A semi-analytical iterative method as one of the newest analytical methods is used for the elastic analysis of thick-walled spherical pressure vessels made of functionally graded materials subjected to internal pressure. This method is accurate, fast and has a reasonable order of convergence. It is assumed that material properties except Poisson’s ratio are graded through the thickness directio...

Few foam systems stabilized by solid particles have been reported, and usually the particles have been used in combination with surfactants. We report how foams can be stabilized solely with a new class of anisotropic particles, hydrophobic polymer microrods of diameter less than 1 mum and length of a few tens of micrometers. The obtained foams were extraordinary stable, retaining a constant vo...

ZnxCd1-xSe/C core/shell nanocrystals with 31-39 nm diameter semiconductor cores and 11-25 nm-thick carbon shells were synthesized from solid state precursors in large scale amounts. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) showed striations in the nanocrystals that are indicative of a composition modulation, and reveal a chemical phase separation and possible spinodal decomposition within the nan...

In this paper the possibility of applying the Trefftz-method to thick and thin shells is discussed. A mixed variational formulation is used in which the assumed strain and stress functions are derived from the three-dimensional solution representation for the displacement field. For the construction of the linearly independent Trefftz trial functions both the Neuber/Papkovich solution represent...

Four 16 cm diameter spherical phantoms were modeled in this study: a homogenous water phantom, and three water phantoms with 1 cm thick shell each made of different materials (PMMA, Plastic WaterTM and polystyrene). The PENELOPE Monte Carlo code was utilized to simulate photon beams from the Leksell Gamma Knife (LGK) unit and to determine absorbed dose to water (Dw) from a single 18 mm beam del...

Direct-drive implosions with 20-microm-thick glass shells were conducted on the Omega Laser Facility to test the performance of high-Z glass ablators for direct-drive, inertial confinement fusion. The x-ray signal caused by hot electrons generated by two-plasmon-decay instability was reduced by more than approximately 40x and hot-electron temperature by approximately 2x in the glass compared to...

Heterostructured powders composed of microcrystalline (mc-) BaTiO3 and SrTiO3 cores coated with nanostructured (ns-) TiO2 shells were prepared using a solegel method. The influences of annealing temperature, coating thickness, cocatalyst loading, and core size on photocatalytic hydrogen production were experimentally determined. The amount of hydrogen produced depends on the annealing temperatu...

We study the collapse towards the gravitational radius of a macroscopic spherical thick shell surrounding an inner massive core. This overall electrically neutral macroshell is composed by many nested δ-like massive microshells which can bear non-zero electric charge, and a possibly non-zero cosmological constant is also included. The dynamics of the shells is described by means of Israel's (La...

We address here a theoretical basis for the icosahedral symmetry that is observed so commonly for viral capsids, i.e., the single-protein-thick rigid shells that protect the viral genome. In particular, we outline the phenomenological hamiltonian approach developed recently (see Zandi, R., Reguera, D., Bruinsma, R., Gelbart, W.M. and Rudnick, J. (2004), Original of icosahedral symmetry in virus...

The blood-type-mismatch problem, in addition to shortage of blood donation, in blood transfusion has prompted the researchers to develop universal blood that does not require blood typing. In this work, the “cell-in-shell” (i.e., artificial spore) approach is utilized to shield the immune-provoking epitopes on the surface of red blood cells (RBCs). Individual RBCs are successfully coated with s...