Physical,mechanical and thermal properties of cross laminated timber made with coconut wood

European Journal of Wood and Wood Products - The fundamental material properties of coconut wood cross-laminated timber (CLT) were experimentally evaluated with a focus on the effect of the...     

Robust Optimal Design of Multi-Body Systems

Techniques in robust optimal design of multi-body systems are presented.In order to define the concept of robust optimal design, a performancevariance minimization method is applied on variations of designvariables. The regression model is estimated through a response surfacemethodology to evaluate the performance variance of multi-body systems.The experiments necessary for the response surface methodology are notconducted through physical tests but through nonlinear multi-bodydynamic simulation. The techniques presented are applied to arotary-type compressor in order to apply them to the robust optimaldesign of a weight balancer for use in vibration control and to show theeffectiveness of the techniques.     

Adhesion interaction of one-component polyurethane in cross-laminating southern pine wood treated with micronized copper azole—type C (MCA-C)

European Journal of Wood and Wood Products - Compatibility between preservative and resin plays an important role in determining the adhesive performance of preservative-treated engineered wood...     

Electrical and reliability characteristics of an ultrathin TaO/sub x/N/sub y/ gate dielectric prepared by ND/sub 3/ annealing of Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/

This letter describes a unique process for the preparation of high quality tantalum oxynitride (TaO/sub x/N/sub y/) via the ND/sub 3/ annealing of Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/, for use in gate dielectric applications. Compared with tantalum oxide (Ta/sub 2/O/sub 5/), a significant improvement in the dielectric constant was obtained by the ammonia treatment followed by light reoxidation in a wet ambient. We were able to confirm nitrogen incorporation in the tantalum oxynitride (TaO/sub x/N/sub y/) by Auger electron spectroscopy. Compared with NH/sub 3/ nitridation, tantalum oxynitride prepared by nitridation in ND/sub 3/ shows less charge trapping and larger charge-to-breakdown characteristics.     

Attenuation estimation using spectral cross-correlation

Estimation of the local attenuation coefficient in soft tissue is important both for clinical diagnosis and for further analysis of ultrasound B-mode images. However, it is difficult to extract spectral properties in a small region of interest from noisy backscattered ultrasound radio frequency (RF) signals. Diffraction effects due to transducer beam focal properties also have to be corrected for accurate estimation of the attenuation coefficient. In this paper, we propose a new attenuation estimation method using spectral cross-correlation between consecutive power spectra obtained from the backscattered RF signals at different depths. Since the spectral cross-correlation method estimates the spectral shift by comparing the entire power spectra, it is more robust and stable to the spectral noise artifacts in the backscattered RF signals. A diffraction compensation technique using a reference phantom with a known attenuation coefficient value is also presented. Local attenuation coefficient estimates obtained using spectral cross-correlation are within 2.3% of the actual value with small estimation variances, as demonstrated in the simulation results.     

Magneto-optic field coupling in optical fiber Bragg gratings

A magnetic sensor utilizing direct magneto-optic field coupling in an optical fiber Bragg grating (FBG) is experimentally demonstrated. The FBG’s cladding is etched to expose the propagating evanescent light to the fiber’s surroundings. The etched FBG is surrounded with iron oxide nanoparticles and placed in a magnetic field perpendicular to the fiber. Measurements demonstrate that the λ_B shifts nonlinearly as a function of magnetic field, i.e. comparable to the magnetization versus magnetic field behavior of the nanoparticles measured by a SQUID magnetometer. This direct manipulation of light with magnetic fields provides an approach to develop future sensors relying on electromagnetic interactions.     

Large current difference in Au-coated vertical silicon nanowire electrode array with functionalization of peptides

Au-coated vertical silicon nanowire electrode array (VSNEA) was fabricated using a combination of bottom-up and top-down approaches by chemical vapor deposition and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process for biomolecule sensing. To verify the feasibility for the detection of biomolecules, Au-coated VSNEA was functionalized using peptides having a fluorescent probe. Cyclic voltammograms of the peptide-functionalized Au-coated VSNEA show a steady-state electrochemical current behavior. Because of the critically small dimension and vertically aligned nature of VSNEA, the current density of Au-coated VSNEA was dramatically higher than that of Au film electrodes. Au-coated VSNEA further showed a large current difference with and without peptides that was nine times more than that of Au film electrodes. These results indicate that Au-coated VSENA is highly effective device to detect peptides compared to conventional thin-film electrodes. Au-coated VSNEA can also be used as a divergent biosensor platform in many applications.     

A hybrid neural-network/mathematical prediction model for tandem cold mill

In tandem cold mill, a strip is flattened by stands of rolls to a desired thickness. At Pohang Iron and Steel Company (POSCO) in Pohang, Korea, precalculation determines the mill settings before a strip actually enters the mill and is done by an outdated mathematical model. A corrective neural network model is proposed to impoove the accuracy of the roll force prediction. The network is fed not only the usual mathematical model's input but also a set of additional inputs such as the chemical composition of the coil, its coiling temperature and the aggregated amount of processed strips of each roll. The network was trained using a standard backpropagation with 4,944 process data collected at POSCO from March 1995 through December 1995, then was tested on the unseen 1,586 data from February 1996 through April 1996. The combined model reduced the prediction error by 33.88% on average.     

Stochastic optical active rheology

We demonstrate a stochastic based method for performing active rheology using optical tweezers. By monitoring the displacement of an embedded particle in response to stochastic optical forces, a rapid estimate of the frequency dependent shear moduli of a sample is achieved in the range of 10(-1)-10(3)?Hz. We utilize the method to probe linear viscoelastic properties of hydrogels at varied cross-linker concentrations. Combined with fluorescence imaging, our method demonstrates non-linear changes of bond strength between T cell receptors and an antigenic peptide due to force-induced cell activation.     

Enhanced photo-sensitivity through an increased light-trapping on Si by surface nano-structuring using MWCNT etch mask

We demonstrate an enhanced photo-sensitivity (PS) through an increased light-trapping using surface nano-structuring technique by inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching on multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) etch masked Si with hexamethyl-disilazane (HMDS) dispersion. In order for a systematic comparison, four samples are prepared, respectively, by conventional photolithography and ICP etching using MWCNT as a etch mask. MWCNT-etched Si with HMDS dispersion shows the highest RMS roughness and the lowest reflectance of the four. Two test device structures are fabricated with active regions of bare-Si as a reference and MWCNT etch masked Si with HMDS dispersion. The increased light-trapping was most significant at mid-UV, somewhat less at visible and less noticeable at infrared. With an ICP-etched Si using CNT HMDS dispersion, PS is very sharply increased. This result can lead to applications in optoelectronics where the enhancement in light-trapping is important.