference of S-L model and Timoshenko model are also demonstrated.

Dislocations and twins in nanocrystalline Ni after severe plastic deformation: the effects of grain size

Deformation microstructures have been investigated in nanocrystalline (nc) Ni with grain sizes in the 50-100 nm range. It was found that deformation twinning started to occur in grains of similar to 90 nm, and its propensity increased with decreasing grain size. In most of the nc grains dislocations were observed as well, in the form of individual dislocations and dipoles. It is concluded that dislocation-mediated plasticity dominates for grain sizes in the upper half, i.e. 50-100 nm, of the nanocrystalline regime. (C) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Detection of Atomic Scale Changes in the Free Volume Void Size of Three-Dimensional Colorectal Cancer Cell Culture Using Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy

5 p.

A unified guide to two opposite size effects in nano elastic materials

The microstructural variation near surface of nano elastic materials is analyzed based on different potentials. The atomic/molecular mechanism underlying the variation and its effect on elastic modulus are such that the nature of long-range interactions (attractive or repulsive) in the atomic/molecular potentials essentially governs the variation near surface (looser or tighter) and results in two opposite size effects (decreasing or increasing modulus) with decreasing size.