The combustion of kerosene: Experimental results and kinetic modelling using 1- to 3-component surrogate model fuels

The oxidation of kerosene Jet-A1 and that of n-decane have been studied experimentally in a jet-stirred reactor at atmospheric pressure and constant residence time, over the high temperature range 900–1300 K, and for variable equivalence ratio (0.5≤ϕ≤2). Concentration profiles of the reactants, stable intermediates, and final products have been obtained by probe sampling followed by on-line and off-line GC analyses. The oxidation of neat n-decane and of kerosene in these conditions was modeled using a detailed kinetic reaction mechanism (209 species and 1673 reactions, most of them reversible). The present model was successfully used to simulate the structure of a fuel-rich premixed n-decane–oxygen–nitrogen flame. In the modelling, kerosene was represented by four surrogate model fuels: 100% n-decane, n-decane-n-propylbenzene (74%/26% mol), n-decane-n-propylcyclohexane (74%/26% mol), and n-decane-n-propylbenzene-n-propylcyclohexane (74%/15%/11% mol). The 3-component model fuel was the most appropriate for simulating the JSR experiments. It was also successfully used to simulate the structure of a fuel-rich premixed kerosene–oxygen–nitrogen flame.     

Flammability ranking of foliage species by factor analysis of physical and chemical pyric properties

In this paper, factor analysis is introduced to evaluate the flammability of 55 foliage species that may be used in China for construction of the fuel break network of forest strips with lower flammability. Six pyric parameters, i.e. air dry moisture content, absolute dry moisture content, ignition point, ash content, caloric value and extractive content, are measured and used as variables for factor analysis. The covariance analysis shows that four principal factors can be extracted to reflect the flammability in different physical and chemical senses. In terms of the contributions of the four factors to the variances and the physical significance of the relevant parameters, the four factors are, respectively, termed as ‘flaming factor,’ ‘air dry factor,’ ‘ash factor’ and ‘absolute dry factor.’ The stability of the factor analysis method is examined by a different number of samples considered, and the variation degrees of the orderings indicate that the method has high reliability to measure the total flammability of foliage species. The results of the flammability evaluation are verified by comparison with the recommended tree species in the Chinese technology standard. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Degradation on a mechanical property of high-modulus aramid fiber due to hyperthermal atomic oxygen beam exposures

High-modulus aramid fiber was exposed to energetic (5 eV) atomic oxygen, which simulates the space environment in low Earth orbit. It was found that Young’s modulus and tensile strength decreased significantly due to the atomic oxygen exposures. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the decomposition of amid group occured at the exposed surfaces. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the diameter of the fiber was not influenced so much by the attack of atomic oxygen, but the exposed fiber became an extremely rough surface. The change in mechanical properties has been explained by the formation of surface texture that is characteristic to the high-energy atomic oxygen collisions.     

Theoretical and experimental investigation of flow and heat transfer in an internally-heated naturally-ventilated space

This paper presents the findings of a theoretical and experimental investigation of the thermodynamics of an internally heated control volume, ventilated by natural convection. A simple bench-type experiment has been used to determine the temperature history of the air, in support of a global calculation by numerical methods. Good agreement has been achieved between the experimental results and the mathematical prediction, which has wide ranging applications in practical situations.     

Loveparade 2010: Automatic video analysis of a crowd disaster

On July 24, 2010, 21 people died and more than 500 were injured in a stampede at the Loveparade, a music festival, in Duisburg, Germany. Although this tragic incident is but one among many terrible crowd disasters that occur during pilgrimage, sports events, or other mass gatherings, it stands out for it has been well documented: there were a total of seven security cameras monitoring the Loveparade and the chain of events that led to disaster was meticulously reconstructed.In this paper, we present an automatic, video-based analysis of the events in Duisburg. While physical models and simulations of human crowd behavior have been reported before, to the best of our knowledge, automatic vision systems that detect congestions and dangerous crowd turbulences in real world settings were not reported yet. Derived from lessons learned from the video footage of the Loveparade, our system is able to detect motion patterns that characterize crowd behavior in stampedes. Based on our analysis, we propose methods for the detection and early warning of dangerous situations during mass events. Since our approach mainly relies on optical flow computations, it runs in real-time and preserves privacy of the people being monitored.     

锂离子电池固态聚合物电解质研究进展

电解质是制备高功率密度和高能量密度、长循环寿命的锂离子电池的重要材料之一,而聚合物电解质是实现全固态锂离子电池的关键技术.总结近几年来为提高聚合物电解质电导率所作研究的新进展,并提出了今后的研究方向.     

Preparation and properties of magnetorheological elastomers based on silicon rubber/polystyrene blend matrix

Magnetorheological (MR) elastomers, which are mainly composed of magnetic particles and elastic polymer, are a new kind of smart materials whose modulus can be controlled by changing the strength of magnetic fields. In this article, MR elastomers based on immiscible silicon rubber/polystyrene (SR/PS) blend matrix were fabricated successfully via cosolvent method and the MR effect, electric and mechanical properties, and the microstructures of the corresponding materials were studied. SEM studies showed that the dispersion of iron particles in blend matrix were different from that in single polymer, which could be further proved by the different electric conductivity. The MR effect of MR elastomers based on blend matrix varied with the different ratios of SR and PS, which was discussed in detail from the special dispersion of iron particles and of zero‐modulus of MR elastomers. In addition, the MR elastomers based on SR/PS blend matrix had enhanced mechanical properties, which made them more hopeful to be applied in practice. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 3143–3149, 2007     

高温下具有弹性支座钢构件的动力稳定荷载

根据弹性稳定理论原理研究了弹性支座钢构件在高温环境下的动力特性问题,导出了高温下杆件的动力稳定临界荷载计算式,并讨论了保护层厚度、长细比、阻尼、材料特性等因素对杆件动力稳定临界荷载的影响,探讨了在实际工程中如何减小结构失稳的问题,可为钢结构抗火设计提供参考.     

Dynamic data packing towards the optimization of QoC and QoS in networked control systems

A class of networked control systems is investigated whose communication network is shared with other applications. The design objective for such a system setting is not only the optimization of the control performance but also the efficient utilization of the communication resources. We observe that at a large time scale the data packet delay in the communication network is roughly varying piecewise constant, which is typically true for data networks like the Internet. Based on this observation, a dynamic data packing scheme is proposed within the recently developed packet-based control framework for networked control systems. As expected this proposed approach achieves a fine balance between the control performance and the communication utilization: the similar control performance can be obtained at dramatically reduced cost of the communication resources. Simulations illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.     

A new design of foaming agent mixing device for a pneumatic foaming system used for mine dust suppression

To overcome the drawbacks of the conventional foam technology used for dust suppression,including large pressure loss,high water pressure and low driving pressure,a new pneumatic foaming system is introduced.Then an original design of foaming agent mixing device is proposed,and its performance is investigated and evaluated under different pressure compensations.Experimental results show that the maximum absorption amount increases by 2.9-6.7 times at a pressure compensation of 0.04-0.2 MPa compared with no pressure compensation.The pressure loss and pressure fluctuation both reduce significantly with increasing pressure compensation.The critical outlet pressure increases by30.4-240%.Field application indicates that the proposed mixing device ensures the reliable addition of foaming agent used for foam dust suppression.The effect of foam on dust suppression is remarkable,and the economic cost of foam is low.Therefore,there is reason to believe that the new mixing device will greatly promote foam technology to be widely used for suppressing dust in underground coal mines.