Physical metallurgy of nickel aluminides

A description of the important physical metallurgy aspects of Ni3Al and NiAl encompassing structure, crystallographic defects, slip systems and phase stability has been presented in this article. The microstructures generated in the two alloys by conventional as well as novel processing techniques have been discussed. The effect of alloying additions on the microstructure has been enumerated. Besides description of the aforementioned physical metallurgy aspects, an important purpose of this review is to focus on the reasons of brittleness in the two alloys and means of alleviating this problem primarily by alloying. The effect of alloying on the slip behaviour has also been described

Effects of different doses of x-rays on meiotic chromosomes of malePhysopelta schlanbuschi (Largidae: Heteroptera)

Male largid bugs,Physopelta schlanbuschi, having 2n=17 chromosomes (12 autosomes +2m+X1X2Y), were irradiated with x-ray doees of 300 r, 400 r and 500 r which yielded various types of chromosome aberrations in different stages of meiosis of which the common forms were breaks, fragment of unknown origin, constriction, gap etc. Among the 3 sex chromosomes, the two conspicuously large markers, X1 and Y, sometimes formed chiasmalike configuration in prophase I and metaphase I, while a number of anaphase I plates had a chromatid bridge, very likely formed by the X1 and the Y. The qualitative and quantitative assessments of chromosome aberrations in spermatogonial metaphase, prophase I, metaphase I, anaphase I and metaphase II were made at 13 intervals for the doses of 300 r and 400 r and 14 intervals for 500 r between 5 min and 1 week or more. The data showed over-all dose-dependent aberration effects and the sex chromosomes appeared relatively more vulnerable than the autosomes to different doses of x-rays. The testes of untreated males taken as controls had practically no aberration

Precipitation hardening in 350 grade maraging steel

Evolution of microstructure in a 350 grade commercial maraging steel has been examined. In the earlier stages of aging, the strengthening phases are formed by the heterogeneous precipitation, and these phases have been identified as intermetallic compounds of the Ni3 (Ti, Mo) and Fe2Mo types. The kinetics of precipitation are studied in terms of the activation energy by carrying out isothermal hardness measurements of aged material. The mechanical properties in the peak-aged and overaged conditions were evaluated and the flow behavior examined. The overaging behavior of the steel has been studied and the formation of austenite of different morphologies identified. The crystallography of the austenite has been examined in detail. From the microstructural examination of peak-aged and deformed samples, it could be inferred that the dislocation-precipitate interaction is by precipitate shearing. Increased work hardening of the material in the overaged condition was suggestive of looping of precipitates by dislocations

Approximation of corner polyhedra with families of intersection cuts

We study the problem of approximating the corner polyhedron using intersection cuts derived from families of lattice-free sets in $\mathbb{R}^n$. In particular, we look at the problem of characterizing families that approximate the corner polyhedron up to a constant factor, which depends only on $n$ and not the data or dimension of the corner polyhedron. The literature already contains several results in this direction. In this paper, we use the maximum number of facets of lattice-free sets in a family as a measure of its complexity and precisely characterize the level of complexity of a family required for constant factor approximations. As one of the main results, we show that, for each natural number $n$, a corner polyhedron with $n$ basic integer variables and an arbitrary number of continuous non-basic variables is approximated up to a constant factor by intersection cuts from lattice-free sets with at most $i$ facets if $i> 2^{n-1}$ and that no such approximation is possible if $i \leq 2^{n-1}$. When the approximation factor is allowed to depend on the denominator of the fractional vertex of the linear relaxation of the corner polyhedron, we show that the threshold is $i > n$ versus $i \leq n$. The tools introduced for proving such results are of independent interest for studying intersection cuts

Born-Infeld black holes coupled to a massive scalar field

Born-Infeld black holes in the Scalar-Tensor Theories of Gravity, in the case of massless scalar field, have been recently obtained. The aim of the current paper is to study the effect from the inclusion of a potential for the scalar field in the theory, through a combination of analytical techniques and numerical methods. The black holes coupled to a massive scalar field have richer causal structure in comparison to the massless scalar field case. In the latter case, the black holes may have a second, inner horizon. The presence of potential for the scalar field allows the existence of extremal black holes for certain values of the mass of the scalar field and the magnetic (electric) charge of the black hole. The linear stability against spherically symmetric perturbations is studied. Arguments in favor of the general stability of the solutions coming from the application of the "turning point" method are also presented.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figure

Analysis of White Dwarfs with Strange-Matter Cores

We summarize masses and radii for a number of white dwarfs as deduced from a combination of proper motion studies, Hipparcos parallax distances, effective temperatures, and binary or spectroscopic masses. A puzzling feature of these data is that some stars appear to have radii which are significantly smaller than that expected for a standard electron-degenerate white-dwarf equations of state. We construct a projection of white-dwarf radii for fixed effective mass and conclude that there is at least marginal evidence for bimodality in the radius distribution forwhite dwarfs. We argue that if such compact white dwarfs exist it is unlikely that they contain an iron core. We propose an alternative of strange-quark matter within the white-dwarf core. We also discuss the impact of the so-called color-flavor locked (CFL) state in strange-matter core associated with color superconductivity. We show that the data exhibit several features consistent with the expected mass-radius relation of strange dwarfs. We identify eight nearby white dwarfs which are possible candidates for strange matter cores and suggest observational tests of this hypothesis.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phy