Prediction of ductile fracture in bulk metal forming: an artificial neural networks based approach

Design and performance of sustainable and translucent building envelopes made of ETFE cushions

The paper reports the first results of a research carried out at the Department of Design and Building Construction of the University of Palermo aimed to investigate the problems related to the performance improvement of the building envelope components able to gain the sunlight. In particular we have investigated the development of sustainable building envelopes made of ETFE (Ethylene TetraFluoroEthylene) cushions. The paper shows the problems related to physics, techniques and construction derived from the use of ETFE by analysing the first use of this innovative material for the construction of more recent sustainable building envelopes all over the world. Because of the few studies avai…

Electroplated bismuth absorbers for planar NTD-Ge sensor arrays applied to hard x-ray detection in astrophysics

Single sensors or small arrays of manually assembled neutron transmutation doped germanium (NTD-Ge) based microcalorimeters have been widely used as high energy-resolution detectors from infrared to hard X-rays. Several planar technological processes were developed in the last years aimed at the fabrication of NTD-Ge arrays, specifically designed to produce soft X-ray detectors. One of these processes consists in the fabrication of the absorbers. In order to absorb efficiently hard X-ray photons, the absorber has to be properly designed and a suitable material has to be employed. Bismuth offers interesting properties in terms of absorbing capability, of low heat capacity (needed to obtain h…

Development of an artificial neural network for defects prediction in metal forming