Physical and microstructural impacts on the hydro-mechanical behaviour of Ypresian clays

International audienceAn experimental characterisation on Ypresian clays that are considered as one of the potential geological host formations for the radioactive waste disposal in Belgium has been carried out. Physical, microstructural, hydraulic and mechanical properties were investigated on the samples taken from a cored borehole at Kallo in the Northern Belgium at 290-400 m depth. Identification tests, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) and oedometer tests were performed. The results obtained showed that Ypresian clays are highly plastic (large values of consistence limits, specific surface, blue ethylene value) and of relatively low density, in relation to their high swelling clay content. In addition, their physical and mineralogical properties present significant variations over depth. Two microstructural arrangements, matrix-type and aggregate-type respectively for the depths with higher and lower swelling content, were identified. The former exhibits bi-modal porosity while the latter shows a common deep sediment mono-modal porosity but with a larger dominant pore size. The permeability of the clays with matrix-type microstructure is significantly lower than that with aggregate-type despite their higher void ratio. Moreover, these microstructural features result in the initial unsaturated state of Ypresian clays sample. Typical hysteretic unloading-reloading loops are identified on both low- and high-pressure oedometer tests that can be explained by a microstructure-based swelling stress concept. The variation of this swelling stress with the corresponding initial void ratio over depth perfectly reflects the physical variations and is consistent with that of swelling stress determined from common swelling tests. The yield stress ratios are slightly higher than the over-consolidation ratio, suggesting negligible effects of diagenesis, cambering and valley bulging etc. The variations of compression index, compression and swelling slopes are consistent with the physical and microstructural variations

Resistance to multiple fungicides in Botrytis cinerea isolates from commercial strawberry fields in the eastern USA

Chemical control of gray mold of strawberry caused by Botrytis cinerea Pers. is essential to prevent pre- and postharvest fruit decay; however, resistance to multiple chemical classes of fungicides including APs (cyprodinil), DCs (iprodione), MBCs (thiophanate-methyl), PPs (fludioxonil), QoIs (pyraclostrobin), SBIs (fenhexamid), or SDHIs (boscalid) is a well-known and well-described phenomenon in B. cinerea from strawberry fields in Florida, Germany, North Carolina, and South Carolina. As part of a resistance-monitoring program conducted during 2012 and 2013, a total of 1,890 B. cinerea isolates where collected from 10 states in the eastern USA. The isolates were analyzed for fungicide resistance using a mycelial growth assay. The overall resistance frequencies in 2012 for thiophanate-methyl, pyraclostrobin, boscalid, cyprodinil, fenhexamid, iprodione, and fludioxonil were 76, 42, 29, 27, 25, 3, and 1%, respectively. Frequencies in 2013 were 85, 59, 5, 17, 26, 2, and 1%, respectively. Isolates were resistant to either one (23%), two (18%), three (19%), four (14%), five (3%) or six (0.1%) chemical classes of fungicides in 2012. In 2013 this distribution was 24%, 29%, 26%, 8%, 2%, 0.3%, respectively, and also 0.3% (6 isolates) were resistant to all classes of fungicides. Resistance to thiophanate-methyl, iprodione, boscalid, pyraclostrobin and fenhexamid was based on target gene mutations in β-tubulin, bos1, sdhB, cytb, and erg27, respectively. Isolates were MDR1 or MDR1h dependent on sensitivity to fludioxonil and variations in transcription factor mrr1. Expression of ABC transporter atrB was highest in MDR1h isolates. The discovery of B. cinerea isolates resistant to all registered site-specific fungicides for gray mold control represents an unprecedented milestone of resistance development in B. cinerea that signals a failure of current anti-resistance management strategies.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Current distribution and giant magnetoimpedance in composite wires with helical magnetic anisotropy

The giant magnetoimpedance effect in composite wires consising of a non-magnetic inner core and soft magnetic shell is studied theoretically. It is assumed that the magnetic shell has a helical anisotropy. The current and field distributions in the composite wire are found by means of a simultaneous solution of Maxwell equations and the Landau-Lifshitz equation. The expressions for the diagonal and off-diagonal impedance are obtained for low and high frequencies. The dependences of the impedance on the anisotropy axis angle and the shell thickness are analyzed. Maximum field sensitivity is shown to correspond to the case of the circular anisotropy in the magnetic shell. It is demonstrated that the optimum shell thickness to obtain maximum impedance ratio is equal to the effective skin depth in the mahnetic material.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figure

Effect of a Nonuniform Radial/Axial Tip Clearance on the Flow Field in a Mixed-Flow Pump

The effect of a nonuniform radial/axial tip clearance on the flow field in a mixed-flow pump was studied by numerical simulation of the unsteady flow in the pump with two tip clearance shapes using the standard Reynolds average Navier–Stokes turbulence model, and the equations were solved with the SIMPLEC computational algorithm. The external characteristics, distribution of static pressure, streamline flow of the tip clearance, and vorticity in the impeller are analyzed. The accuracy of numerical simulation was assessed by comparing experimental data with computational results. Although a nonuniform tip clearance leads to a decline in the pump head, which is more pronounced under part-load conditions, the configuration with a nonuniform tip clearance (c = 0.5–1 mm) provides the more uniform velocity and pressure distribution both in the circumferential and axial directions, as the leakage vortex intensity is weakened and its shedding is suppressed. The research results pointed the way for improving the unsteady flow in the mixed-flow pump.Изучено влияние неравномерного зазора на поле течения в радиально-осевом насосе с помощью численного моделирования нестационарного течения в насосе с зазором двух конфигураций на основе стандартной модели турбулентности RNG k , выполнено решение уравнений с применением алгоритма SIMPLE. Проанализированы внешние характеристики, распределение статического давления, потока в зазоре и турбулентности в импеллере. Проведена оценка достоверности численного моделирования путем сравнения экспериментальных данных с результатами расчетов. Показано, что неравномерный зазор вызывает уменьшение напора в насосе, что становится более выраженным в условиях частичного нагружения, но конфигурация с неравномерным зазором (с = 0,5 1,0 мм) обеспечивает более равномерные скорость и распределение давления в касательном и осевом направлениях, поскольку интенсивность обтекания с кольцевым вихрем уменьшается, а его сброс замедляется. Полученные результаты открывают путь к стабилизации нестационарного потока в радиально-осевом насосе

A Self-Consistent First-Principles Technique Having Linear Scaling

An algorithm for first-principles electronic structure calculations having a computational cost which scales linearly with the system size is presented. Our method exploits the real-space localization of the density matrix, and in this respect it is related to the technique of Li, Nunes and Vanderbilt. The density matrix is expressed in terms of localized support functions, and a matrix of variational parameters, L, having a finite spatial range. The total energy is minimized with respect to both the support functions and the elements of the L matrix. The method is variational, and becomes exact as the ranges of the support functions and the L matrix are increased. We have tested the method on crystalline silicon systems containing up to 216 atoms, and we discuss some of these results.Comment: 12 pages, REVTeX, 2 figure

First-Principles Studies of Hydrogenated Si(111)--7×\times7

The relaxed geometries and electronic properties of the hydrogenated phases of the Si(111)-7$\times$7 surface are studied using first-principles molecular dynamics. A monohydride phase, with one H per dangling bond adsorbed on the bare surface is found to be energetically favorable. Another phase where 43 hydrogens saturate the dangling bonds created by the removal of the adatoms from the clean surface is found to be nearly equivalent energetically. Experimental STM and differential reflectance characteristics of the hydrogenated surfaces agree well with the calculated features.Comment: REVTEX manuscript with 3 postscript figures, all included in uu file. Also available at http://www.phy.ohiou.edu/~ulloa/ulloa.htm

Ab Initio Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Liquid Ga_xAs_{1-x} Alloys

We report the results of ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of liquid Ga_xAs_{1-x} alloys at five different concentrations, at a temperature of 1600 K, just above the melting point of GaAs. The liquid is predicted to be metallic at all concentrations between x = 0.2 and x = 0.8, with a weak resistivity maximum near x = 0.5, consistent with the Faber-Ziman expression. The electronic density of states is finite at the Fermi energy for all concentrations; there is, however, a significant pseudogap especially in the As-rich samples. The Ga-rich density of states more closely resembles that of a free-electron metal. The partial structure factors show only a weak indication of chemical short-range order. There is also some residue of the covalent bonding found in the solid, which shows up in the bond-angle distribution functions of the liquid state. Finally, the atomic diffusion coefficients at 1600K are calculated to be 2.1 \times 10^{-4} cm^2/sec for Ga ions in Ga_{0.8}As_{0.2} and 1.7 \times 10^{-4} cm^2/sec for As ions in Ga_{0.2}As_{0.8}.Comment: 29 pages, 10 eps figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Basis Functions for Linear-Scaling First-Principles Calculations

In the framework of a recently reported linear-scaling method for density-functional-pseudopotential calculations, we investigate the use of localized basis functions for such work. We propose a basis set in which each local orbital is represented in terms of an array of `blip functions'' on the points of a grid. We analyze the relation between blip-function basis sets and the plane-wave basis used in standard pseudopotential methods, derive criteria for the approximate equivalence of the two, and describe practical tests of these criteria. Techniques are presented for using blip-function basis sets in linear-scaling calculations, and numerical tests of these techniques are reported for Si crystal using both local and non-local pseudopotentials. We find rapid convergence of the total energy to the values given by standard plane-wave calculations as the radius of the linear-scaling localized orbitals is increased.Comment: revtex file, with two encapsulated postscript figures, uses epsf.sty, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Correlation effects in ionic crystals: I. The cohesive energy of MgO

High-level quantum-chemical calculations, using the coupled-cluster approach and extended one-particle basis sets, have been performed for (Mg2+)n (O2-)m clusters embedded in a Madelung potential. The results of these calculations are used for setting up an incremental expansion for the correlation energy of bulk MgO. This way, 96% of the experimental cohesive energy of the MgO crystal is recovered. It is shown that only 60% of the correlation contribution to the cohesive energy is of intra-ionic origin, the remaining part being caused by van der Waals-like inter-ionic excitations.Comment: LaTeX, 20 pages, no figure