Dynamic characteristics and processing of fillers in polyurethane elastomers for vibration damping applications

Polyurethane elastomers have the potential of being used to reduce vibrational noise in many engineering applications. The performance of the elastomer is directly related to matching the nature of the mechanical loss characteristics to the frequency and temperature dependence of the source of the vibration. Materials with a broad frequency response and good mechanical properties are desirable for situations were load bearing and isolation becomes an issue. Because automobile, and other related vehicles operate over a broad temperature range, it is desirable for the damping characteristics of the elastomer to ideally be independent of temperature and frequency. In practice, this is not possible and the creation of materials with a broad spectrum response is desirable. In this paper, the effects of various fillers on the breadth and temperature dependence of the vibration damping characteristics of a filled and crosslinked polyurethane elastomer are explored. The fillers studied are wollastonite, barium sulphate and talc. These materials have different shapes, sizes and surface chemistry and undergo different types of interaction with the matrix. The vibration damping characteristics were further varied by the use of a crosslinking agent. Data presented on the rheological characteristics indicate the strength of the filler-polyol interactions. Dielectric relaxation and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis demonstrate the way in which changes in the type of filler, concentration and amount of crosslinker lead to changes in the location and breadth of the energy dissipation process in these elastomers. The vibration damping characteristics of a selected material are presented to demonstrate the potential of these materials

Revealing the pure confinement effect in glass-forming liquids by dynamic mechanical analysis

Many molecular glass forming liquids show a shift of the glass transition Tg to lower temperatures when the liquid is confined into mesoporous host matrices. Two contrary explanations for this effect are given in literature: First, confinement induced acceleration of the dynamics of the molecules leads to an effective downshift of Tg increasing with decreasing pore size. Secondly, due to thermal mismatch between the liquid and the surrounding host matrix, negative pressure develops inside the pores with decreasing temperature, which also shifts Tg to lower temperatures. Here we present novel dynamic mechanical analysis measurements of the glass forming liquid salol in Vycor and Gelsil with pore sizes of d = 2.6, 5.0 and 7.5 nm. The dynamic complex elastic susceptibility data can be consistently described with the assumption of two relaxation processes inside the pores: A surface induced slowed down relaxation due to interaction with rough pore interfaces and a second relaxation within the core of the pores. This core relaxation time is reduced with decreasing pore size d, leading to a downshift of Tg in perfect agreement with recent DSC measurements

Evolution of transport properties of BaFe2-xRuxAs2 in a wide range of isovalent Ru substitution

The effects of isovalent Ru substitution at the Fe sites of BaFe2-xRuxAs2 are investigated by measuring resistivity and Hall coefficient on high-quality single crystals in a wide range of doping (0 < x < 1.4). Ru substitution weakens the antiferromagnetic (AFM) order, inducing superconductivity for relatively high doping level of 0.4 < x < 0.9. Near the AFM phase boundary, the transport properties show non-Fermi-liquid-like behaviors with a linear-temperature dependence of resistivity and a strong temperature dependence of Hall coefficient with a sign change. Upon higher doping, however, both of them recover conventional Fermi-liquid behaviors. Strong doping dependence of Hall coefficient together with a small magnetoresistance suggest that the anomalous transport properties can be explained in terms of anisotropic charge carrier scattering due to interband AFM fluctuations rather than a conventional multi-band scenario.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Effects of 1,25 Dihydroxyvitamin D3 and Calcium on Growth and Differentiation and on c-fos and p53 Gene Expression in Normal Human Keratinocytes

Calcium enhances keratinocyte differentiation, and 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3) is both antiproliferative and prodifferentiative in many cell types, including normal human keratinocytes. In the present study, we examined the combined effects of calcium and 1,25(OH)2D3 on parameters of growth and differentiation and on c-fos and p53 gene expression in normal human keratinocytes. Exposure of normal human keratinocytes to 1,25(OH)2D3 markedly reduced [3H] thymidine incorporation and cell number at low and high medium Ca++ concentrations. Simultaneously, cells in the G0/G1 phase of the cell cycle increased significantly and those in the S phase fell precipitously. l,25(OH)2D3 and calcium also induced keratinocyte differentiation independently, as assessed by iminuno- cytochemistry and by induction of involucrin mRNA. Both Ca++ and 1,25(OH)2D3 were shown, by nuclear run-on assays, to increase involucrin gene transcription. A rapid, transient elevation in c-fos protooncogene expression preceded these effects when epidermal growth factor was present alone. When 1,25(OH)2D3 was added to quiescent keratinocytes, there was a marked augmentation of c-fos mRNA accumulation at low and high medium Ca++ concentrations. Varying medium Ca++ concentrations had no effect on c-fos mRNA levels. Increasing medium Ca++ concentrations from 0.15 to 2.0mM produced marked elevations of p53 mRNA accumulation and of the rate of p53 gene transcription, whereas 1,25(OH)2D3 had no effect.These results, therefore, suggest that 1,25(OH)2D3 and calcium act in concert to modulate the expression of two important cell-cycle-associated genes, which may be important components in the initial programming of growth and differentiation of normal human keratinocytes

Irreversible Processes in a Universe modelled as a mixture of a Chaplygin gas and radiation

The evolution of a Universe modelled as a mixture of a Chaplygin gas and radiation is determined by taking into account irreversible processes. This mixture could interpolate periods of a radiation dominated, a matter dominated and a cosmological constant dominated Universe. The results of a Universe modelled by this mixture are compared with the results of a mixture whose constituents are radiation and quintessence. Among other results it is shown that: (a) for both models there exists a period of a past deceleration with a present acceleration; (b) the slope of the acceleration of the Universe modelled as a mixture of a Chaplygin gas with radiation is more pronounced than that modelled as a mixture of quintessence and radiation; (c) the energy density of the Chaplygin gas tends to a constant value at earlier times than the energy density of quintessence does; (d) the energy density of radiation for both mixtures coincide and decay more rapidly than the energy densities of the Chaplygin gas and of quintessence.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, to be published in GR

Helicoidal magnetic order in a clean copper oxide spin chain compound

We report susceptibility, specific heat, and neutron diffraction measurements on NaCu$_2$O$_2$, a spin-1/2 chain compound isostructural to LiCu$_2$O$_2$, which has been extensively investigated. Below 13 K, we find a long-range ordered, incommensurate magnetic helix state with a propagation vector similar to that of LiCu$_2$O$_2$. In contrast to the Li analogue, substitutional disorder is negligible in NaCu$_2$O$_2$. We can thus rule out that the helix is induced by impurities, as was claimed on the basis of prior work on LiCu$_2$O$_2$. A spin Hamiltonian with frustrated longer-range exchange interactions provides a good description of both the ordered state and the paramagnetic susceptibility.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures Improved Fig.1 and 4. Minor rephrasing. Reference adde

Large-order trend of the anomalous-dimensions spectrum of trilinear twist-3 quark operators

The anomalous dimensions of trilinear-quark operators are calculated at leading twist $t=3$ by diagonalizing the one-gluon exchange kernel of the renormalization-group type evolution equation for the nucleon distribution amplitude. This is done within a symmetrized basis of Appell polynomials of maximum degree $M$ for $M\gg 1$ (up to order 400) by combining analytical and numerical algorithms. The calculated anomalous dimensions form a degenerate system, whose upper envelope shows asymptotically logarithmic behavior.Comment: 12 pages; 1 table; 4 figures as PS files; RevTex styl

Confinement effects on glass forming liquids probed by DMA

Many molecular glass forming liquids show a shift of the glass transition T-g to lower temperatures when the liquid is confined into mesoporous host matrices. Two contrary explanations for this effect are given in literature: First, confinement induced acceleration of the dynamics of the molecules leads to an effective downshift of T-g increasing with decreasing pore size. Second, due to thermal mismatch between the liquid and the surrounding host matrix, negative pressure develops inside the pores with decreasing temperature, which also shifts T-g to lower temperatures. Here we present dynamic mechanical analysis measurements of the glass forming liquid salol in Vycor and Gelsil with pore sizes of d=2.6, 5.0 and 7.5 nm. The dynamic complex elastic susceptibility data can be consistently described with the assumption of two relaxation processes inside the pores: A surface induced slowed down relaxation due to interaction with rough pore interfaces and a second relaxation within the core of the pores. This core relaxation time is reduced with decreasing pore size d, leading to a downshift of T-g proportional to 1/d in perfect agreement with recent differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements. Thermal expansion measurements of empty and salol filled mesoporous samples revealed that the contribution of negative pressure to the downshift of T-g is small (<30%) and the main effect is due to the suppression of dynamically correlated regions of size xi when the pore size xi approaches

Phantom cosmologies and fermions

Form invariance transformations can be used for constructing phantom cosmologies starting with conventional cosmological models. In this work we reconsider the scalar field case and extend the discussion to fermionic fields, where the "phantomization" process exhibits a new class of possible accelerated regimes. As an application we analyze the cosmological constant group for a fermionic seed fluid.Comment: 5 pages, version which was accepted for publication in CQ

Irreversible Processes in Inflationary Cosmological Models

By using the thermodynamic theory of irreversible processes and Einstein general relativity, a cosmological model is proposed where the early universe is considered as a mixture of a scalar field with a matter field. The scalar field refers to the inflaton while the matter field to the classical particles. The irreversibility is related to a particle production process at the expense of the gravitational energy and of the inflaton energy. The particle production process is represented by a non-equilibrium pressure in the energy-momentum tensor. The non-equilibrium pressure is proportional to the Hubble parameter and its proportionality factor is identified with the coefficient of bulk viscosity. The dynamic equations of the inflaton and the Einstein field equations determine the time evolution of the cosmic scale factor, the Hubble parameter, the acceleration and of the energy densities of the inflaton and matter. Among other results it is shown that in some regimes the acceleration is positive which simulates an inflation. Moreover, the acceleration decreases and tends to zero in the instant of time where the energy density of matter attains its maximum value.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, to appear in PR