Mechanical spectra measurement to probe the magnetolattice coupling in cupric oxide

Mechanical spectra (complex Young's modulus Y*=Y′+iY″ versus frequency and temperature) of polycrystalline cupric oxide CuO were measured by vibrating reed method from liquid nitrogen temperature to room temperature at the kilohertz frequency. The abnormal behavior of internal friction and the change of slope of the real part of the complex Young's modulus versus temperature are observed around 213 and 230 K, where two successive magnetic transitions were established. At low temperatures, below 130 K, a higher internal friction platform with the decrease of temperature was clearly observed which might show a phase transition. Our study indicates that mechanical spectrum is an effective tool to detect subtle phase transitions and there is a strong magnetolattice coupling in CuO.     

Development of cube textured Ni–5 at.%W alloy substrates for coated conductor application using a melting process

Biaxially textured Ni–5 at.%W substrates have been prepared by cold rolling, followed by three different annealing routes. In this paper, the processes of melting Ni and W metals, flat rolling, various annealing methods are described in detail. The Ni–5 at.%W tapes annealed under either high vacuum or flowing Ar (7% H₂) gas were characterized by X-ray pole figures, ODF, EBSD as well as AFM analysis. The texture analysis indicated that as fabricated tapes have a sharp cube texture formed after annealing at a wide temperature range of 800–1100 °C. The high quality of cube orientation on tapes was obtained after a two-step annealing (TSA), where the percentage of the cube texture component was as high as 93.5% within a misorientation angle smaller than 8° from EBSD analysis. Furthermore, it was also observed that the number of twin boundaries in this tape decreased with respect to that of tapes annealed both in vacuum and one-step gas annealing. From AFM on 1 μm² areas, it was concluded that the roughness (RMS) on the tape surface reached 0.98 nm.     

Short-Circuit Diffusion in Ceramics

This article discusses grain boundary diffusion in ceramics. It gives a brief review of the experimental data available for ionic oxides and the problems of interpretation associated with it. The fundamental differences between grain boundary diffusion in metals and ceramics are noted. Calculations of the segregation of defects and impurities to grain boundaries are discussed together with methods of calculating diffusion coefficients in these boundaries. New results for alumina and chromia are presented. The problem of defining a grain boundary width is discussed with respect to new calculations on nickel oxide.     

A simple moving mesh method for one- and two-dimensional phase-field equations

A simple moving mesh method is proposed for solving phase-field equations. The numerical strategy is based on the approach proposed in Li et al. [J. Comput. Phys. 170 (2001) 562–588] to separate the mesh-moving and PDE evolution. The phase-field equations are discretized by a finite-volume method, and the mesh-moving part is realized by solving the conventional Euler–Lagrange equations with the standard gradient-based monitors. Numerical results demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.     

双动边界一维空腔中的能量密度

利用广义Moore方程的数值解，计算了具有做简谐振动的双边界一维空腔中的能量密度. 能量密度的性质与运动边界的振幅、频率和相差密切相关.取某些特殊的参数值时，能量密度呈现出波包结构. 关键词： 双动边界 广义Moore方程 能量密度     

Continuous periodic to quasiperiodic structural transformations in crystalline and superlattice structures

Attention is focussed on the fact that the β—Mn, the σ—phase and the Al₅Ti₃ and the Al₁₁Ti₇ superlattice derivatives of the δ—AlTi phase all belong to a category of structures which comprises an identical periodic arrangement of square and rhombic tiles — the shapes of the rhombic tiles being different in each of these cases. While the first and the second structures constitute periodic approximants of the octagonal and the dodecagonal quasicrystals respectively, the last two (superlattice) structures are the approximants of a hypothetical quasiperiodic superlattice structure. The strip projection method has been used here to model the intermediate structures which arise during the continuous periodic to quasiperiodic transitions between the relevant structures and was found to be quite successful in explaining many of the related experimental findings.     

A new type of periodie boundary condition useful for high-temperature atomistic simulations of grain boundaries: Applications in semiconductors

A new type of boundary condition, named Möbius or antiperiodic boundary conditions, is proposed and tested, both analytically and within the context of numerical simulations. It is shown that these boundary conditions are very useful for twist grain boundary atomistic simulations. By contrast to the use of the ordinary Born von Kármán periodic boundary conditions, they allow only one grain boundary per box instead of two. The risk of migration and overinteraction of two grain boundaries at high temperature is thus avoided while more complex grain boundaries can also be tackled at the same computer price. Such examples are presented and discussed.     

Identification of shallow sea models

In this paper we consider a parameter estimation procedure for shallow sea models. The method is formulated as a minimization problem. An adjoint model is used to calculate the gradient of the criterion which is to be minimized. In order to obtain a robust estimation method, the uncertainty of the open boundary conditions can be taken into acoount by allowing random noise inputs to act on the open boundaries. This method avoids the possibility that boundary errors are interpreted by the estimation procedure as parameter fluctuations. We apply the parameter estimation method to identify a shallow sea model of the entire European continental shelf. First, a space-varying bottom friction coefficient is estimated simultaneously with the depth. The second application is the estimation of the parameterization of the wind stress coefficient as a function of the wind velocity. Finally, an uncertain open boundary condition is included. It is shown that in this case the parameter estimation procedure does become more robust and produces more realistic estimates. Furthermore, an estimate of the open boundary conditions is also obtained.     

A controlled boundary theorem for Hilbert cube manifolds

In this paper a boundary theorem for Hilbert cube manifolds is established,where it is required that the boundary be put on the manifold with arbitrarily small control in a given compact metric parameter space.     

Local characterization of invariant sets of an autonomous differential inclusion

Summary An application in robotics motivates us to characterize the evolution of a subset in state space due to a compact neighborhood of an arbitrary dynamical system—an instance of a differential inclusion. Earlier results of Blagodat·skikh and Filippov (1986) and Butkovskii (1982) characterize the boundary of theattainable set and theforward projection operator of a state. Our first result is a local characterization of the boundary of the forward projection ofa compact regular subset of the state space. Let the collection of states such that the differential inclusion contains an equilibrium point be called asingular invariant set. We show that the fields at the boundary of the forward projection of a singular invariant set are degenerate under some regularity assumptions when the state-wise boundary of the differential inclusion is smooth. Consider instead those differential inclusions such that the state-wise boundary of the problem is a regular convex polytope—a piecewise smooth boundary rather than smooth. Our second result gives conditions for theuniqueness andexistence of the boundary of the forward projection of a singular invariant set. They characterize the bundle of unstable and stable manifolds of such a differential inclusion.