Sintering of BaCe(sub 0.85)Y(sub 0.15)O(sub 3-delta) with/without SrTiO3 Dopant

The perovskite composition, BaCe(sub 0.85)Y(sub 0.15)O(sub 3-delta), displays excellent protonic conduction at high temperatures making it a desirable candidate for hydrogen separation membranes. This paper reports on the sintering behavior of BaCe(sub 0.85)Y(sub 0.15)O(sub 3-delta) powders doped with SrTiO3. Two methods were used to synthesize BaCe(sub 0.85)Y(sub 0.15)O(sub 3-delta) powders: (1) solid state reaction and (2) wet chemical co-precipitation. Co-precipitated powder crystallized into the perovskite phase at 1000 C for 4 hrs. Complete reaction and crystallization of the perovskite phase by solid state was achieved by calcining at 1200 C for 24 hrs. Solid state synthesis produced a coarser powder with an average particle size of 1.3 microns and surface area of 0.74 sq m/g. Co-precipitation produced a finer powder with a average particle size of 65 nm and surface area of 14.9 sq m/g. Powders were doped with 1, 2, 5, and 10 mole % SrTiO3. Samples were sintered at 1450 C, 1550 C and 1650 C. SrTiO3 enhances sintering, optimal dopant level is different for powders synthesized by solid state and co-precipitation. Both powders exhibit similar grain growth behavior. Dopant levels of 5 and 10 mole % SrTiO3 significantly enhances the grain size

New Effective Material Couple--Oxide Ceramic and Carbon Nanotube-- Developed for Aerospace Microsystem and Micromachine Technologies

The prime driving force for using microsystem and micromachine technologies in transport vehicles, such as spacecraft, aircraft, and automobiles, is to reduce the weight, power consumption, and volume of components and systems to lower costs and increase affordability and reliability. However, a number of specific issues need to be addressed with respect to using microsystems and micromachines in aerospace applications--such as the lack of understanding of material characteristics; methods for producing and testing the materials in small batches; the limited proven durability and lifetime of current microcomponents, packaging, and interconnections; a cultural change with respect to system designs; and the use of embedded software, which will require new product assurance guidelines. In regards to material characteristics, there are significant adhesion, friction, and wear issues in using microdevices. Because these issues are directly related to surface phenomena, they cannot be scaled down linearly and they become increasingly important as the devices become smaller. When microsystems have contacting surfaces in relative motion, the adhesion and friction affect performance, energy consumption, wear damage, maintenance, lifetime and catastrophic failure, and reliability. Ceramics, for the most part, do not have inherently good friction and wear properties. For example, coefficients of friction in excess of 0.7 have been reported for ceramics and ceramic composite materials. Under Alternate Fuels Foundation Technologies funding, two-phase oxide ceramics developed for superior high-temperature wear resistance in NASA's High Operating Temperature Propulsion Components (HOTPC) project and new two-layered carbon nanotube (CNT) coatings (CNT topcoat/iron bondcoat/quartz substrate) developed in NASA's Revolutionary Aeropropulsion Concepts (RAC) project have been chosen as a materials couple for aerospace applications, including micromachines, in the nanotechnology lubrication task because of their potential for superior friction and wearf properties in air and in an ultrahigh vacuum, spacelike environment. At the NASA Glenn Research Center, two-phase oxide ceramic eutectics, Al2O3/ZrO2(Y2O3), were directionally solidified using the laser-float-zone process, and carbon nanotubes were synthesized within a high-temperature tube furnace at 800 C. Physical vapor deposition was used to coat all quartz substrates with 5-nm-thick iron as catalyst and bondcoat, which formed iron islands resembling droplets and serving as catalyst particles on the quartz. A series of scanning electron micrographs showing multiwalled carbon nanotubes directionally grown as aligned "nanograss" on quartz is presented. Unidirectional sliding friction eperiments were conducted at Glenn with the two-layered CNT coatings in contact with the two-phase Al2O3/ZrO2(Y2O3) eutectics in air and in ultrachigh vacuum. The main criteria for judging the performance of the materials couple for solid lubrication and antistick applications in a space environment were the coefficient of friction and the wear resistance (reciprocal of wear rate), which had to be less than 0.2 and greater than 10(exp 5) N(raised dot)/cubic millimetes, respectively, in ultrahigh vacuum. In air, the coefficient of friction for the CNT coatings in contact with Al2O3/ZrO2 (Y2O3) eutectics was 0.04, one-fourth of that for quartz. In an ultrahigh vacuum, the coefficient of friction for CNT coatings in contact with Al2O3/ZrO2 (Y2O3) was one-third of that for quartz. The two-phase Al2O3/ZrO2 (Y2O3) eutectic coupled with the two-layered CNT coating met the coefficient of friction and wear resistance criteria both in air and in an ultrahigh vacuum, spacelike environment. This material's couple can dramatically improve the stiction (or adhesion), friction, and wear resistance of the contacting surfaces, which are major issues for microdevices and micromachines

Composite Silicide Thermoelectric Materials for Power Generation

No abstract availabl

Challenges and some new directions in channel coding

Three areas of ongoing research in channel coding are surveyed, and recent developments are presented in each area: Spatially coupled low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes, nonbinary LDPC codes, and polar coding. © 2015 KICS

Thin-Film Ceramic Thermocouples Fabricated and Tested

The Sensors and Electronics Technology Branch of the NASA Glenn Research Center is developing thin-film-based sensors for surface measurement in propulsion system research. Thin-film sensors do not require special machining of the components on which they are mounted, and they are considerably thinner than wire- or foil-based sensors. One type of sensor being advanced is the thin-film thermocouple, specifically for applications in high-temperature combustion environments. Ceramics are being demonstrated as having the potential to meet the demands of thin-film thermocouples in advanced aerospace environments. The maximum-use temperature of noble metal thin-film thermocouples, 1500 C (2700 F), may not be adequate for components used in the increasingly harsh conditions of advanced aircraft and next-generation launch vehicles. Ceramic-based thermocouples are known for their high stability and robustness at temperatures exceeding 1500 C, but are typically in the form of bulky rods or probes. As part of ASTP, Glenn's Sensors and Electronics Technology Branch is leading an in-house effort to apply ceramics as thin-film thermocouples for extremely high-temperature applications as part of ASTP. Since the purity of the ceramics is crucial for the stability of the thermocouples, Glenn's Ceramics Branch and Case Western Reserve University are developing high-purity ceramic sputtering targets for fabricating high-temperature sensors. Glenn's Microsystems Fabrication Laboratory, supported by the Akima Corporation, is using these targets to fabricate thermocouple samples for testing. The first of the materials used were chromium silicide (CrSi) and tantalum carbide (TaC). These refractory materials are expected to survive temperatures in excess of 1500 C. Preliminary results indicate that the thermoelectric voltage output of a thin-film CrSi versus TaC thermocouple is 15 times that of the standard type R (platinum-rhodium versus platinum) thermocouple, producing 20 mV with a 200 C temperature gradient. The photograph on the left shows the CrSi-TaC thermocouple in a test fixture at Glenn, and the resulting output signal is shown on the right. The temperature differential across the sample, from the center of the sample inside the oven to the sample mount outside the oven, is measured using a type R thermocouple on the sample

Templateâ Directed Solidification of Eutectic Optical Materials

Mesostructured materials can exhibit enhanced lightâ matter interactions, which can become particularly strong when the characteristic dimensions of the structure are similar to or smaller than the wavelength of light. For controlling visible to nearâ infrared wavelengths, the small characteristic dimensions of the required structures usually demand fabrication by sophisticated lithographic techniques. However, these fabrication methods are restricted to producing 2D and a limited range of 3D structures. When a large volume of structured material is required, the primary approach is to use selfâ assembly, and the literature includes many examples of mesostructured optical materials formed via selfâ assembly. However, selfâ organized materials almost always contain structural imperfections which limit their performance. Emerging work, however, is showing that by performing selfâ assembly within a guiding template, the defect density in selfâ assembled structures can be reduced. Particularly interesting is the possibility that utilizing a template can result in the formation of mesostructures not present in either the template or the native selfâ organizing material. In this review, particular emphasis is placed on emerging results showing the effect of mesoscale templates on the microstructure of solidifying eutectic materials, with a specific focus on how templateâ directed solidification may be a powerful approach for fabricating optically active structures, including optical metamaterials.Templateâ directed assembly gives access to structures that are not present in either the template or the native selfâ organizing material. Proofâ ofâ concept works on templateâ directed selfâ organization of solidifying eutectic materials have exhibited intriguing results for photonics and optical metamaterials. This article provides a review of the challenges and opportunities of this technique for forming optically powerful structures.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144275/1/adom201800071_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144275/2/adom201800071.pd

Non-binary LDPC Decoding Using Truncated Messages in the Walsh-Hadamard Domain

The Extended Min-Sum (EMS) algorithm for nonbinary low-density parity-check (LDPC) defined over an alphabet of size q operates on truncated messages of length q0 to achieve a complexity of the order q02. In contrast, Walsh-Hadamard (WH) transform based iterative decoders achieve a complexity of the order q log q, which is much larger for q0 << q. In this paper, we demonstrate that considerable savings can be achieved by letting WH based decoders operate on truncated messages as well. We concentrate on the direct WH transform and compute the number of operations required if only q0 of the q inputs are non-zero. Our paper does not cover the inverse WH transform and hence further research is needed to construct WH based decoders that can compete with the EMS algorithm on complexity terms

The role model estimator revisited

We re-visit the role model strategy introduced in an earlier paper, which allows one to train an estimator for degraded observations by imitating a reference estimator that has access to superior observations. We show that, while it is true and surprising that this strategy yields the optimal Bayesian estimator for the degraded observations, it in fact reduces to a much simpler form in the non-parametric case, which corresponds to a type of Monte Carlo integration. We then show an example for which only parametric estimation can be implemented and discuss further applications for discrete parametric estimation where the role model strategy does have its uses, although it loses claim to optimality in this context