Modification of magnetic anisotropy in metallic glasses using high-energy ion beam irradiation

Heavy ion irradiation in the electronic stopping power region induces macroscopic dimensional change in metallic glasses and introduces magnetic anisotropy in some magnetic materials. The present work is on the irradiation study of ferromagnetic metallic glasses, where both dimensional change and modification of magnetic anisotropy are expected. Magnetic anisotropy was measured using Mössbauer spectroscopy of virgin and irradiated Fe₄₀Ni₄₀B₂₀ and Fe₄₀Ni₃₈Mo₄B₁₈ metallic glass ribbons. 90 MeV ¹²⁷I beam was used for the irradiations. Irradiation doses were 5×10¹³ and 7.5×10¹³ ions/cm². The relative intensity ratios D ₂₃ of the second and third lines of the Mössbauer spectra were measured to determine the magnetic anisotropy. The virgin samples of both the materials display in-plane magnetic anisotropy, i.e., the spins are oriented parallel to the ribbon plane. Irradiation is found to cause reduction in magnetic anisotropy. Near-complete randomization of magnetic moments is observed at high irradiation doses. Correlation is found between the residual stresses introduced by ion irradiation and the change in magnetic anisotropy.     

The influence of a transverse magnetic field on a subnormal glow discharge in air

In subnormal glow discharge under d.c. excitation at different pressure in a varying transverse magnetic field (0 to 30 G) some measurements have been carried out for various initial average tube currents. The voltage across the discharge increases and average tube current and residual current decreases in the magnetic field. With the help of Beckman’s expression [4] for the axial field and the electron density distribution in a transverse magnetic field the observed variation of current and voltage can be satisfactorily explained. The variation of axial electric field with transverse magnetic field can be represented to a fair degree of accuracy by the derived equation. The behaviour of residual current with magnetic field has been observed in these oscillations.     

Precise mass measurement of a double-stranded 500 base-pair (309 kDa) polymerase chain reaction product by negative ion electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry

Electrospray ionization Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry (ESI-FTICRMS) has been used to determine the mass of a double-stranded 500 base-pair (bp) polymerase chain reaction (PCR) product with an average theoretical mass of the blunt-ended (i.e. unadenylated) species of 308 859.35 Da. The PCR product was generated from the linearized bacteriophage Lambda genome which is a double-stranded template. Utilization of ethanol precipitation in tandem with a rapid microdialysis step to purify and desalt the PCR product was crucial to obtain a precise mass measurement. The PCR product (0.8 pmol/μL) was electrosprayed from a solution containing 75% acetonitrile, 25 mM piperidine, and 25 mM imidazole and was infused at a rate of 200 nL/min. The average molecular mass and the corresponding precision were determined using the charge-states ranging from 172 to 235 net negative charges. The experimental mass and corresponding precision (reported as the 95% confidence interval of the mean) was 309 406 +/- 27 Da (87 ppm). The mass accuracy was compromised due to the fact that the PCR generates multiple products when using Taq polymerase due to the non-template directed 3'-adenylation. This results in a mixture of three PCR products with nearly identical mass (i.e. blunt-ended, mono-adenylated and di-adenylated) with unknown relative abundances that were not resolved in the spectrum. Thus, the experimental mass will be a weighted average of the three species which, under our experimental conditions, reflects a nearly equal concentration of the mono- and di-adenylated species. This report demonstrates that precise mass measurements of PCR products up to 309 kDa (500 bp) can be routinely obtained by ESI-FTICR requiring low femtomole amounts. Copyright 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ciliation and lamellae in crystalline polymers

Molecular cilia, the uncrystallized portions of chains already partly attached to polymer crystals, exert a profound influence on the course of polymeric crystallization with ultimate responsibility for the divergence of adjacent lamellae which leads to spherulitic growth. Their effective size and pressure have been measured, in α-polypropylene, from electron microscopic measurements of the separation and maximum curvature of lamellae in row structures. That cilia exist and extend the effective region occupied by a lamella beyond the geometrical confines of its fold surfaces is important for crystallization theory and may well have implications for the connection of lamellae into networks and for gelation.     

Three-dimensional modeling and numerical analysis of rate-dependent irrecoverable deformation in shape memory alloys

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) provide an attractive solid-state actuation alternative to engineers in various fields due to their ability to exhibit recoverable deformations while under substantial loads. Many constitutive models describing this repeatable phenomenon have been proposed, where some models also capture the effects of rate-independent irrecoverable deformations (i.e., plasticity) in SMAs. In this work, we consider a topic not addressed to date: the generation and evolution of irrecoverable viscoplastic strains in an SMA material. Such strains appear in metals subjected to sufficiently high temperatures. The need to account for these effects in SMAs arises when considering one of two situations: the exposure of a conventional SMA material (e.g., NiTi) to high temperatures for a non-negligible amount of time, as occurs during shape-setting, or the utilization of new high temperature shape memory alloys (HTSMAs), where the elevated transformation temperatures induce transformation and viscoplastic behaviors simultaneously. A new three-dimensional constitutive model based on established SMA and viscoplastic modeling techniques is derived that accounts for these behaviors. The numerical implementation of the model is described in detail. Several finite element analysis (FEA) examples are provided, demonstrating the utility of the new model and its implementation in assessing the effects of viscoplastic behaviors in shape memory alloys.     

Radiochemical neutron activation analysis of chromium in biological materials using ion chromatography with “on-line” yield determination

The use of ion chromatography with continuous UV detection for radiochemical separation of Cr with simultaneous yield determination is presented. The RNAA method consists of sample destruction in HNO₃+HClO₄, extraction of Cr(VI) with tribenzylamine in CHCl₃, backextraction in NaOH and chromatography of chromate. From radiotracer experiments, the ratio of signals for⁵¹Cr and Cr spike was found to be constant for a chromium mass range of 15 to 100 g. Application of the RNAA method to Cr determination in biological reference materials showed a reasonable agreement with the reference values. A relative standard deviation of 3% on the 100 g/kg level for homogeneous material was achieved.IAEA-fellow, on leave from the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute Philippine     

Lyapunov exponents estimation for hysteretic systems

This article discusses the Lyapunov exponent estimation of non-linear hysteretic systems by adapting the classical algorithm by Wolf and co-workers [Wolf, A., Swift, J.B., Swinney, H.L., Vastano, J.A., 1985. Determining Lyapunov exponents from a times series. Physica D 16, 285–317.]. This algorithm evaluates the divergence of nearby orbits by monitoring a reference trajectory, evaluated from the equations of motion of the original hysteretic system, and a perturbed trajectory resulting from the integration of the linearized equations of motion. The main issue of using this algorithm for non-linear, rate-independent, hysteretic systems is related to the procedure of linearization of the equations of motion. The present work establishes a procedure of linearization performing a state space split and assuming an equivalent viscous damping in order to represent hysteretic dissipation in the linearized system. The dynamical response of a single-degree of freedom pseudoelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) oscillator is discussed as an application of the proposed algorithm. The restitution force of the oscillator is provided by an SMA element described by a rate-independent, hysteretic, thermomechanical constitutive model. Two different modeling cases are considered for isothermal and non-isothermal heat transfer conditions, and numerical simulations are performed for both cases. The evaluation of the Lyapunov exponents shows that the proposed procedure is capable of quantifying chaos capturing the non-linear dissipation of hysteretic systems.     

Homogenization of aligned “fuzzy fiber” composites

The aim of this work is to study composites in which carbon fibers coated with radially aligned carbon nanotubes are embedded in a matrix. The effective properties of these composites are identified using the asymptotic expansion homogenization method in two steps. Homogenization is performed in different coordinate systems, the cylindrical and the Cartesian, and a numerical example are presented.