spark plasma sintering (sps) method, as plasma activated sintering, is a method applicable for rapid sintering of metals and ceramics. owing to the advantage of rapid heating, the alumina ceramics obtained by sps have a grain size and density comparable to those of hot pressed ones. the increase of densification rate may be related to some difference in ion transport characteristics. this study...

The formation of in situ AlN-TiN-TiB2/Al composite inoculants, which contain multi-phase refiner particles including AlN, TiN, TiB2, Al3Ti, and α-Al, was investigated using nitrogen gas injection. The effects of the main preparation parameters such as nitriding temperature, nitriding time, Ti content in melts, on the microstructure and grain refinement of in situ AlN-TiN-TiB2/Al composite inocu...

Polycrystalline materials are generally thought to have grain size distributions that correspond to log-normal. Statistical volume elements can use such geometric shape distributions to simulate single-phase polycrystals. When the log-normal distribution is used for grain size, however, it can give rise to nonphysical large grains that cannot be practically accommodated in finite simulation vol...

Highly specific seed market classes for cowpea and other grain legumes exist because grain is most commonly cooked and consumed whole. Size, shape, color, and texture are critical features of these market classes and breeders target development of cultivars for market acceptance. Resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses that are absent from elite breeding material are often introgressed throug...

Based on electron backscattered diffraction analysis and transmission electron microscopy observation, the mechanism of inhomogeneous grain refinement in a NiTiFe shape memory alloy (SMA) subjected to single-pass equal-channel angular extrusion (ECAE) was investigated. The results show that refined grains are mainly nucleated near grain boundaries and a small fraction of them emerges in the gra...

Reflectance spectra of carbonate minerals in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) and thermal infrared (TIR) wavelength regions contain a number of diagnostic absorption features. The shape of these features depends on various physical and chemical parameters. To accurately identify carbonate minerals or rocks in pure and mixed form, it is necessary to analyze the effects of the parameters on spectral...

A microstructure consisting of ultrafine grained (UFG) ferrite with average grain size of ~ 0.7 µm and dispersed nano-sized carbides was produced by cold-rolling and tempering of the martensite starting microstructure in a low carbon steel. Subsequently, fine grained dual phase (DP) steel consisting of equiaxed ferrite grains with average size of ~ 5 µm and martensite islands with average size ...