Improved magnetic particle tracking technique in dense gas fluidized beds

Noninvasive monitoring of multiphase flow is rapidly gaining increased interest. More specifically noninvasive particle tracking techniques have received a lot of attention in recent years to study dense granular flow. However, these techniques are usually quite expensive and require strict safety measures. An improved magnetic particle tracking (MPT) technique for dense granular flow will be presented in this article. The improvements of the analysis technique for MPT will be demonstrated and rigorously tested with a three‐dimensional system and two‐dimensional sensor system. The strengths and limitations of the MPT technique will also be reported. Finally, the results of the MPT are compared with data obtained from a combined particle image velocimetry and digital image analysis technique. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 3133–3142, 2014     

偏压对离子源辅助HiPIMS制备纳米TiN薄膜力学性能和耐蚀性能的影响

为提高磁控溅射制备薄膜的致密度,减少结构缺陷,研究薄膜显微结构对硬度、韧性及耐蚀性能的影响,尝试在改变离子源和基材偏压的条件下,采用离子源辅助HiPMIS技术在304不锈钢和P型（100）晶向硅片上制备TiN纳米薄膜。采用扫描电子显微镜、小角X射线衍射仪对薄膜的形貌和晶体结构进行分析;采用纳米压痕仪和维氏硬度计分别测量计算薄膜的硬度和韧性,并通过电化学工作站对薄膜的耐蚀性能进行检测。结果表明：随着偏压的增加以及离子源的引入,离子的轰击效应增强,薄膜的沉积速率下降,致密度增加。偏压为-200 V时,薄膜的硬度达到最大值16.2 GPa,且对应的晶粒尺寸最小,（111）晶面衍射峰的强度最高。离子源的加入使所制备薄膜的硬度略有下降。此外,随着偏压的增加,薄膜的韧性和耐腐蚀性能也有一定提高。     

On the accuracy of Landweber and Tikhonov reconstruction techniques in gas‐solid fluidized bed applications

As electrical capacitance tomography technique needs a sophisticated reconstruction, the accuracy of two of the most widely used reconstruction techniques (Landweber and Tikhonov) for gas‐fluidized bed applications were assessed. For this purpose, the results of two‐fluid model simulations were used as an input of reconstruction. After finding the optimum reconstruction parameters for the studied system, it is found that both techniques were able to obtain the radial profile and overall value of average volume fraction very well. Conversely, both methods were incapable to determine bubble sizes accurately especially small bubble sizes, unless the Landweber technique with inverted Maxwell concentration model is applied. The probability distribution of the reconstructed results was also smoother in transition between the emulsion and bubble phases compared to the reality. Finally, no significant differences in noise immunity of these two techniques were observed. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 4102–4113, 2015     

Maleated high oleic sunflower oil‐treated cellulose fiber‐based styrene butadiene rubber composites

Surface treatment of cellulose fibers was performed with maleated high oleic sunflower oil (MSOHO). The MSOHO‐treated cellulose fibers and unmodified cellulose fibers were dispersed in styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) using a two roll mill. Vapor grown carbon nanofibers (VGCNF) were also incorporated at only one parts per hundred rubber (phr) in unmodified cellulose fibers/SBR composites. The curing characteristics, mechanical properties, and water absorption of the resulting composites were determined. MSOHO‐treated fibers completed curing at much slower rate and also decreased the cure density of composites, compared to unmodified fibers. In contrast, the combination of VGCNF and unmodified cellulose fibers accelerated the SBR curing process, but reduced the cure density. MSOHO treatment improved the dispersion of the fibers in the SBR, which resulted in improved mechanical properties of composites. The composite incorporating 1 phr VGCNF and 15 phr unmodified cellulose fibers showed the greatest increase in tensile strength as compared with neat SBR. POLYM. COMPOS. 37:1113–1121, 2016. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers     

创新工农业大循环发展模式力促氨基酸产业可持续发展

循环经济倡导的是一种与环境和谐的经济发展模式,我国着力推进绿色发展、循环发展、低碳发展。我国氨基酸产业品种基本齐全、产量大、应用广泛,行业未来的发展趋势是发展生态工业。综述了氨基酸行业创新工农业大循环发展模式,包括循环经济理念、循环经济模式载体、特征与描述以及循环经济成效等方面。     

A utility maximization approach for information-communication tradeoff in Wireless Body Area Networks

Healthcare systems have made a dramatic shift towards ubiquitous monitoring in the recent past. The reasons for such a change have been ease of timely diagnosis, convenience and comfort of clinical treatments. Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are mainly characterized by deployment of biomedical sensors around human body which transmit vital signs measurements about the health status of the patient. Unfortunately, the huge traffic load of clinical data and limited resources of biomedical sensors make the efficiency of long-term operations almost impossible. Therefore, it is necessary to make significant advances in sensor’s energy saving. Our idea is to reduce the activities of some sensors depending on the relevance between the data they measure and the diseases to detect. This paper shows how to extend the lifetime of medical WBANs by appropriately taking benefit of correlation between the knowledge about the disease and sensing data to drive the best scheduling of the medical sensors. For that, the theoretical framework of an economic approach, i.e., network utility maximization, is developed for sensor scheduling under operations cost constraint. It is shown that the compact subset of sensors can be found to provide necessary information for timely and correct diagnoses. Based on the theoretical framework, an algorithm combining sensor selection and information gain is then proposed. Simulation results show that the algorithm achieves high performance in terms of energy saving vs latency in disease detection.     

Energy absorption during compression and impact of dry elastic-plastic spherical granules

The discrete modelling and understanding of the particle dynamics in fluidized bed apparatuses, mixers, mills and others are based on the knowledge about the physical properties of particles and their mechanical behaviour during slow, fast and repeated stressing. In this paper model parameters (modulus of elasticity, stiffness, yield pressure, restitution coefficient and strength) of spherical granules (γ-Al₂O₃, zeolites 4A and 13X, sodium benzoate) with different mechanical behaviour have been measured by single particle compression and impact tests. Starting with the elastic compression behaviour of granules as described by Hertz theory, a new contact model was developed to describe the force-displacement behaviour of elastic-plastic granules. The aim of this work is to understand the energy absorption during compression (slow stressing velocity of 0.02 mm/s) and impact (the impact velocity of 0.5–4.5 m/s) of granules. For all examined granules the estimated energy absorption during the impact is found to be far lower than that during compression. Moreover, the measured restitution coefficient is independent of the impact velocity in the examined range and independent of the load intensity by compression (i.e. maximum compressive load). In the case of repeated loading with a constant load amplitude, the granules show cyclic hardening with increasing restitution coefficient up to a certain saturation in the plastic deformation. A model was proposed to describe the increase of the contact stiffness with the number of cycles. When the load amplitude is subsequently increased, further plastic deformation takes place and the restitution coefficient strongly decreases.     

Electrical characterization of controlled and unintentional modified metal–organic contacts

A method to characterize metal–organic contacts subjected to controlled technological treatments or unintentional degradation processes is proposed. The procedure is useful to characterize different fundamental aspects of a metal–organic structure such as the height of the interface energy barrier, the presence of impurities or trapping effects and the carrier mobility. Current–voltage curves in organic diodes are analyzed and the value of the free carrier density at the metal–organic interface is extracted and discussed. The charge carrier density is chosen for this analysis as this is one of the key physical parameters in the understanding of the physical processes involved in the device operation. The extracted charge, when described as a function of the current density, gives information about the doping and impurity concentration, the effective barrier seen by the carriers at the metal–organic interface or effective barriers seen by the carriers in the hopping processes across the organic material. An important advantage of the proposed procedure is the low computational time. Also, the procedure aims to provide a quick analysis for researchers on how the physical properties of the devices are evolving when they are technologically altered or degraded.     

Composite Semiconductor Material of Carbon Nanotubes and Poly[5,5′-bis(3-dodecyl-2-thienyl)-2,2′-bithiophene] for High-Performance Organic Thin-Film Transistors

A nonpercolating network of non-covalently functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes was embedded within air-stable poly[5,5′-bis(3-dodecyl-2-thienyl)-2,2′-bithiophene] (PQT-12) thin films for the purpose of enhancing the field-effect mobility in thin-film transistors. The host polymer was used to stabilize the nanotubes in suspension through π-orbital overlap caused by simple application of ultrasonication. The stable nanotube suspension was cast into two different device architectures, both of which exhibited excellent on/off ratios ranging from 10⁵ to 10⁶ and dramatically improved mobilities compared with pristine PQT-12 semiconductor. A single-layer film with nanotubes embedded throughout was easy to fabricate and had mobility up to 0.34 cm²/Vs, an enhancement of over 3× compared with PQT-12. Placing the nanotubes closer to the dielectric surface in a dual-layer approach resulted in a mobility improvement of up to six times (0.58 cm²/Vs). The effects of the nanotube content on the polymer interaction within the suspension, film morphology, and electrical properties were investigated as well.     

Numerical investigation of the drag closure for bubbles in bubble swarms

The present paper describes an Euler–Lagrange model utilizing a drag closure derived from direct numerical simulations (front-tracking model) for (i) single isolated bubbles and (ii) bubbles rising in bubble swarms, expressed as a function of the local gas fraction. The model is applied to the prediction of an air/water system in a bubble column and for which experimental data is available. The effect of variation in size of the mapping window for the interphase coupling between the Eulerian and Lagrangian framework is investigated for both closure relations. It is found that the drag closure as a function of the local gas fraction is an improvement over the use of the drag closure for isolated single bubbles for the prediction of bubbly flow.