Experimental and Numerical Studies of Multi-compartment Spreading Fire in a Full-Scale Steel Framed Building

Fire Technology - Fire dynamic characteristics in multi-compartments are still not very clear. This paper presents a spreading fire test in a full-scale two-storey steel framed building to...     

Design of Ti4+-doped Li3V2(PO4)3/C fibers for lithium energy storage

In this work, we propose a facile approach to fabricate Ti⁴⁺-doped Li₃V₂(PO₄)₃/C (abbreviated as C-LVTP) nanofibers using an electrospinning route followed by a high temperature treatment. In this designed nanocomposite, the ultrafine LVTP dots are homogeneously dispersed into one-dimensional carbon nanofibers and the Ti⁴⁺ doping does not destroy the crystal structure of monoclinic Li₃V₂(PO₄)₃. Compared to the undoped Li₃V₂(PO₄)₃/C (abbreviated as C-LVP), the as-fabricated C-LVTP fibers present higher reversible capacity, superior high-rate capability as well as better cyclic property. Especially, the C-LVT_7%P cathode delivers not only high capacities of 187.2 and 160.3 mAh g^?1 at 0.5 and 10 C respectively, but also stable cyclic property with the reversible capacity of 135.8 mAh g^?1 at 20 C following 500-cycle spans. The good battery characteristics of C-LVT_7%P can be mainly ascribed to Ti⁴⁺ doping, which can increase the electrical conductivity and Li⁺ diffusion coefficient.     

考虑流固耦合的Spar型浮式风力机涡激运动特性研究

对弹性支撑单圆柱在均匀流作用下的涡激运动特性进行数值模拟,捕捉到"锁定区"、"拍"、"频率变换"等现象。柱体周围流场采用Fluent求解,将4阶Runge-Kutta方法代码写入用户自定义函数(UDF)求解运动微分方程,运用动网格技术更新流场,实现圆柱与流场的非线性耦合作用。发现随着折合速度的增大,涡激运动响应可分为锁定前支、锁定区、锁定后支3个阶段,在进入锁定区前(折合速度Ur=3)横向运动响应发生拍现象,当跨过锁定区后(折合速度Ur=10)发生频率变换现象。结果表明,横向涡激运动有较大范围的频率锁定现象,频率解锁前后圆柱涡激运动轨迹由"右8字"形变换为"左8字"形。     

Numerical simulation of ammonia/methane/air combustion using reduced chemical kinetics models

Ammonia appears to be a potential alternative fuel that can be used as a hydrogen vector and fuel for gas turbines and internal combustion engines. Chemical mechanisms of ammonia combustion are important for the development of ammonia combustion systems, but also as a mean of investigation of harmful NOx emissions, so they can be minimized. Despite of large body of experimental and modelling work on the topic of ammonia combustion, there is still need for additional investigation of combustion kinetics.The object of this work is further numerical study of ammonia combustion chemistry under conditions resembling industrial ones. After literature review, three mechanisms of ammonia combustion that also include carbon chemistry are used for simulation of experimental premixed swirl burner with the aim of evaluating their performance. San Diego mechanism, that was also the most detailed one, proved to be the best in terms of emissions, but neither one of the models was able to accurately reproduce CO emission after equivalence ratio went beyond 0.81. It was also observed that oxygen is excessively consumed. This study contributes to the current knowledge by providing new insights in ammonia burning conditions closely resembling those in industrial applications, and consequently is expected that insights obtained will help in the design of real industrial burning systems.     

High-pressure hydrogen storage performances of ZrFe2 based alloys with Mn,Ti, and V addition

The microstructure of ZrFe₂-based alloys were modified by alloying with the Mn, Ti, and V, aiming to obtain proper hydriding/dehydriding plateau features for the high-pressure application. The multi-component ZrFe₂-based alloys show a wide tunable range in the plateau pressure via the interaction of Ti, Mn, and V. Further, the V addition plays the best role to improve the hysteresis in absorption-desorption isotherms, while the proper addition amount Ti helps to realize a low plateau slope as well as a high plateau pressure. Among the investigated alloys, Zr_1.05Fe_1.6Mn_0.4 shows a relatively high dehydriding pressure of 20.58 atm at 298 K, while Zr_1.05Fe_1.7Mn_0.2V_0.1 with C15 structure shows the lowest hysteresis. Overall, too much of Ti and Mn would promote the transformation of the C15 to C14 structure with large hysteresis and low plateau pressure.     

Effects of nano-ZrO2 content on microstructure and mechanical properties of GNPs/nano-ZrO2 reinforced Al2O3/Ti(C,N) composite ceramics

Dense Al₂O₃/Ti(C,N) composite ceramics reinforced with GNPs/nano-ZrO₂ were fabricated by hot-press sintering. The effects of nano-ZrO₂ content on the microstructure and mechanical properties of the prepared Al₂O₃/Ti(C,N)/GNPs/ZrO₂ composites were investigated. Results showed that nano-ZrO₂ inclusions refined the matrix grains significantly and resulted in the formation of intra-granular structure. Excellent comprehensive mechanical properties were achieved via addition of combined GNPs and nano-ZrO₂. In particular, the fracture toughness of composites incorporating GNPs (0.4 wt%)/ZrO₂ (1 wt%) exceeded 11 MPa m^1/2, which was increased by more than 86 % compared with that of Al₂O₃/Ti(C,N) ceramic composites without GNPs/ZrO₂. The main toughening mechanisms have been identified as stress-induced phase transformation, crack bridging, deflection and pull-out of GNPs. The toughening effects originated from GNPs were enhanced with the introduction of nano-ZrO₂ because of not only the residual stress resulted from phase transformation but also the formation of intra-granular structure with uneven surface around GNPs.     

Monotonic and cyclic behaviour of isolated FRP anchors loaded in shear

Using anchors made of fibre reinforced polymers (FRP) is an increasingly accepted method to delay the delamination of FRP sheets from the concrete surface and to enhance the capacity of FRP strengthened concrete structures. For many applications, FRP anchors are primarily loaded in shear. When used for seismic retrofitting schemes, the anchors are subjected to cyclic loads which may lead to premature fatigue failure. To date, however, shear strength of FRP anchors has experienced much less attention than their tension resistance. This paper documents tests on isolated FRP anchors which were conducted to determine the seismic shear capacity of FRP anchors and to propose design rules. To this end, a test setup was developed which allows direct and reverse loading of FRP anchors.