Nonsteady crack and craze behavior in PMMA under cyclical loading: II. Effect of load history on growth rate and fracture morphology

This is the second of three papers devoted to time or frequency effects on crack propagation in PMMA under cyclic loading with high resolution measurements of crack and craze growth in the micron range and with subcycle temporal resolution. It is demonstrated that the breakdown rate of the craze leads to quasi-periodic spurts of propagation and growth retardation in dependence on both the magnitude of the stress intensity factor and on the imposed load frequency. The surface morphology is governed more by the time required to build and deteriorate the craze (process time) than by the amplitude of the stress intensity factor. Three different growth ranges are distinguished: At the highest load levels multiple crazes occur at various distances from the major crack plane which coalesce and give rise to an incoherent surface structure not characterizable in terms of a single craze, although the front of the craze/crack is still represented by a smooth curve; crack advance occurs over domains that are larger than a typical craze length. At lower stress levels the craze breaks at different levels within the craze structure, the spatial breakdown of the craze being limited to dimensions smaller than the craze length but with a correlation or memory effect that generates terraces (on the fracture surface) on a scale larger than the craze length. In a transition between this stage and the lowest stress level considered, both features may exist simultaneously on a fracture surface, one increasing or decreasing relative to the other. Increase/decrease of one phenomenon relative to the other does not occur at a fixed stress intensity range but depends on the past history. When a change in the loading produces a change in the fracture mode, it is possible to associate, during the transition, decreasing crack growth rates with increasing stress intensity factors. At the lowest loading a craze breaks essentially through its center leaving a submicroscopically smooth surface; the associated crack growth and craze break down occurs with more or less periodic increments that are each smaller than the full ‘equilibrium’ craze length. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

PilT mutations lead to simultaneous defects in competence for natural transformation and twitching motility in piliated Neisseria gonorrhoeae

Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the Gram-negative aetiological agent of gonorrhoeae, is one of many mucosal pathogens of man that expresses competence for natural transformation. Expression of this phenotype by gonococci appears to rely on the expression of type IV pili (Tfp), but the mechanistic basis for this relationship remains unknown. During studies of gonococcal pilus biogenesis, a homologue of the PilT family of proteins, required for Tfp-dependent twitching motility in Pseudomonas aeruginosa and social gliding motility in Myxococcus xanthus, was discovered. Like the findings in these other species, we show here that gonococcal PilT mutants constructed in vitro no longer display twitching motility. In addition, we demonstrate that they have concurrently lost the ability to undergo natural transformation, despite the expression of structurally and morphologically normal Tpf. These results were confirmed by the findings that two classes of spontaneous mutants that failed to express twitching motility and transformability carried mutations in PilT. Piliated PilT mutants and a panel of pilus assembly mutants were found to be deficient in sequence-specific DNA uptake into the cell, the earliest demonstrable step in neisserial competence. The PilT-deficient strains represent the first genetically defined mutants that are defective in DNA uptake but retain Tfp expression.     

Eye Movements and Behavioral Responses to Threatening and Nonthreatening Stimuli During Visual Search in Phobic and Nonphobic Subjects.

Spider-phobic and nonphobic subjects searched for a feared/fear-relevant (spider) or neutral target (mushroom) presented in visual matrices of neutral objects (flowers). In half of the displays, the mushroom target was paired with a spider distractor, or a spider target was paired with a mushroom distractor. Although all subjects responded faster to the neutral target than to the feared/fear-relevant target, phobics were slower to respond than nonphobics when a mushroom target was presented with a spider distractor. Their eyes appeared to be drawn to the feared distractor before fixating neutral targets. A further experiment indicated no group differences when subjects merely judged the homogeneity of matrices. Thus, threat seems to capture the attention of phobics only when it is part of a background that subjects are explicitly instructed to ignore. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New Microalloyed Steels for Forgings

Microalloyed steels for forging applications have been newly developed in order to increase strength and toughness properties which thereby give the possibility for light weight constructions.The properties of these steels are set up by a controlled cooling directly from the forging heat without an additional heat treatment.This aim can be achieved on the one hand by a further development of precipitation hardening ferritic pearlitic steels (AFP-steel) due to an extended use of microalloying elements (AFP-M steel) and on the other hand by microalloyed steels which employ a bainitic microstructure (HDB steel).To adjust the targeted microstructure the temperature control has to be assured down to approx.500℃ for the AFP-M steels and down to approx.300℃ for the HDB steels.     

Deformation Characteristics of Steel Billets with Liquid Core

To investigate the deformation characteristics of billets with liquid core during soft reduction and to clarify the correlation between internal cracks and deformation of the billet in the mushy zone, a fully coupled thermo‐mechanical Finite Element Model was developed in ABAQUS, furthermore, casting and soft reduction tests were carried out in a laboratory strand casting machine. During soft reduction the temperature distribution, the stress and strain states in the billet were calculated, the deformation characteristics of the billet during soft reduction were determined and the relation between internal cracks and equivalent plastic strain as well as maximal principal stress was analysed. The results show that tensile stresses can develop in the mushy zone during soft reduction and the equivalent strain nearby the Zero Ductility Temperature (ZDT) increases with a decreasing solid fraction. Internal cracks can be initiated when the accumulated strain exceeds the critical strain and /or the applied tensile stress exceeds the critical fracture stress during solidification. In addition, the factors (reduction efficiency and internal cracks) that should be considered to determine the optimal parameter for the soft reduction were established.     

Experimental and Numerical Failure Criteria for Sheet Metal Forming

For sheet metal forming, often the forming limit diagram (FLD) is used as failure criterion as it can be derived easily in experiments. It is based on the assumption that localization of strain in the sheet plane is responsible for crack initiation, but application of FLD is limited to linear strain paths. Hence, only forming processes with approximately the same deformation history as the experiments carried out for FLD determination should be evaluated by this criterion. Forming limit stress diagrams (FLSD) do not exhibit such strict limitations. They are based on the assumption that principal stresses in the sheet plane are responsible for crack initiation. As these stresses are usually calculated by FE analysis using elastic plastic material laws, strain hardening is considered. Two‐step forming tests as application examples prove the FLSD to be adequate for evaluation of non‐linear forming processes with alternating forming directions. Nevertheless, FLSD are derived in extensive investigations which makes them unattractive for most industrial applications. Furthermore, both FLD and FLSD do not consider the physical background of ductile crack initiation which is provoked by an interaction of local stress triaxiality and equivalent plastic strain. Hence, a reliable failure criterion should concentrate on these two parameters. The Gurson‐Tvergaard‐Needleman‐ (GTN‐) damage model can predict crack initiation during sheet metal forming. Application of the GTN model to 2 step forming tests with the bake hardening steel H220BD+Z showed good agreement to experimental results although a sensitivity of the model to mesh size and stress triaxiality is observed.     

Chemistry effects on the crack susceptibility of structural steels during continuous casting

This work is a review of research results, which have been determined in recent years in order to reveal the effects of the chemical compositions on the high temperature properties of structural steels. Special emphasis has been laid on the solidification structure, phase reactions and precipitates. For this comparison exemplary different structural steel grades have been chosen. The effect of the chemical composition on the solidification structure is shown by increasing Ni mass contents up to 10 %, the influence on the phase transformation is illustrated on the basis of a steel with a Mn mass content of 1.6 % and varying carbon contents. The influence of precipitates has been investigated both on the basis of the Mn/S‐ratio and by microalloyed structural steels with different Nb, V and Ti additions. For all these steel grades the laboratory testing conditions were the same. The high temperature properties of steels can be investigated by high temperature tensile tests; the range of good ductility is determined by the measurement of the reduction of area, e.g. RoA > 50 % or >70 %. The upper limit of the ductility range is the temperature of zero ductility, T_ZD%. The lower limit of the good ductility range is marked by the transition to the ductility minimum II. The experiments for a series of different structural steels show that the hot ductility properties are affected by the metallurgical phenomena mentioned before.