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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 37 records · Page 2

Effect of Various Material Properties on the Adhesive Stage of Fretting

Various properties of metals and alloys were studied with respect to their effect on the initial stage of the fretting process, namely adhesion. Crystallographic orientation, crystal structure, interfacial binding energies of dissimiliar metal, segregation of alloy constituents and the nature and structure of surface films were found to influence adhesion. High atomic density, low surface energy grain orientations exhibited lower adhesion than other orientations. Knowledge of interfacial surface binding energies assists in predicting adhesive transfer and wear. Selective surface segregation of alloy constituents accomplishes both a reduction in adhesion and improved surface oxidation characteristics. Equivalent surface coverages of various adsorbed species indicate that some are markedly more effective in inhibiting adhesion than others.

Buckley, D. H.↗

Effect of various material properties on the adhesive stage of fretting

Various properties of metals and alloys have been studied with respect to their effect on the initial stage of the fretting process, namely adhesion. Crystallographic orientation, crystal structure, interfacial binding energies of dissimiliar metal, segregation of alloy constituents and the nature and structure of surface films have all been found to influence adhesion. High atomic density, low surface energy grain orientations exhibit lower adhesion than other orientations. Hexagonal metals in general manifest less adhesive wear than cubic metal. Knowledge of interfacial surface binding energies can assist in predicting adhesive transfer and wear. Selective surface segregation of alloy constituents can accomplish both a reduction in adhesion and improved surface oxidation characteristics. Equivalent surface coverages of various adsorbed species indicate that some are markedly more effective in inhibiting adhesion than others.

Buckley, D. H.↗

Effect of various material properties on the adhesive stage of fretting

Various properties of metals and alloys have been studied with respect to their effect on the initial stage of the fretting process, namely adhesion. Crystallographic orientation, crystal structure, interfacial binding energies of dissimiliar metal, segregation of alloy constituents and the nature and structure of surface films have all been found to influence adhesion. High atomic density, low surface energy grain orientations exhibit lower adhesion than other orientations. Hexagonal metals in general manifest less adhesive wear than cubic metal. Knowledge of interfacial surface binding energies can assist in predicting adhesive transfer and wear. Selective surface segregation of alloy constituents can accomplish both a reduction in adhesion and improved surface oxidation characteristics. Equivalent surface coverages of various adsorbed species indicate that some are markedly more effective in inhibiting adhesion than others.

Buckley, D. H.↗

Convective influence on the stability of a cylindrical solid-liquid interface

Experiments in which a long vertical, heated wire is surrounded by concentric annuli of a melt and its crystalline solid show that the convection state changes from a stable unicell surrounded by a stationary cylindrical solid-liquid interface, to a complex time-dependent flow surrounded by a rotating, helical solid-liquid interface. This transition occurs at a Grashof number of approximately 150, which is an order of magnitude less than the critical Grashof number calculated for a liquid annulus surrounded by rigid walls. A linear stability analysis has been carried out for an infinitely tall vertical annulus. When the deformable nature of the crystal-melt interface is taken into account in the boundary conditions, two new modes of instability arise. The most dangerous mode is asymmetrical and corresponds to helical waves travelling vertically upwards. The critical Grashof number and the scaling properties of the eigenstate agree with experiments. The results clearly demonstrate the coupling of convection with crystal-melt interfacial instabilities.

Fang, Q. T.↗

Effects of isothermal and cyclic exposures on interface structure and mechanical properties of FPalpha-Al2O3/aluminum composites

The microstructural and interface stability of FPalpha-Al203/Al-Li composites are investigated as a function of isothermal exposure at 500 C or thermal cycling between 140 and 500 C with hold time at Tmax. Interfacial morphology, growth kinetics, crystal structure, and composition of interfacial reaction products are characterized. Strength is monitored in the transverse orientation, and fracture mechanics is analyzed in terms of interface reaction products. The interfacial reaction product in FP/Al is Li2O.5Al2O3. Significant fiber-matrix reaction occurs during fabrication. The number of thermal cycles rather than total time at Tmax is the determining factor in strength degradation, thermal cycling giving rise to voids at the fiber-matrix interface. Extensive interface failures occur at composite fracture stresses below about 128 MPa; above this stress level failure is attributed to ductile matrix fracture.

Kim, W. M.↗

Interfacial alloying between lead halide perovskite crystals and hybrid glasses

The stellar optoelectronic properties of metal halide perovskites provide enormous promise for next-generation optical devices with excellent conversion efficiencies and lower manufacturing costs. However, there is a long-standing ambiguity as to whether the perovskite surface/interface (e.g. structure, charge transfer or source of off-target recombination) or bulk properties are the more determining factor in device performance. Here we fabricate an array of CsPbI 3 crystal and hybrid glass composites by sintering and globally visualise the property-performance landscape. Our findings reveal that the interface is the primary determinant of the crystal phases, optoelectronic quality, and stability of CsPbI 3 . In particular, the presence of a diffusion “alloying” layer is discovered to be critical for passivating surface traps, and beneficially altering the energy landscape of crystal phases. However, high-temperature sintering results in the promotion of a non-stoichiometric perovskite and excess traps at the interface, despite the short-range structure of halide is retained within the alloying layer. By shedding light on functional hetero-interfaces, our research offers the key factors for engineering high-performance perovskite devices.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Instability Mechanisms of Thermally-Driven Interfacial Flows in Liquid-Encapsulated Crystal Growth

During the past year, a great deal of effort was focused on the enhancement and refinement of the computational tools developed as part of our previous NASA grant. In particular, the interface mollification algorithm developed earlier was extended to incorporate the effects of surface-rheological properties in order to allow the study of thermocapillary flows in the presence of surface contamination. These tools will be used in the computational component of the proposed research in the remaining years of this grant. A detailed description of the progress made in this area is provided elsewhere. Briefly, the method developed allows for the convection and diffusion of bulk-insoluble surfactants on a moving and deforming interface. The novelty of the method is its grid independence: there is no need for front tracking, surface reconstruction, body-fitted grid generation, or metric evaluations; these are all very expensive computational tasks in three dimensions. For small local radii of curvature there is a need for local grid adaption so that the smearing thickness remains a small fraction of the radius of curvature. A special Neumann boundary condition was devised and applied so that the calculated surfactant concentration has no variations normal to the interface, and it is hence truly a surface-defined quantity. The discretized governing equations are solved subsequently using a time-split integration scheme which updates the concentration and the shape successively. Results demonstrate excellent agreement between the computed and exact solutions.

Haj-Hariri, Hossein↗

Interfacial wave theory for dendritic structure of a growing needle crystal. I - Local instability mechanism. II - Wave-emission mechanism at the turning point

The complicated dendritic structure of a growing needle crystal is studied on the basis of global interfacial wave theory. The local dispersion relation for normal modes is derived in a paraboloidal coordinate system using the multiple-variable-expansion method. It is shown that the global solution in a dendrite growth process incorporates the morphological instability factor and the traveling wave factor.

Xu, Jian-Jun↗

Polyvinyl alcohol coating induced preferred crystallographic orientation in aqueous zinc battery anodes

The development of rechargeable aqueous zinc batteries is mainly hindered by the Zn anode, which suffers from dendrite growth, corrosion, hydrogen evolution, and surface passivation. Herein, a thin polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) coating layer on Zn anode has enabled dendrite-free, long-life aqueous Zn batteries by effectively regulating the interfacial ion diffusion and inducing the homogeneous Zn nucleation and deposition of stacked plates with preferentially crystallographic orientation along (002) Zn planes. The PVA@Zn anode achieved an ultralong cycle lifespan of thousands of hours at 0.25 and 1 mA cm -2 . Outstanding durability under a deep cycling capacity (5 mA h cm -2 ), high current density (10 mA cm -2 ), and long duration conditions were achieved. The superior cyclability of PVA@Zn anode was also demonstrated in PVA@Zn//V 2 O 5 full cells. In conclusion, the insights of PVA induced Zn deposition with preferred crystal orientation and interfacial regulation shed light on the future development of stable Zn anodes.

Crystallographic orientation↗

Controlling structure and interfacial interaction of monolayer TaSe2 on bilayer graphene

Abstract Tunability of interfacial effects between two-dimensional (2D) crystals is crucial not only for understanding the intrinsic properties of each system, but also for designing electronic devices based on ultra-thin heterostructures. A prerequisite of such heterostructure engineering is the availability of 2D crystals with different degrees of interfacial interactions. In this work, we report a controlled epitaxial growth of monolayer TaSe 2 with different structural phases, 1 H and 1 T , on a bilayer graphene (BLG) substrate using molecular beam epitaxy, and its impact on the electronic properties of the heterostructures using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. 1 H -TaSe 2 exhibits significant charge transfer and band hybridization at the interface, whereas 1 T -TaSe 2 shows weak interactions with the substrate. The distinct interfacial interactions are attributed to the dual effects from the differences of the work functions as well as the relative interlayer distance between TaSe 2 films and BLG substrate. The method demonstrated here provides a viable route towards interface engineering in a variety of transition-metal dichalcogenides that can be applied to future nano-devices with designed electronic properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Novel Microstructures for Polymer-Liquid Crystal Composite Materials

There are a number of interface-dominated composite materials that contain a liquid crystalline (LC) phase in intimate contact with an isotropic phase. For example, polymer- dispersed liquid crystals, used in the fabrication of windows with switchable transparency, consist of micron size LC droplets dispersed in an isotropic polymer matrix. Many other types of liquid crystal composite materials can be envisioned that might have outstanding optical properties that could be exploited in novel chemical sensors, optical switches, and computer displays. This research project was based on the premise that many of these potentially useful LC composite materials can only be fabricated under microgravity conditions where gravity driven flows are absent. In the ground-based research described below, we have focused on a new class of LC composites that we call thermotropic- lyotropic liquid crystal systems (TLLCs). TLLCs consist of nanosize droplets of water dispersed in an LC matrix, with surfactants at the interface that stabilize the structure. By varying the type of surfactant one can access almost an infinite variety of unusual LC composite microstructures. Due to the importance of the interface in these types of systems, we have also developed molecular simulation models for liquid crystals at interfaces, and made some of the first measurements of the interfacial tension between liquid crystals and water.

Magda, Jules J.↗

Inorganic and protein crystal growth - Similarities and differences

Transport and interface kinetic concepts for the design and control of inorganic crystal growth experiments are reviewed, and their applications and limitations in protein crystal growth are considered. It is suggested that the interfacial concentration gradients are steeper for faster crystallization, and that the interfacial concentration distributions for the protein and the precipitant can differ significantly. Results show that uniformity in crystal composition and steady-state conditions in growth kinetics are favored by larger sample size, since surface-tension gradients drive strong in microgravity experiments and in small samples on earth.

Rosenberger, F.↗

Two puzzling aspects of protein crystal growth

A study is presented of several mechanisms which may reduce crystal growth rates and or terminate crystal growth. It is found that salt gradients which change the local chemical potential of the protein are insufficient to account for the slow crystal growth rates which have been reported. Contaminants which adsorb protein from solution may reduce the effective protein concentration, but the impurity's concentration and its affinity for protein are unknown. Association of protein molecules in bulk solution can reduce the monomer concentration significantly, but extant theory and experiment are not sensitive enough to determine the actual concentration of aggregates in solution. For systems of interest, shear-induced effects were found to be too weak to interfere with normal binding of incoming protein molecules. Although we found that most crystal growth occurs in a regime where both interfacial kinetics and diffusion influence crystal growth, the role of mass transfer rates on the terminal size of crystals is unknown, primarily because no data exist which cover the size range of interest (0.1 mm to 1 mm in length).

Grant, M. L.↗

Interfacial and Hydrodynamic Behavior of Thin Spherical Bubbles of Smectic Liquid Crystal in Microgravity

The Observation and Analysis of Smectic Islands in Space (OASIS) project comprises a series of experiments that probe the interfacial and hydrodynamic behavior of thin spherical bubbles of smectic liquid crystal in microgravity. Smectic films are the thinnest known structures formed of condensed phases, making them ideal for studies of two-dimensional (2D) coarsening dynamics and thermocapillary phenomena. The OASIS flight hardware was launched on SpaceX-6 in April 2015 and experiments were carried out on the International Space Station using four different smectic A and C liquid crystal materials in separate sample chambers. We will describe the behavior of collective island dynamics on the bubbles, including temperature-gradient-induced thermomigration, 2D Rayleigh-Plateau Instability, Oswald ripening dynamics, the single and multiple island diffusion on the curved surface and coalescence-driven coarsening dynamics of island emulsions in microgravity. On Earth, such island emulsions would rapidly sediment to the bottom of the bubble and coalesce, but in microgravity, coarsening of the emulsion can be observed free of gravitational effects.

liquid crystal↗

Tensile Behavior of Al2o3/feal + B and Al2o3/fecraly Composites

The feasibility of Al2O3/FeAl + B and Al2O3/FeCrAlY composites for high-temperature applications was assessed. The major emphasis was on tensile behavior of both the monolithics and composites from 298 to 1100 K. However, the study also included determining the chemical compatibility of the composites, measuring the interfacial shear strengths, and investigating the effect of processing on the strength of the single-crystal Al2O3 fibers. The interfacial shear strengths were low for Al203/FeAl + B and moderate to high for Al203/FeCrAlY. The difference in interfacial bond strengths between the two systems affected the tensile behavior of the composites. The strength of the Al203 fiber was significantly degraded after composite processing for both composite systems and resulted in poor composite tensile properties. The ultimate tensile strength (UTS) values of the composites could generally be predicted with either rule of mixtures (ROM) calculations or existing models when using the strength of the etched-out fiber. The Al2O3/FeAl + B composite system was determined to be unfeasible due to poor interfacial shear strengths and a large mismatch in coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE). Development of the Al2O3/FeCrAlY system would require an effective diffusion barrier to minimize the fiber strength degradation during processing and elevated temperature service.

Draper, S. L.↗