Effect of nanoparticles orientation on morphology of polymeric nanocomposite foams: preparation of foamed nanocomposite fibers by supercritical carbon dioxide

ABSTRACT

Polymeric foams have received increasing attention in both academic and industrial communities. Using of nanoparticles as heterogeneous nucleation agent has been verified as one of the most valid means to enhance cell nucleation and improve cell morphology. However, few researches have been conducted to investigate the effect of the nanoparticles’ spatial orientation on their nucleation efficiency. In this work, to study the influence of the orientation of nanoparticles on their performance in improving morphology of polymeric foam, thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) composite fibers with different nanoparticles (carbon nanotubes, graphene and SiO₂) were prepared by using different traction speeds. The different traction speeds lead to different orientation state of the nanoparticles which then resulted different nucleation effect. It was found that carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were easily oriented and aligned along the fiber length direction under the high traction speed, while graphene and SiO₂ nanoparticles did not show orientation under the traction speed in this study. As a result, the foam of TPU/CNTs composite fibers from high traction speed exhibited a much smaller cell size and higher cell density compared to the foams of the fibers from low traction speeds, while TPU/graphene, and TPU/SiO₂ composite fibers with different traction speeds showed almost similar cell size and size density after foaming, indicating that the orientated nanoparticles possessed higher heterogeneous nucleation efficiency. To our best knowledge, this work, for the first time, demonstrated the high nucleation effect of the aligned nanoparticles, which hopefully open a new path for improving the cell morphology of polymeric foam materials.     

Simultaneous improvement of thermal conductivity and mechanical properties for mechanically mixed ABS/h-BN composites by using small amounts of hyperbranched polymer additives

Recently, thermal interface materials (TIMs) are in great demands for modern electronics. For mechanically mixed polymer composite TIMs, the thermal conductivity and the mechanical properties are generally lower than expected values due to the sharply increased viscosity and poor filler dispersion. This work shows that addition of a small amount of polyester-based hyperbranched polymer (HBP) avoided the trade-off in mechanically mixed ABS/hexagonal boron nitride (h-BN) composites. After adding 0.5 wt% HBP, the maximum h-BN content in the composites increased from 50 to 60 wt%. The out-of-plane, in-plane thermal conductivity, and tensile strength of ABS/h-BN with 50 wt% h-BN were 0.408, 0.517 W/mK, and 18 MPa, respectively, and were increased to 0.729, 0.847 W/mK, and 32 MPa by adding 0.5 wt% HBP, while 0.972, 1.12 W/mK, and 29.5 MPa were achieved for ABS/h-BN/HBP with 60 wt% h-BN. The morphological and rheological results proved that these enhancements are due to the improved h-BN dispersion by decreasing viscosity of composites during mixing. Theoretical modeling based on the modified effective medium theory confirmed such results and showed that the interfacial thermal resistance also decreased slightly. Thus, this work demonstrates a facile and scalable method for simultaneously improving the thermal conductivity and mechanical properties of thermoplastic-based TIMs.     

折臂式随车起重机转台的拓扑优化设计

为了使折臂式随车起重机转台在最大应力不超过材料许用应力的前提下实现轻量化设计的目的,通过ADAMS软件仿真确定其极限工况,对转台进行静力学分析及拓扑优化。通过拓扑优化得到了理想的材料分布。基于优化结果调整转台结构,并对改进后的转台进行静力学分析。结果表明,优化后的转台能够满足实际的使用需求。同时,转台质量降低了12%,证明了优化设计的有效性和可行性,并为折臂式随车起重机的相关设计提供了一定的借鉴。     

胡海陶瓷艺术作品选登

正~~     

Research on optimization design of PWR flow distribution device based on numerical simulation

ABSTRACT

In the lower chamber of pressurized water reactor (PWR), the flow distribution device is the core module to distribute coolant into the core. It has complex structure and numerous design parameters. Therefore, it has important theoretical and practical significance to optimize the device. The mesh independence verification, turbulence model selection, and data processing all can influence the numerical simulation results of the lower chamber, in order to research the influence, a numerical simulation method based on the original model of CNP1000 reactor lower chamber is proposed in this paper. In the method, an optimization design method of flow distribution device is established based on surrogate model. The main design variables and optimization objectives are determined based on the device’s structure and function characteristics. And then it respectively adopts Kriging algorithm and multi-objective genetic algorithm to establish a surrogate model of flow distribution device and optimize it globally. Finally, the optimal design variables are obtained. Compared with the device’s performance before optimization, the after optimization has smaller total pressure loss and more uniform flow. The effectiveness and practicability of proposed optimization design method can be verified.