5.1 Abstract The change in the configurational enthalpy of metallic-glass-forming liquids induced by mechanical deformation and its effect on elastic softening is assessed. The acoustically measured shear modulus is found to decrease with increasing configurational enthalpy by a dependence similar to one obtained by softening via thermal annealing. This establishes that elastic softening is gov...

The aim of this study was to test the effect of fluoride rinsing on the prevention of toothbrush abrasion of softened enamel in situ. For softening, the samples were immersed in 0.1 M citric acid (pH 3.5) for 3 min. Eight test subjects had to make 5 runs in which 4 slabs per run were attached to intraoral appliances. They were as follows: (1) no softening, no fluoride rinsing (control 1); (2) s...

Along with sugar accumulation and colour development, softening is an important physiological change during the onset of ripening in fruits. In this work, we investigated the relationships among major events during softening in grape (Vitis vinifera L.) by quantifying elasticity in individual berries. In addition, we delayed softening and inhibited sugar accumulation using a mechanical growth-p...

Removal of astringency by endogenously formed acetaldehyde, achieved by postharvest anaerobic treatment, is of critical importance for many types of persimmon fruit. Although an anaerobic environment accelerates de-astringency, it also has the deleterious effect of promoting excessive softening, reducing shelf life and marketability. Some hypoxia-responsive ethylene response factors (ERFs) part...

We present the phase diagram, in both the microcanonical and the canonical ensemble, of the self-gravitating-ring (SGR) model, which describes the motion of equal point masses constrained on a ring and subject to 3D gravitational attraction. If the interaction is regularized at short distances by the introduction of a softening parameter, a global entropy maximum always exists, and thermodynami...

An indirect J-integral technique for measuring the tension softening curve of non-yielding materials like concrete is presented and is applied to mortars reinforced with various short fiber types (steel and synthetic). The tension softening curve serves to characterize and measure material fracture resistance. The dependence of structural behavior on material fracture resistance is investigated...

Pch313 was isolated as a cDNA whose RNA accumulated during the softening period of peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch) fruit development. To better understand the role of the gene, we compared the amount of pch313-related RNA detected during fruit softening and tissue wounding between cultivars with different softening characteristics. The cultivar that softened faster, "Bailey," had a significant...

In this paper, in situ experiments have been designed using the full-field deformation technique of Digital Image Correlation (DIC) to characterize non-uniform shrinkage in thermoplastic polymers commonly used in traditional and emerging molding processes. These experiments are capable of characterizing the differences in strains that develop due to thermal gradients and stiction as the polymer...

The coupled nonlinear partial differential equations governing the thermomechanical and axisymmetric deformations, of a cylindrical rod penetrating into a thick target, also made of a rigid/viscoplastic material, are solved by the finite element method. It is assumed that the deformations of the target and the penetrator as seen by an observer situated at the stagnation point and moving with it...