An examination of the damage tolerance enhancement of carbon/epoxy using an outer lamina of spectra (R)

Low velocity instrumented impact testing was utilized to examine the effects of an outer lamina of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (Spectra) on the damage tolerance of carbon epoxy composites. Four types of 16-ply quasi-isotropic panels (0, +45, 90, -45) were tested. Some panels contained no Spectra, while others had a lamina of Spectra bonded to the top (impacted side), bottom, or both sides of the composite plates. The specimens were impacted with energies up to 8.5 J. Force time plots and maximum force versus impact energy graphs were generated for comparison purposes. Specimens were also subjected to cross-sectional analysis and compression after impact tests. The results show that while the Spectra improved the maximum load that the panels could withstand before fiber breakage, the Spectra seemingly reduced the residual strength of the composites

A damage tolerance comparison of IM7/8551 and IM8G/8553 carbon/epoxy composites

A damage tolerance study of two new toughened carbon fiber/epoxy resin systems was undertaken as a continuation of ongoing work into screening new opposites for resistance to foreign object impact. This report is intended to be a supplement to NASA TP 3029 in which four new fiber/resin systems were tested for damage tolerance. Instrumented drop weight impact testing was used to inflict damage to 16-ply quasi-isotropic specimens. Instrumented output data and cross-sectional examinations of the damage zone were utilized to quantify the damage. It was found that the two fiber/resin systems tested in this study were much more impact resistant than an untoughened composite such as T300/934, but were not as impact resistant as other materials previously studied

CO-OPERATING TO COMPETE IN HIGH VELOCITY GLOBAL MARKETS: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF FLEXIBLE SUPPLY CHAIN ARCHITECTURES

Continued value creation is paramount for the survival of firms competing in today's high velocity global business environment. This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding how firms can create and capture value within a highly volatile and uncertain business environment by exploiting both performance gaps and opportunity gaps through the development and use of flexible supply chain architectures. The choice of flexible organizational architecture allows for the continued reconfiguration of the independent modular components of the supply chain so as to achieve optimal leverage of both the firms core competencies as well as their collaborative partners complementary resources. The case of Cellars of Canterbury, a New Zealand based International wine marketing and distribution cooperative enterprise provides empirical support.Industrial Organization, International Relations/Trade,

CO-OPERATING TO COMPETE IN HIGH VELOCITY GLOBAL MARKETS: THE STRATEGIC ROLE OF FLEXIBLE SUPPLY CHAIN ARCHITECTURES

Continued value creation is paramount for the survival of firms competing in today's high velocity global business environment. This paper presents a conceptual framework for understanding how firms can create and capture value within a highly volatile and uncertain business environment by exploiting both performance gaps and opportunity gaps through the development and use of flexible supply chain architectures. The choice of flexible organizational architecture allows for the continued reconfiguration of the independent modular components of the supply chain so as to achieve optimal leverage of both the firms core competencies as well as their collaborative partners complementary resources. The case of "Cellars of Canterbury," a New Zealand based International wine marketing and distribution cooperative enterprise provides empirical support. Keywords: value creation, flexible supply chain architectures, leverage, core competencies.value creation, flexible supply chain architectures, leverage, core competencies., Industrial Organization, Marketing,

Turbulent transport mechanisms in oscillating bubble plumes

The detailed investigation of an unstable meandering bubble plume created in a 2-m-diameter vessel with a water depth of 1.5 m is reported for void fractions up to 4% and bubble size of the order of 2.5 mm. Simultaneous particle image velocity (PIV) measurements of bubble and liquid velocities and video recordings of the projection of the plume on two vertical perpendicular planes were produced in order to characterize the state of the plume by the location of its centreline and its equivalent diameter. The data were conditionally ensemble averaged using only PIV sets corresponding to plume states in a range as narrow as possible, separating the small-scale fluctuations of the flow from the large-scale motions, namely plume meandering and instantaneous cross-sectional area fluctuations. Meandering produces an apparent spreading of the average plume velocity and void fraction profiles that were shown to remain self-similar in the instantaneous plume cross-section. Differences between the true local time-average relative velocities and the difference of the averaged phase velocities were measured; the complex variation of the relative velocity was explained by the effects of passing vortices and by the fact that the bubbles do not reach an equilibrium velocity as they migrate radially, producing momentum exchanges between high- and low-velocity regions. Local entrainment effects decrease with larger plume diameters, contradicting the classical dependence of entrainment on the time-averaged plume diameter. Small plume diameters tend to trigger ‘entrainment eddies' that promote the inward-flow motion. The global turbulent kinetic energy was found to be dominated by the vertical stresses. Conditional averages according to the plume diameter showed that the large-scale motions did not affect the instantaneous turbulent kinetic energy distribution in the plume, suggesting that large scales and small scales are not correlated. With conditional averaging, meandering was a minor effect on the global kinetic energy and the Reynolds stresses. In contrast, plume diameter fluctuations produce a substantial effect on these quantitie

The cis-acting replication signal at the 3′ end of Flock House virus RNA2 is RNA3-dependent

AbstractThe nodavirus Flock House virus has a bipartite positive-sense RNA genome consisting of RNAs 1 and 2, which encode the viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) and capsid protein precursor, respectively. The RdRp catalyzes replication of both genome segments and produces from RNA1 a subgenomic RNA (RNA3) that transactivates RNA2 replication. Here, we replaced internal sequences of RNAs 1 and 2 with a common heterologous core and were thereby able to test the RNA termini for compatibility in supporting the replication of chimeric RNAs. The results showed that the 3′ 50 nt of RNA2 contained an RNA3-dependent cis-acting replication signal. Since covalent RNA dimers can direct the synthesis of monomeric replication products, the RdRp can evidently respond to cis-acting replication signals located internally. Accordingly, RNA templates containing the 3′ termini of both RNAs 1 and 2 in tandem generated different replication products depending on the presence or absence of RNA3

Life History of Paracoccus marginatus (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) on Four Host Plant Species Under Laboratory Conditions

Life history of the mealybug, Paracoccus marginatus Williams and Granara de Willink, on three ornamental plants [Hibiscus rosa-sinensis L., Acalypha wilkesiana (Muell.-Arg.), and Plumeria rubra L.] and one weed species (Parthenium hysterophorus L.) was studied under laboratory conditions. Mealybugs were able to develop, survive, and reproduce on all four hosts; however, there were differences in the life history parameters. Adult females that developed on acalypha and parthenium emerged ≈1 d earlier than those that developed on hibiscus and plumeria. Adult males had a longer developmental time on plumeria than on the other hosts. Survival of first- and second-instar nymphs and cumulative adult survival were lowest on plumeria. Longevity was not affected by hosts for males and females and averaged 2.3 ± 0.1 and 21.2 ± 0.1 d, respectively. On plumeria, 58.9 ± 1.7% of the adults were females, which was a higher female percentage than on the other hosts. No egg production occurred in virgin females. Prereproductive and reproductive periods of the females were not affected by hosts and averaged 6.3 ± 0.1 and 11.2 ± 0.1 d, respectively. Mean fecundity of 186.3 ± 1.8 eggs on plumeria was lower than on the other three plant species. Life history parameters of P. marginatus on hibiscus, acalypha, plumeria, and parthenium show its ability to develop, survive, and reproduce on a wide variety of plant species

A C*-Algebraic Model for Locally Noncommutative Spacetimes

Locally noncommutative spacetimes provide a refined notion of noncommutative spacetimes where the noncommutativity is present only for small distances. Here we discuss a non-perturbative approach based on Rieffel's strict deformation quantization. To this end, we extend the usual C*-algebraic results to a pro-C*-algebraic framework.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX 2e, no figure

Getting just the Supersymmetric Standard Model at Intersecting Branes on the Z6-orientifold

In this paper, globally N=1 supersymmetric configurations of intersecting D6-branes on the Z6-orientifold are discussed, involving also fractional branes. It turns out rather miraculously that one is led almost automatically to just ONE particular class of 5 stack models containing the SM gauge group, which all have the same chiral spectrum. The further discussion shows that these models can be understood as exactly the supersymmetric standard model without any exotic chiral symmetric/antisymmetric matter. The superpartner of the Higgs finds a natural explanation and the hypercharge remains massless. However, the non-chiral spectrum within the model class is very different and does not in all cases allow for a N=2 low energy field theoretical understanding of the necessary breaking U(1)xU(1)->U(1) along the Higgs branch, which is needed in order to get the standard Yukawa couplings. Also the left-right symmetric models belong to exactly one class of chiral spectra, where the two kinds of exotic chiral fields can have the interpretation of forming a composite Higgs. The aesthetical beauty of these models, involving only non-vanishing intersection numbers of an absolute value three, seems to be unescapable.Comment: 45 pages, 2 figures, v3:some signs corrected in erratum, conclusions unchange