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2013

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Alexis De Tocqueville’S Political Science Of Revolutions; Theory And Application, Michal Maciej Kuz Jan 2013

Alexis De Tocqueville’S Political Science Of Revolutions; Theory And Application, Michal Maciej Kuz

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the theory of revolutions presented in the main writing of Alexis de Tocqueville and its importance in the field of political theory as well as its possible application in the field of comparative politics. Scholars specializing in the study of the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville have for many years debated on whether the works of this author offer a comprehensive political theory of regimes and political change. This work supports the idea that in all his major writings de Tocqueville works within the same theoretical framework and develops his own typology of modern regimes. At the …

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Modeling, Numerical Analysis, And Predictions For The Detonation Of Multi-Component Energetic Solids, Michael Wayne Crochet Jan 2013

Modeling, Numerical Analysis, And Predictions For The Detonation Of Multi-Component Energetic Solids, Michael Wayne Crochet

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Metal powders are often used as an additive to conventional high explosives to enhance the post-detonation blast wave. Piston-impact simulations are commonly utilized to predict performance metrics such as detonation speed and strength, as well as assessing the impact and shock sensitivity of these materials. The system response is strongly influenced by the initial particle size distribution and material composition. Multiphase continuum models have been routinely applied at the macroscale to characterize the detonation of solid high explosives over engineering length scales. Current models lack a description of the physically permissible constitutive relations for mass transfer due to general chemical …

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Geodatabase-Assisted Storm Surge Modeling, Sait Ahmet Binselam Jan 2013

Geodatabase-Assisted Storm Surge Modeling, Sait Ahmet Binselam

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Tropical cyclone-generated storm surge frequently causes catastrophic damage in communities along the Gulf of Mexico. The prediction of landfalling or hypothetical storm surge magnitudes in U.S. Gulf Coast regions remains problematic, in part, because of the dearth of historic event parameter data, including accurate records of storm surge magnitude (elevation) at locations along the coast from hurricanes. While detailed historical records exist that describe hurricane tracks, these data have rarely been correlated with the resulting storm surge, limiting our ability to make statistical inferences, which are needed to fully understand the vulnerability of the U.S. Gulf Coast to hurricane-induced storm …

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An Alu Element-Based Model Of Human Genome Instability, George Wyndham Cook, Jr. Jan 2013

An Alu Element-Based Model Of Human Genome Instability, George Wyndham Cook, Jr.

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The human genome is strewn with repetitive sequence. An early estimate derived from the draft human genome sequence placed this repetitive content at ~45%. More detailed recent analyses have advanced the idea that the human repetitive and repeat derived contribution to the genome may be closer to 66-69%. The most commonly repeated sequence in the human genome is the Alu element. Alus make up 10.6 percent of all human DNA and have expanded to over one million copies in the human genome reproducing through a copy and paste mechanism. New Alu germline insertions are estimated to occur at a rate …

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Study On The Performance Of Tcp Over 10gbps High Speed Networks, Cheng Cui Jan 2013

Study On The Performance Of Tcp Over 10gbps High Speed Networks, Cheng Cui

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Internet traffic is expected to grow phenomenally over the next five to ten years. To cope with such large traffic volumes, high-speed networks are expected to scale to capacities of terabits-per-second and beyond. Increasing the role of optics for packet forwarding and transmission inside the high-speed networks seems to be the most promising way to accomplish this capacity scaling. Unfortunately, unlike electronic memory, it remains a formidable challenge to build even a few dozen packets of integrated all-optical buffers. On the other hand, many high-speed networks depend on the TCP/IP protocol for reliability which is typically implemented in software and …

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Detection Of Microorganisms Using Maldi And Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry, Juaneka Monet Hayes Jan 2013

Detection Of Microorganisms Using Maldi And Ion Mobility Mass Spectrometry, Juaneka Monet Hayes

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Matrix-assisted laser ablation desorption ionization MALDI and ion mobility (IM) MALDI mass spectrometry (MS) were used for the detection and identification of microorganisms. MALDI MS is an analytical tool that separates ions by their mass-to-charge ratio (m/z) and is routinely used for bioanalysis because of its sensitivity, selectivity, general applicability, and tolerance to impurities. Ion mobility is a gas phase technique that separates ions based on their charge and collision cross-section. In this research, MALDI-TOF MS and MALDI-IM-TOF MS analysis were conducted in parallel to assess the effectiveness of MALDI-IM-TOF MS for microorganism identification. Whole cell bacteria Escherichia coli strain …

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Complexity-Driven Properties Of The Intermetallic Compounds Gd₁₁₇Co₅₆Sn₁₁₂ And Ln₃₀Ru₄Sn₃₁ (Ln = Gd And Tb), Devin Charles Schmitt Jan 2013

Complexity-Driven Properties Of The Intermetallic Compounds Gd₁₁₇Co₅₆Sn₁₁₂ And Ln₃₀Ru₄Sn₃₁ (Ln = Gd And Tb), Devin Charles Schmitt

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Understanding the relationships between the structure of materials and their properties in extended solid systems is a necessity when intuitively designing functional materials. One of the most fundamental properties of a material is its ability to transport heat, which is linked to the lattice complexity of the material. Here, the single crystalline materials Gd117Co56Sn112 and Tb30Ru4Sn31 are grown to study the pronounced effect of a complexity-driven reduction of lattice thermal conductivity. The transport and magnetic properties of Gd117Co56Sn112 and Ln30Ru4Sn31 (Ln = Gd and Tb) are also presented and related to other systems. Tb30Ru4Sn31 is found to be a large …

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Poultry Litter Ash As A Phosphorus Source For Greenhouse Crop Production, Daniel Evan Wells Jan 2013

Poultry Litter Ash As A Phosphorus Source For Greenhouse Crop Production, Daniel Evan Wells

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Phosphorus (P) is an essential nutrient for all life forms, including plants, but is a limited agricultural resource whose future availability is in question. Therefore, identification of alternative forms of P fertilizers is important. Poultry litter ash (PLA), a byproduct of bioenergy production, contains high concentrations of P comparable to conventional fertilizers. Forms of P contained in PLA have been characterized as having low water solubility. Nutrient losses during containerized plant production are high due to excessive inputs of water and nutrients and low nutrient sorption capacities of common horticultural substrate components. Environmental concerns over reduced water quality intensify this …

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Academic Self-Monitoring In College Students With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Mindy C. Scheithauer Jan 2013

Academic Self-Monitoring In College Students With Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Mindy C. Scheithauer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Self-monitoring is an intervention that can result in behavior change by having individuals observe and record their own behavior. Self-monitoring has received empirical support in changing Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) related behaviors in children, but there is scarce research regarding self-monitoring with adults with ADHD. The current study implemented a self-monitoring intervention aimed at improving academic behavior and medication adherence in college students with ADHD. The self-monitoring intervention included study skills training, goal-setting, identification of individualized self-monitoring behavior, and follow-up meetings to discuss progress. The participants were asked to monitor their behavior on a daily basis using an electronic system. Compared …

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A History Of Peer-Led Team Learning, 1990-2012, A.E. Dreyfuss Jan 2013

A History Of Peer-Led Team Learning, 1990-2012, A.E. Dreyfuss

Publications and Research

From Workshop Chemistry in 1991 at the City College of New York, CUNY, to implementation in other disciplines and development of Peer-Led Team Learning and its Six Critical Components, this paper reviews the contributions of faculty at a variety of higher education institutions to the dissemination and growth of PLTL as a successful model of student engagement with the position of the student Peer Leader.

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Metal-Based Microchannel Heat Exchangers : Manufacturing And Heat Transfer Testing, Bin Lu Jan 2013

Metal-Based Microchannel Heat Exchangers : Manufacturing And Heat Transfer Testing, Bin Lu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on improving the functionality of metal-based microchannel heat exchangers (MHEs), as well as pushing this technology toward real-world applications. Design optimization was carried out on MHEs for performance maximization. Double-layered microchannel layout was experimentally studied, and a significant reduction on liquid flow pressure drop penalty was achieved. Other than water, another commonly-used coolant, ethylene glycol, was applied to MHEs, and flow and heat transfer characteristics were quantified. Transient Liquid Phase (TLP) bonding was used for joining Cu structures. For further understanding of the MHE heat transfer, a detailed examination was carried out on the TLP bonding interface …

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The Effect Of Real-Time Pitch Tracking And Correction On High School Instrumentalists' Tuning Accuracy, Kathryn Elizabeth Strickland Jan 2013

The Effect Of Real-Time Pitch Tracking And Correction On High School Instrumentalists' Tuning Accuracy, Kathryn Elizabeth Strickland

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The main purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of pitch tracking and correction (auto-tuning) on the intonation performed by high school clarinet (n = 30) and trumpet (n = 30) players with at least three years of experience in the large ensemble setting. Participants (N = 60) were assigned to one of three treatment groups, each differentiated by means of intonation evaluation. An aural group (n = 20) used Real Time Pitch Tracking and Correction (RTPTC) software; a visual group (n = 20) used an electronic tuner; and a control group (n = 20) “played in-tune to …

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Two Histories, One Future : Louisiana Sugar Planters, Their Slaves, And The Anglo-Creole Schism, 1815-1865, Nathan Buman Jan 2013

Two Histories, One Future : Louisiana Sugar Planters, Their Slaves, And The Anglo-Creole Schism, 1815-1865, Nathan Buman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

During the five decades between the War of 1812 and the end of the Civil War, southern Louisianans developed a society unlike any other region. The vibrant traditional image of moonlight and magnolias, the notion that King Cotton dominated the South’s economy as Anglo-Saxon masters lorded over their enslaves African-American workers still dominates the image of the American South. This image of a monolithic South, however, does not give a clear indication of the many sub-regional distinctions that both challenged and rewarded the inhabitants of those areas and provides exciting ways to understand slaveholding society culturally. Louisiana’s slaveholding class consisted …

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Fast And Reliable Detection Of Incumbent Users In Cognitive Radios, Mahdi Orooji Jan 2013

Fast And Reliable Detection Of Incumbent Users In Cognitive Radios, Mahdi Orooji

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Fast and reliable Spectrum Sensing (SS) plays a crucial role in the cognitive radio (CR) technology in order to prevent unwanted interference to the primary users (PU) and to reliably and quickly detect the white spaces in the spectrum for opportunistic access by the secondary users (SU). Spectrum Sensing must often be performed in the absence of information such as PU signaling scheme, noise level and channel fading coefficients. While these parameters can be estimated in the SU, estimation errors significantly deteriorates the performance of SS techniques. In this thesis, we introduce and evaluate the performance of two novel blind …

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Psychological Behavior Analysis Using Advanced Signal Processing Techniques For Fmri Data, Charisma Dionne Edwards Jan 2013

Psychological Behavior Analysis Using Advanced Signal Processing Techniques For Fmri Data, Charisma Dionne Edwards

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Psychological analysis related to voluntary reciprocal trust games were obtained using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) hyperscanning for 44 pairs of strangers throughout 36 trust games (TG) and 16 control games (CG). Hidden Markov models (HMMs) are proposed to train and classify the fMRI data acquired from these brain regions and extract the essential features of the initial decision of the first player to trust or not trust the second player. These results are evaluated using the different versions of the multifold cross-validation technique and compared to other speech data and other advanced signal processing techniques including linear classification, support …

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Method And Apparatus For Adaptive Scatter Correction, Xin Liu, J. Hsieh, X. Wu Jan 2013

Method And Apparatus For Adaptive Scatter Correction, Xin Liu, J. Hsieh, X. Wu

Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

A CT system includes a rotatable gantry having an opening to receive an object to be scanned, an x-ray source configured to project an x-ray beam toward the object having a primary intensity, a detector configured to detect high frequency electromagnetic energy passing through the object and output imaging data, and a data acquisition system (DAS) connected to the detector and configured to receive the imaging data. The system also includes a computer programmed to obtain image projection data of the object from the DAS, correct the projection data using a scatter function that is based at least on a …

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Translating Arthur : The Historia Regum Brittanniae Of Geoffrey Of Monmouth And Roman De Brut Of Wace, George Gregory Molchan Jan 2013

Translating Arthur : The Historia Regum Brittanniae Of Geoffrey Of Monmouth And Roman De Brut Of Wace, George Gregory Molchan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation primarily focuses on re-presentations of the foreign others in the twelfth-century chronicles Historia regum Britanniae of Geoffrey of Monmouth and Roman de Brut of Wace of the Isle of Jersey. Geoffrey and Wace, I argue, deploy a number of strategies in their narratives regarding the Matter of Britain that mainly though not wholly work to reinforce hegemonic versions of history through dehumanizing and demonizing the others that inhabit their narratives. The strategies that Geoffrey and Wace deploy towards the inhabitants of their narratives, I contend, operate within a framework that both celebrates and defends the Normans’ pretensions to …

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Cyclic Block Copolypeptoids : Synthesis, Self-Assembly And Macroscopic Properties, Chang-Uk Lee Jan 2013

Cyclic Block Copolypeptoids : Synthesis, Self-Assembly And Macroscopic Properties, Chang-Uk Lee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents the first experimental efforts for synthesizing a new class of peptidomimetic polymers, cyclic block copolypeptoids, studying their self-assembly in dilute solution, and examining their macroscopic properties. Cyclic poly(N-methyl-glycine)-b-poly(N-decyl-glycine) (PNMG-b-PNDG) diblock copolymers were synthesized via sequential, N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC)-mediated ring-opening polymerization of NCA monomers with controlled chain length and compositions. Cryo-TEM shows that PNMG105-b-PNDG10 copolymers in methanol (1 mg/mL) form spherical micelles that organize to form cylindrical micelles over time. The formation of cylindrical micelles is attributed to the crystallization of PNDG chains, as revealed by SAED and microDSC analyses. Cyclic PNMG100-b-PNDG10 copolymers form thermo-reversible, free-standing gels at …

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Predictors Of Practice Approaches And Activitives Of Louisiana School Social Workers : Toward A Model Of Practice, Laura Richard Jan 2013

Predictors Of Practice Approaches And Activitives Of Louisiana School Social Workers : Toward A Model Of Practice, Laura Richard

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT The purpose of the current exploratory-descriptive study was to examine the role of school social workers in Louisiana (N = 378) and the relationship of roles in different school settings and with different caseload sizes. The information gained was used to develop a conceptual model of practice and a job description for Louisiana school social workers. In addition, predictors of the types of practice approaches and practice activities used in the different school employment settings and with different caseload sizes were also included. The school social workers were employed in school districts in Louisiana and completed an online or …

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Volatile Congregations : Crisis Sensemaking In A Southern Baptist Church, Brandon Douglas Bannon Jan 2013

Volatile Congregations : Crisis Sensemaking In A Southern Baptist Church, Brandon Douglas Bannon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The primary purpose of this study was to test the assertion that Sensemaking Theory is an appropriate lens to understand church crisis by highlighting the role of communication as a central aspect of the sensemaking process. In addition, through the application of Sensemaking Theory, the secondary goal was to assist congregations as they try to avoid the negative consequences of church splits. The analysis utilized in the current study was specifically selected to develop a history of participant interpretation within a church in order to determine how members made sense of the crisis. To that end, this study followed the …

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Enculturational Practices In The Teaching Of Proof In Mathematics, Indira Venkata Chillara Jan 2013

Enculturational Practices In The Teaching Of Proof In Mathematics, Indira Venkata Chillara

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Mathematics education reform is informed by constructivist theories that forefront student learning of concepts, and by sociocultural theories whose focus is on students’ mastery of mathematical practices. As Cobb (1994) pointed out, these theorizations are inconsistent with one another, leading to conflict as some theorists seek to promote their approach as the correct one. Alternatively, Cobb, and many others in the social constructivism or the situated cognition camps, seek some sort of integration or balancing of these priorities in pedagogical theorizing. Kirshner (2002, 2004, 2008) argued that instead of either selecting one theory or balancing/coordinating the two theories, we should …

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Harmony, Voice Leading, And Drama In Three Sondheim Musicals, Adam M. Hudlow Jan 2013

Harmony, Voice Leading, And Drama In Three Sondheim Musicals, Adam M. Hudlow

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study presents an analytical approach to three works by American musical theater composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim: Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods, and Assassins—each of which Sondheim developed largely at the Playwrights Horizons theater in New York. Using an eclectic, neo-Schenkerian approach that draws upon recent work by pop-rock and stage music analysts, it examines the intersection of melodic and harmonic events with dramatic occurrences in the text to determine how Sondheim heightens dramatic narrative within each song analyzed. Sondheim’s work has been a fixture of the upper echelon of the Broadway musical for over half a …

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Advancing The Field Of Polypeptoids Through The Synthesis Of Novel Architectures And Thermoresponsive Polymers, Samuel Henry Lahasky Jan 2013

Advancing The Field Of Polypeptoids Through The Synthesis Of Novel Architectures And Thermoresponsive Polymers, Samuel Henry Lahasky

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Peptidomimetic polymers are an emerging class of polymers that are structurally related to polypeptides. Due to their structural similarities, these polymers can be used to study some of the physical aspects of polypeptides (for example, protein folding). They are also increasingly being used in the fields of biology and drug-delivery. Some members of peptidomimetic polymers include polyacrylamides, polyoxazolines and polypeptoids. Polymer synthesis and characterization has been performed for both polyacrylamides and polyoxazolines, with research dating back to the 1950s and 1980s respectively. Research in the field of polypeptoids has not been as extensive; however, emerging synthetic strategies are allowing for …

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Performing Folk Punk : Agonistic Performances Of Intersectionality, Benjamin D. Haas Jan 2013

Performing Folk Punk : Agonistic Performances Of Intersectionality, Benjamin D. Haas

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The overarching goal of this project is to argue that folk punk performances offer spaces where a listening audience is exposed to a radical and intersectional politics, and enable that audience to identify with those views. By considering the performances of Inky Skulls, Pussy Riot!, and Against Me!, this study looks to the ways in which these folk punk exemplars highlight elements of the radical politics of the American left and in the history of folk and punk music. In particular, this project considers the intersections of race and class, women and nonhuman animals, and queerness and anarchism, as intersecting …

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Sustainable Natural Resource Management In Regional Ecosystems : Case Studies In Semi-Arid And Humid Regions, Noura Bakr Jan 2013

Sustainable Natural Resource Management In Regional Ecosystems : Case Studies In Semi-Arid And Humid Regions, Noura Bakr

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Sustainability calls for policies that meet current societal needs without compromising the needs of future generations; thus, a dual relationship between human and natural resources is required. The main goal of the current research was to introduce up-to-date environmental techniques for sustainable natural resource utilization in semiarid and humid ecosystems in short and long term. To achieve this goal, two studies were implemented. First, sustainable land use management was evaluated in a newly reclaimed, semiarid region in the Bustan 3 area (341.27 km2), Egypt. To achieve sustainable management in this agro-ecosystem; detection of land cover change, assessment of the most …

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Sexual Fluidity And Women's Bisexual Identity Development, Julijana Draganic Jan 2013

Sexual Fluidity And Women's Bisexual Identity Development, Julijana Draganic

Theses and Dissertations

Experiences of bisexual and sexual fluid women are poorly explored and understood in the current literature. While there is a need and interest in the exploration of bisexual experiences in the current literature, these experiences are usually lumped together with the experiences of lesbian women, who are vastly overrepresented in the participant samples. Data was collected from LGBT centers, women's centers, bisexual interest listservs, and sexual minority internet groups. This study examined: the relationship between a measure of fluidity in attractions, the Sexual Fluidity Grid (SFG) and a measure of sexual orientation, the Klein Sexual Orientation Grid; the relationship between …

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Psychological Biases Affect Hedonic Ratings, Wannita Jirangrat Jan 2013

Psychological Biases Affect Hedonic Ratings, Wannita Jirangrat

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Psychological biases in consumer testing may lead to misinterpretation of results and lower experimental power. Reports on various hedonic scales associated with psychological biases induced by sample presentation are limited in the literature. An appropriate experimental protocol could enable sensory scientists to accurately determine if a product is more or less liked. Overall, in this study some drawbacks of hedonic scales were revealed and some recommendations were made under specific circumstances. A more powerful design (SPRCBD) helped minimize positional and First Serving Order (FSO) biases in consumer tests by extracting more explained variances, resulting in decreased Type-II error in the …

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The Laws Of Verse : The Poetry Of Alice Meynell And Its Literary Contexts, 1875-1923, Jared Hromadka Jan 2013

The Laws Of Verse : The Poetry Of Alice Meynell And Its Literary Contexts, 1875-1923, Jared Hromadka

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Like other poets who came to prominence in the nineteenth century but continued to publish well into the twentieth, Alice Meynell’s work has come gradually to be occluded by the work of her younger contemporaries, among them T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. The available scholarship records this process of occlusion in the form of an almost complete absence of serious discourse on Meynell’s work following her death in 1922 until the beginnings of a modest revival of interest in her writing beginning in the 1980s. This study aims to address that gap by giving a more complete account of …

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Characterization Of Evaporative Metal Bonding In Superalloys For Use In Gasified Coal Turbine Generators, Joshua Elliot Braband Jan 2013

Characterization Of Evaporative Metal Bonding In Superalloys For Use In Gasified Coal Turbine Generators, Joshua Elliot Braband

Theses and Dissertations

The diffusion bonding of Kanthal APMT, CM247LC, and Rene 80 was studied. The objective of the first part of this work was to create diffusion bonded test samples of Kanthal APMT, CM247LC, and Rene 80 using a 25μm thick zinc interlayer at varying times and temperatures. Then, using scanning electron microscopy to determine the profile of the zinc diffusing into the parent materials, the diffusion coefficients of the zinc interlayer into the materials were determined for each of the materials at each bonding time and temperature. The next objective was to create a finite element model of the bonding process …

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Crystal Growth And An Investigation Of Structural Stability: Synthesis, Structure, And Physical Properties Of Yb(Mn,M)Xal12-X (M = Fe, Ru; X < 2.5) And Lnmnxga3 (Ln = Ho-Tm; X < 0.15), Bradford Wesley Fulfer Jan 2013

Crystal Growth And An Investigation Of Structural Stability: Synthesis, Structure, And Physical Properties Of Yb(Mn,M)Xal12-X (M = Fe, Ru; X < 2.5) And Lnmnxga3 (Ln = Ho-Tm; X < 0.15), Bradford Wesley Fulfer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The contents of this dissertation describe the crystal growth, crystal structures, and physical properties of ternary intermetallic aluminides and gallides. These compounds are grown in an effort to determine how controlling reaction ratios using the flux growth method can impact chemical structure and physical properties. Three specific examples are given where slight changes in reaction ratios leads to crystalline products that adopt various structure types. LnMn2+xAl10-x (Ln = Gd, Yb) crystals adopt the CaCr2Al10 and ThMn12 structure types. We compare LnMn2+xAl10-x compounds adopting the CaCr2Al10 and ThMn12 structure types, and outline synthesis methods to obtain each polymorph. Magnetic susceptibility measurements …

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