Fracture toughness of nano- and micro-spherical silica-particle-filled epoxy composites

The effects of particle size and volume fraction on the mode I fracture toughness of epoxy composites filled with spherical silica particles were investigated through experiments and an analytical model. Spherical silica particles with various particle diameters ranging from 1.56 μm to 240 nm and volume fractions from 0 to 0.35 were added to epoxy resin. We found that the fracture toughness of the composites was approximately linear with respect to the reciprocal of the product of (i) the square root of the mean distance between the particle surfaces and (ii) the normalized mean stress in the matrix given by the equivalent inclusion method.     

Effects of interface stiffness and delamination on resonant oscillations of metal laminates

In the present study, the effects of the interface stiffness and delamination of the metal laminates were investigated. In the modal analysis, the natural oscillation mode of the laminate consisting of two copper sheets with various interface conditions was analyzed by using a finite element method. The interface delamination decreases the natural frequency for the out-of-plane oscillation mode whereas it has no effect on that for the in-plane mode. The interface stiffness affects the natural frequency for both the out-of-plane and in-plane modes. Its influence was more obvious when the stiffness is lower than that of the matrix for the out-of-plane mode whereas there was an opposite trend for the in-plane mode. In the experiment, the resonant frequency of two copper sheets bonded by the adhesive was measured. As well as the simulation, the lower interface stiffness and the interface delamination decreased the resonant frequencies     

Fatigue crack growth mechanism in cast hybrid metal matrix composite reinforced with SiC particles and Al2O3 whiskers

The fatigue crack growth (FCG) mechanism of a cast hybrid metal matrix composite (MMC) reinforced with SiC particles and Al₂O₃ whiskers was investigated. For comparison, the FCG mechanisms of a cast MMC with Al₂O₃ whiskers and a cast Al alloy were also investigated. The results show that the FCG mechanism is observed in the near-threshold and stable-crack-growth regions. The hybrid MMC shows a higher threshold stress intensity factor range, ΔK_th, than the MMC with Al₂O₃ and Al alloy, indicating better resistance to crack growth in a lower stress intensity factor range, ΔK. In the near-threshold region with decreasing ΔK, the two composite materials exhibit similar FCG mechanism that is dominated by debonding of the reinforcement–matrix interface, and followed by void nucleation and coalescence in the Al matrix. At higher ΔK in the stable- or mid-crack-growth region, in addition to the debonding of the particle–matrix and whisker–matrix interface caused by cycle-by-cycle crack growth at the interface, the FCG is affected predominantly by striation formation in the Al matrix. Moreover, void nucleation and coalescence in the Al matrix and transgranular fracture of SiC particles and Al₂O₃ whiskers at high ΔK are also observed as the local unstable fracture mechanisms. However, the FCG of the monolithic Al alloy is dominated by void nucleation and coalescence at lower ΔK, whereas the FCG at higher ΔK is controlled mainly by striation formation in the Al grains, and followed by void nucleation and coalescence in the Si clusters.     

Temperature dependence of fracture toughness of silica/epoxy composites: Related to microstructure of nano- and micro-particles packing

Temperature dependence of the fracture toughness of epoxy composites reinforced with nano- and micro-silica particles was evaluated. Epoxy composites containing varied composition ratios Φ_SP of spherical nano- and micro-silica particles, 240 nm and 1.56 μm, were prepared at a fixed volume fraction (V_P = 0.30). The thermo-viscoelasticity and fracture toughness of the composites and neat epoxy were measured at 143 K, 185 K, 228 K, 296 K, 363 K, and 399 K. Experimental results revealed that fracture toughness strongly depended on the microstructure of nano- and micro-particles bidispersion as well as its interactions with the matrix at all temperature, but depended on toughened matrix due to increase in mobility of matrix at the relaxation temperatures.     

Label Propagation with Ensemble of Pairwise Geometric Relations: Towards Robust Large-Scale Retrieval of Object Instances

Spatial verification methods permit geometrically stable image matching, but still involve a difficult trade-off between robustness as regards incorrect rejection of true correspondences and discriminative power in terms of mismatches. To address this issue, we ask whether an ensemble of weak geometric constraints that correlates with visual similarity only slightly better than a bag-of-visual-words model performs better than a single strong constraint. We consider a family of spatial verification methods and decompose them into fundamental constraints imposed on pairs of feature correspondences. Encompassing such constraints leads us to propose a new method, which takes the best of existing techniques and functions as a unified Ensemble of pAirwise GEometric Relations (EAGER), in terms of both spatial contexts and between-image transformations. We also introduce a novel and robust reranking method, in which the object instances localized by EAGER in high-ranked database images are reissued as new queries. EAGER is extended to develop a smoothness constraint where the similarity between the optimized ranking scores of two instances should be maximally consistent with their geometrically constrained similarity. Reranking is newly formulated as two label propagation problems: one is to assess the confidence of new queries and the other to aggregate new independently executed retrievals. Extensive experiments conducted on four datasets show that EAGER and our reranking method outperform most of their state-of-the-art counterparts, especially when large-scale visual vocabularies are used.     

Can ferrroelasticity be evaluated by nanoindentation?

The present study investigated the possibility of evaluating ferroelastic mechanical characteristics by spherical indentation. Finite element simulation of spherical indentation, with a relatively large sphere, of a ferroelastic-plastic material was performed using characteristic bulk data of a typical ferroelastic oxide (LaSrCoFeO). The simulation results showed that the ferroelastic mechanical behaviour cannot be observed in the indentation load vs depth curve, but is clearly observable in the indentation stress vs indentation strain curve, which can be obtained reliably in experiments by estimating the contact radius using load-partial unloading sequences. The method can be reliable when the indentation stress is under the upper ferroelastic critical stress. Therefore, in principle ferroelastic mechanical characteristics could be evaluated by spherical indentation by obtaining the indentation stress vs indentation strain curve using partial unloading to estimate the contact radius, although the requirements are very difficult to satisfy in actual experiments.     

Intestinal Epithelial Cells Absorb γ-Tocotrienol Faster than α-Tocopherol

To elucidate the transepithelial transport characteristics of lipophilic compounds, the cellular uptake of tocopherol and tocotrienol isomers were investigated in Caco2 cell monolayer models. These vitamin E isomers formed mixed micelles consisting of bile salts, lysophospholipids, free fatty acid, and 2-monoacylglycerols, then the micelles were supplied to Caco2 cells. The initial accumulation of tocotrienol isomers in Caco2 cells was larger than those of corresponding tocopherol isomers. There was little difference among the cellular accumulations of four tocopherol isomers. These findings suggested that the difference between the molecular structures of the C16 hydrocarbon chain tail in tocopherol and tocotrienol was strongly responsible for the rapid epithelial transport into the Caco2 cells membranes rather than the difference in the molecular structures of their chromanol head groups. Furthermore, the secretion of α-tocopherol and γ-tocotrienol from Caco2 cells was investigated using Caco2 cells plated on a transwell. The time courses of their secretions from Caco2 cells showed that the initial secretion rate of γ-tocotrienol was also larger than that of α-tocopherol. To investigate the intestinal uptake of α-tocopherol and γ-tocotrienol in vivo, the mice were fed single doses of α-tocopherol or γ-tocotrienol with triolein. The γ-tocotrienol responded faster in plasma than α-tocopherol, although the maximal level of γ-tocotrienol was lower than that of α-tocopherol. This suggested that the intestinal uptake properties of administered α-tocopherol and γ-tocotrienol would characterize their plasma level transitions in mice.     

Determination of residual stress in spherical balls by resonant ultrasound spectroscopy

In this study, resonant ultrasound spectroscopy (RUS) for determining residual stress in small size spherical balls was examined. Natural frequencies of spherical balls with residual stress were analysed by finite element method. Resonant frequencies of spherical balls were experimentally measured by a RUS system. Both natural frequencies in the analysis and the resonant frequencies measured in the experiment decreased as the compressive circumferential stress at the ball surface increased. It was concluded, on the basis of both analytical and experimental results, that the measurement of the resonant frequency by the RUS system along with the analysis of natural frequency are effective for determining the values and distributions of unknown residual stress in spheres.     

High temperature compressive creep of dense and porous Cr2AlC in air

The creep behaviours of the dense and porous Cr₂AlC ceramics were investigated, being the first study on creep behaviour of not only Cr₂AlC but also porous MAX phase. Creep rates of rather dense (2% of porosity) and porous Cr₂AlC (53% and 75%) were measured in the temperature range 1073–1473 K during heating and subsequent cooling after high temperature exposure. The compressive creep tests were performed under stress range of 1–12 MPa. Creep rates of porous Cr₂AlC were higher than the ones of the rather dense material at lower temperature but lower at higher temperature, which can be attributed to effects of the formed oxide scale and some crack healing associated with the scale formation. A comparison of the creep rates with other refractory materials reveals favourable properties of the porous Cr₂AlC.     

Ferroelastic deformation of La0.58Sr0.4Co0.2Fe0.8O3−δ under uniaxial compressive loading

The mechanical deformation of lanthanum strontium cobalt ferrite under uniaxial compression was investigated at various temperatures. The material revealed a rather complex mechanical behaviour related to its ferroelasticity and stress–strain curves obtained in the 1st and 2nd loading cycles were completely different. A distinctive ferroelastic creep was observed at 293 K whilst typical ferroelastic stress–strain curves were obtained in the temperature range from 473 K to 873 K. At 1073 K, high-temperature creep deformation was observed instead of the ferroelastic deformation. The apparent Young's modulus was evaluated in various ways; the modulus determined from the last unloading curve ranged between 85 and 120 GPa. The obtained critical stress monotonically decreases from about 80 MPa to zero with increasing temperature, corresponding to the behaviour of the remnant strain. The presented results indicate that the importance of an appropriate consideration of the loading history in the practical application of these ferroelastic materials.