Environmental effects on the strength and impact damage resistance of alumina based oxide/oxide ceramic matrix composites

In this study the effects of high temperature and moisture on the impact damage resistance and mechanical strength of Nextel 610/alumina silicate ceramic matrix composites were experimentally evaluated. Composite laminates were exposed to either a 1050°C isothermal furnace-based environment for 30 consecutive days at 6 h a day, or 95% relative humidity environment for 13 consecutive days at 67°C. Low velocity impact, tensile and short beam strength tests were performed on both ambient and environmentally conditioned laminates and damage was characterized using a combination of non-destructive and destructive techniques. High temperature and humidity environmental exposure adversely affected the impact resistance of the composite laminates. For all the environments, planar internal damage area was greater than the back side dent area, which in turn was greater than the impactor side dent area. Evidence of environmental embrittlement through a stiffer tensile response was noted for the high temperature exposed laminates while the short beam strength tests showed greater propensity for interlaminar shear failure in the moisture exposed laminates. Destructive evaluations exposed larger, more pronounced delaminations in the environmentally conditioned laminates in comparison to the ambient ones. External damage metrics of the impactor side dent depth and area directly influenced the post-impact tensile strength of the laminates while no such trend between internal damage area and residual strength could be ascertained.     

A 2.2 W, 80 MHz superscalar RISC microprocessor

A 28 mW/MHz at 80 MHz structured-custom RISC microprocessor design is described. This 32-b implementation of the PowerPC architecture is fabricated in a 3.3 V, 0.5 μm, 4-level metal CMOS technology, resulting in 1.6 million transistors in a 7.4 mm by 11.5 mm chip size. Dual 8-kilobyte instruction and data caches coupled to a high performance 32/64-b system bus and separate execution units (float, integer, loadstore, and system units) result in peak instruction rates of three instructions per clock cycle. Low-power design techniques are used throughout the entire design, including dynamically powered down execution units. Typical power dissipation is kept under 2.2 W at 80 MHz. Three distinct levels of software-programmable, static, low-power operation-for system power management are offered, resulting in standby power dissipation from 2 mW to 350 mW. CPU to bus clock ratios of 1×, 2×, 3×, and 4× are implemented to allow control of system power while maintaining processor performance. As a result, workstation level performance is packed into a low-power, low-cost design ideal for notebooks and desktop computers     

Failure analysis of three reconditioned rail car couplers

Three reconditioned rail car couplers, arbitrarily identified as couplers, failed during service due to cracking of the front face. The three couplers were reportedly upgraded by quenching and tempering to enhance strength and toughness. The objective of this investigation was to determine the mode of crack propagation and the root cause of the observed failures. Verl E. (Bud) Kahle, P.E., was a professional failure analyst for more than forty years. After receiving his Bachelor of Science degree in physical metallurgy from Washington State University 1957, Bud was employed by the General Electric Company at a facility in Hanford, Washington. He later was employed by the Aerojet General Corporation and eventually was head of the Southern Pacific Materials Science Laboratory in Sacramento. After retirement from Southern Pacific he owned and operated his own firm, Kahle Metallurgical Consulting Services, for fifteen years. He came to be known as “the man with the answers” to clients in a variety of industries. Bud was a Life Member of ASM International. Many of Bud’s clients remarked on the high quality of his failure analysis case histories and encouraged him to have them published. After Bud passed away in 1999, his wife, Suzanne, approached ASM International to see if the society would be interested in publishing any of his work. Mrs. Kahle was able to supply a large number of reports, which Bud had carefully archived over the years. Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention Associate Editor Michael Stevenson read through the collected case histories, selected the ones to be included in this issue, and edited them for journal publication. ASM International wishes to thank Mrs. Kahle for providing these case histories for publication.     

Using a Trust Inference Model for Flexible and Controlled Information Sharing During Crises

The fluid, urgent nature of crises requires flexible, responsive information sharing. Recent studies show, however, that in business catastrophes and other kinds of crises conventional access control mechanisms favor security over flexibility. Our work addresses these seemingly contradictory needs for security and flexibility and designs a trust inference model based on fuzzy logic, a model that can be used with pervasive computing technologies using sensors and mobile devices. Drawing upon research on trust, we design a trust inference model using attributes of affiliation, task performance, and urgency; apply the model to a known crisis; discuss implementation issues; and explore issues for further research. This article is dedicated to Alan Jarman, a founding influence in the Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management who died in Canberra 15 July 2010. Alan's quantitative, engineering background and his long standing commitment to improving crisis decision making prompted him to encourage our applying fuzzy logic to crisis information sharing. We are grateful for Alan's encouragement and advice.     

Performance evaluation of canine-associated Bacteroidales assays in a multi-laboratory comparison study

The contribution of fecal pollution from dogs in urbanized areas can be significant and is an often underestimated problem. Microbial source tracking methods (MST) utilizing quantitative PCR of dog-associated gene sequences encoding 16S rRNA of Bacteroidales are a useful tool to estimate these contributions. However, data about the performance of available assays are scarce. The results of a multi-laboratory study testing two assays for the determination of dog-associated Bacteroidales (DogBact and BacCan-UCD) on 64 single and mixed fecal source samples created from pooled fecal samples collected in California are presented here. Standardization of qPCR data treatment lowered inter-laboratory variability of sensitivity and specificity results. Both assays exhibited 100% sensitivity. Normalization methods are presented that eliminated random and confirmed non-target responses. The combination of standardized qPCR data treatment, use of normalization via a non-target specific Bacteroidales assay (GenBac3), and application of threshold criteria improved the calculated specificity significantly for both assays. Such measures would reasonably improve MST data interpretation not only for canine-associated assays, but for all qPCR assays used in identifying and monitoring fecal pollution in the environment.     

What matters the most for economic development? Evidence from the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund

Governments use incentive programmes to attract new businesses. Due to limited resources, there are questions about which incentives are most effective. Using establishment data from California, and data on the location of disbursements through two federal programmes, we consider the effectiveness of different programmes in attracting new businesses. We find that the amount of funding through the New Markets Tax Credit programme has a significant impact on business activity but find no evidence of an effect from the Community Development Financial Institutions programme. Our results suggest that the effectiveness of these programmes depends on how they provide assistance.     

Failure analysis of brass portions of dielectric unions

Persistent failures (leakage) were observed in the brass portion of dielectric unions after a relatively short service period. Metallographic examination revealed evidence of severe stress-corrosion cracking within the brass as well as dealloying on the surface. Evaluations using stress calculations and the dynamics of freezing water indicated that the unions were not overtightened during installation, and the water passing through the unions did not freeze. The subject copper alloy was shown to have been insufficient for the intended application due to high susceptibility to corrosion.     

Formalizing non-termination of recursive programs

In applicative theories the recursion theorem provides a term which solves recursive equations. However, it is not provable that a solution obtained by is minimal. In the present paper we introduce an applicative theory in which it is possible to define a least fixed point operator. Still, our theory has a standard recursion theoretic interpretation.     

Compendium of photovoltaic degradation rates

Published data on photovoltaic (PV) degradation measurements were aggregated and re‐examined. The subject has seen an increased interest in recent years resulting in more than 11 000 degradation rates in almost 200 studies from 40 different countries. As studies have grown in number and size, we found an impact from sampling bias attributable to size and accuracy. Because of the correlational nature of this study we examined the data in several ways to minimize this bias. We found median degradation for x‐Si technologies in the 0.5–0.6%/year range with the mean in the 0.8–0.9%/year range. Hetero‐interface technology (HIT) and microcrystalline silicon (µc‐Si) technologies, although not as plentiful, exhibit degradation around 1%/year and resemble thin‐film products more closely than x‐Si. Several studies showing low degradation for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) have emerged. Higher degradation for cadmium telluride (CdTe) has been reported, but these findings could reflect a convolution of less accurate studies and longer stabilization periods for some products. Significant deviations for beginning‐of‐life measurements with respect to nameplate rating have been documented over the last 35 years. Therefore, degradation rates that use nameplate rating as reference may be significantly impacted. Studies that used nameplate rating as reference but used solar simulators showed less variation than similar studies using outdoor measurements, even when accounting for different climates. This could be associated with confounding effects of measurement uncertainty and soiling that take place outdoors. Hotter climates and mounting configurations that lead to sustained higher temperatures may lead to higher degradation in some, but not all, products. Wear‐out non‐linearities for the worst performing modules have been documented in a few select studies that took multiple measurements of an ensemble of modules during the lifetime of the system. However, the majority of these modules exhibit a fairly linear decline. Modeling these non‐linearities, whether they occur at the beginning‐of‐life or end‐of‐life in the PV life cycle, has an important impact on the levelized cost of energy. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The procedure used to assess the long range generation andtransmission resources in the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool

A study was undertaken by the Mid-Continent Area Power Pool to examine future power supply options from a regional perspective. The pool is modeled as a single utility, without regard to particular economic or operating characteristics of any individual utility or group of utilities. Extensive use is made of the generalized benders decomposition algorithm in the EPRI EGEAS computer program to model poolwide optimization of capacity additions. The selected methodology, which offers both computational efficiency and acceptable accuracy for such a large-scale study, is discussed. Finally, an overview of the analysis of results is given