A dam-breach erosion model: II. Application

In Part I, the earthen dam breach erosion was analyzed. To this end, the BEED (breach erosion of earthfill dams) model was modified and extended. In this paper, Part II of the series, the extended BEED model is applied to three historical cases: South Fork Dam, Buffalo Creek Dam, and Teton Dam. The testing before it can be used for forecast purposes. A sensitivity analysis of the model to its parameters shows that the model is very sensitive to friction factors; Chenzy's for breach erosion, and Manning's for flood routing.     

Carbon nanofibres and activated carbon nanofibres as electrodes in supercapacitors

Carbon nanofibres have been prepared by a floating catalyst procedure at industrial scale in a metallic furnace. The nanofibres (50-500 nm diameter and 5-200 μm length) are grown from the Fe particles used as catalyst. Soot appears together with the carbon nanofibres. The sample has been chemically activated using KOH as activating agent. Scanning electron microscopy has shown a smooth surface for the as-prepared carbon nanofibres but a rough surface for the activated ones. The specific surface area increases from 13 to 212 m²/g due to the activation. The volume of the micropores (in the 1-2 nm range) and the mesopores (2-5 nm range), as deduced by density functional theory methods, also increases after the activation. Electrochemical behaviour of the as-prepared and activated carbon nanofibres has been tested in a supercapacitor at laboratory scale using 6 M KOH aqueous solution as electrolyte. The specific capacitance, which is less than 1 F/g for the as-prepared sample, increase up to ≈60 F/g for the activated sample. Only a slight decrease in capacitance has been observed as the current density increases. Specific power of ≈100 W/kg at specific energy of 1 Wh/kg has been found in some particular cases. We have compared the electrochemical parameters of our activated carbon nanofibres with those of activated carbon nanofibres coming from a commercial sample; the latter was activated by the same way as our sample.     

Metadata management for distributed first principles calculations in VLab—A collaborative cyberinfrastructure for materials computation

This paper describes the metadata and metadata management algorithms necessary to handle the concurrent execution of multiple tasks from a single workflow, in a collaborative service oriented architecture environment. Metadata requirements are imposed by the distributed workflow that calculates thermoelastic properties of materials at high pressures and temperatures. The scientific relevance of this workflow is also discussed. We explain the basic metaphor, the receipt, underlying the metadata management. We show the actual java representation of the receipt, and explain how it is converted to XML in order to be transferred between servers, and stored in a database. We also discuss how the collaborative aspect of user activity on running workflows could potentially lead to race conditions, how this affects requirements on metadata, and how these race conditions are precluded. Finally we describe an additional metadata structure, complementary to the receipts, that contains general information about the workflow.     

Synthesis and characterization of the polyols by air oxidation of soybean oil and its effect on the morphology and dynamic mechanical properties of poly(vinyl chloride) blends

The use of natural additives, with low toxicity and good compatibility, for PVC is becoming increasingly attractive. In this study, soybean oil additives were prepared by air oxidation reactions and blending with PVC. The oxidation reaction produced a significant increase in the number of hydroxyl groups in soybean oil; however, this kind of reaction results in the formation of a heterogeneous structure due to free radical reactions in the medium. The oxidized soybean oil improved the compatibility with PVC due to an increase in the number of polar groups, such as hydroxyls, and thus a reduction in the amount of atactic polymer was observed. Furthermore, an increase in the molecular weight of the oxidized oil, as well as large amounts of polar groups contributes to reducing the migration of oil in the PVC. Regarding the crystallinity of PVC, the use of pure and oxidized soybean oil causes small changes in the crystalline phase of the polymer. Oxidized soybean oil has great potential for usage as a secondary plasticizer for PVC. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42102.     

Optimization of single mode fibre sensors to detect organic vapours

The construction of single mode optical fibre (SMF) sensors to handle with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), has been optimized to operate at the third telecommunication window (1550 nm). The main motivation is to take advantage of the photonic devices used in telecommunication systems that makes easier sensors multiplexing. Moreover, the low transmission attenuation at that wavelength offers the possibility of remote sensing. The sensing materials used suffer reversible structural alterations in the presence of VOC, such as colour change, which are detectable with a photonic system. Following the Electrostatic Self Assembly method (ESAm), a nanostructure is constructed onto cleaved ended SMF, which is doped with a sensing material. The fabrication of this type of sensors was focused on multimode fibres (MMF) and in the visible spectral range (VIS) so far. The implementation has been adapted to SMF and to operate around 1550 nm, specifically, by easing the adsorption of the VOCs molecules. It has been observed that the sensing material affects the morphology of the nanostructures as well and so, to the sensors response. The devices implemented show a potential use in the identification of single and complex mixtures of VOCs.