Quaternary and quinary modifications of eutectic superalloys strengthened by delta Ni3Cb lamellae and gamma prime Ni3Al precipitates

By means of a compositional and heat treatment optimization program based on the quaternary gamma/gamma prime-delta, a tantalum modified gamma/gamma prime-delta alloy with improved shear and creep strength combined with better cyclic oxidation resistance was identified. Quinary additions, quaternary adjustments, and heat treatment were investigated. The tantalum modified gamma/gamma prime-delta alloy possessed a slightly higher liquidus temperature and exhibited rupture strength exceeding NASA VIA by approximately three and one-half Larson-Miller parameters (C = 20) above 1000 C. Although improvements in longitudinal mechanical properties were achieved, the shear and transverse strength property goals of the program were not met and present a continuing challenge to the alloy metallurgist

Constitutive and life modeling of single crystal blade alloys for root attachment analysis

Work to develop fatigue life prediction and constitutive models for uncoated attachment regions of single crystal gas turbine blades is described. At temperatures relevant to attachment regions, deformation is dominated by slip on crystallographic planes. However, fatigue crack initiation and early crack growth are not always observed to be crystallographic. The influence of natural occurring microporosity will be investigated by testing both hot isostatically pressed and conventionally cast PWA 1480 single crystal specimens. Several differnt specimen configurations and orientations relative to the natural crystal axes are being tested to investigate the influence of notch acuity and the material's anisotropy. Global and slip system stresses in the notched regions were determined from three dimensional stress analyses and will be used to develop fatigue life prediction models consistent with the observed lives and crack characteristics

Techniques for improving reliability of computers

Modular design techniques improve methods of error detection, diagnosis, and recovery. Theoretical computer (MARCS (Modular Architecture for Reliable Computer Systems)) study deals with postulated and modeled technology indigenous to 1975-1980. Study developments are discussed

The Effects of Laser Radiation on Exposed Dentine Surfaces in the Treatment of Dentine Sensitivity. An In Vitro Study.

Aim: This in vitro pilot study was undertaken to investigate the effects of Neodymium: Yttrium Aluminium Garnet (Nd:YAG), Erbium: Yttrium Aluminium Garnet (Er:YAG) and Helium Neon (HeNe) laser radiation on dentine surfaces in extracted human teeth. Material and Methods: Instrumented root surfaces and etched and unetched dentine discs were irradiated with a Nd:YAG laser operating at 3.5, 3.75 or 4W or an Er:YAG laser operating at 60, 80, 100mJ or with a HeNe laser. Results: The Nd:YAG laser produced melting and resolidification of dentine on all surfaces while the Er:YAG laser produced craters with closed tubules in root surfaces, but open tubules in dentine discs. The HeNe laser produced no apparent surface alteration. Both lased and unlased control surfaces were compared using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Conclusions: Irradiation with the Nd:YAG and Er:YAG lasers caused significant disruption of the dentine surfaces on both root surfaces and also on dentine discs. Nd:YAG radiation produced irregular melting and resolidification of the dentine surface with some occlusion of open dentine tubules. Er:YAG radiation caused ablation of dentine and produced craters with open tubules in the dentine discs, but closed tubules on most root surfaces. Irradiation using a HeNe laser produced no noticeable surface effect

Models of the ICM with Heating and Cooling: Explaining the Global and Structural X-ray Properties of Clusters

(Abridged) Theoretical models that include only gravitationally-driven processes fail to match the observed mean X-ray properties of clusters. As a result, there has recently been increased interest in models in which either radiative cooling or entropy injection play a central role in mediating the properties of the intracluster medium. Both sets of models give reasonable fits to the mean properties of clusters, but cooling only models result in fractions of cold baryons in excess of observationally established limits and the simplest entropy injection models do not treat the "cooling core" structure present in many clusters and cannot account for entropy profiles revealed by recent X-ray observations. We consider models that marry radiative cooling with entropy injection, and confront model predictions for the global and structural properties of massive clusters with the latest X-ray data. The models successfully and simultaneously reproduce the observed L-T and L-M relations, yield detailed entropy, surface brightness, and temperature profiles in excellent agreement with observations, and predict a cooled gas fraction that is consistent with observational constraints. The model also provides a possible explanation for the significant intrinsic scatter present in the L-T and L-M relations and provides a natural way of distinguishing between clusters classically identified as "cooling flow" clusters and dynamically relaxed "non-cooling flow" clusters. The former correspond to systems that had only mild levels (< 300 keV cm^2) of entropy injection, while the latter are identified as systems that had much higher entropy injection. This is borne out by the entropy profiles derived from Chandra and XMM-Newton.Comment: 20 pages, 15 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

An alternative derivation of the gravitomagnetic clock effect

The possibility of detecting the gravitomagnetic clock effect using artificial Earth satellites provides the incentive to develop a more intuitive approach to its derivation. We first consider two test electric charges moving on the same circular orbit but in opposite directions in orthogonal electric and magnetic fields and show that the particles take different times in describing a full orbit. The expression for the time difference is completely analogous to that of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic clock effect in the weak-field and slow-motion approximation. The latter is obtained by considering the gravitomagnetic force as a small classical non-central perturbation of the main central Newtonian monopole force. A general expression for the clock effect is given for a spherical orbit with an arbitrary inclination angle. This formula differs from the result of the general relativistic calculations by terms of order c^{-4}.Comment: LaTex2e, 11 pages, 1 figure, IOP macros. Submitted to Classical and Quantum Gravit

Evolution of clouds in radio galaxy cocoons

This letter presents a numerical study of the evolution of an emission line cloud of initial density 10 cm$^{-3}$, temperature $10^4$ K, and size 200 pc, being overtaken by a strong shock wave. Whereas previous simple models proposed that such a cloud would either be completely destroyed, or simply shrink in size, our results show a different and more complex behaviour: due to rapid cooling, the cloud breaks up into many small and dense fragments, which can survive for a long time. We show that such rapid cooling behaviour is in fact expected for a wide range of cloud and shock properties. This process applies to the evolution of emission line clouds being overtaken by the cocoon of a radio jet. The resulting small clouds would be Jeans unstable, and form stars. Our results thus give theoretical credibility to the process of jet induced star formation, one of the explanations for the alignment of the optical/UV and radio axis observed in high redshift radio galaxies.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, movies available at http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/TheoryGroup/IG-Cloud.htm

Assessing Human Error Against a Benchmark of Perfection

An increasing number of domains are providing us with detailed trace data on human decisions in settings where we can evaluate the quality of these decisions via an algorithm. Motivated by this development, an emerging line of work has begun to consider whether we can characterize and predict the kinds of decisions where people are likely to make errors. To investigate what a general framework for human error prediction might look like, we focus on a model system with a rich history in the behavioral sciences: the decisions made by chess players as they select moves in a game. We carry out our analysis at a large scale, employing datasets with several million recorded games, and using chess tablebases to acquire a form of ground truth for a subset of chess positions that have been completely solved by computers but remain challenging even for the best players in the world. We organize our analysis around three categories of features that we argue are present in most settings where the analysis of human error is applicable: the skill of the decision-maker, the time available to make the decision, and the inherent difficulty of the decision. We identify rich structure in all three of these categories of features, and find strong evidence that in our domain, features describing the inherent difficulty of an instance are significantly more powerful than features based on skill or time.Comment: KDD 2016; 10 page