scholarly journals On flaw tolerance of nacre: a theoretical study

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (92) ◽  
pp. 20131016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Shao ◽  
Hong-Ping Zhao ◽  
Xi-Qiao Feng

As a natural composite, nacre has an elegant staggered ‘brick-and-mortar’ microstructure consisting of mineral platelets glued by organic macromolecules, which endows the material with superior mechanical properties to achieve its biological functions. In this paper, a microstructure-based crack-bridging model is employed to investigate how the strength of nacre is affected by pre-existing structural defects. Our analysis demonstrates that owing to its special microstructure and the toughening effect of platelets, nacre has a superior flaw-tolerance feature. The maximal crack size that does not evidently reduce the tensile strength of nacre is up to tens of micrometres, about three orders higher than that of pure aragonite. Through dimensional analysis, a non-dimensional parameter is proposed to quantify the flaw-tolerance ability of nacreous materials in a wide range of structural parameters. This study provides us some inspirations for optimal design of advanced biomimetic composites.

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tsuyoshi Kawashima ◽  
Shigeki Miyasaka ◽  
Hirokazu Tsuji ◽  
Takahiro Yamamoto ◽  
Masahiro Uekubo ◽  
...  

AbstractThe structural flexibility at three substitution sites in LaFeAsO enabled investigation of the relation between superconductivity and structural parameters over a wide range of crystal compositions. Substitutions of Nd for La, Sb or P for As, and F or H for O were performed. All these substitutions modify the local structural parameters, while the F/H-substitution also changes band filling. It was found that the superconducting transition temperature $$T_{\text{c}}$$ T c is strongly affected by the pnictogen height $$h_{Pn}$$ h Pn from the Fe-plane that controls the electron correlation strength and the size of the $$d_{xy}$$ d xy hole Fermi surface (FS). With increasing $$h_{Pn}$$ h Pn , weak coupling BCS superconductivity switches to the strong coupling non-BCS one where electron correlations and the $$d_{xy}$$ d xy hole FS may be important.


2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 1101-1126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Milan Melník ◽  
Peter Mikuš ◽  
Clive Holloway

AbstractThis review classifies and analyzes heterohexanuclear platinum clusters into seven types of metal combinations:Pt5M, Pt4M2, Pt3M3, Pt2M4, PtM5, Pt2M3M′, and Pt2M2M2′. The crystals of these clusters generally belong to six crystal classes: monoclinic, triclinic, orthorhombic, tetragonal, trigonal and cubic. Among the wide range of stereochemistry adopted by these clusters, octahedral and capped square-pyramidal are the most common. Although platinum is classified as a soft metal atom, it bonds to a variety of soft, borderline and hard metals. Nineteen different heterometal ions are involved in hexanuclear platinum clusters. The shortest Pt-M bond distance in the case of M being a non-transition element is 2.395(4) Å for germanium and for M being a transition metal ion it is 2.402(2) Å for Cobalt. The shortest Pt-Pt bond distance observed in these clusters is 2.532 Å. Several relationships between the structural parameters are identified and discussed. Some clusters exist in two isomeric forms and some show crystallographically independent molecules within the same crystal. Such isomers and independent molecules are examples of distortion isomerism.


Author(s):  
Qihang Liu ◽  
G.Q. Xu ◽  
Jie Wen ◽  
Yanchen Fu ◽  
Laihe Zhuang ◽  
...  

Abstract This paper presents a multi-condition design method for the aircraft heat exchanger (HEX), marking with light weight, compactness and wide range of working conditions. The quasi-traversal genetic algorithm (QT-GA) method is introduced to obtain the optimal values of five structural parameters including the height, the tube diameter, the tube pitch, and the tube rows. The QT-GA method solves the deficiency of the conventional GA in the convergence, and gives a clear correlation between design variables and outputs. Pressure drops, heat transfer and the weight of the HEX are combined in a single objective function of GA in the HEX design, thus the optimal structure of the HEX suitable for all the working conditions can be directly obtained. After optimization, the weight of the HEX is reduced to 2.250 kg, more than 20% lower than a common weight of around 3 kg. Based on the optimal structure, the off-design performance of the HEX is further analyzed. Results show that the extreme working conditions for the heat transfer and the pressure drops are not consistent. It proves the advance of the multi-condition design method over traditional single-condition design method. In general, the proposed QT-GA design method is an efficient way to solve the multi-condition problems related to the aircraft HEX or other energy systems.


1994 ◽  
Vol 348 ◽  
Author(s):  
N.V. Kilassen

ABSTRACTThe studies of the dependence of the optical properties of various scintillators on intrinsic structural defects have been reviewed. The greater part of the review is devoted to the defects introduced by plastic deformation. A wide range of variations in the light output, spectral distribution, kinetics and other properties has been observed. These defects can be induced during crystal growth, annealing, processing, etc. The proper regulation of the superstructure of intrinsic defects can ensure the production of high quality scintillators having required properties.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-82
Author(s):  
Prosenjit Roy Chowdhury ◽  
◽  

"Advance design and day to day up-gradation of communication system is the requirement of international telecommunication. The optical communication systems involve the effective fiber coupling or splicing to meet the need of long communication channel. When the studies on both the intensive and extensive properties of optical fiber are exploring new research horizons, the effectiveness of such systems can be calibrated with transmission parameters like transmitted fractional power, which is a function of ‘spot size’ as well. Our study of fiber junctions based on fundamental parameters like wavelength, fiber profile index etc. has touched some unrevealed areas and explored some interesting results. The profile index of optical fiber has received less attention compared to other structural parameters of optical fiber but our study at important wavelengths for different profiles has shown that the less-used fiber profiles has some interesting premier outcomes, which can introduce some significant impact on optical fiber based system design and engineering. We have observed almost frequency or wavelength independent transmitted fractional power around the most used 1.55 micrometer wavelengths at some rarely used fiber profile index. Our study predicts the best and worst fiber profiles for transmitted fractional power (T ), at the same time, we have observed the fiber profile index independent region for a band of ‘T’ values. The reporting and its approach are found to be premier in this field. So, our work is reporting a comparison of effective fiber-to-fiber coupling, based on fiber profile index of different fibers. It is also giving a clear view of the wavelength dependency of effective fiber coupling for different fibers having wide range of graded fiber profiles."


Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (19) ◽  
pp. 4210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pathak ◽  
Rahman ◽  
Singh ◽  
Kumari

In the present paper, a new kind of concave shaped refractive index sensor (CSRIS) exploiting localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is proposed and numerically optimized. The LSPR effect between polaritons and the core guided mode of designed CSRIS is used to enhance the sensing performance. The sensor is characterized for two types of sensing structures coated with gold (Au) film and Au nanowires (AuNWs), respectively. The influence of structural parameters such as the distance (D) of the concave shaped channel (CSC) from the core, the diameter of the nanowire (dn) and the size (s) of the CSC are investigated here. In comparison to Au film, the AuNWs are shown to significantly enhance the sensitivity and the performance of the designed sensor. An enhanced sensitivity of 4471 nm/RIU (refractive index unit) is obtained with AuNWs, for a wide range of analytes refractive index (na) varying between 1.33 to 1.38. However, for conventional Au film; the sensitivity of 808.57 nm/RIU is obtained for the same range of analytes.


2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (6) ◽  
pp. 601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin A. Scholes

Polymeric membranes for gas separation have application in a wide range of industries such as natural gas sweetening and air enrichment. Recently, high-performance gas separation polymeric membranes have been developed based on a novel thermal rearrangement process that produces the resistant poly(benzoxazole) (TR-PBO). This review reports on the current state of the art TR-PBO membranes for gas separation and the underlying chemistry needed to achieve such high separation performance. Particular focus is applied to copolymers based on TR-PBO for membranes as these have attracted considerable research interest recently for their gas separation performance and superior mechanical properties compared with TR-PBO. Also included in this review is a discussion of the future directions of research on TR-PBO-based membranes for gas separation.


2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 114-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pushpendra Jain ◽  
S Soni ◽  
Prashant Baredar

Metal matrix composites have superior mechanical properties in comparison to metals over a wide range of operating conditions. This make them an attractive option in replacing metals for various engineering applications. This paper provides a literature review, on machining of Aluminium metal matrix composites (AMMC)especially the particle reinforced Aluminium metal matrix composites. This paper is an attempt to give brief account of recent work to predict cutting parameters &surface generated in AMMC.By suitably selecting the machining parameters, machining of AMMC can be made economical.


2009 ◽  
Vol 1153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karol Jarolimek ◽  
Robert A. de Groot ◽  
Gilles A. de Wijs ◽  
Miro Zeman

AbstractAtomistic models of amorphous solids enable us to study properties that are difficult to address with experimental methods. We present a study of two amorphous semiconductors with a great technological importance, namely a- Si:H and a-SiN:H. We use first-principles density functional theory (DFT), i.e. the interatomic forces are derived from basic quantum mechanics, as only that provides accurate interactions between the atoms for a wide range of chemical environments (e.g. brought about by composition changes). This type of precision is necessary for obtaining the correct short range order. Our amorphous samples are prepared by a cooling from liquid approach. As DFT calculations are very demanding, typically only short simulations can be carried out. Therefore most studies suffer from a substantial amount of defects, making them less useful for modeling purposes. We varied the cooling rate during the thermalization process and found it has a considerable impact on the quality of the resulting structure. A rate of 0.02 K/fs proves to be sufficient to prepare realistic samples with low defect concentrations. To our knowledge these are the first calculations that are entirely based on first-principles and at the same time are able to produce defect-free samples. Because of the high computational load also the size of the systems has to remain modest. The samples of a-Si:H and a-SiN:H contain 72 and 110 atoms, respectively. To examine the convergence with cells size, we utilize a large cell of a-Si:H with a total of 243 atoms. As we obtain essentially the same structure as with the smaller sample, we conclude that the use of smaller cells is justified. Although creating structures without any defects is important, on the other hand a small number of defects can give valuable information about the structure and electronic properties of defects in a-Si:H and a-SiN:H. In our samples we observe the presence of both the dangling bond (undercoordinated atom) and the floating bond (over-coordinated atom). We relate structural defects to electronic defect states within the band gap. In a-SiN:H the silicon-silicon bonds induce states at the valence and conduction band edges, thus decreasing the band gap energy. This finding is in agreement with measurements of the optical band gap, where increasing the nitrogen content increases the band gap.


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