Deformation and fracture of glass bead/ CTBN-rubber/epoxy composites

Carboxyl-terminated butadiene-acrylonitrile-rubber decreases modulus and yield stress of the studied epoxy but increases fracture toughness. The addition of glass bead compensates for the loss in modulus but has little effect on yield stress. However, it significantly contributes to the fracture toughness by providing additional mechanisms for toughening of both the unmodified and rubber-modified epoxy. For the toughened epoxies studied, fracture surfaces gave only limited information on fracture mechanisms since significant energy absorption also occurs in the material below the fracture surface. Suggestions for suitable material compositions for fiber composite matrices are given.     

Systematic characterization of Cl2 reactive ion etchingfor improved ohmics in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs

Pre-metal-deposition reactive ion etching (RIE) was performed on an Al_0.3Ga_0.7N/AlN/GaN heterostructure in order to improve the metal-to-semiconductor contact resistance. An optimum AlGaN thickness for minimizing contact resistance was determined. An initial decrease in contact resistance with etching time was explained in terms of removal of an oxide surface layer and/or by an increase in tunnelling current with the decrease of the AlGaN thickness. The presence of a dissimilar surface layer was confirmed by an initial nonuniform etch depth rate. An increase in contact resistance for deeper etches was experienced. The increase was related to depletion of the two-dimensional (2-D) electron gas (2-DEG) under the ohmics. Etch depths were measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The contact resistance decreased from about 0.45 Ωmm for unetched ohmics to a minimum of 0.27 Ωmm for 70 Å etched ohmics. The initial thickness of the AlGaN layer was 250 Å. The decrease in contact resistance, without excessive complications on device processing, supports RIE etching as a viable solution to improve ohmic contact resistance in AlGaN/GaN HEMTs     

The organisational learning effects of management accounting information under advanced manufacturing technology

This study empirically examined the organisational learning effects of the nonfinancial performance information provided by management accounting information systems (MAISs) under advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). In this study, a target costing system and the frequent and quick reporting of information were considered the facilitators of learning. First, we examined the relationships between AMT level and the amount of nonfinancial performance information produced by MAISs. The empirical results showed that there are significant positive relationships between the level of AMT and nonfinancial performance information. With a systems approach, we also proved the impact of the relationships among AMT levels, nonfinancial performance information and learning facilitators on the organisational performance of a firm. The results of our research suggest that under a high level of AMT, for the provision of information to result in an increase of performance through organisational learning, a target costing system must be introduced and a large amount of information should be provided frequently and quickly. The results of this study also showed that although AMT level may be low, fairly well-arranged facilitators and a moderately large amount of information may be necessary for the improvement of performance. In conclusion, effective organisational learning depends on the provision of relevant information as well as efficient learning support mechanisms.     

A robust adaptive pole‐placement controller without strictly positive real condition

This paper considers the adaptive pole‐placement control problem for system (1) with unmodelled dynamics η_n dominated by a small constant ε multiplied by a quantity independent of ε but tending to infinity as the past input, output, and noise grow. Using bounded external excitation and randomly varying truncation techniques, we give a design method of adaptive pole‐placement controller. It is shown that the closed‐loop system is globally stable, the estimation error for the parameter contained in the modelled part is of order ε, and the closed‐loop system under the adaptive pole‐placement control law is suboptimal in the sense of $$\mathop{\lim\sup}\limits_{{n\to\infty }}{1\over n}\mathop{\sum}\limits_{i=0}^n{\left({A^{*}(z)y_{n}‐L(z)C(z)w_{n}‐B(z)R(z)y_{n}^{*}}\right)^{2}{\leq}O({\varepsilon}^{2})+\gamma^{2}\mathop{\sum}\limits_{j=1}^q{b_{j}^{2}}}$$\nopagenumbers\end while the SPR condition used usually in other papers is replaced by a stability condition. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Preparation of flexible polyhedral particles via concentrated emulsion templating polymerization

This paper presents recent efforts on the preparation of flexible polyhedral particles via concentrated emulsion templating polymerization in which the hydrophilic monomer (acrylamide) and hydrophobic monomer (butyl acrylate) are polymerized simultaneously in the continuous and dispersed phase, respectively. Such templating polymerization has been enhanced in our systems owing to the introduction of acrylamide monomer and their higher polymerization rate in continuous phase as compared with butyl acrylate in dispersed phase. Diffusion between the different phases was also inhibited. Furthermore, the stability of the concentrated emulsion and the molecular weight of the produced poly(butyl acrylate) were found to be significantly affected by the amount of redox initiator. The morphology of the particles could be controlled by varying the volume fraction of the dispersed phase and the polyhedral particles were achieved at higher volume fraction. Copyright © 2005 Society of Chemical Industry