Mechanical behavior of thermal barrier coatings for gas turbine blades

Plasma-sprayed thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) will enable turbine components to operate at higher temperatures and lower cooling gas flow rates; thereby improving their efficiency. Future developments are limited by precise knowledge of the material properties and failure mechanisms of the coating system. Details of this nature are needed for realistic modeling of the coating system which will, in turn, promote advancements in coating technology. Complementary experiments and analytical modeling which were undertaken in order to define and measure the important failure processes for plasma-sprayed coatings are presented. The experimental portion includes two different tests which were developed to measure coating properties. These are termed tensile adhesion and acoustic emission tests. The analytical modeling section details a finite element method which was used to calculate the stress distribution in the coating system. Some preliminary results are presented

A Two-Step Etching Method to Fabricate Nanopores in Silicon

A cost effectively method to fabricate nanopores in silicon by only using the conventional wet-etching technique is developed in this research. The main concept of the proposed method is a two-step etching process, including a premier double-sided wet etching and a succeeding track-etching. A special fixture is designed to hold the pre-etched silicon wafer inside it such that the track-etching can be effectively carried out. An electrochemical system is employed to detect and record the ion diffusion current once the pre-etched cavities are etched into a through nanopore. Experimental results indicate that the proposed method can cost effectively fabricate nanopores in silicon.Comment: Submitted on behalf of EDA Publishing Association (http://irevues.inist.fr/EDA-Publishing

Thermal expansion mismatch and oxidation in thermal barrier coatings

Thermal barrier coatings (TBC) for advanced gas turbine blades have been under intensive development during the last several years. This investigation is intended to achieve a clearer understanding of the mechanical behavior of plasma sprayed zirconia-yttria TBCs, involving a nickle-chromium-aluminum bond coat. The near term objectives are to study the stress states in a relatively simple model TBC subjected to steady state thermal loading. The resulting thermal expansion mismatch and oxidation have been primary targets for the study. The finite element approach and the effects of thermal mismatch and oxidation are described. A proposed mechanism for oxidation induced coating failure is also presented

Remarks on flavour mixings from orbifold compactification

We consider 5d SU(5) GUT models based on the orbifold $S^1/(Z_2 \times Z_2')$, and study the different possibilities of placing the SU(5) matter multiplets in three possible locations, namely, the two branes at the two orbifold fixed points and SU(5) bulk. We demonstrate that if flavour hierarchies originate solely from geometrical suppressions due to wavefunction normalisation of fields propagating in the bulk, then it is not possible to satisfy even the gross qualitative behaviour of the CKM and MNS matrices regardless of where we place the matter multiplets.Comment: 4 pages, Late

Global Entanglement for Multipartite Quantum States

Based on the residual entanglement [9] (Phys. Rev. A \textbf{71}, 044301 (2005)), we present the global entanglement for a multipartite quantum state. The measure is shown to be also obtained by the bipartite partitions of the multipartite state. The distinct characteristic of the global entanglement is that it consists of the sum of different entanglement contributions. The measure can provide sufficient and necessary condition of fully separability for pure states and be conveniently extended to mixed states by minimizing the convex hull. To test the sufficiency of the measure for mixed states, we evaluate the global entanglement of bound entangled states. The properties of the measure discussed finally show the global entanglement is an entanglement monotone.Comment: 6 page

Modelling the Asymmetric Volatility in Hog Prices in Taiwan: The Impact of Joining the WTO

Prices in the hog industry in Taiwan are determined according to an auction system. There are significant differences in hog prices before, during and after joining the World Trade Organization (WTO). The paper models growth rates and volatility in daily hog prices in Taiwan from 23 March 1999 to 30 June 2007, which enables an analysis of the effects of joining the WTO. The empirical results have significant implications for risk management and policy in the agricultural industry. The three sub-samples for the periods before, during and after joining the WTO display significantly different volatility persistence of symmetry, asymmetry and leverage, respectively.leverage;asymmetry;conditional volatility models;hog prices;joining the WTO;moment conditions

K+ -> pi+ nu nu(bar) and FCNC from non-universal Z' bosons

Motivated by the E787 and E949 result for K+ -> pi+ nu nu(bar) we examine the effects of a new non-universal right-handed Z' boson on flavor changing processes. We place bounds on the tree-level FCNC from K-K(bar) and B-B(bar) mixing as well as from the observed CP violation in kaon decay. We discuss the implications for K -> pi nu nu(bar), B -> X nu nu(bar) and B -> tau+ tau-. We find that existing bounds allow substantial enhancements in the K+ -> pi+ nu nu(bar) rate, particularly through a new one-loop Z' penguin operator.Comment: Typos corrected, references added, version to appear in PR

Probing the Electrostatics of Integer Quantum Hall Edges with Momentum-Resolved Tunnel Spectroscopy

We present measurements of momentum-resolved magneto-tunneling from a perpendicular two-dimensional (2D) contact into integer quantum Hall (QH) edges at a sharp edge potential created by cleaved edge overgrowth. Resonances in the tunnel conductance correspond to coincidences of electronic states of the QH edge and the 2D contact in energy-momentum space. With this dispersion relation reflecting the potential distribution at the edge we can directly measure the band bending at our cleaved edge under the influence of an external voltage bias. At finite bias we observe significant deviations from the flat-band condition in agreement with self-consistent calculations of the edge potential

Rare kaon decays in SUSY with non-universal A terms

We study the rare kaon decays in the framework of general SUSY models. Unlike the results in the literature, we find the contributions from the gluino exchange to the branching ratio of $K^+\to \pi^+ \nu \bar{\nu}$ can reach the central value ($\sim 1.5 \times 10^{-10}$) of the new E787 data while the predicted value of standard model is less than $10^{-10}$. We also find that the same effects also enhance the decays of $K_{L}\to \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$, $K_L\to\pi^0e^{+} e^{-}$ and $K_L\to\mu^+ \mu^-$.Comment: 9 pages, references added, revised version to appear in J. Phys.

Towards a CPT Invariant Quantum Field Theory on Elliptic de Sitter Space

Consequences of Schr\"{o}dinger's antipodal identification on quantum field theory in de Sitter space are investigated. The elliptic $\mathbb{Z}_2$ identification provides observers with complete information. We show that a suitable confinement on dimension of the elliptic de Sitter space guarantees the existence of globally defined spinors and orientable $dS/\mathbb{Z}_2$ manifold. In Beltrami coordinates, we give exact solutions of scalar and spinor fields. The CPT invariance of quantum field theory on the elliptic de Sitter space is presented explicitly.Comment: 16 pages, some references have been added, the structure of paper have been revised, accepted for publication in Int. J. Mod. Phys.