Nanoscale contact plasticity of crystalline metal: Experiment and analytical investigation via atomistic and discrete dislocation models

Nanoscale incipient plastic deformation in crystalline metals occurs as the result of the collective motion of dislocations. It is known as “nanoplasticity” and is recognized as the elementary process of the macroscopic deformation. Abrupt increases in indent displacements called displacement bursts were observed in recent nanoindentation experiments; that is, the specific behavior for nanoplasticity. In the present study, experimental tests are first conducted to educe the unique nature of the nanoscale deformation. Subsequently, large-scale atomistic simulations are performed to predict the incipient plastic deformation and a new discrete dislocation model combined with the boundary element analysis is constructed to capture the collective motion of the dislocations. Our results suggest that the incipient plastic deformation requires much higher critical shear stress than the theoretical shear strength due to high compressive stress distribution beneath the indenter, and that the displacement burst is induced by surface rearrangement corresponding to hundreds of dislocation dipoles.     

Development of the Water Cooled Ceramic Breeder Test Blanket Module in Japan

The development of a Water Cooled Ceramic Breeder (WCCB) Test Blanket Module (TBM) is being performed as one of the most important steps toward DEMO blanket in Japan. For the TBM testing and evaluation toward DEMO blanket, the module fabrication technology development by a candidate structural material, reduced activation martensitic/ferritic steel, F82H, is one of the most critical items from the viewpoint of realization of TBM testing in ITER. In Japan, fabrication of a real scale first wall, side walls, a breeder pebble bed box and assembling of the first wall and side walls have succeeded. Recently, the real scale partial mockup of the back wall was fabricated. The fabrication procedure of the back wall, whose thickness is up to 90 mm, was confirmed toward the fabrication of the real scale back wall by F82H. Important key technologies are almost clarified for the fabrication of the real scale TBM module mockup. From the view point of testing and evaluation, development of the technology of the blanket tritium recovery, development of advanced breeder and multiplier pebbles and the development of the blanket neutronics measurement technology are also performed. Also, tritium production and recovery test using D-T neutron in the Fusion Neutronics Source (FNS) facility has been started as the verification test of tritium production performance. This paper overviews the recent achievements of the development of the WCCB TBM in Japan.     

Photocatalytic hydrogen production from water with nonfood hydrocarbons as oxidizing sacrifice agents

To enhance photocatalytic water splitting, various oxidizing sacrifice agents (OSA) have been added to the system in order to scavenge the coproduced O₂, and, thus, to hinder the reverse reactions. In the aim of achieving carbon‐neutral photocatalytic water splitting, nonfood hydrocarbons of castor‐ and jojoba‐oils were evaluated as OSA. Moreover, various surfactants were tested as emulsifiers for W/O binary solution for promoting photocatalytic water splitting rate. Among the OSA used, the castor‐oil was found to be more suitable candidate compared to jojoba‐oil, which was attributed to its smaller carbon chain numbers of mainly 18. Without surfactants, around 20 vol %‐castor‐oil aqueous binary solution with TiO₂/Pt(0.10 wt %) provided the highest water splitting rate of about 30 mL‐H₂/(m²·h). Among tested surfactants, liquid‐detergent was the best due to its optical transparency. 40 vol %‐ or 60 vol %‐castor‐oil emulsion with a drop of liquid‐detergent resulted in a water splitting rate of 125 mL‐H₂/(m²·h), which was four times greater that the aforementioned highest value. © 2010 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011     

Evaluation and fabrication of pore‐size‐tuned silica membranes with tetraethoxydimethyl disiloxane for gas separation

Organic/inorganic hybrid silica membranes were prepared from 1,1,3,3‐tetraethoxy‐1,3‐dimethyl disiloxane (TEDMDS) by the sol‐gel technique with firing at 300–550°C in N₂. TEDMDS‐derived silica membranes showed high H₂ permeance (0.3–1.1 × 10^?6 mol m^?2 s^?1 Pa^?1) with low H₂/N₂ (～10) and high H₂/SF₆ (～1200) perm‐selectivity, confirming successful tuning of micropore sizes larger than TEOS‐derived silica membranes. TEDMDS‐derived silica membranes prepared at 550°C in N₂ increased gas permeances as well as pore sizes after air exposure at 450°C. TEDMDS had an advantage in tuning pore size by the “template” and “spacer” techniques, due to the pyrolysis of methyl groups in air and Si? O? Si bonding, respectively. For pore size evaluation of microporous membranes, normalized Knudsen‐based permeance, which was proposed based on the gas translation model and verified with permeance of zeolite membranes, reveals that pore sizes of TEDMDS membranes were successfully tuned in the range of 0.6–1.0 nm. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2011     

Self-healing capability of porous polymer film with corrosion inhibitor inserted for corrosion protection

Porous polymer films with varying pore sizes were prepared by changing the evaporation time of an organic solvent. A specimen was prepared consisting of porous polymer film containing corrosion inhibitor coated onto carbon steel. The specimens were scratched with a knife-edge, and the polarization resistance was monitored in a sodium chloride solution. An increase in polarization resistance was confirmed, and the films with larger-sized pores demonstrated a higher self-healing capability.     

Evaluating the impact of reissued instructions on data speculative processor performance

In this paper, we investigate the impact of instructions reissued due to misspeculated data dependences on processor performance. Recently, the practice of speculation in resolving data dependences has been studied as a means of extracting more instruction level parallelism. When a misspeculation occurs, it is necessary to revert the processor state to a safe point where the speculation is initiated, with an instruction reissue mechanism utilized for that purpose. The instruction reissue suffers less miss penalties than instruction squashing which handles misspeculated control flows in current generation processors, but causes redundant instruction dispatching, i.e. multiple copies of an instruction are in flight in functional units. The effectiveness of data speculation would be diminished, if reissued instructions caused serious structural hazards. Therefore, we evaluate how the instruction reissue affects processor performance using an execution-driven simulator. We find that overhead due to instruction reissue is sufficiently small so as to allow data speculation to contribute to processor performance.     

Engineering ethics education on the basis of continuous education to improve communication ability

This paper proposes an engineering ethics education method for students on the basis of continuous education to improve communication ability. First, through the process of debate, the students acquire the fundamental skills necessary to marshal their arguments, to construct rebuttals, and to summarize debates. Second, the students study the fundamental techniques to make a presentation on technical subjects related to electrical engineering. Following these classes, in lectures on engineering ethics, the students probe the causes of various accidents and consider better approaches for avoiding such accidents with each other. In most cases, the students can express good and commonsensical opinions from an ethical standpoint. However, they can hardly make judgments when the situations, such as the human relations in the above accidents, are set up in concrete terms. During the engineering ethics class, the students come to know that the human relations behind the case make ethical matters more complicated. Furthermore, they come to understand that facilitating daily communications with co‐workers and/or supervisors is very important in order to avoid such accidents. The recognition of the students is primarily the result of the continuous education during 3 years. It can be said that the engineering ethics education thus constructed increases in the students this kind of spontaneous awareness as well as their ethical qualities as engineers. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 183(3): 1–8, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.22283     

Control design of a pneumatic cylinder with distributed model of pipelines

In this paper, the control design with distributed model of pipelines is proposed to make the cylinder side be free of pressure sensors. In this research, long connected pipelines are used. The pipeline is designed as a one dimensional distributed model. The model of pipelines is based on the discretization of four equations, as state equation of air, motion equation, continuity equation, and energy equation. The distributed model estimates the pressure losses and time delay through long connected pipelines in real time. To confirm the control method with distributed model of pipelines, a simulation model of the whole system is designed. Compared simulation and experimental results, it has been found that the model represents the real system well. In the experiments, the pressure values in the cylinder chambers estimated by the distributed model in real time played as control signals. Compared with the estimated and measured pressure values in the cylinder chambers, it is found that with this distributed model, the pressure values in the cylinder chambers is precisely estimated in real time using the measured values at the control ports of the servo valve. The experimental results demonstrate that the position accuracy is almost the same with that of using the measured pressure signals in the cylinder chambers. The cylinder side is free of pressure sensors with the proposed control method.     

Ab initio calculations of Fe–Ni clusters

The clusters of Fe, Ni, and Fe–Ni are investigated computationally using a density functional approach. The geometries of clusters are optimized under the constraint of well-defined point group symmetries at the UB3LYP/LanL2DZ level. The equilibrium geometries and binding energies are presented and discussed, together with natural populations and natural electron configurations. In addition, the binding energies of Fe_n−xNi_x clusters are found to generally decrease by successive substitutions of Ni atoms for Fe atoms. For Fe_n−xNi_x clusters, the comparisons on total energies between isomers indicate that Ni atoms energetically prefer clustering in the mixed Fe–Ni clusters. The calculations for Fe_n−xNi_x clusters show that the clustering leads to a segregation of Ni atoms from Fe atoms.     

Improvement of stability for organic solar cells by using molybdenum trioxide buffer layer

We demonstrated that the stability of organic solar cells (OSCs) under light irradiation is markedly enhanced by inserting a molybdenum trioxide (MoO₃) buffer layer between an anode layer of indium tin oxide (ITO) and a p-type layer of 5,10,15,20-tetraphenylporphyrin (H₂TPP) or N,N'-di(1-naphthyl)-N,N'-diphenylbenzidine (α-NPD). The use of the MoO₃ layer also enhanced open-circuit voltages and power conversion efficiencies of the OSCs due to an increase in built-in potential. From results of stability test of hole-only α-NPD devices, we concluded that the OSC degradation occurs near the ITO/p-type layer interface and that the use of the MoO₃ layer can prevent the degradation at this interface.