Residual toughness of poly(acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) (ABS) after fatigue loading—effect of uniaxial fatigue loading

Toughness variation of non-notched poly(acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene) (ABS) subjected to uniaxial fatigue loading was investigated. The experiments were conducted by applying fatigue loading to strip specimens first, from which dog-bone specimens were machined. The dog-bone specimens were tested to measure the strain for the on-set of fracture, named cracking strain here, thus to monitor the toughness change due to the fatigue loading.The test results showed that the fatigue loading caused the toughness drop in ABS, even before any visible crack was developed. Damage development and fracture behavior were then analyzed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM analysis revealed that damage zones, not cracks, were initiated during the fatigue loading, and were the main cause of the toughness drop. Mechanisms for the damage initiation include matrix crazing and debonding of small rubber particles; however, large rubber particles remained intact. Based on the results, a deformation model is proposed for the damage zone initiation, which provides an explanation for the toughness change under the fatigue loading.     

W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m InAlAs/InGaAs metamorphic HEMT technology

A W-band divide-by-3 frequency divider with wide bandwidth and low power dissipation is presented using harmonic injection-locking technique. A cascode FET is employed for a self-oscillating second-harmonic mixer which is injection-locked by third-harmonic input to obtain the division order of three. The fabricated frequency divider using 0.1 /spl mu/m GaAs metamorphic HEMT technology shows superior performance such as large bandwidth of 6.1 GHz around 83.1 GHz (7.3%) under small DC power consumption of 12 mW.     

Stimulation of negative magnetoresistance by an electric field and light in silicon doped with boron and manganese

It is experimentally ascertained that light stimulates the negative magnetoresistance observed in a high electric field in silicon doped with boron and manganese. The optimum conditions (the electric field, temperature, illumination, and resistivity of the material) for observation of the largest magnitude of negative magnetoresistance in (Si:B):Mn are determined. The dependence of the negative magnetoresistance on the concentration of compensating impurity is established.     

2/spl times/4 optical add-drop module with no difference in propagation length

We developed a micromachined X-type 2/spl times/4 optical add-drop module (OADM) featuring no difference in propagation length. Four pairs of lensed fibers are aligned in "X" position, and four micromirrors are located between the pairs of optical fibers. The OADM was fabricated utilizing a silicon-on-insulator process. Electrostatic comb actuators can be driven up to 90 /spl mu/m to change the light path within 1 ms. The insertion loss and the on-off ratio were less than 3 and 70 dB, respectively. The loss uniformity in every channel was 1.5 dB.     

The stress intensity factors for a short crack partially penetrating an inclusion of arbitrary shape

Some approximate solutions for predicting the stress intensity factor of a short crack penetrating an inclusion of arbitrary shape have been developed under mode I and mode II loading conditions. The derivation of the fundamental formula is based on the transformation toughening theory. The transformation strains in the inclusion are induced by the crack-tip field and remotely applied stresses, and approximately evaluated by the Eshelby equivalent inclusion theory. As validated by detailed finite element (FE) analyses, the developed solutions have good accuracy for different inclusion shape and for a wide range of modulus ratio between inclusion and matrix material.     

An overview of nondestructive evaluation methods

ondestructive evaluation is described as nondestructive testing (NDT), nondestructive inspection (NDI), and nondestructive examination (NDE). The activities associated with the evaluation include testing, inspection, and examination and primarily involve looking at (or through) and/or measuring some characteristic of an object. Frequently there is a desire to determine some characteristic of the object or to determine whether the object contains irregularities, discontinuities, or flaws. These examinations, inspections, or tests are used to determine the physical soundness of a material without impairing its usefulness. Nondestructive evaluation is a powerful tool that can help assure safety, quality, and reliability; increase productivity; decrease liability; protect the environment; and save money. In this article, nondestructive evaluation is represented by the acronym NDE.     

Influence of the preparation conditions on the size and morphology of nanocrystalline lanthanum orthoferrite

Nanocrystalline LaFeO₃ is prepared by the dehydration of coprecipitated lanthanum and iron(III) hydroxides. It is shown that the behavior of the samples during heating and the size distribution of LaFeO₃ nanocrystals can be considerably different depending on the scheme used for coprecipitation of lanthanum and iron hydroxides; independently of the method employed for coprecipitation of the initial compounds, sintering of the samples at 950°C leads to the formation of lanthanum orthoferrite crystals up to 100 nm in size.     

Synthesis of polyanilines with pendant fluorescent units

Functionalized polyanilines containing biphenyl, terphenyl, carbazole, anthracene, and 4-n-hexylphenyl moieties were synthesized though the reaction of polyaniline in emeraldine base form with sodium salt of corresponding vinylketoaromatics with quantitative yields. Polymers were characterized with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and thermogravimetry. The emission characteristics of these polymers in N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone solution were examined. The functionalized polyanilines exhibited an intense green emission.     

Anti-Dissipative Schemes for Advection and Application to Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellmann Equations

We propose two new antidiffusive schemes for advection (or linear transport), one of them being a mixture of Roe’s Super-Bee scheme and of the “Ultra-Bee” scheme. We show how to apply these schemes to treat time-dependent first order Hamilton–Jacobi–Bellman equations with discontinuous initial data, possibly infinitely-valued. Numerical tests are proposed, in one and two space dimensions, in order to validate the methods AMS subject classifications. Primary 65M12, Secondary 58J47     

Extending boosting for large scale spoken language understanding

We propose three methods for extending the Boosting family of classifiers motivated by the real-life problems we have encountered. First, we propose a semisupervised learning method for exploiting the unlabeled data in Boosting. We then present a novel classification model adaptation method. The goal of adaptation is optimizing an existing model for a new target application, which is similar to the previous one but may have different classes or class distributions. Finally, we present an efficient and effective cost-sensitive classification method that extends Boosting to allow for weighted classes. We evaluated these methods for call classification in the AT&;T VoiceTone^® spoken language understanding system. Our results indicate that it is possible to obtain the same classification performance by using 30% less labeled data when the unlabeled data is utilized through semisupervised learning. Using model adaptation we can achieve the same classification accuracy using less than half of the labeled data from the new application. Finally, we present significant improvements in the “important” (i.e., higher weighted) classes without a significant loss in overall performance using the proposed cost-sensitive classification method.