22 research outputs found

    Boro-nitriding coating on pure iron by powder-pack boriding and nitriding processes

    Get PDF
    To alleviate spallation and crack difficulties exhibited by a borided metallic surface when it is subjected to a normal, heavy and sliding load under dry conditions, a boron nitride coating was produced on pure iron in two stages: boriding the iron surface at 950 °C for 6 h and then nitriding the pre-borided iron at 550 °C for 6 h. The powder-pack technique was used in both stages. XRD measurements confirmed that the grown layers were nitrides and duplex borides. The produced diffusion of the layers reached 240 ”m in depth as measured by SEM images. The measured microhardness across the case favoured the interphase cohesion between the iron nitrides and iron borides layers. Consequently, the multicomponent coating exhibited superior wear resistance to an applied normal load under dry sliding contact conditions in comparison to borided iron

    Can space-for-time-substitution surveys represent zooplankton biodiversity patterns and their relationship to environmental drivers?

    Get PDF
    Space-for-Time-Substitution surveys (SFTS) are commonly used to describe zooplankton community dynamics and to determine lake ecosystem health. SFTS surveys typically combine single point observations from many lakes to evaluate the response of zooplankton community structure and dynamics (e.g., species abundance and biomass, diversity, demographics and modeled rate processes) to spatial gradients in hypothesized environmental drivers (e.g., temperature, nutrients, predation), in lieu of tracking such responses over long time scales. However, the reliability and reproducibility of SFTS zooplankton surveys have not yet been comprehensively tested against empirically-based community dynamics from longterm monitoring efforts distributed worldwide. We use a recently compiled global data set of more than 100 lake zooplankton time series to test whether SFTS surveys can accurately capture zooplankton diversity, and the hypothesized relationship with temperature, using simulated SFTS surveys of the time series data. Specifically, we asked: (1) to what degree can SFTS surveys capture observed biodiversity dynamics; (2) how does timing and duration of sampling affect detected biodiversity patterns; (3) does biodiversity ubiquitously increase with temperature across lakes, or vary by climate zone or lake type; and (4) do results from SFTS surveys produce comparable biodiversity-temperature relationship(s) to empirical data within and among lakes? Testing biodiversity-ecosystem function (BEF) relationships, and the drivers of such relationships, requires a solid data basis. Our work provides a global perspective on the design and usefulness of (long-term) zooplankton monitoring programs and how much confidence we can place in the zooplankton biodiversity patterns observed from SFTS surveys
    corecore