A New Layer Casting System for Ceramic Laser Rapid Prototyping Apparatus

In the existing Ceramic Laser Fusion system, slurry is fed on the high temperature surface of the green part; therefore, a part of water infiltrates into the green block and vaporizes before the process of layer casting. As a result, the slurry viscosity rises gradually; the quality of the layer surface is not uniform, and the green part density is uneven. The aim of present study is to develop a new layer casting system which can solve the problems mentioned above to obtain a green part with uniform surface quality and density, and to shorten the time-taken of part fabrication. The first part of the paper illustrates the major requirements and parameters of a slurry distributor; the second part describes the integration of the slurry feeding device and layer casting system. The integrated system can feed slurry and cast thin layer simultaneously; consequently, the drawbacks of the existing system can be eliminated and the time-taken of the layer casting can be shortened. A variable-frequency drive (inverter) is used to control the motor speed. The relation between the frequency and the slurry delivery can be included in the process control program to adjust the quantity in accordance with the layer thickness; hence, the waste of the slurry can be reduced.Mechanical Engineerin

The Characteristics and Applications of Ceramic Laser Fusion and Ceramic Laser Sintering

The aim of present study is to investigate the possible application of the ceramic parts which are fabricated with the process of Ceramic Laser Fusion or Ceramic Laser Sintering. The experimental results reveal: (1) CLF can lead to a reduction in the porosity of the ceramic part but also can induce micro-cracks. Therefore, this process cannot produce a part with the required strength by a post-process of infiltration; (2) CLS is capable of fabricating a ceramic part with high porosity. By adjusting the slurry formulation and varying the scanning energy, the open porosity can be over 90vol% of the total porosity. After a post-process of infiltration, the density can be increased to 95%; therefore, CLS can apply to produce a part with high strength. Because the high open porosity leads to a good permeability, the process of CLS is suitable for the fabrication of ceramic shell mold.Mechanical Engineerin

Prospect of Making Ceramic Shell Mold by Ceramic Laser Fusion

Manufacturing prototypical castings by conventional investment casting not only takes several weeks, but also is prohibitively expensive. Z Corporation in USA, EOS GmbH and IPT in Germany employ the techniques of 3DP and SLS respectively to make directly ceramic shell molds for metal castings. Although those techniques dramatically reduce time expenditure and production cost, each layer cannot be thinner than 50 µm because of using powder to pave layers. The dimensional accuracy and roughness of the castings still cannot meet the specification of precision casting. Therefore, in this paper the ceramic laser fusion (CLF) was used to pave layers. Each layer can be thinner than 25 µm, so that the step effect can be diminished and the workpiece surface can be smoother; drying time will be shortened dramatically. Moreover, the inherent solid-state support formed by green portion has the capability of preventing upward and downward deformation of the scanned cross sections. In order to make shell mold which meets the roughness requirement (Rq=3.048µm) of the precision casting, following issues have to be further studied: (1) design a proper ceramic shell mold structure, (2) design a paving chamber for paving a complete green layer which can be easily collapsed, (3) cut down drying time, (4) optimize laser scanning process parameters with the smallest distortion, (5) eliminate sunken area, (6) reduce layer thickness to less than13µm, (7) control power to guarantee the energy uniformly absorbed by workpiece, and (8) develop a method which can directly clean green portion in cavity from gate.Mechanical Engineerin

Optically pumped GaAs surface laser with corrugation feedback

A GaAs distributed-feedback laser was fabricated and pumped optically. A narrow stimulated spectrum was obtained around 0.83 µ with threshold pumping power of ~2 × 10^5 W/cm^2

GaAs-GaAlAs distributed-feedback diode lasers with separate optical and carrier confinement

Remarkable reduction of the threshold current density is achieved in GaAs-GaAlAs distributed-feedback diode lasers by adopting a separate-confinement heterostructure. The diodes are lased successfully at temperatures up to 340 °K under pulsed operation. The lowest threshold current density is 3 kA/cm^2 at 300 °K

Liquid phase epitaxy of GaAlAs on GaAs substrates with fine surface corrugations

Liquid phase epitaxy of GaAlAs was performed on GaAs fine surface corrugations. By optimizing the growth conditions, GaAlAs layers were grown successfully with only minimal meltback

Electron microscopic visualization of tRNA genes with ferritin-avidin: biotin labels

A method is described for indirect electron microscopic visualization and mapping of tRNA and other short transcripts hybridized to DNA. This method depends upon the attachment of the electron-dense protein ferritin to the RNA, the binding being mediated by the remarkably strong association of the egg white protein avidin with biotin. Biotin is covalently attached to the 3' end of tRNA using an NH2 (CH2) 5NH2 bridge. The tRNA-biotin adduct is hybridized to complementcrry DNA sequences present in a single stranded nonhomology loop of a DNA:DNA heteroduplex. Avidin, covalently crosslinked to ferritin is mixed with the heteroduplex and becomes bound to the hybridized tRNA-biotin. Observation of the DNA:RNA-biotin:avidin-ferritin complex by electron microsdopy specifically and accurately reveals the position of the tRNA gene, with a frequency of labeling of approximately 50%

Ising metamagnets in thin film geometry: equilibrium properties

Artificial antiferromagnets and synthetic metamagnets have attracted much attention recently due to their potential for many different applications. Under some simplifying assumptions these systems can be modeled by thin Ising metamagnetic films. In this paper we study, using both the Wang/Landau scheme and importance sampling Monte Carlo simulations, the equilibrium properties of these films. On the one hand we discuss the microcanonical density of states and its prominent features. On the other we analyze canonically various global and layer quantities. We obtain the phase diagram of thin Ising metamagnets as a function of temperature and external magnetic field. Whereas the phase diagram of the bulk system only exhibits one phase transition between the antiferromagnetic and paramagnetic phases, the phase diagram of thin Ising metamagnets includes an additional intermediate phase where one of the surface layers has aligned itself with the direction of the applied magnetic field. This additional phase transition is discontinuous and ends in a critical end point. Consequently, it is possible to gradually go from the antiferromagnetic phase to the intermediate phase without passing through a phase transition.Comment: 8 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Second Cluster Integral and Excluded Volume Effects for the Pion Gas

The quantum mechanical formula for Mayer's second cluster integral for the gas of relativistic particles with hard-core interaction is derived. The proper pion volume calculated with quantum mechanical formula is found to be an order of magnitude larger than its classical evaluation. The second cluster integral for the pion gas is calculated in quantum mechanical approach with account for both attractive and hard-core repulsive interactions. It is shown that, in the second cluster approximation, the repulsive pion-pion-interactions as well as the finite width of resonances give important but almost canceling contributions. In contrast, an appreciable deviation from the ideal gas of pions and pion resonances is observed beyond the second cluster approximation in the framework of the Van der Waals excluded-volume model.Comment: 29 pages, Latex, 9 PS-figure