The structural, elastic and electronic properties of Cu-X compounds in the Cu-X (X =Al, Be, Mg, Sn, Zn and Zr) systems were predicted systematically by first-principles calculations. The ground state properties such as lattice constant, bulk modulus (B) and it’s pressure derivative (B′) were predicted by fitting a four-parameter Birch-Murnaghan equation and the elastic constants (c_ij’s) are determined by an efficient strain-stress method. The calculated lattice parameters and c_ij’s of these binary compounds agree well with the available experimental data in the literature. In addition, elastic properties of polycrystalline aggregates including bulk modulus (B), shear modulus (G), elastic modulus (E), B/G (bulk/shear) ratio, and anisotropy ratio (A^U) are calculated and compared with the experimental and theoretical results available in the literature. Based on electronic density of states (DOS) analysis, it can be revealed that all the compounds in the present work are metallic in nature.

Cold closed-die forging is a suitable process to produce spur-bevel gears due to its advantages, such as saving materials and time, reducing costs, increasing die life and improving the quality of the product. The homogeneity of microstructure of cold closed-die forged gears can highly affect their service performance. The homogeneity of microstructure and Vickers hardness in cold closed-die forged gear of 20CrMnTi alloy is comprehensively studied by using optical microscopy and Vickers hardness tester. The results show that the distribution homogeneity of the aspect ratio of grain and Vickers hardness is the same. In the circumferential direction of the gear tooth, the distribution of the aspect ratio of grain and Vickers hardness is inhomogeneous and they gradually decrease from the surface to the center of the tooth. In the radial direction, the distribution of the aspect ratio of grain and Vickers hardness is inhomogeneous on the surface of the gear tooth; while it is relatively homogeneous in the center of the gear tooth. In the axial direction of the gear tooth, the distribution of the aspect ratio of grain and Vickers hardness is relatively homogeneous from the small-end to the large-end of the gear tooth.

The present work is concerned with the solution of a problem on thermoelastic interactions in a functional graded material due to thermal shock in the context of the fractional order three-phase lag model. The governing equations of fractional order generalized thermoelasticity with three-phase lag model for functionally graded materials (FGM) (i.e., material with spatially varying material properties) are established. The analytical solution in the transform domain is obtained by using the eigenvalue approach. The inversion of Laplace transform is done numerically. The graphical results indicate that the fractional parameter has significant effects on all the physical quantities. Thus, we can consider the theory of fractional order generalized thermoelasticity an improvement on studying elastic materials.

The sensing performances of multiple networked GaN nanowire (NW) sensor codecorated with Au and Pt nanoparticles were examined. The pristine GaN nanowires show responses of approximately 108%–173% to 0.05%–0.25% H₂ at room temperature. On the other hand, the GaN nanowires decorated with Au and those decorated with Pt lead to 1.1–1.3 and 1.2–1.6 times, respectively, stronger responses to 0.05%–0.25% H₂. In contrast, the AuPt-codecorated GaN nanowires show 1.3–2.0 times stronger responses to 0.05%–0.25% H₂. In other words, the GaN nanorods codecorated with Au and Pt nanoparticles show much stronger response to H₂ gas than the Au or Pt monometal-decorated counterpart. The underlying mechanism for the enhanced response of the AuPt-codecorated GaN nanowire was discussed.

A copper-bispyridylpyrrolide complex [Cu(PDP_H)Cl] (PDP_H = 2,5-bis(2′-pyridyl)pyrrole) was synthesized and characterized. The complex crystallizes in the orthorhombic system with space group Pccn, a = 0.9016(3) nm, b = 1.0931(4) nm, c = 2.5319(8) nm, and V = 2.4951(15) nm³. The copper center is situated in a square planar geometry. The interaction of the copper(II) complex with calf thymus DNA (CT-DNA) was investigated by electronic absorption, circular dichroism (CD) and fluorescence spectra. It is proposed that the complex binds to CT-DNA through groove binding mode. Nuclease activity of the complex was also studied by gel electrophoresis method. The complex can efficiently cleave supercoiled pBR322 DNA in the presence of ascorbate (H₂A) via oxidative pathway. The preliminary mechanism of DNA cleavage by the complex with different inhibiting reagents indicates that the hydroxyl radicals were involved as the active species in the DNA cleavage process.

Suitable amounts of Al(OH)₃, NaOH and synthetic hematite or goethite were taken to be digested under the simulated condition of the Bayer process and subsequently diluted with simulative Bayer red mud lotion, then the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension was obtained. The flocculation effect of self-made modified poly(acrylic acids) flocculants containing hydroxamic acid groups (abbreviated as HPAA) on the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension was studied. The experimental results show that with the increase of the dosages of added flocculants, the average settling rate of the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension in the first 1 min speeds up, the supernatant solids decrease. It could also be found that there is generally a decrease in the average settling rate of the synthetic hematite or goethite suspension in the first 1 min with increasing solid content of the suspension. When the solid content of hematite or goethite of the suspension is 50 g/L with 240 g/t dosage of HPAA, HPAA has a better flocculation effect on the synthetic goethite suspension than on the synthetic hematite suspension. The adsorption mechanism of HPAA on the surface of hematite or goethite was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FT-IR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS). All the results suggest that HPAA is adsorbed on the hematite or goethite surface by a chemisorption, and it has a stronger adsorption on the goethite surface than on the hematite surface.

In order to enhance the lead and zinc recovery from the refractory Pb-Zn oxide ore, a new technology was developed based on sulfidation roasting with sulphur by temperature gradient method. The solid-liquid reaction system was established and the sulfidation thermodynamics of lead and zinc carbonate was calculated with the software HSC 5.0. The effects of roasting temperature, molar ratio of sulphur to lead and zinc carbonate and reaction time in the first step roasting, and holding temperature and time in the second roasting on the sulfidation extent were studied at a laboratory-scale. The experimental results show that the sulfidation extents of lead and zinc are 96.50% and 97.29% under the optimal conditions, respectively, and the artificial galena, sphalerite and wurtzite were formed. By the novel sulfidizing process, it is expected that the sulphides can be recovered by conventional flotation technology.

A novel low-temperature alkaline smelting process is proposed to convert and separate amphoteric metals in crushed metal enrichment originated from waste printed circuit boards. The central composite design was used to optimize the operating parameters, in which mass ratio of NaOH-to-CME, smelting temperature and smelting time were chosen as the variables, and the conversions of amphoteric metals tin, lead, aluminum and zinc were response parameters. Second-order polynomial models of high significance and 3D response surface plots were constructed to show the relationship between the responses and the variables. Optimum area of 80%–85% Pb conversion and over 95% Sn conversion was obtained by the overlaid contours at mass ratio of NaOH-to-CME of 4.5–5.0, smelting temperature of 653–723 K, smelting time of 90–120 min. The models were validated experimentally in the optimum area, and the results demonstrate that these models are reliable and accurate in predicting the smelting process.

The separation characteristic of raw coal from Luoyang mining area, China, was investigated by applying a dry coal beneficiation flowsheet with the dense medium gas-solid fluidized bed as main separating equipment. The experimental and simulation results indicate that the dense medium gas-solid fluidized bed can provide uniform distribution and stable fluctuation of bed densities at various heights. Two types of different separating approaches were compared using the dry coal beneficiation flowsheet. Compared with obtaining cleaning coal in the first stage of the flowsheet, a higher yield of the cleaning coal and better separation efficiency can be achieved when discharging gangue in the first stage. Finally, the results indicate that 64.86% pure cleaning coal with an ash content of 11.77% and 13.53% middlings were obtained, and 21.61% gangue was removed in two successive separation stages with the probable errors of 0.05 and 0.07 g/cm³, respectively.

To improve heat-transfer performance, a novel integral three-dimensional fin-structure on the plat surface was presented to increase the evaporation efficiency. The three-dimensional fin-structure is composed of a spiral micro-groove and multi radial micro-grooves. Both ploughing-extrusion (P-E) and stamping were used to form the integral-fins with a connection between radial and circumferential directions. Based on the SEM results, the relationships among P-E speed v_P-E, rotational speed n_p and feed f_p, and among interference length L_i, stamping feed angle θ_c and stamping depth a_c were analyzed. The effects of processing parameters on the groove morphology and the matching relationship between parameters were also discussed. The integral finned surface with micro-grooves and cracks can be obtained under such processing conditions: P-E depth a_p=0.3 mm, a_c=0.3 mm, the interval of helical groove d_p=1.24 mm, θ_c=2° and n_p=50 r/min.

The failure of spur gears operating in highly contaminated media was studied. In fact, the effect of the presence of solid particles in gear mechanisms during surface tooth contact was observed. It is shown that the solid contaminants lead to significant wear in the first few operating cycles, in zones with a high rate of sliding. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images show clearly that the wear is more significant for a dry contact in the presence of larger size particles. Indeed, the presence of contaminants leads to an increase in friction, and therefore raises the temperature and the vibration levels when the operation of gear mechanism becomes very severe especially for a dry contact under the effect of larger size particles. On the other hand, we have tried to obtain a better understanding and a good description of wear debris distributions in gear mechanisms by using unimodal, single distribution models (Weibull and three-parameter Weibull).

The meshing characteristic of asymmetric involute spur gear was studied, the equations of the geometric shape of the asymmetric gear for both sides were deduced, and the equations of contact ratio and the key points of contact were also obtained. Meanwhile, an involute slope modification method considering the effects of static transmission errors was proposed based on the meshing properties. The characteristic of the involute slope modification was analyzed by changing different modification parameters. The mesh stiffness and synthetic mesh stiffness of unmodified and modified asymmetric spur gears were investigated. Furthermore, the spectrums of synthetic mesh stiffness under different modification parameters were compared. Research results showed that the modification parameters influence the meshing performance of gear pairs, and the proposed modification method was feasible to improve the transmission performance of gear pairs with appropriate modification parameters.

To ameliorate reliability analysis efficiency for aeroengine components, such as compressor blade, support vector machine response surface method (SRSM) is proposed. SRSM integrates the advantages of support vector machine (SVM) and traditional response surface method (RSM), and utilizes experimental samples to construct a suitable response surface function (RSF) to replace the complicated and abstract finite element model. Moreover, the randomness of material parameters, structural dimension and operating condition are considered during extracting data so that the response surface function is more agreeable to the practical model. The results indicate that based on the same experimental data, SRSM has come closer than RSM reliability to approximating Monte Carlo method (MCM); while SRSM (17.296 s) needs far less running time than MCM (10958 s) and RSM (9840 s). Therefore, under the same simulation conditions, SRSM has the largest analysis efficiency, and can be considered a feasible and valid method to analyze structural reliability.

The size of impeller reflux holes for centrifugal pump has influence on the pressure distribution of front and rear shrouds and rear pump chamber, as well as energy characteristics of whole pump and axial force. Low specific-speed centrifugal pump with Q=12.5 m³/h, H=60 m, n=2950 r/min was selected to be designed with eight axial reflux balance holes with 4.5 mm in diameter. The simulated Q-H curve and net positive suction head (NPSH) were in good agreement with experimental results, which illustrated that centrifugal pump with axial reflux balance holes was superior in the cavitation characteristic; however, it showed to little superiority in head and efficiency. The pressure in rear pump chamber at 0.6 times rate flow is 29.36% of pressure difference between outlet and inlet, which reduces to 29.10% at rate flow and 28.33% at 1.4 times rate flow. As the whole, the pressure distribution on front and rear shrouds from simulation results is not a standard parabola, and axial force decreases as flow rate increases. Radical reflux balance holes chosen to be 5.2 mm and 5.9 mm in diameter were further designed with other hydraulic parts unchanged. With structural grids adopted for total flow field, contrast numerical simulation on internal flow characteristics was conducted based on momentum equations and standard turbulence model (κ-ɛ). It is found that axial force of pump with radical reflux balance holes of 5.2 mm and 5.9 mm in diameter is significantly less than that with radical reflux balance holes of 4.5 mm in diameter. Better axial force balance is obtained as the ratio of area of reflux balance holes and area of sealing ring exceeds 6.

Non-pneumatic tire appears to have advantages over traditional pneumatic tire in terms of flat proof and maintenance free. A mechanical elastic wheel (MEW) with a non-pneumatic elastic outer ring which functions as air of pneumatic tire was presented. The structure of MEW was non-inflatable integrated configuration and the effect of hinges was accounted for only in tension. To establish finite element model of MEW, various nonlinear factors, such as geometrical nonlinearity, material nonlinearity and contact nonlinearity, were considered. Load characteristic test was conducted by tyre dynamic test-bed to obtain force-deflection curve. And the finite element model was validated through load characteristic test. Natural dynamic characteristics of the MEW and its influencing factors were investigated based on the finite element model. Simulation results show that the finite element model closely matched experimental wheel. The results also show that natural frequency is related to ground constraints, material properties, loads and torques. Influencing factors as above obviously affect the amplitude of mode of vibration, but have little effect on mode of vibration shape. The results can provide guidance for experiment research, structural optimization of MEW.

An adaptive current compensation control for a single-sided linear induction motor (SLIM) with nonlinear disturbance observer was developed. First, to maintain t-axis secondary component flux constant with consideration of the specially dynamic eddy-effect (DEE) of the SLIM, a instantaneously tracing compensation of m-axis current component was analyzed. Second, adaptive current compensation based on Taylor-discretization algorithm was proposed. Third, an effective kind of nonlinear disturbance observer (NDOB) was employed to estimate and compensate the undesired load vibrations, then the robustness of the control system could be guaranteed. Experimental verification of the feasibility of the proposed method for an SLIM control system was performed, and it showed that the proposed adaptive compensation scheme with NDOB could significantly promote speed dynamical response and minimize speed ripple under the conditions of external load coupled vibrations and unavoidable feedback control variables measured errors, i.e., current and speed.

A novel control scheme of active disturbance rejection internal model control (ADRIMC) is proposed to improve the anti-interference ability and robustness for the dead-time process. The active anti-interference concept is introduced into the internal model control (IMC) by analyzing the relationship between IMC and disturbance observer control (DOB). Further, a design process of disturbance filter is presented to realize the active anti-interference ability for ADRIMC scheme. The disturbance filter is used to estimate an equivalent disturbance consisting of both external disturbances and internal disturbances caused by model mismatches. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method possesses a good disturbance rejection performance, though losing some partial dynamic performance. In other words, the proposed method shows a tradeoff between the dynamic performance and the system robust.

Due to soaring fuel prices and environmental concerns, hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) technology attracts more attentions in last decade. Energy management system, configuration of HEV and traffic conditions are the main factors which affect HEV’s fuel consumption, emission and performance. Therefore, optimal management of the energy components is a key element for the success of a HEV. An optimal energy management system is developed for HEV based on genetic algorithm. Then, different powertrain system component combinations effects are investigated in various driving cycles. HEV simulation results are compared for default rule-based, fuzzy and GA-fuzzy controllers by using ADVISOR. The results indicate the effectiveness of proposed optimal controller over real world driving cycles. Also, an optimal powertrain configuration to improve fuel consumption and emission efficiency is proposed for each driving condition. Finally, the effects of batteries in initial state of charge and hybridization factor are investigated on HEV performance to evaluate fuel consumption and emissions. Fuel consumption average reduction of about 14% is obtained for optimal configuration data in contrast to default configuration. Also results indicate that proposed controller has reduced emission of about 10% in various traffic conditions.

Shunt capacitors are broadly applied in distribution systems to scale down power losses, improve voltage profile and boost system capacity. The amount of capacitors added and location of deployment in the system highly determine the advantage of compensation. A novel global harmony search (GHS) algorithm in parallel with the backward/ forward sweep power flow technique and radial harmonic power flow was used to investigate the optimal placement and sizing of capacitors in radial distribution networks for minimizing power loss and total cost by taking account load unbalancing, mutual coupling and harmonics. The optimal capacitor placement outcomes show that the GHS algorithm can reduce total power losses up to 60 kW and leads to more than 18% of cost saving. The results also demonstrate that the GHS algorithm is more effective in minimization of power loss and total costs compared with genetic algorithm (GA), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and harmony search (HS) algorithm. Moreover, the proposed algorithm converges within 800 iterations and is faster in terms of computational time and gives better performance in finding optimal capacitor location and size compared with other optimization techniques.

A wireless body area network offers cost-effective solutions for healthcare infrastructure. An adaptive transmission algorithm is designed to handle channel efficiency, which adjusts packet size according to the difference in feature-point values that indicate biomedical signal characteristics. Furthermore, we propose a priority-adjustment method that enhances quality of service while guaranteeing signal integrity. A large number of simulations were carried out for performance evaluation. We use electrocardiogram and electromyogram signals as reference biomedical signals for performance verification. From the simulation results, we find that the average packet latency of proposed scheme is enhanced by 30% compared to conventional method. The simulation results also demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves significant performance improvement in terms of drop rates of high-priority packets around 0.3%–0.9 %.

Due to continuous decreasing feature size and increasing device density, on-chip caches have been becoming susceptible to single event upsets, which will result in multi-bit soft errors. The increasing rate of multi-bit errors could result in high risk of data corruption and even application program crashing. Traditionally, L1 D-caches have been protected from soft errors using simple parity to detect errors, and recover errors by reading correct data from L2 cache, which will induce performance penalty. This work proposes to exploit the redundancy based on the characteristic of data values. In the case of a small data value, the replica is stored in the upper half of the word. The replica of a big data value is stored in a dedicated cache line, which will sacrifice some capacity of the data cache. Experiment results show that the reliability of L1 D-cache has been improved by 65% at the cost of 1% in performance.

A method and procedure is presented to reconstruct three-dimensional (3D) positions of scattering centers from multiple synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images. Firstly, two-dimensional (2D) attribute scattering centers of targets are extracted from 2D SAR images. Secondly, similarity measure is developed based on 2D attributed scatter centers’ location, type, and radargrammetry principle between multiple SAR images. By this similarity, we can associate 2D scatter centers and then obtain candidate 3D scattering centers. Thirdly, these candidate scattering centers are clustered in 3D space to reconstruct final 3D positions. Compared with presented methods, the proposed method has a capability of describing distributed scattering center, reduces false and missing 3D scattering centers, and has fewer restrictionson modeling data. Finally, results of experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging can be regarded as a narrow-band version of the computer aided tomography (CT). The traditional CT imaging algorithms for ISAR, including the polar format algorithm (PFA) and the convolution back projection algorithm (CBP), usually suffer from the problem of the high sidelobe and the low resolution. The ISAR tomography image reconstruction within a sparse Bayesian framework is concerned. Firstly, the sparse ISAR tomography imaging model is established in light of the CT imaging theory. Then, by using the compressed sensing (CS) principle, a high resolution ISAR image can be achieved with limited number of pulses. Since the performance of existing CS-based ISAR imaging algorithms is sensitive to the user parameter, this makes the existing algorithms inconvenient to be used in practice. It is well known that the Bayesian formalism of recover algorithm named sparse Bayesian learning (SBL) acts as an effective tool in regression and classification, which uses an efficient expectation maximization procedure to estimate the necessary parameters, and retains a preferable property of the l₀-norm diversity measure. Motivated by that, a fully automated ISAR tomography imaging algorithm based on SBL is proposed. Experimental results based on simulated and electromagnetic (EM) data illustrate the effectiveness and the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the existing algorithms.

An enhanced algorithm is proposed to recognize multi-channel electromyography (EMG) patterns using deep belief networks (DBNs). It is difficult to classify the EMG features because an EMG signal has nonlinear and time-varying characteristics. Therefore, in several previous studies, various machine-learning methods have been applied. A DBN is a fast, greedy learning algorithm that can find a fairly good set of weights rapidly, even in deep networks with a large number of parameters and many hidden layers. To evaluate this model, we acquired EMG signals, extracted their features, and then compared the model with the DBN and other conventional classifiers. The accuracy of the DBN is higher than that of the other algorithms. The classification performance of the DBN model designed is approximately 88.60%. It is 7.55% (p=9.82×10⁻¹²) higher than linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and 2.89% (p=1.94×10⁻⁵) higher than support vector machine (SVM). Further, the DBN is better than shallow learning algorithms or back propagation (BP), and this model is effective for an EMG-based user-interfaced system.

Dimensionality reduction methods play an important role in face recognition. Principal component analysis (PCA) and two-dimensional principal component analysis (2DPCA) are two kinds of important methods in this field. Recent research seems like that 2DPCA method is superior to PCA method. To prove if this conclusion is always true, a comprehensive comparison study between PCA and 2DPCA methods was carried out. A novel concept, called column-image difference (CID), was proposed to analyze the difference between PCA and 2DPCA methods in theory. It is found that there exist some restrictive conditions when 2DPCA outperforms PCA. After theoretical analysis, the experiments were conducted on four famous face image databases. The experiment results confirm the validity of theoretical claim.

Expression, occlusion, and pose variations are three main challenges for 3D face recognition. A novel method is presented to address 3D face recognition using scale-invariant feature transform (SIFT) features on 3D meshes. After preprocessing, shape index extrema on the 3D facial surface are selected as keypoints in the difference scale space and the unstable keypoints are removed after two screening steps. Then, a local coordinate system for each keypoint is established by principal component analysis (PCA). Next, two local geometric features are extracted around each keypoint through the local coordinate system. Additionally, the features are augmented by the symmetrization according to the approximate left-right symmetry in human face. The proposed method is evaluated on the Bosphorus, BU-3DFE, and Gavab databases, respectively. Good results are achieved on these three datasets. As a result, the proposed method proves robust to facial expression variations, partial external occlusions and large pose changes.

In order to enhance the robustness and contrast in the minimum variance (MV) beamformer, adaptive diagonal loading method was proposed. The conventional diagonal loading technique has already been used in the MV beamformer, but has the drawback that its level is specified by predefined parameter and without consideration of input-data. To alleviate this problem, the level of diagonal loading was computed appropriately and automatically from the given data by shrinkage method in the proposed adaptive diagonal loaded beamformer. The performance of the proposed beamformer was tested on the simulated point target and cyst phantom was obtained using Field II. In the point target simulation, it is shown that the proposed method has higher lateral resolution than the conventional delay-and-sum beamformer and could be more robust in estimating the amplitude peak than the MV beamformer when acoustic velocity error exists. In the cyst phantom simulation, the proposed beamformer has shown that it achieves an improvement in contrast ratio and without distorting the edges of cyst.

Many text classifications depend on statistical term measures to implement document representation. Such document representations ignore the lexical semantic contents of terms and the distilled mutual information, leading to text classification errors. This work proposed a document representation method, WordNet-based lexical semantic VSM, to solve the problem. Using WordNet, this method constructed a data structure of semantic-element information to characterize lexical semantic contents, and adjusted EM modeling to disambiguate word stems. Then, in the lexical-semantic space of corpus, lexical-semantic eigenvector of document representation was built by calculating the weight of each synset, and applied to a widely-recognized algorithm NWKNN. On text corpus Reuter-21578 and its adjusted version of lexical replacement, the experimental results show that the lexical-semantic eigenvector performs F1 measure and scales of dimension better than term-statistic eigenvector based on TF-IDF. Formation of document representation eigenvectors ensures the method a wide prospect of classification applications in text corpus analysis.

In order to simulate the instability phenomenon of a nonaqueous phase liquid (NAPL) dissolution front in a computational model, the intrinsic characteristic length is commonly used to determine the length scale at which the instability of the NAPL dissolution front can be initiated. This will require a huge number of finite elements if a whole NAPL dissolution system is simulated in the computational model. Even though modern supercomputers might be used to tackle this kind of NAPL dissolution problem, it can become prohibitive for commonly-used personal computers to do so. The main purpose of this work is to investigate whether or not the whole NAPL dissolution system of an annular domain can be replaced by a trapezoidal domain, so as to greatly reduce the requirements for computer efforts. The related simulation results have demonstrated that when the NAPL dissolution system under consideration is in a subcritical state, if the dissolution pattern around the entrance of an annulus domain is of interest, then a trapezoidal domain cannot be used to replace an annular domain in the computational simulation of the NAPL dissolution system. However, if the dissolution pattern away from the vicinity of the entrance of an annulus domain is of interest, then a trapezoidal domain can be used to replace an annular domain in the computational simulation of the NAPL dissolution system. When the NAPL dissolution system under consideration is in a supercritical state, a trapezoidal domain cannot be used to replace an annular domain in the computational simulation of the NAPL dissolution system.

Mineral contents and fractures of shale from well Yuye-1 and outcrops were examined mainly based on systematic description of the cores and outcrops, and data from experimental analyses. The data enabled us to thoroughly explore the mineralogy and developmental features of shale of the Lower Silurian Longmaxi Formation in the study area. The results show that, the Lower Silurian Longmaxi Shale (SLS) in the southeastern margin of Sichuan Basin, China, is primarily characterized by a high content of brittle minerals and a relatively low content of clay minerals. The total content of brittle minerals is approximately 57%, including 27% quartz, 12.2% feldspar, 11.2% carbonate and 2.4% pyrite. The total content of clay minerals reaches 41.6%, composed of illite (23.8%), mixed-layer of illite and smectite (I/S) (10.8%) and chlorite (7.0%). The SLS accommodates the widespread development of various types of fractures, including tectonic fractures, diagenetic fractures, inter-layer fractures and slip fractures. The developmental level of the fracture in the SLS is mainly influenced by faults, lithology, mineral contents and total organic carbon content (TOC) in study area.

A series of unconfined compression tests (UCTs) were conducted to investigate the effects of content of reactive magnesia (MgO) and carbonation time on the engineering properties including apparent characteristics, stress-strain relation, and deformation and strength characteristics of reactive MgO treated silt soils. The soils treated with reactive MgO at various contents were subjected to accelerated carbonation for different periods of time and later, UCTs were performed on them. The results demonstrate that the reactive MgO content and carbonation time have remarkable influences on the aforementioned engineering properties of the soils. It is found that with the increase in reactive MgO content, the unconfined compressive strength (q_u) increases at a given carbonation time (<10 h), whereas the water content and amounts of crack of the soils decrease. A threshold content of reactive MgO exists at approximately 25% and a critical carbonation time exists at about 10 h for the development of q_u. A simple yet practical strength-prediction model, by taking into account two variables of reactive MgO content and carbonation time, is proposed to estimate q_u of carbonated reactive MgO treated soils. A comparison of the predicated values of q_u with the measured ones indicates that the proposed model has satisfactory accuracy.

In order to simulate and study the mechanism of cement stabilized soils polluted by different contents of magnesium sulfate (MS), a series of tests were conducted on the cemented soil samples, including unconfined compression strength (UCS) tests of blocks, X-ray diffraction (XRD) phase analysis of powder samples, microstructure by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), element composition by energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS), and pore distribution analysis by Image Processed Plus 6.0 (IPP 6.0) software. The UCS test results show that UCS of cemented soils reaches the peak value when the MS content is 4.5 g/kg. While, the UCS for Sample MS4 having the MS content of 18.0 g/kg is the lowest among all tested samples. Based on the EDS analysis results, Sample MS4 has the greater contents for the three elements, oxygen (O), magnesium (Mg) and sulfur (S), than Sample MS1. From the XRD phase analysis, C-A-S-H (3CaO·Al₂O₃·3CaSO₄·32H₂O and 3CaO·Al₂O₃·CaSO₄·18H₂O), M-A-H (MgO·Al₂O₃·H₂O), M-S-H (MgO·SiO₂·H₂O), Mg(OH)₂ and CaSO₄ phase diffraction peaks are obviously intense due to the chemical action associated with the MS. The pore distribution analysis shows that the hydrated products change the distribution of cemented soil pores and the pores with average diameter (AD) of 2–50 μm play a key role in terms of the whole structure of cemented soil. The microscopic structure of the cemented soil with MS exhibits the intertwined and embedded characteristics between the cement and granular soils from the SEM images of cemented soils. The microstructure analysis shows that the magnesium sulfate acts as the additive, which is beneficial to the soil strength when the MS content is low (i.e., Sample MS2). However, higher MS amount involving a chemical action makes samples crystallize and expand, which is adverse to the UCS of cemented soils (i.e., Sample MS4).

The anisotropy effect is one of the most prominent phenomena in soil mechanics. Although many experimental programs have investigated anisotropy in sand, a computational procedure for determining anisotropy is lacking. Thus, this work aims to develop a procedure for connecting the sand friction angle and the loading orientation. All principal stress rotation tests in the literatures were processed via an artificial neural network. Then, with sensitivity analysis, the effect of intrinsic soil properties, consolidation history, and test sample characteristics on enhancing anisotropy was examined. The results imply that decreasing the grain size of the soil increases the effect of anisotropy on soil shear strength. In addition, increasing the angularity of grains increases the anisotropy effect in the sample. The stability of a sandy slope was also examined by considering the anisotropy in shear strength parameters. If the anisotropy effect is neglected, slope safety is overestimated by 5%–25%. This deviation is more apparent in flatter slopes than in steeper ones. However, the critical slip surface in the most slopes is the same in isotropic and anisotropic conditions.

Two modifications for the basic Barcelona model (BBM) are present. One is the replacement of the net stress by the average skeleton stress in unsaturated soil modeling, and the other is the adoption of an expression for the load-collapse (LC) yield surface that can match flexibly the normal compression lines at different suctions. The predictions of the modified BBM for the controlled-suction triaxial test on the unsaturated compacted clay are presented and compared with the experimental results. A good agreement between the predicted and experimental results demonstrates the reasonability of the modified BBM. On this basis, the coupled processes of groundwater flow and soil deformation in a homogeneous soil slope under a long heavy rainfall are simulated with the proposed elasto-plastic model. The numerical results reveal that the failure of a slope under rainfall infiltration is due to both the reduction of soil suction and the significant rise in groundwater table. The evolution of the displacements is greatly related to the change of suction. The maximum collapse deformation happens near the surface of slope where infiltrated rainwater can quickly reach. The results may provide a helpful reference for hazard assessment and control of rainfall-induced landslides.

Uniaxial compression tests on sandstone samples with five different sizes after high temperature processes were performed in order to investigate the size effect and its evolution. The test results show that the density, longitudinal wave velocity, peak strength, average modulus and secant modulus of sandstone decrease with the increase of temperature, however, peak strain increases gradually. With the increase of ratio of height to diameter, peak strength of sandstone decreases, which has an obvious size effect. A new theoretical model of size effect of sandstone material considering the influence of temperature is put forward, and with the increase of temperature, the size effect is more apparent. The threshold decreases gradually with the increase of temperature, and the deviations of the experimental values and the theoretical values are between 0.44% and 6.06%, which shows quite a credibility of the theoretical model.

The dynamic response of pile in layered soil is theoretically investigated when considering the transverse inertia effect. Firstly, the fictitious soil-pile model is employed to simulate the dynamic interaction between the pile and the soil layers beneath pile toe. The dynamic interactions of adjacent soil layers along the vertical direction are simplified as distributed Voigt models. Meanwhile, the pile and fictitious soil-pile are assumed to be viscoelastic Rayleigh-Love rods, and both the radial and vertical displacement continuity conditions at the soil-pile interface are taken into consideration. On this basis, the analytical solution for dynamic response at the pile head is derived in the frequency domain and the corresponding quasi-analytical solution in the time domain is then obtained by means of the convolution theorem. Following this, the accuracy and parameter value of the hypothetical boundaries for soil-layer interfaces are discussed. Comparisons with published solution and measured data are carried out to verify the rationality of the present solution. Parametric analyses are further conducted by using the present solution to investigate the relationships between the transverse inertia effects and soil-pile parameters.

A theoretical study on the ground vibration isolation efficiency by a row of piles as passive barrier in a three-dimensional context was presented. The analysis was accomplished with the aid of integral equations governing Rayleigh wave scattering, used to predict the complicated Rayleigh wave field generated by a number of irregular scatters embedded in an elastic half-space. Then, the passive isolation effectiveness of a row of piles for screening Rayleigh wave was studied in detail. The effects of relevant parameters on the screening effectiveness were investigated and analyzed from the perspective of equivalence with in-filled trench. The results show that using a row of rigid piles as wave barrier is more effective than that of flexible ones, and an optimum reduction of vibration can be achieved either by increasing the size of piles or by decreasing the net spacing between the piles. Finally, based on the derived integral equation for Rayleigh wave scattering, the principle of equivalent modeling of the barrier of piles by an in-filled trench is put forward, which simplifies the analysis of vibration isolation by a row of piles.

A new failure mechanism is proposed to analyze the roof collapse based on nonlinear failure criterion. Limit analysis approach and variational principle are used to obtain analytical findings concerning the stability of potential roof. Then, parametric study is carried out to derive the change rule of corresponding parameters on the influence of collapsing shape, which is of paramount engineering significance to instruct the tunnel excavations. In comparison with existing results, the findings show agreement and validity of the proposed method. The actual collapse in certain shallow tunnels is well in accordance with the proposed failure mechanism.

While various kinds of fibers are used to improve the hot mix asphalt (HMA) performance, a few works have been undertaken on the hybrid fiber-reinforced HMA. Therefore, the fatigue life of modified HMA samples using polypropylene and polyester fibers was evaluated and two models namely regression and artificial neural network (ANN) were used to predict the fatigue life based on the fibers parameters. As ANN contains many parameters such as the number of hidden layers which directly influence the prediction accuracy, genetic algorithm (GA) was used to solve optimization problem for ANN. Moreover, the trial and error method was used to optimize the GA parameters such as the population size. The comparison of the results obtained from regression and optimized ANN with GA shows that the two-hidden-layer ANN with two and five neurons in the first and second hidden layers, respectively, can predict the fatigue life of fiber-reinforced HMA with high accuracy (correlation coefficient of 0.96).

Combined with numerical simulation, the influence of confining stress on cutting process, fracture conditions and cutting efficiencies of soft and hard rock has been conducted on the triaxial testing machine (TRW-3000) designed and manufactured in Central South University (China). Results are obtained by performing analysis on the fracture scopes of cement and granite plates, the characteristics of cutting force in cutting processes and the cutting efficiency. Firstly, the increase of latitude fracture scope and the decrease of longitude fracture scope are both more notable in the tests conducted on cement plates subjected to the increasing confining stresses; secondly, the increase tendency of peak penetration forces obtained from tests conducted on granite plates is more obvious, however, the increase tendencies of average penetration forces achieved from cement and granite plates are close to each other; thirdly, the cutting efficiency could be improved by increasing the spacing between cutters when the confining stress which acts on soft and hard rock increases in a certain degree, and the cutting efficiency of soft rock is more sensitive to the varying confining stresses.

Cemented tailings backfill (CTB) is made by mixing cement, tailings and water together, thus cement hydration and water seepage flow are the two crucial factors affecting the quality of CTB. Cement hydration process can release significant amount of heat to raise the temperature of CTB and in turn increase the rate of cement hydration. Meanwhile, the progress of cement hydration consumes water and produces hydration products to change the pore structures within CTB, which further influences the hydraulic behavior of CTB. In order to understand the hydraulic behavior of CTB, a numerical model was developed by coupling the hydraulic, thermal and hydration equations. This model was then implemented into COMSOL Multiphysics to simulate the evolutions of temperature and water seepage flow within CTB versus curing time. The predicted outcomes were compared with correspondent experimental results, proving the validity and availability of this model. By taking advantage of the validated model, effects of various initial CTB and curing temperatures, cement content, and CTB’s geometric shapes on the hydraulic behavior of CTB were demonstrated numerically. The presented conclusions can contribute to preparing more environmentally friendly CTB structures.

Fully mechanized solid backfill mining (FMSBM) technology adopts dense backfill body to support the roof. Based on the distinguishing characteristics and mine pressure control principle in this technology, the basic principles and methods for mining pressure monitoring were analyzed and established. And the characteristics of overburden strata movement were analyzed by monitoring the support resistance of hydraulic support, the dynamic subsidence of immediate roof, the stress of backfill body, the front abutment pressure, and the mass ratio of cut coal to backfilled materials. On-site strata behavior measurements of 7403W solid backfilling working face in Zhai Zhen Coal Mine show that the backfill body can effectively support the overburden load, obviously control the overburden strata movement, and weaken the strata behaviors distinctly. Specific performances are as follows. The support resistance decreases obviously; the dynamic subsidence of immediate roof keeps consistent to the variation of backfill body stress, and tends to be stable after the face retreating to 120–150 m away from the cut. The peak value of front abutment pressure arises at 5–12 m before the operating face, and mass ratio is greater than the designed value of 1.15, which effectively ensures the control of strata movement. The research results are bases for intensively studying basic theories of solid backfill mining strata behaviors and its control, and provide theoretical guidance for engineering design in FMSBM.

Focused on the Klinkenberg effect on gas seepage, the independently developed triaxial experimental system of gas seepage was applied to conduct research on the seepage characteristics of coal seam gas. By means of experimental data analysis and theoretical derivation, a calculation method of coal seam gas permeability was proposed, which synthesized the respective influences of gas dynamic viscosity, compressibility factor and Klinkenberg effect. The study results show that the Klinkenberg effect has a significant influence on the coal seam gas seepage, the permeability estimated with the method considering the Klinkenberg effect is correct, and this permeability can fully reflect the true seepage state of the gas. For the gas around the standard conditions, the influences of dynamic viscosity and compressibility factor on the permeability may be ignored. For the gas deviating far away from the standard conditions, the influences of dynamic viscosity and compressibility factor on the permeability must be considered. The research results have certain guiding significance in forming a correct understanding of the Klinkenberg effect and selecting a more accurate calculation method for the permeability of coal containing gas.

In order to investigate the effect of additives and nano-particle on the surface tensions of lithium bromide (LiBr) aqueous solution/ammonia, many experiments were carried out based on Wilhelmy plate method. Firstly, the surface tension of LiBr aqueous solution with 1-octanol was measured and then the comparison between the measured results and previous experimental results was given to verify the measuring accuracy. Some new additives, such as cationic surfactants cetyltrimethyl ammonium chloride (CTAC), and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) were chosen in the experiments. The experimental results show that CTAC and CTAB can obviously reduce the surface tension of LiBr aqueous solution/ammonia. In addition, it is found that nano-particles cannot remarkably decrease the surface tension of LiBr aqueous solution/ammonia. However, the mixed addition of additives and nano-particles can remarkably affect the surface tension of LiBr aqueous solution/ammonia. That is to say, additives play more important role in reducing the surface tension of LiBr aqueous solution/ammonia. But nano-particles may enhance the heat transfer in the absorption refrigeration process.

The influence of ribs on the train aerodynamic performance was computed using detached eddy simulation (DES), and the transient iteration was solved by the dual-time step lower-upper symmetric Gauss-Seidel (LU-SGS) method. The results show that the ribs installed on the roof have a great effect on the train aerodynamic performance. Compared with trains without ribs, the lift force coefficient of the train with convex ribs changes from negative to positive, while the side force coefficient increases by 110% and 88%, respectively. Due to the combined effect of the lift force and side force, the overturning moment of the train with convex ribs and cutting ribs increases by 140% and 106%, respectively. There is larger negative pressure on the roof of the train without ribs than that with ribs. The ribs on the train would disturb the flow structure and contribute to the air separation, so the separation starts from the roof, while there is no air separation on the roof of the train without ribs. The ribs can also slow down the flow speed above the roof and make the air easily sucked back to the train surface. The vortices at the leeward side of the train without ribs are small and messy compared with those of the train with convex or cutting ribs.

To improve high-speed road feel and enhance energetic efficiency of hydraulic power steering (HPS) system in heavy-duty vehicles, an electromagnetic slip coupling (ESC) was applied to the steering system, which regulated discharge flow of steering pump to realize variable assist characteristic as well as uniquely transfer on-demand power from engine to steering pump. The model of ESC was established and the dynamic characteristics of ESC were presented by the way of simulation and experiment. Upon the layout of the assist characteristics, output torque of ESC was derived. Based on the ESC model, the output torque characteristics of ESC were simulated under steering situation and straight driving situation, respectively. The consistency of simulated ESC output torque and the one deduced from assist characteristics verifies the correctness of the ESC dynamic model. To illustrate energy saving characteristics of ESC-HPS, energy consumption comparison of ESC-HPS and conventional HPS was carried out qualitatively and quantitatively. It follows that the energy consumption of ESC-HPS decreases by 50% compared with that of HPS.

Considering arch rib, lateral brace, suspender, girder, pier and track position, the model for the interaction between long-span tied arch continuous bridge and multiple tracks was established by using steel-concrete composite section beam element to simulate concrete-filled steel tube (CFST) arch rib, using the beam element with rigid arm to simulate the prestressed concrete girder and using nonlinear bar element to simulate longitudinal constraint between track and bridge. Taking a (77+3×156.8+77) m tied arch continuous bridge with four tracks on the Harbin-Qiqihar Passenger Dedicated Line as an example, the arrangement of continuously welded rail (CWR) was explored. The longitudinal force in CWR on the tied arch continuous bridge, the pier top horizontal force and torque due to the unbalance load case, were analyzed under the action of temperature, vertical live load, train braking and wind load. Studies show that, it can significantly reduce track displacement to set the track expansion devices at main span arch springing on both sides; the track stress due to arch temperature variation can reach 40.8 MPa; the track stress, pier top horizontal force and torque are related to the number of loaded tracks and train running direction, and the bending force applied to unloaded track is close to the loaded track, while the braking force applied to unloaded track is 1/4 to 1/2 of the loaded track; the longitudinal force of track due to the wind load is up to 12.4 MPa, which should be considered.