Wildfire prevention operations like forest thinning and forest fuel removal result in large volumes of woody biomass available for utilization. In 2007 alone, the US federal government spent nearly $2 billion to fight forest fires on federal lands. Annually, the USDA Forest Service spends $1 billion to thin young trees...
In wood-based composites, the glue-line (interface) between wood-strands affects the stress transfer from one member to the next. The glue-line properties determine the rate of load transfer between phases and these properties depend on wood species, surface preparation, glue properties, glue penetration into wood cells, and moisture content of the...
A steady state, axial flow thermal conductivity test apparatus was designed and constructed to operate between room temperature and approximately 4 Kelvin, and to be compatible with existing electronic instrumentation and a continuous flow cryostat. The test design included a radiation shield that had its temperature profile matched to that...
One method of fabricating intermetallic nickel-aluminum MECS devices involves diffusion bonding together pre-patterned elemental foils of nickel and aluminum. This process shows good potential for the mass-production of NiAl devices, but several quality issues remain. Of large concern is the deformation of internal features during the bonding process. This research...
The metallurgy and superconductivity of the Nb-Ti-Ta ternary alloy system were studied. The Nb-Ti, and Ta-Ti binary samples, and Nb-Ti-Ta ternary samples were precipitation heat treated under different schedules. After the precipitating heat treatment, the samples were characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) techniques. Equilibrium binary and ternary phase diagrams based...
Recent superconducting thin films studies have attempted to create pure metal layer films of Niobium and Titanium with the same properties of superconducting NbTi wire used in industry. These studies have all reported depression of the superconducting properties of the pure metal films which has been attributed to the proximity...
It is well established that the extended range V(I) transition behavior in
filamentary superconducting composites depends strongly on the processing
conditions of the composite. Based on previous work, a model proposed by
Warnes et al predicts that the second derivative of the V(I) transition is related to
a more fundamental...
Mechanical behavior of Nb-Ti superconducting composites with copper matrices have
been studied experimentally and theoretically.
Experimental work includes extensive measurements of Cu/Nb-Ti composite system.
Techniques for fine fiber testing and composite wire measurement have been developed.
Experimental parameters examined in this research include geometry, hardness, Young's
modulus, Poisson's ratio, yield...