Der Kettensteg in Nürnberg – die älteste erhaltene eiserne Hängebrücke Kontinentaleuropas

The “Kettensteg” of Nürnberg, oldest existing suspension bridge in continental Europe. Chains and suspension rods of the Kettensteg, build 1824 by Johann Georg Kuppler, still exist in the original state but were put out of function in 1931 by the installation of a supporting structure. After a comparison with other old suspension bridges follows a history of the Kettensteg and proposals for renovation.     

Kraftbestimmung in Schrägseilen durch dynamische Messung

Force Determination in Stay Cables by Means of Vibration Measurements The knowledge of the actual tensile forces in the cables in the ropes or cables of cable‐stayed bridges or in external tendons is required for the examination and assessment of these elements. The determination of these forces by lift‐off tests with hydraulic jacks is connected with considerable expenditures as well as the danger of damages. But also the accuracies achieved by vibration measurements were, however, not satisfying. For high cable forces and short cables in some cases errors of up to ± 10% of the actual cable force could be determined. Therefore fast and non‐destructive methods for the determination of the forces are required. In this paper, a practicable technology to determine the cable force by means of vibration measurements is illustrated at the Viennese cable stayed bridge crossing the Vienna Donaukanal.     

Die Geschichte der San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge

The history of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge. The San Francisco‐Oakland Bay Bridge is an eminent example of american bridge engineering. It consists of a twin suspension bridge and a cantilever truss bridge which are connected by a tunnel through Yerba Buena Island. This article describes the way from the feasibility studies to the present time. In addition, it details some specific design and construction features, for example the steel construction work and the foundation of the central anchorage which connects the two suspension bridges. Recent reinforcement measures, and the plans for the replacement of the East Bay Crossing by a self‐anchored single tower suspension bridge to improve earthquake safety, are also discussed.     

Aging and Thermal Conditioning of Modified Heat Exchanger Surfaces—Impact on Crystallization Fouling

ABSTRACT

In many research studies diamond-like-carbon coatings are used to change the wetting behavior by varying the solids´ surface free energy of heat exchanger surfaces to mitigate crystallization fouling. For future industrial application, the stability of their specific surface properties, exposed to fluidic, thermal, and chemical stresses, determines their efficiency. Therefore, fluidic thermal and cleaning stresses applied to the coating are investigated. Cleaning procedures with acid, base, and heat treatment over multiple cycles were conducted in order to investigate the solids´ surface free energy over time and thereby the stability of the coating. From this information an optimal conditioning to set constant surface properties was derived. Furthermore, the fouling behavior of CaSO₄ on new and conditioned coatings was investigated in order to identify repeatable and favorable surface properties for fouling reduction. For all coatings the cleaning treatments and fouling experiments provided changes in the energetic surface properties, dominated by the change of polar/γ^? content. Most probably these changes originate from varying elementary composition and structure of the coating.     

Liquid/solid mass transfer in an air-lift loop reactor with a dispersed solid phase

In processes with immobilized cells mass transfer across the boundary layer surrounding the support often plays an important role. Relatively little is known about external mass transfer as a function of the superficial gas velocity in bioreactors such as air-lift loop reactors. In this work ion-exchange resins were used as a solid phase to determine the mass-transfer coefficient in such a reactor. Relations between the Sherwood number and the superficial gas velocity were derived and compared with relations from the literature. Relations in which the Sherwood number is a function of the energy-dissipation rate and relations in which the relative particle velocity is calculated from the rate of free fall of the particle were compared. It was shown that the Sherwood numbers that were functions of the energy-dissipation rates were higher than could be calculated on the basis of the rate of free fall. The Sherwood number obtained was used to calculate the k_l,s of carrageenan gel beads as a solid phase in an air-lift loop reactor. © 1998 SCI.     

During the initiation of fermentation overexpression of hexokinase PII in yeast transiently causes a similar deregulation of glycolysis as deletion of Tps1

In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae a novel control exerted by TPS1 (GGS1FDP1BYP1CIF1GLC6TSS1)-encoded trehalose-6-phosphate synthase, is essential for restriction of glucose influx into glycolysis apparently by inhibiting hexokinase activity in vivo. We show that up to 50-fold overexpression of hexokinase does not noticeably affect growth on glucose or fructose in wild-type cells. However, it causes higher levels of glucose-6-phosphate, fructose-6-phosphate and also faster accumulation of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate during the initiation of fermentation. The levels of ATP and Pi correlated inversely with the higher sugar phosphate levels. In the first minutes after glucose addition, the metabolite pattern observed was intermediate between those of the tps1Δ mutant and the wild-type strain. Apparently, during the start-up of fermentation hexokinase is more rate-limiting in the first section of glycolysis than phosphofructokinase. We have developed a method to measure the free intracellular glucose level which is based on the simultaneous addition of d-glucose and an equal concentration of radiolabelled l-glucose. Since the latter is not transported, the free intracellular glucose level can be calculated as the difference between the total d-glucose measured (intracellular+periplasmic/extracellular) and the total l-glucose measured (periplasmic/extracellular). The intracellular glucose level rose in 5 min after addition of 100 mm-glucose to 0·5–2 mm in the wild-type strain, ±10 mm in a hxk1Δ hxk2Δ glk1Δ and 2–3 mm in a tps1Δ strain. In the strains overexpressing hexokinase PII the level of free intracellular glucose was not reduced. Overexpression of hexokinase PII never produced a strong effect on the rate of ethanol production and glucose consumption. Our results show that overexpression of hexokinase does not cause the same phenotype as deletion of Tps1. However, it mimics it transiently during the initiation of fermentation. Afterwards, the Tps1-dependent control system is apparently able to restrict properly up to 50-fold higher hexokinase activity. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Oxidation of Various Kraft Lignins with a Bacterial Laccase Enzyme

Modification of kraft lignin (KL), traditionally uses harsh and energy-demanding physical and chemical processes. In this study, the potential of the bacterial laccase CotA (spore coating protein A) for oxidation of KL under mild conditions was assessed. Thereby, the efficiency of CotA to oxidize both softwood and hardwood KL of varying purity at alkaline conditions was examined. For the respective type of wood, the highest oxidation activity by CotA was determined for the medium ash content softwood KL (MA_S) and the medium ash content hardwood KL (MA_H), respectively. By an up to 95% decrease in fluorescence and up to 65% in phenol content coupling of the structural lignin units was indicated. These results correlated with an increase in viscosity and molecular weight, which increased nearly 2 and 20-fold for MA_H and about 1.3 and 6.0-fold for MA_S, respectively. Thus, this study confirms that the CotA laccase can oxidize a variety of KL at alkaline conditions, while the origin and purity of KL were found to have a major impact on the efficiency of oxidation. Under the herein tested conditions, it was observed that the MA_H KL showed the highest susceptibility to CotA oxidation when compared to the other hardwood KLs and the softwood KLs. Therefore, this could be a viable method to produce sustainable resins and adhesives.