Electro-elastic interactions and second order anisotropic constitutive equations

Piezoelectricity is usually expressed as an interaction between mechanical and electrical variables. The physics involved is hence governed by a coupling between Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism and the equations of elasticity. Such a coupling takes us through the piezoelectric constitutive relations. In this work, the second order anisotropic constitutive equations are treated, and in particular, the number of independent material constants is computed for all the 32 crystallographic classes.Paper presented, in reduced version, at the 12th Italian National Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (AIMETA '95), October 1995, Naples, Italy.     

Transition to Chaos in the Floating Half Zone Convection

The transition process from steady convection to chaos is experimentally studied in thermocapillary convections of floating half zone. The onset of temperature oscillations in the liquid bridge of floating half zone and further transitions of the temporal convective behaviour are detected by measuring the temperature in the liquid bridge. The fast Fourier transform reveals the frequency and amplitude characteristics of the flow transition. The experimental results indicate the existence of a sequence of period-doubling bifurcations that culminate in chaos. The measured Feigenbaum numbers are δ2 =4.69 and δ4 = 4.6, which are comparable with the theoretical asymptotic value δ=4.669.     

High frequency shear horizontal plate acoustic wave devices

It has been shown recently that shear horizontal acoustic waves propagating in piezoelectric plates whose thickness h is much less than the acoustic wavelength λ possess a number of attractive properties for use in sensor and signal processing applications. In order to exploit the potential benefits of these waves, however, one needs to fabricate devices on very thin plates. We have developed a suitable fabrication method which can be used to realize devices on such thin plates. In this method, the device is first fabricated on a plate of normal thickness (approximately 500 μm) and the substrate is then lapped from the back side to reduce the thickness. The technique has been utilized to realize devices on plates of thickness less than 70 μm. A shear horizontal plate acoustic wave (SH-PAW) delay line of fundamental resonant frequency greater than 25 MHz and insertion loss less than 7 dB has been realized on a 60 μm thick Y – cut, X – propagation lithium niobate substrate. The device also shows strong response near the third harmonic frequency of 75 MHz.     

N-Heterocyclic carbenes: VI. Abietane-based chiral benzimidazolium salts as N-heterocyclic carbene ligands in the heck reaction

New chiral benzimidazolium salts were synthesized on the basis of abietane and were used as N-heterocyclic carbene ligands in the Heck reaction.     

Obliquely propagating ion-acoustic shock waves in a degenerate quantum plasma

A theoretical investigation has been carried out on the propagation of non-linear ion-acoustic shock waves (IASHWs) in a magnetized degenerate quantum plasma system composed of inertial non-relativistic positively charged light and heavy ions, inertialess non-relativistically or ultra-relativistically degenerate electrons and positrons. The reductive perturbation method has been employed to derive the Burgers' equation. It has been observed that under consideration, our plasma model supports only positive potential shock structure. It is also found that the amplitude and steepness of the IASHWs have been significantly modified by the variation of ion kinematic viscosity, oblique angle, number density, and charge state of the plasma species. The results of our present investigation will be helpful for understanding the propagation of IASHWs in white dwarfs and neutron stars.     

Commensurability oscillations in NdBa2Cu3Oy single crystals

Commensurability between inter-vortex distance and crystal lattice constant is investigated by angular dependent magnetization in very pure twinned and twin-free NdBa₂ Cu₃ O_y single crystals. With increasing temperature the incommensurate states split up and become finally commensurate with half the vortex distance. These new commensurate states are related to a substructure of the intrinsic pinning potential within the unit cell and discussed with respect to temperature, field, anisotropy, and twin structure.     

Determining a 'safe' high-mass limit in matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionisation time-of-flight mass spectra of coal derived materials with reference to instrument noise

Three methods for determining a 'safe' estimate for high-mass limits of MALDI spectra of coal derived liquids were explored, using a sample of coal-tar pitch and its pyridine-insoluble fraction. Co-addition of increasing numbers of single-shot spectra (10, 30, 50 and 100 pulses) showed visually observable reductions in noise levels, consistent with robust and statistically meaningful signals. Three separate types of post-acquisition calculation were used to identify high-mass limits of the spectra. (i) A literature method indicated high-mass limits similar to those observed visually-as a shift from baseline at the highest masses, nearly 350 000 u for the coal tar pitch and about 390 000 u for its pyridine insoluble fraction. (ii) Comparing instrument signal with pre-selected multiples of the standard deviation, upper mass estimates of between 40-60 000 u for the coal-tar pitch and about 95 000 u for its pyridine-insoluble fraction were found. (iii) Calculation of the slope was used to identify 'lift-off' of the spectrum from baseline. The angle between the smoothed spectrum and the baseline was matched to a pre-selected value (e.g. 0.5 degrees and 1 degrees ). However, the arbitrary specification of the key parameter did not establish this last method on a firm basis. The choice of a criterion for estimating high-mass limits of MALDI spectra remains a semi-quantitative procedure; a reasonably conservative high-mass limit may be estimated by comparison of signal with five times the standard deviation. However, evaluation of size exclusion chromatograms of the present samples using polystyrene standards suggests that molecular mass distributions of pitch samples arrived at by MALDI mass spectrometry are, at least partly, determined by the limitations of available instruments. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.