A comparative study of phase evolution in YSZ powders, pellets and free-standing air plasma sprayed thermal barrier coatings

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Probabilistic Integrity and Risk Assessment of Turbine Engines, Phase II

15-G-016This grant supported the efforts of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop an enhanced life management process, based on probabilistic damage tolerance principles, to address the threat of material or manufacturing anomalies in high-energy rotating components of aircraft engines. Major research products included formal verification and validation of Design Assessment of Reliability With INspection (DARWIN\uae) stress-intensity factor solutions; enhanced DARWIN capabilities for manual and automatic fracture mechanics modeling, probabilistic methods, and fleet risk methods. Substantial improvements in the speed and robustness of DARWIN for large finite element (FE) models; streamlined methods for deterministic life calculations; a DARWIN Python module to facilitate scripting of multiple DARWIN runs; options to specify or limit optional features or default values available in DARWIN; new advanced visualization capabilities enabling users to define and manipulate regions within three-dimensional FE models; multiple new versions of the DARWIN computer code for technology transfer to industry and the FAA, and a large DARWIN training workshop are also included. The efforts facilitate implementation of official advisory material for axial blade slots, titanium hard alpha anomalies, and circular holes, while also developing improved analysis methods for other applications of deterministic and probabilistic damage tolerance to engine safety

Political players: Courtesans of Hyderabad

Important recent works on the Mughal state and women in the Indo-Muslim world have not considered courtesans or tawa’ifs, the singing and dancing women employed by Indo-Muslim states and nobles, to be significant participants in politics and society. Drawing on detailed archival data from late nineteenth century Hyderabad state and other historical materials, I argue that courtesans were often elite women, cultural standard-setters and wielders of political power. Women whose art and learning gained them properties and alliances with powerful men, they were political players in precolonial India and in the princely states. They successfully negotiated administrative reforms in princely states like Hyderabad, continuing to secure protection and patronage while in British India they began to be classified as prostitutes. Colonial and modern India have been less than kind to courtesans and their artistic traditions, and more research needs to be done on the history of courtesans and their communities