Design of thermophoretic probe for precise particle sampling

We proposed a design methodology for improved thermophoretic probes that can sample particles with high spatial resolution. A bending vibration analysis for the instantaneous motion of a probe has been done together with direct observation of the probe motion and flow disturbance for systematic study of the effect of different designs on particle sampling. Direct observation of the motion of thermophoretic sampling probes revealed that the probe with a low stiffness would result in inaccurate particle sampling. Based on these, the thermophoretic sampling probe was modified to minimize probe vibration and flow disturbance and this modified design was confirmed to sample particles with higher spatial resolution than the original one by examining transmission electron microscope (TEM) images of particles collected in a flame.     

A positive‐working photosensitive polyimide based on thermal cross‐linking and acidolytic cleavage

A novel positive‐working photosensitive polyimide (PSPI) based on a poly(hydroxyimide) (PHI), a crosslinking agent having vinyl ether groups, and a photoacid generator (PAG) was prepared. The PHI as a base resin of the three‐component PSPI was synthesized from 4,4′‐oxydiphthalic anhydride and 2,2′‐bis(3‐amino‐4‐hydroxyphenyl)hexafluoropropane through ring‐opening polymerization and subsequent thermal cyclization. 2,2′‐bis(4‐(2‐(vinyloxy)ethoxy)phenyl)propane (BPA‐DEVE) was used as a vinylether compound and diphenyliodonium 5‐hydroxynaphthalene‐1‐sulfonate was used as a PAG. The phenolic hydroxyl groups of the PHI and the vinyl ether groups of BPA‐DEVE are thermally crosslinked with acetal structures during prebake step, and the crosslinked PHI becomes completely insoluble in an aqueous basic solution. Upon exposure to UV light (365 nm) and subsequent postexposure bake (PEB), a strong acid generated from the PAG cleaves the crosslinked structures, and the exposed area is effectively solubilized in the alkaline developer. The dissolution behavior of the PSPI containing each 11.5 wt % of BPA‐DEVE and of the PAG was studied after UV exposure (365 nm) and PEB. It was found that the difference in dissolution rates between exposed and unexposed areas was enough to get high resolution. A fine positive pattern with a resolution of 5 μm in a 3.7‐μm‐thick film was obtained from the three‐component PSPI. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Preparation of aligned polyetherimide fiber by electrospinning

Fifteen to 20 wt % polyetherimide (PEI) solutions with 1-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP) were prepared. The electrical conductivity and surface tension of the solutions were determined. The fiber spinning technique of electrospinning was optimized in order to prepare unidirectionally aligned, structurally oriented nanofiber tows. The morphology of the PEI fibers was investigated using field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The well-aligned fibers with diameters between 0.58 and 0.90 μm (FESEM) were collected by electrospinning 20 wt % PEI solutions with NMP in the range of 8–10 kV onto a target rotating with a surface velocity 9.8 m/s. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

Synthesis and characterization of a novel proton‐exchange membrane for fuel cells operating at high temperatures and low humidities

The synthesis of a p‐toluidine/formaldehyde (PTF) resin was performed, and the effects of the molar ratio of the individual monomers and the polymerization conditions on the structure of the PTF resin were studied. Fourier transform infrared and ¹³C‐NMR spectra were used to characterize the PTF. Wide‐angle X‐ray diffraction patterns revealed the crystalline structures of various PTFs. Polarized optical microscopy revealed that the molar ratio of the monomers had a strong effect on the crystalline morphologies. A longer polymerization time turned out a polymer with a higher intrinsic viscosity and molecular weight, which led to differences in the proton conductivity. All of the PTFs showed a higher proton conductivity than a commercial Nafion membrane at 90–100°C and 0% relative humidity. The proton conductivity of the PTF series could be improved by sulfonation with sulfuric acid and could be maintained after blending with polyurethane. Pure methanol could be used as a fuel source because of the insolubility and nonwetting properties of PTF in methanol to increase the output current density for a PTF membrane electrode assembly. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2008     

Structure and processability of iodinated poly(vinyl alcohol). IV. Drawability of the films iodinated at solution before casting

The drawability of iodinated at solution before casting (IBC) polyvinyl alcohol films prepared by casting aqueous solutions of 10 wt % PVA containing 15.2, 39.8, 83.2, 117.0, and 140.1% was examined with a tensile tester at 20–60°C. The tensile behavior of IBC films showed that the yield and breaking loads were much lower, and the breaking elongation was even higher than those of the unoriented iodinated after casting (IAC) films as well as the untreated PVA films. The maximum draw ratios of the films with the weight gain of 15.2, 39.8, 83.2, 117, and 140.1% were 4.5, 5.5, 8.5, 8.0, and 7.5, respectively, which were achieved at 20°C in all. The crystallinity of all films increased by the maximum draw, regardless of crystallinity before drawing. The crystalline structure was recovered to the original PVA crystalline lattice by deiodination. Amorphous orientation and initial moduli increased with the maximum draw ratio, while the orientation of crystals was constant. The orientation and moduli increased up to the weight gain of 83.2%, whose highest draw ratio and initial modulus were 8.5 and of 7.1 GPa, respectively, and then decreased. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2008     

A clustering approach for identifying and quantifying irregularities in interconnection networks

Support for arbitrary topologies has become more popular for system-area networks but very little has been done in trying to characterize their behavior and performance. Traditional parameters like diameter and bisection width are not sufficient for characterizing the irregularities that abound in such networks and fail to give much insight into throughput performance. A clustering approach for partitioning a network into clusters of richly-connected regions is proposed as a means of defining two performance-correlated characterization metrics: intercluster bandwidth index and intercluster link-cost index. The two characterization metrics are shown to have a strong correlation to saturation throughput when link and load distribution of a network is imbalanced. Simulation results also show that the clustering algorithm can be applied to a variety of network configurations and traffic scenarios, particularly irregular ones. With the proposed characterization metrics that correlate more strongly with performance, it is possible to classify networks into categories having similar performance.     

WARD: a transmission control protocol-friendly stateless active queue management scheme

In this article, the problem of providing a fair bandwidth allocation to the flows sharing a congested link in a router is investigated. Queue management, bandwidth share and congestion control are very important to both the robustness and fairness of the Internet. The buffer at the outgoing link is a simple FIFO, shared by packets belonging to the flows. A new transmission control protocol (TCP)-friendly router-based active queue management scheme, termed WARD, is proposed to approximate the fair queueing policy. WARD is a simple packet-dropping algorithm with a random mechanism which discriminates against flows that submit more packets per second than is allowed as their fair share. By doing this, it not only protects TCP connections from user datagram protocol flows, but also solves the problem of competing bandwidth among different TCP versions, such as TCP Vegas and TCP Reno. In addition, WARD works quite well for TCP flow isolation even with different round trip times. In other words, WARD improves the unfair bandwidth allocation properties. Furthermore, as it is stateless and easy to implement, WARD controls unresponsive or misbehaving flows with only a minimum overhead.     

New approach to enhance adhesions between carbon nanotube emitters and substrate by the combination of electrophoresis and successive electroplating

Complementary electroplating combined with electrophoresis enhanced the field emission characteristics of emitters by improving the adhesions between CNT emitters and substrate. The emitting current of the CNT emitters prepared by our combined method increased nine times higher than that of CNT emitters prepared by electrophoresis only, since electroplating improved the adhesion of CNT emitters. During the life-time measurement for 10 h, the emitting current of CNT emitters fabricated by electrophoresis only was drastically decreased to 13% of the initial current, while that prepared by the combination of electrophoresis and successive electroplating decreased to 64% of the initial current. We suggest that our method is a promising approach for the efficient fabrication of reliable CNT emitters.     

Development of a Profit-Based Air Cargo Loading Information System

In today's competitive logistics business environment, airfreight forwarders need to optimize every aspect of their logistics operations. However, forwarders still heavily rely on human brain and working experiences for calculating complex cargo packing and scheduling problems. Although recent research studies related to cargo packing and scheduling problems have resulted in the development of a number of advanced techniques of cargo planning, it can be seen that most of the research work is focused on the optimization of space in order to achieve the maximum possible amount of cargo to be packed in the minimum of space. After numerous site evaluation and end-user feedbacks, it is found that space optimization does not necessarily cause profit optimization, which is the ultimate aim of logistics providers. A study of contemporary research publications indicates that there are inadequate research studies related to profit-based optimization in cargo packing areas. This paper presents a profit-based air cargo loading information system (ACLIS) that embeds an innovative technology known as heuristics iterative reasoning technology (HIRT) that supports loading plan generation, focusing on maximization of the profit margin. In general, the proposed system is meant to maximize the profit in the airfreight forwarding business. It adopts an objective function governed by a list of constraints together with rule-based reasoning to provide expert advice to support the generation of appropriate loading plans     

Effects of tube rupture modeling and the parameters on the analysis of multiple steam generator tube rupture event progression in APR1400

A multiple steam generator tube rupture (MSGTR) event in APR1400 has been investigated using the best estimate thermal hydraulic system code, MARS1.4. The effects of the parameters such as the number of ruptured tubes, rupture location, affected steam generator on the analysis of the MSGTR event in APR1400 are examined. In particular, tube rupture modeling methods, single tube modeling (STM) and double tube modeling (DTM), are compared. The APR1400 is found to have the capability of allowing more than 30 min to operators for the MSGTR event of five tubes. The effects of rupture location on the MSSV lift time is not significant in the case of STM, but the MSSV lift time for tube-top rupture is found to be 25.3% larger than that for rupture at the hot-leg side tube sheet in the case of DTM. The MSSV lift time for the cases that both steam generators are affected (4C5x, 4C23x) are found to be larger than that of the single steam generator cases (4A5x, 4B5x) due to a bifurcation of the primary leak flow. The discharge coefficient of Cd is found to affect the MSSV lift time only for a smaller value of 0.5. It is found that the most dominant parameter governing the MSSV lift time is the leak flow rate. Whether any modeling method is used, it gives the similar MSSV lift time if the leak flow rate is close, except in the case where both steam generators are affected. Therefore, the system performance and the MSSV lift time of the APR1400 are strongly dependent on the break flow model used in the best estimate system code.