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Now showing 1 - 10 of 4166
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    A molecular dynamics view of hysteresis and functional fatigue in martensitic transformations
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2010) Kastner, Oliver; Ackland, Graeme J.; Eggeler, Gunther; Weiss, Wolf
    Shape memory alloys (SMA) exhibit a number of features which are not easily explained by equilibrium thermodynamics, including hysteresis in the phase transformation and ?reverse? shape memory in the high symmetry phase. Processing can change these features: repeated cycling can ?train? the reverse shape memory effect, while changing the amount of hysteresis and other functional properties. These effects are likely to be due to creation of persistent localised defects, which are impossible to study using non-atomistic methods. Here we present a molecular dynamics simulation study of this behaviour. To ensure the largest possible system size, we use a two dimensional binary Lennard-Jones model, which represents a reliable qualitative model system for martensite/austenite transformations. The evolution of the defect structure and its excess energy is investigated in simulations of cyclic transformation/ reverse transformation processes with 160,000 atoms. The simulations show that the transformation proceeds by non-diffusive nucleation and growth processes and produces distinct microstructure. Upon transformation, lattice defects are generated which affect subsequent transformations and vary the potential energy landscape of the sample. Some of the defects persist through the transformation, providing nucleation centres for subsequent cycles. Such defects may provide a memory of previous structures, and thereby may be the basis of a reversible shape memory effect.
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    Fast scatterometric measurement of periodic surface structures plasma-etching processes
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2018) Klesse, Wolfgang Matthias; Rathsfeld, Andreas; Groß, Claudine; Malguth, Enno; Skibitzki, Oliver; Zealouk, Lahbib
    To satisfy the continuous demand of ever smaller feature sizes, plasma etching technologies in microelectronics processing enable the fabrication of device structures with dimensions in the nanometer range. In a typical plasma etching system a plasma phase of a selected etching gas is activated, thereby generating highly energetic and reactive gas species which ultimately etch the substrate surface. Such dry etching processes are highly complex and require careful adjustment of many process parameters to meet the high technology requirements on the structure geometry. In this context, real-time access of the structures dimensions during the actual plasma process would be of great benefit by providing full dimension control and film integrity in real-time. In this paper, we evaluate the feasibility of reconstructing the etched dimensions with nanometer precision from reflectivity spectra of the etched surface, which are measured in real-time throughout the entire etch process. We develop and test a novel and fast reconstruction algorithm, using experimental reflection spectra taken about every second during the etch process of a periodic 2D model structure etched into a silicon substrate. Unfortunately, the numerical simulation of the reflectivity by Maxwell solvers is time consuming since it requires separate time-harmonic computations for each wavelength of the spectrum. To reduce the computing time, we propose that a library of spectra should be generated before the etching process. Each spectrum should correspond to a vector of geometry parameters s.t. the vector components scan the possible range of parameter values for the geometrical dimensions. We demonstrate that by replacing the numerically simulated spectra in the reconstruction algorithm by spectra interpolated from the library, it is possible to compute the geometry parameters in times less than a second. Finally, to also reduce memory size and computing time for the library, we reduce the scanning of the parameter values to a sparse grid.
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    Hölder-estimates for non-autonomous parabolic problems with rough data
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2015) Meinlschmidt, Hannes; Rehberg, Joachim
    In this paper we establish Hölder estimates for solutions to non-autonomous parabolic equations on non-smooth domains which are complemented with mixed boundary conditions. The corresponding elliptic operators are of divergence type, the coefficient matrix of which depends only measurably on time. These results are in the tradition of the classical book of Ladyshenskaya et al., which also serves as the starting point for our investigations.
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    Modelling the role of fires in the terrestrial carbon balance by incorporating SPITFIRE into the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE - Part 1: Simulating historical global burned area and fire regimes
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2014) Yue, C.; Ciais, P.; Cadule, P.; Thonicke, K.; Archibald, S.; Poulter, B.; Hao, W.M.; Hantson, S.; Mouillot, F.; Friedlingstein, P.; Maignan, F.; Viovy, N.
    Fire is an important global ecological process that influences the distribution of biomes, with consequences for carbon, water, and energy budgets. Therefore it is impossible to appropriately model the history and future of the terrestrial ecosystems and the climate system without including fire. This study incorporates the process-based prognostic fire module SPITFIRE into the global vegetation model ORCHIDEE, which was then used to simulate burned area over the 20th century. Special attention was paid to the evaluation of other fire regime indicators such as seasonality, fire size and fire length, next to burned area. For 2001–2006, the simulated global spatial extent of fire agrees well with that given by satellite-derived burned area data sets (L3JRC, GLOBCARBON, GFED3.1), and 76–92% of the global burned area is simulated as collocated between the model and observation, depending on which data set is used for comparison. The simulated global mean annual burned area is 346 Mha yr−1, which falls within the range of 287–384 Mha yr−1 as given by the three observation data sets; and is close to the 344 Mha yr−1 by the GFED3.1 data when crop fires are excluded. The simulated long-term trend and variation of burned area agree best with the observation data in regions where fire is mainly driven by climate variation, such as boreal Russia (1930–2009), along with Canada and US Alaska (1950–2009). At the global scale, the simulated decadal fire variation over the 20th century is only in moderate agreement with the historical reconstruction, possibly because of the uncertainties of past estimates, and because land-use change fires and fire suppression are not explicitly included in the model. Over the globe, the size of large fires (the 95th quantile fire size) is underestimated by the model for the regions of high fire frequency, compared with fire patch data as reconstructed from MODIS 500 m burned area data. Two case studies of fire size distribution in Canada and US Alaska, and southern Africa indicate that both number and size of large fires are underestimated, which could be related with short fire patch length and low daily fire size. Future efforts should be directed towards building consistent spatial observation data sets for key parameters of the model in order to constrain the model error at each key step of the fire modelling.
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    Complex refractive indices of Saharan dust samples at visible and near UV wavelengths: A laboratory study
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2012) Wagner, R.; Ajtai, T.; Kandler, K.; Lieke, K.; Linke, C.; Müller, T.; Schnaiter, M.; Vragel, M.
    We have retrieved the wavelength-dependent imaginary parts of the complex refractive index for five different Saharan dust aerosol particles of variable mineralogical composition at wavelengths between 305 and 955 nm. The dust particles were generated by dispersing soil samples into a laboratory aerosol chamber, typically yielding particle sizes with mean diameters ranging from 0.3 to 0.4 μm and maximum diameters from 2 to 4 μm. The extinction and absorption coefficients as well as the number size distribution of the dust particles were simultaneously measured by various established techniques. An inversion scheme based on a spheroidal dust model was employed to deduce the refractive indices. The retrieved imaginary parts of the complex refractive index were in the range from 0.003 to 0.005, 0.005 to 0.011, and 0.016 to 0.050 at the wavelengths 955, 505, and 305 nm. The hematite content of the dust particles was determined by electron-microscopical single particle analysis. Hematite volume fractions in the range from 1.1 to 2.7% were found for the different dusts, a range typical for atmospheric mineral dust. We have performed a sensitivity study to assess how accurately the retrieved imaginary refractive indices could be reproduced by calculations with mixing rule approximations using the experimentally determined hematite contents as input.
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    Biogas crops grown in energy crop rotations: Linking chemical composition and methane production characteristics
    (Amsterdam : Elsevier, 2016) Herrmann, Christiane; Idler, Christine; Heiermann, Monika
    Methane production characteristics and chemical composition of 405 silages from 43 different crop species were examined using uniform laboratory methods, with the aim to characterise a wide range of crop feedstocks from energy crop rotations and to identify main parameters that influence biomass quality for biogas production. Methane formation was analysed from chopped and over 90 days ensiled crop biomass in batch anaerobic digestion tests without further pre-treatment. Lignin content of crop biomass was found to be the most significant explanatory variable for specific methane yields while the methane content and methane production rates were mainly affected by the content of nitrogen-free extracts and neutral detergent fibre, respectively. The accumulation of butyric acid and alcohols during the ensiling process had significant impact on specific methane yields and methane contents of crop silages. It is proposed that products of silage fermentation should be considered when evaluating crop silages for biogas production.
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    Persistence of orographic mixed-phase clouds
    (Hoboken, NJ : Wiley, 2016) Lohmann, U.; Henneberger, J.; Henneberg, O.; Fugal, J.P.; Bühl, J.; Kanji, Z.A.
    Mixed-phase clouds (MPCs) consist of ice crystals and supercooled water droplets at temperatures between 0 and approximately −38°C. They are thermodynamically unstable because the saturation vapor pressure over ice is lower than that over supercooled liquid water. Nevertheless, long-lived MPCs are ubiquitous in the Arctic. Here we show that persistent MPCs are also frequently found in orographic terrain, especially in the Swiss Alps, when the updraft velocities are high enough to exceed saturation with respect to liquid water allowing simultaneous growth of supercooled liquid droplets and ice crystals. Their existence is characterized by holographic measurements of cloud particles obtained at the high-altitude research station Jungfraujoch during spring 2012 and winter 2013 and simulations with the regional climate model COSMO (Consortium of Small-Scale Modeling).
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    Two-scale homogenization of nonlinear reaction-diffusion systems with slow diffusion
    (Berlin : Weierstraß-Institut für Angewandte Analysis und Stochastik, 2013) Mielke, Alexander; Reichelt, Sina; Thomas, Marita
    We derive a two-scale homogenization limit for reaction-diffusion systems where for some species the diffusion length is of order 1 whereas for the other species the diffusion length is of the order of the periodic microstructure. Thus, in the limit the latter species will display diffusion only on the microscale but not on the macroscale. Because of this missing compactness, the nonlinear coupling through the reaction terms cannot be homogenized but needs to be treated on the two-scale level. In particular, we have to develop new error estimates to derive strong convergence results for passing to the limit.
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    Micro-/nanostructured alumina as model surface to study topography effects on cell-surface interactions
    (Saarbrücke : Leibniz-Institut für Neue Materialien, 2011) Aktas, Cenk; Martinez Miró, Martina; Lee, Juseok; Brück, Stefan; Veith, Michael
    [no abstract available]
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    Optical properties of long-range transported Saharan dust over Barbados as measured by dual-wavelength depolarization Raman lidar measurements
    (München : European Geopyhsical Union, 2015) Groß, S.; Freudenthaler, V.; Schepanski, K.; Toledano, C.; Schäfler, A.; Ansmann, A.; Weinzierl, B.
    Dual-wavelength Raman and depolarization lidar observations were performed during the Saharan Aerosol Long-range Transport and Aerosol-Cloud interaction Experiment in Barbados in June and July 2013 to characterize the optical properties and vertical distribution of long-range transported Saharan dust after transport across the Atlantic Ocean. Four major dust events were studied during the measurements from 15 June to 13 July 2013 with aerosol optical depths at 532 nm of up to 0.6. The vertical aerosol distribution was characterized by a three-layer structure consisting of the boundary layer, the entrainment or mixing layer and the pure Saharan dust layer. The upper boundary of the pure dust layer reached up to 4.5 km in height. The contribution of the pure dust layer was about half of the total aerosol optical depth at 532 nm. The total dust contribution was about 50–70 % of the total aerosol optical depth at 532 nm. The lidar ratio within the pure dust layer was found to be wavelength independent with mean values of 53 ± 5 sr at 355 nm and 56 ± 7 sr at 532 nm. For the particle linear depolarization ratio, wavelength-independent mean values of 0.26 ± 0.03 at 355 nm and 0.27 ± 0.01 at 532 nm have been found.