Complex formation in a ternary system composed of lauroamphoglycinate, oleic acid, and water

The formation of a complex, composed of lauroamphoglycinate (LG), oleic acid (OA) and water, was investigated, and this system was applied to emulsification. The complex was formed in the water-rich area (more than 90% in this system) at a molar ratio of OA to LG from 1 to 3, where two-phase systems of water and the complex existed. The interaction between LG and OA, both in the aqueous solution and at the interface of liquid paraffin dissolving the OA and LG solution, was studied by pH measurements and interfacial tension measurements, respectively. The results implied that LG and OA were linked stoichiometrically, both in aqueous solution and at the interface, and formed complexes. X-ray diffraction patterns and the strong hydrophobicity showed that the equimolar complex composed of LG, OA, and water was a liquid crystal with a reversed hexagonal structure. The reversed hexagonal liquid crystal was capable of solubilizing a certain amount of liquid paraffin in its alkyl group parts while maintaining its hexagonal structure. These results suggest the possibility to prepare a W/O-type emulsion by using the liquid crystal formed by LG, OA, partial liquid paraffin, and water as the continuous phase. The authors could obtain a stable W/O emulsion without coalescence of the water droplets that contained a substantial amount of water (approximately 90%). Furthermore, various types of emulsions, O/W, W/O, W/O/W, could be prepared by changing the ratio of LG and OA.     

Formation and transformation of cubic 3PbO·2Ta2O5 solid solution

The formation of lead tantalates in the PbO-rich region is studied using the powders prepared by the simultaneous hydrolysis of lead and tantalum alkoxides. Cubic 3PbO · 2Ta₂O₅ solid solutions crystallize at low temperatures from amorphous materials between 60 and 75 mol% PbO. The lattice parameter,a, increases linearly from 1.0545 to 1.0705 nm with increasing PbO. At higher temperatures the solid solutions above 66.67 mol% PbO are transformed into those of rhombohedral 2PbO · Ta₂O₅. Rhombohedral 5PbO · 2Ta₂O₅ is formed at 850 to 900 °C by transformation of 2PbO·Ta₂O₅ solid solution corresponding to 71.43 mol% PbO. The existence of previously reported 3PbO·Ta₂O₅ is not confirmed.     

Relation between crystal structure and lattice oxygen content of sintered reaction-bonded silicon nitride

When reaction-bonded silicon nitride containing MgO/Y₂O₃ additives is sintered at three different temperatures to form sintered reaction-bonded silicon nitride (SRBSN), the thermal conductivity increases with sintering temperature. The β-Si₃N₄ (silicon nitride) crystals of SRBSN ceramics were synthesized and characterized to investigate the relation between the crystal structure and the lattice oxygen content. The hot-gas extraction measurement result and the crystal structure obtained using Rietveld analysis suggested that the unit cell size of the β-Si₃N₄ crystal increases with the decrease in the lattice oxygen content. This result is reasonable considering that the lattice oxygen with the smaller covalent radius substitutes nitrogen with the larger one in the β-Si₃N₄ crystals. The lattice oxygen content decreased with increasing sintering temperature which also correlated with increase in thermal conductivity. Moreover, it is noteworthy from the viewpoint that it may be possible to apply the lattice constant analysis for the nondestructive and simple measurement of the lattice oxygen content that deteriorates the thermal conductivity of the β-Si₃N₄ ceramics.     

Effect of molecular weight on molecular orientation and morphology of polypropylene sheets containing a β-nucleating agent

In this study, polypropylene (PP) films containing the β nucleating agent, N,N′-dicyclohexyl-2,6-naphthalenedicarboxamide, were prepared using PP with three different molecular weights (low, medium, and high) by extrusion process with T-shaped die. The structure and morphology of the films were studied after stretching. It was found that a unique molecular orientation, in which both the c-axis and crystalline lamellae were oriented perpendicular to the flow direction, was formed in all undrawn film samples, irrespective of the molecular weights of the PP. In the PP sheets stretched in the machine direction, the low-molecular-weight sample containing the nucleating agent exhibited brittle properties owing to a lack of tie chains in the stretching direction. In contrast, cavitation was prominent in the medium (M-PP)- and high (H-PP)-molecular-weight samples. Notably, M-PP containing the nucleating agent, with a high degree of molecular orientation, promoted the formation of a large number of voids. In H-PP containing the nucleating agent, the presence of numerous tie chains inhibited cavitation, resulting in fewer voids. The experimental results demonstrated the influence of the molecular weight on the void structure, which will be useful in the field of microporous membranes.     

Friction aided deep drawing using newly developed blank-holder divided into eight segments

A new process on friction aided deep drawing has been developed in which a metal blank-holder divided into eight fan-shaped segments is used instead of an elastomer ring used in the Maslennikov process. This blank holding device consists of four drawing segments and four small wedges, which can move radially in- and out-wards under a certain blank-holding pressure. The drawing process can be efficiently performed using an assistant punch, which partially supports the deformation of the blank as well as improving the shape and dimensional accuracy of the drawn cup. Deep drawing experiments have been done using soft aluminum sheets of 0.5 and 1.0 mm in thickness to understand the main features of the proposed drawing process. Theoretical analyses based on the energy and slab methods have also been conducted to study the effect of main process parameters on the minimum blank holding pressure required for the onset of deformation, and to obtain the other optimum working conditions. The possibility of the new process has been confirmed by producing deep and successful cups with a drawing ratio of 4.0, although the number of drawing operations is still high.     

Synthesis mechanism of titanium carbide nano-fiber during self-propagating high temperature synthesis

Titanium carbide nano-fiber was synthesized by self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) method. The final products after the SHS reaction were titanium carbide containing excess carbon and metallic titanium, which were removed by additional leaching process. TEM observation revealed that the average diameter is about 20 nm. Neutron diffraction analysis was carried out to study non-stoichiometric number of the titanium carbide. The non-stoichiometric numbers of the titanium carbide were 0.89–0.94. The Rietveld refinement of each patterns converged to good agreement (÷2=0.49–1.34). The formation mechanism of the carbide is related to a liquid-solid reaction including the preferential diffusion process of carbon atom into liquid titanium. This article is based on a presentation made in the 2002 Korea-US symposium on the “Phase Transformations of Nano-Materials,” organized as a special program of the 2002 Annual Meeting of the Korean Institute of Metals and Materials, held at Yonsei University, Seoul, Korea on October 25–26, 2002.     

Splash Splat to Disk Splat Transition Behavior in Plasma-Sprayed Metallic Materials

A variety of metallic powder particles were thermally sprayed onto the mirror polished metallic substrate surface and the effect of both substrate temperature and ambient pressure on the flattening behavior of the particle was systematically investigated. In the flattening behavior of the sprayed particle onto the substrate surface, critical conditions were recognized both in the substrate temperature and ambient pressure. That is, the flattening behavior changed transitionally on that critical temperature and pressure range, respectively. A transition temperature, T _t, and transition pressure, P _t, were defined and introduced, respectively for those critical conditions. The fact that the dependence of both transition temperature and transition pressure on the sprayed particle material had similar tendency indicated that the wetting of the substrate by the molten particles seemed to be a domination in the flattening. Three-dimensional transition curvature by combining both transition temperature and transition pressure dependence was proposed as a practical and effective controlling principle of the thermal spray process. This article is an invited paper selected from presentations at the 2007 International Thermal Spray Conference and has been expanded from the original presentation. It is simultaneously published in Global Coating Solutions, Proceedings of the 2007 International Thermal Spray Conference, Beijing, China, May 14-16, 2007, Basil R. Marple, Margaret M. Hyland, Yuk-Chiu Lau, Chang-Jiu Li, Rogerio S. Lima, and Ghislain Montavon, Ed., ASM International, Materials Park, OH, 2007.     

Construction of living cellular automata using the Physarum plasmodium

The plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a unicellular and multinuclear giant amoeba that has an amorphous cell body. To clearly observe how the plasmodium makes decisions in its motile and exploratory behaviours, we developed a new experimental system to pseudo-discretize the motility of the organism. In our experimental space that has agar surfaces arranged in a two-dimensional lattice, the continuous and omnidirectional movement of the plasmodium was limited to the stepwise one, and the direction of the locomotion was also limited to four neighbours. In such an experimental system, a cellular automata-like system was constructed using the living cell. We further analysed the exploratory behaviours of the plasmodium by duplicating the experimental results in the simulation models of cellular automata. As a result, it was revealed that the behaviours of the plasmodium are not reproduced by only local state transition rules; and for the reproduction, a kind of historical rule setting is needed.     

Cost-Efficient Traffic Aggregation Employing Cross-Layer Shared Protection

Shared protection/restoration is a promising solution for reducing protection resources and is supported at each layer of the current multi-layer networks. Software-defined networking is expected to reduce equipment cost as well as operational cost by orchestrating these shared protection functionalities. However, although protection resource sharing improves link utilization, it sometimes increases the required equipment. Meanwhile, traffic re-aggregation at each layer is an important technique for low volume traffic to utilize the underlying link capacity more efficiently, but re-aggregation also makes it difficult to share protection resources with traffic at lower layers. In this paper, we present multi-layer network design strategy and method that reduce equipment cost by means of both traffic re-aggregation at each layer and protection resource sharing among multiple service traffic at different layers. The strategy first prioritizes traffic re-aggregation at each layer, and then maximally delegates shared protection to lower layers as long as it does not increase the required capacity at the lower layer. Evaluation results from the example three-layer networks confirm that the proposed method can effectively reduce equipment cost compared to the conventional design method. Cost reduction is achieved by leveraging shared protection functions at multiple layers.