Refinement of primary carbides in AISI DC 53 cold work tool steel by thin section copper permanent mould casting and water atomization

In this study, as alternative methods to conventional production methods involving thin section copper permanent mould casting (fast solidification) and water atomization (rapid solidification) of AISI DC 53 cold work tool steel have been investigated. Thin slabs obtained by copper mould casting was homogenized at 1150 °C for one hour and then hot rolling was be applied. After hot rolling, conventional heat treatment have been applied to thin slabs. The same heat treatment procedure have been performed for a commercially available AISI DC 53 which is manufactured by thick section ingot casting and rolling. In order to investigate also the effect of rapid solidification on AISI DC 53 tool steel, steel powder was produced by water atomization technique. Experiments have revealed that thin steel slabs in permanent copper mould and rapidly solidified tool steel powder by water atomization have a more refined primary M₇C₃ carbides than commercially available steel.     

Chemical reaction kinetics dataset of Cs-I-B-Mo-O-H system for evaluation of fission product chemistry under LWR severe accident conditions

In order to improve LWR source term under severe accident conditions, the first version of a fission product chemistry database named ‘ECUME’ was developed. The ECUME is intended to include several datasets of major chemical reactions and their effective kinetic constants for representative severe accident sequences. It is expected that the ECUME can serve as a fundamental basis from which fission product chemical models can be elaborated for use in the severe accident analysis codes. The implemented chemical reactions in the first version were those for representative gas species in Cs-I-B-Mo-O-H system from 300 to 3000 K. The chemical reaction kinetic constants were evaluated from either literature data or calculated values using ab-initio calculations. The sample chemical reaction calculation using the presently constructed dataset showed meaningful kinetics effects at 1000 K. Comparison of the chemical equilibrium compositions by using the dataset with those by chemical equilibrium calculations has shown rather good consistency for the representative Cs-I-B-Mo-O-H species. From these results, it was concluded that the present dataset should be useful to evaluate fission product chemistry in Cs-I-B-Mo-O-H system under LWR severe accident conditions, where kinetics effects should be considered.     

重力注水过程流动不稳定现象关键影响因素研究

重力驱动注水过程中由于流量较小以及蒸汽的积聚可能导致流动不稳定现象的发生，对核反应堆安全运行具有重要的影响。通过实验研究的方法，搭建了重力注水模拟实验装置，研究了不同蒸汽出口形阻、高位储水箱水位和加热棒初始温度下流动不稳定现象的变化规律。结果表明，重力驱动注水过程流动不稳定现象包含冷却水初次注入阶段、注入水逐出阶段和冷却水再注入阶段等。在一定冷却水初始温度、冷却水入口形阻以及系统压力下，蒸汽排出速度以及实验本体内筒顶部的聚集情况取决于蒸汽出口形阻，减小蒸汽出口形阻可加快蒸汽排放速度，压力峰峰值降低、振荡周期变长，有利于系统稳定；提高高位储水箱水位加快了冷却水注入速率，增加了加热棒被淹没率，降低了流动不稳定现象的发生次数和持续时间；随加热棒初始温度的升高，冷却水流量出现了波动向停滞的转变，流动不稳定现象发生的次数增加且持续时间加长。     

A thermal-aware VM consolidation mechanism with outage avoidance

Efficient energy and temperature management techniques are essential elements for operators of cloud data centers. Dynamic virtual machine (VM) consolidation using live migration techniques presents a great opportunity for cloud service providers to adaptively reduce energy consumption and optimize their resource utilization. In recent studies, power consumption readings of individual physical hosts were chosen as the main monitoring parameters in their allocation policies, whereas very few have considered host temperature, which has shown to have a negative impact on server reliability, as a migration criterion. In this work, a thermal-aware VM consolidation mechanism is proposed for resource allocation optimization and server reliability assurance. We consider the variability in host temperature as a migration criterion to avoid outage incidents via having better VM consolidations. Extensive simulation results obtained from CloudSim show the promising performance of the proposed mechanism in energy saving while reducing the number of server outage incidents due to fluctuations in host temperature.     

钢铁生产的水能关系分析

从钢铁生产过程中水资源使用时的能耗角度研究了钢铁联合企业的水能关系，提出了水能强度的概念来评价企业生产过程中水资源利用的节能水平，建立了钢铁企业的水能关系模型。以中国某大型钢铁联合企业为例，计算并分析了该企业的水能关系。该企业总的水能量为55 709 kW·h/h，重复用水水能量占整个钢铁企业全部水能量的82%，补水水能量占16%，排水水能量占1%；各工序中热轧工序占比最大，其次是炼铁、炼钢工序，冷轧、烧结和炼焦工序较低。该企业的吨钢水能强度为0.208 kW·h/m3，炼铁工序的水能强度最高，热轧、炼钢工序次之，烧结、冷轧和炼焦工序较低。最后，从钢铁生产过程水资源利用的角度得到节能的方向及措施。     

Long-term performance of a HDPE geomembrane stabilized with HALS in chlorinated water

A high density polyethylene geomembrane (GMB) stabilized with hindered amine (light) stabilizers (HALS or HAS) is immersed in four chlorinated water solutions with a simulated free chlorine concentration range of 0.5–5 ppm at five different temperatures (25, 40, 65, 75, and 85 °C) for 70 months. Standard and high pressure oxidative induction time (OIT) tests are performed to monitor antioxidants depletion while melt flow index, tensile, and stress crack resistance (SCR) tests are conducted to monitor degradation in physical and mechanical properties. Degradation in the GMB properties occurred shortly after immersion in chlorinated water at all temperatures except at 25 °C. Increasing the free chlorine concentration resulted in faster degradation of the tensile properties and SCR. The predicted time to nominal failure based on SCR ranges between 25 years at 40 °C and 5 years at 85 °C in chlorinated water (with 0.5 ppm free chlorine). A comparison between the degradation in SCR of this GMB and a GMB with a different resin and without HALS shows significant difference in their performance in chlorinated water but not in other incubation media.     

Effects of hydroxyl radical induced oxidation on water holding capacity and protein structure of jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) mantle

Protein oxidation is considered as an important issue in food preservation process. In the present study, the potential influence of protein oxidation on water holding capacity and protein structure of jumbo squid (Dosidicus gigas) mantle was investigated. After the hydroxyl radical oxidation, it was found that the carbonyl, surface hydrophobicity and dityrosine content of myofibrillar protein significantly increased (P < 0.05), while the content of total sulphydryl decreased significantly (P < 0.01). Meanwhile, the fluorescence intensity of squid was weakened, and the maximum absorption peak of fluorescence red shift as the H₂O₂ concentration increased. The sodium dodecyl sulphate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE) showed that not only the protein cross-linking but also degradation could have occurred. The content of α-helix decreased, the content of β-sheet, β-turn and the unordered structures increased after oxidation. In addition, oxidation resulted in a decrease in water holding capacity. Taken together, oxidation resulted in the damage of the myofibrillar structure, the increase in muscle loss rate and the decrease in water holding capacity.     

地下水穿透情形下玻璃固化体的蚀变研究

玻璃固化体在高放废物处置库中的长期处置行为，是处置库安全评价的关键环节之一。本研究模拟极端情形下，地下水穿透包装容器与固化体接触后，固化体中元素的浸出和蚀变行为。结果表明，地下水与固化体接触后，各元素的浸出浓度迅速增大，在200 d后逐渐下降并趋于稳定；温度对固化体中不同元素浸出速率的影响不同，B和Si的浸出速率随温度的增加而增大，U和Re的浸出速率随温度的降低而增大；固化体蚀变程度随温度的升高而加重，但其蚀变层的形成会阻滞元素在其中的扩散，客观上降低了固化体蚀变速率；富Si处置环境有利于抑制固化体中元素的浸出。     

Development of green extraction process to produce antioxidant-rich extracts from purple coneflower

The present study was conducted to develop subcritical water extraction (SWE) of Echinacea purpurea flowers. The influence of temperature and extraction time on quality of extracts considering total phenols content, total flavonoids content, antioxidant capacity and extraction yield, was determined. Optimized extraction parameters for maximised investigated responses were as follows: 147.56 °C and 8.43 min. The experimental values agreed with the values predicted, thus indicating the adequacy of central composite experimental design for modelling the SWE of bioactive compounds from E. purpurea. Results of the study also highlighted the potential application of E. purpurea subcritical water extracts as a source of valuable bioactive compounds.     

What’s the middle ground? Institutionalized vs. emerging water-related stakeholder engagement processes

Abstract

In this day and age, it is widely argued that stakeholder engagement in water-related decision-making processes yields many benefits, including legitimacy, acceptance and trust. Key legal frameworks, such as the European Water Framework Directive and the Aarhus Convention, have spurred the emergence of formal forms of stakeholder engagement. On the other hand, many engagement processes are spontaneous and self-organized. This article investigates the strategies used in formal (government-led) and informal (bottom-up) engagement processes in search of a middle ground. To this end, case studies in the Netherlands, the United States, Uganda and Ethiopia are analyzed using the OECD’s stakeholder engagement checklist. We conclude with reflection on the ways forward to make formal and informal stakeholder engagement complementary.