Shake Table Studies of a Concrete Bridge Pier Utilizing Pipe-Pin Two-Way Hinges

Pipe-pin two-way hinge details were recently developed by California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to eliminate moments while transferring shear and axial loads from integral bridge bent caps to reinforced concrete bridge columns. The hinges consist of a steel pipe that is anchored in the column with an extended segment into the cap beam. There is no specific design guideline for these hinges, and the current design method is primeval and only controls shear failure of the steel pipe. In this study, a rational method is proposed on the basis of the possible limit states to obtain the lateral capacity of these hinges. To validate the proposed method, a large-scale two-column bridge pier model utilizing pipe-pin hinges was tested on a shake table. The model was subjected to increasing levels of one of the Sylmar-Northridge 1994 earthquake records. A comprehensive analytical modeling of the pier was also performed using OpenSees; for this purpose, a macro model was developed for pipe-pin hinges in this study. The experimental results confirmed that the hinges designed on the basis of the proposed guideline remain elastic with no damage. The good correlation between the analytical and experimental data indicated that the macro model and other modeling assumptions were appropriate.     

超音速火焰喷涂碳化物粒径不同的WC-10Co4Cr涂层在粗细磨粒下的磨损性能

改进的ASTM G65橡胶轮测试方法可采用220nm二氧化钛颗粒和368μm的砂粒分别在潮湿和干燥条件下使用。在由碳化物粒径不同(传统和亚微米)的两种粉末所制备的WC-CoCr涂层上开展试验,研究碳化物大小和磨损介质特性对涂层磨损性能的影响。采用扫描电镜对同一位置磨损前后的低倍和高倍形貌进行观察,并分析了涂层的磨损机理。结果表明:磨损机理取决于碳化物和磨粒的相对大小。在样品上进行磨损定量分析,通过调整碳化物尺寸可改善磨损性能,测试涂层的一些力学性能用于对比。     

Effect of Particles Content on Microstructure,Mechanical Properties,and Electrochemical Behavior of Aluminum-Based Hybrid Composite Processed by Accumulative Roll Bonding Process

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A - Effect of B4C/SiC particles content on the microstructure, deformation, and electrochemical behavior of aluminum-based hybrid composite processed by...     

Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Regional Trends and Shift Changes of Autocorrelated Temperature Series in Urmia Lake Basin

Recently, the Urmia Lake located in northwestern Iran which is the second largest hyper saline in the world suffers from the significant fluctuations of water level and surface area. The current study tries to investigate the spatiotemporal trends of mean (T_mean), maximum (T_max) and minimum (T_min) temperatures of monthly, seasonal and annual time-series. To do so, the data of 15 temperature gauge stations within the Urmia Lake basin, for the period 1972–2011 was employed. The pre-whitening approach was applied to remove the effects of serial correlation in the air temperature series based on the Mann-Kendall (MK) test. The results of Ljung-Box test showed positive serial correlation in the T_mean and T_max series for all of the stations at the 0.05 significance level. In the monthly series, the significant warming trends in the T_mean series were more perceptible than the same ones in T_max series; however, T_max trend was found more than T_min series. The Mann–Whitney (MW) test detected a significance upward shift changes in the annual T_mean, T_max and T_min series of about 86, 73 and 80 % of the stations, respectively. The average magnitude of significant warming trends in annual T_mean, T_max and T_min series were (+) 0.58 °C, (+) 0.52 °C and (+) 0.69 °C per decade, respectively. Furthermore, the interpolation maps showed that warming trends in the east and west of Urmia Lake were more than southern area. Therefore, the results showed that the basin has suffered from increasing trends in the T_mean, T_max and T_min over the recent decades. Finally, significant changes were found in 1980s and 1990s based on the Mann-Kendall ranks and change point tests. In this study, it is interesting that the period of significant changes in warming trends were close to the beginning of decreasing water level of the Lake.     

A new adaptation of mapping method to study mixing of multiphase flows in mixers with complex geometries

The main objective of the present work is to modify the traditional mapping method for the simulation of distributive mixing of multiphase flows in geometries involving moving parts such as, internal mixers or twin-screw extruders without a limitation on their geometrical periodicity. The periodicity condition, limits the results of traditional mapping method to tracking mapping mesh between specific discrete time intervals or distances for that geometry is repeated, hence, result is only for fixed orientation of rotors. Imaginary domain method is introduced to track mapping mesh from one state to the next free of geometrical periodicity limitations. In this work the method is introduced and its applicability and accuracy is discussed in details. A two-dimensional (2D) simulation of mixing of two Newtonian fluids with different viscosities in an intermeshing internal mixer is used as a test case study. In this example the key issues of ability to predict mixing state in details for all orientations of rotors is presented. To reduce diffusion errors of mapping method in the boundaries of the rotors, mapping mesh refinement technique that relies upon one single reference mesh is also presented.     

In vitro gas production profiles and fermentation end‐products in processed peas,lupins and faba beans

BACKGROUND: An experiment was carried out to establish whether using a pre‐compacting device (expander) changes the contribution of dry matter (DM) and degradative behaviour of peas, lupins and faba beans over the different fractions (non‐washable fraction, NWF; insoluble washable fraction, ISWF; soluble washable fraction, SWF). Samples of the entire concentrate ingredients (WHO ingredients) and their different fractions (NWF, ISWF and SWF) were subjected to three processes (Retsch milling, R; expander treatment, E; expander‐pelleting, EP) and their fermentation characteristics were evaluated using an in vitro gas production technique. RESULTS: In peas and faba beans, both the E and EP processes increased the size of the NWF (P < 0.05) and decreased the size of the SWF compared with the R process. The maximum fractional rate of gas production in the first phase of fermentation was higher in the E and EP samples than in the R samples (P < 0.05). In lupins and faba beans the E and EP processes shifted the pattern of fermentation towards a more glucogenic fermentation, as represented by a lower non‐glucogenic to glucogenic ratio (NGR). Ammonia production (NH₃‐N) in the E and EP samples was significantly (P < 0.05) lower than that in the R samples. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that the E and EP processes provide a certain level of protection against ruminal breakdown to dietary protein and shift the pattern of fermentation towards a more glucogenic fermentation. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry     

Color PCA eigenimages and their application to compression and watermarking

From the birth of multi-spectral imaging techniques, there has been a tendency to consider and process this new type of data as a set of parallel gray-scale images, instead of an ensemble of an n-D realization. However, it has been proved that using vector-based tools leads to a more appropriate understanding of color images and thus more efficient algorithms for processing them. Such tools are able to take into consideration the high correlation of the color components and thus to successfully carry out energy compaction. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to utilize the principal component analysis in the neighborhoods of an image in order to extract the corresponding eigenimages. These eigenimages exhibit high levels of energy compaction and thus are appropriate for such operations as compression and watermarking. Subsequently, two such methods are proposed in this paper and their comparison with available approaches is presented.     

Study the effect of distribution of density of states on the depletion width of organic Schottky contacts

Organic semiconductor to metal Schottky contacts have been widely used in electronic devices and to investigate the properties of organic semiconductors. In designing and characterizing these devices the full depletion approximation is used. The analytical and numerical simulations presented in this paper suggest that this approximation is not generally valid. Simulations of a Schottky contact between regioregular-poly 3 hexylthiophene (rr-P3HT) and aluminum show that this approximation becomes worse as molecular order decreases, with the potential profile increasingly deviating from the expected quadratic function of position. Also the depletion width decreasing well below that predicted using the approximation. In this work the slope of the band tail is used as a measure of disorder.     

Kinetics of catalytic steam gasification of bitumen coke

The catalytic steam gasification of coke from Athabasca bitumen was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis using K₂CO₃ and Na₂CO₃ as catalysts, both of which reduced the activation energy of the reaction considerably to 1.2 × 10⁵ J mol⁻¹ and 1.3 × 10⁵ J mol⁻¹, respectively, down from 2.1 × 10⁵ J mol⁻¹ for the uncatalyzed reaction. The reaction rates varied with the partial pressure of steam between 60 kPa and 85 kPa consistent with a Langmuir-Hinshelwood model, but a first order equation was also sufficient given the low partial pressures. The initial rate of gasification of the coke particles correlated linearly with the estimated external surface area of the particles, as expected from a surface reaction involving a non-porous solid. The initial reaction rate increased with increasing the catalyst loading up to 2.4 (mol potassium)/kg. A portion of the catalyst penetrated into the coke, as confirmed by secondary ion mass spectroscopy analysis, where it could not promote the reaction with steam. This result was consistent with a small increase observed in the reaction rate at low catalyst loading. The shrinking core model was successful in predicting the rates at higher conversions from the initial rate data, despite increases in BET surface area with conversion.     

Double-walled microspheres loaded with meglumine antimoniate: preparation,characterization and in vitro release study

Objective: The objective of this study was to fabricate double-walled poly(lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microspheres to increase encapsulation efficiency and avoid rapid release of hydrophilic drugs such as meglumine antimoniate.

Methods: In this study, double-walled and one-layered microspheres of PLGA were prepared using the emulsion solvent evaporation technique to better control the release of a hydrophilic drug, meglumine antimoniate (Glucantime®), which is the first choice treatment of cutaneous leishmaniasis. The effect of hydrophobic coating on microspheres' size, morphology, encapsulation efficiency and drug release characteristics was evaluated. Furthermore, the presence of antimony in meglumine antimoniate made it possible to observe the drug distribution within the microspheres' cross section by means of energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy.

Results: Drug distribution images confirmed accumulation of the drug within the inner core of double-walled microspheres. In addition, these microspheres encapsulated the drug more efficiently up to 87% and demonstrated reduced initial burst and prolonged release compared to one-layered microspheres. These superiorities make double-walled microspheres an optimum candidate for sustained delivery of hydrophilic drugs.

Conclusion: Double-walled microspheres provide some advantages over traditional microspheres overcoming most of their limitations. Double-walled microspheres were found to be more efficient than their corresponding one-layered microspheres in terms of encapsulation efficiencies and release characteristics.