Strength of Metals at High Strain Rates

Results of metal testing in impact tension–compression and indentation are analyzed. As the analysis of these data demonstrates, the strength of metals increases greatly with strain rates and at moderate indentation rates. At high indentation rates, a decrease in the specific energy (per unit volume of a displaced material) necessary for the formation of a conical cavity was observed. The account of the effects of viscosity, temperature increase upon plastic deformation and its localization can be used to explain the above phenomena.     

Response mechanism of SiC-based MOS field-effect gas sensors

SiC-based field-effect gas sensors with catalytic platinum electrodes (Pt-MOSiC) have been subjected to a series of gas response measurements. Structural analysis of the Pt electrodes revealed that the gas sensitivity and the selectivity of Pt-MOSiC gas sensors depend on two major parameters: the porosity and the catalytic activity of the Pt electrodes. Pt-MOSiC gas sensors with thick, dense Pt electrodes only exhibit hydrogen sensitivity, whereas Pt-MOSiCs with thin porous gates exhibit a broad range of gas sensitivities similar to resistive metal-oxide gas sensors. A model is put forward that explains the nonhydrogen gas response of Pt-MOSiC devices and of conventional polycrystalline metal-oxide materials on a common basis.     

Vapor phase synthesis of ZnO structures

We observed zinc oxide structures formed in an oxygen-containing atmosphere as a result of oxidation of the surface of zinc droplets. The gas-phase oxidation leads to the formation of hollow ZnO whiskers on the metal surface, which grow due to the transport of zinc vapor through their channels. It was found that high partial pressures of zinc and atomic oxygen give rise to fractal structures, which appear in a cascade process involving the sequential formation of zinc oxide vapor, ZnO clusters, and cluster aggregates as a result of the cluster-cluster interaction. A deposit of ZnO synthesized on the cathode surface exhibits a columnar structure.     

The geometric nature of plasticity laws

This paper concerns the plasticity constitutive laws in small strain. In the thermodynamic approach developed here, the key concept is that of internal variables. The differential nature of plasticity law has been pointed out for a long time. If we unite the invariance condition of these laws in a state variable transformation, this involves, ultimately, that the natural mathematic frame of plasticity theory is Differential Geometry. The system state is defined as a point of a differentiable manifold. The state variable are the local coordinates of this point in a chart. The internal stresses are the components of a covariant vector of the cotangent bundle to internal state manifold and the elastic domain is a convex part of cotangent vector space. The plastic yield criteria such as von Mises condition define a Riemannian structure over the manifold. The metric element is identified with the internal dissipation element. Constitutive laws link the covariant derivatives of the thermodynamic stress with the state variable. Hardening modulus splits up in two parts, kinematic hardening and metric hardening. This last is defined by Christoffel connection coefficients. Applied to von Mises isotropic yield condition, the metric hardening is identified with isotropic hardening. The Baltov-Sawczuk model is also analysed. The use of appropriate polar coordinates simplifies significantly the computations. Generalization to a significant category of non-differentiable yield criteria, such as Tresca condition, is considered by introducting a metric tensor family. The adaptation of Drucker's postulate to the proposed model requires the introduction of parallel transport of the internal stress covector. Generally, this transport is different over distinctive paths joining two points. This fact expresses internal state manifold curvature. The Riemann-Christoffel tensor is computed for von Mises, Baltov-Sawczuk and Tresca models.     

Crystallographic electron microscopy

We present a family of techniques for the transmission electron microscope that generate surface zone-axis patterns. These patterns display the variation of the diffracted-beam intensity as a function of the angle of the incident electrons. The conditions of the experiments are those of reflection high-energy electron diffraction at near grazing incidence. The techniques are: surface convergent-beam diffraction, a surface analogue of the Tanaka method and a modified double-rocking scheme. Experimental results are presented for diffraction from surfaces of MgO and MoS₂. We anticipate that surface zone-axis patterns (surface ZAPs) will become established as an important tool for surface characterization, especially when used in conjunction with high-resolution surface imaging and surface energy loss spectroscopy; surface ZAPs may be expected to play, in surface analysis, a role analogous to that played by convergent-beam diffraction in normal transmission electron microscopy.     

Compile-time partitioning of iterative parallel loops to reducecache coherency traffic

Adaptive data partitioning (ADP) which reduces the execution time of parallel programs by reducing interprocessor communication for iterative parallel loops is discussed. It is shown that ADP can be integrated into a communication-reducing back end for existing parallelizing compilers or as part of a machine-specific partitioner for parallel programs. A multiprocessor model to analyze program execution factors that lead to interprocessor communication and a model for the iterative parallel loop to quantify communication patterns within a program are defined. A vector notation is chosen to quantify communication across a global data set. Communication parameters are computed by examining the indexes of array accesses and are adjusted to reflect the underlying system architecture by compensating for cache line sizes. These values are used to generate rectangular and hexagonal partitions that reduce interprocessor communication     

Analog regulators of the energy-liberation distribution in nuclear reactors

Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 66, No. 2, pp. 81–85, February, 1989.     

Putting it all together – Formal verification of the VAMP

In the verified architecture microprocessor (VAMP) project we have designed, functionally verified, and synthesized a processor with full DLX instruction set, delayed branch, Tomasulo scheduler, maskable nested precise interrupts, pipelined fully IEEE compatible dual precision floating point unit with variable latency, and separate instruction and data caches. The verification has been carried out in the theorem proving system PVS. The processor has been implemented on a Xilinx FPGA. A shorter version of this article with the title “Instantiating uninterpreted functional units and memory system: functional verification of the VAMP” appeared in [8]. The work reported here was done while all the authors were with Saarland University.     

Inhibitory activity of ginger rhizome on airway and uterine smooth muscle preparations

In this study, we describe the tracheal-relaxant and tocolytic activities of the methanol (ME) and aqueous (AQ) crude extracts of ginger (rhizome of Zingiber officinale) in an attempt to rationalize its traditional use in disorders of airways and uterine hyperactivity. Both of the ginger extracts dose-dependently relaxed K⁺ (80 mM) and carbachol (CCh, 1 μM)-induced contractions with more potency against K⁺, similar to that elicited by verapamil, a Ca²⁺ channel blocker. In isolated uterine preparations, the extracts suppressed the K⁺-induced contractions with respective EC₅₀ values of 0.03 mg/ml (0.02–0.05, 95% CI) and 0.05 mg/ml (0.04–0.06). Activity-directed fractionation of AQ yielded an organic and an aqueous fraction with the activities concentrated in the former. Both the crude extracts were found safe in mice up to the oral dose of 5 g/kg when tested for acute toxicity for 24 h. The study shows that ginger possesses tracheal and uterine smooth muscle relaxant activity, possibility mediated via Ca²⁺ channel blockade, justifying its use in disorders such as asthma, cough as well as in dysmenorrhoea and uterine and menstrual spasms and congestion.     

Wideband miniature G-shaped antenna for dual-band WLAN applications

A wideband miniature G-shaped coplanar waveguide fed dual-band antenna for a wireless local area network (WLAN) is proposed. The proposed antenna has good radiation pattern and can provide two separate measured impedance bandwidths of 0.55 GHz (about 22.9% centred at 2.42 GHz) and 2.85 GHz (about 50.9% centred at 5.60 GHz), so that it easily covers the required bandwidths for WLAN operation. This design results in a small antenna size of 22 times 18.5 mm with the ground plane regarded as part of the antenna structure.