We have taken advantage of the native surface roughness and the iron content of AISI-316 stainless steel to grow multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) by chemical vapour deposition without the addition of an external catalyst. The structural and electronic properties of the synthesized carbon nanostructures have been investigated by a range of electron microscopy and spectroscopy techniques. Th...

Semi-static dissolution tests using pressurized water reactor spent fuel rod segments and NNWSI reference J-13 well water 1n sealed stainless steel vessels at 85*C are being conducted In support of the Waste Package Task of the NNWSI Project. Test specimens include: bare fuel plus the empty cladding hulls, fuel rod segments with artificially induced cladding defects and water-tight end caps, an...

Radial n-i-p structure silicon nanowire (SiNW)-based microcrystalline silicon thin-film solar cells on stainless steel foil was fabricated by plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition. The SiNW solar cell displays very low optical reflectance (approximately 15% on average) over a broad range of wavelengths (400 to 1,100 nm). The initial SiNW-based microcrystalline (μc-Si:H) thin-film solar cell...

Surface quality of the steel slabs in a Continuous Casting (C.C.) process is mainly determined by the stability of the Mold Level Control (MLC). Excessive mold level fluctuations lead to an additional machine scarfing process which is applied to the slabs to avoid surface defects. A conventional Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller is not robust enough to deal with the disturbances...

An increasing number of industrial applications need superstrength steels. It is known that refined grains and nanoscale precipitates can increase strength. The hardest martensitic steel reported to date is C0.8 steel, whose nanohardness can reach 11.9 GPa through incremental interstitial solid solution strengthening. Here we report a nanograined (NG) steel dispersed with nanoscale precipitates...

Several techniques for fabrication of nanochannels on both glass and silicon substrates have been investigated. The techniques investigated here include glass to glass anodic bonding with an intermediate layer of amorphous silicon, silicon to silicon anodic bonding with an intermediate layer of glass, and AuAu thermo-compression bonding of silicon wafers. In each case, the conduit’s height is d...

This study is a detailed failure analysis of galvanized high carbon steel wires, which developed coating cracks during the torsion test performed as a quality control at the end of the manufacturing process. Careful visual inspections showed that the cracks are already present in the coating before the torsion test. In order to explain the origin of these cracks, systematic metallographic inves...