Interlaboratory Study of Digital Volume Correlation Error Due to X-Ray Computed Tomography Equipment and Scan Parameters: an Update from the DVC Challenge

Experimental Mechanics - The quality of Digital Volume Correlation (DVC) full-field displacement measurements depends directly on the characteristics of the X-ray Computed Tomography (XCT)...     

Multi-Axial Deformation Setup for Microscopic Testing of Sheet Metal to Fracture

While the industrial interest in sheet metal with improved specific-properties led to the design of new alloys with complex microstructures, predicting their safe forming limits and understanding their microstructural deformation mechanisms remain as significant challenges largely due to the inadequacy of the existing experimental tools. The investigation of the strain-path dependent failure mechanisms requires miniaturized testing equipment, which can be placed in a scanning electron microscope for in situ experiments. So far, such tests could only be carried out for a single strain path (uniaxial tension). In this work, in order to fill this gap, a miniaturized Marciniak test setup is designed, built and tested. With this setup real-time, multi-axial tests of industrial sheet metal can be carried out to the point of fracture within a scanning electron microscope. Proof-of-principle experiments demonstrate that a realm of information can be obtained, crucial for the understanding of the mechanical behavior of new alloys.     

Accurate Strain Field Measurement During Strip Rolling by Exploiting Recurring Material Motion with Time-Integrated Digital Image Correlation

Experimental Mechanics - 95% Of all metals and alloys are processed using strip rolling, explaining the great number of existing strip rolling optimization models. Yet, an accurate in-situ...     

Quasi-ice monolayer on atomically smooth amorphous SiO2 at room temperature observed with a high-finesse optical resonator

The structure of an H(2)O monolayer bound to atomically smooth hydroxylated amorphous silica is probed under ambient conditions by near-infrared evanescent-wave cavity ring-down absorption spectroscopy. Employing a miniature monolithic optical resonator, we find sharp (approximately 10 cm(-1)) and polarized (>10:1) vibration-combination bands for surface OH and adsorbed H(2)O, which reveal ordered species in distinct local environments. Indicating first-monolayer uniqueness, the absorption bands for adsorbed H(2)O show intensity saturation and line narrowing with completion of one monolayer. Formation of the ordered H(2)O monolayer likely arises from H bonding to a quasicrystalline surface OH network.     

Absolute surface coverage measurement using a vibrational overtone

Determination of absolute surface coverage with sub-monolayer sensitivity is demonstrated using evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS) and conventional CRDS by employing conservation of the absolute integrated absorption intensity between gas and adsorbed phases. The first C-H stretching overtones of trichloroethylene (TCE), cis-dichloroethylene, and trans-dichloroethylene are probed using the idler of a seeded optical parametric amplifier having a 0.075 cm(-1) line width. Polarized absolute adsorbate spectra are obtained by EW-CRDS using a fused-silica monolithic folded resonator having a finesse of 28 500 at 6050 cm(-1), while absolute absorption cross sections for the gas-phase species are determined by conventional CRDS. A measure of the average transition moment orientation on the surface, which is utilized for the coverage determination, is derived from the polarization anisotropy of the surface spectra. Coverage measurement by EW-CRDS is compared to a mass-spectrometer-based surface-uptake technique, which we also employ for coverage measurements of TCE on thermally grown SiO(2) surfaces. To assess the potential for environmental sensing, we also compare EW-CRDS to optical waveguide techniques developed previously for TCE detection.     

Cool,Dry, Nano-scale DIC Patterning of Delicate,Heterogeneous, Non-planar Specimens by Micro-mist Nebulization

Experimental Mechanics - Background: Application of patterns to enable high-resolution Digital Image Correlation (DIC) at the small scale (μm/nm) is known to be very challenging as techniques...     

Biomimetic superhydrophobic and highly oleophobic cotton textiles

We report a biomimetic procedure to prepare superhydrophobic cotton textiles. By in situ introducing silica particles to cotton fibers to generate a dual-size surface roughness, followed by hydrophobization with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), normally hydrophilic cotton has been easily turned superhydrophobic, which exhibits a static water contact angle of 155 degrees for a 10 microL droplet. The roll-off angle of water droplets depends on the droplet volume, ranging from 7 degrees for a droplet of 50 microL to 20 degrees for a 7 microL droplet. When a perfluoroalkyl chain is introduced to the silica particle surface, the superhydrophobic textile also becomes highly oleophobic, as demonstrated by a static contact angle of 140 degrees and a roll-off angle of 24 degrees for a 15 microL sunflower oil droplet.     

Polymers containing anthraquinone units: Polymers from 1,5-diaminoanthraquinone and aralkyldiketones

Schiff's-base polymers have been formed by the condensation of 1,5-diaminoanthraquinone with 1,4- and 1,3-diacetylbenzene and 2,6-diacetylpyridine. These polymers were soluble in methanesulfonic and concentrated sulfuric acids (1,4-diacetylbenzene polymer) or N,N-dimethylacetamide. The polymer formed from 1,4-diacetylbenzene was ring-closed in polyphosphoric acid to yield a thermally stable polymer soluble in concentrated sulfuric acid which lost only 10% of its weight at 900°C in a TGA test.