Development of Free-Electron x-Ray Lasers on the TESLA Test Accelerator (DESY, Germany)

The program for developing free-electron x-ray lasers at TESLA started in 1994. The plan is to use the TESLA test accelerator to develop an x-ray laser with minimum wavelength 0.1–6 nm. The first phase of the project was successfully completed in 2001. At saturation, the laser produces ultrashort 30–100 fsec, gigawatt, radiation pulses. The wavelength can be tuned smoothly over the range 80–120 nm.     

Inference of message sequence charts

Software designers draw message sequence charts for early modeling of the individual behaviors they expect from the concurrent system under design. Can they be sure that precisely the behaviors they have described are realizable by some implementation of the components of the concurrent system? If so, can we automatically synthesize concurrent state machines realizing the given MSCs? If, on the other hand, other unspecified and possibly unwanted scenarios are "implied" by their MSCs, can the software designer be automatically warned and provided the implied MSCs? In this paper, we provide a framework in which all these questions are answered positively. We first describe the formal framework within which one can derive implied MSCs and then provide polynomial-time algorithms for implication, realizability, and synthesis.     

Itemset trees for targeted association querying

Association mining techniques search for groups of frequently co-occurring items in a market-basket type of data and turn these groups into business-oriented rules. Previous research has focused predominantly on how to obtain exhaustive lists of such associations. However, users often prefer a quick response to targeted queries. For instance, they may want to learn about the buying habits of customers that frequently purchase cereals and fruits. To expedite the processing of such queries, we propose an approach that converts the market-basket database into an itemset tree. Experiments indicate that the targeted queries are answered in a time that is roughly linear in the number of market baskets, N. Also, the construction of the itemset tree has O(N) space and time requirements. Some useful theoretical properties are proven.     

Fatigue Behavior and Retrofit Investigation of Distortion-Induced Web Gap Cracking

This paper studies a Kansas Department of Transportation welded plate girder bridge that developed fatigue cracks at small web gaps close to the girder top flange. Repair had been previously performed by softening the connection plate end with a slot retrofit, but cracks were recently found to have reinitiated at some of the repaired details and are again propagating. A comprehensive finite-element method study was performed to investigate the cracking behavior observed in the bridge and to recommend appropriate measures for future bridge retrofit. The analytical results show that stresses developed at the top flange web gaps could exceed yielding under the loading of an HS15 fatigue truck. The current slot repair used in the bridge was found to have introduced higher magnitude fatigue stresses in the web gap. To achieve a permanent repair of the bridge, it is recommended that a welded connection plate to flange attachment be used during future bridge retrofit. The web gap details should be able to withstand unlimited number of load cycles once this additional repair is performed.     

Characterization of strength properties of thin polycrystalline silicon films for MEMS applications

The aim of this work is to characterize the strength properties of polycrystalline silicon (polysilicon) with the use of tensile and bending test specimens. The strength of thin polysilicon films with different geometry, size and stress concentrations has been measured and correlated with the effective size of the specimen and its stress distribution. The test results are evaluated using a probabilistic strength approach based on the weakest link theory with the use of STAU software. The use of statistic methods of strength prediction of polysilicon test structures with a complex geometry and loading based on test values for standard material tests specimen has been evaluated.     

Low-cycle fatigue in silicon: comparison with fcc metals

Undoped FZ silicon single crystals were cyclically loaded in tension‐compression under plastic strain amplitude control in a temperature and strain rate domain where the glide of dislocations is still controlled by the lattice friction: 1073–1173 K and (1.5–6) × 10⁻⁴s⁻¹; the plastic strain amplitude being varied from 6 × 10⁻⁴ to 10⁻². Cyclic hardening curves display logarithmic then linear hardening and pass through a maximum before the peak stress per cycle stabilizes. The maximum and stabilized stresses decrease when temperature increases. Microscopical observations suggest that strain localization takes place near the maximum cyclic stress and beyond. But, contrary to what is observed in fcc metals, the maximum or saturation stress decreases when the strain amplitude per cycle increases. Several types of dislocation arrangements, rather different from those found in copper, but looking more similar to Ni fatigued at low temperatures, were revealed by transmission electron microscopy. Before mechanical saturation, edge dislocation dipoles gather in thick stripes forming more or less corrugated walls, depending on the amplitude per cycle, when viewed normal to the primary slip plane. Once the maximum stress is reached, it seems that parts of the microstructure cease to participate in the imposed plastic strain, while others concentrate it. In active areas, thick walls condense into much thinner ones, forming chevrons when viewed normal to the slip plane. In areas which seem to be inactive, dipolar walls anneal out leaving a rather homogeneous distribution of prismatic loops. Thin PSBs with a well‐characterized ‘ladder‐structure’ are very rare. Characteristic lengths of the observed patterns are given and briefly discussed using current theories of cyclic deformation.     

Brittle fracture of high-strength steels at very low temperatures

High-strength steels are used to increase the load carrying capacity of components. However, to guarantee a safe design, it is also necessary to combine high strength with adequate fracture toughness. In this paper, fracture toughness of three high-strength steels with yield strengths ranging from 460 to 890 MPa has been studied at very low temperatures. Taking into account experimental evidence, a new mechanism of cleavage at very low temperatures is proposed. This mechanism considers the possibility of reaching the ideal strength (the stress at which the lattice of a single crystal losses its stability) in the immediate vicinity of the fatigue crack tip. Moreover, a computational model able to calculate the external load needed to produce a catastrophic failure of these steels has been developed.     

Crack closure in fibre metal laminates

GLARE is a fibre metal laminate (FML) built up of alternating layers of S2-glass/FM94 prepreg and aluminium 2024-T3. The excellent fatigue behaviour of GLARE can be described with a recently published analytical prediction model. This model is based on linear elastic fracture mechanics and the assumption that a similar stress state in the aluminium layers of GLARE and monolithic aluminium result in the same crack growth behaviour. It therefore describes the crack growth with an effective stress intensity factor (SIF) range at the crack tip in the aluminium layers, including the effect of internal residual stress as result of curing and the stiffness differences between the individual layers. In that model, an empirical relation is used to calculate the effective SIF range, which had been determined without sufficiently investigating the effect of crack closure. This paper presents the research performed on crack closure in GLARE. It is assumed that crack closure in FMLs is determined by the actual stress cycles in the metal layers and that it can be described with the available relations for monolithic aluminium published in the literature. Fatigue crack growth experiments have been performed on GLARE specimens in which crack growth rates and crack opening stresses have been recorded. The prediction model incorporating the crack closure relation for aluminium 2024-T3 obtained from the literature has been validated with the test results. It is concluded that crack growth in GLARE can be correlated with the effective SIF range at the crack tip in the aluminium layers, if it is determined with the crack closure relation for aluminium 2024-T3 based on actual stresses in the aluminium layers.     

S-N-P curves in 7075 T7351 and 2024 T3 aluminium alloys subjected to surface treatments

The S-N-P (stress, number of cycles, failure probability) curves for 2024 T3 and 7075 T7351 aluminium alloys were obtained. Previously, surface treatments of degreasing and different types of anodizing were applied to samples, evaluating the influence of these treatments on the fatigue life of the alloys. The determination of the S-N-P curves was done using Maennig's method. Rotary fatigue was used because this technique produces greater stress on the sample surfaces, the zone in which it is important to evaluate fatigue resistance. Both the transition range and the finite life range were evaluated, calculating the 1, 50 and 99% fracture probability. SEM was performed in order to characterize the fracture micromechanism. The conclusions were that Maennig's method is useful to evaluate fatigue life of these materials in a fast and efficient manner. Moreover, surface treatments produce a decrease in the fatigue life of both alloys, associating this effect with the surface damage produced on each sample during the treatment.     

Finite-element analysis and experimental study on tensile fatigue behaviour of bitumen–stone adhesion

Tensile fatigue behaviours of bitumen–stone adhesion were investigated using a dynamic mechanics analyser under stress‐controlled mode at two temperatures of 5 and 25°C and various controlled‐stress levels. Failure characteristics including interfacial failure and cohesive failure were examined using image analysis of fracture surfaces. Finite‐element analysis on stress distributions was conducted under different temperatures, film thickness and interfacial bonding conditions. A Coulomb–Mohr like criterion in combination with shear and normal stresses is proposed to deal with the extreme thin adhesive layer, which can be further simplified into an adhesive zone without significant loss of accuracy for stress analysis.