Annealing

The exoskeleton of the lobster Homarus americanus is a multiphase biological composite material which consists of an organic matrix (crystalline α-chitin fibers and various types of non-crystalline proteins) and minerals (mainly calcite). In this study we discuss experimental data about the mesoscopic structure and the crystallographic texture (orientation distribution) of the α-chitin–protein fiber network in this material. The synchrotron measurements reveal very strong crystallographic textures of the α-chitin. According to these data, a large fraction of the α-chitin lattice cells is arranged with their longest axis parallel to the normal of the surface of the exoskeleton. Additionally, a smaller fraction of the α-chitin cells is oriented with their longest axis perpendicular to the cuticle surface. These structural investigations reveal the pronounced role of crystallographic orientation distributions in mineralized biological composite materials which may be of relevance for an improved understanding of biological and bio-inspired nano-composites.

Discovery of the optimal best possibility of location for facilities is the central problem associated in logistics management. The optimal places for the distribution centres (DCs) can be based on the selected attributes that are crucial to locate the best possible locations to increase the speed of the facility service and thus reduce the overall transport cost and time and to provide best service. The major task is to identifying and locating the required number of DCs and its optimum locations are considered as the important goals for the design of any logistics network. The number of DCs will clearly depends upon many factors like population, capacity of the facility, type of facility etc. but locating the optimum locations of DCs will reduce the overall cost. But, for solving such a wide problem space, the powerful tools are the soft computing based approaches and that are well suited and find a meaningful solution in finite time. In this work, we are going to find the optimum locations of DCs for logistics using various soft computing methods. .

Thin films of CdS, deposited by chemical bath deposition (CBD) onto films of fluorine-doped tin oxide/glass (glass/FTO) substrates were prepared and investigated for photoelectrochemical conversion (PEC) of light into electricity. Knowing the hazardous nature of CdS, the focal theme of this work was to modify the electrodes by simple economic ways to maximize their conversion efficiency and minimize their degradation under PEC conditions. This was to avoid leaching out of hazardous Cd2+ ions. Different parameters have been investigated for this purpose. Multi-deposition preparation, redox couple, and electrode etching affected electrode PEC characteristics. Consistent with earlier literature, annealing the electrode enhanced its conversion efficiency and stability. On the other hand, effect of cooling rate of pre-annealed CdS electrodes, prepared by CBD, on their PEC characteristics has been investigated here for the first time. Controlling the cooling rate was one major factor that affected CdS surface morphology, conversion efficiency and stability under PEC conditions. The major recommendation coming out here is that PEC characteristics of CdS thin film electrodes can be significantly enhanced by pre-annealing the electrode at ∼250 °C followed by its slow cooling.

SUMMARY A batch-compatible, post-fabrication annealing technique based upon filament-like heating of microstructures is demon-strated as an effective means for trimming the reSonance fre-quencies (fa's) and increasing the quality factors (Q's) of surface-micromachined, ...

Time-dependent changes of electrical properties are investigated in the range of relative low heating temperatures (T . 320 to 450 K) for undoped p-CdTe grown by various methods. It is established that the character and direction of the observed changes depend on the level of uncontrolled impurities (Cu preferably), their charge state and the association degree of impurities with intrinsic (VCd) defects. CdTe:Ge (Sn,Pb) crystals are characterized with a high thermostability of electrical properties.

The annealing effect was studied on PMMA/PET immiscible polymer blends. Composite ratios of 0/100,25/75, 50/50, 70/30, 80/20 and 100/0 wt % of PMMA/PET were prepared by novel injection molding methods. Morphological interactions of these blends were investigated through thermal analysis using DMA and DSC. The samples were subject to testing in their as molded form and after annealing. Thermal analysis revealed crystallite growth effect on the storage modulus and increased Tg for annealed samples.

We report on the formation of low-resistance and highly transparent indium tin oxide (ITO) ohmic contacts to p-GaN using a Sn–Ag alloy interlayer. Although the as-deposited Sn–Ag(6 nm)/ITO(200 nm) contacts show non-ohmic behaviors, the scheme becomes ohmic with specific contact resistance of 4.72×10−4 Ω cm2 and produce transmittance of ∼91% at wavelength of 460 nm when annealed at 530 °C. Blue light-emitting diodes (LEDs) fabricated with the Sn–Ag/ITO contacts give forward-bias voltage of 3.31 V at injection current of 20 mA. LEDs with the Sn–Ag/ITO contacts show the improvement of the output power by 62% (at 20 mA) compared with LEDs with Ni/Au contacts.

Self-assembled Si nanowires can be grown using chemical vapor deposition accelerated by metal catalyst nanoparticles. The diameter of the nanowires depends on the size of the nanoparticles, which in turn can be controlled by varying the amount of catalyst deposited and the annealing conditions. The nanowires make good electrical connection to the substrate on which they are grown. They generally grow epitaxially along directions and can grow laterally from one vertical (111)-oriented surface toward another and make good mechanical and electrical connection to the second surface. The nanowires can serve as sensors or as the channels of field-effect transistors.

This paper presents the effect of cold rolling and annealing on the microstructure of Brass (Cu-Zn alloy) and mechanical properties of brass after cold ro lling and heat treatment is determined. In this investigation brass was used in the form of a flat bar with the dimensions 23x60x600 mm. The brass is first subjected to cold rolling 15.8%-70.2% and then subjected to annealing (recrystallizat ion) within the temperature range of 300-650 Degree Celsius.

Hydrogen embrittlement in 304L austenitic stainless steel fabricated by laser powder-bed-fusion (LPBF) was investigated and compared to conventionally produced 304L samples with two different processing histories; casting plus annealing (CA) and CA plus thermomechanical treatment (CA-TMT). Interestingly, no significant difference in the amount of deformation-induced α ′ martensite between the LPBF and CA-TMT samples was observed, suggesting that the solidification substructure in the LPBF sample enhanced the strength without promoting the harmful hydrogen embrittlement effect. These results are discussed in terms of the chemical in-homogeneity, hydrogen-assisted cracking behavior, and hydrogen diffusion and trapping in the present 304L samples.

This article studies the mechanical properties of short fiber reinforced polymer blends comprised of a soft thermoplastic matrix (polyethylene, PE), a rigid dispersed thermoplastic phase (polyamide-6, PA6) and glass fiber reinforcement. These ternary composites are designed as a model system to investigate the impact of the mutual interactions of the three phases on the composite mechanical properties. For this purpose

(in: Experimentelle Archäologie in Europa 16 – Jahrbuch 2017, pp. 25-44)
In order to review the hardening properties during cold-forging and recrystallization through annealing and subsequent quenching, seven non-ferrous alloys were produced following ancient examples. The small flat blanks were uniformly forged and annealed and during all working steps the Brinell hardness was measured. The results were graphically plotted and compared with observations from archaeological, archaeometrical, historical and modern specialist literature, iconographical presentations and field studies. In the outlook the results are assessed.

This Study is based upon the empirical study which means it is derived from experiment and  observation rather than theory. Main Objective is to Study the Effect on the Hardness of three Sample Grades of Tool Steel i.e. EN-31, EN-8, and D3 after Heat Treatment Processes Such As Annealing, Normalizing, and Hardening & Tempering. This survey also helps to find out the place of the work to be carried out i.e. availability of set up, techniques used for such, estimated time & cost requires for such study to be carried out for such industrial survey to be carried out we designed a Survey questioner and selects various places who offers heat treatment services Jaipur based. After literature review and industrial survey aims to prepare heat treatment performance Index HTPI 2014 which is supposed to be very effective tool for defining the objective function. After selection of material & heat treatment processes further aims to perform mechanical & chemical analysis i.e. composition testing of the three tool steel EN-31, EN-8, and D3 before treatment. After composition testing aims to do heat treatment processes i.e. Annealing, Normalizing, and Hardening & Tempering to be carried on such material & after treatment aims to perform harness testing on the treated and untreated work samples.

In a companion paper we show that the freezing of samples in vials by shelf-ramp freezing results in significant primary drying rate heterogeneity because of a dependence of the ice crystal size on the nucleation temperature during freezing.1 The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that post-freezing annealing, in which the product is held at a predetermined temperature for a specified duration, can reduce freezing-induced heterogeneity in sublimation rates. In addition, we test the impact of annealing on primary drying rates. Finally, we use the kinetics of relaxations during annealing to provide a simple measurement of Tg′, the glass transition temperature of the maximally freeze-concentrated amorphous phase, under conditions and time scales most appropriate for industrial lyophilization cycles. Aqueous solutions of hydroxyethyl starch (HES), sucrose, and HES:sucrose were either frozen by placement on a shelf while the temperature was reduced (“shelf-ramp frozen”) or by immersion into liquid nitrogen. Samples were then annealed for various durations over a range of temperatures and partially lyophilized to determine the primary drying rate. The morphology of fully dried liquid nitrogen-frozen samples was examined using scanning electron microscopy. Annealing reduced primary drying rate heterogeneity for shelf-ramp frozen samples, and resulted in up to 3.5-fold increases in the primary drying rate. These effects were due to increased ice crystal sizes, simplified amorphous structures, and larger and more numerous holes on the cake surface of annealed samples. Annealed HES samples dissolved slightly faster than their unannealed counterparts. Annealing below Tg′ did not result in increased drying rates. We present a simple new annealing–lyophilization method of Tg′ determination that exploits this phenomenon. It can be carried out with a balance and a freeze-dryer, and has the additional advantage that a large number of candidate formulations can be evaluated simultaneously. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. and the American Pharmaceutical Association J Pharm Sci 90:872–887, 2001

In thin film solar cell technologies, room temperature deposition of highly conductive Al-doped ZnO thin films as transparent conductive oxide is one of the most important factors that prevents the distortion of the bottom layers. In this work, we prepared Al-doped ZnO targets at different heat-treatment pressures including 10 3 mbar (air), 10 −2 mbar (low-vacuum) and 10 −5 mbar (high-vacuum). The results indicated that by performing the heat-treatment in vacuum under a pressure of 10 −2 mbar (low-vacuum heat-treatment), the electrical resistivity of the AZO target reached the lowest value compared to the other heat-treatment conditions. Subsequently, the AZO thin films with a thickness of 1150 nm were deposited on soda-lime glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering at room temperature. The XRD patterns of all the as-deposited AZO thin films clearly showed that the thin films had a wurtzite structure with a preferred orientation along the c-axis. Furthermore, the Hall effect measurement results confirmed that the AZO thin film prepared from the low-vacuum heat-treated target had the excellent electrical properties in comparison with the other ones. The optical band gap of the as-deposited AZO thin films was about 3.15 eV and the minimum value of the electrical resistivity was measured about 1.8 × 10 −4 Ω cm.

International Journal on Bioinformatics & Biosciences (IJBB) is a Quarterly peer-reviewed and refereed open access journal that publishes articles which contribute new results in all areas of the Bioinformatics & Biosciences. Bioinformatics is the application of information science and technology to the field of biology to increase the understanding of all biological process. The aim of this journal is to publish all the latest and outstanding research articles in all areas of bioinformatics and Biometrics. Researchers and scientists from the fields of biology, computer science, mathematics, statistics, and physics are invited to share their developments and new techniques in the fields of Biometrics and Bioinformatics.