Fabrication of Arsenic Sulfide Optical Fiber with Low Hydrogen Impurities

Arsenic sulfide glass optical fibers typically possess extrinsic absorption bands in the infrared wavelength region associated with residual hydrogen and oxygen related impurities, despite using purified precursors. We report a purification process based on the addition of tellurium tetrachloride (TeCl₄) to the glass. During melting, the chlorine from TeCl₄ reacts with the hydrogen impurities to produce volatile products (e.g., HCl) that can be removed by subsequent dynamic distillation. The processing conditions have been modified accordingly to produce optical fibers with significantly reduced loss due to hydrogen sulfide impurity content (1.5 dB/m).     

An improved technique for exfoliating and dispersing nanoclay particles into polymer matrices using supercritical carbon dioxide

An environmentally benign process, which uses supercritical carbon dioxide (sc-CO₂) as a processing aid, is developed in this work to help exfoliate and disperse nanoclay into the polymer matrices. The process relies on rapid expansion of the clay followed by direct injection into the extruder where the mixture is dispersed into the polymer melt. Results from the mechanical properties, rheological studies, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) show that this method represents a significant improvement relative to direct melt blending in single or twin-screw extruders or other methods using sc-CO₂. The greatest mechanical property response was a result of directly injecting pre-mixed sc-CO₂ and nanoclay into the polypropylene melt during extrusion. It was observed that for concentrations as high as 6.6 wt% (limited only by present process capabilities), XRD peaks were eliminated, suggesting a high degree of exfoliation. Mechanical properties such as modulus increased by as much as 54%. The terminal region of the dynamic mechanical spectrum was similar to that of the base polymer, contrary to what is frequently reported in the literature.     

Illumination invariant object tracking with adaptive sparse representation

Since the introduction of the sparse representation-based tracking method named ?₁ tracker, there have been further studies into this tracking framework with promised results in challenging video sequences. However, in the situation of large illumination changes and shadow casting, the tracked object cannot be modeled efficiently by sparse representation templates. To overcome this problem, we propose a new illumination invariant tracker based on photometric normalization techniques and the sparse representation framework. With photometric normalization methods, we designed a new illumination invariant template presentation for tracking that eliminates the illumination influences, such as brightness variation and shadow casting. For a higher tracking accuracy, we introduced a strategy that adaptively selects the optimum template presentation at the update step of the tracking process. The experiments show that our approach outperforms the previous ?₁ and some state-of-the-art algorithms in tracking sequences with severe illumination effects.     

Application of Fuzzy Moving Sliding Surface Approach for Container Cranes

International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems - In this paper, we consider the fuzzy moving sliding surface anti-sway control problem for container cranes. We first introduce the dynamic...     

Optimization of sodium sulfide treatment of rice straw to increase the enzymatic hydrolysis in bioethanol production

The efficiency of sodium sulfide-assisted alkaline pulping for cellulose preparation from Oryza sativa L. rice straw in Vietnam for enzymatic saccharification was investigated. The response surface methodology was used for the determination of optimal technological parameters of alkaline pulping such as active alkali dosage, temperature and time. The optimal technological parameters were established to be active alkali dosage of 7%, treatment temperature of 100 °C and treatment time of 120 min. At these regimes, a maximal sugar yield of 51.8% (over dry rice straw) was obtained. It meant that the saccharification efficiency up to 97.1% could be achieved by using sodium sulfide-assisted alkaline pretreatment method. Addition of sodium sulfide into alkaline pretreatment resulted in higher sugar yield, higher level of depolymerization of lignin and less loss of cellulose. Moreover, liquid hydrolyzate after enzymatic hydrolysis was analyzed by HPLC to determine the compositions of sugar mixture. The fiber morphology in pretreated biomass solid was also revealed by SEM.     

Spin-valve planar Hall sensor for single bead detection

The planar Hall effect (PHE) sensor with a junction size of 3 μm × 3 μm for a single micro-bead detection has been fabricated successfully using a typical spin-valve thin film Ta(5)/NiFe(16)/Cu(1.2)/NiFe(2)/IrMn(15)/Ta(5) nm. The PHE sensor exhibits a sensitivity of about 7.2 μV Oe^?1 in the magnetic field range of ±7 Oe approximately. We have performed an experiment to illustrated the possibility of single micro-bead detection by using a PHE sensor. A single micro-bead of 2.8 μm diameter size is secluded from 0.1% dilute solution of the Dynabeads^® M-280 dropped on the sensor surface and is located on the sensor junction by using a micro magnetic needle. The comparison of the PHE voltage profiles in the field range from 0 to 20 Oe in the absence and presence of a single micro-bead identifies a single Dynabeads^® M-280, the maximal signal change as large as ΔV ～ 1.1 μV can be obtained at the field ～6.6 Oe. The results are well described in terms of the reversal of a basic single domain structure.     

Homogenization-based multiscale crack modelling: From micro-diffusive damage to macro-cracks

The existence of a representative volume element (RVE) for a class of quasi-brittle materials having a random heterogeneous microstructure in tensile, shear and mixed mode loading is demonstrated by deriving traction–separation relations, which are objective with respect to RVE size. A computational homogenization based multiscale crack modelling framework, implemented in an FE² setting, for quasi-brittle solids with complex random microstructure is presented. The objectivity of the macroscopic response to the micro-sample size is shown by numerical simulations. Therefore, a homogenization scheme, which is objective with respect to macroscopic discretization and microscopic sample size, is devised. Numerical examples including a comparison with direct numerical simulation are given to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.     

Poromechanics Response of Inclined Wellbore Geometry in Fractured Porous Media

This paper presents the poromechanics/poroelastic analytical solution for stress and pore pressure fields induced by the action of drilling and/or the pressurization of an inclined/horizontal wellbore in fractured fluid-saturated porous media, or naturally fractured fluid-saturated rock formations. The model which is developed within the framework of the coupled processes in the dual-porosity/dual-permeability approach accounts for coupled isothermal fluid flow and rock/fractures deformation. The solution to the inclined/horizontal wellbore problem is derived for a wellbore drilled in an infinite naturally fractured poroelastic medium, subjected to three-dimensional in situ state of stress and pore pressure. The dual-porosity analytical solution is first reduced to the limiting single-porosity case and verified against an existing single-porosity solution. A comparison between single-porosity and dual-porosity poroelastic results is conducted and displayed in this work. Finally, wellbore stability analyses have been carried out to demonstrate possible applications of the solution.     

Novel hybrid optimization algorithm using PSO and MADS for the trajectory estimation of a four track wheel skid-steered mobile robot

Several optimization algorithms, such as the particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), and ant colony optimization, have previously been applied in order to reliably obtain more accurate trajectory estimation for mobile robot. However, these optimization algorithms can get easily trapped in local optima when solving a complex system, which has many local optima and many input variables. This paper proposes a novel hybrid optimization algorithm-based tuning of the extended Kalman filter, which involves the PSO and mesh adaptive direct search algorithms, prior to operation. As demonstrated by our experimental results, the advantages of the novel hybrid optimization algorithm resolve the limitations of other algorithms in the trajectory estimation of a four track wheel skid-steered mobile robot (4-TW SSMR).