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open access

First Principle Calculations of the Structure and Electronic Properties of Pentacene Based Organic and ZnO Based Inorganic Semiconducting Materials

Description: In this thesis, I utilize first principles density functional theory (DFT) based calculations to investigate the structure and electronic properties including charge transfer behaviors and work function of two types of materials: pentacene based organic semiconductors and ZnO transparent conducting oxides, with an aim to search for high mobility n-type organic semiconductors and fine tuning work functions of ZnO through surface modifications. Based on DFT calculations of numerous structure comb… more
Date: May 2012
Creator: Li, Yun
open access

First Principles Calculations of the Site Substitution Behavior in Gamma Prime Phase in Nickel Based Superalloys

Description: Nickel based superalloys have superior high temperature mechanical strength, corrosion and creep resistance in harsh environments and found applications in the hot sections as turbine blades and turbine discs in jet engines and gas generator turbines in the aerospace and energy industries. The efficiency of these turbine engines depends on the turbine inlet temperature, which is determined by the high temperature strength and behavior of these superalloys. The microstructure of nickel based sup… more
Date: August 2012
Creator: Chaudhari, Mrunalkumar
open access

First Principles Study of Metastable Beta Titanium Alloys

Description: The high temperature BCC phase (b) of titanium undergoes a martensitic transformation to HCP phase (a) upon cooling, but can be stabilized at room temperature by alloying with BCC transition metals such as Mo. There exists a metastable composition range within which the alloyed b phase separates into a + b upon equilibrium cooling but not when rapidly quenched. Compositional partitioning of the stabilizing element in as-quenched b microstructure creates nanoscale precipitates of a new simple he… more
Date: August 2015
Creator: Gupta, Niraj
open access

Friction Stir Welding of Dissimilar Metals

Description: Dissimilar metals joining have been used in many industry fields for various applications due to their technique and beneficial advantages, such as aluminum-steel and magnesium-steel joints for reducing automobile weight, aluminum-copper joint for reducing material cost in electrical components, steel-copper joints for usage in nuclear power plant, etc. The challenges in achieving dissimilar joints are as below. (1) Big difference in physical properties such as melting point and coefficient of … more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Wang, Tianhao
open access

Friction Stir Welding of High Strength Precipitation Strengthened Aluminum Alloys

Description: Rising demand for improved fuel economy and structural efficiency are the key factors for use of aluminum alloys for light weighting in aerospace industries. Precipitation strengthened 2XXX and 7XXX aluminum alloys are the key aluminum alloys used extensively in aerospace industry. Welding and joining is the critical step in manufacturing of integrated structures. Joining of precipitation strengthened aluminum alloys using conventional fusion welding techniques is difficult and rather undesirab… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Sidhar, Harpreet
open access

Friction Stir Welding of Precipitation Strengthened Aluminum 7449 Alloys

Description: The Al-Zn-Mg-Cu (7XXX series) alloys are amongst the strongest aluminum available. However, they are considered unweldable with conventional fusion techniques due to the negative effects that arise with conventional welding, including hydrogen porosity, hot cracking, and stress corrosion cracking. For this reason, friction stir welding has emerged as the preferred technique to weld 7XXX series alloys. Aluminum 7449 is one of the highest strength 7XXX series aluminum alloy. This is due to its hi… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Martinez, Nelson Y
open access

Gamma Prime Precipitation Mechanisms and Solute Partitioning in Ni-base Alloys

Description: Nickel-base superalloys have been emerged as materials for gas turbines used for jet propulsion and electricity generation. The strength of the superalloys depends mainly from an ordered precipitates of L12 structure, so called gamma prime (γ’) dispersed within the disorder γ matrix. The Ni-base alloys investigated in this dissertation comprise both model alloy systems based on Ni-Al-Cr and Ni-Al-Co as well as the commercial alloy Rene N5. Classical nucleation and growth mechanism dominates the… more
Date: August 2014
Creator: Rojhirunsakool, Tanaporn
open access

Glass Forming Ability, Magnetic Properties, and Mechanical Behavior of Iron-Based and Cobalt-Based Metallic Glasses

Description: Lack of crystalline order and microstructural features such as grain/grain-boundary in metallic glasses results in a suite of remarkable attributes including very high strength, close to theoretical elasticity, high corrosion and wear resistance, and soft magnetic properties. In particular, low coercivity and high permeability of iron and cobalt based metallic glass compositions could potentially lead to extensive commercial use as magnetic heads, transformer cores, circuits and magnetic shield… more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Veligatla, Medha
open access

Growth Mechanisms, and Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Junctions in 3D Carbon Nanotube-Graphene Nano-Architectures

Description: Junctions are the key component for 3D carbon nanotube (CNT)-graphene seamless hybrid nanostructures. Growth mechanism of junctions of vertical CNTs growing from graphene in the presence of iron catalysts was simulated via quantum mechanical molecular dynamics (QM/MD) methods. CNTs growth from graphene with iron catalysts is based on a ‘‘base-growth’’ mechanism, and the junctions were the mixture of C-C and Fe-C covalent bonds. Pure C-C bonded junctions could be obtained by moving the catalyst … more
Date: December 2014
Creator: Niu, Jianbing
open access

Growth, Structure and Tribological Properties of Atomic Layer Deposited Lubricious Oxide Nanolaminates

Description: Friction and wear mitigation is typically accomplished by introducing a shear accommodating layer (e.g., a thin film of liquid) between surfaces in sliding and/or rolling contacts. When the operating conditions are beyond the liquid realm, attention turns to solid coatings. Solid lubricants have been widely used in governmental and industrial applications for mitigation of wear and friction (tribological properties). Conventional examples of solid lubricants are MoS2, WS2, h-BN, and graphite;… more
Date: December 2010
Creator: Mensah, Benedict Anyamesem
open access

High Temperature Water as an Etch and Clean for SiO2 and Si3N4

Description: An environmentally friendly, and contamination free process for etching and cleaning semiconductors is critical to future of the IC industry. Under the right conditions, water has the ability to meet these requirements. Water becomes more reactive as a function of temperature in part because the number of hydronium and hydroxyl ions increase. As water approaches its boiling point, the concentration of these species increases over seven times their concentrations at room temperature. At 150 °C, … more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Barclay, Joshua David
open access

Improving the Long-term Performance of PVC Compositions

Description: PVC are extensively applied in many fields, such as cables, pipes, vehicles, shoes, toys and infusion bags. Generally, plasticizers are blended with PVC to improve the ability of process in industrial production; however, the toxic plasticizers will gradually migrate to the surface of products and such a leakage results in brittleness of plasticized PVC and environmental pollution. In other words, humans are frequently exposed to the potential risks. According to previous researches, cross-link… more
Date: December 2016
Creator: Yang, Yu Chia
open access

In Vitro Behavior of AZ31B Mg-Hydroxyapatite Metallic Matrix Composite Surface Fabricated via Friction Stir Processing

Description: Magnesium and its alloys have been considered for load-bearing implant materials due to their similar mechanical properties to the natural bone, excellent biocompatibility, good bioactivity, and biodegradation. Nevertheless, the uncontrollable corrosion rate in biological environment restrains their application. Hydroxyapatite (HA, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2) is a widely used bio-ceramic which has bone-like mineral structure for bone fixation. Poor fracture toughness of HA makes it not suitable for load-b… more
Date: August 2016
Creator: Ho, Yee Hsien
open access

Influence of High Strain Rate Compression on Microstructure and Phase Transformation of NiTi Shape Memory Alloys

Description: Since NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) was discovered in the early 1960s, great progress has been made in understanding the properties and mechanisms of NiTi SMA and in developing associated products. For several decades, most of the scientific research and industrial interests on NiTi SMA has focused on its superelastic applications in the biomedical field and shape memory based “smart” devices, which involves the low strain rate (around 0.001 s^-1) response of NiTi SMA. Due to either stress-indu… more
Date: May 2016
Creator: Qiu, Ying
open access

The Influence of Ohmic Metals and Oxide Deposition on the Structure and Electrical Properties of Multilayer Epitaxial Graphene on Silicon Carbide Substrates

Description: Graphene has attracted significant research attention for next generation of semiconductor devices due to its high electron mobility and compatibility with planar semiconductor processing. In this dissertation, the influences of Ohmic metals and high dielectric (high-k) constant aluminum oxide (Al2O3) deposition on the structural and electrical properties of multi-layer epitaxial graphene (MLG) grown by graphitization of silicon carbide (SiC) substrates have been investigated. Uniform MLG was s… more
Date: May 2011
Creator: Maneshian, Mohammad Hassan
open access

An Initial Study of Binary and Ternary Ti-based Alloys Manufactured Using Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENSTM)

Description: In this study an initial assessment of the composition – microstructure – property relationships in binary and ternary Ti – based systems are made possible using LENSTM technology. Laser Engineering Net Shaping (LENSTM), a rapid prototyping, directed laser deposition methodology of additive manufacturing (AM) was used to create bulk homogenous specimens that are compositionally graded. Compositionally graded specimens were made possible by incorporating elemental blends of powder during the LEN… more
Date: December 2015
Creator: Gray, Alyn M.
open access

An Integrated Approach to Determine Phenomenological Equations in Metallic Systems

Description: It is highly desirable to be able to make predictions of properties in metallic materials based upon the composition of the material and the microstructure. Unfortunately, the complexity of real, multi-component, multi-phase engineering alloys makes the provision of constituent-based (i.e., composition or microstructure) phenomenological equations extremely difficult. Due to these difficulties, qualitative predictions are frequently used to study the influence of microstructure or composition o… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Ghamarian, Iman
open access

Integrated Computational and Experimental Approach to Control Physical Texture During Laser Machining of Structural Ceramics

Description: The high energy lasers are emerging as an innovative material processing tool to effectively fabricate complex shapes on the hard and brittle structural ceramics, which previously had been near impossible to be machined effectively using various conventional machining techniques. In addition, the in-situ measurement of the thermo-physical properties in the severe laser machining conditions (high temperature, short time duration, and small interaction volume) is an extremely difficult task. As a… more
Date: December 2013
Creator: Vora, Hitesh D.
open access

Interspecimen Study of Bone to Relate Macromechanical, Nanomechanical and Compositional Changes Across the Femoral Cortex of Bone

Description: Mechanics of bone is widely studied and researched, mainly for the study of fracture. This has been done mostly on a macro scale. In this work hierarchical nature of bone has been explored to investigate bone mechanics in more detail. Flexural test were done to classify the bones according to their strength and deflection. Raman spectroscopy analysis was done to map the mineralization, collagen crosslinking changes across the thickness of the bone. Nanoindentation was done to map indentation ha… more
Date: May 2013
Creator: Nar, Mangesh
open access

Investigation into the Semiconducting and Device Properties of MoTe2 and MoS2 Ultra-Thin 2D Materials

Description: The push for electronic devices on smaller and smaller scales has driven research in the direction of transition metal dichalcogenides (TMD) as new ultra-thin semiconducting materials. These ‘two-dimensional' (2D) materials are typically on the order of a few nanometers in thickness with a minimum all the way down to monolayer. These materials have several layer-dependent properties such as a transition to direct band gap at single-layer. In addition, their lack of dangling bonding and remarkab… more
Date: May 2018
Creator: Sirota, Benjamin
open access

Investigations in the Mechanism of Carbothermal Reduction of Yttria Stabilized Zirconia for Ultra-high Temperature Ceramics Application and Its Influence on Yttria Contained in It

Description: Zirconium carbide (ZrC) is a high modulus ceramic with an ultra-high melting temperature and, consequently, is capable of withstanding extreme environments. Carbon-carbon composites (CCCs) are important structural materials in future hypersonic aircraft; however, these materials may be susceptible to degradation when exposed to elevated temperatures during extreme velocities. At speeds of exceeding Mach 5, intense heating of leading edges of the aircraft triggers rapid oxidation of carbon in C… more
Date: May 2014
Creator: Sondhi, Anchal
open access

Laser Additive Manufacturing of Magnetic Materials

Description: A matrix of variably processed Fe-30at%Ni was deposited with variations in laser travel speeds as well and laser powers. A complete shift in phase stability occurred as a function of varying laser travel speed. At slow travel speeds, the microstructure was dominated by a columnar fcc phase. Intermediate travel speeds yielded a mixed microstructure comprised of both the columnar fcc and a martensite-like bcc phase. At the fastest travel speed, the microstructure was dominated by the bcc phase. T… more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Mikler, Calvin V.
open access

Laser Deposition, Heat-treatment, and Characterization of the Binary Ti-xmn System

Description: The present research seeks to characterization of an additively manufactured and heat-treated Ti-xMn gradient alloy, a binary system that has largely been unexplored. In order to rapidly assess this binary system, compositionally graded Ti-xMn (0<x<15 wt%) specimens were fabricated using the LENS (Laser Engineered Net Shaping) and were subsequently heat-treated and characterized using a wide range of techniques. Microstructural changes with respect to the change in thermal treatments, hardness … more
Date: August 2013
Creator: Avasarala, Chandana
open access

Laser Modified Alumina: a Computational and Experimental Analysis

Description: Laser surface modification involves rapid melting and solidification is an elegant technique used for locally tailoring the surface morphology of alumina in order to enhance its abrasive characteristics. COMSOL Multiphysics® based heat transfer modeling and experimental approaches were designed and used in this study for single and multiple laser tracks to achieve densely-packed multi-facet grains via temperature history, cooling rate, solidification, scanning electron micrographs, and wear rat… more
Date: December 2012
Creator: Moncayo, Marco Antonio
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