Visualizing temperature-dependent phase stability in high entropy alloys

High entropy alloys (HEAs) contain near equimolar amounts of five or more elements and are a compelling space for materials design. In the design of HEAs, great emphasis is placed on identifying thermodynamic conditions for single-phase and multi-phase stability regions, but this process is hindered by the difficulty of navigating stability relationships in high-component spaces. Traditional phase diagrams use barycentric coordinates to represent composition axes, which require (N – 1) spatial dimensions to represent an N-component system, meaning that HEA systems with N > 4 components cannot be readily visualized. Here, we propose forgoing barycentric composition axes in favor of two energy axes: a formation-energy axis and a ‘reaction energy’ axis. These Inverse Hull Webs offer an information-dense 2D representation that successfully captures complex phase stability relationships in N ≥ 5 component systems. We use our proposed diagrams to visualize the transition of HEA solid-solutions from high-temperature stability to metastability upon quenching, and identify important thermodynamic features that are correlated with the persistence or decomposition of metastable HEAs.

Inverse Semigroup C*-Algebras Associated with Left Cancellative Semigroups

To each discrete left cancellative semigroup S one may associate an inverse semigroup Il(S), often called the left inverse hull of S. We show how the full and reduced C*-algebras of Il(S) are related to the full and reduced semigroup C*-algebras for S, recently introduced by Li, and give conditions ensuring that these algebras are isomorphic. Our picture provides an enhanced understanding of Li's algebras.

GRAPH PRODUCTS OF RIGHT CANCELLATIVE MONOIDS

Our first main result shows that a graph product of right cancellative monoids is itself right cancellative. If each of the component monoids satisfies the condition that the intersection of two principal left ideals is either principal or empty, then so does the graph product. Our second main result gives a presentation for the inverse hull of such a graph product. We then specialize to the case of the inverse hulls of graph monoids, obtaining what we call ‘polygraph monoids’. Among other properties, we observe that polygraph monoids are F*-inverse. This follows from a general characterization of those right cancellative monoids with inverse hulls that are F*-inverse.

The loop problem for monoids and semigroups

We propose a way of associating to each finitely generated monoid or semigroup a formal language, called its loop problem. In the case of a group, the loop problem is essentially the same as the word problem in the sense of combinatorial group theory. Like the word problem for groups, the loop problem is regular if and only if the monoid is finite. We also study the case in which the loop problem is context-free, showing that a celebrated group-theoretic result of Muller and Schupp extends to describe completely simple semigroups with context-free loop problems. We consider right cancellative monoids, establishing connections between the loop problem and the structural theory of these semigroups by showing that the syntactic monoid of the loop problem is the inverse hull of the monoid.

An Inverse Hull Design Problem in Optimizing the Desired Wake of a Ship

An inverse hull design problem for optimizing the shape of the after hull based on the desired wake distribution is solved using the Levenberg-Marquardt Method (LMM) and the commercial code SHIPFLOW. The desired wake distribution on a propeller plane can be obtained by modifying the existing wake distribution of the parent ship. The surface geometry of the ship is generated using the B-spline surface method, which enables the shape of the hull to be completely specified with only a small number of parameters (i.e., the control points). The advantage of calling SHIPFLOW as a subroutine in the present inverse calculation lies in that many difficult but practical hydrodynamic problems regarding ship design can be solved under this construction. The validity of the present 3-D inverse hull design problem for the after hull of a ship is justified based on the numerical experiments. Results show that optimal hull form can always be obtained based on the required wake distributions.