Dielectric relaxation of ball-like labels in polyisoprene

Ball-like molecules with strong dipoles (labels) were mixed with synthetic polyisoprene (IR305) in low concentrations (<1%) and measured dielectrically in the frequency range 10^–2–10⁷ Hz and the temperature range –70–0°C (glass relaxation region). Calorimetric measurements showed that this type of label has a plasticizing effect on the polymeric matrix. The dielectric measurements showed that these ball-like molecules relax through cooperative rotations with the polymeric segments and at the same relaxation frequency. In addition, the label molecules showed a high-frequency local relaxation process. The relaxation strength ratio of the local process (X _local) to the total relaxation strength of the label was found to be dependent on the volume as well as on the shape of the label. A comparison between the relaxation behaviors of the ball-and rod-like molecules, having the same volume, showed that the length of the label is also an important parameter for the determination of the local contribution as well as of the cooperative relaxation mechanism of the label. The label relaxation process is discussed in relation to the molecular packing of the host polymer.     

Effect of Oxide Coverage on the Growth of Amorphous Al2Pt Phase on an Al Surface

 In the present experiments the high temperature successive deposition (HTSD) of Al and Pt and the half shadowing technique producing wedge shaped area with increasing quantity of deposited Pt are applied for studying the initial stages of solid phase reaction producing amorphous Al₂Pt phase. The nucleation of Al₂Pt phase results in a decoration pattern which could be related to the characteristic local oxide coverage of the Al crystal surface developing by kinetic segregation of oxygen species during the Al film deposition. In the area of larger amount of deposited Pt, where the Al₂Pt phase is continuous Kirkendall voids are present. The samples were investigated in plane by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and analysed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX).     

Some basic principles in dynamic theory of viscoelastic materials with voids

According to the basic idea of classical yin-yang complementarity and modern dual-complementarity, in a simple and unified way proposed by Luo, some basic principles in the dynamic theory of viscoelastic materials with voids can be estab- lished systematically. In this paper, an important integral relation in terms of con- volutions is given, which can be considered as the generalized principle of virtual work in mechanics. Based on this relation, it is possible not only to obtain the principle of virtual work and the reciprocal theorem, but also to derive systemati- cally the complementary functionals for the eight-field, six-field, four-field simpli- fied Gurtin-type variational principles and the potential energy-functional for the two-field one in the dynamic theory of viscoelastic materials with voids by the generalized Legendre transformations given in this paper. Furthermore, with this approach, the intrinsic relationship among various principles can be explained clearly.     

Effects of Microstructural Defects on Ion-Irradiated Type-316 Stainless Steel

Microstructure defects play a very important role in the swelling of irradiated stainless steel. This work is a parametric study of the effects of microstructural defects on the swelling of ion-irradiated steel. For simplicity, vacancy loop effects were neglected. Cold working was found to play a complicated role in the swelling behavior. On one hand, it increase the bias to interstitial absorption due to the increase in dislocation density. On the other hand, it decreases the total flux of point defects to voids by the decrease of the point defect concentrations. Grain size has also a strong effect on swelling. It was found that large gain sizes produces higher swelling and vise versa, i.e. the larger the surface of grain boundaries the less the irradiation-produced swelling. Similar effects were found for precipitates.     

Stability of bars made of linear elastic materials with voids

Summary Dynamic stability of an elastic bar with voids is considered. Using the Lyapunov approach some new sufficient stability conditions are obtained and explicit expressions for the critical load are derived.     

Numerical limit analysis bounds for ductile porous media with oblate voids

The paper is devoted to a numerical limit analysis of a hollow spheroidal model with a von Mises solid matrix. To this purpose, existing kinematic and static 3D-FEM codes for the case of spherical cavities have been modified and improved to account for the model of a spheroidal cavity confocal with the external spheroidal boundary. The optimized conic programming formulations and the resulting codes appear to be very efficient. This framework is then applied to the derivation of numerical upper and lower anisotropic bounds in the case of an oblate void. The numerical results obtained from a series of tests are presented and allow to assess the accuracy of closed-form expressions of the macroscopic criteria proposed by [Gologanu et al., 1994] and [Gologanu et al., 1997] for porous media with oblate voids.