Silkworm cocoons are multi-layered composite structures comprised of high strength silk fiber and sericin, and their mechanical properties have been naturally selected to protect pupas during metamorphosis from various types of external attacks. The present study attempts to gain a comprehensive understanding of the mechanical properties of cocoon shell materials from wild silkworm species Anth...

At the newly installed 180° Darmstadt electron scattering facility we have measured the isovector M1 transition strengths in Si in the excitation energy range from 10 to 18 MeV. Overall agreement with a shell-model calculation using the unified sd-shell interaction and effective g factors is obtained. Comparison with Gamow-Teller strength deduced from (p ,n) data reveals the presence of meson e...

Pigmy and soft-dipole states in light drip-line nuclei are investigated by large-scale shell model calculations. Large E1 strength is found in the low-excitation-energy region below 5MeV in halo or skin nuclei such as 11Li, 12Be, and 13O. Both the effects of the extended halo or skin wave functions and the coherence in the transition amplitudes are important for enhancing the E1 strength. The p...

The strength functions of isovector dipole resonances in the even oxygen isotopes 18∼24O are calculated by using an extended version of the timedependent Hartree-Fock theory known as the time-dependent density-matrix theory (TDDM). The results are compared with recent experimental data and also with a shell-model calculation. It is found that the observed isotope dependence of low-lying dipole ...

The structures of micelles of the surfactant polysorbate 80 (Tween 80) in 0-50% aqueous dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) solutions (pH 7.2, ionic strength 2.44 mM) were investigated by means of small-angle X-ray scattering. At DMSO concentrations of 0-20%, core-shell cylinder micelles formed, and at 30-50% DMSO, core-shell discus micelles formed, that is, changing the hydrophobicity of the DMSO solven...

Multifunctional materials with more than two good properties are widely required in modern industries. However, some properties are often trade-off with each other by single microstructural designation. For example, nanostructured materials have high strength, but low ductility and thermal stability. Here by means of spark plasma sintering (SPS) of nitrided Ti particles, we synthesized bulk cor...

Low-energy M1 strength functions of ^{60,64,68}Fe are determined on the basis of large-scale shell-model calculations with the goal to study their development from the bottom to the middle of the neutron shell. We find that the zero-energy spike, which characterizes nuclei near closed shells, develops toward the middle of the shell into a bimodal structure composed of a weaker zero-energy spike...

Hybrid composites are characterized by a variety of properties that are of interest to automotive applications, including strength, mechanical, and thermal properties. In this work, palm kernel shell-filled maleated polypropylene composites and palm kernel shell/nanosilica-filled maleated polypropylene hybrid composites were produced using a Brabender Internal Mixer. The results showed that the...

Manipulating structure, defects and composition of a material at the atomic scale for enhancing its physical or mechanical properties is referred to as nanostructuring. Here, by combining advanced microscopy techniques, we unveil how formation of highly regular nano-arrays of nanoparticles doubles the strength of an Fe-based alloy, doped with Ti, Mo, and V, from 500 MPa to 1 GPa, upon prolonged...