A highly active and stable Fischer–Tropsch synthesis cobalt/silica catalyst with bimodal cobalt particle distribution

Silica-supported cobalt (20 wt%) catalysts were prepared by incipient wetness impregnation of silica with different cobalt nitrate solution. The catalyst prepared from dehydrated ethanol solution exhibited highest activity and very low methane selectivity. The catalyst prepared from cyclohexanol had the lowest activity and highest methane selectivity. The catalyst prepared from aqueous solution, a most conventional catalyst, exhibited moderate reaction behavior. The catalyst prepared from dehydrated ethanol had cobalt particles with two different size where the large particles showed low bulk density with cluster-like structure.     

Light scattering in monodisperse systems – from suspensions to transparent ceramics

Predicting the in-line transmittance of transparent ceramics via model calculations is a useful guide for materials design and optimization of preparation process. However, the absence of reliable input information (volume fractions and size) usually precludes the direct verification of these calculations. On the other hand, suspensions, which can be prepared with well controlled volume fractions of the solids selected, may serve as model systems that are amenable to verification. This paper describes the procedure to perform these calculations, and compares calculated data for suspensions of monodisperse spheres of amorphous silica with spectrophotometric measurements of silica monosphere suspensions with four different concentrations. Moreover, completely analogous model calculations are performed for bubbles in silica glass and pores in spinel ceramics. The results are discussed on the basis on 3D graphs, the use of which is highly recommended. The results may be considered as a benchmark for future model calculations for polydisperse systems.     

基于有限元-向量式有限元的斜拉桥非线性振动计算方法

向量式有限元(VFFE)法本质上是考虑几何非线性的有限元(FE)显式动力时程积分方法。阐述了向量式有限元的基本原理,对比了向量式有限元与基于单元随动坐标系的非线性有限元动力计算方法的相同点与差别,开发了使用杆、梁单元的有限元-向量式有限元统一算法框架的计算程序。使用该程序建立了大跨度斜拉桥计算模型,首先,使用非线性有限元法计算了斜拉桥的静力状态与动力特性,计算了列车-桥梁耦合动力作用下桥梁的振动;然后,使用向量式有限元法计算了斜拉桥在拉索突然断裂状态下的非线性振动;最后,计算了在列车-桥梁耦合动力作用下,拉索发生断裂时,桥梁与列车的振动状态。结果表明:使用向量式有限元可以简单可靠地直接模拟斜拉桥在破坏状态下的非线性振动状态;列车运行至跨中附近时,若斜拉桥跨中最长拉索突然发生断裂,对其他拉索的安全性影响不大,离断裂拉索越远的拉索受到的影响越小,但拉索突然断裂会对桥上行驶中列车的安全性造成威胁。该研究为大跨度斜拉桥在破坏状态下的非线性振动分析提供了新的解决方案。     

沿飞行弹道的扰动引力逼近方法

为实现导弹飞行过程中的扰动引力补偿,提出了一种基于网函数逼近理论的扰动引力模型构建和快速赋值方法。推导了该方法的赋值误差,分析了影响赋值精度的主要因素,计算了该方法应用于不同射程、不同射向及不同区域弹道中的扰动引力重构结果以及由赋值误差产生的落点偏差。结果表明,对于射程为12 000 km的弹道,当存储量约为1 000个数据时,即可将赋值误差及其引起的落点偏差控制在10^-2 mgal量级和8 m以内,全程弹道生成时间远小于其他方法。该方法能够实现沿任意飞行弹道的扰动引力快速赋值,其赋值精度、计算速度和存储量均满足弹道计算要求。     

Clarifications of the mechanism of nano-fluctuation of aerostatic thrust bearing with surface restriction

Fluctuations of objects supported by aerostatic bearings are a severe problem for ultraprecise positioning technology. The cause of small fluctuations, called nano-fluctuations of objects supported by the thrust bearing was investigated. An aerostatic thrust bearing with surface restriction by T-shaped grooves was the focus of this study. A computational fluid analysis of the airflow around the bearing was conducted and compared with experimental photographs. In addition, the amount of nano-fluctuations was measured by changing the bearing clearance and inlet pressure of the bearing. The nano-fluctuation was induced by the fluctuation of atmospheric pressure due to the unsteady airflow around the bearing edge, and the amount of the fluctuation depended on the Reynolds number corresponding to the flow velocity.     

Investigation of accuracy of aerostatic guideways

Aerostatic guideways are often used in machines requiring very high motion accuracy such as coordinate measuring machines. Currently, positioning error analysis for such machines focuses on the relationship between volumetric errors on one hand and axes’ motion errors and axes’ relative location errors on the other. The internal mechanisms causing motion errors are rarely considered. In order to gain a deeper understanding of aerostatic guideways, this paper investigates the relationship between the motion errors of the axis’ carriage and the guideways’ geometric errors both mathematically and experimentally. The analytical model uses bearings location and stiffness, guideway geometry and static equilibrium to produce a model in matrix form. Validation experiments are conducted on a machine axis moving on aerostatic guideways with and without preload.     

A study on accuracy of porous journal air bearing

In order to predict error motion of continuous porous journal air bearing, an accuracy model is established to reveal the relationship among error motion, roundness error and structure parameter under quasi-static conditions. Based on the model, averaging coefficient is defined to quantitatively characterize the error averaging ability. The study finds that whether the bush and shaft roundness errors match is the cause of error motion. The trilobal roundness error of shaft has a major impact on accuracy for a porous journal air bearing with an elliptical bush, while the elliptical roundness error of shaft has a major impact on accuracy for that with a trilobal bush. On the two-dimensional plane of bush wave numbers n₂ = 2~7 and shaft wave numbers n₁ = 2~15, the averaging coefficients are symmetrical along the line n₁ = n₂. The shaft wave numbers which equal integer multiples of prime numbers of bush wave number have no impact on accuracy, while the remaining shaft wave numbers have impact. Among them, those at points n₁ = n₂*i ± 1 are with obvious averaging coefficients and have a major impact on accuracy where i is a positive integer. The main peaks of averaging coefficients appear at the points n₁ = n₂ ± 1, which have the most important impact on accuracy. The theory has many potential applications such as prediction of error motion, structural optimization and selection of parts grinding method, which is of significant importance for design and testing of porous journal air bearings used widely in ultra-precision machine tools.     

A spiking neural network-based approach to bearing fault diagnosis

Fault diagnosis, with the aim of accurately identifying the presence of various faults as early as possible so at to provide effective information for maintenance planning, has been extensively concerned in advanced manufacturing systems. With the increase of the amount of condition monitoring data, fault diagnosis methods have gradually shifted from the model-based paradigm to data-driven paradigm. Intelligent fault diagnosis approaches which can automatically mine useful information from a huge amount of raw data are becoming promising ways to identify faults of manufacturing systems in the context of massive data. In this paper, the Spiking Neural Network (SNN), as the third generation neural network, is tailored as an intelligent fault diagnosis tool for bearings in rotating machinery. Compared to the perceptron and the back propagation neural network (BPNN) which are respectively the first and second generations of neural networks. SNN, which introduces the concept of time into its operating model can more closely mimic natural neural networks and possesses high bionic characteristics. In the proposed SNN-based approach to bearing fault diagnosis, features extracted from raw vibration signals through the local mean decomposition (LMD) are encoded into spikes to train an SNN with the improved tempotron learning rule. The performance of the proposed method is examined by the CWRU and MFPT datasets, and the experimental results show that the method can achieve a promising accuracy in bearing fault diagnosis.     

Electrochemical behavior of plasma-fluorinated graphite for lithium ion batteries

Electrochemical properties of plasma-fluorinated graphite samples have been investigated in 1 mol dm⁻³ LiClO₄ ethylene carbonate (EC)/diethyl carbonate (DEC) solution at 25 °C. Fluorine contents in plasma-fluorinated graphite samples were in the range of 0–0.3 at.% by elemental analysis and surface fluorine concentrations obtained by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) were in the range of 3–12 at.%. Raman spectroscopy revealed that surface disordering of graphite was induced by plasma fluorination. Plasma treatment increased the surface areas of graphite samples by 26–55% and the pore volumes for the mesopores with diameters of 1.5–2 and 2–3 nm. Plasma-fluorinated graphites showed capacities higher than those of original graphites and even higher than the theoretical capacity of graphite, 372 mAh g⁻¹, without any change of the profile of charge–discharge potential curves. The increments in the capacities were approximately 5, 10 and 15% for graphites with average particle diameters, 7, 25 and 40 μm, respectively. Furthermore, the coulombic efficiencies in first cycle were nearly the same as those for original graphites or higher by several percents.     

On the modelling of the dynamic characteristics of aerostatic bearing films: From stability analysis to active compensation

Determination of the static characteristics of air bearings constitutes the necessary first phase in a design problem, which determines general feasibility. In order to realize a successful application, a good knowledge and assessment of the dynamic behaviour is needed to complement the previous step. In a conventional, passive bearing application, dynamically stable behaviour should be ensured by overcoming the occurrence of self-excited vibrations; the so-called “pneumatic hammering”. In active bearing applications, on the other hand, the dynamic bearing force, induced by actuation of the gap geometry or supply pressure, provides for a means of enhancing bearing static and dynamic performance, when integrated in a mechatronics system context.This paper presents on the one hand an overview of the methods used to model the dynamic characteristics of aerostatic films, deducing that the method of harmonic perturbation is often sufficient in providing a good estimate of the dynamic stiffness. This is confirmed by comparing theoretical results with dynamic response experiments. On the other hand, the general problem of active dynamic compensation is outlined and an application example is provided to show the high levels of performance achievable by employing this method.