Microstructural Information (microstructural + information)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Determination of directionally dependent structural and microstructural information using high-energy X-ray diffraction

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CRYSTALLOGRAPHY, Issue 6 2008
J. E. Daniels
High-energy synchrotron X-ray diffraction using a monochromatic beam and large area detector offers a unique method for the study of directionally dependent sample information. The very short wavelengths and subsequent low scattering angles mean that scattering vectors at all angles approximately perpendicular to the beam direction are sampled simultaneously. Here a method is proposed and demonstrated in which the magnitude and directions of structural and microstructural changes can be determined with higher resolution than was possible with previously used techniques. The method takes advantage of parametric refinements over multiple data sets using the profile fitting package TOPAS. Examples of the technique applied to the study of strains in multiphase zirconium alloys and microstructural texture in ferroelastic/ferroelectric ceramics are given. The angular precision in lattice strain for a diffraction image with good statistics is found to be below 0.1°. [source]


Inclusion trail patterns in porphyroblasts from the Foothills Terrane, California: a record of orogenesis or local strain heterogeneity?

JOURNAL OF METAMORPHIC GEOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
S. R. Paterson
Abstract A major problem with the current use of porphyroblast,matrix microstructural relationships to infer orogenic histories, such as multiple orthogonal orogenic events, is that other evidence for these events is typically lacking. For example, a comparison of regional relationships and local structures formed in and adjacent to porphyroblasts present in contact aureoles in the Foothills Terrane, Sierra Nevada, California, shows that: (1) except in shear zones, contact aureoles and local zones along lithological contacts, the Foothills Terrane has a single regional cleavage, although locally formed by multiple processes; (2) the regional cleavage and locally developed porphyroblast inclusion trails have variable orientations, and neither dataset supports the formation of dominantly subhorizontal and subvertical cleavages in this orogen; (3) structural and metamorphic heterogeneities occur at all scales and can markedly affect inclusion trail patterns in porphyroblasts; (4) complex porphyroblast growth features and internal inclusion trail patterns can form in porphyroblasts that grow during short time intervals in contact aureoles, indicating that local complexity in porphyroblasts does not imply regional complex ty. Because of these conclusions, multiple datasets, rather than data acquired only from porphyroblasts, should be considered when attempting to understand the evolution of orogens. Furthermore, using microstructural information preserved only in porphyroblasts to infer orogenic processes and plate motions is generally unjustified. [source]


Heat conduction in granular materials

AICHE JOURNAL, Issue 5 2001
Watson L. Vargas
Heat transfer in particulate systems is important to a vast array of industries, yet is poorly understood even in the simplest case,conduction through the solid phase. This is due in part to the stress and contact heterogeneities inherent to these systems. Heat conduction in a packet bed of cylinders is investigated both experimentally and computationally. A novel model is developed based on the Discrete Element Method, which not only sheds light on fundamental issues in heat conduction in particles, but also provides a valuable test bed for existing theories. By explicitly modeling individual particles within the bulk material, bed heterogeneities are directly included, and dynamic temperature distributions are obtained at the particle level. Comparison with experiments shows that this model yields a quantitatively accurate temperature field without the need for adjustable parameters or detailed microstructural information. This simple system may also provide insight into such phenomena as reactor hot spot formation and spontaneous combustion of bulk reactive materials. [source]


FIB-Nanotomography of Particulate Systems,Part I: Particle Shape and Topology of Interfaces

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CERAMIC SOCIETY, Issue 8 2006
Lorenz Holzer
A new 3D-microscopy method, focused ion beam-nanotomography (FIB-nt), has been applied to the statistical particle shape analysis and for topological characterization of granular textures in cement samples. Because of its high resolution (15 nm), FIB-nt reveals precise microstructural information at the submicrometer scale, which cannot be obtained with conventional tomography methods. It is demonstrated that even from complex granular textures with dense agglomerates, it is possible to identify the individual sub-grains. This is the basis for reliable statistical shape analysis. For this purpose, moments of inertia were determined for particles from five different grain size fractions of a given cement, which provides important input data for future modeling of rheology and hydration processes. In addition, FIB-nt was used for topological characterization of the particle,particle interfaces in the dense and fine-grained granular textures. The unique 3D-data obtained with FIB-nt thus open new possibilities for quantitative microstructure analysis and the data can be used as structural input for object-oriented modeling. [source]


A Parallelised High Performance Monte Carlo Simulation Approach for Complex Polymerisation Kinetics

MACROMOLECULAR THEORY AND SIMULATIONS, Issue 6 2007
Hugh Chaffey-Millar
Abstract A novel, parallelised approach to Monte Carlo simulations for the computation of full molecular weight distributions (MWDs) arising from complex polymerisation reactions is presented. The parallel Monte Carlo method constitutes perhaps the most comprehensive route to the simulation of full MWDs of multiple chain length polymer entities and can also provide detailed microstructural information. New fundamental insights have been developed with regard to the Monte Carlo process in at least three key areas: (i) an insufficient system size is demonstrated to create inaccuracies via poor representation of the most improbable events and least numerous species; (ii) advanced algorithmic principles and compiler technology known to computer science have been used to provide speed improvements and (iii) the parallelisability of the algorithm has been explored and excellent scalability demonstrated. At present, the parallel Monte Carlo method presented herein compares very favourably in speed with the latest developments in the h-p Galerkin method-based PREDICI software package while providing significantly more detailed microstructural information. It seems viable to fuse parallel Monte Carlo methods with those based on the h-p Galerkin methods to achieve an optimum of information depths for the modelling of complex macromolecular kinetics and the resulting microstructural information. [source]


On the integral representation formula for a two-component elastic composite

MATHEMATICAL METHODS IN THE APPLIED SCIENCES, Issue 6 2006
Miao-Jung Ou
Abstract The aim of this paper is to derive, in the Hilbert space setting, an integral representation formula for the effective elasticity tensor for a two-component composite of elastic materials, not necessarily well-ordered. This integral representation formula implies a relation which links the effective elastic moduli to the N -point correlation functions of the microstructure. Such relation not only facilitates a powerful scheme for systematic incorporation of microstructural information into bounds on the effective elastic moduli but also provides a theoretical foundation for inverse-homogenization. The analysis presented in this paper can be generalized to an n -component composite of elastic materials. The relations developed here can be applied to the inverse-homogenization for a special class of linear viscoelastic composites. The results will be presented in another paper. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Multiscale methods for elliptic homogenization problems,

NUMERICAL METHODS FOR PARTIAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS, Issue 2 2006
Zhangxin ChenArticle first published online: 10 JUN 200
Abstract In this article we study two families of multiscale methods for numerically solving elliptic homogenization problems. The recently developed multiscale finite element method [Hou and Wu, J Comp Phys 134 (1997), 169,189] captures the effect of microscales on macroscales through modification of finite element basis functions. Here we reformulate this method that captures the same effect through modification of bilinear forms in the finite element formulation. This new formulation is a general approach that can handle a large variety of differential problems and numerical methods. It can be easily extended to nonlinear problems and mixed finite element methods, for example. The latter extension is carried out in this article. The recently introduced heterogeneous multiscale method [Engquist and Engquist, Comm Math Sci 1 (2003), 87,132] is designed for efficient numerical solution of problems with multiscales and multiphysics. In the second part of this article, we study this method in mixed form (we call it the mixed heterogeneous multiscale method). We present a detailed analysis for stability and convergence of this new method. Estimates are obtained for the error between the homogenized and numerical multiscale solutions. Strategies for retrieving the microstructural information from the numerical solution are provided and analyzed. Relationship between the multiscale finite element and heterogeneous multiscale methods is discussed. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq, 2006 [source]