Microstructure and Crystallographic Texture of Aluminium Composite

The objective of the present work is to study the hot deformation behaviour of Al alloy-SiC Composites and to analyze the microstructure and crystallographic texture. Dispersing finer size hard particles in Al alloys restricted the flow of grains and tends to alter the texture. Al composites were homogenized and subjected to compression test using universal testing machine at various strain rates and temperatures. The deformed microstructure was studied under microscope paying particular emphasis to understand the mechanism of material flow. The crystallographic texture of the deformed samples was found out using x-ray diffactometer. The results depict that Al composites can safely be deformed at 400 oC and at 0.01 /s strain rate and the microstructure shows dynamic recrystallization as the predominant mechanism of material flow.  It was also observed that at higher strain rate (10/s) of deformation, the interface decohesion between the metallic matrix and ceramic phase was observed.  Adiabatic shear bands (localized flow) were observed when the materials deformed at room temperature (30 oC) and at strain rate of 0.01/s.  The texture measurement of Al composites, at the safe region, shows the components of (011) [100], (001) [1-10], (010) [101].  This study indicated that Goss and cube texture are favorable for the easy deformation of Al composite

Microscopic calculation of proton capture reactions in mass 60-80 region and its astrophysical implications

Microscopic optical potentials obtained by folding the DDM3Y interaction with the densities from Relativistic Mean Field approach have been utilized to evaluate S-factors of low-energy $(p,\gamma)$ reactions in mass 60-80 region and to compare with experiments. The Lagrangian density FSU Gold has been employed. Astrophysical rates for important proton capture reactions have been calculated to study the behaviour of rapid proton nucleosynthesis for waiting point nuclei with mass less than A=80

An optimal network for passenger traffic

The optimal solution of an inter-city passenger transport network has been studied using Zipf's law for the city populations and the Gravity law describing the fluxes of inter-city passenger traffic. Assuming a fixed value for the cost of transport per person per kilometer we observe that while the total traffic cost decreases, the total wiring cost increases with the density of links. As a result the total cost to maintain the traffic distribution is optimal at a certain link density which vanishes on increasing the network size. At a finite link density the network is scale-free. Using this model the air-route network of India has been generated and an one-to-one comparison of the nodal degree values with the real network has been made.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Reversible, repeatable and low phase transition behaviour of spin coated nanostructured vanadium oxide thin films with superior mechanical properties

Smooth, uniform and crystalline vanadium oxide thin films were deposited on quartz by spin coating technique with four different rpm i.e., 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 and subsequently post annealed at 350, 450 and 550 °C in vacuum. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) techniques were utilized for microstructural characterizations and phase analysis, respectively, for vanadium oxide powder and deposited film. Nanorods were observed to be grown after vacuum annealing. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) technique was utilized to study the elemental oxidation state of deposited vanadium oxide films. Thermo-optical and electrical properties such as solar transmittance (τs), reflectance (ρs), absorptance (αs), infrared (IR) emittance (εir) and sheet resistance (Rs) of different thin films were evaluated. Based on the optical characteristics the optimized condition of the film processing was identified to be spin coated at 3000 rpm. Subsequently, the nanoindentation technique was utilized to measure hardness and Young's modulus of the optimized film. The measured nanomechanical properties were found to be superior to those reported for sputtered vanadium oxide films. Finally, temperature dependent phase transition characteristics of optimized vanadium oxide films were studied by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. Reversible and repeatable phase transition was found to occur in the range of 44–48 °C which was significantly lower than the phase transition temperature (i.e., 68 °C) of bulk VO2

Small-scale piped water supply: end-user inclusive water research in arsenic affected areas in India and Bangladesh (DELTAP)

DELTAP is s multi-disciplinary research project, where geologists, water treatment scientists and industrial design engineers join forces to develop an integrated approach towards small-scale piped water supply (SPWS) systems in the arsenic-affected Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Delta. The project has started in 2016 with a field study in Bihar (India) with a focus on water quality mapping with mobile crowd participation. The coming years the research will continue with 3 PhD candidates, both in India and Bangladesh, with the ultimate aim to develop blueprints for end-user inclusive SPWS systems

Dissipative collisions in 16^{16}O + 27^{27}Al at Elab_{lab}=116 MeV

The inclusive energy distributions of fragments (3$\leq$Z$\leq$7) emitted in the reaction $^{16}$O + $^{27}$Al at $E_{lab} =$116 MeV have been measured in the angular range $\theta_{lab}$= 15$^\circ$ - 115$^\circ$. A non-linear optimisation procedure using multiple Gaussian distribution functions has been proposed to extract the fusion-fission and deep inelastic components of the fragment emission from the experimental data. The angular distributions of the fragments, thus obtained, from the deep inelastic component are found to fall off faster than those from the fusion-fission component, indicating shorter life times of the emitting di-nuclear systems. The life times of the intermediate di-nuclear configurations have been estimated using a diffractive Regge-pole model. The life times thus extracted ($\sim 1 - 5\times 10^{-22}$ Sec.) are found to decrease with the increase in the fragment charge. Optimum Q-values are also found to increase with increasing charge transfer i.e. with the decrease in fragment charge.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, 1 tabl

Source population synthesis and the Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission

Population synthesis is used to study the contribution from undetected sources to the Galactic ridge emission measured by EGRET. Synthesized source counts are compared with the 3rd EGRET catalogue at low and high latitudes. For pulsar-like populations, 5-10% of the emission >100 MeV comes from sources below the EGRET threshold. A steeper luminosity function can increase this to 20% without violating EGRET source statistics. Less luminous populations can produce much higher values without being detected. Since the unresolved source spectrum is different from the interstellar spectrum, it could provide an explanation of the observed MeV and GeV excesses above the predictions, and we give an explicit example of how this could work.Comment: Astrophysics and Space Science, in press. (Proceedings of Conference 'The multi-messenger approach to high-energy gamma-ray sources', Barcelona, 2006). Minor changes for accepted version, updated reference

Solvent evaporation driven entrapment of magnetic nanoparticles in mesoporous frame for designing a highly efficient MRI contrast probe

The present work reports a novel strategy of assembling maghemite (?-Fe2O3) nanoparticles (NPs) in mesoporous silica host for developing a highly efficient MRI contrast probe. Shrinkage of hydrophobic environment due to the continuous evaporation of chloroform from Chloroform-in-Water emulsions pushes the hydrophobic ?-Fe2O3 NPs towards the hydrophobic pores of silica spheres resulting in a water soluble dense assembly structure. Mesoporous silica only with straight pores is found to be suitable for this particular entrapment process, while with curved and twisted pores, NPs are found to be seated on the surface only. So-developed assembly system has retained the superparamagnetic behaviour of its comprising NPs and exhibited high colloidal stability and biocompatibility. A significant enhancement in MRI transverse relaxivity to 386.2?mM?1?s?1 from 191.8?mM?1?s?1 of isolated primary ?-Fe2O3 NPs, has been obtained due to the strong magnetic field generated by the large number of NPs packed in the porous channels and consequent faster relaxation process. The fabrication strategy can be extended for the development of designed secondary nanostructures with new magnetic effects and physical properties

Disordered Type-II Superconductors: A Universal Phase Diagram for Low-Tc_c Systems

A universal phase diagram for weakly pinned low-T$_c$ type-II superconductors is revisited and extended with new proposals. The low-temperature ``Bragg glass'' phase is argued to transform first into a disordered, glassy phase upon heating. This glassy phase, a continuation of the high-field equilibrium vortex glass phase, then melts at higher temperatures into a liquid. This proposal provides an explanation for the anomalies observed in the peak effect regime of 2H-NbSe$_2$ and several other low-T$_c$ materials which is independent of the microscopic mechanisms of superconductivity in these systems.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figure