The hardness measurements confirmed that investigated processing of Mg-AZ31 alloy strengthen the material. The micro-hardness test performed at two arrangements of the Knoop indenter longer axis, i.e. parallel to ED and parallel to RD, revealed anisotropy of mechanical properties of the examined pipe (Fig. 2). The Knoop’s hardness (HK) values were significantly higher for RD orientation of the longer axis of intender in comparison to the ED orientation of longer intender’s axis. For RD intender orientation average values of the HK were 66.4, 70.8, 86.5, 90.5, and 91.7 for deformations 0%, 5%, 13%, 28% and 50%, respectively.

Taking advantage of ERASMUS program I visited
Institute of Physics of Materials of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Brno.
I spent there a week exchanging experience
concerning computation of grain boundary distributions.
I was also trying to learn basics of
atomistic simulations with LAMMPS package.
It allows computation of boundary energy for a given geometric arrangement.
This could help in interpretation of some results.

In the previous month, the focus was on the study of titanium dioxide substrates for photochemical method and FDTD simulation software of the particles no the cell front configuration.
The simulation stage included simulation set up preaparation and its advancing. Within the titania substrates investigation, the transmission, reflection an absorbacne spectra were measured. Next the absorption band edge was calculated. Optical constant and thickness were found from elipsometry measuremnts and fitting.

Bloody Spring has came… In the darkness of air conditioned lab I have started hemocompatibility assays. PEMs were prepared on PCV tubes in order to perform experiments in aortic flow simulator. I’ve also continued CLSM visualization of smooth muscle cells growing on samples modified by migration channels. Finally, coatings functionalized by the SiC or Ag nanoparticles for the ATR-FTIR analysis were prepared during this few sunny days.

During last month I finished some corronsion experiments on heat-treated samples. The results are very promising. Moreover I have started to write and article about precipitations sequence in my alloys and their crystallographic orientations versus orientation of the matrix - the work is in progress.