The three systems of pure Zn, Zn-0.10% Mg (mass fraction), and Zn-0.15% Mg (mass fraction) were cast under controlled atmosphere and their microstructures were characterized by SEM/EDS analysis. The electrochemical corrosion behavior of these three samples was examined in the very aggressive solution of 50% H2SO4 (mass fraction) using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and potentiodynamic polarization measurements. The results show that magnesium improves in some extent the corrosion resistance of pure Zn in 50% H2SO4 (mass fraction) confirmed by EIS test. Results of polarization measurment also demonstrate that small amount of Mg significantly improves the passivation of Zn in the test solution. Results of surface morphology of the samples and EDS analysis reveal that Mg reduced the corrosion attacks to pure Zn.
By using the melt spinning techniques, the Fe63Co32Gd5 alloy ribbons with 15-50 m in thickness and 3-7 mm in width were prepared at the wheel speeds of 15, 20, 25 and 35 m/s. The rapid solidification microstructures were characterized by three layers, the middle layer of which reaches 80% thickness and forms the column grain of (Fe,Co) solid with Gd solution. Grain refinement takes place with the increase of the wheel speed. And after 0.5 h heat treatment at 823 K, the ribbon thickness becomes larger and the middle layer of column grain is very orderly perpendicular to the ribbon plane. The coercivity of quenched and annealed Fe63Co32Gd5 ribbons both have the inflection point at the wheel speed of 20 m/s, and the tendency is declining. The heat treatment processing makes the coercivity become lower by improving the order of (Fe,Co)17Gd2 compound. The saturation magnetization of quenched ribbons increases with the enhancement of wheel speed, whereas that of annealed ones decreases firstly and then increases. The minimum coercivity is 5.30×103 A/m and the maximum saturation magnetization is 163.62 A·m2/kg, which is obtained in the conditions of the wheel speed of 35 m/s and 0.5 h heat treatment at the temperature of 823 K.
Based on Fabry model and finite-different time-domain (FDTD) method, the plasmonic structure composed of a metal-insulator-metal (MIM) bus waveguide and a side-coupled resonator was investigated. It is found that the transmission features can be regulated by the cavity width and coupling distance. Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT)-like transmission can be excited by adding an identical resonator on the pre-existing structure. Combining the foregoing theoretical analysis with coupled mode theory (CMT), the formation process of the EIT-like transmission was detailedly analyzed. EIT-like transmission can also be excited in plasmonic structure with two detuned resonators. By altering the structure parameters, the transparency window can be purposefully modulated. With the merits of compact structure and simplicity in fabrication, the proposed structures may have a broad prospect of applications in highly integrated optical circuits.
Submicro α-Fe2O3 coatings were formed using electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique in aqueous media. The zeta potentials of different α-Fe2O3 suspensions with different additives were measured as a function of pH to identify the optimum suspension condition for deposition. Electrophoretic depositions of α-Fe2O3 coatings under different applied electric fields and deposition time were studied and the effects of applied voltages and deposition time on deposition rates and thicknesses were investigated. The particle packing densities of the deposits at various applied voltages and deposition time were also analyzed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results show that crack-free α-Fe2O3 coatings with uniform microstructure and good adherence to the nickel substrates are successfully obtained. Electrophoretic deposited α-Fe2O3 coating from aqueous suspension is a feasible, low-cost and environmental friendly method.
NaxCoO2 is a commonly used cathode material for sodium ion batteries because of its easy synthesis, high reversible capacity and good cyclability. The structural and electrochemical properties of NaxCoO2 during sodium ion insertion/extraction process are studied based on first principles calculations. The calculation results of crystal structure parameters and average intercalation voltage are in good agreement with experiment data. Through calculation of the geometric structure and charge transfer in charging and discharging processes of NaxCoO2, it is found that the oxygen atom surrounding Co of the CoO6 octahedral screens the coulomb potential produced by sodium vacancy in NaxCoO2, and the charge is removed from the entire Co-O layer instead of the Co atom adjacent to sodium vacancy when sodium ions are extracted from the NaCoO2 lattice. Thus, during the insertion/extraction of sodium ion from NaCoO2, the CoO6 octahedral structure undergoes small lattice distortion, which makes the local structure quite stable and is beneficial to the cycling stability of the material for the application of sodium ion batteries.
LiFePO4/C was prepared via solid state reaction and characterized with X-ray powder diffraction and charge–discharge test. As-prepared LiFePO4/C has a triphylite structure and exhibits an excellent rate capability and capacity retention. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was applied to investigate LixFePO4/C (0<x<1) electrode on temperature variation. The valid equivalent circuit for EIS fitting was determined which contains an intercalation capacitance for Li+ ion accumulation and consumption in the electrode reaction. The surface layer impedance needs to be included in the equivalent circuit when LiFePO4/C is deeply delithiated at a relatively high temperature. EIS examination indicates that a temperature rise leads to a better reversibility, lower charge transfer resistance, higher exchange current density J0 and greater Li+ ion diffusion coefficient for the LixFePO4/C electrode process. The Li+ ion concentration in LixFePO4/C is potential to impact the Li+ ion diffusion coefficient, and a decrease in the former results in an increase in the latter.
To realize numerical simulation of rolling and obtain the hot forming process parameters for X70HD steel, the flow stress behaviors of X70HD steel were investigated under different temperatures (820−1100 °C) and strain rates (0.01−10 s−1) on a Gleeble-3500 thermo-simulation machine. A new flow stress model was established. The linear and exponential relationship methods were applied to the parameters with respect to temperature and deformation rates. The rise of curve ends under certain conditions was analyzed. The flow stress of X70HD steel predicted by the proposed model agrees well with the experimental results. So, it greatly improves the precision of the metal thermoplastic processing through finite element method and practical application of engineering.
Surface effects play an important role in the mechanical behavior of nanosized structural elements owing to the increased ratio of surface area to volume. The surface effects on the large deflection of nanowires were considered. Both geometric nonlinearity in finite deformation and surface effects at nanoscale were taken into account to analyze the bending of nanowires subjected to a concentrated force. For simply supported beams and clamped-clamped beams, the influence of surface effects and geometric nonlinearity were discussed in detail. It is found that both surface effects and geometric nonlinearity tend to decrease the deflection of bending nanowires and thus increase the effective elastic modulus of nanowires. Surface effects yield the size dependent behavior of nanowires.
The neutral zinc sulfate solution obtained from hydrometallurgical process of Angouran zinc concentrate has cadmium, nickel and cobalt impurities, that must be purified before electrowinning. Therefore, cadmium and nickel are usually cemented out by addition of zinc dust and remained nickel and cobalt cemented out at second stage with zinc powder and arsenic trioxide. In this research, a new approach is described for determination of effective parameters and optimization of zinc electrolyte hot purification process using statistical design of experiments. The Taguchi method based on orthogonal array design (OAD) has been used to arrange the experimental runs. The experimental conditions involved in the work are as follows: the temperature range of 70−90 °C for reaction temperature (T), 30−90 min for reaction time (t), 2−4 g/L for zinc powder mass concentration (M), one to five series for zinc dust particle size distributions (S1-S5), and 0.1−0.5 g/L (C) for arsenic trioxide mass concentration. Optimum conditions for hot purification obtained in this work are T4 (85 °C), t4=75 min, M4=3.5 g/L, S4 (Serie 4), and C2=0.2 g/L.
Hydroxamated polyacrylamide (HPAM) was synthesized from polyacrylamide (PAM) with high relative molecular mass under the optimum reaction conditions (pH 12 and a molar ratio of hydroxylamine to amide groups of 1.5 at 50 °C for 12 h). The hydroxamate groups of HPAM were verified by Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT-IR). 46% (molar fration) hydroxamate groups and 23% (molar fraction) carbonyl groups on HPAM were determined by conductometric titration combined with Kjeldahl’s microanalysis method. The settling performance achieved at different flocculant dosages was investigated with high goethite-containing red mud slurry of simulated Bayer process synthesized in laboratory. It turns out that the settling performance of high goethite-containing red mud was better with HPAM. The average settling rate of red mud in the first 5 min and the turbidity of supernatant after settling for 30 min are 2.36 m/h and 507 NTU, respectively, at a flocculant dosage of 120 g/t, which is similar to that achieved with Hx-600.
One-pot synthesis of cyclic aldol tetramer and α, β-unsaturated aldol from C3-C8 linear aldehydes using phase-transfer catalyst (PTC), quaternary ammonium, combined with sodium hydroxide as catalysts was investigated. Butanal was subjected for detail investigations to study the effect of parameters. It was found that the selectivity of cyclic aldol tetramer depends greatly on the operating conditions of the reaction, especially the PTC/butanal molar ratio. The average selectivity of 2-hydroxy-6-propyl-l, 3, 5-triethyl-3-cyclohexene-1-carboxaldehyde (HPTECHCA) was 54.41% using tetrabutylammonium chloride combined with 14% (mass fraction) NaOH as catalysts at 60 °C for 2 h with a PTC-to-butanal molar ratio of 0.09:1. Pentanal was more likely to generate cyclic aldol tetramer compared with other aldehydes under the optimum experimental conditions. Recovery of the PTC through water washing followed by adding enough sodium hydroxide from the washings was also demonstrated.
In order to improve the extracellular endo-1,4-β-mannosidase (MAN) activity of recombinant Pichia pastoris, optimization of signal peptides was investigated. At first, five potential signal peptides (W1, MF4I, INU1A, αpre, HFBI) were chosen to be analyzed by SignalP 4.0, among which W1 was designed. Then, the widely used signal peptide α-factor in expression vector pGAPZαA was replaced by those five signal peptides to reconstruct five new expression vectors. MAN activity was assayed after expression vectors were transformed into Pichia pastoris. The data show that the relative efficiencies of W1, MF4I, INU1A, apre, and HFBI signal peptides are 23.5%, 203.5%, 0, 79.7%, and 120.3% compared with α-factor, respectively. The further gene copy number determination by the quantitative real-time PCR reveals that the MAN activities mediated by α-factor from 1 to 6 gene copy number levels are 12.95, 43.33, 126.63, 173.53, 103.23 and 88.63 U/mL, while those mediated by MF4I are 79.22, 133.89, 260.14, 347.5, 206.15 and 181.89 U/mL, respectively. The maximum MAN activity reached 347.5 U/mL with 4 gene copies mediated by MF4I. These results indicate that replacing the signal peptide α-factor with MF4I and increasing MAN gene copies to a proper number can greatly improve the secretory expression of MAN.
Corn cob is a naturally renewable material with developed micropore and hydrophobic characteristics, which enables it to show good oil adsorption capacity. In order to improve oil adsorption capacity, corn cob was modified with lauric acid and ethanediol. The structure of raw and modified corn cob was investigated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and ZeTa potential analyzer. The effects of pH level, adsorption time, adsorbent dosage, and initial oil concentration on oil absorbency of corn cob were studied. The results indicate that the modification significantly improved the lipophilicity of corn cob, making the modified corn cob with much better adsorption capacity on oil absorbency. Compared with raw corn cob, the maximum saturated adsorption capacity of modified corn cob is 16.52 mg/g at pH 5, and the increasing percentage is found to be 141%, which indicates that the modification causes a better adsorption capacity for oil removal. In addition, due to high oil adsorption capacity, affordable price and low secondary pollution, the modified corn cob could be considered promising alternative for the traditional oil adsorbent to clean up the emulsified oily water.
Performances and efficiencies of displacement ventilation (DV) and partial ventilation (PV) for industrial halls of different configurations as well as the heat and mass transports within the industrial halls were numerically investigated. Three levels of Rayleigh number (5.8×1010, 1.0×1012 and 2.1×1012) and two values of source contaminant flux (5 mg/s and 50 mg/s) were considered. The inlet Reynolds numbers were 2×104, 5×104, 1.5×105 and 4.5×105 for DV and 5×105, 1×106, 2×106 and 4×106 for PV, respectively. From the results, it is concluded that the above parameters have very complex impacts on the conjugated heat and mass transports. From points of view of acceptable indoor air quality and ventilation efficiency, PV at Re=1×106 with side-located sources and 65% of the supply air extracted through floor level outlets is the best choice when Ra=5.8×1010. However, DVs at Re=5×104 and Re=1.5×105 with center-located sources and floor-mounted air suppliers are the best choices for Ra=1.0×1012 and Ra=2.1×1012, respectively. When source contaminant flux reaches 50 mg/s, local extraction as a supplement of general ventilation is recommended. The results can be a first approximation to 3D numerical investigation and preliminary ventilation system design guidelines for high-rise industrial halls.
A mathematical model of gear tooth profiles using the ellipse curve, whose curvature is convenient to control by changing the mathematical parameters as its line of action, was built based on the meshing theory. The equation of undercutting condition was derived from the model. A special epicycloidal tooth profile was also presented. An example gear drive with variation of the ellipse parameters was taken to illustrate the proposed method. The contact ratio of the gear drive designed by the proposed method was analyzed. A comparison of the property of the gear drive designed with the involute gear drive was also carried out. The results confirm that the proposed gear drive has higher contact ratio in comparison with the involute gear drive.
The equivalent two-port network model of a middle range wireless power transfer (WPT) system was presented based on strongly coupled multiple resonators. The key parameters of the WPT system include self-inductance, resistance, parasitic capacitance, mutual inductance and S-parameters of coils & resonators were analyzed. The impedance matching method was used to optimize load power and transmission efficiency of the multi-resonator WPT system, and the impedance matching method was realized through adjusting the distances between the coils and resonators. Experiments show that the impedance matching method can effectively improve load power and transmission efficiency for middle range wireless power transfer systems with multiple resonators, at distances up to 3 times the coil radius with efficiency more than 70% and load power also close to 3.5 W.
A new kind of hydraulic transformer, called variable hydraulic transformer (VHT), is proposed to control its load flow rate. The hydraulic transformer evolves from a pressure transducer to a power transducer. The flow characteristics of VHT, such as its instantaneous flow rates, average flow rates, and flow pulsations in the ports, are investigated. Matlab software is used to simulate and calculate. There are five controlled angles of the port plate that can help to define the flow characteristics of VHT. The relationships between the flow characteristics and the structure in VHT are shown. Also, the plus-minus change of the average flow rates and the continuity of the instantaneous flow rates in the ports are presented. The results demonstrate the performance laws of VHT when the controlled angles of the port plate and of the swash plate change. The results also reveal that the special principle of the flow pulsation in the ports and the jump points of the instantaneous curves are the two basic causes of its loud noise, and that the control angles of the port plate and the swash plate and the pressures in the ports are the three key factors of the noise.
Contrary to the aliasing defect between the adjacent intrinsic model functions (IMFs) existing in empirical model decomposition (EMD), a new method of detecting dynamic unbalance with cardan shaft in high-speed train was proposed by applying the combination between EMD, Hankel matrix, singular value decomposition (SVD) and normalized Hilbert transform (NHT). The vibration signals of gimbal installed base were decomposed through EMD to get different IMFs. The Hankel matrix constructed through the single IMF was orthogonally executed through SVD. The critical singular values were selected to reconstruct vibration signs on the basis of the key stack of singular values. Instantaneous frequencys (IFs) of reconstructed vibration signs were applied to detect dynamic unbalance with shaft and eliminated clutter spectrum caused by the aliasing defect between the adjacent IMFs, which highlighted the failure characteristics. The method was verified by test data in the unbalance condition of dynamic cardan shaft. The results show that the method effectively detects the fault vibration characteristics caused by cardan shaft dynamic unbalance and extracts the nature vibration features. With comparison to the traditional EMD-NHT, clarity and failure characterization force are significantly improved.
A nonlinear controller based on an extended second-order disturbance observer is presented to track desired position for an electro-hydraulic single-rod actuator in the presence of both external disturbances and parameter uncertainties. The proposed extended second-order disturbance observer deals with not only the external perturbations, but also parameter uncertainties which are commonly regarded as lumped disturbances in previous researches. Besides, the outer position tracking loop is designed with cylinder load pressure as output; and the inner pressure control loop provides the hydraulic actuator the characteristic of a force generator. The stability of the closed-loop system is provided based on Lyapunov theory. The performance of the controller is verified through simulations and experiments. The results demonstrate that the proposed nonlinear position tracking controller, together with the extended second-order disturbance observer, gives an excellent tracking performance in the presence of parameter uncertainties and external disturbance.
A new general robust fuzzy approach was presented to control the position and the attitude of unmanned flying vehicles (UFVs). Control of these vehicles was challenging due to their nonlinear underactuated behaviors. The proposed control system combined great advantages of generalized indirect adaptive sliding mode control (IASMC) and fuzzy control for the UFVs. An on-line adaptive tuning algorithm based on Lyapunov function and Barbalat lemma was designed, thus the stability of the system can be guaranteed. The chattering phenomenon in the sliding mode control was reduced and the steady error was also alleviated. The numerical results, for an underactuated quadcopter and a high speed underwater vehicle as case studies, indicate that the presented adaptive design of fuzzy sliding mode controller performs robustly in the presence of sensor noise and external disturbances. In addition, online unknown parameter estimation of the UFVs, such as ground effect and planing force especially in the cases with the Gaussian sensor noise with zero mean and standard deviation of 0.5 m and 0.1 rad and external disturbances with amplitude of 0.1 m/s2 and frequency of 0.2 Hz, is one of the advantages of this method. These estimated parameters are then used in the controller to improve the trajectory tracking performance.
In order to improve the control performance of strip rolling mill, theoretical model of the hydraulic gap control (HGC) system was established. HGC system offline identification scheme was designed for a tandem cold strip mill, the system model parameters were identified by ARX model, and the identified model was verified. Taking the offline identified parameters as the initial values, online identification using recursive least square was carried out with model parameters changing. For the purpose of improving system robustness and decreasing the sensitivity due to model errors, the HGC system based on generalized predictive control (GPC) was designed, and simulation experiments for traditional controller and GPC controller were conducted. The results show that both controllers acquire good control effect with model matching. When the model mismatches, for the traditional controller, the overshot will increase to 76.7% and the rising time will increase to 165.7 ms, which cannot be accepted by HGC system; for the GPC controller, the overshot is less than 8.5%, and the rising time is less than 26 ms in any case.
To improve prediction accuracy of strip thickness in hot rolling, a kind of Dempster/Shafer(D_S) information reconstitution prediction method (DSIRPM) was presented. DSIRPM basically consisted of three steps to implement the prediction of strip thickness. Firstly, ibaAnalyzer was employed to analyze the periodicity of hot rolling and find three sensitive parameters to strip thickness, which were used to undertake polynomial curve fitting prediction based on least square respectively, and preliminary prediction results were obtained. Then, D_S evidence theory was used to reconstruct the prediction results under different parameters, in which basic probability assignment (BPA) was the key and the proposed contribution rate calculated using grey relational degree was regarded as BPA, which realizes BPA selection objectively. Finally, from this distribution, future strip thickness trend was inferred. Experimental results clearly show the improved prediction accuracy and stability compared with other prediction models, such as GM(1,1) and the weighted average prediction model.
A method was demonstrated based on Infomax independent component analysis (Infomax ICA) for automatically extracting auditory P300 signals within several trials. A signaling equilibrium algorithm was proposed to enhance the effectiveness of the Infomax ICA decomposition. After the mixed signal was decomposed by Infomax ICA, the independent component (IC) used in auditory P300 reconstruction was automatically chosen by using the standard deviation of the fixed temporal pattern. And the result of auditory P300 was reconstructed using the selected ICs. The experimental results show that the auditory P300 can be detected automatically within five trials. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the standard signal and the signal detected using the proposed method is significantly greater than that between the standard signal and the signal detected using the average method within five trials. The wave pattern result obtained using the proposed algorithm is better and more similar to the standard signal than that obtained by the average method for the same number of trials. Therefore, the proposed method can automatically detect the effective auditory P300 within several trials.
The accuracy of background clutter model is a key factor which determines the performance of a constant false alarm rate (CFAR) target detection method. G0 distribution is one of the optimal statistic models in the synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image background clutter modeling and can accurately model various complex background clutters in the SAR images. But the application of the distribution is greatly limited by its disadvantages that the parameter estimation is complex and the local detection threshold is difficult to be obtained. In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, an synthetic aperture radar CFAR target detection method using the logarithmic cumulant (MoLC) + method of moment (MoM)-based G0 distribution clutter model is proposed. In the method, G0 distribution is used for modeling the background clutters, a new MoLC+MoM-based parameter estimation method coupled with a fast iterative algorithm is used for estimating the parameters of G0 distribution and an exquisite dichotomy method is used for obtaining the local detection threshold of CFAR detection, which greatly improves the computational efficiency, detection performance and environmental adaptability of CFAR detection. Experimental results show that the proposed SAR CFAR target detection method has good target detection performance in various complex background clutter environments.
A data-driven method was proposed to realistically animate garments on human poses in reduced space. Firstly, a gradient based method was extended to generate motion sequences and garments were simulated on the sequences as our training data. Based on the examples, the proposed method can fast output realistic garments on new poses. Our framework can be mainly divided into offline phase and online phase. During the offline phase, based on linear blend skinning (LBS), rigid bones and flex bones were estimated for human bodies and garments, respectively. Then, rigid bone weight maps on garment vertices were learned from examples. In the online phase, new human poses were treated as input to estimate rigid bone transformations. Then, both rigid bones and flex bones were used to drive garments to fit the new poses. Finally, a novel formulation was also proposed to efficiently deal with garment-body penetration. Experiments manifest that our method is fast and accurate. The intersection artifacts are fast removed and final garment results are quite realistic.
A modified harmony search algorithm with co-evolutional control parameters (DEHS), applied through differential evolution optimization, is proposed. In DEHS, two control parameters, i.e., harmony memory considering rate and pitch adjusting rate, are encoded as a symbiotic individual of an original individual (i.e., harmony vector). Harmony search operators are applied to evolving the original population. DE is applied to co-evolving the symbiotic population based on feedback information from the original population. Thus, with the evolution of the original population in DEHS, the symbiotic population is dynamically and self-adaptively adjusted, and real-time optimum control parameters are obtained. The proposed DEHS algorithm has been applied to various benchmark functions and two typical dynamic optimization problems. The experimental results show that the performance of the proposed algorithm is better than that of other HS variants. Satisfactory results are obtained in the application.
A novel framework for parallel subgraph isomorphism on GPUs is proposed, named GPUSI, which consists of GPU region exploration and GPU subgraph matching. The GPUSI iteratively enumerates subgraph instances and solves the subgraph isomorphism in a divide-and-conquer fashion. The framework completely relies on the graph traversal, and avoids the explicit join operation. Moreover, in order to improve its performance, a task-queue based method and the virtual-CSR graph structure are used to balance the workload among warps, and warp-centric programming model is used to balance the workload among threads in a warp. The prototype of GPUSI is implemented, and comprehensive experiments of various graph isomorphism operations are carried on diverse large graphs. The experiments clearly demonstrate that GPUSI has good scalability and can achieve speed-up of 1.4–2.6 compared to the state-of-the-art solutions.
A novel hybrid algorithm named ABC-BBO, which integrates artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm with biogeography-based optimization (BBO) algorithm, is proposed to solve constrained mechanical design problems. ABC-BBO combined the exploration of ABC algorithm with the exploitation of BBO algorithm effectively, and hence it can generate the promising candidate individuals. The proposed hybrid algorithm speeds up the convergence and improves the algorithm’s performance. Several benchmark test functions and mechanical design problems are applied to verifying the effects of these improvements and it is demonstrated that the performance of this proposed ABC-BBO is superior to or at least highly competitive with other population-based optimization approaches.
In order to improve the anchoring force of anchors for carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) tendons further, a new wedge-bond-type anchor for CFRP tendons was developed. The increment in anchoring force induced by the clamping segment of anchor was studied. Taking the deformation of all parts in clamping segment in the transverse direction into consideration, the calculation formula for the increment of anchoring force was proposed based on the linear elastic hypotheses. The proposed model is verified by experiments and conclusions are drawn that the anchoring force is influenced mainly by the inclination angle of clamping pieces, the length of clamping part and the thickness of bonding medium. Especially, the thickness of bonding medium should be lowered in design to improve the synergistic effect of anchors.
The AERORail, a new aerial transport platform, was chosen as the object of this work. Following a review of the literature on static behaviors, model tests on the basic dynamic mechanical characteristics were conducted. A series of 90 tests were completed with different factors, including tension force, vehicle load and vehicle speed. With regard to the proper tension and vehicle load, at a certain speed range, the tension increments of the rail’s cable were proved relatively small. It can be assumed that the change of tension is small and can be reasonably ignored when the tension of an entire span is under a dynamic load. When the tension reaches a certain range, the calculation of the cable track structure using classical cable theory is acceptable. The tests prove that the average maximum dynamic amplification factor of the deflection is small, generally no more than 1.2. However, when the vehicle speed reaches a certain value, the amplified factor will reach 2.0. If the moving loads increase, the dynamic amplification factor of dynamic deflection will also increase. The tension will change the rigidity of the structure and the vibration frequency; furthermore, the resonance speed will change at a certain tension. The vibration is noticeable when vehicles pass through at the resonance speed, and this negative impact on driving comfort requires the right velocity to avoid the resonance. The results demonstrate that more design details are required for the AERORail structure.
The static performance of inflatable structures has been well studied and the dynamic deployment simulation has received much attention. However, very few studies focus on its deflation behavior. Although there are several dynamic finite element algorithms that can be applied to the deflation simulation, their computation costs are expensive, especially for large scale structures. In this work, a simple method based on classic thermodynamics and the analytical relationship between air and membrane was proposed to efficiently analyze the air state variables under the condition of ventilation. Combined with failure analysis of static bearing capacity, a fast incremental analytical method was presented to predict both elastic and post wrinkling deflation process of inflatable structures. Comparisons between simplified analysis, dynamic finite element simulation, and a full-scale experimental test are presented and the suitability of this simple method for solving the air state and predicting the deflation behavior of inflatable structures is proved.
An experimental study on the compressive behavior of steel fiber reinforced concrete-filled steel tube columns is presented. Specimens were tested to investigate the effects of the concrete strength, the thickness of steel tube and the steel fiber volume fraction on the ultimate strength and the ductility. The experimental results indicate that the addition of steel fibers in concrete can significantly improve the ductility and the energy dissipation capacity of the concrete-filled steel tube columns and delay the local buckling of the steel tube, but has no obvious effect on the failure mode. It has also been found that the addition of steel fibers is a more effective method than using thicker steel tube in enhancing the ductility, and more advantageous in the case of higher strength concrete. An analytical model to estimate the load capacity is proposed for steel tube columns filled with both plain concrete and steel fiber reinforced concrete. The predicted results are in good agreement with the experimental ones obtained in this work and literatures.
According to the two-dimensional (2-D) thermo-elasticity theory, the exact elasticity solution of the simply supported laminated beams subjected to thermo-loads was studied. An analytical method was presented to obtain the temperature, displacement and stress fields in the beam. Firstly, the general solutions of temperature, displacements and stresses for a single-layered simply supported beam were obtained by solving the 2-D heat conduction equation and the 2-D elasticity equations, respectively. Then, based on the continuity of temperature, heat flux, displacements and stresses on the interface of two adjacent layers, the formulae of temperature, displacements and stresses between the lowest layer and the top layer of the beam were derived out in a recurrent manner. Finally, the unknown coefficients in the solutions were determined by the use of the upper surface and lower surface conditions of the beam. The distributions of temperature, displacement and stress in the beam were obtained by substituting these coefficients back to the recurrence formulae and the solutions. The excellent convergence of the present method has been demonstrated and the results obtained by the present method agree well with those from the finite element method. The effects of surface temperatures, thickness, layer number and material properties of the plate on the temperature distribution were discussed in detail. Numerical results reveal that the displacements and stresses monotonically increase with the increase of surface temperatures. In particular, the horizontal stresses are discontinuous at the interface.
An objective of this work is to develop a validated computational model that can be used to estimate ratcheting accumulation behavior of granular soils due to high-cyclic loading. An accumulation model was proposed to describe only the envelope of the maximum plastic deformations generated during the cyclic loading process, which can calculate the accumulated deformation by means of relatively large load cycle increments. The concept of volumetric hardening was incorporated into the model and a so-called overstress formulation was employed to describe the evolution of the accumulated volumetric deformation as a state parameter. The model accounted for ratcheting shakedown and accumulation such as a pseudo-yield surface (a shakedown surface) associated with loading inside the current virgin yield surface which was implemented into the well-known modified Cam-clay model. Finally, the model was calibrated using data from the stress-controlled drained cyclic triaxial tests on homogeneous fine grained sands. It is seen that the model can successfully represent important features of the ratcheting accumulation of both volumetric and deviatoric deformation caused by repeated drained loading over a large number of cycles.
From the continuum mechanics perspective, an attempt was made to clarify the role of Terzaghi’s effective stress in the theoretical analysis of saturated soil subjected to seepage. The necessity of performing a coupled hydromechanical analysis to solve the seepage-deformation interaction problem was illustrated by examining the equations of static equilibrium among the effective stress, seepage force, pore-water pressure and total stress. The conceptual definition of stress variable that satisfies the principles of continuum mechanics is applied in the coupled hydromechanical analysis. It is shown that Terzaghi’s effective stress is in fact not a stress variable under seepage conditions, and the seepage force acting on the soil skeleton cannot be viewed as a body force. This offers a clue to the underlying cause of a paradox between the real Pascal’s hydrostatic state and the hydrostatic state predicted by a class of continuum hydromechanical theories.
Based on the upper bound of limit analysis, the plane-strain analysis of the slopes reinforced with a row of piles to the 3D case was extended. A 3D rotational failure mechanism was adopted to yield the upper bound of the factor of safety. Parametric studies were carried out to explore the end effects of the slope failures and the effects of the pile location and diameter on the safety of the reinforced slopes. The results demonstrate that the end effects nearly have no effects on the most suitable location of the installed piles but have significant influence on the safety of the slopes. For a slope constrained to a narrow width, the slope becomes more stable owing to the contribution of the end effects. When the slope is reinforced with a row of piles in small space between piles, the effects of group piles are significant for evaluating the safety of slopes. The presented method is more appropriate for assessing the stability of slopes reinforced with piles and can be also utilized in the design of plies stabilizing the unstable slopes.
The static tests of nine traditional and bird beak square hollow structure (SHS) T-joints with different ß values and connection types under axial compression at brace end were carried out. Experimental test schemes, failure modes of specimens, jack load-vertical displacement curves, jack load-deformation of chord and strain intensity distribution curves of joints were presented. The effects of ß and connection types on axial compression property of joints were studied. The results show that the ultimate axial compression capacity of common bird beak SHS T-joints and diamond bird beak SHS T-joints is larger than that of traditional SHS T-joint specimens with big values of ß. The ultimate axial compression capacity of diamond bird beak SHS T-joints is larger than that of common bird beak SHS T-joints. As ß increases, the increase of the ultimate axial compression capacity of diamond bird beak SHS T-joints over that of common bird beak joints grows. The ultimate axial compression capacity and the initial axial stiffness of all kinds of joints increase as ß increases, and the initial axial stiffness of the diamond bird beak SHS T-joints is the largest. The ductilities of common bird beak and diamond bird beak SHS T-joints increase as ß increases, but the ductility of the traditional SHS T-joints decreases as ß increases.
By combining the results of laboratory model tests with relevant flow rules, the failure mode of shallow unsymmetrical loading tunnels and the corresponding velocity field were established. According to the principle of virtual power, the upper bound solution for surrounding rock pressure of shallow unsymmetrical loading tunnel was derived and verified by an example. The results indicate that the calculated results of the derived upper bound method for surrounding rock pressure of shallow unsymmetrical loading tunnels are relatively close to those of the existing “code method” and test results, which means that the proposed method is feasible. The current code method underestimates the unsymmetrical loading feature of surrounding rock pressure of shallow unsymmetrical loading tunnels, so it is unsafe; when the burial depth is less or greater than two times of the tunnel span and the unsymmetrical loading angle is less than 45°, the upper bound method or the average value of the results calculated by the upper bound method and code method respectively, is comparatively reasonable. When the burial depth is greater than two times of the tunnel span and the unsymmetrical loading angle is greater than 45°, the code method is more suitable.
An improved multidirectional velocity model was proposed for more accurately locating micro-seismic events in rock engineering. It was assumed that the stress wave propagation velocities from a micro-seismic source to three nearest monitoring sensors in a sensor’s array arrangement were the same. Since the defined objective function does not require pre-measurement of the stress wave propagation velocity in the field, errors from the velocity measurement can be avoided in comparison to three traditional velocity models. By analyzing 24 different cases, the proposed multidirectional velocity model iterated by the Simplex method is found to be the best option no matter the source is within the region of the sensor’s array or not. The proposed model and the adopted iterative algorithm are verified by field data and it is concluded that it can significantly reduce the error of the estimated source location.
Coal mine belt fire develops very rapidly and is difficult to control. If not suppressed quickly, a belt fire could easily lead to airflow disorder and undermine the ventilation system. However, belt fire can be prevented effectively by establishing fire airflow control system. In this work, the 5th belt roadway of Kongzhuang coal mine was taken as the object of investigation, where geometrical models of this roadway were established firstly. Then, based on mathematical model of fire smoke flow, the CO volume fraction, smoke density distribution, air temperature and pollutant velocity vector in the roadway before and after taking airflow control measures were simulated by using Fluent software. It can be known from the simulation that with the normal ventilation status in 5th belt roadway, the countercurrent of smoke does not happen when a fire occurs; the roadway’s section is almost filled with CO at 10 m downstream from the fire source, and with air velocity getting stable gradually, the CO concentration reaches about 15 %. After taking airflow control measures, the effect range of temperature field which are harmful to the miners decreases from 69 m to 30 m; and the distance of the roadway fully filled with CO is 5 m farther than that before taking measures. Finally, according to the numerical simulation results and the actual condition of the belt roadway, the warning and automatic remote airflow control system with short-circuit method for the 5th belt roadway was designed to guarantee the safety production.
The primary objective of present investigation is to introduce the novel aspects of convective mass condition and thermal radiation in the peristaltic transport of fluid. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) fluid was considered in a symmetric channel. Heat and mass transfer characteristics were analyzed in the presence of Soret and Dufour effects, and the results were presented via two forms of thermal radiation. The temperature, concentration and pressure rise per wavelength were examined. It is observed that the velocity slip and magnetic field parameters have opposite effects on the pressure rise per wavelength. Temperature of fluid is a decreasing function of the radiation parameter. Further, the temperature of fluid decreases by increasing the heat transfer Biot number. It is notified that the heat transfer rate at the wall is a decreasing function of radiation parameter.
An analysis was made to study the steady momentum and heat transfer characteristics of a viscous electrically conducting fluid near a stagnation point due to a stretching/shrinking sheet in the presence of a transverse magnetic field and generalized slip condition. Two flow problems corresponding to the planar and axisymmetric stretching/shrinking sheet were considered. By means of similarity transformations, the obtained resultant nonlinear ordinary differential equations were solved numerically using a shooting method for dual solutions of velocity and temperature profiles. Some important physical features of the flow and heat transfer in terms of the fluid velocity, the temperature distribution, the skin friction coefficient and the local Nusselt number for various values of the controlling governing parameters like velocity slip parameter, critical shear rate, magnetic field, ratio of stretching/shrinking rate to external flow rate and Prandtl number were analyzed and discussed. An increase of the critical shear rate decreases the fluid velocity whereas the local Nusselt number increases. The comparison of the present numerical results with the existing literature in a limiting case is given and found to be in an excellent agreement.
According to the recently developed single-trough floating machine with the world’s largest volume (inflatable mechanical agitation flotation machine with volume of 320 m3) in China, the gas-fluid two-phase flow in flotation cell was simulated using computational fluid dynamics method. It is shown that hexahedral mesh scheme is more suitable for the complex structure of the flotation cell than tetrahedral mesh scheme, and a mesh quality ranging from 0.7 to 1.0 is obtained. Comparative studies of the standard k-ε, k-ω and realizable k-ε turbulence models were carried out. It is indicated that the standard k-ε turbulence model could give a result relatively close to the practice and the liquid phase flow field is well characterized. In addition, two obvious recirculation zones are formed in the mixing zones, and the pressure on the rotor and stator is well characterized. Furthermore, the simulation results using improved standard k-ε turbulence model show that surface tension coefficient of 0.072, drag model of Grace and coefficient of 4, and lift coefficient of 0.001 can be achieved. The research results suggest that gas-fluid two-phase flow in large flotation cell can be well simulated using computational fluid dynamics method.
The probability distributions of wind speeds and the availability of wind turbines were investigated by considering the vertical wind shear. Based on the wind speed data at the standard height observed at a wind farm, the power-law process was used to simulate the wind speeds at a hub height of 60 m. The Weibull and Rayleigh distributions were chosen to express the wind speeds at two different heights. The parameters in the model were estimated via the least square (LS) method and the maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method, respectively. An adjusted MLE approach was also presented for parameter estimation. The main indices of wind energy characteristics were calculated based on observational wind speed data. A case study based on the data of Hexi area, Gansu Province of China was given. The results show that MLE method generally outperforms LS method for parameter estimation, and Weibull distribution is more appropriate to describe the wind speed at the hub height.
To determine the onset and duration of contraflow evacuation, a multi-objective optimization (MOO) model is proposed to explicitly consider both the total system evacuation time and the operation cost. A solution algorithm that enhances the popular evolutionary algorithm NSGA-II is proposed to solve the model. The algorithm incorporates preliminary results as prior information and includes a meta-model as an alternative to evaluation by simulation. Numerical analysis of a case study suggests that the proposed formulation and solution algorithm are valid, and the enhanced NSGA-II outperforms the original algorithm in both convergence to the true Pareto-optimal set and solution diversity.
The concept of connected vehicles is with great potentials for enhancing the road transportation systems in the future. To support the functions and applications under the connected vehicles frame, the estimation of dynamic states of the vehicles under the cooperative environments is a fundamental issue. By integrating multiple sensors, localization modules in OBUs (on-board units) require effective estimation solutions to cope with various operation conditions. Based on the filtering estimation framework for sensor fusion, an ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) is introduced to estimate the vehicle’s state with observations from navigation satellites and neighborhood vehicles, and the original EnKF solution is improved by using the cubature transformation to fulfill the requirements of the nonlinearity approximation capability, where the conventional ensemble analysis operation in EnKF is modified to enhance the estimation performance without increasing the computational burden significantly. Simulation results from a nonlinear case and the cooperative vehicle localization scenario illustrate the capability of the proposed filter, which is crucial to realize the active safety of connected vehicles in future intelligent transportation.
Although extensive analyses of road segments and intersections located in urban road networks have examined the role of many factors that contribute to the frequency and severity of crashes, the explicit relationship between street pattern characteristics and traffic safety remains underexplored. Based on a zone-based Hong Kong database, the Space Syntax was used to quantify the topological characteristics of street patterns and investigate the role of street patterns and zone-related factors in zone-based traffic safety analysis. A joint probability model was adopted to analyze crash frequency and severity in an integrated modeling framework and the maximum likelihood estimation method was used to estimate the parameters. In addition to the characteristics of street patterns, speed, road geometry, land-use patterns, and temporal factors were considered. The vehicle hours was also included as an exposure proxy in the model to make crash frequency predictions. The results indicate that the joint probability model can reveal the relationship between zone-based traffic safety and various other factors, and that street pattern characteristics play an important role in crash frequency prediction.