输水状态下挖方渠道衬砌干地修复渗控方案

南水北调中线工程运行以来,发挥了巨大社会效益,沿途及京津冀地区对其调水需求日增,渠道停水检修将带来较大风险,因此面临输水状态下渠道衬砌板破坏抢修难题。部分挖方渠道衬砌板下有复杂的渗控措施,输水状态下采用围堰干地抢修渠底和较深部位的渠坡衬砌板时,需解决围堰基坑内外水位差可能带来的基坑内渠坡抗浮和渗透破坏问题。鉴于此,在渠道渗控设计及围堰布置基础上,根据“前堵后排”思想,提出一种围堰基坑“外、中、内”三防线渗控方案,即围堰基坑外围渠基透水管封堵,基坑周边安装水泵抽排。三维渗流场模拟结果表明,该方案可显著降低基坑周边衬砌板下砂垫层内水平渗透比降和基坑涌水量,能保证基坑渗流安全。研究成果可为南水北调中线输水状态下挖方渠道围堰干地抢修提供理论依据和技术支持。     

Miscibility of poly(acrylic acid)/poly(methyl vinyl ketone) blend and in vitro application as drug carrier system

A series of poly(acrylic acid)/poly(methyl vinyl ketone) (PAA/PMVK) blends with different compositions were prepared by the solvent casting method. The miscibility of this pair of polymers was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC), Fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) and X-Ray diffraction (XRD) techniques. An in-vitro cytotoxicity test of the drug-carrier system via MTT (3-(4,5-demethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) assay revealed no significant cytotoxic effects at concentrations up to 100 µg· ml^?1. The STX/PAA-50 drug carrier systems were also prepared by solvent casting of solutions containing the sulfamethoxazole (STX) used as drug model and PAA/PMVK blend in N.N-dimethylformamide then crosslinked with acidified ethylene glycol. The release dynamic of STX from the prepared hydrogels was investigated in which the diffusion through the polymer matrix, the enhancement of the water solubility of STX, the influence of the initial drug concentration, the pH of the medium, and the effect of the degree of swelling of the polymer matrix on the release dynamic was evaluated. According to the total gastrointestinal transit time estimated by Belzer, the estimate distribution of STX released in the different organs indicated that the performance is obtained with the drug – carrier-system containing equal ratios of polymer and 10 wt% of STX (STX-10/PAA-50).     

Intercalation structure and toughening mechanism of graphene/urea‐formaldehyde nanocomposites prepared via in situ polymerization

Based on the industrialized graphene (GN) product, a series of graphene/urea‐formaldehyde nanocomposites were synthesized via in situ polymerization by incorporation of silicon coupling agent with terminal amino groups (SA) as the compatibilizer. The results showed that addition of SA coupling agent led to much more efficient grafting of UF molecules on the GN surface with high layer thickness by formation of hydrogen bonding, and thus complete exfoliation and uniform dispersion of GN were achieved for the composites. Compared with neat UF, the addition of 1.0 wt% GN resulted in a roughly 25% increase in tensile strength and 12% increase in impact strength; meanwhile the impact fracture surfaces of the composite showed obvious ductile fracture characteristics, indicating the reinforcing and toughening effect of GN on the UF matrix. With increasing GN content, the storage modulus, glass transition temperature and crosslinking density of UF increased, while the tan δ_max decreased, suggesting that a double crosslinking network structure with GN centered crosslinking point and chemical crosslinking point of UF molecular chains formed, leading to improvement in the stiffness of the composites. The present work showed promising potential for developing high performance UF resin on an industrial scale. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry     

软岩与水相互作用研究综述

软岩是一类松散、破碎、软弱及风化膨胀性的强度较低的岩石,在水环境作用下软岩易产生大变形失稳破坏。大多数岩土工程事故都涉及到软岩与水的相互作用,研究软岩与水相互作用对于分析某些由软岩失稳引起的工程事故具有重要的理论和现实意义。针对软岩与水相互作用这一问题,从软岩与水相互作用的分类、软岩吸水特性的影响因素及其软岩吸水失稳机理等方面,对国内外具有代表性的研究成果进行了梳理。结果表明:软岩与水相互作用可分为力学作用、物理作用和化学作用。在各种影响软岩吸水特性的因素中,主要因素是黏土矿物的含量和种类、孔隙结构,其他影响因素有水压变化、软岩的干湿循环次数、软岩的块体尺度(尺度效应)和吸水时间等。软岩吸水失稳的根本原因是吸水后黏土矿物微观结构发生变化,而是否含蒙脱石等吸水性极强的黏土矿物并非直接原因;后者只是对软岩吸水过程起到促进作用。     

Stray current-induced corrosion in cathodic protection installations of steel-reinforced concrete structures: FEM study of the critical parameters

A wide range of parameters was investigated by numerical calculations concerning their impact on DC stray current corrosion of reinforced concrete (RC) structures. A simplified model geometry was used to extract the relevant parameters and their interaction in terms of stray current-affected structures. This study mainly focuses on RC structures that are fitted with cathodic protection installations. The findings reveal a complex interaction between the investigated parameters. The possible relevance of further parameters, which is not the subject of this study, was emphasised.     

Do Intermittent Renewables Threaten the Electricity Supply Security?

Around the globe, intermittent renewable energies in the form of wind and solar power are on the rise. Their subsidization can be seen as a market intervention, which may deter optimal investment. Thus, this study tests the effect of renewable energies on investment in conventional electricity generation technologies. We estimate a dynamic investment model for 14 European economies for the period 2004–2016 and find a non-negligible negative impact of intermittent renewables on investment in peak-load capacity (mainly gas), while base-load (particularly coal) plants are unaffected. However, the production flexibility of gas-fired plants represents a particularly vital function to balance the supply intermittency of wind and solar. Thus, dispatchable conventional power plants are still necessary to back the system under scarcity events, such as unfavorable weather conditions during high electricity demand. Policymakers should be aware of the adverse effects of RES on investment in peak-load plants and may consider a redesign of the current system, for example by introducing capacity markets.     

Facile synthesis of tubular magnetic carbon nanofibers by hypercrosslinked polymer design for microwave adsorption

In this study, a simple and efficient method for fabrication of tubular magnetic carbon nanofibers (TMCF) has been developed. Firstly, tubular polymer nanofiber precursors are synthesized by confined self-condensation method. After carbonization of polymer and in situ transformation of FeCl₃ at high temperature, TMCF loaded with Fe nanoparticles is obtained. It has been found that carbonization temperature has significant effects on conductivity, specific surface area, pore volume, defects number in carbon component, and magnetic content of TMCF. The influence of composition, structure, and filler content on microwave absorption properties is revealed. Meanwhile, the microwave absorption mechanism has been analyzed in depth, which benefits from the designed unique structure. The TMCF obtained at 700°C exhibited best performance with the filler content of 15%. The minimum reflection loss is −47.33 dB@2.2 mm, the effective absorption bandwidth is 6.5 GHz (RL < 10 dB), and the matching frequency is 14.1 GHz. The obtained TMCF is lightweight and possess excellent microwave absorption ability, which can be widely used as highly efficient microwave absorber.     

Experimental study of diffusivity of hexane in bitumen-saturated porous media under high temperature/pressure conditions

Solvent mass transfer plays a key role in a thermal gravity drainage process involving solvent. The diffusion coefficients of solvent in such a process are not well studied. This article presents the effective diffusion coefficients of solvent in bitumen-saturated sands under high temperature/pressure conditions measured using a CT scanning technique. Experimental results show that the effective diffusion coefficient of n-hexane in bitumen-saturated sands varied with the solvent concentration or with the viscosity of solvent–bitumen mixture (i.e., D_e ∝ c^0.4 or D_e ∝ μ_m^−0.46). The solvent concentration weighted diffusion coefficient of n-hexane in the bitumen under the condition 160–170°C/1,900 kPa had an order of magnitude of about 10⁻⁵ cm²/s for solvent volume concentration less than 0.2. The penetration distance of n-hexane in bitumen-saturated sands depended on the nonlinearity of diffusion and had a value of −2 cm after 1-day diffusion. The stronger the nonlinearity of diffusion, the shorter the penetration distance.     

Phase behaviour modelling of Athabasca bitumen for in situ combustion applications

Phase behaviour modelling of reservoir fluid is a fundamental step for reservoir simulation. Furthermore, as the complexity of the recovery process increases, the fluid model plays a more important role in the reliability of the simulation outputs. Although the in situ combustion enhanced oil recovery method (ISC) is one of the most complex recovery techniques available in the petroleum engineering literature, for most of the simulation jobs related to this elaborate process only simple and rudimentary fluid characterization layouts are considered. In this work, the principal fluid properties of Athabasca bitumen with regard to the ISC process are recognized, extracted from the literature, validated for consistency, and used for the development of an inclusive and accurate fluid model. Then the fluid model is fully developed while considering the ISC reaction kinetics so that the model has both accuracy, indispensable for phase behaviour modelling, and consistency, essential for the reactions definitions.