In designing microstructural materials systems, one of the key research questions is how to represent the microstructural design space quantitatively using a descriptor set that is sufficient yet small enough to be tractable. Existing approaches describe complex microstructures either using a small set of descriptors that lack sufficient level of details, or using generic high order microstruct...

CONTEXT Genetic factors account for 60-80% of the areal bone mineral density (aBMD) variance, whereas the heritability of bone microstructure is not clearly established. aBMD and microstructure are under the control of osteocytes, which regulate bone formation through the expression of molecules such as sclerostin (SOST) and periostin (POSTN). OBJECTIVE We hypothesized that additive genetic e...

White matter deterioration in the aging human brain contributes to cognitive decline. The fornix as main efferent hippocampal pathway is one of the tracts most strongly associated with age-related memory impairment. Its deterioration may predict conversion to Alzheimer's dementia and its precursors. However, the associations between the ability to form novel memories, fornix microstructure and ...

modern vehicle bodies make intensive use of high strength steel grades to meet the contradicting demand of lighter weight and simultaneously better mechanical performance. for many steel grades microalloying by niobium is the key to achieve their characteristic property profile. in hsla steels niobium enhances the strength primarily by grain refinement. in interstitial free high strength steels...

A quantitative comparison of real and computer-generated (model) cement paste microstructures based on the analysis of threedimensional image sets is presented. In addition to a visual presentation of extracted two-dimensional images, the comparison is based on the calculation of the normalized two-point correlation function for a variety of phases including unhydrated cement, hydration product...

Diamond coating of suitable template materials and subsequent delamination allows for the manufacturing of free-standing diamond foil. The evolution of the microstructure can be influenced by secondary nucleation via control of process conditions in the hot-filament chemical vapour deposition process. Bending tests show extraordinarily high strength (more than 8 GPa), especially for diamond foi...

A finite element approximation is proposed for the dynamic analysis of two-dimensional (2D) lattice materials. The unit cell is modeled by means of a defined number of shear deformable micro-beams. The main innovative feature concerns the presence of a microstructure-dependent scale length, which allows the consideration of the so called size-effect that can be highly relevant, due to the chara...

Newly developed 3-D tomographic techniques permit acquisition of quantitative materials data for input to structure-property models. At the mesoscale, techniques that enable sampling of larger material volumes provide information such as grain size and morphology, 3-D interfacial character, and chemical gradients. However, systematic approaches for determining the characteristic material volume...

Plant leaves are studied by the analysis of the magnitude and phase spectra of their thickness mechanical resonances. These resonances appear at ultrasonic frequencies and have been excited and sensed using air-coupled ultrasounds. In spite of the complex leaf microstructure, the effective medium approach can be applied to solve the inverse problem, at least in the vicinity of the first thickne...

A new method is introduced for characterizing and analyzing materials with random heterogeneous microstructure. The method begins with classifiers which process information from high-fidelity analyses of small-sized simulated microstructures. These classifiers are subsequently used in a multipass moving window to identify subregions of potentially critical microscale behavior such as strain con...