The mechanical strength of polysilicon films: Part 1. The influence of fabrication governed surface conditions

In an effort to explain the considerable variations in measured mechanical strength of polysilicon films doped with phosphorous for use in MEMS applications, the influence of the specimen manufacturing processes on the mechanical properties has been examined in connection with varying exposure to 49% hydrofluoric acid (HF). It was found that surface roughness as characterized by groove formation along grain boundaries depends on the HF release time. Surface undulations and crevasses related to grain structure result thus in reduced fracture strength and, in addition, induce errors into the determination of the effective elastic modulus—especially when the latter is determined from flexure configurations. Extensive exposure to HF results in pervasive material degradation, as evidenced by a transition from transgranular to intergranular fracture, and a correspondingly precipitous drop of the film strength with attendant increase in grain boundary material removal. Short times of exposure to HF can result in delamination of a thin surface layer, which is sufficient to initiate an “early” failure. Longer exposure allows HF permeation into the intergranular domains, degrading the body of the material significantly. On the other hand, tests on material from a different source that has undergone different doping and post-processing demonstrated a suppression of this degradation resulting in film strengths that are higher by a factor of two or more. Thus, consideration of additional influences of doping and electro-chemical phenomena during the HF wet release, in association with silicon-metal contacts, is necessary.     

Effect of dentin tubules on the mechanical properties of dentin. Part I: Stress-strain relations and strength criterion

As known, there is a large number of dentin tubules in dentin. These tubules have varying radii and are shaped into radially parallel pattern. The anisotropy of microstructure of dentin shows that dentin should be treated as a material of varying transverse isotropy. In this Part, the elastic stress-strain relations and the quadratic strength criterion are established in the form of having varying transverse isotropy, in the framework of micromechanics to take into account of the effect of the microstructures-dentin tubules. Simplified forms for isotropic and homogeneous cases, as well as the corresponding plane stress form of the stress-strain relations are also given. These theoretical models are very well supported by the experiments shown later in the continued paper (Part II). The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (19525207).     

Limit analysis of multi-layered plates. Part II: Shear effects

In the first part of this work [Dallot, J., Sab, K., 2007. Limit analysis of multi-layered plates. Part I: the homogenized Love-Kirchhoff model. J. Mech. Phys. Solids, in press, doi:10.1016/j.jmps.2007.05.005], the limit analysis of a multi-layered plastic plate submitted to out-of-plane loads was studied. The authors have shown that a homogeneous equivalent Love-Kirchhoff plate can be substituted for the heterogeneous multi-layered plate, as the slenderness (length-to-thickness) ratio goes to infinity. In fact, the out-of-plane shear stresses are shown to become asymptotically negligible when compared to in-plane stresses, as the slenderness ratio goes to infinity. Actually, failure of thick multi-layered structures often occurs by shearing in the core layers and sliding at the interfaces between the layers. Both shearing and sliding are caused by the out-of-plane shear stresses. The purpose of the present paper is to build an enhanced Multi-particular Model for Multi-layered Material (M4) taking into account shear stress effects. In this model, each layer is seen as a Reissner-Mindlin plate interacting with its neighboring layers through interfaces. The proposed model is asymptotically consistent with the homogenized Love-Kirchhoff model described in the first part of the work, as the slenderness ratio goes to infinity. Kinematic and static methods for the determination of the limit load of a thick multi-layered plate which is submitted to out-of-plane distributed forces are described. The special case of multi-layered plates under cylindrical bending conditions is studied. These conditions lead to simplifications which often allow for the analytical resolution of the Love-Kirchhoff and the M4 limit analysis problems. The benefit of the proposed M4 model is demonstrated on an example. A comparison between the heterogeneous 3D model, the Love-Kirchhoff model and the M4 model is performed on a three-layer sandwich plate under cylindrical bending conditions. Finite element calculations are used to solve the 3D problem, while both the Love-Kirchhoff and the M4 problems are analytically solved. It is shown that, when the contrast between the core and the skins strengths is high, the Love-Kirchhoff model fails to capture the plastic collapse modes that cause the ruin of the sandwich plate. These modes are well captured by the M4 model which predicts limit loads that are very consistent with the limit loads predicted by the heterogeneous 3D model (the relative error is found to be smaller than 1%).     

On Marangoni effects in a heated fluid layer with a monolayer surfactant. Part II: finite element formulation and numerical studies

In this part we consider the dilute surfactant model developed in Part I and construct a variational formulation and mixed finite element scheme to obtain approximate solutions. In particular, we consider the stability regimes identified in the linear stability analysis of Part I and conduct numerical experiments to explore the nature of stability for the approximate solutions in these regimes. Both 1D and 2D simulation results are provided to illustrate the behaviour. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic compressive strength properties of aluminium foams. Part II—‘shock’ theory and comparison with experimental data and numerical models

One-dimensional ‘steady-shock’ models based on a rate-independent, rigid, perfectly-plastic, locking (r-p-p-l) idealisation of the quasi-static stress-strain curves for aluminium foams are proposed for two different impact scenarios to provide a first-order understanding of the dynamic compaction process. A thermo-mechanical approach is used in the formulation of their governing equations. Predictions by the models are compared with experimental data presented in the companion paper (Part I) and with the results of finite-element simulations of two-dimensional Voronoi honeycombs.A kinematic existence condition for continuing ‘shock’ propagation in aluminium foams is established using thermodynamics arguments and its predictions compare well with the experimental data. The thermodynamics highlight the incorrect application of the global energy balance approach to describe ‘shock’ propagation in cellular solids which appears in some current literature.     

Internal wave reflections and transmissions arising from a non-uniform mesh. Part III: The occurrence of evanescent waves in the Crank-Nicolson linear finite element scheme

The numerical scheme upon which this paper is based is the 1D Crank–Nicolson linear finite element scheme. In Part I of this series it was shown that for a certain range of incident wavelengths impinging on the interface of an expansion in nodal spacing, an evanescent (or spatially damped) wave results in the downstream region. Here in Part III an analysis is carried out to predict the wavelength and the spatial rate of damping for this wave. The results of the analysis are verified quantitatively with seven ‘hot-start’ numerical experiments and qualitatively with seven ‘cold-start’ experiments. Weare has shown that evanescent waves occur whenever the frequency of a disturbance at a boundary exceeds the maximum frequency given by the dispersion relation. In these circumstances the ‘extended dispersion’ relation can be used to determine the rate of spatial decay. In the context of a domain consisting of two regions with different nodal spacings, the use of the group velocity concept shows that evanescent waves have no energy flux associated with them when energy is conserved.