Effect of pulse time on surface characteristics and corrosion resistance during pulse electrochemical polishing

Pulse electrochemical polishing (PECP) was used to improve the mechanical properties,such as surface roughness and corrosion resistance,of conductive metallic materials.PECP can provide a smooth,bright,reflective,and deburred surface that exhibits superior corrosion resistance.In this work,stainless steel was used as the anode,and copper was used as the cathode due to their low electrical resistances.The surface roughness of the PECP sample was measured by atomic force microscopy (AFM).A scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to observe surface characteristics,and an Auger electron spectroscope (AES) was used to analyze the metallurgical composition and thickness of the passive film.The aim of this research was to compare the corrosion resistance rates of the unprocessed and PECP-processed stainless steel.     

High-performance and current crowding-free InGaN-GaNbased LEDs integrated by an electrically-reverse-connected Schottky diode and a Mg-delta doped p-GaN

This work demonstrates high-performance and current crowding-free InGaN/GaN light-emitting diodes (LEDs) using an electrically-reverse-connected Schottky diode (SD) and an Mg-delta (δ) doped layer.Poss...     

Wear of diamond particles for grinding ceramics

The relative wear of a single point diamond, defined in terms of the grinding force, was determined for a group of A1₂O₃ and Si₃N₄. It was found that the wear rate is directly related to the mechanical properties of the workpiece and the grinding environment.     

Knowledge-based robotics†

A major hurdle in the development of intelligent robots is that we still do not possess efficient computational and representational methodologies for emulating knowledge and expectation driven behaviour so basic to human cognition and problem solving. Even if we use techniques such as geometric modelling for representing objects in the robot world, we are still lacking in methods for linking such representations with sensory feedback. In this paper, we have proposed the use of intermediate representations—we call them sensor-tuned representations—for linking CSG based solid modelling with sensory information. We also discuss how sensor-tuned representations are constructed from range data and how object recognition can be done with sensor-tuned representations. Finally, we show results of manipulation experiments produced by the current implementation of the system.     

Effective parameters on diameter of carbon nanotubes by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition

The effective parameters on the diameter of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) were presented.Among lots of influential parameters,the effects of the catalytic film thickness and the pretreatment plasma power on the growth of CNTs were investigated.The results show that the size of catalytic islands increases by increasing the thickness of catalytic layer,but the density of CNTs decreases.The pretreatment duration time of 30 s is the optimal condition for growing CNTs with about 50 nm in diameter.By increasing the pretreatment plasma power,the diameter of CNTs decreases gradually.However,the diameter of CNTs does not change drastically from 80 to 120 W.The uniformly grown CNTs with the diameter of 50 nm are obtained at the pretreatment plasma power of 100 W.     

Optimal number of minor failures before replacement

This paper extends a replacement model based on failure number to include a repair-cost limit for general failure distributions. The stochastic behaviour of failures and repair costs are modelled by a non-homogeneous Poisson process. An efficient marginal analysis algorithm is presented for finding the optimal failure number for replacement that minimizes the average cost rate.     

Location of departmental pickup and delivery points for an AGV system

In this paper, two algorithms are developed for the determination of pickup and delivery point locations for an AGV system. The first algorithm is applicable to general layout configurations and seeks solutions until the local optimum is reached by comparing relative locations of pickup and delivery points. The second algorithm generates solutions with a minimal amount of computational time due to its exploitation of the structural feature of departmental layouts. Computational results are provided to check the quality of solutions from each algorithm.