An approach was presented to intensify the mixing process. Firstly, a novel concept, the dissipation of mass transfer ability (DMA) associated with convective mass transfer, was defined via an analogy to the heat-work conversion. Accordingly, the focus on mass transfer enhancement can be shifted to seek the extremum of the DMA of the system. To this end, an optimization principle was proposed. A mathematical model was then developed to formulate the optimization into a variational problem. Subsequently, the intensification of the mixing process for a gas mixture in a micro-tube was provided to demonstrate the proposed principle. In the demonstration example, an optimized velocity field was obtained in which the mixing ability was improved, i.e., the mixing process should be intensified by adjusting the velocity field in related equipment. Therefore, a specific procedure was provided to produce a mixer with geometric irregularities associated with an ideal velocity.

Carbon encapsulated iron nanoparticles (CEINPs) with very thin shells and good core-shell structures were prepared by DC arc discharge at argon intake temperature (AIT) of 800 °C. The results of high resolution transmission electron microscope (HRTEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscope, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscope (XPS) characterizations on the product B show that the thickness of the carbon shells of CEINPs in the product B is in the range of ca. 0.5–5.3 nm, i. e., which can be as thin as only two layers of graphite. The average diameter of the CEINPs is about 24.7 nm. The total content of Fe element in the product B is 77.0 wt%. The saturation magnetization (M _s) and coercivity (H _c) of the product B are 107.4 emu/g and 143 Oe, respectively. The formation of the CEINPs in the product B is discussed briefly.

To investigate the structural features and provide an alternative method for high value-added utilization of coal, Lingwu coal was first extracted with organic solvent at room temperature. Then its extraction residue was oxidized in aqueous sodium hypochlorite (ASHC) under mild conditions. The effects of oxidation conditions, such as temperature, reaction time, the ratio of Lingwu coal extraction residue (LCER, g) to ASHC (mL) and pH value, on the product distributions and compositions were investigated. The results of gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) suggested that 53 kinds of methyl esterified products were detected in total, and benzene carboxylic acids were the main oxidation products, while chloro-substituted benzene carboxylic acids were the main by-products. Higher yield and fewer kinds of organic acids could be obtained at lower pH value, especially for the main objective product, benzene carboxylic acids.

The Bacillus strain BH072 isolated from a honey sample showed strong antifungal activity against phytopathogen. Gene cloning test demonstrated that the strain had a tasA gene encoding an antifungal TasA protein. Although the wild strain simultaneously produced various antifungal substances, only the physicochemical property and antifungal activity of TasA protein were unclear due to the difficulty in extraction. In this study, tasA gene encoding the protein from Bacillus sp. BH072 was amplified by using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) method and cloned into pET 28a (+) vector, and then expressed in host cells Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3). The expressed proteins were collected by centrifugation and ultrasonic treatment, and then purified by using nickel-nitrilotriacetic acid (Ni-NTA) metal affinity column and dialysis methods. The result of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) test showed that an expected protein band appeared with a size of 31 kDa. The expressed products possessed antifungal activity against the phytopathogenic indicator strain Botrytis cinerea. A genetically engineered strain tasA of E. coli was established in this study which can efficiently express Tas A protein.

The technique of adaptive tree mesh is an effective way to reduce computational cost through automatic adjustment of cell size according to necessity. In the present study, the 2D numerical N-S solver based on the adaptive quadtree mesh system was extended to a 3D one, in which a spatially adaptive octree mesh system and multiple particle level set method were adopted for the convenience to deal with the air-water-structure multiple-medium coexisting domain. The stretching process of a dumbbell was simulated and the results indicate that the meshes are well adaptable to the free surface. The collapsing process of water column impinging a circle cylinder was simulated and from the results, it can be seen that the processes of fluid splitting and merging are properly simulated. The interaction of second-order Stokes waves with a square cylinder was simulated and the obtained drag force is consistent with the result by the Morison’s wave force formula with the coefficient values of the stable drag component and the inertial force component being set as 2.54.

The scale of fluctuation is one of the vital parameters for the application of random field theory to the reliability analysis of geotechnical engineering. In the present study, the fluctuation function method and weighted curve fitting method were presented to make the calculation more simple and accurate. The vertical scales of fluctuation of typical layers of Tianjin Port were calculated based on a number of engineering geotechnical investigation data, which can be guidance to other projects in this area. Meanwhile, the influences of sample interval and type of soil index on the scale of fluctuation were analyzed, according to which, the principle of determining the scale of fluctuation when the sample interval changes was defined. It can be obtained that the scale of fluctuation is the basic attribute reflecting spatial variability of soil, therefore, the scales of fluctuation calculated according to different soil indexes should be basically the same. The non-correlation distance method was improved, and the principle of determining the variance reduction function was also discussed.

In this paper, silt sediment is considered to be Bingham body, which is made up of coarse and fine particles in front of a hydraulic gate. The coarse and fine particles provide friction and shear stress in the course of opening the gate. They constitute together the adhesion force of the sediment. Based on this viewpoint, this paper puts forward a formula for the effect of silt sediment on the lifting force. The formula includes gate weight, down-suction force, sealing rubber friction, plus-weight, water-column pressure, plus-silted-sediment weight and rolling (or sliding)-bearing friction. Finally, the verification results show that the formula has certain reliability and the calculation accuracy can meet the need of practical engineering.

The hole-making process in stack materials consisting of carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRP) and Ti-6Al-4V remains a critical challenge. In this paper, an experimental study on the helical milling of CFRP/Ti-6Al-4V stacks was conducted by using two different machining strategies. Helical milling strategy I machines both materials with identical machining parameters, while machining strategy II uses two sets of machining parameters to machine each material. Helical milling performance was evaluated by the following indicators: tool life, cutting forces, hole quality (including diameter deviation, roundness, roughness, and hole edge quality). The results demonstrate that helical milling strategy II outperformed strategy I, leading to longer tool life (up to 48 holes), smaller cutting forces and better hole quality with higher geometric accuracy and smoother surface finish (Ra⩽ 0.58 μm for Ti-6Al-4V and Ra ⩽ 0.81 μm for CFRP), eliminating the need for reaming or de-burring.

AZ31B magnesium alloy was subjected to friction stir welding with various welding parameters. The equivalent Young’s moduli of the friction stir welded samples and the base material were obtained by the three-point method, and their transverse rigidities were obtained as well. Furthermore, the sound transmission characteristics of those samples were experimentally studied by four-microphone impedance tube method. The experimental results indicate that the transverse rigidities of the friction stir welded samples were only 79%, 83% and 92% of those of the base material, respectively. The sound transmission losses of the processed samples were also lower, which was largely due to the reduction of transverse rigidities induced by the decrease of equivalent Young’s moduli.

In order to select the appropriate working fluids and optimize parameters for medium-temperature geothermally-powered organic Rankine cycle (ORC), R245fa is mixed with R601a at geothermal water temperature of 110 °C. Based on thermodynamics, the characteristics of mixture and its influence on the performance of ORC under different evaporating temperatures and composition proportions are analyzed. Results show that the zeotropic mixture R245fa/R601a (0.4/0.6) has the highest performance. When the evaporating temperature reaches 67 °C, the outlet temperature of geothermal water is 61 °C, the net power output is the highest and the thermal efficiency is about 9%.

In the proposed system for online inspection of steel balls, a diffuse illumination is developed to enhance defect appearances and produce high quality images. To fully view the entire sphere, a novel unfolding method is put forward based on geometrical analysis, which only requires one-dimensional movement of the balls and a pair of cameras to capture images from different directions. Moreover, a realtime inspection algorithm is customized to improve both accuracy and efficiency. The precision and recall of the sample set were 87.7% and 98%, respectively. The average time cost on image processing and analysis for a steel ball was 47 ms, and the total time cost was less than 200 ms plus the cost of image acquisition and balls’ movement. The system can sort 18 000 balls per hour with a spatial resolution higher than 0.01 mm.

In this paper, a CMOS image sensor (CIS) is proposed, which can accomplish both decorrelation and entropy coding of image compression directly on the focal plane. The design is based on predictive coding for image decorrelation. The predictions are performed in analog domain by 2×2 pixel units. Both the prediction residuals and original pixel values are quantized and encoded in parallel. Since the residuals have a peak distribution around zero, the output codewords can be replaced by the valid part of the residuals’ binary mode. The compressed bit stream is accessible directly at the output of CIS without extra disposition. Simulation results show that the proposed approach achieves a compression rate of 2.2 and PSNR of 51 on different test images.

A neuro-space mapping (Neuro-SM) for modeling heterojunction bipolar transistor (HBT) is presented, which can automatically modify the input signals of the given model by neural network. The novel Neuro-SM formulations for DC and small-signal simulation are proposed to obtain the mapping network. Simulation results show that the errors between Neuro-SM models and the accurate data are less than 1%, demonstrating that the accurcy of the proposed method is higher than those of the existing models.