Solid oxide fuel cell compositionally graded electrolytes could offer the advantage of improving electrical performance and efficiency compared to single-layered or bi-layered yttria stabilized zirconia and samaria doped ceria electrolytes and improving mechanical performance by reducing thermal expansion mismatch stresses compared to bi-layered electrolytes with sharp interfaces. Manufacturing of these graded structures is difficult if implementing conventional wet ceramic techniques. Suspension plasma spraying is an emerging technology that has the potential to rapidly produce thin, dense ceramic layers with no requirement for post deposition heat treatments. However, SPS requires a careful examination of the stability of the feedstock suspensions in order to produce high quality coatings. Optimum suspension formulations with excellent particle dispersion were designed based on rheological and electrostatic stability measurements. These optimized suspensions were used as feedstocks for the fabrication of suspension plasma sprayed compositionally graded YSZ/SDC layers. The feasibility of fabricating graded electrolyte structures was thus demonstrated.

Solid oxide fuel cell compositionally graded electrolytes could offer the advantage of improving electrical performance and efficiency compared to single-layered or bi-layered yttria stabilized zirconia and samaria doped ceria electrolytes and improving mechanical performance by reducing thermal expansion mismatch stresses compared to bi-layered electrolytes with sharp interfaces. Manufacturing of these graded structures is difficult if implementing conventional wet ceramic techniques. Suspension plasma spraying is an emerging technology that has the potential to rapidly produce thin, dense ceramic layers with no requirement for post deposition heat treatments. However, SPS requires a careful examination of the stability of the feedstock suspensions in order to produce high quality coatings. Optimum suspension formulations with excellent particle dispersion were designed based on rheological and electrostatic stability measurements. These optimized suspensions were used as feedstocks for the fabrication of suspension plasma sprayed compositionally graded YSZ/SDC layers. The feasibility of fabricating graded electrolyte structures was thus demonstrated.

If an augmented algebra K over Q is filtered by powers of its augmentation ideal I, the associated graded algebra grK need not in general be quadratic: although it is generated in degree 1, its relations may not be generated by homogeneous relations of degree 2. In this thesis we give a sufficient criterion (called the PVH Criterion) for grK to be quadratic. When K is the group algebra of a group G, quadraticity is known to be equivalent to the existence of a (not necessarily homomorphic) universal finite type invariant for G. Thus the PVH Criterion also implies the existence of a universal finite type invariant for the group G. We apply the PVH Criterion to the group algebra of the pure virtual braid group (also known as the quasi-triangular group), and show that the corresponding associated graded algebra is quadratic, and hence that these groups have a universal finite type invariant.

In this research, the amorphous/nanocrystalline ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films with various conditions such as individual layer thickness, total layer thickness, and interface type have been successfully fabricated by the multi-gun sputtering processes. To investigate the mechanical properties and deformation behaviors of substrate-supported ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films, these films deposited on the Cu or polyimide foils were prepared for tensile testing. Firstly, the tensile behaviors of the monolithic ZrCu thin film metallic glass and the ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films deposited on the pure Cu foils are systematically examined. The extracted tensile modulus and strength of the 1-£gm-thick multilayered thin films are in good agreement with the theoretical iso-strain rule of mixture prediction. The extracted 2-£gm-thick multilayered film data are lower, but can be corrected back by considering the actual intact cross-sectional area during the tensile loading. Moreover, the current results reveal that the ZrCu/Cu multilayered coating exhibit much better tensile performance than the monolithic ZrCu coating. It indicates that the amorphous/nanocrystalline multilayered thin film structure can certainly enhance the mechanical properties of monolithic thin film metallic glasses under tension. Secondly, for the further investigation of tensile response, the polyimide-supported amorphous/nanocrystalline ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films with various individual layer thicknesses from 10 to 100 nm were prepared. The relatively soft, smooth, and flexible polyimide foils as the substrates in this experiment can undergo sufficient deformation under In this research, the amorphous/nanocrystalline ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films with various conditions such as individual layer thickness, total layer thickness, and interface type have been successfully fabricated by the multi-gun sputtering processes. To investigate the mechanical properties and deformation behaviors of substrate-supported ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films, these films deposited on the Cu or polyimide foils were prepared for tensile testing. Firstly, the tensile behaviors of the monolithic ZrCu thin film metallic glass and the ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films deposited on the pure Cu foils are systematically examined. The extracted tensile modulus and strength of the 1-£gm-thick multilayered thin films are in good agreement with the theoretical iso-strain rule of mixture prediction. The extracted 2-£gm-thick multilayered film data are lower, but can be corrected back by considering the actual intact cross-sectional area during the tensile loading. Moreover, the current results reveal that the ZrCu/Cu multilayered coating exhibit much better tensile performance than the monolithic ZrCu coating. It indicates that the amorphous/nanocrystalline multilayered thin film structure can certainly enhance the mechanical properties of monolithic thin film metallic glasses under tension. Secondly, for the further investigation of tensile response, the polyimide-supported amorphous/nanocrystalline ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films with various individual layer thicknesses from 10 to 100 nm were prepared. The relatively soft, smooth, and flexible polyimide foils as the substrates in this experiment can undergo sufficient deformation under tension. The modulus and strength of the multilayered thin film are again demonstrated to be consistent with the theoretical iso-strain rule of mixture values. As the individual layer thickness decreases from 100 to 10 nm, the Young¡¦s moduli are only varied slightly. However, the maximum tensile stress exhibits a highest value for the 25 nm layer thickness. The higher crack spacing, or the lower crack density, of this 25 nm multilayer film leads to the highest strength. Thirdly, to avoid the stress and strain incompatibility owing to the mismatch of elastic modulus and strength levels from the connected amorphous/nanocrystalline layers, the Cu-supported amorphous/nanocrystalline ZrCu/Cu multilayered thin films with sharp and graded interfaces were successfully sputtered and examined by tensile testing. The extracted tensile properties of the multilayered films can be compared with the predicted values based on the two-phase and three-phase iso-strain rule of mixture model. The multilayered films with graded interfaces, each about 50 nm thick, consistently exhibit higher tensile strength and elongation. This can be rationalized by the reduced stress and strain incompatibility along the interfaces.

The purpose of this study was to develop a questionnaire to measure academic self-efficacy for undergraduates. The theoretical framework of the questionnaire was based on Bandura¡¦s self-efficacy theory. A total of 409 participants were selected by judgment sampling from the first- and second-grade undergraduate of six colleges in national Sun Yat-sen university (Liberal Arts, Science, Engineering, Management, Marine Sciences, and Social Sciences). The newly developed Academic Efficacy and Motivation Questionnaire (AEMQ) was modified and derived from eight related scales. Expert content validity was conducted by three experts in the field, and the data were analyzed by rating scale model (RSM) in ConQuest. The findings were as follows: 1. All the 69 items in AEMQ have good fit values (MNSQ between 0.6 and 1.4). 2. The items of the AEMQ tended to be too easy for participants. 3. The reliability of each dimension of AEMQ was poor. The highest reliability value was 0.575, and the lowest was 0.382. 4. The first dimension ¡§actual performance¡¨ and the second dimension ¡§vicarious experience¡¨ have negative correlation with the forth dimension ¡§psychological index¡¨. The result was consistent with past studies.

The objective of this study is to determine stress intensity factors (SIFs) for a crack in a radially graded FGM layer on a substrate. Functionally graded coating with an edge crack perpendicular to the interface and a homogeneous substrate are bonded together. In order to make the problem analytically tractable, geometry is modeled as an FGM strip attached to a homogeneous layer. Introducing the elastic foundation underneath the homogeneous layer, an FGM coating on a thin walled cylinder can be modeled. At first, governing equations are obtained from stress displacement and equilibrium equations. Then using an assumed form of solution in terms of Fourier Transforms for displacements and applying the boundary conditions, a singular integral equation is obtained for the mode-I problem. Solving this singular integral equation numerically, stress intensity factors are obtained as functions of crack length, strip thicknesses and inhomogeneity parameter.

In some applications the stress across the entire cross-section of a component is not uniform but varies with position. For example, maximum shear stress is highest at the inner surface of a thick-walled cylinder subjected to uniform internal pressure and it decreases continuously towards the outer surface. In such applications it would be more appropriate for the component, too, to have varying strength across the cross-section matching with the stress profile it is subjected to. The present work deals with obtaining such a functionally graded material (FGM), characterizing it and testing its mechanical properties in compression. Differential aging heat treatment was used to produce the functionally graded material in a precipitation hardenable Al-4.6%Cu alloy by changing the microstructure. Temperature gradient furnace was used to achieve the gradation in microstructure from one end of the sample to the other end by differential aging of the solution treated sample. Mechanical properties can be varied in any precipitation hardenable alloy by means of producing various precipitates, which will form during the aging sequence. In Al-4.6%Cu alloy one end of the solution treated sample was aged for 38 hours at 170°C and the other end at 70°C by means of a temperature gradient furnace in which the coil density varies along the axis of the furnace. Thus we achieved a difference in mechanical properties from 70°C side to 170°C side as the precipitation during differential aging varied from GP zones at one end to θ' precipitate at the other end. Characterization was done on isothermally aged samples and in FGM using XRD (X-ray diffraction) and TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy). XRD result showed that the final equilibrium precipitate θ was not formed in any of the heat-treated samples. TEM result showed the various precipitation sequences from GP zones to θ' in the isothermally aged samples and the same was confirmed in the gradient sample by cutting the samples form 70°C side towards the 170°C side and doing TEM on each sample. The properties of FGM in compression were studied using a 9mmx9mmxl8mm-compression sample using DARTEC machine and it was compared with those of isothermally aged samples. For 70°C the 0.2% proof stress was 141MPa and for 170°C it was 226MPa. The corresponding ductility values at the point of inflection on the engineering stress-strain curve for 70°C sample was higher (33%) than the 170°C (22%) sample. For the gradient sample it gave a proof stress of 163MPa and a ductility value of 30%.

Ferroelectric materials have received lots of attention thanks to their intriguing properties such as the piezoelectric and pyroelectric effects, as well as the large dielectric constants and the spontaneous polarization which can potentially be used for information storage. In particular, perovskite crystal has a very simple unit cell structure yet a very rich phase transition diagram, which makes it one of the most intensively studied ferroelectric materials. In this dissertation, we use effective Hamiltonian, a first-principles-based computational technique to study the finite-temperature properties of ferroelectric perovskites. We studied temperature-graded (BaxSr1-x )TiO3 (BST) bulk alloys as well as the dynamics of nanodomain walls (nanowalls) in Pb(ZrxTi1-x )O3 (PZT) ultra-thin films under the driving force of an AC field. Our computations suggest that, for the temperature-graded BST, the polarization responds to the temperature gradient (TG), with the "up" and "down" offset observed in polarization components along the direction of TG, in agreement with the findings from experiments. For the nanowalls in PZT, the dynamics can be described by the damped-harmonic-oscillator model, and we observed a size-driven transition from resonance to relaxational dynamics at a critical thickness of 7.2 nm. The transition originates from the change in the effective mass of a nanowall as a film thickness increases. Some of the findings may find potential applications in various devices, such as thermal sensors, energy converters, or novel memory units.

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This paper presents the theory of Noetherian filtrations, an important concept in commutative algebra. The paper describes many aspects of the theory of these objects, presenting basic results, examples and applications. In the study of Noetherian filtrations, a few other important concepts are introduced such as Rees algebras, essential powers filtrations, and filtrations on modules. Basic results on these are presented as well. This thesis discusses at length how Noetherian filtrations relate to important constructions in commutative algebra, such as graded rings and modules, dimension theory and associated primes. In addition, the paper presents an original proof of the finiteness of the intersection algebra of principal ideals in a UFD. It concludes by discussing possible applications of this result to other areas of commutative algebra.