• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.243-251
• /
• 1999

Granitic rock, by its nature, contains numerous micro-discontinuities including grain boundary, microcracks, microcavities and mineral cleavages. The brittle fracture of rock is a progressive procedure in which the failure occurs with prior microcracking. In this paper, initiation, propagation and interaction of microcracks are considered to be the dominant, controlling micromechanisms of macroscopic failure. The authors show a few patterns of microcrack initiation and propagation by using sequential photographs of water-saturated granite taken under triaxial compressive state. The failure process was observed directly and continuously by a newly developed triaxial compressive test system.

• Progress in Superconductivity and Cryogenics
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.7-12
• /
• 2020

Electromechanical properties of REBCO CC tapes are known to be limited by defects (cracks) that form in the brittle REBCO layer. These defects could be inherently acquired during the CC tapes' manufacturing process, such as slitting, and which can be initiated at the CC tapes' edges. If propagated and long enough, they are believed to cause critical current degradation and can substantially decrease the delamination strength of CC tapes. Currently, commercially available CC tapes from various manufacturers utilize different growth techniques for depositing the REBCO layers on the substrates in their CC tapes preparation. Their epitaxial techniques, unfortunately, cannot perfectly avoid the formation of particles, in which sometimes acts as current blocking defects, known as outgrowths. Collective research regarding the composition, size, and formation of these particles for various CC tapes with different deposition techniques are particularly uncommon in a single study. Most importantly, these particles might interact in one way or another to the existing cracks. Therefore, systematic investigation on the interactions between the cracks' development mechanism and particles on the REBCO superconducting layers of practical CC tapes are of great importance, especially in the design of superconducting devices. Here, a proper etching process was employed for the CC tapes to expose and observe the REBCO layers, clearly. The scanning electron microscope, field emission scanning microscope, and energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy were utilized to observe the interactions between cracks and particles in various practical CC tapes. Particle compositions were identified whether as non-superconducting or superconducting and in what manner it interacts with the cracks were studied.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.1-12
• /
• 2011

Scientists and engineers have altered the properties of materials such as metals, alloys, polymers, ceramics, and so on, to suit the ever changing needs of our society. Man-made engineering materials generally demonstrate excellent mechanical properties, which often tar exceed those of natural materials. However, all such engineering materials lack the ability of self-healing, i.e. the ability to remove or neutralize microcracks without intentional human interaction. The damage management paradigm observed in nature can be reproduced successfully in man-made engineering materials, provided the intrinsic character of the various types of engineering materials is taken into account. Various self-healing ptotocols that can be applied for the organic materials such as polymers, ionomers and composites can be developed by utilizing suitable chemical reactions and physical intermolecular interactions.