Electric field assisted solid-state interfacial joining of TaC-HfC ceramics without filler

The application of ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTCs) demands effective ways of joining in overcoming the problems associated with the fabrication of complex-shaped components. In this study, we choose to investigate a new method of rapidly joining pre-sintered TaC and HfC ceramics without any filler material using the spark plasma sintering (SPS) technique. A well-bonded TaC–HfC interface was observed with no apparent cracking and porosity at the joint. The joining mechanisms were predominantly driven by solid-state diffusion and localized plastic deformation. The nanomechanical properties of the TaC-HfC joint are better than the HfC while comparable to that of the TaC. High-load indentation (up to 200 N) results suggest that the TaC–HfC interface is stronger than the parent UHTCs with no crack propagating at the interface. Upon comparison with the parent UHTCs, the damaged area and the average crack length at the interface, reduced up to ~94% and ~56%, respectively. This study shows that the SPS technique can also apply to joining other UHTCs without any filler, resulting in the new field of developing complex components for the thermal protection system (TPS).     

A Service Level Agreement Aware Online Algorithm for Virtual Machine Migration

The demand for cloud computing has increased manifold in the recent past. More specifically, on-demand computing has seen a rapid rise as organizations rely mostly on cloud service providers for their day-to-day computing needs. The cloud service provider fulfills different user requirements using virtualization - where a single physical machine can host multiple Virtual Machines. Each virtual machine potentially represents a different user environment such as operating system, programming environment, and applications. However, these cloud services use a large amount of electrical energy and produce greenhouse gases. To reduce the electricity cost and greenhouse gases, energy efficient algorithms must be designed. One specific area where energy efficient algorithms are required is virtual machine consolidation. With virtual machine consolidation, the objective is to utilize the minimum possible number of hosts to accommodate the required virtual machines, keeping in mind the service level agreement requirements. This research work formulates the virtual machine migration as an online problem and develops optimal offline and online algorithms for the single host virtual machine migration problem under a service level agreement constraint for an over-utilized host. The online algorithm is analyzed using a competitive analysis approach. In addition, an experimental analysis of the proposed algorithm on real-world data is conducted to showcase the improved performance of the proposed algorithm against the benchmark algorithms. Our proposed online algorithm consumed 25% less energy and performed 43% fewer migrations than the benchmark algorithms.     

Densification Kinetics of CeO<Subscript>2</Subscript> Reinforced 8 Mol.% Y<Subscript>2</Subscript>O<Subscript>3</Subscript> Stabilized ZrO<Subscript>2</Subscript> Ceramics

The grain growth kinetics of 8YSZ ceramics processed using spark plasma sintering (SPS) has been investigated in the temperature ranging from 1100°C to 1500°C. The activation energy during SPS densification was obtained as 332 kJ/mol with grain boundary diffusion as a dominant mechanism. Further, the effect of CeO₂ on the densification kinetics of 8YSZ ceramic processed via SPS and conventional sintering (CS) has been delineated. The lower grain boundary mobility of CS-processed composites (an order of magnitude lower than SPS) is attributed to the solute drag and lattice distortion mechanism. However, no significant change in the grain boundary mobility was observed with CeO₂ addition (~?14.7–43.9?×?10^?18 m³/N/s for CS and 107.2–116.7?×?10^?18 m³/N/s for SPS) revealing that the defect concentration is nearly constant in 8YSZ. The study highlights the effect of sintering techniques (SPS and CS) and reinforcement (CeO₂) on engineering the desired microstructure of 8YSZ ceramic.     

A critical analysis of the parameters affecting the oxidation behavior of ultra-high-temperature diboride ceramics

In the last few decades, research on the processing and properties of ultra-high-temperature ceramics (UHTCs) has generated a substantial base of knowledge and left several unanswered questions. There is a large scatter in the literature data associated with the processing of UHTC borides prompting the non-reproducibility and non-uniformity in the microstructure and, thus, desired properties. Herein, the data on the oxidation behavior of UHTC borides ubiquitous in the entire literature are analyzed to understand the effect of composition, sintering parameters, densification, grain size, and oxidation conditions. A conjunction of graphical methods has been utilized to converge the scattered data and correlate the effect of variables and testing environment on the oxidation behavior. It was concluded that high densification (>95%), large grain size (∼8 μm), and 20–30 vol.% of Si-containing additives (SiC, Ta₅Si₃, and TaSi₂) could augment the oxidation resistance. The study elucidates that oxide scale thickness should be preferred over mass gain in future studies as a metric for measuring oxidation. The analysis presented here will allow the UHTC community to optimize diboride materials' design for hypersonic applications. The developed database on the oxidation performance of diborides will also transfer knowledge beyond the memory banks of the experts in the field. Furthermore, well-structured databases such as the one developed herein could be employed in data-driven approaches to optimize the design and manufacturing of ultra-high-temperature materials in an efficient scheme.     

Investigation on structural,optical and dielectric properties of Co doped ZnO nanoparticles synthesized by gel-combustion route

We report the synthesis of Co doped ZnO nanoparticles by combustion method using citric acid as a fuel for 0%, 1%, 3%, 5% and 10% of Co doping. The structural, optical and dielectric properties of the samples were studied. Crystallite sizes were obtained from the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns whose values are decreasing with increase in Co content up to 5%. The XRD analysis also ensures that ZnO has a hexagonal (wurtzite) crystal structure and Co²⁺ ions were successfully incorporated into the lattice positions of Zn²⁺ ions. The TEM image shows the average particle size in the range of 10–20 nm for 3% Co doped ZnO nanoparticles. The energy band gap as obtained from the UV–visible spectrophotometer was found gradually increasing up to 5% of Co doping. The dielectric constants (?′, ?″), dielectric loss (tan δ) and ac conductivity (σ_ac) were studied as the function of frequency and composition, which have been explained by ‘Maxwell Wagner Model’.     

Intelligent reversible watermarking in integer wavelet domain for medical images

The prime requirement of reversible watermarking scheme is that the system should be able to restore the cover work to its original state after extracting the hidden information. Reversible watermarking approaches, therefore, have wide applications in medical and defense imagery. In this paper, an intelligent reversible watermarking approach GA-RevWM for medical images is proposed. GA-RevWM is based on the concept of block-based embedding using genetic algorithm (GA) and integer wavelet transform (IWT). GA based intelligent threshold selection scheme is applied to improve the imperceptibility for a fixed payload or vice versa. The experimental results show that GA-RevWM provides significant improvement in terms of imperceptibility for a desired level of payload against the existing approaches.