The effect of particle size distribution on the microstructure and properties of Al2O3 ceramics formed by stereolithography

Stereolithography (SL) shows advantages for preparing alumina-based ceramics with complex structures. The effects of the particle size distribution, which strongly influence the sintering properties in ceramic SL, have not been systematically explored until now. Herein, the influence of the particle size distribution on SL-manufactured alumina ceramics was investigated, including bending strength at room temperature, post-sintering shrinkage, porosity, and microstructural morphology. Seven particle size distributions of alumina ceramics were studied (in μm/μm: 30/5, 20/3, 10/2, 5/2, 5/0.8, 3/0.5, and 2/0.3); a coarse:fine particle ratio of 6:4 was maintained. At the same sintering temperature, the degree of sintering was greater for finer particle sizes. The particle size distribution had a larger influence on flexural strength, porosity and shrinkage than sintering temperature when the particle size distribution difference reached 10-fold but was weaker for 10 μm/2 μm, 5 μm/2 μm and 5 μm/0.8 μm. The sintering shrinkage characteristics of cuboid samples with different particle sizes were studied. The use of coarse particles influenced the accuracy of small-scale samples. When the particle size was comparable to the sample width, such as 30 μm/5 μm and 5 mm, the width shrinkage was consistent with the height shrinkage. When the particle size was much smaller than the sample width, such as 2 μm/0.3 μm and 5 mm, the width shrinkage was consistent with the length shrinkage. The results of this study provide meaningful guidance for future research on applications of SL and precise control of alumina ceramics through particle gradation.     

Applications of sketches in network traffic measurement: A survey

Accurate and timely network traffic measurement is essential for network status monitoring, network fault analysis, network intrusion detection, and network security management. With the rapid development of the network, massive network traffic brings severe challenges to network traffic measurement. However, existing measurement methods suffer from many limitations for effectively recording and accurately analyzing big-volume traffic. Recently, sketches, a family of probabilistic data structures that employ hashing technology for summarizing traffic data, have been widely used to solve these problems. However, current literature still lacks a thorough review on sketch-based traffic measurement methods to offer a comprehensive insight on how to apply sketches for fulfilling various traffic measurement tasks. In this paper, we provide a detailed and comprehensive review on the applications of sketches in network traffic measurement. To this end, we classify the network traffic measurement tasks into four categories based on the target of traffic measurement, namely cardinality estimation, flow size estimation, change anomaly detection, and persistent spreader identification. First, we briefly introduce these four types of traffic measurement tasks and discuss the advantages of applying sketches. Then, we propose a series of requirements with regard to the applications of sketches in network traffic measurement. After that, we perform a fine-grained classification for each sketch-based measurement category according to the technologies applied on sketches. During the review, we evaluate the performance, advantages and disadvantages of current sketch-based traffic measurement methods based on the proposed requirements. Through the thorough review, we gain a number of valuable implications that can guide us to choose and design proper traffic measurement methods based on sketches. We also review a number of general sketches that are highly expected in modern network systems to simultaneously perform multiple traffic measurement tasks and discuss their performance based on the proposed requirements. Finally, through our serious review, we summarize a number of open issues and identify several promising research directions.     

Investigation of the ultimate particle size distribution of a carbonate sand

A series of ring shear tests were conducted to investigate the ultimate particle size distribution of a carbonate sand. The tests were carried out under different stress levels, on three types of specimens: 1) uniformly graded specimens made of dry natural sand 2) remoulded specimens of the crushed sand after first shearing to large strains 3) specimens made of natural sand grains but with the same grading as in (2). The first series of tests on type (1), carried out to very large strains, led to apparently stable gradings, distinct for each stress level. Only limited additional particle breakage could be induced by remoulding the specimens after shearing (type (2)) and subjecting them to more shearing. Tests on specimens created at the apparently stable gradings (type (3)) but from the intact sand particles however led to significantly greater breakage. For the three types a stable, fractal grading was achieved. Analyses of the soil particles’ shape showed that the aspect ratio, sphericity and circularity reach a steady value at large strains, in parallel to reaching a stable grading. The mobilized angle of shearing resistance however was not significantly different in the different types of samples, suggesting the final grading dominates the behaviour.     

Destructive and non-destructive evaluation of concrete for optimum sand to aggregate volume ratio

Aggregates are the biggest contributor to concrete volume and are a crucial parameter in dictating its mechanical properties. As such, a detailed experimental investigation was carried out to evaluate the effect of sand-to-aggregate volume ratio (s/a) on the mechanical properties of concrete utilizing both destructive and non-destructive testing (employing UPV (ultrasonic pulse velocity) measurements). For investigation, standard cylindrical concrete samples were made with different s/a (0.36, 0.40, 0.44, 0.48, 0.52, and 0.56), cement content (340 and 450 kg/m³), water-to-cement ratio (0.45 and 0.50), and maximum aggregate size (12 and 19 mm). The effect of these design parameters on the 7, 14, and 28 d compressive strength, tensile strength, elastic modulus, and UPV of concrete were assessed. The careful analysis demonstrates that aggregate proportions and size need to be optimized for formulating mix designs; optimum ratios of s/a were found to be 0.40 and 0.44 for the maximum aggregate size of 12 and 19 mm, respectively, irrespective of the W/C (water-to-cement) and cement content.     

Evaluation of particle recovery from microalgae

Coccoliths are micro-structured biomineral particles found in cell protective covering layers of coccolithophore species. They are mainly composed of CaCO₃ and their individual crystal entities are arranged in such a way that they construct complex and unique structures. This complexity is found down to the individual particle level and appears to have promising properties to offer. This study focuses on the essential step prior to any kind of implementation, which is the recovery of the material. It summarizes cleaning protocols found in literature, compares them for the first time for the same freshly cultivated material and addresses challenges that still need to be overcome. Further, it highlight the advantages and disadvantages of the best cleaning protocols, suggests optimizations with promising results and uses size distribution measurements to analyse the recovery efficiency. To that end, further characterization techniques, new for coccoliths, are introduced and used to improve our current knowledge of the particles behaviour.     

Effect of lognormal particle size distributions on particle spreading in additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) has attracted much attention worldwide in various applications due to its convenience and flexibility to rapidly fabricate products, which is a key advantage compared to the traditional subtractive manufacturing. This discrete element method (DEM) study focusses on the impact of particle polydispersity during the particle spreading process on parameters that affect the quality of the final product, like packing and bed surface roughness. The particle systems include four lognormal particle size distribution (PSD) widths, which are benchmarked against the monodisperse system with the same mean particle diameter. The results reveal that: (i) the solid volume fraction of the initial packed particle bed in the delivery chamber increases then plateaus as the PSD width increases; (ii) regardless of PSD width, the solid volume fraction of the particle bed increases with spreading layer height before compression, but decreases with layer height after compression; (iii) the bed surface roughness increases with PSD width or layer height both before and after the compression of the spreading layer; (iv) the extent of increase in solid volume fraction during compression is correlated with the extent of decrease in bed surface roughness; and (v) the broader PSDs exhibit larger fluctuations of solid volume fraction of the particle bed and bed surface roughness due to greater variability in the arrangement of particles of different sizes. The results here have important implications on the design and operation of particle-based AM systems.     

Recent progress of the gas diffusion layer in proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Material and structure designs of microporous layer

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have become the most attractive power supply units for stationary and mobile applications. The operation, design characteristics, as well as performance of PEMFCs, are closely related to the multiphase transport of mass, heat, and electricity in the cell, a critical of which is the gas diffusion layer (GDL). It is very important to guarantee the transmission of water and gasses under high current density, and which is the weakness of PEMFCs at present. Microporous layer (MPL) is considered to be the key variable for mass transfer, so varieties of works focus on modification of MPL materials and its structure design. However, there is still a lack of special review to summarize and prospect the progress of MPL in recent years. This review article therefore focuses on the insights and comprehensive understanding of four critical issues of the MPL, the porosity, pore size distribution, wettability, structural design and the durability of MPL. At last, the conclusion and recommendations section summarized the future prospects and recommendations for possible research opportunities.     

Effects of particle sizes on performances of the multi-zone steam generator using waste heat in a bio-oil steam reforming hydrogen production system

Hydrogen production by bio-oil steam reforming is an advanced production technology. It is a good method of coupling waste heat utilization with bio-oil steam reforming to produce hydrogen, which increases the cleaning ability of the bio-oil steam reforming system. A multi-zone steam generator using waste heat has been proposed, which can produce the heat source and steam source of the hydrogen system. The DEM model of the multi-zone steam generator was set up. The model has been used to investigate the effects of particle sizes (40 mm–80 mm). With increasing particle size, the flow index and the flow uniformity gradually decrease, the vertical velocity gradient increases in the area on both side with the zone steam generator, and the vertical velocity fluctuation amplitude gradually increases. So, the hydrogen production decreases from the particle size increasing.     

Effect of grain size on the electrical performance of BaZr0.1Ce0.7Y0.1Yb0.1O3-δ solid electrolytes with addition of NiO

In order to clarify the effect of grain size on the electrical performance of BaZr_0.1Ce_0.7Y_0.1Yb_0.1O_3-δ (BZCYYb) solid electrolytes with addition of NiO, microcrystalline (~1.5?µm) and ultrafine-grained (~280?nm) BZCYYb electrolytes (with 1?wt% NiO) were fabricated by the conventional and two-step sintering method, respectively. The results show that compared with microcrystalline electrolytes, the ultrafine-grained electrolytes have similar grain-interior conductivities, but much lower grain-boundary conductivities, illustrating that the grain boundary is not conducive for ionic transport. As a result, the electrical conductivity of microcrystalline electrolytes (1.9?×?10^?2 S?cm^?1 at 600?°C in wet air) is higher than that of ultrafine-grained electrolytes (1.1?×?10^?2 S?cm^?1 at 600?°C in wet air). In addition, the OCV (open-circuit voltage) values of electrolyte-supported single cells show that the undesired electronic conduction exists in the electrolytes due to the BaY₂NiO₅ impurity formed by the reaction of NiO and BZCYYb. The ultrafine-grained electrolytes show lower OCV values than that of microcrystalline ones, due to the prolonged electronic transport paths. Therefore, large-grained or grain boundary-free microstructure are necessary for improving the electrical performance of BZCYYb electrolytes.     

Ultrashort pulse-induced elastodynamics in polycrystalline materials. Part I: Model validation

The coupled thermal-mechanical response of a polycrystalline metallic film in response to ultrafast optical impingement is investigated. The thermo-elastodynamics formulated in the article considers laser absorption along the axial direction and thermal diffusion along the radial direction to account for the normal and shear stresses initiated by the rapid heating. The generalized formulation incorporates a two-step hyperbolic temperature model that characterizes the energy transport of electrons and lattices as finite in velocity. The coupling of thermal and mechanical fields is established through considering the energy dissipated in the form of propagating thermo-mechanical disturbances. The thermo-elastodynamical response of the polycrystalline film is found to be a strong function of the electron heat capacity that is also temperature-dependent. In addition, grain size effects due to film surface and grain-boundary scatterings are found to impact several thermophysical properties of the material. The impact of the energy transport of electrons is particularly prominent when the thickness becomes comparable with the electron mean-free-path. A staggered-grid finite difference scheme is followed to simultaneously resolve the coupled thermo-elastodynamical responses using an axisymmetric model. The time variation of the normalized electron temperature of a single crystalline gold film derived from the generalized model is favorably examined against published physical data, thus demonstrating the feasibility of the formulation in depicting the electron transport dynamics in response to non-ablating ultrafast irradiation.