A practical development of engineering simulation-assisted educational AR environments

Engineering simulations have opened several gates for today’s chemical engineers. They are powerful tools to provide technical content as physics-based numerical solvers. Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), on the other hand, are already underway to digitize environments in many fields. The combination of AR/VR environments and simulations in engineering education has been attracting widespread interest. Literature has demonstrated a massive amount of digital educational environments in several contexts as being complementary to conventional educational methods. Nevertheless, hosting technical content produced by engineering simulations with educational AR/VR is still challenging and requires expertise from multiple disciplines throughout the technical development. Present work provides a facile and agile methodology for low-cost hardware but content-wise rich AR software development. Inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic, a case study is developed to teach chemical-engineering concepts using a liquid-soap synthesis process. Accordingly, we assess and conclude the digital development process to guide inexperienced developers for the digitalization of teaching content. The present contribution serves as an example of the power of integrating AR/VR with traditional engineering simulations for educational purposes. The digital tool developed in this work is shared in the online version.     

“感知与人机交互”教学实践与PBL模式探索

机器人工程是在国家新工科发展战略背景下为了适应机器人专业人才需求而新近创建的专业。本文依托东南大学机器人工程专业教学体系，介绍了“感知与人机交互”课程的教学实践，探索了PBL教学模式在本门课程中的应用。具体介绍了课程教学内容设置、PBL教学方案例设计及存在问题分析等，可为自动化类机器人工程专业的相关课程教学实践提供参考。     

“自动控制系统工程设计”课程思政教学实践

学习不仅仅是自然科学知识的学习，更是社会科学、民族文化、正确人生观和价值观的形成过程，“课程思政”无疑正是实现该目标的捷径，它是当前高等院校思想政治教育的新模式。如何提升学生解决“复杂工程问题”的能力成为高校开展工程教育和“新工科”的难点和重点，而课程思政正是培养学生解决“复杂工程问题”中所需要的非技术因素的重要途径。“自动控制系统工程设计”是自动化专业高年级学生的一门专业课，当前关于“课程思政”的论述是指导思想居多、实施经验以及案例设计较少，针对该问题以“自动控制系统工程设计”为例，详细给出了“课程思政”教学案例的具体实施过程，对同类课程提供参考。     

Engineering the hydrogen storage properties of the perovskite hydride ZrNiH3 by uniaxial/biaxial strain

In the present work, the bonding length, electronic structure, stability, and dehydrogenation properties of the Perovskite-type ZrNiH₃ hydride, under different uniaxial/biaxial strains are investigated through ab-initio calculations based on the plane-wave pseudo-potential (PW-PP) approach. The findings reveal that the uniaxial/biaxial compressive and tensile strains are responsible for the structural deformation of the ZrNiH₃ crystal structure, and its lattice deformation becomes more significant with decreasing or increasing the strain magnitude. Due to the strain energy contribution, the uniaxial/biaxial strain not only lowers the stability of ZrNiH₃ but also decreases considerably the dehydrogenation enthalpy and decomposition temperature. Precisely, the formation enthalpy and decomposition temperature are reduced from ?67.73 kJ/mol.H₂ and 521 K for non-strained ZrNiH₃ up to ?33.73 kJ/mol.H₂ and 259.5 K under maximal biaxial compression strain of ε = ?6%, and to ?50.99 kJ/mol.H₂ and 392.23 K for the maximal biaxial tensile strain of ε = +6%. The same phenomenon has been also observed for the uniaxial strain, where the formation enthalpy and decomposition temperature are both decreased to ?39.36 kJ/mol.H₂ and 302.78 K for a maximal uniaxial compressive strain of ε = - 12%, and to ?51.86 kJ/mol.H₂ and 399 K under the maximal uniaxial tensile strain of ε = +12%. Moreover, the densities of states analysis suggests that the strain-induced variation in the dehydrogenation and structural properties of ZrNiH₃ are strongly related to the Fermi level value of total densities of states. These ab-initio calculations demonstrate insightful novel approach into the development of Zr-based intermetallic hydrides for hydrogen storage practical applications.     

Advances in statistical mechanics of rock masses and its engineering applications

To efficiently link the continuum mechanics for rocks with the structural statistics of rock masses,a theoretical and methodological system called the statistical mechanics of rock masses(SMRM)was developed in the past three decades.In SMRM,equivalent continuum models of stressestrain relationship,strength and failure probability for jointed rock masses were established,which were based on the geometric probability models characterising the rock mass structure.This follows the statistical physics,the continuum mechanics,the fracture mechanics and the weakest link hypothesis.A general constitutive model and complete stressestrain models under compressive and shear conditions were also developed as the derivatives of the SMRM theory.An SMRM calculation system was then developed to provide fast and precise solutions for parameter estimations of rock masses,such as full-direction rock quality designation(RQD),elastic modulus,Coulomb compressive strength,rock mass quality rating,and Poisson’s ratio and shear strength.The constitutive equations involved in SMRM were integrated into a FLAC3D based numerical module to apply for engineering rock masses.It is also capable of analysing the complete deformation of rock masses and active reinforcement of engineering rock masses.Examples of engineering applications of SMRM were presented,including a rock mass at QBT hydropower station in northwestern China,a dam slope of Zongo II hydropower station in D.R.Congo,an open-pit mine in Dexing,China,an underground powerhouse of Jinping I hydropower station in southwestern China,and a typical circular tunnel in Lanzhou-Chongqing railway,China.These applications verified the reliability of the SMRM and demonstrated its applicability to broad engineering issues associated with jointed rock masses.     

A mathematical model for open pit mine production scheduling with Grade Engineering® and stockpiling

This paper presents the development and implementation of an innovative mixed integer programming based mathematical model for an open pit mining operation with Grade Engineering framework. Grade Engineering comprises a range of coarse-separation based pre-processing techniques that separate the desirable (i.e. high-grade) and undesirable (i.e. low-grade or uneconomic) materials and ensure the delivery of only selected quantity of high quality (or high-grade) material to energy, water, and cost-intensive processing plant. The model maximizes the net present value under a range of operational and processing constraints. Given that the proposed model is computationally complex, the authors employ a data pre-processing procedure and then evaluate the performance of the model at several practical instances using computation time, optimality gap, and the net present value as valid measures. In addition, a comparison of the proposed and traditional (without Grade Engineering) models reflects that the proposed model outperforms the traditional formulation.     

上升气泡内气溶胶沉降机理研究

气溶胶池洗过滤是反应堆严重事故中去除放射性源项的重要手段。本文以严重事故条件下上升气泡中气溶胶的滞留过程为背景，设计搭建了可视化单气泡鼓泡实验装置。通过该装置研究了气溶胶在上升气泡中的沉降效率，并与MELCOR中的气溶胶沉降模型计算结果进行了对比。结果表明，气溶胶沉降效率对气泡尺寸的变化较为敏感，当气体流量大于0.1 L/min时，气泡等效直径迅速增加，相应的气溶胶沉降效率快速降低；与MELCOR模型计算结果的对比表明，两者在总体趋势上呈现出较好的一致性，但计算结果低估了液相对气溶胶的实际去除能力，导致这种偏差的主要原因是气泡在上升过程中存在无规则的晃动以及气液界面的波动。     

Evaluation of the containment vessel failure time from operator’s notifications during a severe accident

This paper aims at clarifying the potential and the limit of the method to surmise the timing of the containment vessel (CV) failure utilizing the Emergency Action Levels (EALs) issued as a nuclear operator’s notification in an early phase of the severe accident (SA). We analyzed the timings of the EALs issued in all kinds of the SA sequences of several PWR plant models by using the SA analysis code, MAAP. We found high correlations between the timing of SE41 (EAL issued at CV pressure of 0.5 design pressure) and the timing of the CV failure in the typical scenarios, e.g. over-pressure failures. We could therefore establish an evaluating method to estimate the time for a CV failure. This method has the potential to support the decision-making in nuclear emergency preparedness.     

Effect of preparation method on physicochemical properties and catalytic performances of LaCoO_3 perovskite for CO oxidation

Perovskite oxides LaCoO_3 prepared by templating, co-precipitation and sol-gel method with different complexants were systematically characterized and its catalytic performances for CO oxidation were investigated. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetry analysis and differential scanning calorimetry, N_2 physisorption, transmission electron microscopy, temperature program reduction of hydrogen, temperature program desorption of oxygen and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurement, results of which show that the properties of LaCoO_3, such as surface morphology, surface area, surface compositions, redox capability, oxygen vacancy, as well as the calcination temperature and formation mechanism, depend intimately on the preparation method. Catalytic tests indicate that the sample prepared by carbon templating method shows the best activity for CO oxidation, with full CO conversion obtained at 135 ℃. In particular, the catalyst can be activated and significant increase of activity can be obtained with the increase of reaction time. The cyclic and longterm stability of catalysts were discussed and compared.     

Recent activities in the field of Nuclear Operational Management and Nuclear Safety Engineering

Recent activities in the field of Nuclear Operational Management and Nuclear Safety Engineering, the studies related to risk analysis methodology, design, and operational management, physical phenomena, and emergency preparedness and nuclear security, have been progressed. Especially, ‘risk analysis methodology’ and ‘design and operational management’ are the main categories of the field, in which more than half of published articles on Journal of Nuclear Science and Technology are related to these categories.