Enhanced contact flexibility from nanoparticles in capillary suspensions.

HYPOTHESIS: Sample-spanning particle networks are used to induce structure and a yield stress, necessary for 3D printing of porous ceramics and paints. In capillary suspensions, a small quantity of immiscible secondary fluid is incorporated into a suspension. By further adding nanoparticles with a range of hydrophobicities, the structure of the bridges and microparticle-microparticle contacts is expected to be modified, resulting in a tunable yield stress and shear moduli. Moreover, the compressibility of these samples, important in many processing and application steps, is expected to be sensitive to these changes. EXPERIMENT: The nanoparticle hydrophobicity was altered and their position relative to the microparticles and the bridges was examined using confocal microscopy where the correlation between bridge size and network structure was observed. A step-wise uniaxial compression test on the confocal was conducted to monitor the microparticle movement and structural changes between capillary suspension networks with and without nanoparticles. FINDINGS: Our observation suggests that nanoparticles induce the formation of thin liquid films on the surface of the microparticles, mitigating contact line pinning and promoting internal liquid exchange. Additionally, nanoparticles at microparticle contact regions further diminish Hertzian contact, enhancing the capacity for rearrangement. These effects enhance microparticle movement, narrowing the bridge size distribution.

Assessment of friction in aged soft contact lenses by an innovative method.

In the present research work, we intend to evaluate the effect of aging of CL (contact lenses) on friction and, in case there are alterations in the value of the coefficient of friction after aging, to understand which modifications in the material incite these variations. For this, a simulation of the aging process to which the CL are subject in vivo is carried out and the friction and stiffness of the CL are characterized, before and after aging. The aging procedure of SCLs (soft contact lenses) was simulated by a cycling process considering that the main parameter influencing the material surface is the transition between the closed and open eye and the exposure to environmental aggressions, particularly ultraviolet radiation. The values of the coefficient of friction and elastic modulus before and after the aging process were compared and was verified the increase of both parameters for all contact lenses. The hydrogel lens was the least affected by aging and the silicone - hydrogel lens based on delefilcon A was the one that showed the least stability of properties.

Determination of the Pressure Dependence of Raman Mode for an Alumina-Glass Pair in Hertzian Contact.

Optimising the performance of materials requires, among other things, the characterisation of residual stresses during the design stage. Raman spectroscopy offers access to these residual stresses at the micrometre scale when this inelastic light scattering is active in these materials. In this case, the relationship between the Raman mode shift and the pressure must be known. High-pressure cells with diamond anvils or bending instruments coupled to Raman spectrometers are habitually used to determine this relationship. In this article, we propose a new method that involves a Hertzian contact to obtain this relationship. A device that compresses an alumina ball against a transparent glass plane is connected to a Raman spectrometer. Under these conditions, the contact pressure can be as high as 1.5 GPa. The contact between the glass plane and the ball is observed through a diaphragm. Several hundred Raman spectra are recorded depending on the contact diameter. The spectral profiles obtained represent the shift in the Raman modes of alumina and glass along the contact diameter. Hertz's theory accurately describes the pressure profile as a function of position for elastic materials. Therefore, the contact diameter can be measured by fitting the spectral profile with a function identical to the Hertz profile. We then deduce the maximum pressure. Next, the calculated pressure profile along the contact diameter is correlated with the spectral profile. We obtain a pressure dependence of the Raman mode with a coefficient equal to 2.07 cm-1/GPa for the Eg modes of alumina at 417 cm-1, which is in good agreement with the literature. In the case of glass, we refine the measurement of the Q3 mode shift at 1096 cm-1 in the studied pressure range compared to the literature. We find a coefficient of 4.31 cm-1/GPa. This work on static contacts opens up promising prospects for investigations into dynamic contacts in tribology.

Fracture resistance of Ceramic-Polymer hybrid materials using microscopic finite element analysis and experimental validation.

The objective of this paper is to elucidate the response to contact stresses of Polymer Infiltrated Ceramic Network (PICN) using the microscopic viscoplastic finite elements, validated by clinically relevant in vitro tests. A feldspathic ceramic material, namely Vita Mark II, is an interconnected structure infiltrated with the polymer (PMMA). Axisymmetric finite element microstructure models are reconstructed from two-dimensional images of a PICN microstructure. Viscoplastic finite element analysis (FEA) with various degrees of microscopic damages occurring over contact is performed. The force-displacement responses obtained from FEA are validated with Hertzian contact tests. Finite element results for force-displacement, stresses and strains in each phase are discussed. We hypothesize that the resistance to fracture of PICN can be further improved by microstructural tailoring. The experimental evidence suggests that a composite material is both more resistant to displacement under load and more resistant to crack initiation and propagation, as hypothesized. Further parametric study on the effects of various volume fractions of two phases in PICN is done to provide some insight on increased contact damage resistance of PICN as well as potential optimization of microstructures.

Effect of gap outside contact area on lubrication of metal-on-Metal total hip replacement.

Ball-in-socket metal on metal (MOM) contacts were analysed using the Abaqus Finite Element package to simulate dry contact between the acetabular cup and the femoral head. Different cup thicknesses of 4, 6, 8, and 10 mm were considered using a polyurethane foam block support system. Elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) analyses were developed for the contacts using three different approaches to specify the contact. These were (i) A simple model based on the radii of relative curvature, (ii) An equivalent contact model developed so that its dry contact area and maximum pressure replicated the values obtained from the FE analysis, and (iii) A modified version of (ii) that also ensured equivalence of the gap shape outside the contact area. Published in vivo information for the hip joint contact forces over the walking cycle was used to specify the operating conditions for the EHL analysis. The analysis method was found to be effective for all points of the walking cycle for cases where the cup thickness exceeded 5 mm and modelling approach (ii) was identified as satisfactory. For a cup thickness of 4 mm, membrane action began to emerge in the FE analyses so that such contacts behaved in a different way.

Contact damage of human dental enamel under cyclic axial loading with abrasive particles.

The damage to human dental enamel under cyclic, axial contacts in a silica particle medium is investigated. It is found that such damage is hierarchical, affecting different length-scales of the enamel structure. At the contact surface, it consists of micron-sized defects, with an attendant increase of surface roughness due to microindentation of the abrasive particles. Below the surface, demineralization of the enamel is observed, which is attributable to inelastic processes at the nanoscale. Axial-only contacts in particulate media result in negligible wear at the macroscopic scale, but may degrade the fracture strength. Potential implications of these results in the fields of dentistry and biology are discussed.

A New Phenomenological Model for Single Particle Erosion of Plastic Materials.

A phenomenological model for single particle erosion (SPE) of plastic materials was constructed based on the Hertzian contact theory and conservation of momentum to solve the particle impact erosion. The extrusion deformation and contact time of materials in three processes of wall elastic extrusion, elastic-plastic extrusion, and elastic recovery were discussed. Later, the critical angle for sliding contact between the particle and metal surface was calculated according to the impact angle of a particle and the corresponding critical sliding friction force of the particle. The wall indentation depths under sliding contact and no sliding contact were compared. Finally, the erosion volume of materials by impact of a single particle was gained. Moreover, a contrastive analysis on calculation results was carried out by using the gas-solid jet erosion experiment. Contact time, normal and tangential deformations of materials, as well as material erosion under sliding contact and no sliding contact in two processes of particle extrusion and rebound were gained from calculation and experiment. The constructed model showed a good agreement without involving too many empirical coefficients.

Nonlinear effects of micro-cracks on long-wavelength symmetric Lamb waves.

For an elastic medium containing a homogeneous distribution of micro-cracks, an effective one-dimensional stress-strain relation has been determined with finite element simulations. In addition to flat micro-cracks, voids were considered that contain a Hertzian contact, which represents an example for micro-cracks with internal structure. The orientation of both types of micro-cracks was fully aligned or, for flat micro-cracks, totally random. For micro-cracks with Hertzian contacts, the case of random orientation was treated in an approximate way. The two types of defects were found to give rise to different degrees of non-analytic behavior of the effective stress-strain relation, which governs the nonlinear propagation of symmetric (S0) Lamb waves in the long-wavelength limit. The presence of flat micro-cracks causes even harmonics to grow linearly with propagation distance with amplitudes proportional to the amplitude of the fundamental wave, and gives rise to a static strain. The presence of the second type of defects leads to a linear growth of all harmonics with amplitudes proportional to the power 3/2 of the fundamental amplitude, and to a strain-dependent velocity shift. Simple expressions are given for the growth rates of higher harmonics of S0 Lamb waves in terms of the parameters occurring in the effective stress-strain relation. They have partly been determined quantitatively with the help of the FEM results for different micro-crack concentrations.

A chromium(III) oxide-coated steel wire prepared by arc ion plating for use in solid-phase microextraction of aromatic hydrocarbons.

The authors introduce an arc ion plating method for the deposition of chromium oxide (Cr2O3) on a steel wire substrate, and its use as a coating for solid phase microextraction. The coating has a micro- and nano-scaled structure after annealing at 700 °C. It is found that Cr2O3 exhibits a good extraction capability for the aromatic hydrocarbons naphthalene, anthracene, fluorene, fluoranthene, and biphenyl. Following desorption by high temperature at 300 °C, the analytes were quantified by gas chromatography (GC). The limits of detection are in the range between 20 and 200 ng·L-1, and calibration plots are linear within a wide range (0.2 to 400 µg·L-1). The coating has excellent mechanical properties, with a hardness is as high as 31.7 GPa, and the adhesion strength between coating and substrate reaches 20.1 N (corresponding to the critical Hertzian contact stress of 10 GPa). This, along with the chemical and thermal stability of the Cr2O3 coating, endows the wire with a long operational life. It was used for at least 100 times without any obvious decline of extraction capability. Graphical abstract An arc ion plating method was introduced for the deposition of chromium oxide (Cr2O3) on a steel wire substrate, and its use as a coating for solid phase microextraction with high mechanical strength, stability, and long operational lifetime.

A Hertzian contact mechanics based formulation to improve ultrasound elastography assessment of uterine cervical tissue stiffness.

Clinical practice requires improved techniques to assess human cervical tissue properties, especially at the internal os, or orifice, of the uterine cervix. Ultrasound elastography (UE) holds promise for non-invasively monitoring cervical stiffness throughout pregnancy. However, this technique provides qualitative strain images that cannot be linked to a material property (e.g., Young's modulus) without knowledge of the contact pressure under a rounded transvaginal transducer probe and correction for the resulting non-uniform strain dissipation. One technique to standardize elastogram images incorporates a material of known properties and uses one-dimensional, uniaxial Hooke's law to calculate Young's modulus within the compressed material half-space. However, this method does not account for strain dissipation and the strains that evolve in three-dimensional space. We demonstrate that an analytical approach based on 3D Hertzian contact mechanics provides a reasonable first approximation to correct for UE strain dissipation underneath a round transvaginal transducer probe and thus improves UE-derived estimates of tissue modulus. We validate the proposed analytical solution and evaluate sources of error using a finite element model. As compared to 1D uniaxial Hooke's law, the Hertzian contact-based solution yields significantly improved Young's modulus predictions in three homogeneous gelatin tissue phantoms possessing different moduli. We also demonstrate the feasibility of using this technique to image human cervical tissue, where UE-derived moduli estimations for the uterine cervix anterior lip agreed well with published, experimentally obtained values. Overall, UE with an attached reference standard and a Hertzian contact-based correction holds promise for improving quantitative estimates of cervical tissue modulus.

Creep-assisted slow crack growth in bio-inspired dental multilayers.

Ceramic crown structures under occlusal contact are often idealized as flat multilayered structures that are deformed under Hertzian contact loading. Previous models treated each layer as linear elastic materials and resulted in differences between the measured and predicted critical loads. This paper examines the combined effects of creep (in the adhesive and substrate layers) and creep-assisted slow crack growth (in the ceramic layer) on the contact-induced deformation of bio-inspired, functionally graded multilayer (FGM) structures and the conventional tri-layers. The time-dependent moduli of each of the layers were determined from constant load creep tests. The resulting modulus-time characteristics were modeled using Prony series. These were then incorporated into a finite element model for the computation of stress distributions in the sub-surface regions of the top ceramic layer, in which sub-surface radial cracks, are observed as the clinical failure mode. The time-dependent stresses are incorporated into a slow crack growth (SCG) model that is used to predict the critical loads of the dental multilayers under Hertzian contact loading. The predicted loading rate dependence of the critical loads is shown to be consistent with experimental results. The implications of the results are then discussed for the design of robust dental multilayers.

Contact fatigue of veneer feldspathic porcelain on dental zirconia.

OBJECTIVES: To understand the resistance to cyclic and static contact loading of feldspathic porcelain on dental zirconia (3Y-TZP), in order to understand the partial failure of porcelain (chipping or cracking). METHODS: Hertzian contact techniques were used to evaluate the appearance of damage as a ring crack in terms of applied load and number of cycles in air and simulated saliva. RESULTS: Static contact loading showed the presence of stress corrosion cracking in the porcelain; the environmental crack growth in air was determined from the results of time to damage under static load. There was also a contribution of fatigue effects due to the interactions of the crack with the microstructure. From the obtained results, a time to failure was estimated depending on the material counterpart. Cracking can occur on porcelain coatings if the contact counterpart is teeth or porcelain in a time interval of a few years, consistent with clinical studies. SIGNIFICANCE: Contact loading, particularly against teeth or other ceramic materials can be a significant cause of failure and chipping of feldspathic porcelain on zirconia, especially if the patient suffers from bruxism. Protection, by e.g. a guard, against repetitive contact against the porcelain can increase the lifetime of the veneer.

Generation of transversal envelope soliton in polymeric and wooden rods.

This paper is concerned with the probing of the transversal envelope solitons propagation in circular waveguides when a set of requirements (non-linearity and dispersion) are fulfilled in the waveguide and balanced. The basic idea is to analyze the shape of an acoustic pulse after it has traveled one or few trips through samples constituted of a rod and two ended beads. The dispersive behavior is associated to the bounded medium (rod) and the contacts between the elements of the specimens are assumed being described by non-linear Hertz' law type. The experimental data are obviously material dependent and have pointed out the existence of common properties on the formation and propagation properties of the envelope solitons whatever is the material (polymers, carbon fibers and wood) of the rods and spheres. Peculiar behaviors were also observed for specific material (woods) probably caused by the anisotropy of this kind of rod material leading to a double envelope soliton.

Hertzian contact response and damage tolerance of dental ceramics.

OBJECTIVES: To determine the contact response and damage tolerance or strength degradation of a range of dental CAD/CAM ceramic materials including novel polymer-infiltrated-ceramic-network (PICN) materials by means of spherical indentations at various loads and indenter radii. METHODS: The seven tested materials included Mark II, PICN test materials 1 and 2, In-Ceram Alumina, VM 9, In-Ceram YZ (Vita Zahnfabrik, Bad Saeckingen, Germany) and IPS e.max CAD, (Ivoclar Vivadent, Schaan, Liechtenstein). To evaluate the damage tolerance and role of indenter size, indentations with tungsten carbide spheres (0.5mm and 1.25mm radius) were placed on bending bars with varying loads (1.96-1000N). The indented bending bars were subsequently loaded to fracture in three-point bending. The contact induced damage was analyzed by light microscopy (LM) and SEM. The spherical contact response was measured on polished surfaces. RESULTS: The initial strengths for the individual materials were found to reduce above specific indentation loads, which were a function of the indenter radius. Employing a 0.5mm radius sphere resulted in the following strength degrading loads and ordering of materials: VM9 (98N)

Evaluation of a transient, simultaneous, arbitrary Lagrange-Euler based multi-physics method for simulating the mitral heart valve.

A transient multi-physics model of the mitral heart valve has been developed, which allows simultaneous calculation of fluid flow and structural deformation. A recently developed contact method has been applied to enable simulation of systole (the stage when blood pressure is elevated within the heart to pump blood to the body). The geometry was simplified to represent the mitral valve within the heart walls in two dimensions. Only the mitral valve undergoes deformation. A moving arbitrary Lagrange-Euler mesh is used to allow true fluid-structure interaction (FSI). The FSI model requires blood flow to induce valve closure by inducing strains in the region of 10-20%. Model predictions were found to be consistent with existing literature and will undergo further development.

A simple surrogate test method to rank the wear performance of prospective ceramic materials under hip prosthesis edge-loading conditions.

This research has developed a novel test method for evaluating the wear resistance of ceramic materials under severe contact stresses simulating edge loading in prosthetic hip bearings. Simply shaped test specimens - a cylinder and a spheroid - were designed as surrogates for an edge-loaded, head/liner implant pair. Equivalency of the simpler specimens was assured in the sense that their theoretical contact dimensions and pressures were identical, according to Hertzian contact theory, to those of the head/liner pair. The surrogates were fabricated in three ceramic materials: Al2 O3 , zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA), and ZrO2 . They were mated in three different material pairs and reciprocated under a 200 N normal contact force for 1000-2000 cycles, which created small (<1 mm(2) ) wear scars. The three material pairs were ranked by their wear resistance, quantified by the volume of abraded material measured using an interferometer. Similar tests were performed on edge-loaded hip implants in the same material pairs. The surrogates replicated the wear rankings of their full-scale implant counterparts and mimicked their friction force trends. The results show that a proxy test using simple test specimens can validly rank the wear performance of ceramic materials under severe, edge-loading contact stresses, while replicating the beginning stage of edge-loading wear. This simple wear test is therefore potentially useful for screening and ranking new, prospective materials early in their development, to produce optimized candidates for more complicated full-scale hip simulator wear tests.