Damage development of a woven SiCf/SiC composite during multi-step fatigue tests at room temperature

The monotonic tensile and multi-step fatigue tests of 2D woven SiC_f/SiC composite were performed to explore the damage development, respectively. The acoustic emission-based technique was used to analyze the damage state and select the peak stresses for fatigue tests. The damage evolution after specific mechanical tests was characterized by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Cracks are prone to occur in the vicinity of flaws and boundaries of different matrix components under relatively low fatigue stress. The cyclic fatigue stress can do much harm to the interfaces and facilitate the interfacial debonding. The damage characteristics of five types of cracking, fiber breakage and pull-out, and interfacial debonding of the composite after specific mechanical tests are concluded and discussed in detail, which can offer help for deeper analysis of the oxidation mechanism in service and more reasonable design of SiC_f/SiC composite.     

Ultralow-threshold wideband-tunable single-mode ultraviolet lasing from lanthanide-doped upconversion nanomaterials

Ultraviolet (UV) lasers with dynamic wavelength-tunability and high monochromaticity are crucial in a multitude of practical applications yet still remarkable challenges. Here, we show wide wavelength-tuning of single-mode UV lasing based on lanthanide-doped upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs). The rationally designed Yb³⁺/Er³⁺/Tm³⁺/Gd³⁺/Ce³⁺ co-doped multilayer UCNPs, which exhibits a broad gain spectrum with the full width of half maximum of around 57 nm in the UV regime, are developed. More importantly, by taking advantages of a diffraction grating as the tuning component, stable single-mode emission can be achieved in the UCNPs-based external-cavity-extended Fabry–Pérot laser at room temperature. Specifically, the lasing threshold is around 137 µJ cm^–2, which is two orders of magnitude lower than that in the previously reported articles. Precise wavelength-tuning from 310 to 363 nm can be realized by adjusting the Littrow angle. This achievement highlights a portable alternative to continuously wideband-tunable UV lasers and opens up new opportunities for constructing compact solid-state UV photon sources.     

Position-varying surface roughness prediction method considering compensated acceleration in milling of thin-walled workpiece

Machined surface roughness will affect parts’ service performance. Thus, predicting it in the machining is important to avoid rejects. Surface roughness will be affected by system position dependent vibration even under constant parameter with certain toolpath processing in the finishing. Aiming at surface roughness prediction in the machining process, this paper proposes a position-varying surface roughness prediction method based on compensated acceleration by using regression analysis. To reduce the stochastic error of measuring the machined surface profile height, the surface area is repeatedly measured three times, and Pauta criterion is adopted to eliminate abnormal points. The actual vibration state at any processing position is obtained through the single-point monitoring acceleration compensation model. Seven acceleration features are extracted, and valley, which has the highest R-square proving the effectiveness of the filtering features, is selected as the input of the prediction model by mutual information coefficients. Finally, by comparing the measured and predicted surface roughness curves, they have the same trends, with the average error of 16.28% and the minimum error of 0.16%. Moreover, the prediction curve matches and agrees well with the actual surface state, which verifies the accuracy and reliability of the model.     

Design and Analysis of MEMS Comb Drive Capacitive Accelerometer for SHM and Seismic Applications

This work presents the design of a MEMS accelerometer that is specifically intended for Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) applications where sensing low frequency low amplitude accelerations with high resolution is essential. The surface micromachined comb drive capacitance accelerometer structure has been considered in this design. The simulation experiments conducted on these devices using IntelliSuite MEMS design tool show that it has excellent displacement sensitivity of 21.39 μm/g, a capacitive sensitivity of 1.22 pF/g and voltage sensitivity of 1783 mV/g/V when it is designed to measure 0–0.1 g. Further, it is seen that it has a very low noise floor of 1.32 μg/√Hz and therefore high resolution. Since the accelerations can be as low as 0.04 g in SHM applications, excellent resolution is the primary goal in this design. Further, one more sensor specifically meant for strong motion seismic application has also been reported. This device has a bandwidth of 0–250 Hz and a noise floor of 5.612 μg/√Hz in addition to a sensor level voltage sensitivity of 97.9 mV/g/V. Finally, the comparison of these results with other similar devices reported in the past clearly illustrates the comparable performance of the present devices. Further, these devices, unlike the commercial low frequency accelerometers and other similar devices reported in the past can be fabricated by surface micromachining and CMOS compatible processes.     

Time–frequency interpretation of multi-frequency signal from rotating machinery using an improved Hilbert–Huang transform

The Hilbert–Huang transform (HHT) has proven to be a promising tool for the analysis of non-stationary signals commonly occurred in industrial machines. However, in practice, multi-frequency intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) and pseudo IMFs are likely generated and lead to grossly erroneous or even completely meaningless instantaneous frequencies, which raise difficulties in interpreting signal features by the HHT spectrum. To enhance the time–frequency resolution of the traditional HHT, an improved HHT is proposed in this study. By constructing a bank of partially overlapping bandpass filters, a series of filtered signals are obtained at first. Then a subset of filtered signals, each associated with certain energy-dominated components, are selected based on the maximal-spectral kurtosis–minimal-redundancy criterion and the information-related coefficient, and further decomposed by empirical mode decomposition to extract sets of IMFs. Furthermore, IMF selection scheme is applied to select the relevant IMFs on which the HHT spectrum is constructed. The novelty of this method is that the HHT spectrum is just constructed with the relevant, almost monochromatic IMFs rather than with the IMFs possibly with multiple frequency components or with pseudo components. The results on the simulated data, test rig data, and industrial gearbox data show that the proposed method is superior to the traditional HHT in feature extraction and can produce a more accurate time–frequency distribution for the inspected signal.     

Assessing the applicability of terrestrial laser scanning for spatial snow depth measurements

Snow depth observation in potentially dangerous avalanche-starting zones is important for avalanche prediction and dimensioning of permanent protection measures. The possible danger of avalanches complicates measurements of snow depth in the field (e.g. by probing). Therefore, the applicability of terrestrial laser scanning to measure the depth of the snow cover was analysed. Different long-range laser profile measuring systems were used carrying out numerous field campaigns (Vorarlberg, Austrian Alps). The objective of the study was to discover under which meteorological and snowpack conditions the measurements must be taken in order to provide accurate results (< 10 cm). For the first time a detailed investigation focusing on the limitations and properties of different terrestrial laser scanning systems for application in snow and avalanche research is presented and discussed. Results suggest that under adequate measurement conditions the distance between the scanner position and the surface of the snowpack can be measured with an accuracy < 10 cm. Poor weather conditions such as snowfall or fog preclude the collection of reliable data. If the snow surface was wet and the snow grain size was large (> 1 mm) only 50% of the emitted signal was received, depending on the angle of incidence. In any case, the accuracy decreases with increasing distance to the target. For distances to the object of more than about 500 m, the accuracy that can be achieved with the used TLS measuring systems is rather low and the errors can be significantly larger than 10 cm.     

轴向超声振动辅助铣削TiB2/7050Al复合材料残余应力试验研究

针对TiB2颗粒增强铝基复合材料可加工性差、切削温度高、刀具磨损严重等问题,开展TiB2/7050Al复合材料轴向超声振动辅助铣削残余应力试验,研究各加工参数对超声振动辅助铣削表面及亚表层残余应力的影响规律,并分析力热耦合作用对超声振动辅助铣削残余应力的作用机制。研究表明:TiB2/7050Al复合材料超声振动辅助铣削表面残余应力均为残余压应力,且残余压应力随每齿进给量、切削速度的增加而减小,而随着切削深度及超声频率的增加呈现先增大后减小的趋势;工件亚表层残余应力影响层厚度为90~120μm,且未观测到明显的加工硬化现象。     

基于信标同步及信道预测的井下无线网络切换机制研究

矿井机车无人驾驶系统面临的一个主要问题是车载移动节点MN在机车轨旁AP间进行切换产生的通信延时问题。传统切换机制扫描所有信道,时延过大,难以满足系统通信的实时性要求。因此建立井下802.11无线网络模型,提出基于信标同步及信道预测的井下无线网络切换机制,该机制通过同步AP信标帧的广播时间和维护AP邻接链表的方法减少切换延时。通过仿真实验验证该机制能够将切换时延降到实时通信系统的要求,对比传统硬切换机制可降低切换时延达70%以上。