Microstructural evolution and mechanical properties of semisolid stir welded zinc AG40A die cast alloy

A high quality joint of zinc based pressure die cast alloys can be hardly achieved by conventional fusion welding. In this study, a novel technique to achieve the globular weld structure using stirring the localized semisolid zone during butt joining of Zamak-3 pressure die cast alloy is proposed and effect of welding parameters on mechanical and microstructural properties are investigated. A gas heating system was designed to heat up the nitrogen gas to desired temperature accurately to create a localized semisolid pool. At this stage a fine stirrer was introduced into the weld seam in order to mix the two sides into a single uniform joint. By presented process, globular microstructure of the weld zone is gained while the near weld zone would have the globular structure due to semisolid holding. Local mechanical properties of different zones show a good strength by results of the shear punch and hardness tests.     

Room Temperature Shear Band Development in Highly Twinned Wrought Magnesium AZ31B Sheet

Failure mechanisms were studied in wrought AZ31B magnesium alloy after forming under different strain paths. Optical micrographs were used to observe the shear band formation and regions of high twin density in samples strained under uniaxial, biaxial, and plane strain conditions. Interrupted testing at 4?pct effective strain increments, until failure, was used to observe the evolution of the microstructure. The results showed that shear bands, with a high percentage of twinned grains, appeared early in the samples strained under biaxial or plane strain tension. These bands are similar to those seen in uniaxial tension specimens just prior to failure where the uniaxial tensile ductility was much greater than that observed for plane strain or biaxial tension conditions. A forming limit diagram for AZ31B, which was developed from the strain data, showed that plane strain and biaxial tension had very similar limit strains; this contrasts with materials like steel or aluminum alloys, which typically have greater ductility in biaxial tension compared to plane strain tension.     

Experimental investigations of the environmental effects on stability and integrity of composite sandwich T‐joints

The superior mechanical properties of sandwich composites made them to favored materials, in particular in the aviation industry. However, environmental influences along the manufacturing process and during usage can reduce the strength and the life expectation of the composite parts. This contribution presents an experimental investigation on the effect of accelerated ageing on the mechanical properties of perpendicular honeycomb sandwich connections. Static tensile tests have been carried out on sets of new and 25 days artificially aged specimens and the load carrying capacity of the T‐joints has been measured. In parallel to the experimental part, a three dimensional finite element analysis has been performed. This combined approach allows quantifying the reduction of the fracture toughness of the connections. The obtained results will help to fulfill design requirements and to predict the long‐term structural behavior of sandwich composite constructions.     

Time and frequency domain characteristics of polarization-modedispersion emulators

We investigate both experimentally and theoretically a new technique to realistically emulate polarization-mode dispersion (PMD). We propose and demonstrate a PMD emulator using rotatable connectors between sections of polarization-maintaining fibers that generates an ensemble of high PMD fiber realizations by randomly rotating the connectors. It is shown that: (1) the DGD of this emulator is Maxwellian-distributed over an ensemble of fiber realizations at any fixed optical frequency; and (2) the frequency autocorrelation function of the PMD emulator resembles that in a real fiber when averaged over an ensemble of fiber realizations. A realistic autocorrelation function is required for proper emulation of higher order PMD and indicates the feasibility of using this emulator for wavelength-division-multiplexing (WDM) systems     

System performance evaluation in terrestrial systems with highpolarization mode dispersion and the effect of chirping

We evaluate the system power penalty for different modulation formats-nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ), return-to-zero (RZ), dispersion-managed solitons, and prechirped RZ-in the presence of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) for 10-Gb/s terrestrial systems. All orders of PMD are considered by simulating the fiber using the coarse-step method, and a statistical approach is used to estimate the occasional fading of the signals. We show that pulses with lower duty-cycles perform better in general, and the system performance is improved if appropriate prechirping interacts with the residual chromatic dispersion of the fiber     

Dynamics of epileptic phenomena determined from statistics of ictal transitions

In this paper, we investigate the dynamical scenarios of transitions between normal and paroxysmal state in epilepsy. We assume that some epileptic neural network are bistable i.e., they feature two operational states, ictal and interictal that co-exist. The transitions between these two states may occur according to a Poisson process, a random walk process or as a result of deterministic time-dependent mechanisms. We analyze data from animal models of absence epilepsy, human epilepsies and in vitro models. The distributions of durations of ictal and interictal epochs are fitted with a gamma distribution. On the basis of qualitative features of the fits, we identify the dynamical processes that may have generated the underlying data. The analysis showed that the following hold. 1) The dynamics of ictal epochs differ from those of interictal states. 2) Seizure initiation can be accounted for by a random walk process while seizure termination is often mediated by deterministic mechanisms. 3) In certain cases, the transitions between ictal and interictal states can be modeled by a Poisson process operating in a bistable network. These results imply that exact prediction of seizure occurrence is not possible but termination of an ictal state by appropriate counter stimulation might be feasible.     

Adjustable compensation of polarization mode dispersion using ahigh-birefringence nonlinearly chirped fiber Bragg grating

We demonstrate an adjustable polarization-mode-dispersion (PMD) compensator. The device uses a nonlinearly chirped fiber Bragg grating written into a high-birefringence photosensitive fiber. By mechanically stretching the grating, the device generates a time delay between different polarizations that is adjustable from 100 to 320 ps and is tunable over 2.3 nm. We demonstrate tunable PMD compensation of a 10-Gb/s signal that has an initial delay between the two polarization states of 127 or 302 ps     

Room Temperature Ductility and Microstructure of Magnesium AZ31B Sheet

Formability of wrought magnesium alloys at room temperature or slightly elevated temperatures is modest, reaching about 20% elongation in a tension test and exhibiting poor resistance to strain localization and failure. The hexagonal close packed structure of Mg has few active slip systems at lower forming temperatures, limiting ductility and reducing applications in auto body structures. Much greater levels of ductility can be reached at higher temperatures (typically >300 °C), but this is expensive and inconvenient for a high-volume production environment. Tension testing and biaxial forming of annealed AZ31B magnesium alloy sheets were done at room temperature to various levels of strain. High-resolution electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD) was used to measure twin fraction and dislocation density, in order to find relationships between strain and potential failure locations within the microstructure. Twin fractions were found to have a weak positive correlation to uniaxial and biaxial tensile strain, while dislocation density was found to correlate more strongly with uniaxial tensile strain.