Dispersed phase holdup and slip velocity of phases in a pulsed packed column in conditions with and without mass transfer

Dispersed phase holdup and slip velocity of phases were measured in a pilot plant pulsed packed column with a diameter of 76.2 mm for two different chemical systems in conditions with and without mass transfer. The effects of pulsation intensity, dispersed and continuous phases flow rates, interfacial tension and solute concentration on dispersed phase holdup and slip velocity of phases were investigated. A new empirical correlation in terms of the above‐mentioned parameters developed from the measurements is given for the prediction of slip velocity. The dispersed phase holdup was calculated by means of this correlation and very good agreement between calculated and experimental values was obtained.     

Effect of Intermetallic Compounds on Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Hot Roll Bonding Titanium to Steel

Titanium cladding on steel leads to the creation of properties such as resistance to corrosion that contribute to a widespread application of this metal composite in industries such as nuclear, chemical, aerospace, and biomaterial. One of the solid-state bonding methods to apply such a clad is to use the roll bonding method. In this paper, quality of the titanium cladded on carbon steel was studied in terms of metallurgical, mechanical properties and the effect of the copper interlayer on the metallurgical properties of bonding. The interface between the clad and the base metal was studied using a scanning electron microscope and light microscope and the phases formed were identified by X-ray diffraction analysis. The results showed that an increase in the bonding temperature increased the thickness of the intermetallic compounds, increased the hardness at close distances to the interface, and reduced the adhesion of the titanium cladded to the base metal.     

Fault detection using microtremor data (HVSR-based approach) and electrical resistivity survey

The faults and fractures are known as two of the most important parameters in earthquake occurrence. During the construction in urban areas, faults and fractures may be covered in depth and thus are not visible at the ground surface. In this context, non-invasive geophysical prospecting methods (microtremor and geoelectrical methods) and borehole data were used to detect subsurface geological structures (hidden faults) in a suburb of Shiraz in Iran. The horizontal to vertical spectral ratio (HVSR) method was used to obtain the dynamic parameters (predominant frequency and resonance amplitude) of the soil, to detect hidden faults. The results show that the abrupt changes in the sediment thickness and predominant frequencies at a specific direction (NW-SE) can be related to the displacement of a nearly vertical fault with NW-SE trend. In addition, the electrical resistivity method using continuous resistivity profiling (CRP) and Schlumberger arrays was employed to detect a hidden fault and the results were compared with previous data. The obtained results of both arrays illustrate the presence of a nearly vertical fault with NW-SE trend in the region. Comparison of all results shows that the detected faults by both methods are consistent with each other. Therefore, it can be conclusive that combination of the two methods is a useful and reliable approach to study and detect hidden faults.     

Comparative and competitive adsorption of Cu(II), Cd(II) and Pb(II) onto Sepia pharaonis endoskeleton biomass from aqueous solutions

In this research, the possibility of simultaneous removal of lead, cadmium and copper divalent ions from water samples through the use of Sepia pharaonis endoskeleton powder (SPEB) as bio‐material, was investigated. The bio‐sorbent was characterised by Fourier transform infrared spectrum (FT‐IR), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X‐ray fluorescence (XRF). The different factors affecting the bio‐sorption process were studied. Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were applied to analyse the experimental data. The kinetic studies showed that the pseudo‐second order model kinetics were compatible with the investigated systems. It was found that under optimal conditions, this bio‐sorbent was efficient in the uptake of these heavy metal ions from both mono and multi‐metal solutions, and high removal percentages were achieved. This study verified the potential ability of SPEB as an efficient natural adsorbent for removal of Pb(II), Cd(II) and Cu(II) ions from river, tap and mineral water samples.     

Reduction of formaldehyde emission from plywood

The aim of this work is to evaluate performances of tannin-based resins designed as adhesive in the plywood production. For this purpose, a part of phenol formaldehyde (PF) and melamine formaldehyde (MF) in the classic adhesive formulation was replaced by tannin. The physical properties of the formulated resins (rheological characterization, etc.) were measured. In order to analyze the mechanical performance of tannin-based resins, plywood panels were produced and the mechanical properties including tensile strength wood failure and three-point bending strength were investigated. The performance of these panels is comparable to those of plywood panels made by commercial PF and MF. The results showed that the plywood panels bonded with tannin–PF (PFT) and tannin–MF (MFT) resins exhibited better mechanical properties in comparison to the plywood panels made of commercials PF and MF. The introduction of small properties of tannin in PF and MF resins contribute to the improvement of the water performance of these adhesives. The formaldehyde emission levels obtained from panels bonded with tannin-based resins were lower than those obtained from panels bonded with control PF and MF. Although there are no actual reaction at all between PF, MF, and tannin, addition of tannin significantly improves the water resistance of PF and MF resins. This is a novel finding that manifests the possibility of replacing a convention PF and MF resins by tannin. Modified adhesive is one of the goals in the plywood production without changing any of their production conditions with improvement to their overall properties.     

Robust Water Supply Chain Network Design under Uncertainty in Capacity

This paper focuses on the capacity uncertainty in water supply chains that occurs when facilities face disruption. A combination of scenario-based two-stage stochastic programming with the min-max robust optimization approach is proposed to optimize the water supply chain network design problem. In the first stage, the decisions are made on locations and capacities of reservoirs and water-treatment plants while recourse decisions including amount of water extraction, amount of water refinement, and consequently amount of water held in reservoirs are made at the second stage. The proposed robust two-stage stochastic programming model can help decision makers consider the impacts of uncertainties and analyze trade-offs between system cost and stability. The literature reveals that most exact methods are not able to tackle the computational complexity of mixed integer non-linear two-stage stochastic problems at large scale. Another contribution of this study is to propose two metaheuristics - a particle swarm optimization (PSO) and a bat algorithm (BA) - to solve the proposed model in large-scale networks efficiently in a reasonable time. The developed model is applied to several hypothetical cases of water resources management systems to evaluate the effectiveness of the model formulation and solution algorithms. Sensitivity analyses are also carried out to analyze the behavior of the model and the robustness approach under parameters variations.

     

Adaptive controller design with prescribed performance for switched nonstrict feedback nonlinear systems with actuator failures

This article is concerned with the adaptive output-feedback control of switched nonstrict feedback nonlinear systems. By introducing a novel error surface, an adaptive control strategy is proposed for the general case where the nonlinear functions and the control gain functions are unknown, and the states are unmeasurable. The considered switched nonlinear system contains unknown actuator failures, which are modeled as both loss of effectiveness and lock-in-place. In order to improve the transient performance in the presence of unknown actuator failures, the prescribed performance approach is used. The “explosion of complexity” problem is avoided through using low-pass filters. The stability of the closed-loop system under arbitrary switching is shown using Lyapunov stability theory, based on which, the tracking error is shown to converge to a small residual set with the prescribed performance bounds. The advantages of the proposed technique are verified through simulations of two numerical and practical examples.     

Removal of Trace Metal Impurities from Pretreated Phosphoric Acid by Foam Fractionation

Demands for phosphoric acid are growing rapidly in various industries. This has highlighted the importance of optimizing its production and purification methods. Phosphoric acid can be produced by a wet process. However, due to the presence of many organic and inorganic impurities in the wet product, purification of the resulting product is a major concern in this industry. Removal of trace metal impurities (such as magnesium, cadmium, chromium, zinc, etc.) from produced phosphoric acid in a wet process was investigated by foam fractionation in a semi-batch setup using sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) as the surfactant. Effects of inlet air velocity, surfactant concentration, and surfactant selectivity were investigated. The optimum air velocity and surfactant concentration were obtained as 0.020 cm/min and 0.7 g/L, respectively. At the optimum condition, the total removal efficiency and enrichment factor reached were 70.2% and 4.39, respectively, while the acid loss was 8.3%. The total metal removal efficiency was increased to 95.3% in a two-stage experimental run.