Effect of different precooking methods on chemical composition and lipid damage of silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) muscle

The influence of three precooking methods (steaming, oven‐baking and microwave‐cooking) on the chemical composition and lipid quality of silver carp fillets was evaluated. The changes in protein, fat and moisture were found to be significant for all the treatments (P ≤ 0.05). The iron content in the samples subjected to steam‐cooking increased; however, the other precooking methods did not change the mineral contents (P ≥ 0.05). The free fatty acid content of the fillets did not change by the different precooking methods, while thiobarbituric acid (TBA) values increased for oven‐ and microwave‐cooked fillets and remained constant in the steam‐cooked samples. Conjugated diene and browning colour formation levels significantly increased in the oven‐baked fillets. Oven‐baking and microwave‐cooking marginally affected the fatty acid composition of the silver carp. On comparing the raw and precooked fillets, steam‐cooking was found to be the best precooking method on retaining nutritional constituents.     

Design of a small single-purpose nuclear desalination plant compatible with the local resources in the middle east

Present plans in the Middle East involve the construction of several nuclear power plants with desalination capabilities to provide power and water to meet the requirements of the anticipated growth in the industrial sector and development of new settlements to improve the socio-economical aspects of population distribution. This effort has been matched by a program initiated by the Development Consultants Association (DCA) to provide the necessary training, manpower and expertise necessary for adequate involvement in siting, design, construction and operation of both nuclear and desalination plants.

In this paper results of the preliminary stages of the design of a 2.6 million gallons per day (1000 cubic meters/day) single-purpose 40 MW thermal MSF-heavy water nuclear plant are reported. Design objectives and philosophy are reviewed. A descriprion is given of the neutronic, thermal, control and mechanical design parameters of the plant. The design is based on utilization of available local material, technology and manpower. The feasibility of production of heavy water in the fertilizer production plants and the extraction of natural uranium from the phospahate mines on the Red Sea coast are considered pointing out further stages of development and future plans.     

Corrosion behavior of pure Mg and AZ31 magnesium alloy

Protection of Metals and Physical Chemistry of Surfaces - Purpose of this article is to study corrosion behavior of pure magnesium and AZ31 magnesium alloy in electrolyte containing different...     

Estimation of research reactor core parameters using cascade feed forward artificial neural networks

The pattern of the core reload program is very important for an optimize use of research reactors. Reactor safety issues and economic efficiency should be considered during pattern studies. In order to find the best core pattern for a research reactor, its reloading program should be solved as a multi-objective and constrained optimization problem. If considered objective functions of the optimization problem can be estimated in very short time, the optimal fuel reloading pattern can be used effectively. In this research a very fast estimation system for suggested core parameters has been developed using cascade feed-forward type of artificial neural networks (ANNs). Four main core parameters are suggested to optimize reactor core adequately. And also to get larger thermal fluxes in the desired irradiation box, a new flexible method was selected. A Software package has been developed to prepare and reform required data for ANNs training. The gradient descent method with momentum weight/bias learning rule has been used to train ANNs. To get the best conditions for considered ANNs training a vast study has been performed. It includes the effects of variation of hidden neurons, hidden layers, activation functions, learning and momentum coefficients, and also the number of training data sets on the training and simulation results. Some experimental convergence criteria are used to study them. A comparison selection rule has been used to adjust desirable conditions. Final training and simulation results show that developed ANNs can be trained and estimate suggested core parameters of research reactors very quickly. It improves effectively pattern optimization process of core reload program.     

Solving Detour‐Based Fuel Stations Location Problems

This article studies the problem of locating fuel stations to minimize the extra cost spent in refueling detours, which belongs to a class of discretionary service facility location problems. Unlike many studies of similar problems in the literature, the proposed model considers capacity constraints and compares different ways to incorporate them in the formulation. Note that ignoring the capacity constraint results in nonoptimal and unrealistic solutions. The proposed models are solved using both an off‐the‐shelf solver (CPLEX) and a specialized meta‐heuristic method (Simulated Annealing) developed in this study. The solution methods are tested and compared in two case studies; a test benchmark network and a large‐scale network. An effort to overcome the memory limitation of CPLEX through more compact formulation was partially successful: it results in a model that is less tightly bounded by its linear relaxation and hence is much more difficult to solve. In contrast, the Simulated Annealing algorithm scales better and is able to consistently yield high‐quality solutions with a reasonable amount of computation time.     

SiO2-covered graphene oxide nanohybrids for in situ preparation of UHMWPE/GO(SiO2) nanocomposites with superior mechanical and tribological properties

The modified Hummer technique was used in the preparation of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets, and then SiO₂ decorated GO [GO(SiO₂)] nanosheets were synthesized via the sol–gel method. Then, ultrahigh-molecular-weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) nanocomposites loaded with 0.5, 1, 1.5, and 2 wt % of GO(SiO₂) were prepared using magnesium ethoxide/GO(SiO₂)-supported Ziegler–Natta catalysts via the in situ polymerization. Morphological study of the prepared polymer powders was assessed using field-emission scanning electron microscopy, which showed that GO(SiO₂) nanohybrids have been uniformly dispersed and distributed into the UHMWPE matrix. Also, the neat UHMWPE and its nanocomposites were evaluated with different analyses, including viscosity-average molecular weight measurement, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, tensile test, scratch hardness, and pin-on-disk test. The characterization of the UHMWPE nanocomposites indicated that many characterizations, including the mechanical, thermal, and tribological properties of UHMWPE, were significantly improved by incorporation of these new nanosheets in spite of the molecular weight reduction of the polymeric matrix and the improved flowability and processability of the produced nanocomposite. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47796.     

Experimental comparison of two configurations of hybrid photovoltaic thermal collectors

The combination of a thermal collector and a photovoltaic module in a single system allows for increased efficiency of the total conversion of solar energy. A synergistic effect can be obtained in a structure combining these two devices in a judicious manner to those of thermal and photovoltaic system installed separately. Production of total energy from hybrid collector depends on the input (that is to say, the. energy of solar radiation, air temperature and wind speed) and output which is the electric production and the temperature of the system. Thin production also depends on the mode of heal extraction. In this paper, an experimental Study of two configurations of hybrid collectors is described. The configuration that the absorber is made by galvanized steel and in the second, the absorber is a copper serpentine. The advantages of the first configuration are mainly due to low cost and simplicity but the second configuration has the advantage of promoting the heat transfer between cells and fluid.