Enhancement of interlaminar fracture toughness of carbon fiber–epoxy composites using polyamide‐6,6 electrospun nanofibers

In this study, carbon fiber–epoxy composites are interleaved with electrospun polyamide‐6,6 (PA 66) nanofibers to improve their Mode‐I fracture toughness. These nanofibers are directly deposited onto carbon fabrics before composite manufacturing via vacuum infusion. Three‐point bending, tensile, compression, interlaminar shear strength, Charpy impact, and double cantilever beam tests are performed on the reference and PA 66 interleaved specimens to evaluate the effects of PA 66 nanofibers on the mechanical properties of composites. To investigate the effect of nanofiber areal weight density (AWD), nanointerlayers with various AWD are prepared by changing the electrospinning duration. It is found that the electrospun PA 66 nanofibers are very effective in improving Mode‐I toughness and impact resistance, compressive strength, flexural modulus, and strength of the composites. However, these nanofibers cause a decrease in the tensile strength of the composites. The glass‐transition temperature of the composites is not affected by the addition of PA 66 nanofibers. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2017 , 134, 45244.     

Cu, Cr and As distribution in soils adjacent to CCA-treated utility poles in Eastern Blacksea Region of Turkey

In this study, the main objective was to asses the distribution of Cu, Cr, and As in soils adjacent to CCA-treated utility poles in Eastern Blacksea Region of Turkey (Trabzon, Rize and Artvin ) and determine the influence of soil composition.

Surface (0–5 cm) and subsurface soil samples (30–40 cm) were collected near CCA-treated utility poles and control soil samples away from CCA-treated utility poles were also collected. Water holding capacity, pH and mechanical properties of soil samples were determined for both depth levels.

Results showed that Cu, Cr and As concentration in soil samples taken from all three cities in 0–5 cm depth was higher than soil samples taken from 30–40 cm depth. Cu, Cr and As concentrations were much higher in soil samples taken from city of Rize     

Buckling lengths of irregular frame columns

In several design codes and specifications, simplified formulae and diagrams are given for determining the buckling lengths of frame columns. It is shown that these formulae may yield rather erroneous results, especially for irregular frames. This is due to the fact that the code formulae utilise only local stiffness distributions. In this paper, a simplified procedure for determining approximate values for the buckling loads of both regular and irregular frames is developed. The procedure utilises lateral load analysis of frames and yields errors on the order of 5%, which may be considered suitable for design purposes. The proposed procedure is applied to several numerical examples and it is shown that all the errors are in the acceptable range and on the safe side.     

The effect of additives on the oxidation stability of biodiesel

In the present study, it was aimed to examine the degradation of biodiesel and the changes that occur in the cold flow characteristics of biodiesel obtained from safflower oil as a result of the modification of the production process steps that leads to a state in which the process is not realized completely despite the addition of antioxidant additives that stabilize the cold flow characteristics of the fuel and the effects of the modification of the production process steps on fuel characteristics. The study is focused on the modification of the production process. Some samples showed very rapid decomposition in the first 3 hours but the rest took nearly 3 days to reach 200 microsiemens. But then the derivative this value due to the rate of oxidation 0.04 h showed.     

2-D DOA estimation in case of unknown mutual coupling for multipath signals

In this paper, two dimensional (2-D) direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation problem in case of unknown mutual coupling and multipath signals is investigated for antenna arrays. A new technique is proposed which uses a special array structure consisting of parallel uniform linear array (PULA). PULA structure is complemented with auxiliary antennas in order to have a structured mutual coupling matrix (MCM). MCM has a symmetric banded Toeplitz structure which allows the application of the ESPRIT algorithm for 2-D paired DOA estimation. The advantage of the PULA structure is exploited by dividing it into overlapping linear sub-arrays (triplets) and spatial smoothing is employed to mitigate multipath signals. Closed form expressions are presented for search-free, paired and unambiguous 2-D DOA estimation. Two algorithms PULA-1 and PULA-2 are proposed to effectively solve the problem. Several simulations are done and the accuracy of the proposed solution is shown.     

Effect of Al2O3 Additions on the Thermal Expansion Behavior of a Li2O-ZnO-SiO2 Glass-Ceramic

The effect of Al₂O₃ substitution on the thermal expansion behavior of a Li₂O-ZnO-SiO₂ glass-ceramic was investigated using differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffractometry, and dilatometry. The coefficient of thermal expansion of the original Al₂O₃-free glass-ceramic measured between 20° and 900°C decreased from 12.4 × 10^-6°C^-1 to 6.3 × 10^-6°C^-1 with Al₂O₃ substitution for ZnO up to 11 wt%. The results were correlated to the changes in the phase assemblage with Al₂O₃ addition.     

First-Principles Calculations on Structure,Elastic and Thermodynamic Properties of Al2X （X=Sc,Y） under Pressure

To understand deeply the structural,elastic and thermodynamic characteristics of Al 2 X (X= Sc,Y) compounds in C15 type (space number 227) Cu 2 Mg structure,we have performed ab-initio density functional theory within the local density approximation (LDA) and the generalized gradient approximation (GGA).The thermodynamic properties of the considered structures are obtained through the quasi-harmonic Debye model.We have presented the results on the basic physical parameters,such as the lattice constant,bulk modulus,pressure derivative of bulk modulus,second-order elastic constants,Zener anisotropy factor,Poisson s ratio,Young s modulus,and isotropic shear modulus.In order to gain further information,the pressure-and temperature-dependent behaviour of the volume,bulk modulus,thermal expansion coefficient,heat capacity,entropy,Debye temperature and Gru¨neisen parameter were also evaluated over a pressure range of 0-20 GPa for Al 2 Sc and 0-17 GPa for Al 2 Y compound and a wide temperature range of 0-2000 K for both compounds.The obtained results were compared with the other reported values.     

The first catalytic hydrolysis of ethylenediamine bisborane with hydrogel-supported metallic nanoparticles

Ethylene diamine bisborane (EDB) was synthesized in a single step as the hydrogen storage material. The synthesized compound was firstly used in the literature for the production of hydrogen gas by catalytic hydrolysis reaction. Cu, Co and Ni nanoparticles with average sizes of 75–150 nm formed in p(acrylicacid-co-vinylimidazole) hydrogel network structures were used as catalysts for the hydrolysis reaction. The effect of the parameters such as catalyst type, EDB concentration, catalyst concentration, temperature and solvent environment on the catalytic hydrolysis reaction of EDB was investigated. In the activity tests for the catalyst, it was determined that the catalyst had a loss of only 15% in activity even at the end of 5 cycles. The activation energies of hydrolysis reaction were calculated as 39.42 kJmol^–1, 44.77 kJmol^–1 and 47.48 kJmol^–1 for Cu, Co and Ni hydrogel composite catalyst, respectively.     

Degradation kinetics of β-carotene in carrot slices during convective drying

The β-carotene degradation was investigated in carrot (Daucus carota L. cv Nantes) slices during convective drying at three temperatures (45, 55, and 65°C) at an airflow rate of 0.2 m s^–1. Degradation kinetics of β-carotene in carrot slices during convective drying followed a first-order reaction. Drying temperature showed a significant effect on the degradation of β-carotene in carrot slices. The range of the reaction rate constants for β-carotene loses were 0.23 ± 0.08 –0.48 ± 0.04 h^–1. The activation energy of β-carotene degradation is found 33.33 ± 0.05 kJ mol^–1. Half-life time was calculated as 3.02 ± 0.04 h at 45°C, which dropped to 1.43 ± 0.03 h at 65°C.     

High Temperature Deformation Behavior of 4340 Steel: Activation Energy Calculation and Modeling of Flow Response

The 4340 steel is extensively utilized in several industries including automotive and aerospace for manufacturing a large number of structural components. Due to the importance of thermo-mechanical processing in the production of steels, the dynamic recrystallization (DRX) characteristics of 4340 steel were investigated. Namely, hot compression tests on 4340 steel have been performed in a temperature range of 900–1200 °C and a strain rate range of 0. 01–1 s^?1 and the strain of up to 0. 9. The resulting flow stress curves show the occurrence of dynamic recrystallization. The flow stress values decrease with the increase of deformation temperature and the decrease of strain rate. The microstructure of 4340 steel after deformation has been studied and it is suggested that the evolution of DRX grain structures can be accompanied by considerable migration of grain boundaries. The constitutive equations were developed to model the hot deformation behavior. Finally based on the classical stress-dislocation relations and the kinematics of the dynamic recrystallization; the flow stress constitutive equations for the dynamic recovery period and dynamic recrystallization period were derived for 4340 steel, respectively. The validity of the model was demonstrated by demonstrating the experimental data with the numerical results with reasonable agreement.