Silver nanocluster formation in silicate glass by single step ion-exchange

We report the formation of silver nanoclusters of average size ∼ 1.1 nm in a single step ion-exchanged silica glass. Silver clusters are formed in a glass during ion-exchange by fine-tuning the ion-exchange parameters such as salt composition, temperature and time. Such nanocluster formation during ion-exchange preserves the waveguiding properties of the ion-exchanged surface of the glass making them suitable for nonlinear waveguide device fabrication.     

A generalized self consistent model for effective elastic moduli of human dentine

Closed-form expressions are presented for effective material properties of human dentine in this paper. The derivation is based a Generalized Self Consistent Method and the strain energy principle. The Generalized Self Consistent Model for cell model of fiber-reinforced composites is extended to the case of hollow cylinder model and the corresponding cell model is chosen to consist of a circular hollow cylinder filled with liquid or gas phase, which surrounded by a circular cylindrical shell of matrix phase. Each layer of cylindrical shell is here considered as a kind of composite consisting of collagen fibrils, with mineralized hydroxyapatite, loosely connected to their neighbours, and water (or gas in the case of dry dentine composite). Using the cell model, the effect of Poisson’s ratio and volume fraction of intertubular dentine on effective mechanical constants is analyzed. Results obtained from the proposed model are compared with those from other models such as nano-indentation method.     

Use of the time constant to detect corrosion speed in reinforced concrete structures

The relatively simple to measure ‘time constant’ is presented as an index for characterizing the level of corrosion experienced by steel in concrete. This communication, largely in the form of a technical note, explicitly illustrates that the time constant determined from electrochemical testing has significant merit for monitoring corrosion of steel in concrete, and appears to be insensitive to the area of electrode being probed. In this work, the time constant, κ, is determined following a galvanostatic excitation signal, revealing a good correlation between the value of κ and corrosion status across specimens of widely varying geometry. Although this notion has been suggested in the past, this work presents both a survey and consolidated review to indicate the utility of the parameter as an index to corrosion rate on-site.     

Experiments and simulations of the mechanical performance of repaired panels

Firstly, the compress experiment is undertaken to investigate the efficiency of repaired panels in this paper, and then modeling of the mechanical behavior of the repaired composite panel under compressive static load is conducted by using of the finite element method. The effect of geometric non-linearity on the stress–strain response is considered in the numeric analysis. Fatherly, the user material subroutine (UMAT) is integrated with the ABAQUS package with the geometric non-linearity effect for studying the damage initiation and its progression in the composite structure, and quadrilateral, linear, thick shell elements (S8R) are adopted. Finally, the predicted strain distribution, damage evolution and strength of the laminate are compared with the test results.     

Interpretation of the morphology and crystallography of precipitate γ1-Ti4Nb3Al9 in L10-TiAl(Nb)-based intermetallics by invariant line theory

The coherent precipitate γ₁-Ti₄Nb₃Al₉ in the Nb-modified TiAl-based intermetallic compound with a nominal composition of Ti–48 at% Al–10 at% Nb was investigated by transmission electron microscopy. The crystallographic and morphologic characteristics of the precipitating phase have been calculated based on invariant line theory. It is revealed that in the γ-TiAl(Nb)/γ₁-Ti₄Nb₃Al₉ couples, both the morphological and crystallographical characteristics of the precipitate γ₁-Ti₄Nb₃Al₉ could be predicted by the three-dimensional phase transformation invariant line model. The needle direction of [001] at the early stage for coherent precipitate γ₁-Ti₄Nb₃Al₉ and [111] for equilibrium phase γ₁-Ti₄Nb₃Al₉ have both been explained well. The characterization of morphology and crystallography of the precipitate reaction in γ-TiAl/γ₁-Ti₄Nb₃Al₉ system sustain the postulate that precipitates are bounded by unrotated planes (eigenplanes) when three real eigenvalues exist.     

Quantum state transfer between an optomechanical cavity and a diamond nuclear spin ensemble

We explore an efficient scheme for transferring quantum state between an optomechanical cavity and nuclear spins of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, where quantum information can be efficiently stored (retrieved) into (from) the nuclear spin ensemble assisted by a mechanical resonator in a dispersive regime. Our scheme works for a broad range of cavity frequencies and might have potential applications in employing the nuclear spin ensemble as a memory in quantum information processing. The feasibility of our protocol is analyzed using currently available parameters.     

TrajStat: GIS-based software that uses various trajectory statistical analysis methods to identify potential sources from long-term air pollution measurement data

Statistical analysis of air mass back trajectories combined with long-term ambient air pollution measurements are useful tools for source identification. Using these methods, the geographic information system (GIS) based software, TrajStat, was developed to view, query, and cluster the trajectories and compute the potential source contribution function (PSCF) and concentration weighted trajectory (CWT) analyses when measurement data are included.     

Optimization for limited angle tomography in medical image processing

This paper aims to reduce the problems of incomplete data in computed tomography, which happens frequently in medical image process and analysis, e.g., when the high-density region of objects can only be penetrated by X-rays at a limited angular range. As the projection data are available only in an angular range, the incomplete data problem can be attributed to the limited angle problem, which is an ill-posed inverse problem. Image reconstruction based on total variation (TV) reduces the problem and gives better performance on edge-preserving reconstruction; however, the artificial parameter can only be determined through considerable experimentation. In this paper, an effective TV objective function is proposed to reduce the inverse problem in the limited angle tomography. This novel objective function provides a robust and effective reconstruction without any artificial parameter in the iterative processes, using the TV as a multiplicative constraint. The results demonstrate that this reconstruction strategy outperforms some previous ones.     

Experimental study of hypervapotron under conditions of high heat flux

In the light of the needs to develop high-performance heat transfer component for nation-level large-scale scientific projects of China,a hypervapotron experimental platform with supply of heat flux 1 10 MW m-2 was established.With this platform,the multiphase flow and heat transfer phenomena on the surface of triangular fin when the subcooled water flowed through were observed and measured with the planar laser induced fluorescence(PLIF) and high-speed photography techniques.The temperature contour on the slice plane of fin symmetry was measured and the heat flux contour was processed based on gradient computation.It is confirmed that:1) PLIF with high-speed photography is very powerful technique to investigate the multiphase flow of hypervapotron quantitatively;2) evaporation is the primary way in heat transfer mechanism of hypervapotron flow under the condition of high heat flux.The techniques and results obtained will provide useful reference in the R&D of hypervapotron technology in China.