This book deals with colloidal systems in technical processes and the influence of colloidal systems by technical processes. It explores how new measurement capabilities can offer the potential for a dynamic development of scientific and engineering, and examines the origin of colloidal systems and its use for new products. The future challenges to colloidal process engineering are the development of appropriate equipment and processes for the production and obtainment of multi-phase structures and energetic interactions in market-relevant quantities. The book explores the relevant processes and for controlled production and how they can be used across all scales.

Atom probe microscopy enables the characterization of materials structure and chemistry in three dimensions with near-atomic resolution. This uniquely powerful technique has been subject to major instrumental advances over the last decade with the development of wide-field-of-view detectors and pulsed-laser-assisted evaporation that have significantly enhanced the instrument's capabilities. The field is flourishing, and atom probe microscopy is being embraced as a mainstream characterization technique. This book covers all facets of atom probe microscopy-including field ion microscopy, field desorption microscopy and a strong emphasis on atom probe tomography. Atom Probe Microscopy is aimed at researchers of all experience levels. It will provide the beginner with the theoretical background and practical information necessary to investigate how materials work using atom probe microscopy techniques. This includes detailed explanations of the fundamentals and the instrumentation, contemporary specimen preparation techniques, experimental details, and an overview of the results that can be obtained. The book emphasizes processes for assessing data quality, and the proper implementation of advanced data mining algorithms. Those more experienced in the technique will benefit from the book as a single comprehensive source of indispensable reference information, tables and techniques. Both beginner and expert will value the way that Atom Probe Microscopy is set out in the context of materials science and engineering, and includes references to key recent research outcomes.

Prominent scientists present the latest achievements in computational methods and mechanics in this book. These lectures were held at the CMM 2009 conference.

Nanocharacterization by Atom Probe Tomography is a practical guide for researchers interested atomic level characterization of materials with atom probe tomography. Readers will find descriptions of the atom probe instrument and atom probe tomography technique, field ionization, field evaporation and field ion microscopy. The fundamental underlying physics principles are examined, in addition to data reconstruction and visualization, statistical data analysis methods and specimen preparation by electropolishing and FIB-based techniques. A full description of the local electrode atom probe - a new state-of-the-art instrument - is also provided, along with detailed descriptions and limitations of laser pulsing as a method to field evaporate atoms. Valuable coverage of the new ionization theory is also included, which underpins the overall technique.

This book discusses various aspects of percolation mechanics. It starts with the driving forces and driving modes and then examines in detail the steady state percolation of single-phase incompressible fluids, percolation law of natural gas and percolation of non-Newtonian fluids. Progressing from simple to complex concepts, it also analyzes Darcy's law, providing a basis for the study of reservoir engineering, oil recovery engineering and reservoir numerical simulation. It serves as a textbook for undergraduate students majoring in petroleum engineering, petroleum geology and groundwater engineering, and offers a valuable reference guide for graduate students, researchers and technical engineers engaged in oil and gas exploration and development.

This volume focuses on research and practical issues connected with mortars on historic structures. The book is divided into four sections: Characterisation of Historic Mortars, Repair Mortars and Design Issues, Experimental Research into Properties of Repair Mortars, and Assessment and Testing. The papers present the latest work of researchers in their field. The individual contributions were selected from the contributions to the 2nd Historic Mortars Conference, which took place in Prague, September, 22-24, 2010. All papers were reviewed and improved as necessary before publication. This peer review process by the editors resulted in the 34 individual contributions included in here. One extra paper reviewing and summarising State-of-the-Art knowledge covered by this publication was added as a starting and navigational point for the reader. The editors believe that having these papers in print is important and they hope that it will stimulate further research into historic mortars and related subjects.

This book is the first, single-source guide to successful experiments using the local electrode atom probe (LEAP (R)) microscope. Coverage is both comprehensive and user friendly, including the fundamentals of preparing specimens for the microscope from a variety of materials, the details of the instrumentation used in data collection, the parameters under which optimal data are collected, the current methods of data reconstruction, and selected methods of data analysis. Tricks of the trade are described that are often learned only through trial and error, allowing users to succeed much more quickly in the challenging areas of specimen preparation and data collection. A closing chapter on applications presents selected, state-of-the-art results using the LEAP microscope.

Narrow gap semiconductors obey the general rules of semiconductor science, but often exhibit extreme features of these rules because of the same properties that produce their narrow gaps. Consequently these materials provide sensitive tests of theory, and the opportunity for the design of innovative devices. Narrow gap semiconductors are the most important materials for the preparation of advanced modern infrared systems. Device Physics of Narrow Gap Semiconductors, a forthcoming second book, offers descriptions of the materials science and device physics of these unique materials. Topics covered include impurities and defects, recombination mechanisms, surface and interface properties, and the properties of low dimensional systems for infrared applications. This book will help readers to understand not only semiconductor physics and materials science, but also how they relate to advanced opto-electronic devices. The final chapter describes the device physics of photoconductive detectors, photovoltaic infrared detectors, super lattices and quantum wells, infrared lasers, and single photon infrared detectors.

This collection presents papers on the science, engineering, and technology of shape castings, with contributions from researchers worldwide. Among the topics that are addressed are structure-property-performance relationships, modeling of casting processes, and the effect of casting defects on the mechanical properties of cast alloys.

Constrained Coding and Soft Iterative Decoding is the first work to combine the issues of constrained coding and soft iterative decoding (e.g., turbo and LDPC codes) from a unified point of view. Since constrained coding is widely used in magnetic and optical storage, it is necessary to use some special techniques (modified concatenation scheme or bit insertion) in order to apply soft iterative decoding. Recent breakthroughs in the design and decoding of error-control codes (ECCs) show significant potential for improving the performance of many communications systems. ECCs such as turbo codes and low-density parity check (LDPC) codes can be represented by graphs and decoded by passing probabilistic (a.k.a. soft') messages along the edges of the graph. This message-passing algorithm yields powerful decoders whose performance can approach the theoretical limits on capacity. This exposition uses normal graphs, ' introduced by Forney, which extend in a natural manner to block diagram representations of the system and provide a simple unified framework for the decoding of ECCs, constrained codes, and channels with memory. Soft iterative decoding is illustrated by the application of turbo codes and LDPC codes to magnetic recording channels. For magnetic and optical storage, an issue arises in the use of constrained coding, which places restrictions on the sequences that can be transmitted through the channel; the use of constrained coding in combination with soft ECC decoders is addressed by the modified concatenation scheme also known as reverse concatenation.' Moreover, a soft constraint decoder yields additional coding gain from the redundancy in the constraint, which may be of practical interest in the case of optical storage. In addition, this monograph presents several other research results (including the design of sliding-block lossless compression codes, and the decoding of array codes as LDPC codes). Constrained Coding and Soft Iterative Decoding will prove useful to students, researchers and professional engineers who are interested in understanding this new soft iterative decoding paradigm and applying it in communications and storage systems.

The ELFNET Book on Failure Mechanisms, Testing Methods, and Quality Issues of Lead-Free Solder Interconnects is the work of the European network ELFNET which was founded by the European Commission in the 6th Framework Programme. It brings together contributions from the leading European experts in lead-free soldering. The limited validity of testing methods originating from tin-lead solder was a major point of concern in ELFNET members' discussions. As a result, the network's reliability group decided to bring together the material properties of lead-free solders, as well as the basics of material science, and to discuss their influence on the procedures for accelerated testing. This has led to a matrix of failure mechanisms and their activation and, as a result, to a comprehensive coverage of the scientific background and its applications in reliability testing of lead-free solder joints. The ELFNET Book on Failure Mechanisms, Testing Methods, and Quality Issues of Lead-Free Solder Interconnects is written for scientists, engineers and researchers involved with lead-free electronics.

For emerging energy saving technologies superconducting materials with superior performance are needed. Such materials can be developed by manipulating the "elementary building blocks" through nanostructuring. For superconductivity the "elementary blocks" are Cooper pair and fluxon (vortex). This book presents new ways how to modify superconductivity and vortex matter through nanostructuring and the use of nanoscale magnetic templates. The basic nano-effects, vortex and vortex-antivortex patterns, vortex dynamics, Josephson phenomena, critical currents, and interplay between superconductivity and ferromagnetism at the nanoscale are discussed. Potential applications of nanostructured superconductors are also presented in the book.

Mechanical Properties of Single Molecules and Polymer Aggregates Rudiger Berger, Kurt Binder, Gregor Diezemann, Jurgen Gauss, Mark Helm, Katharina Landfester, Wolfgang Paul (Halle), Peter Virnau. Optical Properties of Individual Molecular Aggregates and Nano Particles Thomas Basche, Hans-Jurgen Butt, Gregor Diezemann, Jurgen Gauss, Klaus Mullen, Harald Paulsen, Carsten Sonnichsen, Rudolf Zentel. Structure Formation of Polymeric Building Blocks I: Self-assembly of Copolymers Kurt Binder, Holger Frey, Andreas Kilbinger (Univ. Fribourg), Ute Kolb, Michael Maskos (IMM Mainz), Wolfgang Paul (Univ. Halle), Hans Wolfgang Spiess. Structure Formation of Polymeric Building Blocks II: Complex Polymer Architectures Kurt Binder, Hans Jurgen Butt, Angelika Kuhnle, Klaus Mullen, Wolfgang Paul (Univ. Halle), Erwin Schmidt, Manfred Schmidt, Hans Wolfgang Spiess, Thomas Vilgis. Structure Formation of Polymeric Building Blocks III: Polymer Complexes in Biological Applications Kurt Kremer, Heiko Luhmann, Christine Peter, Friederike Schmid, Erwin Schmidt, Manfred Schmidt, Eva Sinner (Univ. of Natural Resources, Vienna), Tanja Weil (Univ. Ulm)."

This monograph presents an integrated perspective of the wide range of phenomena and processes applicable to the study of transport of species in porous materials. In order to formulate the entire range of porous media and their uses, this book gives the basics of continuum mechanics, thermodynamics, seepage and consolidation and diffusion, including multiscale homogenization methods. The particular structure of the book has been chosen because it is essential to be aware of the true properties of porous materials particularly in terms of nano, micro and macro mechanisms. This book is of pedagogical and practical importance to the fields covered by civil, environmental, nuclear and petroleum engineering and also in chemical physics and geophysics as it relates to radioactive waste disposal, geotechnical engineering, mining and petroleum engineering and chemical engineering.

The purpose of 'Numerical Analysis of Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media' is to provide a collection of recent contributions in the field of computational heat and mass transfer in porous media. The main benefit of the book is that it discusses the majority of the topics related to numerical transport phenomenon in engineering (including state-of-the-art and applications) and presents some of the most important theoretical and computational developments in porous media and transport phenomenon domain, providing a self-contained major reference that is appealing to both the scientists, researchers and the engineers. At the same time, these topics encounter of a variety of scientific and engineering disciplines, such as chemical, civil, agricultural, mechanical engineering, etc. The book is divided in several chapters that intend to be a resume of the current state of knowledge for benefit of professional colleagues.

This book presents a set of basic understandings of the behavior and response of solids to propagating shock waves. The propagation of shock waves in a solid body is accompanied by large compressions, decompression, and shear. Thus, the shear strength of solids and any inelastic response due to shock wave propagation is of the utmost importance. Furthermore, shock compres sion of solids is always accompanied by heating, and the rise of local tempera ture which may be due to both compression and dissipation. For many solids, under a certain range of impact pressures, a two-wave structure arises such that the first wave, called the elastic prescursor, travels with the speed of sound; and the second wave, called a plastic shock wave, travels at a slower speed. Shock-wave loading of solids is normally accomplished by either projectile impact, such as produced by guns or by explosives. The shock heating and compression of solids covers a wide range of temperatures and densities. For example, the temperature may be as high as a few electron volts (1 eV = 11,500 K) for very strong shocks and the densification may be as high as four times the normal density."

In this book, leading scientists share their vision on the Kolsky-Hopkinson bar technique, which is a well-established experimental technique widely used to characterize materials and structures under dynamic, impact and explosion loads. Indeed, the Kolsky-Hopkinson bar machine is not a simple experimental device. It is rather a philosophical approach to solve the problem of measuring impact events. The split Hopkinson pressure bar conventional device is mainly limited to test homogeneous ductile non-soft materials under uni-axial compression. Extending the use of this device to more versatile applications faces several challenges such as controlling the stress state within the specimen and mastering the measurement of forces and velocities at the specimen-bar interfaces and then the material properties. Thus, the topics discussed in this book mainly focused on the loading and processing parts.

Proceedings of the International Conferences LEAP'11 (Low Energy Antiproton Physics) held from April 27th to May, 1st 2011 in Vancouver, Canada and hosted by TRIUMF, Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics. Now the research in exotic atoms has a remarkable history of more than 50 years. Enormous success in the understanding of fundamental interactions and symmetries resulted from the research on these tiny objects at the femtoscale. This volume contains research papers on recent achievements and future opportunities of this highly interdisciplinary field of atomic, nuclear, and particle physics. The Proceedings are structured according to the conference session topics. It is directed to researchers in the field and advanced students.

Integrating both theoretical and applied aspects of electrochemistry, this acclaimed monograph series presents a review of the latest advances in the field. The current volume covers ion and electron transfer across monolayers of organic surfactants, determination of current distributions governed by Laplace's equation, and three other subjects.

This volume will define the direction of eddy-current technology in nondestructive evaluation (NDE) in the twenty-first century. It describes the natural marriage of the computer to eddy-current NDE, and its publication was encouraged by favorable responses from workers in the nuclear-power and aerospace industries. It will be used by advanced students and practitioners in the fields of computational electromagnetics, electromagnetic inverse-scattering theory, nondestructive evaluation, materials evaluation and biomedical imaging, among others, and will be based on our experience in applying the subject of computational electromagnetics to these areas, as manifested by our recent research and publications. Finally, it will be a reference to future monographs on advanced NDE that are being contemplated by our colleagues and others. Its importance lies in the fact that it will be the first book to show that advanced computational methods can be used to solve practical, but difficult, problems in eddy-current NDE. In fact, in many cases these methods are the only things available for solving the problems. The book will cover the topic of computational electromagnetics in eddy-current nondestructive evaluation (NDE) by emphasizing three distinct topics: (a) fundamental mathematical principles of volume-integral equations as a subset of computational electromagnetics, (b) mathematical algorithms applied to signal-processing and inverse scattering problems, and (c) applications of these two topics to problems in which real and model data are used. This will make the book more than an academic exercise; we expect it to be valuable to users of eddy-current NDE technology in industries as varied as nuclear power, aerospace, materials characterization and biomedical imaging. We know of no other book on the market that covers this material in the manner in which we will present it, nor are there any books, to our knowledge, that apply this material to actual test situations that are of importance to the industries cited. It will be the first book to actually define the modern technology of eddy-current NDE, by showing how mathematics and the computer will solve problems more effectively than current analog practice.

As the focus in materials science shifts towards designing materials at the sub-micron scale - the "nanotechnology" revolution - it becomes increasingly important to characterize the mechanical properties of thin films and small volumes of material. The development of of nanoscale probes and ultrasensitive transducers for force and depth has made such measurements possible. "Nanoindentation" testing is becoming increasingly used in a wide variety of research and manufacturing areas, ranging from the testing of silicon wafers in the electronics industry to the characterization of hard coatings and other surface treatments for cutting tools, dental restoratives and other biomedical implants, and optical components.This book presents a comprehensive and detailed overview of the field of nanoindentation. The underlying theory behind the extraction of elastic modulus, hardness and other properties from the load-displacement data is discussed along with the various systematic and materials-related corrections involved. Also covered are the various methods of testing, details of an international standard for depth-sensing indentation testing, the significance of surface forces and adhesion details of commercially available instruments, and sample applications of the technique. Self-contained, the treatment is aimed at those entering the field, but by bringing together material scattered widely throughout the research literature the book will also be a useful reference for the more experienced researcher.

This book details the application of advanced characterisation techniques and diagnostic tools to heritage science, including the evaluation of heritage assets' condition, their preservation and restoration. It examines the use of electrochemical techniques in conservation science, with a particular focus on how to solve problems in taking on-site measurements. Specifically, it introduces readers to a new gel polymer (GPE) electrochemical cell developed by the authors for the characterisation of metallic heritage objects. Other techniques used to characterise and monitor reinforced concrete objects in more modern buildings are also covered, including non-destructive electrochemical techniques that allow steel corrosion to be assessed in these structures, and in those that are used to protect and repair such buildings. The usefulness of the NMR-Mouse nuclear magnetic resonance sensor in the assessment and preservation of softer heritage materials, such as wood, parchment, bone, and painted walls, is covered, as well as Infrared reflectography for examining paintings and laser cleaning for restoring them. The book introduces ultra-High Performance Liquid Chromatography (u-HPLC) with a diode-array (DAD) and mass-mass (MS-MS) quadruple time-of-flight spectroscopy (QTOF). This new technique can be applied to the analysis and identification of natural and synthetic organic pigments and its use is demonstrated in several case studies. This book provides a rigorous scientific grounding in the application of state-of-the-art techniques in heritage science and conservation, and offers a practical handbook for practitioners.

David I.A. Millar's thesis explores the effects of extreme conditions on energetic materials. His study identifies and structurally characterises new polymorphs obtained at high pressures and/or temperatures. The performance of energetic materials (pyrotechnics, propellants and explosives) can depend on a number of factors including sensitivity to detonation, detonation velocity, and chemical and thermal stability. Polymorphism and solid-state phase transitions may therefore have significant consequences for the performance and safety of energetic materials. In order to model the behaviour of these important materials effectively under operational conditions it is essential to obtain detailed structural information at a range of temperatures and pressures.

Topics on CO2 sequestration and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from process engineering and materials for clean energy are covered. Papers addressing sustainable technologies in extractive metallurgy, materials processing and manufacturing industries with reduced energy consumption and CO2 emission are also included, as well as industrial energy efficient technologies including innovative ore beneficiation, smelting technologies, recycling and waste heat recovery. The book also carries contributions from all areas of non-nuclear and non-traditional energy sources, including renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, biomass, etc. The book also emphasizes novel mineral beneficiation, processing, and extraction techniques leading to waste minimization of critical rare-earth materials used in energy systems (e.g., magnets, display and lighting devices).

This book provides a State of the Art Report (STAR) produced by RILEM Technical Committee 254-CMS 'Thermal Cracking of Mas-sive Concrete Structures'. Several recent developments related to the old problem of understanding/predicting stresses originated from the evolution of the hydration of concrete are at the origin of the creation this technical committee. Having identified a lack in the organization of up-to-date scientific and technological knowledge about cracking induced by hydration heat effects, this STAR aims to provide both practitioners and scientists with a deep integrated overview of consolidated knowledge, together with recent developments on this subject.