Al–Zn–Mg–Sc–Zr alloy samples were annealed to four different states (under-aging, peak-aging, over-aging and double-aging) and then thoroughly investigated by means of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), tensile and fatigue crack growth rate tests to explore the influence of annealing treatment on microstructure and fatigue crack growth behavior. The results indicate that Al₃(Sc,Zr) particles can effectively refine grains and enhance tensile properties and fatigue properties. After annealing treatment, the under-aged sample and double-aged sample obtained average grain sizes of 4.9473 and 4.1257 μm, and the maximum value of yield/tensile strength (561 MPa/581 MPa) was obtained in peak-aged state. In the Paris region, fatigue crack growth rate, crack deflection and bifurcation, crack blunting and inter/trans-granular propagation were discussed based on data fitting and Laird model and Griffith theory. And the results show that the under-aged sample possesses the best resistance to fatigue crack propagation and the most tortuous and bifurcated crack path. For all samples, the fatigue crack growth rate in the rupture region was inversely proportional to yield strength.

Anodic films were successfully fabricated on Ti6Al4V alloy by anodic oxidation method in an environmental friendly electrolyte with and without sodium hypochlorite. The anodic films were characterized by means of the scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS). Results revealed that the addition of sodium hypochlorite leads to the ultrafast growth of oxide films, and results in the significant changes of morphology and thickness. The influence of sodium hypochlorite on formation and crystallization of oxide films as a function of anodizing time was discussed. Meanwhile, potentiodynamic electrochemical tests and dry sliding wear tests were performed to evaluate the corrosion resistance and tribological properties of oxide films. It was found that the oxide film fabricated with the existence of sodium hypochlorite had improved corrosion resistance and tribological properties than the one formed without sodium hypochlorite. Moreover, the effect mechanism of sodium hypochlorite on the growth rate and surface morphologies of oxide films during the anodizing process was discussed. It was found that hypochlorite ions participated in the reaction on anode which causes the rapid growth of oxide films and then affect the whole anodizing process.

This paper studied the influence of aging treatment on the corrosion behavior and mechanism of Mg—Y alloys with different Y content through corrosion mass loss test, electrochemical test and corrosion morphologies observation. Results show that the peak-aging times of Mg–(0.25, 2.5, 5, 8 and 15) Y alloys at 250 °C were 4, 6, 10, 12 and 16 h. The aging treatment reduced the corrosion resistance of Mg–Y alloys, and the corrosion resistance of Mg–Y alloys became worse with increasing of the aging time. The change magnitude of the open circuit potentials for Mg–(0.25, 2.5)Y alloys was greater than that of Mg–(5, 8 and 15)–Y alloys. The polarization curves of Mg (0.25, 2.5, 5, 8 and 15) Y alloys had the similar shape after aging treatment, and the slopes of the anodic branch were greater than those of the cathodic branches. After aging treatment, the corrosion modes of Mg–0.25Y and Mg–(2.5, 5, 8 and 15) Y alloys were uniform corrosion and pitting corrosion with small local deep corrosion.

In order to deal with the disadvantages of excessive grinding and non-uniformity in finished particle under high-pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) finished grinding system, four aspects were investigated, including evaluating indicators, effects of operating factors, effect of particle uniformity on the flotation and formation mechanism of particle uniformity. Experiment of HPGR finished grinding system, cationic reverse flotation experiment and simulation test of particle bed comminution under the condition of quasi-static were carried out. Theoretical analyses indicated that both of uniformity coefficient and average particle size should be included in the uniformity analysis of the mineral particles. The results show that the effect of circulation fan impeller speed on particle uniformity is the most evident, HPGR working pressure and roll gap are second and HPGR roller speed is the last. Average particle size has a more obvious effect on the grade of flotation concentrate while uniformity coefficient has a more obvious effect on the flotation recovery. Considering the two aspects of grade and recovery, the optimal uniformity coefficient for flotation is 1.1–1.2 and the optimal average particle size for flotation is 50–55 μm. The operating factors which promote the shielding effect and compact effect in the HPGR finished grinding system should be strengthened based on the uniformity of particles.

In order to research the flow behavior of 20CrMnTi and obtain its constitutive equation, the isothermal compression tests of 20CrMnTi were carried out using the Gleeble—3500 thermo-simulation machine, up to a 60% height reduction of the sample at strain rate range from 0.01 s⁻¹ to 10 s^–1 and deformation temperature range from 1123 K to 1273 K. According to the experimental results, the constitutive equation of 20CrMnTi was established based on Arrhenius model. In addition, the compensation of strain was taken into account and a new method of modifying the constitutive equation was proposed by introducing a coefficient K related to the deformation temperature and stain rate, which effectively improved the prediction accuracy of the developed constitutive equation. The results show that the flow stress decreases with increasing deformation temperature and decreasing strain rate, and the proposed constitutive equation well predicts the flow stress of 20CrMnTi during the high temperature deformation.

Partial transient liquid phase (PTLP) bonding of TiC cermet to 06Cr19Ni10 stainless steel was carried out. Impulse pressuring was used to reduce the bonding time, and a Ti/Cu/Nb interlayer was employed to alleviate the detrimental effect of interfacial reaction products on the bonding strength. Successful bonding was achieved at 885 °C under a pulsed pressure of 2–10 MPa within durations in the range of 2–8 min, which was notably shortened in comparison with conventional PTLP bonding. Microstructure characterization revealed the σ phase with a limit solubility of Nb, a sequence of Ti—Cu intermetallic phases and solid solutions of Ni and Cu in α+β Ti in the reaction zone. The maximum shear strength of 106.7 MPa was obtained when the joint was bonded for 5 min, indicating that a robust metallurgical bonding was achieved. Upon shear loading, the joints fractured along the Ti—Cu intermetallics interface and spread to the interior of TiC cermet in a brittle cleavage manner.

Synthesized struvite was innovatively applied to removing Cu(II) from aqueous solution. The Cu(II) adsorption behavior and relative mechanisms were studied and analyzed. The maximum Cu(II) adsorption under pH=4.0 and 318 K calculated from adsorption thermodynamic analysis was 145.1 mg/g. The sorption kinetics can be favorably described by pseudo-second order model. The activation energy (E_a) of 17.5 kJ/mol suggested that the adsorption process was a chemical adsorption. The calculated thermodynamic parameters indicated that the adsorption was a spontaneous and endothermic one. On the basis of characterization upon struvite before and after adsorption, it was found that the electrostatic attraction and coordination bonding supported the ion sorption on struvite surface, and the transformation of copper ion into copper hydroxide occurred on struvite surface and within its crevices.

Biodiesel is a kind of clean and renewable energy. The effect of ethanol addition on the flame characteristics of waste oil biodiesel is studied by using OH-PLIF technique from the perspective of OH radical evolution. Ethanol addition leads to the appearance of diffusion flame reaction interface ahead of schedule and shortens the diffusion flame height. The experimental results show a linear correlation between the flame height and the fuel flow rate for a given fuel and oxidant. The same conclusion is drawn from the theoretical analysis of the approximate model. In addition, ethanol addition makes the average OH signal intensity of flame at different fuel flow rate tend to be consistent and the fuel flow rate enlarge where the flame field shows the strongest oxidation performance. Average OH signal intensity begins to weaken at larger fuel flow rate, which indicates that fuel flow rate of fuels blended with ethanol can change in larger range and does not significantly affect the uniformity of combustion.

To screen genetic polymorphisms of Panax ginseng, as well as those of Panax quinquefolium and Panax notoginseng, analysis of random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) was performed using 120 random primers. Of the successful amplicons obtained, the Panax ginseng-specific RAPD marker C-12 was cloned into a TA vector and sequenced (GenBank access number KU553472). Based on the sequence analysis results, a pair of primers specific to C-12 was designed. Finally, a SCAR marker-based identification system for Panax ginseng was developed after optimization of the reaction conditions. Using this method, two positive bands were stably observed at 300 bp and 130 bp in 33 batches of Panax ginseng samples tested, while negative results were obtained for another 101 batches of samples, including Panax quinquefolium, Panax notoginseng, adulterants, and other medicinal herbs. Thus, we successfully developed a PCR-based method for rapid and effective identification of Panax ginseng, which can be effectively used for the protection and utilization of germplasm resources and identification of the origins of Panax ginseng samples.

This study is intended to explore the chemical differences of Acori Tatarinowii Rhizoma (ATR) samples collected from two habitats, Sichuan and Anhui provinces, China. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was applied to establishing the quantitative chemical fingerprints of ATRs. A total of 104 volatile compounds were identified and quantified with the information of mass spectra and retention index (RI). Furthermore, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO), a sparse regularization method, combined with subsampling was employed to improve the classification ability of partial least squares-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA). After variable selection by LASSO, three chemical markers, β-elemene, α-selinene and α-asarone, were identified for the discrimination of ATRs from two habitats, and the total classification correct rate was increased from 82.76% to 96.55%. The proposed LASSO-PLS-DA method can serve as an efficient strategy for screening marked chemical components and geo-herbalism research of traditional Chinese medicines.

The easy acidification and high hydrogen sulfide (H₂S) production during anaerobic digestion of macroalgae limited its application in biomethane production. In order to investigate the effects of ceramsite on methane and H2S productions during anaerobic digestion of macroalgae, batch experiments of Macrocystis pyrifera were carried out. Four groups named C0, C1, C2 and C3 added with 0, 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5 g/g_substrate of ceramsite, respectively, were studied and compared. The highest cumulative methane yield of 286.3 mL/g_substrate is obtained in C2, which is 40.11% higher than that of C0. The cumulative H₂S yields of C1, C2 and C3 are 32.67%, 44.66% and 53.21% lower than that of C0, respectively. Results indicate that ceramsite addition permits higher methane yields, shorter lag-phase time and lower H₂S yields during anaerobic digestion of Macrocystis pyrifera.

To overcome the deficiencies of high computational complexity and low convergence speed in traditional neural networks, a novel bio-inspired machine learning algorithm named brain emotional learning (BEL) is introduced. BEL mimics the emotional learning mechanism in brain which has the superior features of fast learning and quick reacting. To further improve the performance of BEL in data analysis, genetic algorithm (GA) is adopted for optimally tuning the weights and biases of amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in BEL neural network. The integrated algorithm named GA-BEL combines the advantages of the fast learning of BEL, and the global optimum solution of GA. GA-BEL has been tested on a real-world chaotic time series of geomagnetic activity index for prediction, eight benchmark datasets of university California at Irvine (UCI) and a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) dataset for classifications. The comparisons of experimental results have shown that the proposed GA-BEL algorithm is more accurate than the original BEL in prediction, and more effective when dealing with large-scale classification problems. Further, it outperforms most other traditional algorithms in terms of accuracy and execution speed in both prediction and classification applications.

With the rapid development of computer science and artificial intelligence technology, the complexity and intelligence of the neural network models constructed by people have been greatly improved. When the complex neuron system is subjected to the impact of “catastrophic”, its original characteristics may be changed, and the consequences are difficult to predict. Catastrophe dynamics mainly studies the source of the sudden violent change of nature and human society and its evolution. The impact of the system can be divided into endogenous and exogenous shocks. In this article, catastrophe theory is used to study the neuron system. Based on the mean field model of Hurst and Sornette, introducing the weight parameters, mathematical models are constructed to study the response characteristics of the neuron system in face of exogenous shocks, endogenous shocks, and integrated shocks. The time characteristics of the shock response of the neuron system are discussed too, such as the instantaneous and long-term response of the system in face of shocks, the different response forms according to the weight or linear superposition, and the influence of adjusting parameters on the neuron system. The research result shows that the authoritarian coefficient and weight coefficient have a very important influence on the response of neuron system; By adjusting the two coefficients, the purpose of disaster prevention, self-healing protection and response reducing can be well achieved.

A three-dimensional finite element model was established for the milling of thin-walled parts. The physical model of the milling of the part was established using the AdvantEdge FEM software as the platform. The aluminum alloy impeller was designated as the object to be processed and the boundary conditions which met the actual machining were set. Through the solution, the physical quantities such as the three-way cutting force, the tool temperature, and the tool stress were obtained, and the calculation of the elastic deformation of the thin-walled blade of the free-form surface at the contact points between the tool and the workpiece was realized. The elastic deformation law of the thin-walled blade was then predicted. The results show that the maximum deviation between the predicted value and the actual measured machining value of the elastic deformation was 26.055 μm; the minimum deviation was 2.011 μm, with the average deviation being 10.154 μm. This shows that the prediction is in close agreement with the actual result.

Supplier selection can be regarded as a typical multiple attribute decision-making problem. In real-world situation, the values of the alternative attributes and their weights are always being nondeterministic, and as a result of this, the values are considered interval numbers. In addition, the common approach to measure the similarity between alternatives through their distance suffers from some minor shortcomings. To address these problems, this study develops a novel hybrid decision-making method by combining the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) with grey relational analysis (GRA) for supplier selection with interval numbers. By introducing the intervals theory, the extensions of Euclidean distance and grey relational grade are defined. And then a new comprehensive closeness coefficient is constituted for supplier alternatives evaluation based on the interval Euclidean distance and the interval grey relational grade, which could indicate the distance-based similarity and the shape-based similarity simultaneously. A numerical example is taken to validate the flexibility of the proposed method, and result shows that this method can tackle the uncertainty in real-world supplier selection and also help decision makers to effectively select optimal suppliers.

Code review is an important process to reduce code defects and improve software quality. In social coding communities like GitHub, as everyone can submit Pull-Requests, code review plays a more important role than ever before, and the process is quite time-consuming. Therefore, finding and recommending proper reviewers for the emerging Pull-Requests becomes a vital task. However, most of the current studies mainly focus on recommending reviewers by checking whether they will participate or not without differentiating the participation types. In this paper, we develop a two-layer reviewer recommendation model to recommend reviewers for Pull-Requests (PRs) in GitHub projects from the technical and managerial perspectives. For the first layer, we recommend suitable developers to review the target PRs based on a hybrid recommendation method. For the second layer, after getting the recommendation results from the first layer, we specify whether the target developer will technically or managerially participate in the reviewing process. We conducted experiments on two popular projects in GitHub, and tested the approach using PRs created between February 2016 and February 2017. The results show that the first layer of our recommendation model performs better than the previous work, and the second layer can effectively differentiate the types of participation.

This paper presents the use of computed tomography for the evaluation of hardfacing. The method used in this research is hardfacing by tungsten inert gas using alloy wires of wear resistant layers. This paper discusses the latest materials used for hardfacing and their application. It characterizes the defects of obtained hardfacing and impact of the type of wire on the concentration of defects. It further, the basic mechanical properties of coatings were determined. The results are subjected to qualitative and quantitative analysis. The smallest average percentage of defects in relation to the overall surface is observed for the hardfacing EL-600 HB, which amounts to 1.5%. The highest average percentage of defects in relation to the overall surface is observed for the hardfacing EL-500 HB, which amounts to 7.2%. The chemical composition of hardfacing has been presented.

In order to improve the trajectory tracking precision and reduce the synchronization error of a 6-DOF lightweight robot, nonlinear proportion-deviation (N-PD) cross-coupling synchronization control strategy based on adjacent coupling error analysis is presented. The mathematical models of the robot, including kinematic model, dynamic model and spline trajectory planing, are established and verified. Since it is difficult to describe the real-time contour error of the robot for complex trajectory, the adjacent coupling error is analyzed to solve the problem. Combined with nonlinear control and coupling performance of the robot, N-PD cross-coupling synchronization controller is designed and validated by simulation analysis. A servo control experimental system which mainly consists of laser tracking system, the robot mechanical system and EtherCAT based servo control system is constructed. The synchronization error is significantly decreased and the maximum trajectory error is reduced from 0.33 mm to 0.1 mm. The effectiveness of the control algorithm is validated by the experimental results, thus the control strategy can improve the robot’s trajectory tracking precision significantly.

Thar coalfield is a new coalfield in Pakistan with estimated lignite resource of more than 175 billion tons. Resource planning is an essential part of the strategic plan for optimal and economical exploitation of Thar lignite. Main objective of the present research is to assess Thar coalfield as a single deposit and identify the areas suitable for surface mining, underground mining and waste dump at Thar coalfield. The cumulative stripping ratio distribution map has been developed for Thar coalfield, covering an area of 1691.04 km² around 12 exploratory blocks. Lithological data of 693 drill holes have been used to calculate the cumulative stripping ratio in every borehole, which varies from 3.7 m:m to 88.1 m:m with an average value of 12.85 m:m. Cumulative stripping ratio is divided into six ranges, viz: 4–6, 6–8, 8–10, 10–15, 15–20 and >20 m:m. Contours are digitized around all boreholes showing various ranges of stripping ratios. From the cumulative stripping ratio distribution map, it is concluded that 665.72 km² area, which constitutes 39.37% of the total assessed area, is suitable for surface mining and 989.82 km² area, constituting 58.53%, is appropriate for underground mining and outside waste dumps. Whereas, 2.1% area is no coal zone, only suitable for outside waste dumping. The developed map of cumulative stripping ratio distribution may be used as a guide map for the preparation of mining master plan for Thar coalfield.

Saturator is one of the core components of humid air turbine (HAT) and is the main feature of HAT making it different from other gas turbine cycles. Due to the lack of sufficient experience in commercial plant operation, HAT cycle has a great demand for modeling and simulation of the system and its components, especially the saturator, to provide reference for system design and optimization. The conventional saturator models are usually based on the theory of heat and mass transfer, which need two accurate coefficients to ensure convincing results. This work proposes a global heat and mass transfer coefficient based on cooling tower technology to model the saturator in small-scale HAT cycle. Compared with the experimental data, the simulation results show that the proposed model well predicts the dynamic humidity and temperature distribution characteristics of saturator at low air pressure and temperature.

Advanced traveler information systems (ATIS) can not only improve drivers’ accessibility to the more accurate route travel time information, but also can improve drivers’ adaptability to the stochastic network capacity degradations. In this paper, a mixed stochastic user equilibrium model was proposed to describe the interactive route choice behaviors between ATIS equipped and unequipped drivers on a degradable transport network. In the proposed model, the information accessibility of equipped drivers was reflected by lower degree of uncertainty in their stochastic equilibrium flow distributions, and their behavioral adaptability was captured by multiple equilibrium behaviors over the stochastic network state set. The mixed equilibrium model was formulated as a fixed point problem defined in the mixed route flows, and its solution was achieved by executing an iterative algorithm. Numerical experiments were provided to verify the properties of the mixed network equilibrium model and the efficiency of the iterative algorithm.

The study of induced polarization (IP) information extraction from magnetotelluric (MT) sounding data is of great and practical significance to the exploitation of deep mineral, oil and gas resources. The linear inversion method, which has been given priority in previous research on the IP information extraction method, has three main problems as follows: 1) dependency on the initial model, 2) easily falling into the local minimum, and 3) serious non-uniqueness of solutions. Taking the nonlinearity and nonconvexity of IP information extraction into consideration, a two-stage CO-PSO minimum structure inversion method using compute unified distributed architecture (CUDA) is proposed. On one hand, a novel Cauchy oscillation particle swarm optimization (CO-PSO) algorithm is applied to extract nonlinear IP information from MT sounding data, which is implemented as a parallel algorithm within CUDA computing architecture; on the other hand, the impact of the polarizability on the observation data is strengthened by introducing a second stage inversion process, and the regularization parameter is applied in the fitness function of PSO algorithm to solve the problem of multi-solution in inversion. The inversion simulation results of polarization layers in different strata of various geoelectric models show that the smooth models of resistivity and IP parameters can be obtained by the proposed algorithm, the results of which are relatively stable and accurate. The experiment results added with noise indicate that this method is robust to Gaussian white noise. Compared with the traditional PSO and GA algorithm, the proposed algorithm has more efficiency and better inversion results.

In-situ rock failures can result from stress changes due to pure loading and/or unloading. Understanding of the damage evolution behavior in brittle rocks during loading and unloading is imperative for the designs of rock structures. In this paper, we investigate the damage evolution characteristics of a granitic rock during loading and unloading after a series of triaxial experiments performed at different confining pressures. The axial stress—axial strain variations of the tested specimens revealed that the specimens undergoing unloading fail with a lower axial strain compared to the specimens failed purely by loading. Higher confining pressures were observed to exacerbate the difference. Volumetric strain versus axial strain curves indicated that the curves reverse the trend with the beginning of major damage of specimens. We suggest here a new form of equation to describe the secant modulus variation of brittle rocks against the axial stress for the unloading process. Failure mechanisms of tested specimens showed two distinct patterns, namely, specimens under pure loading failed with a single distinct shear fracture while for the unloading case specimens displayed multiple intersecting fractures. In addition, analysis of the evolution of dissipation and elastic energy during deformation of the specimens under loading and unloading conditions showed differentiable characteristics. Moreover, we evaluated the variations of two damage indices defined based on the energy dissipation and secant modulus evolution during deformation and observed that both of them satisfactorily distinguish key stages of damage evolution.

Having an accurate understanding of concrete behavior under effects of high strain rate loading with the aim of reducing incurred damages is of great importance. Due to complexities and high costs of experimental research, numerical studies can be an appropriate alternative for experimental methods. Therefore, in this research capability of the finite element method for predicting concrete behavior at various loading conditions is evaluated by LS-DYNA software. First, the proposed method is presented and then is validated in three stages under different conditions. Results of load—midspan displacement showed good agreement between experimental and finite element results. Capability of finite element method in analyses of beams under various rates of loading was also validated by low error of the results. In addition, the proposed method has reasonable ability to evaluate reinforced concrete beams under various loading rates and different conditions.

Soft rock surrounding deep roadway has poor stability and long-term rheological effect. More and larger deformation problems of surrounding rock occur due to adverse supporting measures for such roadways, which not only affects the engineering safety critically but also improves the maintenance costs. This paper takes the main rail roadway with severely deformation in China’s Zaoquan coal mine as an example to study the long-term deformation tendency and damage zone by means of in-situ deformation monitoring and acoustic wave testing technique. A three-dimensional finite element model reflecting the engineering geological condition and initial design scheme is established by ABAQUS. Then, on the basis of field monitoring deformation data, the surrounding rock geotechnical and rheological parameters of the roadway are obtained by back analysis. A combined supporting technology with U-shaped steel support and anchor-grouting is proposed for the surrounding soft rock. The numerical simulation of the combined supporting technology and in-situ deformation monitoring results show that the soft rock surrounding the roadway has been held effectively.