Improved homogenization of Ni in sintered steels through the use of Cr-containing prealloyed powders

The homogenization of Ni in powder metal (PM) steel compacts is usually difficult even after high-temperature sintering at 1250°C. An earlier study by the authors demonstrated that this problem can be alleviated through the addition of 0.5 wt pct Cr in the form of stainless steel powders. To further improve the microstructure and mechanical properties of Ni-containing PM steels and to understand the mechanisms, an attempt was made in this study using the Fe-3Cr-0.5Mo prealloyed powder as the base material. The results showed that the distribution of the Ni additives was significantly improved. As a result, the tensile strength of the Fe-3Cr-0.5Mo-4Ni-0.5C compact sintered at 1250°C reached 1323 MPa. The elongation was higher than 1 pct. These sinter-hardened properties, which were attained using a slow furnace cooling rate, were comparable to those of the sinter-hardened alloys reported in the literature using accelerated cooling and were equivalent to those of the best quenched-and-tempered alloys registered in the Metal Powder Industries Federation (MPIF) standards. These improvements were attributed to the positive effect of Cr addition on alloy homogenization due to the reduction of the repelling effect between Ni and C, as was demonstrated through the thermodynamic analysis using the Thermo-Calc program.     

Optically preamplified receiver performance due to VSB filtering for 40-Gb/s optical signals modulated with various formats

Optically preamplified receiver performance according to the vestigial sideband (VSB) filtering has been numerically investigated for 40-Gb/s optical signals modulated with nonreturn-to-zero, duobinary nonreturn-to-zero (NRZ), return-to-zero (RZ), carrier-suppressed RZ, and duobinary carrier-suppressed RZ formats. The VSB filtering enables the spectral widths of NRZ, duobinary NRZ, and RZ signals to be reduced without severe power penalties at the receiver. On the other hand, carrier-suppressed RZ and duobinary carrier-suppressed RZ signals have no large advantages over VSB filtering because of the characteristics of their signals. Our results suggest that RZ signals are the most suitable modulation format for VSB filtering, without considering the filter loss, because of the tolerance of the intersymbol interference and a large spectral width. However, duobinary NRZ signals are the most suitable modulation format for VSB filtering, considering the filter loss, because of their narrow spectral width.     

Effects of contact shape on biological wet adhesion

Wet adhesion is widely adopted in biological adhesion systems in nature. Wet adhesion is studied in this paper with the focus on the effect of different contact shapes (flat, concave, convex, and ring-like) on the adhesion force. The evolution of the liquid bridge between a fiber tip and substrate during the detaching process shows two transition points. The first transition from the radius-controlled to the contact-angle controlled process is critical to influence the strength and robustness of adhesion. We show that a concave shape is more effective than a flat one, while a convex shape has no advantage. A ring-like contact shape has advantages in a hydrophobic environment and on a rough surface.     

Mode Matching Analysis of a Tapered Coaxial Tip in a Parallel-Plate Waveguide

A tapered coaxial tip in a parallel plate waveguide is investigated. A boundary-value problem of electromagnetic scattering from a tapered coaxial monopole is solved rigorously based on the Fourier transform, eigenfunction expansion, and mode matching. Scattering parameters are represented in a series and computed to understand the behavior of the scattering in terms of the coaxial tip geometry.     

Optimal and reinforced robustness designs of fuzzy variable structure tracking control for a piezoelectric actuator system

In this paper, a piezoelectric actuator (PEA) system is approximated by N subsystems, which are described by pulse transfer functions. The approximation error between the PEA system and the fuzzy linear pulse transfer function system is represented by additive nonlinear time-varying uncertainties in every subsystem. First, a dead-beat to the switching surface for every ideal subsystem is designed. It is called the "variable structure tracking control". The output disturbance of the ith subsystem is caused by the approximation error of fuzzy-model and the interaction dynamics resulting from other subsystems. In general, it is not small. Then, the H/sup /spl infin//-norm of the sensitivity function between the switching surface and the output disturbance is minimized. It is the "optimal robustness". Although the effect of the output disturbance is attenuated, a better performance can be reinforced by a switching control which is based on the Lyapunov redesign. This is the final step for the robustness design of control, which is "reinforced robustness". The stability of the overall system is verified by Lyapunov stability theory. Experimental work of a PEA system was carried out to confirm the validity of the proposed control.     

Effect of Wall Surface Properties at Different Drying Kinetics on the Deposition Problem in Spray Drying

Current methods in alleviating the wall deposition problem in spray drying emphasize mainly controlling the stickiness of the drying particles and less attention is placed on the properties of the dryer wall. In this experimental study, the effect of wall surface properties on the deposition mechanism has been investigated. Properties considered in classifying different wall materials were surface energy, roughness, and dielectric properties. The model solution contained sucrose, representing low-molecular-weight sugars commonly encountered in spray drying of fruit and vegetable juices. The effect of wall properties on deposition was explored at different drying rates producing particles of different surface rigidity. Larger surface roughness produced higher deposition fluxes for particles with high impact velocity and moisture. Surface energy and surface roughness were found to have no significant effect for dry rigid particles at the middle and bottom elevation of the drying chamber. However, material with lower surface energy (Teflon) exhibited less deposition for rubbery particles at such elevations. Analysis shows that dielectric wall material (Teflon) tends to enhance deposition of dry particles because of attrition at the surface. Higher wall temperature was found to produce slightly more deposition. The results of this work give a general indication of the effect of wall material on the deposition problem and provide the fundamental understanding for further studies along this line. Proper selection of dryer wall material will provide potential alternatives for reducing the deposition problem.     

Mapping rule-based systems onto multicomputers using simulated annealing

In this paper, we present a static load balancing method for mapping production rules in an expert system onto processors of a message-passing multicomputer. The method uses simulated annealing to achieve a nearly optimal allocation of production rules onto processor nodes. The approach balances the initial rule distribution to avoid higher communication demand among processor nodes at run time. A formal mapping model is developed and a new cost function is defined for the annealing process. New heuristic swap functions and cooling policies are provided to ensure the quality of the annealing process. A software load balancing package, SIMAL, was implemented on a SUN workstation to carry out the benchmark experiments. The overhead associated with this mapping method is O(m In m), where m is the number of rules in the production system. Two benchmark production systems, Toru-waltz and Tourney, are mapped onto a hypercube computer with 32 nodes. Experimental benchmark results verify the effectiveness of the rule mapping method. The method can be applied for distributed artificial intelligence processing or for the parallel execution of cooperating expert systems on a message-passing multicomputer.     

映射半解析边界元法解瞬态弹性动力问题的有关问题

提出了映射半解析边界元法解百轴对称瞬态弹性动力问题时存在解析方向不能正确反映波的传播现象的问题，产生该问题的原因和如何解决该问题的建议。