Fruit cracking has long been a topic of great concern for growers and researchers of litchi (Litchi chinensis Sonn.). To understand the molecular mechanisms underlying fruit cracking, high-throughput RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) was first used for de novo assembly and characterization of the transcriptome of cracking pericarp of litchi. Comparative transcriptomic analyses were performed on non-crac...

The cracking and delamination of TiN-coated hardmetals (WC-Co cemented carbides) when subjected to Brale indentation were studied. Experimental variables were substrate microstructure related to low (6%wt. Co) and medium (13%wt. Co) binder content, and surface finishes associated with grinding and polishing stages before film deposition. Brale indentation tests were conducted on both coated and...

This paper considers the explicit solutions of free-edge stresses near circumferential cracks in surface coatings of circular torsion bars and their application in determining the progressive cracking density in the coating layers. The problem was formulated within the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). The free-edge stresses near crack tip and the shear stresses in the cros...

Tar removal from biomass gasification gas is a crucial problem in applying syngas from biomass for its downstream applications. Catalytic biomass gasification has given promising results for tar cracking. A few research groups have investigated the use of olivine for tar cracking [2,3,4,7,8,9,10]. The presence of oxides of iron and magnesium in the mineral olivine give it the ability to crack h...

The relation of habitual knuckle cracking to osteoarthrosis with functional impairment of the hand has long been considered an old wives' tale without experimental support. The mechanical sequelae of knuckle cracking have been shown to produce the rapid release of energy in the form of sudden vibratory energy, much like the forces responsible for the destruction of hydraulic blades and ship pro...

Catalytic fast pyrolysis of waste rice husk was carried out using pyrolysis-gas chromatography/mass spectrometry [Py-GC/MS]. Meso-MFI zeolite [Meso-MFI] was used as the catalyst. In addition, a 0.5-wt.% platinum [Pt] was ion-exchanged into Meso-MFI to examine the effect of Pt addition. Using a catalytic upgrading method, the activities of the catalysts were evaluated in terms of product composi...

Parameterized password guessability—how many guesses a particular cracking algorithm with particular training data would take to guess a password—has become a common metric of password security. Unlike statistical metrics, it aims to model real-world attackers and to provide per-password strength estimates. We investigate how cracking approaches often used by researchers compare to real-world c...

It is extremely difficult to predict the initiation time of cracking due to a large time spread in most cracking experiments. Thus, probabilistic models, such as the Weibull distribution, are usually employed to model the initiation time of cracking. Therefore, the parameters of the Weibull distribution are estimated from data collected from a cracking test. However, although the development of...

The mechanics of cracking in fiber-reinforced ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) under general loadings remains incomplete. The present paper addresses one outstanding aspect of this problem: the development of matrix cracks in unidirectional plies under shear loading. To this end, we develop a model based on potential energy differences upstream and downstream of a fully bridged steady-state mat...