Combining continuous catalytic regenerative naphtha reformer with thermally coupled concept for improving the process yield

Advancements in the catalytic naphtha reforming process, as one of the main processes in petrochemical industry, contributed to development of continuous catalytic regenerative naphtha reformer units. Increasing the yield of aromatic and hydrogen as well as saving the energy in this process through the application of thermal coupling technique is a potentially interesting idea. This novel idea has been assessed in this paper. In the proposed configuration, continuous catalyst regeneration naphtha reforming process is coupled with hydrogenation of nitrobenzene in a two co-axial reactor separated by a solid wall, where the generated heat in nitrobenzene hydrogenation reaction transfers to naphtha reforming reaction medium through the surface of the tube. A steady-state, homogeneous, two-dimensional model is used to describe the performance of this configuration and a kinetic model including 32 pseudo-components with 84 reactions is considered for naphtha reforming reaction. After validating the model with the commercial data of a domestic plant, the obtained results of coupled reactor are compared by the conventional one. The obtained results show the superiority of CCR coupled reactor against the conventional one.     

A new quantum-dot cellular automata full-adder

A novel expandable five-input majority gate for quantum-dot cellular automata and a new full-adder cell are presented. Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA) is an emerging technology and a possible alternative for semiconductor transistor based technologies. A novel QCA majority-logic gate is proposed. This component is suitable for designing QCA circuits. The gate is simple in structure and powerful in terms of implementing digital functions. By applying these kinds of gates, the hardware requirement for a QCA design can be reduced and circuits can be simpler in level, gate counts and clock phases. In order to verify the functionality of the proposed device, some physical proofs are provided. The proper functionality of the FA is checked by means of computer simulations using QCADesigner tool. Both simulation results and physical relations confirm our claims and its usefulness in designing every digital circuit.     

Analysis of warp-knitted fabric structure. Part II: theoretical study on initial modulus of warp-knitted fabrics (tricot,locknit, and satin)

In the first part of this series, a 3D straight line model was presented for the geometry of two-guide-bar warp-knitted fabrics. In this part, first, the variation of unit cell geometry under uniaxial tension in the range of elastic deformation is investigated. In the present study, the energy method and Castiglianos's theorem were used to derive the fabric's initial modulus. Energy terms which are considered in this study are extension, bending, and compression energies. Also, the friction phenomenon is taken into account by using frictional energy term. For this purpose, the loop of each bar is divided into eight elements. Free-body diagrams of elements are drawn to show the relative magnitude and direction of all forces acting upon an object in a given situation. After obtaining the force details, strain energy of each element is calculated. Finally, the initial modulus of warp-knitted fabrics is obtained. To verify the model, samples of tricot fabrics were produced and tested. Results showed that the generated model can predict precisely the initial modulus of aforementioned warp-knitted structures.     

Preparation,morphology and conductivity of polyacrylonitrile/multi-wall carbon nanotubes composite nanofibers

Composite nanofibers of polyacrylonitrile/multi-wall carbon nanotubes (PAN/MWCNTs) were prepared via electrospinning. Samples contained 0, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, and 3.5 wt% of MWCNTs. The viscosity and electrical conductivity of electrospinning solutions were measured. Results revealed that, with the addition of multi-wall carbon nanotubes, viscosity was increased and electrical conductivity was improved. Rheological behavior was studied using two different viscometers. Moreover, morphology and diameters of the composite nanofibers were studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and nanofiber diameter distributions were presented. SEM micrographs showed that by adding MWCNTs, the average diameter of nanofibers was increased. Furthermore, the effect of MWCNTs on glass transition temperature, T _g, was investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) technique. The results showed that T _g was increased with the addition of MWCNTs. In addition, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results showed that MWCNTs can affect the orientation ability of polymer chains. The effects of adding salt, increasing voltage and changing the tip-to-collector distance on the morphology and diameters of composite nanofibers were examined. The electrical conductivity results of electrospun mats were measured by a two-probe method. Electrical conductivity was increased by addition of MWCNTs and its behavior followed the percolation theory. Finally, it was observed that mats with smaller diameters have higher electrical conductivity.     

Dynamic analysis of carbon nanotubes under electrostatic actuation using modified couple stress theory

Modified couple stress theory is a size-dependent theorem capturing the micro/nanoscale effects influencing the mechanical behaviors of the micro- and nanostructures. In this paper, it is applied to investigate the nonlinear vibration of carbon nanotubes under step DC voltage. The vibration, natural frequencies and dynamic pull-in characteristics of the carbon nanotubes are studied in detail. Moreover, the effects of various boundary conditions and geometries are scrutinized on the dynamic characteristics. The results reveal that application of this theory leads to the higher values of the natural frequencies and dynamic pull-in voltages.     

A Lightweight Image Encryption Algorithm for Secure Communications in Multimedia Internet of Things

Wireless Personal Communications - Devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) have resource constraints in terms of energy, computing power, and memory that make them vulnerable to some security...     

Evaluation of the localized corrosion on Mg electrode surface by electrochemical noise technique

The symmetrical and asymmetrical electrodes made of Mg were studied in 0.1-M NaCl electrolyte adjusted at pH 12. The statistical and wavelet methods were employed for analyzing the electrochemical current noise (ECN) signals. The asymmetric configuration was used for electrochemical detection of filiform corrosion on Mg electrode. The real time scale of the dominant transients of the asymmetric electrodes was detected on the basis of the maximum peak in the SDPS plots. The SDPS values of the real time scale crystals of the ECN signals resulting from asymmetrical electrodes increased with the increase in immersion time due to the onset of filiform corrosion.     

Video-based isolated hand sign language recognition using a deep cascaded model

In this paper, we propose an efficient cascaded model for sign language recognition taking benefit from spatio-temporal hand-based information using deep learning approaches, especially Single Shot Detector (SSD), Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), and Long Short Term Memory (LSTM), from videos. Our simple yet efficient and accurate model includes two main parts: hand detection and sign recognition. Three types of spatial features, including hand features, Extra Spatial Hand Relation (ESHR) features, and Hand Pose (HP) features, have been fused in the model to feed to LSTM for temporal features extraction. We train SSD model for hand detection using some videos collected from five online sign dictionaries. Our model is evaluated on our proposed dataset (Rastgoo et al., Expert Syst Appl 150: 113336, 2020), including 10’000 sign videos for 100 Persian sign using 10 contributors in 10 different backgrounds, and isoGD dataset. Using the 5-fold cross-validation method, our model outperforms state-of-the-art alternatives in sign language recognition