Optical properties and electronic structure of the Cu-Zn brasses

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. The color of Cu-Zn brasses range from the red of copper through bright yellow to grey-silver as the Zn content increases. Here we examine the mechanism by which these color changes occur. The optical properties of this set of alloys has been calculated using density functional theory (DFT) and compared to experimental spectroscopy measurements. The optical response of the low Zn content α-brasses is shown to have a distinctly different origin to that in the higher content β′, γ and ε-brasses. The response of β′-brass is unique in that it is strongly influenced by an overdamped plasmon excitation and this alloy will also have a strong surface plasmon response

Quantitative neutron diffraction texture measurement applied to alpha-phase alumina and Ti(3)AlC(2)

Orientation distribution functions, essential for making a quantitative connection between single-crystal and polycrystal properties, have been determined for extruded [alpha]-phase alumina, hot-pressed Ti3AlC2 and cold isostatically pressed Ti3AlC2 using experimental pole figures recorded on the fixed-wavelength neutron diffractometer KOWARI. Some practical improvements to the calculation of the pole-figure density from the raw area-detector data, and for constructing pole figures on an n x ndegrees hemispherical grid, are presented. The textures give some insight into particle flow during manufacture. Directly measured material textures were compared with one-dimensional pole density functions, such as the March and Rietveld functions commonly used for the correction of preferred orientation in Rietveld refinements, as a means of assessing the utility of the latter for the computation of diffraction elastic constants and other polycrystal properties from a given set of single-crystal properties. © 2011, Wiley-Blackwel

In-situ neutron diffraction of titanium silicide, Ti5Si3, during self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS)

C1 - Journal Articles Referee

Stress distribution in iron powder during die compaction

The unique and unusual state of matter represented by granular materials has historically made it very difficult to develop models of stress distributions and was previously not able to be explored experimentally in the required detail. This paper reports the application of the neutron diffraction strain scanning method, originally developed for residual stress measurements within engineering components, to the problem of the stress distribution in granular Fe under a consolidating pressure. Strains were measured in axial, radial, circumferential and an oblique direction using the neutron strain scanning diffractometer KOWARI at ANSTO (Sydney). The full stress tensor as a function of position was able to be extracted for both straight walled, converging and stepped dies. © 2014, Trans Tech Publications

Ab Initio Phonon Dispersion Curves Used to Check Experimentally Determined Elastic Constants of the MAX Phase Ti3SiC2

The ternary carbide Ti3SiC2 is the archetype of MAX phases. To date, MAX phases have proven difficult to synthesize as sufficiently large single crystals from which single crystal elastic constants might be obtained. Therefore, the elastic properties not only of Ti3SiC2 but other MAX phases are extensively studied by ab initio methods. Recently single crystal elastic constants were experimentally determined for the first time using neutron diffraction. The experiment revealed extreme shear stiffness which is not only quite rare in hexagonal materials but also strongly contradicts the predictions of all published MAX phase elastic constants from ab initio calculations. In the present paper we would like to show that such shear stiffness can possibly be supported by ab initio calculations and the calculated phonon dispersion along high symmetry directions.© 2011, Trans Tech Publication

Measurement and analysis of the stress distribution during die compaction using neutron diffraction

The full axisymmetric stress state of a granular material undergoing compaction in a cylindrical die has been measured using a technique based on neutron powder diffraction. This technique allowed the detailed distribution of stress to be measured in situ, deep within a copper powder inside a solid die. Four components of normal strain were measured over a radial cross section. These components consisted of the axial, radial, hoop and an off-axis strain in the axial-radial direction. This allowed for the reconstruction of the full axisymmetric stress tensor as a distribution over the radial cross section. Many interesting features were observed in this distribution, such as exponential decay of the axial stress (described by Janssen in Zeitschrift des Vereines duetscher Ingenieure 39:1045, 1895), and highly localised regions of high shear stress. The potential of this type of data in the validation of numerical models is discussed. © 2012, Springer