Copper-ion solid-state battery systems involving sulphonium iodide electrolytes
THE past 10 years has seen a considerable interest in solid-state battery systems involving electrolytes based on silver iodide1–3. Studies of electrolytes involving organic sulphonium iodides in conjunction with silver iodide have been reported3,5–9, but recently the possibility of using cuprous ions to replace silver ions as the mobile species has attracted attention, because of the potential advantage of lower cost and higher voltage. We report here the results of our investigations of sulphonium iodide–cuprous iodide electrolytes.
Stability of the α-RbCu4Cl3+xI2−x solid-electrolyte cell
The performance of the solid state galvanic cells with α-RbCu 4 Cl 3+ x I 2− x as the solid electrolyte has been investigated. The role of moisture in the decomposition of α-RbCu 4 Cl 3+ x I 2− x has also been studied.
Numerical analysis of surface crack propagation in flexible pavements using XFEM and cohesive zone model
Surface initiated (top-down) cracking in the longitudinal direction of pavements has become a predominant mode of failure in thick asphalt pavements. Most previous researchers studied crack propagation using the traditional Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) method by calculating the stress intensity factor around the crack tip. In this paper, Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) was used to study the key factors causing surface initiated crack propagation under surface tension and/or shear. A two-dimensional (2-D) finite element (FE) model for a two-lane flexible pavement was built to predict pavement responses and crack propagation potential under various scenarios. It was found that surface tension is the major driving force for crack propagation when the crack is at some distance away from tire loading. The results show that the distance from the location of crack to tire loading, the depth and direction of the crack, and the modulus ratio between the hot-mix asphalt (HMA) layer and the base layer have significant influences on crack propagation under surface tension. On the other hand, this study shows that shear stress can induce surface initiated crack propagation near the loading area as the shear resistance of material becomes low at the high temperature.