Deformation and crystallization of Zr-based amorphous alloys in homogeneous flow regime

The purpose of this study is to experimentally investigate the interaction of inelastic deformation and microstructural changes of two Zr-based bulk metallic glasses (BMGs): Zr41.25Ti13.75Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 (commercially designated as Vitreloy 1 or Vit1) and Zr46.75Ti8.25Cu7.5Ni10Be27.5 (Vitreloy 4, Vit4). High-temperature uniaxial compression tests were performed on the two Zr alloys at various strain rates, followed by structural characterization using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Two distinct modes of mechanically induced atomic disordering in the two alloys were observed, with Vit1 featuring clear phase separation and crystallization after deformation as observed with TEM, while Vit4 showing only structural relaxation with no crystallization. The influence of the structural changes on the mechanical behaviors of the two materials was further investigated by jump-in-strain-rate tests, and flow softening was observed in Vit4. A free volume theory was applied to explain the deformation behaviors, and the activation volumes were calculated for both alloys.

Selenoacetamide: Vibrational assignments and normal coordinate analysis

The i.r. spectra of selenoacetamide and its N-deuterated species have been recorded The fundamental frequencies of these compounds have been assigned. Force constants derived for thioacetamide and acetamide were transferred to the present compound and a good agreement with the observed frequencies were achieved. The results are discussed in relation to acetamide and thioacetamide.

New chelating resins based on polybenzimidazole. Selective sorption of copper(II) from ammoniacal media on resin with anchored l-cysteine

Microporous polybenzimidazole (PBI) of 250–500 μm bead size has been epoxidized and subsequently reacted with l-cysteine in the presence of a phase-transfer catalyst at room temperature to obtain a sorbent having anchored l-cysteine, EPBI(Cyst). The sorption of Cu(II), Ni(II), Co(II), and Zn(II) in mildly acidic and ammoniacal solutions has been measured under comparable conditions on EPBI(Cyst) and Dowex 50W-X8(H+) resins. While the latter shows no appreciable difference in sorption of the four metals in acidic and ammoniacal media and has 40–60 % selectivity for copper(II) over the other three, EPBI(Cyst) shows a threefold increase in copper sorption and more than 90% copper selectivity over the other metals in ammoniacal media, compared to mildly acidic media. The copper binding constant and saturation capacity of EPBI(Cyst) in ammoniacal media decrease only slowly beyond pH 11.6 with the result that the resin shows significant sorption of Cu(II) even in strongly ammoniacal solutions. The sorbed copper is stripped with HCl relatively easily. The copper sorption kinetics on EPBI(Cyst) is unusually fast in ammoniacal media with more than 90 % of equilibrium sorption being attained in one minute.

Selective sorption of ferric ion onto a crosslinked resin bearing triphenylphosphinimine residues

A polymeric sorbent containing triphenylphosphinimine residues has been obtained from crosslinked chloromethylated polystyrene by azidation, using phase-transfer catalysis, followed by reaction with triphenylphosphine at room temperature. The sorbent exhibits 100 % sorption selectivity for Fe(III) in the presence of Cu(II), Fe(II), Ni(II), Co(II), Mn(II), and Zn(II) in aqueous media. In the absence of Fe(III), however, Fe(II) is selectively sorbed over the other metal ions, and in the absence of both Fe(II) and Fe(III), Cu(II) has the highest selectivity of sorption on the resin. The sorption of Fe(III) is sensitive to pH, being maximum at pH not, vert, similar 2 and falling sharply at both higher and lower pH values. The sorbed Fe(III) is easily stripped with dilute HCl and the resulting protonated resin is regenerated to its original sorption capacity by treatment with dilute NaOH at room temperature.

Combined Cryo and Room-Temperature Ball Milling to Produce Ultrafine Halide Crystallites

The combined milling at cryogenic temperature as well as room temperature (RT) has been carried out to prepare ultrafine NaCl crystallites. The milling has been done in evacuated tungsten carbide vials backfilled with high-purity Ar. The results indicate the effect duration of cryomilling prior to RT milling has a strong effect on the final crystallite size. The deformation aided sintering of NaCl crystallites during RT milling and leads to the formation of bimodal distribution of crystallites. The cuboidal-shaped NaCl crystallite undergoes a roughening transition due to plastic deformation. The experimental results are explained using the temperature-dependent mechanical properties of NaCl single crystals and plastic-deformation-induced roughening.

Studies on a new high-intensity low-emission burner

This paper presents computational and experimental results on a new burner configuration with a mild combustion concept with heat release rates up to 10 MW/m(3). The burner configuration is shown to achieve mild combustion by using air at ambient temperature at high recirculation rates (similar to250%-290%) both experimentally and computationally. The principal features of the configuration are: (1) a burner with forward exit for exhaust gases; (2) injection of gaseous fuel and air as multiple, alternate, peripheral highspeed jets at the bottom at ambient temperature, thus creating high enough recirculation rates of the hot combustion products into fresh incoming reactants; and (3) use of a suitable geometric artifice-a frustum of a cone to help recirculation. The computational studies have been used to reveal the details of the flow and to optimize the combustor geometry based on recirculation rates. Measures, involving root mean square temperature fluctuations, distribution of temperature and oxidizer concentration inside the proposed burner, and a classical turbulent diffusion jet flame, are used to distinguish between them quantitatively. The system, operated at heat release rates of 2 to 10 MW/m(3) (compared to 0.02 to 0.32 MW/m(3) in the earlier studies), shows a 10-15 dB reduction in noise in the mild combustion mode compared to a simple open-top burner and exhaust NOx emission below 10 ppm for a 3 kW burner with 10% excess air. The peak temperature is measured around 1750 K, approximately 300 K lower than the peak temperature in a conventional burner.

A Numerical Scheme for Three-Dimensional Front Propagation and Control of Jordan Mode

As an example of a front propagation, we study the propagation of a three-dimensional nonlinear wavefront into a polytropic gas in a uniform state and at rest. The successive positions and geometry of the wavefront are obtained by solving the conservation form of equations of a weakly nonlinear ray theory. The proposed set of equations forms a weakly hyperbolic system of seven conservation laws with an additional vector constraint, each of whose components is a divergence-free condition. This constraint is an involution for the system of conservation laws, and it is termed a geometric solenoidal constraint. The analysis of a Cauchy problem for the linearized system shows that when this constraint is satisfied initially, the solution does not exhibit any Jordan mode. For the numerical simulation of the conservation laws we employ a high resolution central scheme. The second order accuracy of the scheme is achieved by using MUSCL-type reconstructions and Runge-Kutta time discretizations. A constrained transport-type technique is used to enforce the geometric solenoidal constraint. The results of several numerical experiments are presented, which confirm the efficiency and robustness of the proposed numerical method and the control of the Jordan mode.

A QUADRATIC C degrees INTERIOR PENALTY METHOD FOR LINEAR FOURTH ORDER BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS WITH BOUNDARY CONDITIONS OF THE CAHN-HILLIARD TYPE

We develop a quadratic C degrees interior penalty method for linear fourth order boundary value problems with essential and natural boundary conditions of the Cahn-Hilliard type. Both a priori and a posteriori error estimates are derived. The performance of the method is illustrated by numerical experiments.

REPRESENTING A CUBIC GRAPH AS THE INTERSECTION GRAPH OF AXIS-PARALLEL BOXES IN THREE DIMENSIONS

We show that every graph of maximum degree 3 can be represented as the intersection graph of axis parallel boxes in three dimensions, that is, every vertex can be mapped to an axis parallel box such that two boxes intersect if and only if their corresponding vertices are adjacent. In fact, we construct a representation in which any two intersecting boxes touch just at their boundaries.

SEPARATION DIMENSION OF BOUNDED DEGREE GRAPHS

The separation dimension of a graph G is the smallest natural number k for which the vertices of G can be embedded in R-k such that any pair of disjoint edges in G can be separated by a hyperplane normal to one of the axes. Equivalently, it is the smallest possible cardinality of a family F of total orders of the vertices of G such that for any two disjoint edges of G, there exists at least one total order in F in which all the vertices in one edge precede those in the other. In general, the maximum separation dimension of a graph on n vertices is Theta(log n). In this article, we focus on bounded degree graphs and show that the separation dimension of a graph with maximum degree d is at most 2(9) (log*d)d. We also demonstrate that the above bound is nearly tight by showing that, for every d, almost all d-regular graphs have separation dimension at least d/2]

GLOBAL REGISTRATION OF MULTIPLE POINT CLOUDS USING SEMIDEFINITE PROGRAMMING

Consider N points in R-d and M local coordinate systems that are related through unknown rigid transforms. For each point, we are given (possibly noisy) measurements of its local coordinates in some of the coordinate systems. Alternatively, for each coordinate system, we observe the coordinates of a subset of the points. The problem of estimating the global coordinates of the N points (up to a rigid transform) from such measurements comes up in distributed approaches to molecular conformation and sensor network localization, and also in computer vision and graphics. The least-squares formulation of this problem, although nonconvex, has a well-known closed-form solution when M = 2 (based on the singular value decomposition (SVD)). However, no closed-form solution is known for M >= 3. In this paper, we demonstrate how the least-squares formulation can be relaxed into a convex program, namely, a semidefinite program (SDP). By setting up connections between the uniqueness of this SDP and results from rigidity theory, we prove conditions for exact and stable recovery for the SDP relaxation. In particular, we prove that the SDP relaxation can guarantee recovery under more adversarial conditions compared to earlier proposed spectral relaxations, and we derive error bounds for the registration error incurred by the SDP relaxation. We also present results of numerical experiments on simulated data to confirm the theoretical findings. We empirically demonstrate that (a) unlike the spectral relaxation, the relaxation gap is mostly zero for the SDP (i.e., we are able to solve the original nonconvex least-squares problem) up to a certain noise threshold, and (b) the SDP performs significantly better than spectral and manifold-optimization methods, particularly at large noise levels.

Pattern-Formation During Self-organization in Three-Phase Eutectic Solidification

Eutectic growth is an interesting example for exploring the topic of pattern-formation in multi-phase systems, where the growth of the phases is coupled with the diffusive transport of one or more components in the melt. While in the case of binary alloys, the number of possibilities are limited (lamellae, rods, labyrinth etc.), their number rapidly increases with the number of components and phases. In this paper, we will investigate pattern formation during three-phase eutectic solidification using a state-of-the art phase-field method based on the grand-canonical density formulation. The major aim of the study is to highlight the role of two properties, which are the volume fraction of the solid phases and the solid-liquid interfacial energies, in the self-organization of the solid phases during directional growth. Thereafter, we will show representative phase-field simulations of a micro-structure in a real alloy (Ag-Al-Cu) using an asymmetric phase diagram as well as interfacial properties.