Effect of ascorbyl palmitate on the quality of frying fats for deep frying operations

The addition of 0.02% ascorbyl palmitate (AP) reduced color development of frying fat (animal fat/vegetable oil [A-V] shortening) and vegetable oil (partially hydrogenated soybean [V-S] oil) in simulation studies. It also reduced peroxide values, development of conjugated diene hydroperoxides (CDHP) and their subsequent degradation to volatile compounds, such as decanal and 2,-4 decadienal, indicating that AP has the ability to inhibit thermal oxidation/degradation of frying fats and oils. A commercial french fry fat had lower CDHP values compared to A-V fat in simulated studies, and fried chicken oil had lower CDHP values than the V-S oil. Peanut oil had higher thermal stability than the other fats and oils.     

Performance of high‐resolution TVD schemes for 1D dam‐break simulations

Abstract

The performance of high‐resolution total variation diminishing (TVD) schemes for simulating dam‐break problems are presented and evaluated. Three robust and reliable first‐order upwind schemes, namely FVS, Roe and HLLE schemes, are extended to six second‐order TVD schemes using two different approaches, the Sweby flux limiter approach and the direct MUSCL‐Hancock slope limiter. For idealized dam‐break flows, comparisons of the simulated results with the exact solutions show that the flux vector splitting (FVS) scheme coupled with the direct MUSCL‐Hancock (DMH) slope limiter approach has the best numerical performance among the presented schemes. Application of the FVS‐DMH scheme to a dam‐break experiment with sloping dry bed shows that the simulated water depths agree well with the measured.     

Heat Transfer Phenomena of Power Law Fluids in Double‐Pass Heat Exchangers with Isoflux Conditions

A new design of conjugated heat transfer in double‐pass parallel‐plate laminar countercurrent operations of power law fluids under wall isoflux was investigated experimentally and theoretically. The analytical solutions were obtained with a superposition model by introducing an eigenfunction expansion in terms of a power series for the homogeneous part and an asymptotic solution for the inhomogeneous part. The influence of the power law index on the average Nusselt numbers with the various design and operating parameters is also delineated. The theoretical predictions of the experimental results are represented graphically. The heat transfer performance was considerably improved when compared with a single‐pass parallel‐plate heat exchanger (without inserting a solid separator sheet). Suitable adjustments of the solid separator sheet position can effectively enhance the heat transfer efficiencies for such a recycling double‐pass device, as compared with the efficiencies of single‐ and double‐pass devices.     

Characterization and use of ultraviolet‐reactive low‐molecular‐weight polyhydroxybutyrate to prepare biodegradable acrylates

The characterizations of prepared low‐molecular‐weight polyhydroxybutyrate (LMWPHB) and the properties of LMWPHB photopolymerized with hydrophilic and hydrophobic acrylic monomers were studied with ¹H‐NMR spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Instron tensile testing, and biodegradation tests. The results of ¹H‐NMR and FTIR spectroscopy confirmed that the prepared LMWPHB had transformed unsaturated ends that were photoreactive under UV light. The tensile strengths of the LMWPHB/acrylates decreased with increasing content of the added biodegradable LMWPHB because of the relatively long chains and large equivalent molar weights of LMWPHB. However, the flexibility of LMWPHB/acrylates changed differently with the type of acrylic monomer used. The LMWPHB/hydrophilic acrylate had a much more rapid biodegradation rate than the LMWPHB/hydrophobic acrylate because of the fast penetration of microorganisms. We demonstrated that the prepared LMWPHB could be used to control the biodegradation properties of acrylates and then could potentially be applied in biomedical fields. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 39501.     

Improved electrical characteristics of CoSi2 usingHF-vapor pretreatment

We have developed a simple process to form epitaxial CoSi₂ for shallow junctions. Prior to metal deposition, the patterned wafers were treated with HF-vapor passivation. As observed by scanning tunneling microscopy (STM), this HF treatment drastically improves the native oxide-induced surface roughness. The epitaxial behavior was confirmed by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Decreased sheet resistance and leakage current, and improved thermal stability are displayed by the HF treated samples, which is consistent with STM and TEM results     

The Effects of Copper Oxides on the Curing Behaviors of Bismaleimide Triazine Prepreg

The effect of copper oxides on the curing behaviors of the bismaleimide triazine (BT) prepreg is studied with infrared spectroscopy (IR), attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR), and X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The result of IR analyses indicates that there is a concentration distribution present in the prepreg surface layer and the outer surface layer contains less cyanate, imide, and epoxide but more triazine groups than the inner layer. From ATR, it is concluded that the cuprous oxide attracts more cyanate ester resins but less bismaleimide resins from the prepreg to its surface than the cupric oxide. The copper surface affects the curing extent of the BT resin in contact and the cupric oxide has a more pronounced effect than the cuprous oxide, and this surface effect can extend to at least two microns deep into the BT prepreg from the contacted interface. The XPS results confirm that the BT/CuO interface contains more thermally stable and polar functional groups than the BT/Cu₂O interface, and both two copper oxides attract only a small amount of brominated epoxy resin onto their surfaces. These results are attributed to the difference in preferential adsorptions and catalytic curing effects of two copper oxides on the BT prepreg in contact.

The intensity changes of IR bands obtained from BT prepreg during cure.     

Influence of side‐chain structures on the viscoelasticity and elongation viscosity of polyethylene melts

Metallocene‐catalyzed, low‐density and linear low‐density polyethylenes with similar melt indexes were used to investigate how side‐chain structures influence the elongation viscosity and viscoelastic properties. The viscoelastic properties were determined with a rotation rheometer, while the elongation viscosities were acquired by using isothermal fiber spinning. The Phan‐Thien‐Tanner (PTT) model was also used to understand how the side‐chain structure affects the elongation behavior. Experimental results demonstrate that the log G′ vs. log G″ plot can qualitatively describe the effects of the side chain branch on the rheological properties of polyethylene melts. According to the results determined by the PTT model, low‐density polyethylene (LDPE) has low elongation viscosities at high strain rates. This low elongation viscosity can be attributed to the fact that LDPE has high shear thinning behavior. The long‐chain branching tends to increase entanglements, thereby enhancing the storage modulus, elongation viscosity and shear‐thinning behaviors. Uniform side‐chain distribution lowers the entanglements, which results in a low storage modulus, elongation viscosity and shear‐thinning behavior.     

Algorithm/Architecture Co-Design of 3-D Spatio–Temporal Motion Estimation for Video Coding

This paper presents a new spatio-temporal motion estimation algorithm and its VLSI architecture for video coding based on algorithm and architecture co-design methodology. The algorithm consists of the new strategies of spatio-temporal motion vector prediction, modified one-at-a-time search scheme, and multiple update paths derived from optimization theory. The hardware specification is for high-definition video coding. We applied the ME algorithm to H.264 reference software. Our algorithm surpasses recently published research and achieves close performance to full search. The VLSI implementation proves the low cost feature of our algorithm. The algorithm and architecture co-design concept is highly emphasized in this paper. We provide some quantitative example to show the necessity of algorithm and architecture co-design