The present paper studies the coalescence of pore columns in ferroelectric ceramics driven by back and forth domain switching under cyclic electric field. A finite element method that incorporates mass transfer capacity is formulated to simulate the evolution of point defects subjected to the kinetics of pore surface diffusion and domain wall migration. The merge of point defects provides a mechanism for the vacancy agglomeration that leads to the formation of large pores or microcracks.
The Laves phase alloy Tb-Dy-Fe, commercially known as Terfenol-D, exhibits the giant room-temperature magnetostriction at moderate field strength of a few kOe due to its combination of high magnetostriction and low magnetocrystalline anisotropic energy. Thus, this pseudobinary rare earth iron compound has found quite a number of applications such as in magnetomechanical transducers, actuators and adaptive vibration control systems. The simultaneous measurements of magnetostriction and magnetization at various fixed compressive pre-stresses applied in the axial direction for Tb0.3Dy0.7Fe1.95 samples are presented. The results show that the magnetostriction increases with increasing compressive stress until it reaches 1742 ×10^6 under 25 MPa, so does the coercive magnetic field. And the hysteresis loop area for magnetization and magnetostriction also increases with the increment of applied compressive stresses. But the maximum magnetic susceptibility χ（dM/dH） is obtained under zero stress field and the strain derivative dλ/dH increases to the highest amplitude of 0.039×10^-6 A^-1m at a stress level of 5 MPa. In the strain versus magnetization intensity curve, the initial fiat stage mainly consisting of a 180° domain wall motion becomes shorter with increasing stress. It means more initial domains are driven to the transversal direction under the compressive stress before magnetization, which is consistent with the improvement of the magnetostriction.
Most animals have the ability to adapt, to some extends and in different ways, the variation or disturbance of environment. In our experiments, we forced a silkworm caterpillar to spin two, three or four thin cocoons by taking it out from the cocoon being constructed. The mechanical properties of these cocoons were studied by static tensile tests and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. Though external disturbances may cause the decrease in the total weight of silk spun by the silkworm, a gradual enhancement was interestingly found in the mechanical properties of these thin cocoons. Scanning electron microscopy observations of the fractured specimens of the cocoons showed that there exist several different energy dissipation mechanisms occurred simultaneously at macro-, meso-, and micro-scales, yielding a superior capacity of cocoons to adsorb the energy of possible attacks from the outside and to protect efficiently its pupa against damage. Through evolution of millions of years, therefore, the silkworm Bombyx mori seems to have gained the ability to adapt external disturbances and to redesign a new cocoon with optimized protective function when its first cocoon has been damaged for some reasons.
Nix and Gao established an important relation between the microindentation hardness and indentation depth. Such a relation has been verified by many microindentation experiments （indentation depths in the micrometer range）, but it does not always hold in nanoindentation experiments （indentation depths approaching the nanometer range）. Indenter tip radius effect has been proposed by Qu et al. and others as possibly the main factor that causes the deviation from Nix and Gao＇s relationship. We have developed an indentation model for micro- and nanoindentation, which accounts for two indenter shapes, a sharp, conical indenter and a conical indenter with a spherical tip. The analysis is based on the conventional theory of mechanism-based strain gradient plasticity established from the Taylor dislocation model to account for the effect of geometrically necessary dislocations. The comparison between numerical result and Feng and Nix＇s experimental data shows that the indenter tip radius effect indeed causes the deviation from Nix-Gao relation, but it seems not be the main factor.
