Numerical simulation of grain-size effects on creep crack growth by means of grain elements

The effect of grain size on creep crack growth is investigated by means of a numerical technique in which the actual crack growth process is simulated in a discrete manner by grain elements and grain boundary elements. The grain elements account for the creep deformation of individual grains, while grain boundary cavitation and sliding are accounted for by grain boundary elements between the grains. This grain-element technique allows for an independent study of multiple grain size effects: a (direct) size effect related to the specimen size/grain size ratio or an (indirect) effect related to the effect of grain size on nucleation rate and creep resistance. Preliminary numerical results are presented concerning the direct effect of grain size, which predict that the crack growth rate and brittleness increase with grain size.

Synthesized grain size distribution in the interstellar medium

We examine a synthetic way of constructing the grain size distribution in the interstellar medium (ISM). First we formulate a synthetic grain size distribution composed of three grain size distributions processed with the following mechanisms that govern the grain size distribution in the Milky Way: (i) grain growth by accretion and coagulation in dense clouds, (ii) supernova shock destruction by sputtering in diffuse ISM, and (iii) shattering driven by turbulence in diffuse ISM. Then, we examine if the observational grain size distribution in the Milky Way (called MRN) is successfully synthesized or not. We find that the three components actually synthesize the MRN grain size distribution in the sense that the deficiency of small grains by (i) and (ii) is compensated by the production of small grains by (iii). The fraction of each {contribution} to the total grain processing of (i), (ii), and (iii) (i.e., the relative importance of the three {contributions} to all grain processing mechanisms) is 30-50%, 20-40%, and 10-40%, respectively. We also show that the Milky Way extinction curve is reproduced with the synthetic grain size distributions.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Earth, Planets, and Spac

The effect of grain size on workhardening and superplasticity in Zn/0.4% Al Alloy

Superplasticity*requires, amongst other things, a metal with a grain-size in the range 0.5-5μ. Theories of SP invoking dynamic recovery require that the cell-Size of the substructure for the alloy in question is larger than the SP grain-size, so that gliding dislocations are always annihilated in the grain boundaries and workhardening cannot occur (1,2). .Thus the grain-size is critical, and for a given set of conditions, there must be a grain-size greater than which SP cannot be achieved

Grain-size Statistical Parameters of Sandy Sediment in Kuala Gigieng, Aceh Besar District

Study of sediment distribution at Kuala Gigieng was to assess the information of sediment related to the occurrence of hydro-oceanographic processes. The sediment samples were collected from nine stations using coring method. Granulometric method was used to analyze the grain size distributions. The results showed different sediment distribution patterns in each area at estuary Kuala Gigieng. The outer area of estuary indicated skewed to coarse grains, while at the inner area of estuary indicated skewed to fine grains. Different sediment load transport process was suggested as the cause of differentiated sediment characters

Size-dependent electronic-transport mechanism and sign reversal of magnetoresistance in Nd0.5Sr0.5CoO3

A detailed investigation of electronic-transport properties of Nd0.5Sr0.5CoO3 has been carried out as a function of grain size ranging from micrometer order down to an average size of 28 nm. Interestingly, we observe a size induced metal-insulator transition in the lowest grain size sample while the bulk-like sample is metallic in the whole measured temperature regime. An analysis of the temperature dependent resistivity in the metallic regime reveals that the electron-electron interaction is the dominating mechanism while other processes like electron-magnon and electron-phonon scatterings are also likely to be present. The fascinating observation of enhanced low temperature upturn and minimum in resistivity on reduction of grain size is found due to electron-electron interaction (quantum interference effect). This effect is attributed to enhanced disorder on reduction of grain size. Interestingly, we observed a cross over from positive to negative magnetoresistance in the low temperature regime as the grain size is reduced. This observed sign reversal is attributed to enhanced phase separation on decreasing the grain size of the cobaltite

Atomic-scale modeling of the deformation of nanocrystalline metals

Nanocrystalline metals, i.e. metals with grain sizes from 5 to 50 nm, display technologically interesting properties, such as dramatically increased hardness, increasing with decreasing grain size. Due to the small grain size, direct atomic-scale simulations of plastic deformation of these materials are possible, as such a polycrystalline system can be modeled with the computational resources available today. We present molecular dynamics simulations of nanocrystalline copper with grain sizes up to 13 nm. Two different deformation mechanisms are active, one is deformation through the motion of dislocations, the other is sliding in the grain boundaries. At the grain sizes studied here the latter dominates, leading to a softening as the grain size is reduced. This implies that there is an ``optimal'' grain size, where the hardness is maximal. Since the grain boundaries participate actively in the deformation, it is interesting to study the effects of introducing impurity atoms in the grain boundaries. We study how silver atoms in the grain boundaries influence the mechanical properties of nanocrystalline copper.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX2e, PS figures and sty files included. To appear in Mater. Res. Soc. Symp. Proc. vol 538 (invited paper). For related papers, see http://www.fysik.dtu.dk/~schiotz/publist.htm

Explaining International Variance in Foreign Bribery Prosecution: A Comparative Case Study

Ion plating is essentially vapor deposition onto a substrate which is the cathode of a glow discharge. The most important characteristic of the technique is that the growing film is subjected to a flux of high energy particles (neutrals and ions). In this study we report information about the effect of ion plating parameters on grain diameter and crystallite size distribution. At a constant potential grain size remains constant with the increase of ion density. On the other hand, at a constant ion density the grain size decreases with the substrate potential increment. Ion bombardment also has an effect on the crystallite size distribution. The ion plated films show a higher degree of uniformity in grain size than vacuum evaporated films. In contrast with vacuum evaporated films, where the grain size is proportional to the thickness, no variation of grain size with film thickness has been observed for the ion‐plated films. Electron diffraction patterns have shown that the orientation remains near random over the entire J and V range studied