Enhancement of the water repellency durability of the fabrics treated by fluorinated nanocopolymer emulsions

The fluorinated copolymer emulsions containing different monomers with the reactive groups were successfully prepared at our lab, using emulsion polymerization technique. The water repellency and the durability for the fabrics treated by fluorinated water repellents after 30 and 50 washes were measured and compared. Actually, the combination of the comonomers containing blocked isocyanate or other reactive groups after copolymerization would increase the durability of the water repellency. In addition, the blocked isocyanate crosslinking agent (Jintexguard FCN) does, indeed, substantially increase the durability also. It clearly indicates that the copolymer emulsion prepared by the reaction of fluorinated acrylate, cyclohexyl methacrylate, and 3‐chloro‐2‐hydroxy‐propyl methacrylate(Topolene M) with monomers containing blocked isocyanate group(Jintexan BIA) showed very good durability. More importantly, the combination of this copolymer and Jintexguard FCN will significantly provide excellent water repellency and durability after 50 washes. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 104: 2451–2457, 2007     

Transparent photo‐curable co‐polyacrylate/silica nanocomposites prepared by sol‐gel process

This work prepared the highly transparent photo‐curable co‐polyacrylate/silica nanocomposites by using sol‐gel process. The FTIR and ¹³C NMR analyses indicated that during the sol‐gel process, the hybrid precursors transform into composites containing nanometer‐scale silica particles and crosslinked esters/anhydrides. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) revealed that the silica particles within the average size of 11.5 nm uniformly distributed in the nanocomposite specimen containing about 10 wt % of Si. The nanocomposite specimens exhibited satisfactory thermal stability that they had 5% weight loss decomposition temperatures higher than 150°C and coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) less than 35 ppm/°C. Analysis via derivative thermogravimetry (DTG) indicated that the crosslinked esters/anhydrides might influence the thermal stability of nanocomposite samples. The UV‐visible spectroscopy indicated that the nanocomposite resins possess transmittance higher than 80% in visible light region. Permeability test revealed a higher moisture permeation resistance for nanocomposite samples, which indicated that the implantation of nano‐scale silica particles in polymer matrix forms effective barrier to moisture penetration. Adhesion test of nanocomposite samples on glass substrate showed at least twofold improvement of adhesion strength compared with oligomer. This evidenced that the silica and the hydrophilic segments in nanocomposite resins might form interchains hydrogen bonds with the ? OH groups on the surface of glass so the substantial enhancement of adhesion strength could be achieved. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2007     

Nanocrystalline diamond coating tools for machining high-strength Al alloys

Diamond coating tools have been increasingly used for machining advanced materials. Recently, a microwave plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technology was developed to produce diamond coatings which consist of nano-diamond crystals embedded into a hard amorphous diamond-like carbon matrix. In this study, the nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) coating tools were evaluated in machining high-strength aluminum (Al) alloy. The conventional CVD microcrystalline diamond coating (MCD) tools and PCD tools were also tested for performance comparisons. In addition, stress distributions in diamond coating tools, after deposition and during machining, were analyzed using a 2D finite element (FE) thermomechanical model.

The results show that catastrophic failures, reached in all except one machining conditions, limit the NCD tool life, which is primarily affected by the cutting speed. In addition, coating delamination in the worn NCD tools is clearly evident from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and force monitoring in machining can capture the delamination incident. At a high feed, coating delamination may extend to the rake face. Furthermore, SEM observations of coating failure boundaries show intimate coating-substrate contact. Though the NCD tools are inferior to the PCD tools, they substantially outperform the MCD tools, which failed by premature delamination. The diamond coating tools can have high residual stresses from the deposition and stresses at the cutting edge are highly augmented. Further machining loading causes the stress reversal pattern which seems to correlate with the tool wear severity.     

Study of the Performance of Stainless Steel A-TIG Welds

The purpose of the present work was to investigate the effect of oxide fluxes on weld morphology, arc voltage, mechanical properties, angular distortion and hot cracking susceptibility obtained with TIG welding, which applied to the welding of 5 mm thick austenitic stainless steel plates. A novel variant of the autogenous TIG welding process, oxide powders (Al₂O₃, Cr₂O₃, TiO₂, SiO₂ and CaO) was applied on a type 304 stainless steel through a thin layer of the flux to produce a bead on plate welds. The experimental results indicated that the increase in the penetration is significant with the use of Cr₂O₃, TiO₂, and SiO₂. A-TIG welding can increase the weld depth to bead-width ratio, and tends to reduce the angular distortion of the weldment. It was also found that A-TIG welding can increase the retained delta-ferrite content of stainless steel 304 welds and, in consequence, the hot-cracking susceptibility of as-welded is reduced. Physically constricting the plasma column and reducing the anode spot are the possible mechanism for the effect of certain flux on A-TIG penetration.     

SOME ASPECTS OF THE THERMODYNAMICS OF MELTS

为了从二元系中两组元活度的测定值之比求得该两组元的活度值,导出了一个变通的 Gibbs-Duhem 方程式,并在 PbCl_2-SnCl_2,PbCl_2-CdCl_2,AgCl-CuCl,Cu_2S-FeS,PbO-BiO_(1.5),PbO-SbO_(1.5),CaO-CaF_2及 CaO-SiO_2-CaF_2等冶金熔体中得到应用.多年前所发展的从 Ag 和 Pb 二元相图求得两组元活度的方法已扩大到含有单个 AB 化合物的二元系.用这一方法已求得 In-Sb 和 Sn-Te 系中各组元的活度.在研究某些黑色冶金渣与金属间的平衡时,用一适当选择的非铁金属代替 Fe作为熔剂金属有助于克服某些实验上的困难.采用 Sn 或 Cu 与熔渣平衡研究了 CaO-SiO_2,CaO-Al_2O_3和 CaO-SiO_2-Al_2O_3体系.对 CaO-SiO_2二元系获得的数据可以认为具有足够的准确度来验证 Masson 模型的合理性.     

羟基磷灰石/β-磷酸三钙/海藻酸钠复合多孔支架的制备与研究

本文讨论了羟基磷灰石/β-磷酸三钙/海藻酸钠(HAP/β-TCP/AG)多孔支架的制备,并通过电子显微镜观察了其微观结构、研究其干细胞亲和性和生物相容性。研究表明:该多孔支架具有三维连通网状结构,干细胞在支架上黏附、生长良好,具有良好的干细胞亲和性和生物相容性。     

A Kinetic Model for Oxidation of Si–Al–O–N Materials

In this paper a new model has been proposed to describe the oxidation of Si–Al–O–N materials in both isothermal and non-isothermal conditions in the form of powders and pellets. All these formulae are analytic with a form of explicit function; therefore, they are not only easy to use but also enable the easy performance of a theoretical analysis. The application of these formulae to practical systems shows that this model is feasible; moreover, these formulae can not only be used to treat the oxidation for Si–Al–O–N materials but also be applied to treat reactions in other fields of materials.     

Interfacial Reactions and Bonding Strength of Sn-xAg-0.5Cu/Ni BGA Solder Joints

The present study details the microstructure evolution of the interfacial intermetallic compounds (IMCs) layer formed between the Sn-xAg-0.5Cu (x = 1, 3, and 4 wt.%) solder balls and electroless Ni-P layer, and their bond strength variation during aging. The interfacial IMCs layer in the as-reflowed specimens was only (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ for Sn-xAg-0.5Cu solders. The (Ni,Cu)₃Sn₄ IMCs layer formed when Sn-4Ag-0.5Cu and Sn-3Ag-0.5Cu solders were used as aging time increased. However, only (Cu,Ni)₆Sn₅ IMCs formed in Sn-1Ag-0.5Cu solders, when the aging time was extended beyond 1500 h. Two factors are expected to influence bond strength and fracture modes. One of the factors is that the interfacial (Ni,Cu)₃Sn₄ IMCs formed at the interface and the fact that fracture occurs along the interface. The other factor is Ag₃Sn IMCs coarsening in the solder matrix, and fracture reveals the ductility of the solder balls. The above analysis indicates that during aging, the formation of interfacial (Ni,Cu)₃Sn₄ IMCs layers strongly influences the pull strength and the fracture behavior of a solder joint. This fact demonstrates that interfacial layers are key to understanding the changes in bonding strength. Additionally, comparison of the bond strength with various Sn-Ag-Cu lead-free solders for various Ag contents show that the Sn-1Ag-0.5Cu solder joint is not sensitive to extended aging time.     

iRSpot-TNCPseAAC: Identify Recombination Spots with Trinucleotide Composition and Pseudo Amino Acid Components

Meiosis and recombination are the two opposite aspects that coexist in a DNA system. As a driving force for evolution by generating natural genetic variations, meiotic recombination plays a very important role in the formation of eggs and sperm. Interestingly, the recombination does not occur randomly across a genome, but with higher probability in some genomic regions called “hotspots”, while with lower probability in so-called “coldspots”. With the ever-increasing amount of genome sequence data in the postgenomic era, computational methods for effectively identifying the hotspots and coldspots have become urgent as they can timely provide us with useful insights into the mechanism of meiotic recombination and the process of genome evolution as well. To meet the need, we developed a new predictor called “iRSpot-TNCPseAAC”, in which a DNA sample was formulated by combining its trinucleotide composition (TNC) and the pseudo amino acid components (PseAAC) of the protein translated from the DNA sample according to its genetic codes. The former was used to incorporate its local or short-rage sequence order information; while the latter, its global and long-range one. Compared with the best existing predictor in this area, iRSpot-TNCPseAAC achieved higher rates in accuracy, Mathew’s correlation coefficient, and sensitivity, indicating that the new predictor may become a useful tool for identifying the recombination hotspots and coldspots, or, at least, become a complementary tool to the existing methods. It has not escaped our notice that the aforementioned novel approach to incorporate the DNA sequence order information into a discrete model may also be used for many other genome analysis problems. The web-server for iRSpot-TNCPseAAC is available at http://www.jci-bioinfo.cn/iRSpot-TNCPseAAC. Furthermore, for the convenience of the vast majority of experimental scientists, a step-by-step guide is provided on how to use the current web server to obtain their desired result without the need to follow the complicated mathematical equations.     

An integrated experimental approach to link a laser digitiser, a CAD/CAM system and a rapid prototyping system for biomedical applications

This study is carried out to develop a direct link between a laser digitiser and a rapid prototyping system for biomedical applications. Two CAD/CAM systems, DUCT and Pro-Engineer, are investigated and the DUCT system is found to be more suitable for this purpose. A laser digitiser is used to capture three-dimensional surface data for the object. With the aid of the CAD/CAM system, the data can be manipulated in a number of ways for display, modification and enhancement. In addition, the object scanned by the laser digitiser can be physically produced relatively quickly and accurately using StereoLithography Apparatus (SLA), a leading rapid prototyping system. Feasible and practical solutions to the problems encountered in the CAD surface model construction are proposed and illustrated. Two case studies, a facial and a breast model, are presented. Results show that this integrated approach can be applied effectively in the biomedical field.