Study of kinematics and dynamics of film blowing of different polyethylenes

An extensive experimental study of the effects of material characteristics and processing parameters on the kinematics and dynamics of film blowing is presented. Three polyethylene resins, a high-density polyethylene (HDPE), a low-density polyethylene (LDPE), and a linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) were investigated. The convergent flow analysis of Cogswell was used to characterize the elongational flow behavior of the polymers. Strain rates and pressure inside the bubble (P_i) have been determined over a wide range of film blowing conditions. Moreover, on-line bubble temperature and birefringence measurements have been carried out along the length of the bubble. The experimental results reveal that the three polymers display different behaviors. The LLDPE requires the highest P_i value and the LDPE, the lowest. Consistent with this, the LLDPE shows the lowest in-plane birefringence and the LDPE, the highest. Interactions between various process parameters affecting the P_i value are characterized. Bubble instability is correlated to the apparent uniaxial elongational viscosity and P_i. The most stable polymer (LDPE) has the highest elongational viscosity and requires the lowest P_i. Stresses have been calculated with the help of the birefringence and P_i data. The stress and strain rate data were used to calculate an apparent nonuniform biaxial elongational viscosity of the melts, but could not be correlated through any simple constitutive equation.     

Cell structure and dynamic properties of injection molded polypropylene foams

The cell structure and properties of branched and linear polypropylene (PP) foams containing organically modified nanoclay and maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PPMA) have been thoroughly investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and melt rheometry were used to identify the structure and linear viscoelastic properties of the nanocomposites, as well as the effectiveness of two different compatibilizers. These nanocomposites were used in injection molding to investigate their foamability and the influence of experimental conditions such as chemical foaming agent concentration, shot size, back pressure, injection speed, as well as melt temperature and different injection methods on the resulting cell structure of the foams. Quite different results were obtained with the linear and the branched PP. While the foamability of the branched PP was intrinsically good, that of the linear one could largely be improved by modifying its rheological properties and favoring nucleation through the addition of nanoclay. The effect of cell structure on the dynamic mechanical properties of the foams was also investigated using dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). POLYM. ENG. SCI., 47:1070–1081, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Mixing in the transition flow regime with helical ribbon agitators

The effects of the non-Newtonian properties on the effective deformation rate, mixing and circulation times and flow behaviour have been investigated in the transition flow regime of mixing systems. Based on the equivalent Couette flow, three models are proposed and are shown to predict similar and drastic increases of the effective deformation rate with the impeller rotational speed in the transition regime. The predictions are shown to fit very well data obtained for various non-Newtonian fluids mixed with helical ribbon agitators, and with literature data for anchor, blade turbine and flat disc agitators. The elasticity along with shear-thinning properties appear to have slight effects on the dimensionless mixing and circulation times in the transition regime, whereas their effects in the laminar regime are quite drastic, as reported by others.     

Ultrafast imaging of polyatomic molecules with simplex algorithm

A simplex algorithm used to solve molecular structure from asymptotic momentum values is reported. The geometry of ${\text{CO}}_2^{3+}$ molecular ions in linear and bent configurations is reconstructed. A polyatomic molecular ion with trigonal planar symmetry is used to demonstrate the scalability of the algorithm.     

Enzymatic competition: Modeling and verification with timed hybrid petri nets

The formalism of hybrid functional petri nets (HFPN) has proved its convenience for simulating biological systems. The drawback of the noticeable expressiveness of HFPN is the difficulty to perform formal verifications of dynamical properties. In this article, we propose a model-checking procedure for timed hybrid petri nets (THPN), a sub-class of HFPN. This procedure is based on the translation of the THPN model and of the studied property into real-time automata. It is applied to model enzymatic competitions existing in amphibian metamorphosis.     

同步语言的时间可预测多线程代码生成方法

能够提供更强计算能力的多核处理器将在安全关键系统中得到广泛应用.但是,由于现代处理器所使用的流水线、乱序执行、动态分支预测、Cache等性能提高机制以及多核之间的资源共享,使得系统的最坏执行时间分析变得非常困难.为此,国际学术界提出时间可预测系统设计的思想,以降低系统的最坏执行时间分析难度.已有研究主要关注硬件层次及其编译方法的调整和优化,而较少关注软件层次,即时间可预测多线程代码的构造方法以及到多核硬件平台的映射.本文提出一种基于同步语言模型驱动的时间可预测多线程代码生成方法,并对代码生成器的语义保持进行证明;提出一种基于AADL(Architecture Analysis and Design Language)的时间可预测多核体系结构模型,作为本文研究的目标平台;最后,给出多线程代码到多核体系结构模型的映射方法,并给出系统性质的分析框架.     

A gradient-based path optimization method for motion planning

Most algorithms in probabilistic sampling-based path planning compute collision-free paths made of straight line segments lying in the configuration space. Due to the randomness of sampling, the paths make detours that need to be optimized. The contribution of this paper is to propose a basic gradient-based algorithm that transforms a polygonal collision-free path into a shorter one. While requiring only collision checking, and not any time-consuming obstacle distance computation nor geometry simplification, we constrain only part of the configuration variables that may cause a collision, and not entire configurations. Thus, parasite motions that are not useful for the problem resolution are reduced without any assumption. Experimental results include navigation and manipulation tasks, eg a manipulator arm-filling boxes and a PR2 robot working in a kitchen environment. Comparisons with a random shortcut optimizer and a partial shortcut have also been studied.     

Maintaining strong mutual visibility of an evader moving over the reduced visibility graph

In this paper, we address the problem of determining whether a mobile robot, called the pursuer, is able to maintain strong mutual visibility (a visibility notion between regions over a convex partition of the environment) of an antagonist agent, called the evader. We frame the problem as a non cooperative game. We consider the case in which the pursuer and the evader move at bounded speed, traveling in a known polygonal environment with or without holes, and in which there are no restrictions as to the distance that might separate the agents. Unlike our previous efforts (Murrieta-Cid et al. in Int J Robot Res 26:233–253, 2007), we give special attention to the combinatorial problem that arises when searching for a solution through visiting several locations in an environment with obstacles. In this paper we take a step further, namely, we assume an antagonistic evader who moves continuously and unpredictably, but with a constraint over its set of admissible motion policies, as the evader moves in the shortest-path roadmap, also called the reduced visibility graph (RVG). The pursuer does not know which among the possible paths over the RVG the evader will choose, but the pursuer is free to move within all the environment. We provide a constructive method to solve the decision problem of determining whether or not the pursuer is able to maintain strong mutual visibility of the evader. This method is based on an algorithm that computes the safe areas (areas that keep evader surveillance) at all times. We prove decidability of this problem, and provide a complexity measure to this evader surveillance game; both contributions hold for any general polygonal environment that might or not contain holes. All our algorithms have been implemented and we show simulation results.     

A multiphase compressible model for the simulation of multiphase flows

A compressible model able to manage incompressible two-phase flows as well as compressible motions is proposed. After a presentation of the multiphase compressible concept, the new model and related numerical methods are detailed on fixed structured grids. The presented model is a 1-fluid model with a reformulated mass conservation equation which takes into account the effects of compressibility. The coupling between pressure and flow velocity is ensured by introducing mass conservation terms in the momentum and energy equations. The numerical model is then validated with four test cases involving the compression of an air bubble by water, the liquid injection in a closed cavity filled with air, a bubble subjected to an ultrasound field and finally the oscillations of a deformed air bubble in melted steel. The numerical results are compared with analytical results and convergence orders in space are provided.     

A local approach to concept generation

Generating concepts defined by a binary relation between a set of properties and a set of objects is one of the important current problems encountered in Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery in Databases. We present a new algorithmic process which computes all the concepts, without requiring an exponential-size data structure, and with a good worst-time complexity analysis, which makes it competitive with the best existing algorithms for this problem. Our algorithm can be used to compute the edges of the lattice as well at no extra cost.