The analysis of ceramic materials has been proven to be an indispensable tool for indirectly approaching past people and societies through their cultural remnants, allowing inferences about their technology, and their interaction with their surrounding physical and social environments. Pottery products acquire their characteristic properties during the manufacture process. Compositional (mineralogical and chemical) and microstructural analyses have become an integral part of interdisciplinary archaeological research, underlining the importance of compositional and technological comparative studies. As damages must be avoided to the archeological artifacts under study, nondestructivity is an essential requirement for the scientific methods operating in this research field. Therefore, the aim of this publication is to correlate 2 nondestructive techniques, namely, computed microtomography and X‐ray microfluorescence in the structural characterization and investigation of the elemental composition of ceramic samples from 2 different Brazilian archaeological sites. Computed microtomography allowed to differentiate the various materials with different densities that compose the samples. These materials had their elemental composition revealed by X‐ray microfluorescence technique, where several tempers used during the manufacturing process were identified. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This work investigates the impact of voids in three-phase cables. Voids in cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) insulated cables are identified as weak points, causing operational changes due to partial discharges. Changes in electric field strengths and current density were evaluated in cable models with Copper (Cu) and Aluminum (Al) cores, containing voids in both the insulating layer and the conductor. Therefore, we applied the COMSOL Multiphysics software based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), to carry out simulations with a voltage of 1 kV, frequency of 60 Hz with alternating current (AC), with a phase change of 120°, in the time domain. With the results, it was possible to obtain a comparative analysis with cables without voids. The study identified that voids generate intense and non-uniform electric fields, generating significant changes in the electric field and current density, offering essential information about the performance of cable systems in practical situations.