(Bi1/2Na1/2)TiO3 (BNT)-based ceramics are considered promising candidates for actuator application owing to their excellent electromechanical strain properties However, to obtain large strain properties, there remain several issues such as thermal stability and high operating fields. Therefore, this study investigates a reduction of operating field in (0.98-x)Bi1/2Na1/ 2TiO3-0.02 BiAlO3-xSrTiO3 (BNT-2BA-100xST, x = 0.20, 0.21, 0.22, 0.23, and 0.24) via analyses of the microstructure, crystal structure, dielectric, polarization, ferroelectric and electromechanical strain properties. The average grain size of BNT-2BA- 100xST ceramics decreases with increasing ST content. Results of polarization and electromechanical strain properties indicate that a ferroelectric to relaxor state transition is induced by ST modification. As a consequence, a large electromechanical strain of 592 pm/V is obtained at a relatively low electric field of 4 kV/mm in 22 mol% ST-modified BNT-2BA ceramics. We believe that the materials synthesized in this study are promising candidates for actuator applications.

Recently, in Seoul there is a growing interest in the L type gutter between the street and the sidewalk because the broken gutter spoils the appearance of the city. The gutter has been viewed as an unimportant attached facility of the road despite an important drainage facility. Also, the gutter lost function by various deterioration actions is becoming hideous objects of streets. Accordingly, many engineers recognized problems about the gutter and tried to seek for solution. In this study, we desired to confirm that the inside of the gutter concrete was not deteriorated even if the surface of the gutter concrete was deteriorated by the de-icing salts. We could obtain thirty core specimens deteriorated by de-icing salts in Seongbuk-gu which is old downtown, has many hills such as Arirang-Hill, Miari-Hill, etc. in Seoul and test compressive strength. It was confirmed that the compressive strength of the gutter concrete follows normal distribution and it is statistically significant 1% level that the population mean of the compressive strength of the gutter concrete is more than 18MPa.