Detection and Characterization of Long-Pulse Low-Velocity Impact Damage in Plastic Bonded Explosives

Damage not only degrades the mechanical properties of explosives, but also influences the shock sensitivity, combustion and even detonation behavior of explosives. The study of impact damage is crucial in the vulnerability evaluation of explosives. A long-pulse low-velocity gas gun with a gas buffer was developed and used to induce impact damage in a hot pressed plastic bonded explosive. Various methods were used to detect and characterize the impact damage of the explosive. The microstructure was examined by use of polarized light microscopy. Fractal analysis of the micrographs was conducted by use of box counting method. The correlation between the fractal dimensions and microstructures was analyzed. Ultrasonic testing was conducted using a pulse through-transmission method to obtain the ultrasonic velocity and ultrasonic attenuation. Spectra analyses were carried out for recorded ultrasonic signals using fast Fourier transform. The correlations between the impact damage and ultrasonic parameters including ultrasonic velocities and attenuation coefficients were also analyzed. To quantitatively assess the impact induced explosive crystal fractures, particle size distribution analyses of explosive crystals were conducted by using a thorough etching technique, in which the explosives samples were soaked in a solution for enough time that the binder was totally removed. Impact induces a large extent of explosive crystal fractures and a large number of microcracks. The ultrasonic velocity decreases and attenuation coefficients increase with the presence of impact damage. Both ultrasonic parameters and fractal dimension can be used to quantitatively assess the impact damage of plastic bonded explosives.

Thermal transport in high porosity cellular metal foams

The heat dissipation capability of highly porous cellular metal foams with open cells subject to forced air convection is studied using a combined experimental and analytical approach. The cellular morphologies of six FeCrAlY (an iron-based alloy) foams and six copper alloy foams with a range of pore sizes and porosities are quantified with the scanning electronic microscope and image analysis. Experimental measurements on pressure drop and heat transfer for copper foams are carried out. A numerical model for forced convection across open-celled metal foams is subsequently developed, and the predictions are compared with those measured. Reasonably good agreement with test data is obtained, given the complexity of the cellular foam morphology and the associated momentum/energy transport. The results show that cell size has a more significant effect on the overall heat transfer than porosity. An optimal porosity is obtained based on the balance between pressure drop and overall heat transfer, which decreases as the Reynolds number is increased.

Quantifying Cell Binding Kinetics Mediated By Surface-Bound Blood Type B Antigen To Immobilized Antibodies

Cell adhesion is crucial to many biological processes, such as inflammatory responses, tumor metastasis and thrombosis formation. Recently a commercial surface plasmon resonance (SPR)-based BIAcore biosensor has been extended to determine cell binding mediated by surface-bound biomolecular interactions. How such cell binding is quantitatively governed by kinetic rates and regulating factors, however, has been poorly understood. Here we developed a novel assay to determine the binding kinetics of surface-bound biomolecular interactions using a commercial BIAcore 3000 biosensor. Human red blood cells (RBCs) presenting blood group B antigen and CM5 chip bearing immobilized anti-B monoclonal antibody (mAb) were used to obtain the time courses of response unit, or sensorgrams, when flowing RBCs over the chip surface. A cellular kinetic model was proposed to correlate the sensorgrams with kinetic rates. Impacts of regulating factors, such as cell concentration, flow duration and rate, antibody-presenting level, as well as pH value and osmotic pressure of suspending medium were tested systematically, which imparted the confidence that the approach can be applied to kinetic measurements of cell adhesion mediated by surface-bound biomolecular interactions. These results provided a new insight into quantifying cell binding using a commercial SPR-based BIAcore biosensor.

Transmission Electron Microscopy Characterization of Laser Welding Cast Ni-Based Superalloy K418 Turbo Disk And Alloy Steel 42Crmo Shaft

Microstructure characterization is important for controlling the quality of laser welding. In the present work, a detailed microstructure characterization by transmission electron microscopy was carried out on the laser welding cast Ni-based superalloy K418 turbo disk and alloy steel 42CrMo shaft and an unambiguous identification of phases in the weldment was accomplished. It was found that there are gamma-FeCrNiC austenite solid solution dendrites as the matrix, (Nb, Ti) C type MC carbides, fine and dispersed Ni-3 Al gamma' phase as well as Laves particles in the interdendritic region of the seam zone. A brief discussion was given for their existence based on both kinetic and thermodynamic principles. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Growth Mechanism And Joint Structure Of Zno Tetrapods

Regular zinc oxide (ZnO) tetrapods with a flat plane have been obtained on Si(1 0 0) substrate via the chemical vapour deposition approach. The x-ray diffraction result suggests that these tetrapods are all single crystals with a wurtzite structure that grow along the (0 0 0 1) direction and corresponding electron backscatter diffraction analysis reveals the crystal orientation of growth and exposed surface. Furthermore, we find some ZnO tetrapods with some legs off and the angles between every two legs are measured with the aid of scanning electron microscopy and image analysis, which benefit to reveal the structure of ZnO tetrapods joint. The structure model and growth mechanism of ZnO tetrapods are proposed. Besides, the stable model of the interface was obtained through the density-functional theory calculation and the energy needed to break the twin plane junction was calculated as 5.651 J m(-2).

Experimental study on the microstructure and nanomechanical properties of the wing membrane of dragonfly

Detailed investigations on the microstructure and the mechanical properties of the wing membrane of the dragonfly are carried out. It is found that in the direction of the thickness the membrane was divided into three layers rather than a single entity as traditionally considered, and on the surfaces the membrane displays a random distribution rough microstructure that is composed of numerous nanometer scale columns coated by the cuticle wax secreted. The characteristics of the surface structure are measured and described. The mechanical properties of the membranes taken separately from the wings of live and dead dragonflies are investigated by the nanoindentation technique. The Young's moduli obtained here are approximately two times greater than the previous result, and the reasons that yield the difference are discussed.

Microstructure and nanomechanical properties of the wing membrane of dragonfly

Detailed investigations on the microstructure and the mechanical properties of the wing membrane of the dragonfly were carried out. It was found that in the direction of the thickness the membrane was divided into three layers rather than as traditionally considered as a single entity, and on the surfaces the membrane displayed a random distribution rough microstructure that was composed of numerous nanometer scale columns coated by the cuticle wax secreted. The characteristics of the surfaces were accurately measured and a statistical radial distribution function of the columns was presented to describe the structural properties of the surfaces. Based on the surface microstructure, the mechanical properties of the membranes taken separately from the wings of living and dead dragonflies were investigated by the nanoindentation technique. The Young's moduli obtained here are approximately two times greater than the previous result, and the reasons that yield the difference are discussed. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A special method to evaluate the strong adhesion between brittle coating and ductile substrate

The evaluation of the interfacial adhesion of coating system has always been a rough task. In this paper, a special testing method of cross-sectional indentation is applied on a model coating system, i.e. electroplated chromium on a steel substrate which is generally regarded as an example of materials pair with strong adhesion. Based on fractography analysis with SEM and interfacial stress simulation with FEM, it is found that interfacial shear stress may induce coating spalling. More interestingly, spalling location is sensitive to substrate pretreatment process. This shows the feasibility of cross-sectional indentation to distinguish interfacial strength at a high level.

Stabilizing to disruptive transition of focal adhesion response to mechanical forces

Strong mechanical forces can, obviously, disrupt cell-cell and cell-matrix adhesions, e.g., cyclic uniaxial stretch induces instability of cell adhesion, which then causes the reorientation of cells away from the stretching direction. However, recent experiments also demonstrated the existence of force dependent adhesion growth (rather than dissociation). To provide a quantitative explanation for the two seemingly contradictory phenomena, a microscopic model that includes both integrin-integrin interaction and integrin-ligand interaction is developed at molecular level by treating the focal adhesion as an adhesion cluster. The integrin clustering dynamics and integrin-ligand binding dynamics are then simulated within one unified theoretical frame with Monte Carlo simulation. We find that the focal adhesion will grow when the traction force is higher than a relative small threshold value, and the growth is dominated by the reduction of local chemical potential energy by the traction force. In contrast, the focal adhesion will rupture when the traction force exceeds a second threshold value, and the rupture is dominated by the breaking of integrin-ligand bonds. Consistent with the experiments, these results suggest a force map for various responses of cell adhesion to different scales of mechanical force. PMID: 20542514

Surface-Bound Selectin-Ligand Binding Is Regulated By Carrier Diffusion

Two-dimensional (2D) kinetics of receptor-ligand interactions governs cell adhesion in many biological processes. While the dissociation kinetics of receptor-ligand bond is extensively investigated, the association kinetics has much less been quantified. Recently receptor-ligand interactions between two surfaces were investigated using a thermal fluctuation assay upon biomembrane force probe technique (Chen et al. in Biophys J 94:694-701, 2008). The regulating factors on association kinetics, however, are not well characterized. Here we developed an alternative thermal fluctuation assay using optical trap technique, which enables to visualize consecutive binding-unbinding transition and to quantify the impact of microbead diffusion on receptor-ligand binding. Three selectin constructs (sLs, sPs, and PLE) and their ligand P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1 were used to conduct the measurements. It was indicated that bond formation was reduced by enhancing the diffusivity of selectin-coupled carrier, suggesting that carrier diffusion is crucial to determine receptor-ligand binding. It was also found that 2D forward rate predicted upon first-order kinetics was in the order of sPs > sLs > PLE and bond formation was history-dependent. These results further the understandings in regulating association kinetics of surface-bound receptor-ligand interactions.

The intensity distributions of collected signals in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy with the combining of confocal and CARS techniques is a remarkable alternative for imaging chemical or biological specimens that neither fluoresce nor tolerate labeling. The CARS is a nonlinear optical process, the imaging properties of CARS microscopy will be very different from the conventional confocal microscopy. In this paper, we calculated the propagation of CARS signals by using the wave equation in medium and the slowly varying envelope approximation (SVEA), and find that the intensity angular distributions vary considerably with the different experimental configurations and the different specimen shapes. So the conventional description of microscopy (e.g.. the point spread function) will fail to descript the imaging properties of CARS microscopy. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.