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At least 325 records · Page 18

Optical Reflectance and Fluorescence for Detecting Nitrogen Needs in Zea mays L.

Nitrogen (N) status in field grown corn (Zea mays L.) was assessed using spectral techniques. Passive reflectance remote sensing and, both passive and active fluorescence sensing methods were investigated. Reflectance and fluorescence methods are reported to detect changes in the primary plant pigments (chlorophylls a and b; carotenoids) in higher plant species. As a general rule, foliar chlorophyll a (Chl a) and chlorophyll b (Chl b) usually exist in approx.3:l ratio. In plants under stress, Chl b content is affected before Chl a reductions occur. For reflectance, a version of the chlorophyll absorption in reflectance index (CARI) method was tested with narrow bands from the Airborne Imaging Spectroradiometer for Applications (ASIA). CARI minimizes the effects of soil background on the signal from green canopies. A modified CARI (MCARI) was used to track total Chl a levels in the red dip of the spectrum from the corn canopy. A second MCARI was used to track the auxiliary plant pigments (Chl b and the carotenoids) in the yellow/orange/red edge part of the reflectance spectrum. The difference between these two MCARI indices detected variations in N levels across the field plot canopies using ASIA data. At the leaf level, ratios of fluorescence emissions in the blue, green, red and far-red wavelengths sensed responses that were associated with the plant pigments, and were indicative of energy transfer in the photosynthetic process. N stressed corn stands could be distinguish from those with optimally applied N with fluorescence emission spectra obtained from individual corn leaves. Both reflectance and fluorescence methods are sensitive in detecting corn N needs and may be especially powerful in monitoring crop conditions if both types of information can be combined.

McMurtrey, J. E.↗

Direct method of design and stress analysis of rotating disks with temperature gradient

A method is presented for the determination of the contour of disks, typified by those of aircraft gas turbines, to incorporate arbitrary elastic-stress distributions resulting from either centrifugal or combined centrifugal and thermal effects. The specified stress may be radial, tangential, or any combination of the two. Use is made of the finite-difference approach in solving the stress equations, the amount of computation necessary in the evolution of a design being greatly reduced by the judicious selection of point stations by the aid of a design chart. Use of the charts and of a preselected schedule of point stations is also applied to the direct problem of finding the elastic and plastic stress distribution in disks of a given design, thereby effecting a great reduction in the amount of calculation. Illustrative examples are presented to show computational procedures in the determination of a new design and in analyzing an existing design for elastic stress and for stresses resulting from plastic flow.

Manson, S S↗

Effect of initial hydrogen content of a titanium alloy on susceptibility to hot-salt stress-corrosion

The Ti-8Al-1Mo-1V alloy was tested in four conditions: mill annealed (70 ppM H), duplex annealed (70 ppM H), vacuum annealed to an intermediate (36 ppM) and a low (9 ppM H) hydrogen level. Material annealed at 650 C (duplex condition) exhibited resistance to hot-salt stress corrosion superior to that exhibited by material in the mill-annealed condition. Reduction of the alloy hydrogen content from 70 to as low as 9 ppM did not influence resistance to hot-salt stress corrosion embrittlement or cracking.

Gray, H. R.↗

Application of a Reynolds stress turbulence model to the compressible shear layer

Theoretically based turbulence models have had success in predicting many features of incompressible, free shear layers. However, attempts to extend these models to the high-speed, compressible shear layer have been less effective. In the present work, the compressible shear layer was studied with a second-order turbulence closure, which initially used only variable density extensions of incompressible models for the Reynolds stress transport equation and the dissipation rate transport equation. The quasi-incompressible closure was unsuccessful; the predicted effect of the convective Mach number on the shear layer growth rate was significantly smaller than that observed in experiments. Having thus confirmed that compressibility effects have to be explicitly considered, a new model for the compressible dissipation was introduced into the closure. This model is based on a low Mach number, asymptotic analysis of the Navier-Stokes equations, and on direct numerical simulation of compressible, isotropic turbulence. The use of the new model for the compressible dissipation led to good agreement of the computed growth rates with the experimental data. Both the computations and the experiments indicate a dramatic reduction in the growth rate when the convective Mach number is increased. Experimental data on the normalized maximum turbulence intensities and shear stress also show a reduction with increasing Mach number.

Sarkar, S.↗

Application of a Reynolds stress turbulence model to the compressible shear layer

Theoretically based turbulence models have had success in predicting many features of incompressible, free shear layers. However, attempts to extend these models to the high-speed, compressible shear layer have been less effective. In the present work, the compressible shear layer was studied with a second-order turbulence closure, which initially used only variable density extensions of incompressible models for the Reynolds stress transport equation and the dissipation rate transport equation. The quasi-incompressible closure was unsuccessful; the predicted effect of the convective Mach number on the shear layer growth rate was significantly smaller than that observed in experiments. Having thus confirmed that compressibility effects have to be explicitly considered, a new model for the compressible dissipation was introduced into the closure. This model is based on a low Mach number, asymptotic analysis of the Navier-Stokes equations, and on direct numerical simulation of compressible, isotropic turbulence. The use of the new model for the compressible dissipation led to good agreement of the computed growth rates with the experimental data. Both the computations and the experiments indicate a dramatic reduction in the growth rate when the convective Mach number is increased. Experimental data on the normalized maximum turbulence intensities and shear stress also show a reduction with increasing Mach number.

Sarkar, S.↗

Bending stresses in spherically hollow ball bearing and fatigue experiments

Spherically hollow balls of 21.7, 50.0 and 56.5 per cent mass reduction have been operated in ball bearings and in a 5-ball fatigue tester with differing outcomes. Available theoretical and experimental treatments of stresses in spherically hollow balls are reviewed and compared. Bending stresses are estimated for these spherically hollow balls to better understand the differences in ball bearing and fatigue test experience.

Nypan, L. J.↗

Dynamic tensile-failure-induced velocity deficits in rock

Planar impact experiments were employed to induce dynamic tensile failure in Bedford limestone. Rock disks were impacted with aluminum and polymethyl methacralate (PMMA) flyer plates at velocities of 10 to 25 m/s. Tensile stress magnitudes and duration were chosen so as to induce a range of microcrack growth insufficient to cause complete spalling of the samples. Ultrasonic P- and S-wave velocities of recovered targets were compared to the velocities prior to impact. Velocity reduction, and by inference microcrack production, occurred in samples subjected to stresses above 35 MPa in the 1.3 microsec PMMA experiments and 60 MPa in the 0.5 microsec aluminum experiments. Using a simple model for the time-dependent stress-intensity factor at the tips of existing flaws, apparent fracture toughnesses of 2.4 and 2.5 MPa sq rt m are computed for the 1.3 and 0.5 microsec experiments. These are a factor of about 2 to 3 greater than quasi-static values. The greater dynamic fracture toughness observed may result from microcrack interaction during tensile failure. Data for water-saturated and dry targets are indistinguishable.

Rubin, Allan M.↗

Modulating the Pseudoelastic Response of Nitinol Using Ion Implantation

This work explores whether ion beam modification can be used to modulate the austenite to martensite phase transformation in Nickel-Titanium (NiTi), thereby achieving novel or localized transformation properties in near-surface regions. We report this could provide alternatives to laser shot peening or other surface treatment methods and possibly expand applications in biomedical, aerospace, and other fields. Irradiation induces defects and internal stress that can serve as nucleation and/or pinning sites for the phase transformation. Thus, it can augment more convention- al approaches, including alloying, severe mechanical work, grain size reduction, and precipitation of coherent precipitates. A range of outcomes is possible in principle, including a shift of the critical stress or temperature for onset of the transformation, linearization, reduction of hysteresis, stabilization, and extent of transformation strain.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Irradiation hardening and ductility loss of Eurofer97 steel variants after neutron irradiation to ITER-TBM relevant conditions

Ten Eurofer97 steel variants, produced by non-standard fabrication-processing routes and modified alloying chemistries, were studied by neutron irradiations in the high flux isotope reactor. The irradiations were performed to ITER-TBM relevant conditions of ~255–350 °C, 2.94–3.24 dpa. We quantified the irradiation-induced degradation of the steels using mechanical property tests. All the steels suffered from irradiation hardening, where a significant increase in Vickers microhardness and yield stress (σ YS ) occurred, accompanied with severe loss of tensile elongation. The extent of hardening was material dependent. For T irr = 300±30 °C, most steels showed σ YS increase in the range of ~30% to as high as ~66%, except for a low temperature tempered steel with σYS increase below 15%. Despite large losses in elongation, most failures were ductile. Significant post-necking ductility was retained with reduction in area (RA) between 65–75%, but <50% for low temperature tempered steels. The ultimate tensile stress to yield stress (σ UTS /σ YS ) ratios decreased significantly after irradiation, highlighting irradiation-induced strain hardening capacity reduction. No major effect of irradiation on the plastic instability stress (σ PIS ) and true fracture stress of the steels was observed. By comparing the tensile stresses in true stress units and with literature, the results suggest that RAFM steel designing should target materials with a large separation between σ PIS and σ YS , to ensure the materials can maintain large work hardening and uniform deformation capability after irradiation. The tensile data of the steels additionally revealed a compelling evidence of an inverse trend between the change in RA and increase in σ YS of the neutron irradiated Eurofer97 type steels.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Demonstration of a fault impact reduction control module for wind turbines

Abstract. Traditionally, wind turbines in distributed applications make control decisions as isolated systems. They generally provide maximum power output during operation and manage internal faults with little consideration of the rest of the power system. Although fault detection and tolerance schemes are widely researched and implemented, controls to ameliorate such faults are uncommon in research and industry. The rapid shutdown of a wind turbine in a large transmission-connected wind plant will have a minimal impact on a large power system, but in a microgrid or isolated grid context the abrupt loss of a single wind turbine may cause grid instability and high stress on the system. This paper demonstrates a fault impact reduction control (FIRC) module for a wind turbine, which implements wider warning thresholds around fault thresholds. When the turbine crosses a warning threshold, the controller sends its predicted action to the grid controller, which facilitates the grid operator’s response to a potential wind turbine fault and then takes appropriate action to ameliorate the fault. Various test cases demonstrate the controller action under a variety of faults, and various scenarios demonstrate the grid benefit of an FIRC in both microgrid- and grid-connected contexts. The FIRC maximizes wind turbine generation and eases generation transition under a variety of fault scenarios. The FIRC module is easy to integrate with most existing controllers, just requiring derate capability, and can be easily modified to include the various warnings and thresholds that the user desires. This analysis is mainly performed in a MATLAB-Simulink-based research wind turbine model and is also implemented in the existing LabVIEW-based controller of the same research turbine at NREL.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Informative and non-informative decomposition of turbulent flow fields

Not all the information in a turbulent field is relevant for understanding particular regions or variables in the flow. Here, we present a method for decomposing a source field into its informative Φ I (x, t) and residual Φ R (x, t) components relative to another target field. The method is referred to as informative and non-informative decomposition (IND). All the necessary information for physical understanding, reduced-order modelling and control of the target variable is contained in Φ I (x, t), whereas Φ R (x, t) offers no substantial utility in these contexts. The decomposition is formulated as an optimisation problem that seeks to maximise the time-lagged mutual information of the informative component with the target variable while minimising the mutual information with the residual component. The method is applied to extract the informative and residual components of the velocity field in a turbulent channel flow, using the wall shear stress as the target variable. We demonstrate the utility of IND in three scenarios: (i) physical insight into the effect of the velocity fluctuations on the wall shear stress; (ii) prediction of the wall shear stress using velocities far from the wall; and (iii) development of control strategies for drag reduction in a turbulent channel flow using opposition control. In case (i), IND reveals that the informative velocity related to wall shear stress consists of wall-attached high- and low-velocity streaks, collocated with regions of vertical motions and weak spanwise velocity. This informative structure is embedded within a larger-scale streak–roll structure of residual velocity, which bears no information about the wall shear stress. In case (ii), the best-performing model for predicting wall shear stress is a convolutional neural network that uses the informative component of the velocity as input, while the residual velocity component provides no predictive capabilities. Finally, in case (iii), we demonstrate that the informative component of the wall-normal velocity is closely linked to the observability of the target variable and holds the essential information needed to develop successful control strategies.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Screen printable copper pastes for silicon solar cells

The current work demonstrates the successful metallization of a PERC silicon solar cell with screen-printable copper (Cu) paste that is sintered at elevated temperature in air atmosphere. The existing state of the art in Silicon (Si) solar cell metallization is silver (Ag) paste; Cu cost is 1/100th the cost of Ag and has a comparable conductivity. However, Cu undergoes rapid oxidation at elevated temperatures and the high diffusion of Cu into Si restricts its usage in the metallization of silicon solar cells. In this paper, a Cu paste containing a proprietary mixture of antioxidant additives and diffusion inhibitors was used to make front gridlines on PERC cells. The Cu-printed cells were fired in an IR belt furnace with a peak temperature of 576°C in air atmosphere. The solar cells discussed here reached an efficiency of 19%, which is 88% of the efficiency measured for a commercial Ag-printed cell. The working devices were further characterized using STEM, EDX, ToF-SIMS and long-term suns-V oc studies demonstrating an absence of Cu diffusion. Furthermore, thermally stressing the Cu-printed solar cells yielded a reduction of less than 1.9% of the initial pseudo fill factor (pFF) after 1000 hours at 200°C. Here, the shunt resistance of cells monitored over 3 years remained within 2.5% of its initial value, which demonstrates the effectiveness of the Cu diffusion barrier.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

A Physics-Based Data-Driven Approach for Modeling of Environmental Degradation in Elastomers

Abstract Elastomers are now commonly used in a number of industries, including aerospace, structure, transportation, shipbuilding, and automotive, due to their excellent workability, formability, and flexibility. During their activity, elastomers are subjected to harsh environmental conditions, which decreases their resilience. False predictions made early in their lives can have major financial and environmental implications. Elastomers’ performance and properties, such as strength, durability, and density, are influenced by chemical changes in these materials, known as degradation, which occurs over time. This process can alter the morphology of a polymer matrix as well as cause chain scission and cross-linking, resulting in different behaviors than that of the unaged material. To demonstrate the effect of thermaloxidative aging on the mechanical behavior of elastomers, several experimental and theoretical models have been proposed. In view of the large volume of experimental data available on micro-structural evolution in the course of aging, we propose a physics-based data-driven approach to overcome the shortcomings of both phenomenological and micro-mechanical models. This work presents a novel thermodynamically consistent, multiagent machine-learned model for predicting the constitutive behavior of cross-linked elastomers during environmental aging, such as thermo-oxidative and hydrolytic aging for various states of deformation. Single mechanism degradation changes the polymer matrix over time where it is causing chain scission, reduction of cross-links, and morphology change. To capture the idealized Mullins effect and permanent set due to the effect of single aging mechanisms on nonlinear mechanical responses of elastomers, we propose a data-driven model for simulating inelastic elements in a polymer matrix. By using a sequential order reduction, we were able to reduce the 3D stress-strain tensor mapping problem to a small number of super-constrained 1D mapping problems. To systematically classify such mapping problems into a few categories, an assembly of multiple replicated conditional neural network learning agents (L-agents) is used based on our recent work. Each category is represented by a different type of agent. The effect of deformation history, aging time, and aging temperature is captured by this model. The model is validated using a broad collection of data, ranging from our experimental results to data from the literature. In addition, thermodynamic consistency and frame independence are investigated. The most significant achievements of this model are its precision, simplicity, and prediction of inelasticity under various states of deformation. The model’s accuracy and simplicity make it a good option for commercial and industrial applications. Conveniently, due to the model modular nature, it can be expanded in the future to include viscoelasticity and non-isotropic formation for better precision.

Ghaderi, Aref↗

The axisymmetric elasticity problem for a laminated plate containing a circular hole

The elasticity problem for a laminated thick plate which consists of two bonded dissimilar layers and which contains a circular hole is considered. The problem is formulated for arbitrary axisymmetric tractions on the hole surface by using the Love strain function. Through the expansion of the boundary conditions into Fourier series the problem is reduced to an infinite system of algebraic equations which is solved by the method of reduction. Of particular interest in the problem are the stresses along the interface as they relate to the question of delamination failure of the composite plate. These stresses are calculated and are observed to become unbounded at the hole boundary. An approximate treatment of the singular behavior of the stress state is presented and the stress intensity factors are calculated.

Delale, F.↗

Experimental investigation of active loads control for aircraft landing gear

Aircraft dynamic loads and vibrations resulting from landing impact and from runway and taxiway unevenness are recognized as significant in causing fatigue damage, dynamic stress on the airframe, crew and passenger discomfort, and reduction of the pilot's ability to control the aircraft during ground operations. One potential method for improving operational characteistics of aircraft on the ground is the application of active control technology to the landing gears to reduce ground loads applied to the airframe. An experimental investigation was conducted which simulated the landing dynamics of a light airplane to determine the feasibility and potential of a series hydraulic active control main landing gear. The experiments involved a passive gear and an active control gear. Results of this investigation show that a series hydraulically controlled gear is feasible and that such a gear is very effective in reducing the loads transmitted by the gear to the airframe during ground operations.

Mcgehee, J. R.↗

Skin friction and Reynolds stress measurements for a turbulent boundary layer following manipulation using flat plates

Research has been undertaken to experimentally study the alterations in turbulent boundary-layer properties due to turbulence manipulation using thin flat plates. Plate geometry and placement within the boundary layer were selected to coincide with recent studies. Direct, local measurements of skin friction and Reynolds stresses were made within the boundary layer downstream of the manipulator devices for cases with an approach momentum thickness Reynolds number of 3700. A strong tendency for recovery of the Reynolds stresses was observed, accompanied by local skin-friction reductions of up to 15 percent. The mean velocity profile in the manipulated flow displayed the same similarity shape in the logarithmic region as a natural boundary layer, but had an enhanced wake component. The results indicate that the plate wake plays an important role in the boundary layer response to this sort of manipulation.

Westphal, R. V.↗

Reliability based analysis of contact problems

The Batdorf model is modified to include the reduction in shear due to the effect of compressive stresses on the crack face. This new formulation was used to obtain the probability of failure of ceramic components under contact stress conditions. The combined effect of the surface and volume flaws are included in the analysis. Due to the nature of the fracture of brittle materials under compressive loading, the component is modeled as a series system in order to establish bounds on the probability of failure.

Powers, Lynn M.↗

Adherent Al2O3 scales produced on undoped NiCrAl alloys

Repeated oxidation and polishing of high purity Ni-15Cr-13Al has dramatically changed its cyclic oxidation behavior from nonadherent to adherent. No apparent change in scale phase, morphology or interface structure occurred during this transition, dismissing any mechanism based on pegging, vacancy sink, or growth stress. The principle change that did occur was a reduction in the sulfur content from 10 ppmw to 3 ppmw after 25 cycles at 1120 C. These observations are used to support the model of Al2O3 scale adherence put forth by Smeggil et al. which claims that Al2O3 scale spallation occurs due to sulfur segregation and bond deterioration at the oxide-metal interface.

Smialek, James L.↗