636 research outputs found
Enhancement of process capabilities in electrically-assisted double sided incremental forming
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Electrically-assisted incremental sheet forming (E-ISF) is an effective method to improve formability by introducing the electric current in ISF process. This method is particularly useful for production of lightweight 'hard-to-form' materials such as magnesium and titanium alloys. However, the use of electricity and heat may also lead to side effects to formed components, such as unacceptable surface finish. In this work, an improved E-DSIF process has been developed by combining the electrically-assisted forming technology, the double sided incremental forming (DSIF) and a newly designed slave tool force control device to ensure stable tool-sheet contact. Different types of forming tools and toolpath strategies are explored to improve surface finish and geometrical accuracy by using a customized DSIF machine. AZ31B magnesium alloy sheets are formed into a truncated cone shape to verify the proposed E-DSIF process. In the investigation, the causes of rough surface finish are investigated in detail, and the surface finish is refined by improving the contact condition at tool-sheet interface. In addition, a hybrid toolpath strategy is proposed to further enhance the geometrical accuracy. The results demonstrate that the two challenging issues, surface finish and geometrical accuracy, could be improved by using the enhanced technologies of E-DSIF
Injectable dual-gelling cell-laden composite hydrogels for bone tissue engineering
The present work investigated the osteogenic potential of injectable, dual thermally and chemically gelable composite hydrogels for mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) delivery in vitro and in vivo. Composite hydrogels comprising copolymer macromers of N-isopropylacrylamide were fabricated through the incorporation of gelatin microparticles (GMPs) as enzymatically digestible porogens and sites for cellular attachment. High and low polymer content hydrogels with and without GMP loading were shown to successfully encapsulate viable MSCs and maintain their survival over 28 days in vitro. GMP incorporation was also shown to modulate alkaline phosphatase production, but enhanced hydrogel mineralization along with higher polymer content even in the absence of cells. Moreover, the regenerative capacity of 2 mm thick hydrogels with GMPs only, MSCs only, or GMPs and MSCs was evaluated in vivo in an 8 mm rat critical size cranial defect for 4 and 12 weeks. GMP incorporation led to enhanced bony bridging and mineralization within the defect at each timepoint, and direct bone-implant contact as determined by microcomputed tomography and histological scoring, respectively. Encapsulation of both GMPs and MSCs enabled hydrogel degradation leading to significant tissue infiltration and osteoid formation. The results suggest that these injectable, dual-gelling cell-laden composite hydrogels can facilitate bone ingrowth and integration, warranting further investigation for bone tissue engineering
Magnetization distribution in the transverse Ising chain with energy flux
The zero-temperature transverse Ising chain carrying an energy flux j_E is
studied with the aim of determining the nonequilibrium distribution functions,
P(M_z) and P(M_x), of its transverse and longitudinal magnetizations,
respectively. An exact calculation reveals that P(M_z) is a Gaussian both at
j_E=0 and j_E not equal 0, and the width of the distribution decreases with
increasing energy flux. The distribution of the order-parameter fluctuations,
P(M_x), is evaluated numerically for spin-chains of up to 20 spins. For the
equilibrium case (j_E=0), we find the expected Gaussian fluctuations away from
the critical point while the critical order-parameter fluctuations are shown to
be non-gaussian with a scaling function Phi(x)=Phi(M_x/)=P(M_x)
strongly dependent on the boundary conditions. When j_E not equal 0, the system
displays long-range, oscillating correlations but P(M_x) is a Gaussian
nevertheless, and the width of the Gaussian decreases with increasing j_E. In
particular, we find that, at critical transverse field, the width has a
j_E^(-3/8) asymptotic in the j_E -> 0 limit.Comment: 8 pages, 5 ps figure
The State of Self-Organized Criticality of the Sun During the Last 3 Solar Cycles. I. Observations
We analyze the occurrence frequency distributions of peak fluxes , total
fluxes , and durations of solar flares over the last three solar cycles
(during 1980--2010) from hard X-ray data of HXRBS/SMM, BATSE/CGRO, and RHESSI.
From the synthesized data we find powerlaw slopes with mean values of
for the peak flux, for the total
flux, and for flare durations. We find a systematic
anti-correlation of the powerlaw slope of peak fluxes as a function of the
solar cycle, varying with an approximate sinusoidal variation
, with a
mean of , a variation of , a solar cycle
period yrs, and a cycle minimum time . The
powerlaw slope is flattest during the maximum of a solar cycle, which indicates
a higher magnetic complexity of the solar corona that leads to an
overproportional rate of powerful flares.Comment: subm. to Solar Physic
Detecting Current Noise with a Josephson Junction in the Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling Regime
We discuss the use of a hysteretic Josephson junction to detect current
fluctuations with frequencies below the plasma frequency of the junction. These
adiabatic fluctuations are probed by switching measurements observing the
noise-affected average rate of macroscopic quantum tunneling of the detector
junction out of its zero-voltage state. In a proposed experimental scheme,
frequencies of the noise are limited by an on-chip filtering circuit. The third
cumulant of current fluctuations at the detector is related to an asymmetry of
the switching rates.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures. To appear in Journal of Low Temperature Physics
in the proceedings of the ULTI conference organized in Lammi, Finland (2006
Supergravity Solutions for BI Dyons
We construct partially localized supergravity counterpart solutions to the
1/2 supersymmetric non-threshold and the 1/4 supersymmetric threshold bound
state BI dyons in the D3-brane Dirac-Born-Infeld theory. Such supergravity
solutions have all the parameters of the BI dyons. By applying the IIA/IIB
T-duality transformations to these supergravity solutions, we obtain the
supergravity counterpart solutions to 1/2 and 1/4 supersymmetric BIons carrying
electric and magnetic charges of the worldvolume U(1) gauge field in the
Dirac-Born-Infeld theory in other dimensions.Comment: 17 pages, REVTeX, revised version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Modeling DNA Structure, Elasticity and Deformations at the Base-pair Level
We present a generic model for DNA at the base-pair level. We use a variant
of the Gay-Berne potential to represent the stacking energy between neighboring
base-pairs. The sugar-phosphate backbones are taken into account by semi-rigid
harmonic springs with a non-zero spring length. The competition of these two
interactions and the introduction of a simple geometrical constraint leads to a
stacked right-handed B-DNA-like conformation. The mapping of the presented
model to the Marko-Siggia and the Stack-of-Plates model enables us to optimize
the free model parameters so as to reproduce the experimentally known
observables such as persistence lengths, mean and mean squared base-pair step
parameters. For the optimized model parameters we measured the critical force
where the transition from B- to S-DNA occurs to be approximately . We
observe an overstretched S-DNA conformation with highly inclined bases that
partially preserves the stacking of successive base-pairs.Comment: 15 pages, 25 figures. submitted to PR
Non-Markovian dynamics for an open two-level system without rotating wave approximation: Indivisibility versus backflow of information
By use of the two measures presented recently, the indivisibility and the
backflow of information, we study the non-Markovianity of the dynamics for a
two-level system interacting with a zero-temperature structured environment
without using rotating wave approximation (RWA). In the limit of weak coupling
between the system and the reservoir, and by expanding the time-convolutionless
(TCL) generator to the forth order with respect to the coupling strength, the
time-local non-Markovian master equation for the reduced state of the system is
derived. Under the secular approximation, the exact analytic solution is
obtained and the sufficient and necessary conditions for the indivisibility and
the backflow of information for the system dynamics are presented. In the more
general case, we investigate numerically the properties of the two measures for
the case of Lorentzian reservoir. Our results show the importance of the
counter-rotating terms to the short-time-scale non-Markovian behavior of the
system dynamics, further expose the relations between the two measures and
their rationality as non-Markovian measures. Finally, the complete positivity
of the dynamics of the considered system is discussed
Anomalous Effects of "Guest" Charges Immersed in Electrolyte: Exact 2D Results
We study physical situations when one or two "guest" arbitrarily-charged
particles are immersed in the bulk of a classical electrolyte modelled by a
Coulomb gas of positive/negative unit point-like charges, the whole system
being in thermal equilibrium. The models are treated as two-dimensional with
logarithmic pairwise interactions among charged constituents; the
(dimensionless) inverse temperature is considered to be smaller than 2
in order to ensure the stability of the electrolyte against the collapse of
positive-negative pairs of charges. Based on recent progress in the integrable
(1+1)-dimensional sine-Gordon theory, exact formulas are derived for the
chemical potential of one guest charge and for the asymptotic large-distance
behavior of the effective interaction between two guest charges. The exact
results imply, under certain circumstances, anomalous effects such as an
effective attraction (repulsion) between like-charged (oppositely-charged)
guest particles and the charge inversion in the electrolyte vicinity of a
highly-charged guest particle. The adequacy of the concept of renormalized
charge is confirmed in the whole stability region of inverse temperatures and
the related saturation phenomenon is revised.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figur
Random field sampling for a simplified model of melt-blowing considering turbulent velocity fluctuations
In melt-blowing very thin liquid fiber jets are spun due to high-velocity air
streams. In literature there is a clear, unsolved discrepancy between the
measured and computed jet attenuation. In this paper we will verify numerically
that the turbulent velocity fluctuations causing a random aerodynamic drag on
the fiber jets -- that has been neglected so far -- are the crucial effect to
close this gap. For this purpose, we model the velocity fluctuations as vector
Gaussian random fields on top of a k-epsilon turbulence description and develop
an efficient sampling procedure. Taking advantage of the special covariance
structure the effort of the sampling is linear in the discretization and makes
the realization possible
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