Transformation and performance of granular sequence batch reactor under conventional organic loading rate condition

Laboratory experiments were conducted to investigate the transformation and performance of a granular sequence batch reactor（SBR） under the conventional organic loading rate（OLR） condition.Aerobic granules were successfully cultivated in a SBR by means of alternative feeding load combined with reducing settling time after 60 d operational period.Subsequently,the black fungal granules were presented in reactor because of the filamentous overgrowth on the surface of aerobic granules.A small amount of fungal granules had no effect on the performance of granular SBR.Aerobic granules completely vanished and fungal granules eventually became the dominant species in subsequent 90 d operation after granulation.The three-dimensional excitation emission matrix（EEM） spectra result shows that the extracellular polymeric substances（EPS） component in both granules has no much difference,whereas the content of EPS in fungal granules is higher than that in bacterial granules.Due to their low bioactivity,the chemical oxidation demand（COD） and NH4-N removal efficiencies gradually decrease from 90.4%–96.5% and 99.5% to 71.8% and 32.9% respectively while the fungal granules become dominant in the SBR.     

Long-term settlement prediction of high-speed railway bridge pile foundation

The process and characteristics of loading on high-speed railway bridge pile foundation were firstly obtained by means of field research and analysis, and the corresponding loading function was presented. One-dimensional consolidation equation of elastic multilayered soils was then established with single drainage or double drainages under multilevel loading. Moreover, the formulas for calculating effective stress and settlement were derived from the Laplace numerical inversion transform. The three-dimensional composite analysis method of bridge pile group was improved, where the actual load conditions of pile foundation could be simulated, and the consolidation characteristics of soil layers beneath pile were also taken into account. Eventually, a corresponding program named LTPGS was developed to improve the calculation efficiency. The comparison between long-term settlement obtained from the proposed method and the in-situ measurements of pile foundation was illustrated, and a close agreement is obtained. The error between computed and measured results is less than 1 mm, and it gradually reduces with time. It is shown that the proposed method can effectively simulate the long-term settlement of pile foundation and program LTPGS can provide a reliable estimation.     

Experimental study of post-peak behavior of bimrocks with high rock block proportions简

Design and construction of engineering structures in geomaterials with block-in-matrix texture（referred as bimrock） such as conglomerates,breccias and agglomerates are challenging tasks for engineers.When dealing with these materials in important structures such as open pits with high walls and pillars of deep underground mines,understanding the complete stress-strain behavior,including post-peak region,is a formidable yet crucial engineering practice.To study the post-peak behavior of bimrocks,artificial specimens were fabricated with a mixture of rock blocks and a cementing agent.All the experiments were conducted under uniaxial compression using a servo-control testing machine.The results show that the specimens with the highest block proportion（around 90% by mass） showed a small decrease in stress with strain increment in the post-peak region.The specimens with lower block proportions were characterized by an approximately steep fall in stress and following to residual stress.Based on the study,it is inferred that all the artificial specimens undergo post-failure deformation and the type of post behavior depends on rock block proportions.     

Simulation of rock deformation and mechanical characteristics using clump parallel-bond models

To properly simulate hard rock with a high ratio of the uniaxial compressive strength to tensile strength（UCS/TS） and realistic strength-failure envelope,the rock deformation and mechanical characteristics were discussed in detail when the particle simulation method with the clump parallel-bond model（CPBM） was used to conduct a series of numerical experiments at the specimen scale.Meanwhile,the effects of the loading procedure and crack density on the mechanical behavior of a specimen,which was modeled by the particle simulation method with the CPBM,were investigated.The related numerical results have demonstrated that：1） The uniaxial compressive strength（UCS）,tensile strength（TS） and elastic modulus are overestimated when the conventional loading procedure is used in the particle simulation method with the CPBM; 2） The elastic modulus,strength and UCS/TS decrease,while Poisson ratio increases with the increase of the crack density in the particle simulation method with the CPBM; 3） The particle simulation method with the CPBM can be used to reproduce a high value of UCS/TS（10）,as well as a high friction angle and reasonable cohesion strength; 4） As the confining pressure increases,both the peak strength of the simulated specimen and the number of microscopic cracks increase,but the ratio of tensile cracks number to shear cracks number decreases in the particle simulation method with the CPBM; 5） Compared with the conventional parallel-bond model,the CPBM can be used to reproduce more accurate results for simulating the rock deformation and mechanical characteristics.     

Roadbed behavior subjected to tilting-train loading at rail joint and continuous welded rail

The tilting-train is very attractive to the railroad users in the world due to the advantage of high speed in curved track using pre-existing infrastructure of railway.Tilting-train has a unique allowable speed and mechanism especially in curved track.In this work,when tilting-train is operated with the allowable speed,the behavior of roadbed is evaluated by examining its settlement and bearing capacity.Additionally,the stability of roadbed is estimated as the roadbed is in the condition of soft soil influenced by the weather effects and cyclic train loading.Numerical results show that the roadbed settlement satisfies the allowable settlement when the elastic moduli of upper roadbed and in-situ soil are greater than 3800 and 4600 kN/m2 for rail joint and 2300 and 3300 kN/m2 for continuous welded rail（CWR）.     

Stress analysis of clamped-free grid composite cylindrical shell under various end loadings

Stress analysis of cylindrical grid-stiffened composite shells was conducted under transverse loading,pure bending,torsion and axial compression under clamped-free boundary condition.Electrical strain gauges were employed to measure the strains in transverse loading case to validate the finite element analysis which was conducted using ANSYS software.Good agreement was obtained between the two methods.It was observed that stiffening the composite shell with helical ribs decreased the average equivalent Von Mises stress on the shell.The reduction of the stress seemed to be higher in the intersection of two ribs.It was also seen that the stress reduction ratio was higher when the structure was under bending compared to torsion and axial compression.The reduction ratio was approximately 75% in pure bending in the intersection point of the ribs,while it was approximately 25% in torsion.Therefore,it is concluded that the presence of the ribs is more effective under bending.Failure analysis was done using Tsai-Wu criterion.The ribs were observed to result in maximum and minimum increase in the failure load of the structure under transverse bending and torsional loading,respectively.     

Effects of magnetic fields on Fe-Si composite electrodeposition

Coatings containing Fe-Si particles were electrodeposited on 3.0wt% Si steel sheets under magnetic fields. The effects of magnetic flux density （MFD）, electrode arrangement and current density on the surface morphology, the silicon content in the coatings and the cathode current efficiency were investigated. When a magnetic field was applied parallel to the current and when the MFD was less than 0.5 T, numerous needle-like structures appeared on the coating surface. With increasing MFD, the needle-like structures weakened and were transformed into dome-shaped structures. Meanwhile, compared to results obtained in the absence of a magnetic field, the silicon content in the coatings significantly increased as the MFD was increased for all of the samples obtained using a vertical electrode system. However, in the case of an aclinic electrode system, the silicon content decreased. Furthermore, the cathode current efficiency was considerably diminished when a magnetic field was applied. A possible mechanism for these phenomena was discussed.     

Interference management via access control and mobility prediction in two-tier heterogeneous networks

Abstract： Two-tier heterogeneous networks （HetNets）, where the current cellular networks, i.e., macrocells, are overlapped with a large number of randomly distributed femtocells, can potentially bring significant benefits to spectral utilization and system capacity. The interference management and access control for open and closed femtocells in two-tier HetNets were focused. The contributions consist of two parts. Firstly, in order to reduce the uplink interference caused by MUEs （macrocell user equipments） at closed femtocells, an incentive mechanism to implement interference mitigation was proposed. It encourages femtoeells that work with closed-subscriber-group （CSG） to allow the interfering MUEs access in but only via uplink, which can reduce the interference significantly and also benefit the marco-tier. The interference issue was then studied in open-subscriber-group （OSG） femtocells from the perspective of handover and mobility prediction. Inbound handover provides an alternative solution for open femtocells when interference turns up, while this accompanies with PCI （physical cell identity） confusion during inbound handover. To reduce the PCI confusion, a dynamic PCI allocation scheme was proposed, by which the high handin femtocells have the dedicated PCI while the others share the reuse PCIs. A Markov chain based mobility prediction algorithm was designed to decide whether the femtoeell status is with high handover requests. Numerical analysis reveals that the UL interference is managed well for the CSG femtocell and the PCI confusion issue is mitigated greatly in OSG femtocell compared to the conventional approaches.     

Large-scale two-dimensional nonlinear FE analysis on PGA amplification effect with depth and focusing effect of Fuzhou Basin

Based on the explicit finite element（FE） method and platform of ABAQUS,considering both the inhomogeneity of soils and concave-convex fluctuation of topography,a large-scale refined two-dimensional（2D） FE nonlinear analytical model for Fuzhou Basin was established.The peak ground motion acceleration（PGA） and focusing effect with depth were analyzed.Meanwhile,the results by wave propagation of one-dimensional（1D） layered medium equivalent linearization method were added for contrast.The results show that：1） PGA at different depths are obviously amplified compared to the input ground motion,amplification effect of both funnel-shaped depression and upheaval areas（based on the shape of bedrock surface） present especially remarkable.The 2D results indicate that the PGA displays a non-monotonic decreasing with depth and a greater focusing effect of some particular layers,while the 1D results turn out that the PGA decreases with depth,except that PGA at few particular depth increases abruptly; 2） To the funnel-shaped depression areas,PGA amplification effect above 8 m depth shows relatively larger,to the upheaval areas,PGA amplification effect from 15 m to 25 m depth seems more significant.However,the regularities of the PGA amplification effect could hardly be found in the rest areas; 3） It appears a higher regression rate of PGA amplification coefficient with depth when under a smaller input motion; 4） The frequency spectral characteristic of input motion has noticeable effects on PGA amplification tendency.     

Dielectric,piezoelectric, and ferroelectric properties of lanthanum-modified PZTFN ceramics

Specimens of Pb1-1.5xLax（Zr0.53 Ti0.47）1-y-zFeyNb2O3 （x = 0, 0.004, 0.008, 0.012, and 0.016, y = z = 0.01） （PZTFN） ceramics were synthesized by a semi-wet route. In the present study, the effect of La doping was investigated on the structural, microstructural, dielectric, piezoelectric, and ferroelectric properties of the ceramics. The results show that, the tetragonal （space group P4mm） and rhombohedral （space group R3c） phases are observed to coexist in the sample at x = 0.012. Microstructural investigations of all the samples reveal that La doping inhibits grain growth. Doping of La into PZTFN improves the dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties of the ceramics. The hys- teresis loops of all specimens exhibit nonlinear behavior. The dielectric, piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties show a maximum response atx 〉 0.012, which corresponds to the morphotropic phase boundary （MPB）.     

Effect of partition coefficient on microsegregation during solidification of aluminium alloys

In the modeling of microsegregation, the partition coefficient is usually calculated using data from the equilibrium phase diagrams. The aim of this study was to experimentally and theoretically analyze the partition coefficient in binary aluminum--copper alloys. The sam- ples were analyzed by differential thermal analysis （DTA）, which were melted and quenched from different temperatures during solidifica- tion. The mass fraction and composition of phases were measured by image processing and scanning electron microscopy （SEM） equipped with an energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy （EDS） unit. These data were used to calculate as the experimental partition coefficients with four different methods. The experimental and equilibrium partition coefficients were used to model the concentration profile in the primary phase. The modeling results show that the profiles calculated by the experimental partition coefficients are more consistent with the experi- mental profiles, compared to those calculated using the equilibrium partition coefficients.     

Effect of surface treatment to inserted ring on Al–Fe bonding layer of aluminium piston with reinforced cast iron ring

In order to improve the bonding strength between piston alloys and cast iron ring of aluminum piston with reinforced cast iron ring, the different methods of the surface treatments （shot blasting and sand blasting） to the cast iron ring are experimented. The optical micrograph shows that an intermetallic layer and a ligulate shaped structure are formed between piston alloys and cast iron base ring. After sand blasting treatment, the ring surface is non-metal shiny, matte-like and has no obvious pits. The intermetallic layer thickness formed between piston alloys and cast iron is thinner and more equally distributed after sand blasting to the ring. The content of the graphite distributed the interfacial zone after the shot blasting treatment is little. With the increase of time by sand blasting, the hardness starts to slightly descend. The bonding strength of the sample by sand blasting is obviously higher than that by shot blasting and increases from 9.32 MPa to 19.53 MPa.     

Basic dynamic characteristics and seismic design of anchorage system

Based on some assumptions, the dynamic governing equation of anchorage system is established. The calculation formula of natural frequency and the corresponding vibration mode are deduced. Besides, the feasibility of the theoretical method is verified by using a specific example combined with other methods. It is found that the low-order natural frequency corresponds to the first mode of vibration, and the high-order natural frequency corresponds to the second mode of vibration, while the third mode happens only when the physical and mechanical parameters of anchorage system meet certain conditions. With the increasing of the order of natural frequency, the influence on the dynamic mechanical response of anchorage system decreases gradually. Additionally, a calculating method, which can find the dangerous area of anchorage engineering in different construction sites and avoid the unreasonable design of anchor that may cause resonance, is proposed to meet the seismic precautionary requirements. This method is verified to be feasible and effective by being applied to an actual project. The study of basic dynamic features of anchorage system can provide a theoretical guidance for anchor seismic design and fast evaluation of anchor design scheme.     

A ternary TiO2/WO3/graphene nanocomposite adsorbent： facile preparation and efficient removal of Rhodamine B

Ternary TiO2/WO3/graphene （TWG） nanocomposites were prepared by a facile salt-ultrasonic assisted hydrothermal method. The products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and nitrogen adsorption--desorption. Both anatase TiO2 and orthorhombic WO3 formed in the nanocomposites, along with a highly disordered overlay of individual graphene nanosheets. Polyhedral and spherical TiO/and WO3 nanoparticles of uniform size 10-30 nm were densely anchored to the graphene sheets. The maximum specific surface area of the products was 144.59 m2·g^-1. The products showed clear abilities for the removal of Rhodamine B in the absence of illumination. Furthermore, the adsorption activity of the products exhibited only a slight decrease after three successive cycles. The results demonstrate that the ternary nanocomposites could be used as a high-efficiency adsorbent for the removal of environmental contaminants.     

Fluidized bed coating efficiency and morphology of coatings for producing Al-based nanocomposite hollow spheres

Abstract： We performed fluidized bed coating ofAl-based nanoeomposite powder-binder suspensions onto polymer substrates. The effects of the type and amount of the binder and nanoparticle additive on the coating process efficiency and coating characteristics were investigated. The efficiency decreased from 52% to 49% as the processing time increased from 15 to 20 min. However, the amount and thickness of the coating also increased as the processing time and amount of the binder were increased. The addition of nanoparticles to the system decreased the thickness of the coating from 222 to 207 μm when polyvinyl alcohol （PVA） was used as a binder. The suspension containing 3wt% R-4410 binder exhibited the greatest efficiency of 60%.     

Fabrication and densification enhancement of SiC-particulate-reinforced copper matrix composites prepared via the sinter-forging process

The fabrication of copper （Cu） and copper matrix silicon carbide （Cu/SiCp） particulate composites via the sinter-forging process was investigated. Sintering and sinter-forging processes were performed under an inert Ar atmosphere. The influence of sinter-forging time, temperature, and compressive stress on the relative density and hardness of the prepared samples was systematically investigated and subsequently compared with that of the samples prepared by the conventional sintering process. The relative density and hardness of the composites were enhanced when they were prepared by the sinter-forging process. The relative density values of all Cu/SiCp composite samples were observed to decrease with the increase in SiC content.     

Thermodynamics and density functional theory study of potassium dichromate interaction with galena

The adsorption heat and reaction rate constant of potassium dichromate on the surface of galena were studied. The results indicate that potassium dichromate tends to adsorption on the galena surface. The reaction order is only 0.08385, suggesting that the concentration of potassium dichromate has little influence on its adsorption on the galena surface. In addition, the simulation of CrO2 4- adsorption on the PbS （100） surface in the absence and presence of O2 was carried out by density functional theory （DFT）. The calculated results show that CrO2 4- species adsorb energetically at the Pb-S bond site, and the presence of O2 can enhance this adsorption.     

Simulation of bidirectional pedestrian flow in transfer station corridor based on multi forces

A good understanding of pedestrian movement in the transfer corridor is vital for the planning and design of the station, especially for efficiency and safety.A multi-force vector grid model was presented to simulate the movement of bidirectional pedestrian flow based on cellular automata and forces between pedestrians. The model improves rule-based characteristics of cellular automata, details forces between pedestrians and solves pedestrian collisions by a several-step updating method to simulate pedestrian movements. Two general scenarios in corridor were simulated. One is bidirectional pedestrian flow simulation with isolation facility, and the other is bidirectional pedestrian flow simulation without isolation facility, where there exists disturbance in the middle. Through simulation, some facts can be seen that pedestrians in the case with isolation facility have the largest speed and pedestrians in the case without isolation facility have the smallest speed; pedestrians in the case of unidirectional flow have the largest volume and pedestrians in the case of without isolation facility have the smallest volume.     

Human plasma protein binding of water soluble flavonoids extracted from citrus peels

The human plasma protein binding of water soluble flavonoids in the peels of five spices of citrus fruits was studied by ultrafiltration combined with HPLC.The flavonoids were extracted separately by hot and cold water,and higher total flavonoid contents were detected in the former extracts than the latter ones.All the extracts show significant scavenging abilities to both ABTS and DPPH free radicals,which indicates the health benefits of the water extracts of citrus fruits peels.For DPPH radical,the IC50values of hot extract follow as Navel orange（NO）≈Mandarin orange（MO） Lemon（LE） Lo tangerine（LO） Pomelo（PO）,while the rank is NO POLE≈MOLO for ABTS radical.The HPLC results reveal that the kinds and contents of the flavonoids detected in the extracts are different among the species.MO extract has the most neohesperidin dihydrochalcone of 118.76 μmol/L and quercetrin of 211.81 μmol/L of which are much more than the rest extracts.Pomelo extract has the most plentiful flavonoids of naringin with a concentration of 303.28 μmol/L.The high contents of myricetrin and dihydromyricetin which both are potent free radical scavengers may explain the highest free radical scavenging activity of the NO extract.The plasma binding rates decrease with the increasing concentrations of flavonoids,and the flavonoids having plenty hydroxyl groups on both A ring and B ring of the molecular skeleton have relative higher plasma binding rates.In addition,the plasma binding rates of flavonoids with saturated C3-C4 bond decrease significantly with the increasing concentrations.     

Influences of synthesis methods and modifier addition on the properties of Ni-based catalysts supported on reticulated ceramic foams

A method of synthesizing Ni-based catalysts supported on α-Al2O3-based foams was developed. The foams were impregnated with aqueous solutions of metal chlorides under an air atmosphere using an aerosol route. Separate procedures involved calcination to form oxides and drying to obtain chlorides on the foam surface. The synthesized samples were subsequently reduced with hydrogen. With respect to the Ni/Al2O3 catalysts, the chloride reduction route enabled the formation ofa Ni coating without agglomerates or cracks. Further research included catalyst modification by the addition of Pd, Cu, and Fe. The influences of the additives on the degree of reduction and on the low-temperature reduction effectiveness （533 and 633 K） were examined and compared for the catalysts obtained from oxides and chlorides. Greater degrees of reduction were achieved with chlorides, whereas Pd was the most effective modifier among those investigated. The reduction process was nearly complete at 533 K in the sample that contained 0.1wt% Pd. A lower reduction temperature was utilized, and the calcination step was avoided, which may enhance the economical and technological aspects of the developed catalyst production method.