Welcome to the Amira-Avizo Software Use Case Gallery

In this study, the researchers investigated the compressive failure mechanisms in flax fiber composites, a promising eco-friendly alternative to synthetic composite materials, through both numerical simulations and experimental analysis. They examined the reasons behind the low compressive strength in comparison to tensile strength, focusing on the compressive-to-tensile strength ratio. A novel thermodynamically consistent continuum damage micromechanics model was introduced to capture the ev... Read more

The research focuses on the fiber behavior following injection molding on a spiral-flow mold, particularly its fiber orientation behavior. The behavior of the glass fiber will be examined by altering key experiment settings, the screw speed and the back pressure, and employing different melt paths. The results show that the application of high back pressure and high screw speed decreased the fiber length but successfully increased the fiber orientation average to the flow direction. The desig... Read more

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a powerful and versatile technique for materials characterization and present in many laboratories. The integration of an X-ray target holder and detector allows expanding the modalities of SEM by X-ray imaging. These little hardware adaptations enable radiography ... Read more

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) guarantees the conservation of important metal resources by reducing demands on raw supply and offsetting the energy and environmental costs associated with its manufacture. Employing a molten salt as a solvent for extraction affords a much greener and simpler route to metal recovery by electrochemical means. The current mechanistic understanding of the electrochemical recovery of metals in molten salts needs to be improved for the process to be op... Read more

The internal skeleton of the nasal cavity is sporadically and often incompletely described for many marsupial species and mammals in general. Here, I provide an anatomical survey of the ethmoid in the skulls of adult marsupials based on examination of computed tomography (CT) imagery of 29 taxa representing all the major extant groups of marsupials. (…) I compared ecological data with the number of ecto- and endoturbinals as a preliminary test to determine whether some of the interspec... Read more

X-ray computed tomography (XCT) has been shown to reveal the true extent of ductile damage below the fracture surface of failed test specimens, which is often significantly underestimated when probed using 2D serial sectioning techniques and a microscope, since a single plane of material may only exhibit only a handful of resolvable voids.

In contrast XCT offers the capability to generate large datasets consisting of hundreds, if not thousands, of individually resolvable voids, where e... Read more

Among natural cellular materials, pomelo peels, having a foam-like hierarchical microstructure, represent an ideal model for developing materials with high energy absorption efficiency. In this work, by combining X-ray tomographic imaging technique and digital volume correlation (DVC), in-situ stepwise uniaxial compression tests were performed to quantify the internal morphological evolution and kinematic responses of pomelo peel samples during compression.

The complex mechanical response of open-cell foams depends strongly on the hierarchy of length scales inherent in them, from engineering-part scale to the ligament scale through the grain scale down to the crystal-lattice scale. A first step toward understanding and predicting the coordinated mechanical response across le... Read more

During the last decades, X-ray (micro-)computed tomography has gained increasing attention for the description of porous skeletal and shell structures of various organism groups. However, their quantitative analysis is often hampered by the difficulty to discriminate cavities and pores within the object from the surrounding region. Herein, we test the ambient occlusion (AO) algorithm and newly implemented optimisations for the segmentation of cavities (implemented in the software Amira). (... Read more

Pigment distributions have a critical role in the corrosion protection properties of organic paint coatings, but they are difficult to image in 3D over statistically significant volumes and at sufficiently high spatial resolutions required for detailed analysis. Here we report, for the first time, large volume analytical serial sectioning tomography of an organic composite coating using a xenon Plasma Focused Ion Beam (PFIB) combined with secondary electron imaging, energy dispersive X-ray (E... Read more

Wind-dispersed plants have evolved ingenious ways to lift their seeds. The common dandelion uses a bundle of drag-enhancing bristles (the pappus) that helps to keep their seeds aloft. This passive flight mechanism is highly effective, enabling seed dispersal over formidable distances; however, the physics underpinning pappus-mediated flight remains unresolved. Here we visualized the flow around dandelion seeds, uncovering an extraordinary type of vortex. This vortex is a ring of recirculating... Read more

3D characterisation of the particle kinematics during loess collapse is performed based on X-ray micro-computed tomography.

Particle displacements and rotations associated with the collapse are determined.

The volumetric strain is shown to be significantly heterogeneous at single-particle scale.

The evolution of particle-to-particle contacts is found to be much more complex than previously stated.

An apparatus is specially designed to perf... Read more

Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels using molten salt media is an attractive alternative to liquid-liquid extraction techniques.

Pyroelectrochemical processing utilizes direct, selective, electrochemical reduction of uranium dioxide, followed by selective electroplating of a uranium metal. Thermodynamic prediction of the electrochemical reduction of UO2 to U in LiCl-KCl eutectic has shown to be a function of the oxide ion activity. The pO2 of the salt may be affected by the microstruc... Read more

The hot pressing process for fabricating membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) has been widely adopted, yet little is known of its effects on the microstructural properties of the different components of the MEA. In particular, the interaction of the electrolyte, electrode and gas diffusion layer (GDL) due to lamination is difficult to probe as conventional imaging techniques cannot access the internal structure of the MEA. Here, a novel approach is used, which combines characterisation of hot... Read more

The interest in potential applications produced with self-compacting fibre reinforced concrete continues to grow, but in practice, problems associated with an uneven distribution and orientation of fibres in the concrete structure occur. It is not clear what exactly influences uneven distribution of fibres in selfcompacting concrete (SCC) mixtures, especially during the casting and how different factors influence fibre orientation. The objective of this work was to investigate how rheological... Read more

Our team is developing a modern, cross-disciplinary approach to documentation and preservation of astromaterials, specifically lunar and meteorite samples stored at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility.

Apollo Lunar Sample 60639, collected as part of rake sample 60610 during the 3rd Extra-Vehicular Activity of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972, served as the first NASA preserved lunar sample to be examined by our team in the development of a novel approach to int... Read more

How do you characterise the contents of a sealed nuclear waste package without breaking it open?

This question is important when the contained corrosion products are potentially reactive with air and radioactive. Synchrotron X-rays have been used to perform micro-scale in-situ observation and characterisation of uranium encapsulated in grout; a simulation for a typical intermediate level waste storage packet. X-ray tomography and X-ray powder diffraction generated both qualitative and ... Read more

Glass foams are attractive thermal insulation materials, thus, the thermal conductivity (λ) is crucial for their insulating performance. Understanding the foaming process is critical for process optimization. Here, we applied high-speed synchrotron X-ray tomography to investigate the change in pore structure during the foaming process, quantifying the foam structures and porosity dynamically. The results can provide guidance for the manufacturing of glass foams. The 3D pore structures were a... Read more

A key technique for controlling solidification microstructures is magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), resulting from imposing a magnetic field to solidifying metals and alloys. Applications range from bulk stirring to flow control and turbulence damping via the induced Lorentz force. Over the past two decades the Lorentz force caused by the interaction of thermoelectric currents and a magnetic field, a MHD phenomenon known as Thermoelectric Magnetohydrodynamics (TEMHD), was also shown to drive inter... Read more

The prevailing electrode fabrication method for lithium-ion battery electrodes includes calendering at high pressures to densify the electrode and promote adhesion to the metal current collector.

However, this process increases the tortuosity of the pore network in the primary transport direction and imposes severe tradeoffs between electrode thickness and rate capability. With the aim of understanding the impact of pore tortuosity on electrode kinetics, and enabling cell designs with ... Read more

A combination of 3D tomography techniques provides direct evidence that links the phase assemblage to the bio-corrosion behaviour of a magnesium-zinc-calcium (Mg-Zn-Ca) alloy. The true shape, connectivity and volume fraction of the components have been determined using focused ion beam (FIB) tomography. The mechanism of the effect of the components with different morphologies on biodegradation was studied with the help of FIB. Micro X-ray CT (MicroCT) was used to investigate the degradation o... Read more