Immobilizing a Fluorescent Dye Offers Potential to Investigate the Glass/Resin Interface

Silane coupling agents are commonly applied to glass fibers to promote fiber/resin adhesion and enhance durability in composite parts. In this study, a coupling agent multilayer on glass was doped with trace levels of the dimethylaminonitrostilbene (DMANS) fluorophore. The fluorophore was immobilized on the glass surface by tethering the molecule to a triethoxy silane coupling agent, creating the DMANS/silane coupling agent molecule (DMSCA). DMSCA was then diluted with commonly used coupling agents and grafted to a glass microscope coverslip to create a model composite interface. A 53-nm blue shift in fluorescence from the immobilized DMSCA can be followed during cure of an epoxy resin overlayer, giving this technique potential to monitor the properties of the fiber/resin interface during composite processing. Contact angle measurements on these coupling agent layers were similar in the presence or absence of the DMSCA molecule, suggesting that trace levels of the fluorescent probe did not affect the structure of the layer. The immobilized DMSCA molecule behaved similarly to the DMANS precursor in solution. Both showed longer wavelength fluorescence in more polar environments. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

(Z)-3-p-tolylsulfinylacrylonitrile as a chiral dienophile: diels-alder reactions with furan and acyclic dienes

The behavior of (Z)-3-p-tolylsulfinylacrylonitrile (1) as a chiral dienophile has been evaluated from its reactions with furan and acyclic dienes. Electrostatic interactions of the cyano group with the sulfinyl one restrict the conformational mobility around the C-S bond, thus controlling the pi-facial selectivity, which is almost complete in all cases, the approach of the diene from the less-hindered face of the dienophile (that bearing the lone electron pair) in the predominant rotamer being the favored one. The regioselectivity is also completely controlled by the cyano group. Additionally, the reactivity of compound 1 as well as its endo-selectivity are both higher than those observed for the corresponding (Z)-3-sulfinylacrylates, thus proving the potential of sulfinylnitriles as chiral dienophiles.     

Diffuse wavefields in cylindrical coordinates

A diffuse wavefield is normally defined in terms of plane waves--to quote one textbook definition "plane waves are incident from all directions with equal probability and random phase." In some vibro-acoustic problems the response of a two-dimensional component such as a plate is more conveniently expressed in terms of cylindrical waves, and it is not immediately obvious what properties should be assigned to the cylindrical waves to constitute a diffuse field. It is shown here that a diffuse wavefield can be modeled as a summation of statistically independent cylindrical waves, apart from the fact that each outgoing wave of a particular order is fully correlated to an incoming wave of the same order. A simple relationship is derived between the energy flow P in each wave component and the energy density e of the wavefield: P = ec(g)/k, where c(g) is the group velocity and k is the wavenumber. This result is shown to hold true for both bending waves and in-plane waves (longitudinal and shear) in a plate. The work has application to the calculation of coupling loss factors in statistical energy analysis.