A novel fabrication procedure for producing high strength hydroxyapatite ceramic scaffolds with high porosity

Hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffolds were fabricated using the space holder method with a pressureless sintering process in a systematically developed manner at different fabrication stages to increase the strength of the scaffold at high porosity. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) were used as binders and space holder agents, respectively. The physical properties of the HA scaffolds were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), linear shrinkage test, and porosity measurements. The mechanical properties of the HA scaffolds were analyzed using compressive strength measurements. The results revealed that the HA scaffold met the expected quality requirements with a compressive strength of 2.2 MPa at a porosity of 65.6% with pore sizes distributed in the range of 126–385 μm. The shrinkage of the scaffold diameter occurred by 20.27%, this diameter shrinkage predominantly to the shrinkage of the HA scaffold caused by sintering. Besides, suspect that a higher PMMA concentration causes pore size shrinkage upon sintering. The formation of pore interconnections was evidenced by SEM observations and the ‘translucent light method’ developed in this study. The results of the scaffold phase test using XRD showed that the final scaffold consisted only of the HA phase, as the PVA and PMMA phases burned out during the sintering process.     

Compressive and flexural properties of novel polylactic acid/hydroxyapatite/yttria-stabilized zirconia hybrid nanocomposite scaffold

The mechanical property is a crucial factor in the design of bone tissue engineering scaffolds. In the current study, novel PLLA (Poly-L-lactic acid)–Hydroxyapatite (HA)–yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) nanocomposite scaffold with various compositions was prepared and characterized. The effect of HA and YSZ contents on the mechanical behavior of the resultant composites was investigated. TEM micrograph revealed that HA particles are needle-like in shape and nano in size. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) micrograph also showed that YSZ powder is in granule form and submicron size. SEM disclosed that all scaffolds had a highly interconnected porous structure and X-ray diffractometry revealed that there were some molecular interactions between PLA (Polylactic acid), HA, and YSZ in the composites. The results depicted that introducing YSZ to the nanocomposite leads to a significant increase in compressive strength, modulus, and densification strain. In addition, flexural strength and modulus showed an upward trend by adding YSZ particles to scaffolds. It should be noted that PLA–20%HA–20%YSZ indicates the highest strength and modulus in both compression and bending tests, though, it did not demonstrate the proper strain compared to other scaffolds. Thus, PLA–15%HA–15%YSZ has been reported as the best candidate due to appropriate strength and strain. Also, energy absorption in nanocomposites showed an upward trend by increasing the amount of YSZ particles. It was found that the strength of samples was declined after being soaked in simulated body fluid. However, scaffolds with HA underwent more decrease in strength compared to samples containing YSZ.     

Creep testing of carbon containing refractories under reducing conditions

Mechanical testing of carbon containing refractories at high temperatures requires measures to protect the sample from oxidation. Therefore, special setups for tensile and compressive creep testing were developed to prevent the oxidation of carbon in the sample. A MgO-C refractory was selected for a case study. These developments allow the quantification of the tensile and compressive creep behaviour of MgO-C refractories at temperatures up to 1500?°C. The creep parameters are determined by an inverse evaluation method for the obtained experimental data. They enable the consideration of creep in a thermomechanical finite element simulation of refractory linings in service.     

Porous mullite ceramics with enhanced compressive strength from fly ash-based ceramic microspheres: Facile synthesis,structure, and performance

Porous mullite ceramics are widely used in heat insulation owing to their high temperature and corrosion resistant properties. Reducing the thermal conductivity by increasing porosity, while ensuring a high compressive strength, is vital for the synthesis of high-strength and lightweight porous mullite ceramics. In this study, ceramic microspheres are initially prepared from pre-treated high-alumina fly ash by spray drying, and then used to successfully prepare porous mullite ceramics with enhanced compressive strength via a simple direct stacking and sintering approach. The influence of sintering temperature and time on the microstructure and properties of porous mullite ceramics was evaluated, and the corresponding formation mechanism was elucidated. Results show that the porous mullite ceramics, calcined at 1550 °C for 3 h, possess a porosity of 47%, compressive strength of 31.4 MPa, and thermal conductivity of 0.775 W/(m?K) (at 25 °C), similar to mullite ceramics prepared from pure raw materials. The uniform pore size distribution and sintered neck between the microspheres contribute to the high compressive strength of mullite ceramics, while maintaining high porosity.     

Microstructure characterization and compressive performance of 3D needle-punched C/C–SiC composites fabricated by gaseous silicon infiltration

3D needle-punched C/C-SiC composites were fabricated from carbon fiber reinforced carbon (C/C) preforms, with densities of 1.05?g/cm³ and 1.28?g/cm³, by the gaseous silicon infiltration (GSI) method at fabrication temperatures from 1500?°C to 1800?°C. The compressive strengths and elastic moduli in transverse direction are larger than those measured under longitudinal compression except that samples fabricated from 1.28?g/cm³ density exhibit lower elastic moduli in transverse direction than in longitudinal direction. The compressive strength and modulus increase with fabrication temperature at 1500?°C and 1600?°C, and then decrease with higher fabrication temperature. Samples fabricated from the lower density C/C preforms have greater compressive strength and modulus. X-ray tomography was applied before and after the mechanical tests to characterize the microstructure and damage patterns, and the results indicated that for C/C-SiC composites fabricated at 1700?°C from 1.28?g/cm³ density C/C preform the matrix has a volume fraction (vol%) of 36.9%, and the initial intra-bundle cracks (0.6?vol%) display a space crossing structure while the inter-bundle pores (6.0?vol%) are special irregularly distributed.     

基于压缩感知的移动群智感知任务分发机制

针对移动群智感知任务中区域全覆盖感知成本过高问题，提出基于压缩感知的移动群智感知任务分发（CS-TD）机制。首先提出了感知任务整体成本模型，该模型综合考虑了参与感知任务的节点个数、节点的感知次数与数据上传次数；然后基于成本模型，分析感知节点的日常移动轨迹，结合压缩感知数据采集技术，提出了一种基于感知节点轨迹的压缩感知采样方法；其次通过区域全覆盖最少节点（RCLN）算法，选出最佳节点集合，对节点进行任务分配，利用压缩感知技术恢复节点数据；最后在多次感知任务的迭代中对感知节点的可信程度进行评定，保证任务方案的最优性。对CS-TD分发模型进行多次实验验证，与已有的CrowdTasker算法相比，CS-TD算法平均成本降低了30%以上。CS-TD模型能有效降低感知节点的消耗，能在全覆盖感知任务中降低整体感知成本。     

A Noise-Aware Real-Time Processing Approach for Electroencephalogram Signal Classification

Electroencephalogram (EEG) signal processing has emerged as a critical problem for biometric applications due to its real-time requirement. While compressive sensing is an efficient method for signal compression, its application in EEG signal processing is limited due to its noise unawareness during transmission and time-consuming reconstruction procedure. In this paper, we propose a noise-aware sparse Bayesian learning approach with block structure (NA-BSBL) to achieve higher efficiency on data compression, reconstruction and classification. By applying novel structure for parameter and introducing the Mahalanobis Distance, our approach achieves an almost 20% reconstruction performance lift and 10% accuracy lift under noise condition. For further application of reconstructed EEG signal, we extract both the spatial and frequency domain features for classification. Experimental results show that the proposed approach can achieve 94% classification accuracy with 16% speed up compared with the conventional approach.     

碳纳米管改性水泥石力学性能研究

随着非常规油气的勘探开发，超深井、复杂井、页岩气井等对固井质量的要求越来越高，现有水泥基材料性能已经不能满足要求，需要探索新型材料在水泥基材料中的应用以及对水泥石的性能改造。从碳纳米管自身的特点出发，制备稳定性较好的碳纳米管分散液，通过水泥石抗压强度、抗折强度测试、单轴三轴力学性能实验以及微观结构测试对碳纳米管的加量范围、分散效果进行了讨论，分析碳纳米管对水泥石力学性能的影响规律。实验结果表明，0.05%~0.1%碳纳米管加量能够提高水泥石的抗压、抗折性能，并且随着龄期的增长其增强效果更加明显；碳纳米管能够降低水泥石的弹性模量，同时增大塑性形变，使水泥石韧性增加；碳纳米管对微观结构的增强增韧机理表现为拨出、桥联、纳米诱导效应和网状填充效应，经过分散的碳纳米管与基体的相容性较好。      

Fabrication of in-situ self-reinforced Si3N4 ceramic foams for high-temperature thermal insulation by protein foaming method

To meet demand for lightweight and high-strength ceramic foams, in-situ self-reinforced Si₃N₄ ceramic foams, with compressive strength of 13.2–45.9 MPa, were fabricated by protein foaming method combined with sintered reaction-bonded method. For comparison, ordinary protein foamed ceramics with irregular block microstructure were fabricated via reaction-bonded method, which had compressive strength of 3.6–20.5 MPa. Physical properties of these two types of samples were systematically compared. When open porosity was about 80%, both types of Si₃N₄ ceramic foams had excellent thermal insulation properties (<0.15 W m^?1 K^?1), while compressive strength of in-situ self-reinforced samples increased by more than 158% compared with ordinary samples. Under high-temperature oxidation conditions, microstructures of both types of samples were deformed with increase in oxidation temperature. Moreover, after oxidation temperature was increased to 1400 °C, oxidation weight gain decreased from 18.07% for ordinary samples to only 2.18% for self-reinforced samples. Thus, high-temperature oxidation resistance of Si₃N₄ ceramic foams was greatly improved.     

Performance evaluation of basalt fiber-reinforced geopolymer composites with various contents of nano CaCO3

High carbon footprint of cement production is the major drawback of plain cement concrete resulting in environmental pollution. Geopolymer composites paste can be effectively used as an alternative to Portland cement in the construction industry for a sustainable environment. The demand for high-performance composites and sustainable construction is increasing day by day. Therefore, the present experimental program has endeavored to investigate the mechanical performance of basalt fiber-reinforced fly ash-based geopolymer pastes with various contents of nano CaCO₃. The content of basalt fibers was fixed at 2% by weight for all specimens while the studied contents of nano CaCO₃ were 0%, 1%, 2%, and 3%, respectively. The compressive strength, compressive stress-strain response, flexural strength, bending stress-strain response, elastic modulus, toughness modulus, toughness indices, fracture toughness, impact strength, hardness, and microstructural analysis of all four geopolymer composite pastes with varying contents of nano CaCO₃ using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were evaluated. The results revealed that the use of 3% nano CaCO₃ in basalt fiber-reinforced geopolymer paste presented the highest values of compressive strength and hardness while the use of 2% nano CaCO₃ showed the highest values of flexural strength, impact strength, and fracture toughness of composite paste. The SEM results indicated that the addition of nano CaCO₃ improved the microstructure and provided a denser geopolymer paste by refining the interfacial zones and accelerating the geopolymerization reaction.