Synthesis of High Density and Transparent Forsterite Ceramics Using Nano-Sized Precursors and Their Dielectric Properties

Forsterite (Mg₂SiO₄) ceramics were prepared using Mg(OH)₂ and SiO₂ as precursors, and the effect of powder characteristics of Mg(OH)₂ on calcination and sintering was investigated. The use of highly dispersed Mg(OH)₂ powder (HD powder) resulted in a lower calcination temperature. Forsterite powder of high homogeneity and small particle size prepared from the HD powder enabled synthesis of high-density forsterite ceramics by ordinary sintering without applying external pressure. Moreover, transparent forsterite ceramics were successfully synthesized through addition of excess Mg to the precursors to compensate for Mg evaporated during the sintering process. Subsequent dielectric measurements revealed that the transparent forsterite ceramics had a very low dielectric loss (tan δ<10⁻⁴).     

Mechanism of Mechanical Strength Increase of Soda–Lime Glass by Aging

Two models have been proposed to explain the mechanical strength increase of abraded or indented soda–lime glasses upon aging, namely, crack tip blunting and the release of residual tensile stress near the crack tip. To clarify the mechanism, the time dependence of the strengthening of an abraded soda–lime glass was investigated. Effects of aging media, such as moist air, distilled water, 1 N HCI and 1 N NaOH solutions, as well as the abrasion flaw depth, were determined. The strength increase rate in water of abraded soda–lime glass was compared with those of borosilicate and high-silica glasses. The effect of stressing during aging was also investigated. It was found that the rate of strength increase was faster with decreasing abrasion flaw depth and with decreasing chemical durability. For a given flaw depth, an acidic solution produced the fastest strengthening. The strengthening rate was found to accelerate because of the "coaxing'effect of stressing during aging. From these observations, it was concluded that the strengthening rates relate to the diffusion process and chemical reactions, especially the alkali–hydrogen (or hydronium) ion-exchange reaction, near the crack tip. The role of the residual tensile stress appears to be similar to that of the applied tensile stress, helping the diffusion process near the crack tip. The observed strength increase of soda–lime glass by aging was thus attributed to the effective blunting of the crack tip geometry by the glass–water reaction.     

Photoelastic confirmation of surface stress relaxation in silica glasses: Fiber bending and rod torsion

Silica glass samples were given various heat treatments under stress at low temperatures and subsequently their residual stress distributions in terms of retardance were observed using a polarized light microscope, confirming previously reported fast surface stress relaxation while providing more detailed characterization. Retardance profiles of silica glass fibers heat-treated under a constant bending strain in the presence of atmospheric water vapor were measured and fit to a previously developed diffusion-based relaxation model. The retardance of a cross-section of a silica glass rod heat-treated at 650°C in lab air under applied torsional shear strain was also measured to confirm the presence of residual surface shear stress which was predicted by the decrease of torque with time for the rod. Together, these results confirm the low-temperature fast surface stress relaxation which occurs when water vapor is present for both bending and shear stresses.     

Role of Al2O3 layer in oxidation resistance of Cu-Al dilute alloys pre-annealed in H2 atmospheres

Copper was alloyed with small amounts of Al (0.2, 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 mass%) to improve the oxidation resistance. Copper (6 N) and the Cu-Al alloys were oxidized at 773-1173 K in 0.1 MPa oxygen atmosphere after hydrogen annealing at 873 K. Continuous very thin Al₂O₃ layers were formed on the surface of all Cu-Al dilute alloys during the hydrogen annealing. Oxidation resistance of Cu-Al alloys was improved especially for Cu-2.0Al at 773-973 K, while it decreases on increasing the oxidation temperature. Cu-Al alloys followed the parabolic rate law at 1173 K, but most of other cases do not at and below 1073 K. Oxidation resistance for Cu-Al alloys was found relevant to the maintenance of the thin Al₂O₃ layer at the Cu₂O/Cu-Al alloy interface.     

A biped static balance control and torque pattern learning under unknown periodic external forces

This paper addresses a biped balancing task in which an unknown external force is exerted, using the so-called ‘ankle strategy’ model. When an external force is periodic, a human adaptively maintains the balance, next learns how much force should be produced at the ankle joint from its repeatability, and finally memorized it as a motion pattern. To acquire motion patterns with balancing, we propose a control and learning method: as the control method, we adopt ground reaction force feedback to cope with an uncertain external force, while, as the learning method, we introduce a motion pattern generator that memorizes the torque pattern of the ankle joint by use of Fourier series expansion. In this learning process, the period estimation of the external force is crucial; this estimation is achieved based on local autocorrelation of joint trajectories. Computer simulations and robot experiments show effective control and learning results with respect to unknown periodic external forces.     

Existential rigidity and many modalities in order-sorted logic

Order-sorted logic is a useful tool for knowledge representation and reasoning because it enables representation of sorted terms and formulas along with partially ordered sorts (called sort-hierarchy). However, this logic cannot represent more complex sorted expressions when they are true in any possible world (as rigid) or some possible worlds (as modality) such as time, space, belief, or situation. In this study, we extend order-sorted logic by introducing existential rigidity and many modalities. In the extended logic, sorted modal formulas are interpreted over the Cartesian product of sets of possible worlds. We present a new labeled tableau calculus to check the (un)satisfiability and validity of sorted modal formulas.     

Pressure wave propagation in air-water bubbly and slug flow

Related to nuclear reactor safety problems, such as the loss of coolant accident caused by some small crevasses in nuclear reactor, choked flows after postulated breaks of hot and cold legs of pressurized water reactors and the boiling flow instability in parallel channels, the characteristics of pressure wave propagation were investigated experimentally for the air-water bubbly and slug two-phase flow in a vertical pipe. Pressure wave was generated from the small pressure disturbance by the up-and-down movement of piston in the test section. Air void fraction was up to 0.7 and superficial liquid velocity was up to 1.5 m/s as experimental conditions. The experimental results show that the pressure wave propagation velocity in bubbly flow decreases acutely with the increase of air void fraction from 0 to 0.05. In slug flow, it is constant when the air void fraction is less than 0.5 but increases gradually when the void fraction increases beyond 0.5. The attenuation coefficient of pressure wave increases with the increase of air void fraction in bubbly flow. The dependency of pressure wave propagation velocity on angle frequency ω in air-water flow shows the dispersion characteristic. The propagation velocity and attenuation coefficient increases gradually with the increase of angle frequency. However, the increase vanishes slowly as the angle frequency reaches 250 Hz in bubbly flow. The propagation of pressure wave in bubbly flow is independent of the superficial velocity of fluids in the range of experiment.