Investigation of Portevin–Le Chatelier Band Strain and Elastic Shrinkage in Al-Based Alloys Associated with Mg Contents

The Portevin–Le Chatelier（PLC） effect in Al–2.30wt%Mg, Al–4.57wt%Mg and Al–6.91wt%Mg alloys has been investigated at various applied strain rates at room temperature in this study. Three-dimensional digital image correlation（3D-DIC） technique was applied to obtaining the further insight into the spatiotemporal characteristics, in particular the influence of Mg content on deformation behaviors. Mg content has a pronounced effect on serration characteristics, including the serration type and amplitude; Mg content tends to weaken the spatial correlation of the propagative bands. Additionally, the serration amplitude linearly increases with the maximum PLC band strain; high Mg content generates a higher PLC band strain at a given serration amplitude compared with low Mg content. Mg content is found to be effective to enhance the serration amplitude, the maximum PLC band strain and also the amount of elastic shrinkage outside PLC bands.

Investigation of high resolution compact gamma camera module based on a continuous scintillation crystal using a novel charge division readout method

The objective of this study is to investigate a high performance and lower cost compact gamma camera module for a multi-head small animal SPECT system. A compact camera module was developed using a thin Lutetium Oxyorthosilicate （LSO） scintillation crystal slice coupled to a Hamamatsu H8500 position sensitive photomultiplier tube （PSPMT）. A two-stage charge division readout board based on a novel subtractive resistive readout with a truncated center-of-gravity （TCOG） positioning method was developed for the camera. The performance of the camera was evaluated using a flood 99roTe source with a four-quadrant bar-mask phantom. The preliminary experimental results show that the image shrinkage problem associated with the conventional resistive readout can be effectively overcome by the novel subtractive resistive readout with an appropriate fraction subtraction factor. The response output area （ROA） of the camera shown in the flood image was improved up to 34%, and an intrinsic spatial resolution better than 2 mm of detector was achieved. In conclusion, the utilization of a continuous scintillation crystal and a flat-panel PSPMT equipped with a novel subtractive resistive readout is a feasible approach for developing a high performance and lower cost compact gamma camera.