Restructuring of emergent grain boundaries at free surfaces – an interplay between core stabilization and elastic stress generation

Scanning tunneling microscopy and numerical calculations are used to study the structure and relaxation of grain boundaries at the surface of planar nanocrystalline copper (111) films and bicrystals. We show that the strong energetic preference for boundary cores to lie along close-packed planes introduces a restructuring that rotates adjoining grains and generates elastic stresses in the triple junction region. The interplay of this stress field and the core stabilization determines the length scale of the restructuring and controls the shape and magnitude of the displacement field around the triple junction. Depending on the in-plane angle, restructured boundaries can extend to depths of ~ 15 nm with the associated elastic stress fields extending to even greater depths. These results point to a new mechanism of boundary relaxation at surfaces that is expected to play an important role in grain coalescence and stress evolution in growing films.

Open capillary siphons

Flow in the inverted U-shaped tube of a conventional siphon can be established and maintained only if the tube is filled and closed, so that air does not enter. We report on siphons that operate entirely open to the atmosphere by exploiting surface tension effects. Such capillary siphoning is demonstrated by paper tissue that bridges two containers and conveys water from the upper to the lower. We introduce a more controlled system consisting of grooves in a wetting solid, formed here by pressing together hook-shaped metallic rods. The dependence of flux on siphon geometry is systematically measured, revealing behaviour different from the conventional siphon. The flux saturates when the height difference between the two container's free surfaces is large; it also has a strong dependence on the climbing height from the source container's free surface to the apex. A one-dimensional theoretical model is developed, taking into account the capillary pressure due to surface tension, pressure loss due to viscous friction, and driving by gravity. Numerical solutions are in good agreement with experiments, and the model suggests hydraulic interpretations for the observed flux dependence on geometrical parameters. The operating principle and characteristics of capillary siphoning revealed here can inform biological phenomena and engineering applications related to directional fluid transport.

A generalizable machine learning potential of Ag-Au nanoalloys and its application t surface reconstruction, segregation and diffusion

Owing to the excellent catalytic properties of Ag-Au binary nanoalloys, nanostructured Ag-Au, such as Ag-Au nanoparticles and nanopillars, has been under intense investigation. To achieve high accuracy in molecular simulations of Ag-Au nanoalloys, the surface properties must be modeled with first-principles precision. In this work, we constructed a generalizable machine learning interatomic potential for Ag-Au nanoalloys based on deep neural networks trained from a database constructed with first-principles calculations. This potential is highlighted by the accurate prediction of Au (111) surface reconstruction and the segregation of Au toward the Ag-Au nanoalloy surface, where the empirical force field failed in both cases. Moreover, regarding the adsorption and diffusion of adatoms on surfaces, the overall performance of our potential is better than the empirical force fields. We stress that the reported surface properties are blind to the potential modeling in the sense that none of the surface configurations is explicitly included in the training database; therefore, the reported potential is expected to have a strong generalization ability to a wide range of properties and to play a key role in investigating nanostructured Ag-Au evolution, where accurate descriptions of free surfaces are necessary.

Fracture of Protective Structures from Heavy Reinforcing Cement During Interaction with High-velocity Impactor

In this work, the fracture of a reinforced concrete barrier made of heavy reinforced ce- ment is numerically simulated during normal interaction with a high-velocity titanium projectile. The projectile has the initial velocity 750 m/s. The problem of impact interaction is numerically solved by the finite element method in a three-dimensional formulation within a phenomenological framework of solid mechanics. Numerical modeling is carried out using an original EFES 2.0 software, which al- lows a straightforward parallelization of the numerical algorithm. Fracture of concrete is described by the Johnson-Holmquist model that includes the strain rate dependence of the compressive and tensile strengths of concrete. The computational algorithm takes into account the formation of discontinuities in the material and the fragmentation of bodies with the formation of new contact and free surfaces. The behavior of the projectile material is described by an elastoplastic medium. The limiting value of the plastic strain intensity is taken as a local fracture criterion for the projectile material. A detailed numerical analysis was performed to study the stress and strain dynamics of the reinforced concrete target and the effect of shock-wave processes on its fracture. The influence of reinforcement on the resistance of a heavy cement target to the penetration of a projectile has been investigated

Laminar-turbulent transitions during thermal gravitational-capillary convection in horizontal liquid layers heated from below

The evolution of the spatial form of the flow versus the Rayleigh number in layers with two rigid horizontal boundaries and layers with a free surface is experimentally investigated depending on the Rayleigh and Marangoni numbers. The experiments were carried out with layers of ethyl alcohol and water. A thermal imager was used to measure temperature fields on free surfaces of liquids.

Formation Mechanism of Well-Ordered Densely Packed Nanoparticle Superlattices Deposited from Gas Phase on Template-Free Surfaces

Superlattices of nanoparticles are generally produced based on solution chemistry processes. In this paper, we demonstrate that self-assembled monolayer structures of nanoparticles with superlattice periodicities can also be produced on template-free surfaces in the gas-phase cluster beam deposition process. It is found that the packing of Fe nanoparticles corresponds to an average of two-dimensional densely packed lattice with a hexagonal summary. By controlling the nanoparticle coverage, the two-dimensional densely packed monolayer morphology can spread to the whole substrate surface being deposited. A formation mechanism of the ordered monolayers is proposed. The densely packed morphologies are formed by the balance between the diffusion rate of the nanoparticles and their filling speed on the substrate surface determined by the deposition rate, and the ordering of the nanoparticle arrays is driven by the inter-particle attractive interactions. The model is strongly supported by a series of carefully designed cluster deposition experiments.

Electrochemical deposition of nickel from aqueous electrolytic baths prepared by dissolution of metallic powder

A new method of preparation of aqueous electrolyte baths for electrochemical deposition of nickel targets for medical accelerators is presented. It starts with fast dissolution of metallic Ni powder in a HNO3-free solvent. Such obtained raw solution does not require additional treatment aimed to removal nitrates, such as the acid evaporation and Ni salt precipitation-dissolution. It is used directly for preparation of the nickel plating baths after dilution with water, setting up pH value and after possible addition of H3BO3. The pH of the baths ranges from alkaline to acidic. Deposition of 95% of ca. 50 mg of Ni dissolved in the bath takes ca. 3.5 h for the alkaline electrolyte while for the acidic solution it requires ca. 7 h. The Ni deposits obtained from the acidic bath are physically and chemically more stable and possess smoother and crack-free surfaces as compared to the coatings deposited from the alkaline bath. A method of estimation of concentration of H2O2 in the electrolytic bath is also proposed.