Mixed-mode fatigue crack growth behaviour in aluminium alloy

Fatigue crack propagation tests in compact mixed-mode specimens were carried out for several stress intensity ratios of mode I and mode II, K_I/K_II, in AlMgSi1-T6 aluminium alloy with 3 mm thickness. The tests were performed in a standard servo-hydraulic machine. A linkage system was developed in order to permit the variation of the K_I/K_II ratio by changing the loading angle. Crack closure loads were obtained through the compliance technique. A finite element analysis was also done in order to obtain the K_I and K_II values for the different loading angles. Crack closure increases under mixed-mode loading conditions in comparison to mode-I loading due the friction between the crack tip surfaces. Moreover, the crack closure level increases with the K_I/K_II ratio decrease. Correlations of the equivalent values of the effective stress intensity factor with the crack growth rates are also performed. Finally, an elastic–plastic finite element analysis was performed to obtain the plastic zones sizes and shapes and model the effect of mixed-mode loading on crack closure.     

Magnetic properties of nanosized Sr2CrReO6 powders prepared by a combustion synthesis process

Double perovskite, Sr₂CrReO₆, nanoparticles in the size range 10–25 nm have been prepared by a combustion method. Its coercivity (H_c) at 5 and 300 K are determined to be 16.1 and 6.5 kOe, respectively. Using the law of approach to saturation, the obtained saturation magnetization σ_s (5 K) and σ_s (300 K) are 0.41 and 0.32 μB per formula unit (f.u.), respectively. The values of saturation magnetization are lower than the expected value 1 μB/f.u. considering the antiferromagnetic coupling between Cr³⁺ (3d³, S = 3 / 2) and Re⁵⁺ (5d², S = 1). At the same time high field irreversibility in M(H) curves and zero field cooled–field cooled (ZFC–FC) processes has also been found. A field-cooled (FC) hysteresis loop shift decreases with increasing temperature and vanishes near 350 K. It is suggested that the observed reduction of σ_s and shifted hysteresis loops are caused by the exchange interaction between the ferromagnetic core of the Sr₂CrReO₆ nanoparticles and its surface layer with disordered spins.     

The electrode/sample contact effects on the dielectric properties of the CaCu3Ti4O12 ceramic

In this paper, the contact effects at the electrode/sample interfaces on the dielectric properties of the CaCu₃Ti₄O₁₂ (CCTO) ceramic were studied. The experimental results provide clear evidence that the colossal dielectric constant in CCTO is related to the ceramic itself; however, it may also partly originated from the electrode/sample contact effects which depends on the surface resistivity of the sample. When the surface resistivity of the ceramic is as high as 1.2 × 10⁸ Ω cm, no obvious mobile space charges can be observed, and the dielectric properties of the sample is inert to the different metal electrodes and various sample thicknesses, indicating the colossal dielectric constant (near 2000 at 10 kHz) at room temperature is due to the true properties of the ceramic itself. However, after the surface resistivity is lowered to 3.1 × 10⁷ Ω cm through post-annealing the sample in N₂ atmosphere at 750 °C, obvious mobile space charges can be observed, and the dielectric properties of the sample become sensitive to the different types of contacts. The dielectric constant of the sample with Pt electrode shows a significant enhancement (up to 5000 at 10 kHz), comparing with that of the sample with Ag electrode. Clearly, in this case, the extrinsic contact contributes partly to the colossal dielectric constant of CCTO ceramic.     

Preparation and photoluminescence of surface N-doped ZnO nanocrystal

ZnO nanoparticles doped with nitrogen on surface were prepared by calcinating pure ZnO nanoparticles at 550 and 600 °C in NH₃ atmosphere. Uniform N-doped ZnO nanocrystal was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and XPS. A Strong violet photoluminescence (PL) at 400nm was observed at room temperature when excited with 300 nm light, and the emission peak increases with the increase of nitrogen atoms concentration. The violet PL originated from the electron transition from shallow donor levels of oxygen vacancies and doping nitrogen atoms to the top of valence band level.     

Optimization hydrogen production over visible light-driven titania-supported bimetallic photocatalyst from water photosplitting in tandem photoelectrochemical cell

Solar hydrogen production was investigated over a Cu-Ni doped TiO₂ photocatalyst from water photosplitting in a tandem photoelectrochemical cell, which was made up by connecting a modified photoelectrochemical cell to dye solar cell in a series. A mathematical representation for preparation parameters for hydrogen production was successfully generated. Optimization of hydrogen production was conducted with varying preparation parameters of Cu-Ni doped TiO₂ photocatalyst including molar ratios of water, acetic acid and Cu to titanium tetraisopropoxide. The optimum preparation parameters of photocatalyst was obtained at molar ratios of water, acetic acid and Cu to titanium tetraisopropoxide of 32, 4.9, and 5.9, respectively. Physical and photoelectrochemical characterization revealed that low content of water and Cu decreased the charge transfer resistance and charge carrier recombination rate on Cu-Ni/TiO₂ surface. This is attributed to the better crystallinity and less degree of agglomeration which led to obtain optimum particle size at this condition. Maximum hydrogen production rate of 2.12 mL/cm². h was achieved under the optimum condition using the tandem photoelectrochemical cell in the aqueous KOH and glycerol solution under visible light irradiation (λ > 400 nm).     

Investigation on a spectral splitting photovoltaic/thermal hybrid system based on polypyrrole nanofluid: Preliminary test

The present work developed a spectral splitting hybrid photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) system based on polypyrrole nanofluid. This hybrid PV/T system can overcome the limitation of temperature in traditional PV/T, and achieve a high-temperature thermal output. In this system, the polypyrrole nanofluid employed in the spectral splitting filter can absorb the solar radiation that can't be efficiently utilized by PV cell unit, and convert it into medium-temperature thermal energy. The principle and methodology of the experimental system design was discussed, and the effect of particle concentration on the performance of system was investigated as well. The present work not only verifies the application potential of polypyrrole nanofluid in spectral splitting PV/T system, but also obtains some important rules on the performance. The results indicate that the temperature of nanofluid and the PV efficiency of cell unit itself increases with the particle concentration, but the thermal efficiency decreases simultaneously. The maximum overall efficiency of this hybrid PV/T system with polypyrrole nanofluid filter was 25.2%, which was 13.3% higher than that without filter. More importantly, the medium-temperature thermal energy can be harvested in such a hybrid system. Furthermore, an optimal particle concentration can probably realize a higher overall efficiency.     

A social-aware routing protocol for opportunistic networks

Understanding nodes mobility is of fundamental importance for data delivery in opportunistic and intermittently connected networks referred to as Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs). The analysis of such mobility patterns and the understanding of how mobile nodes interact play a critical role when designing new routing protocols for DTNs. The Cultural Greedy Ant (CGrAnt) protocol is a hybrid Swarm Intelligence-based approach designed to address the routing problem in such dynamic and complex environment. CGrAnt is based on: (1) Cultural Algorithms (CA) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and (2) operational metrics that characterize the opportunistic social connectivity between wireless users. The most promising message forwarders are selected via a greedy transition rule based mainly on local information captured from the DTN environment. Whenever global information is available, it can also be used to support decisions. We compare the performance of CGrAnt with Epidemic, PROPHET, and dLife protocols in two different mobility scenarios under varying networking parameters. Results obtained by the ONE simulator show that CGrAnt achieves a higher message delivery and lower message redundancy than the three protocols in both scenarios. The only exception is in one of the scenarios, when messages have a time to live lower than 900 min, where CGrAnt delivers a bit less messages than dLife, although with a lower message redundancy.     

Inverse dynamic analysis type of MPPT control strategy in a thermoelectric-solar hybrid energy harvesting system

This study presents the development of a novel inverse dynamic analysis-maximum power point tracking (IDA-MPPT) scheme in a hybrid energy harvesting system between thermoelectric module (TEM) and solar array (SA). The proposed method initially changes the harvested voltage response from both sources to be the third-order exponential function. This input function selection is based on the capability of this function to stabilize the initial response system and maintain its final position despite a prolonged response time. The mV voltage value from TEM is easily boosted up to nearly 5 V using this method. With this hybridization, the total obtained voltage is doubled to become 9.7 V, which results in a total power of 0.722 W. Furthermore, the method also allows for a fast tracking system, which enables faster voltage boosting and supercapacitor charging. The supercapacitor only requires less than 5 min to complete charging and boost the voltage to almost 5 V. Thus, a satisfactory value is obtained as compared with that of the TEM system with a chosen MPPC board.     

Received signal strength based positioning for multiple nodes in wireless sensor networks

We address the problem of locating multiple nodes in a wireless sensor network with the use of received signal strength (RSS) measurements. In RSS based positioning, transmit power and path-loss factor are two environment dependent parameters which may be uncertain or unknown. For unknown transmit powers, we devise two-step weighted least squares (WLS) and maximum likelihood (ML) algorithms for node localization. The mean square error of the former is analyzed in the presence of zero-mean white Gaussian disturbances. When both transmit powers and path-loss factors are unavailable, two nonlinear least squares estimators, namely, the direct ML approach and combination of linear least squares and ML algorithm, are developed. Numerical examples are also included to evaluate the localization accuracy of the proposed estimators by comparing with two existing node positioning methods and the Cramér–Rao lower bound.