Synthesis of HTPB based PU-PS IPN membrane for pervaporation recovery of butanol

Hydroxyl terminated polybutadiene(HTPB) based polyurethane(PU)-polystyrene(PS) interpenetrating polymer network(IPN) was prepared and characterized by FTIR, TGA, WCA, swelling experiments, and SEM. The IPN was used for pervaporation(PV) recovery of butanol. Both the permeation flux and separation factor increased with feed temperature, and both water and butanol fluxes increased with feed concentration while no obvious effect of concentration on separation factor was found. Through the formation of IPN structure, the total flux of HTPB based PU increased greatly with the decrease of separation factor. At the feed temperature of 60 °C, the IPN membrane obtained a total flux of 613.3 g/m~2 h with a separation factor of 6.15.     

A new way of strengthening and toughening for carbon fiber reinforced polyphenylene sulfide (CF/PPS) composites via matrix modification

The effect of pressure-induced flow(PIF) processing on the mechanical properties of noncontinuous carbon fiber(CF) reinforced polyphenylene sulfide(PPS) composites was investigated. A series of CF/PPS composites under different processing conditions were prepared through PIF-processing. SEM observations showed that the interfaces adhesion between CFs and PPS became stronger and ductile fracture mainly occurred in PPS matrix. This brought to a great increase of both strength and toughness by about 2 folds, when the composites were processed at 240 ℃ and under 263 MPa. The results in differential scanning calorimetry(DSC) and X-ray diffraction(XRD) measurements indicated more regular crystalline structures and orientation of lamellae formed during PIF-processing.     

Effect of fly ash on drying shrinkage of thermal insulation mortar with glazed hollow beads

Drying shrinkage of thermal insulation mortar with glazed hollow beads was measured by a vertical length comparator, and the influences of fly ash with different contents (0, 18%, 36%, and 54% were used) on the long-term drying shrinkage were discussed. The mass loss was measured by the weighting method and the pore structure was characterized using three different methods, including the light microscopy, the mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), and the nitrogen adsorption/desorption (NAD) experiments, and the correlations among them were researched. The results show that drying shrinkage process of thermal insulation mortar includes three steps with increasing curing time: the acceleration period (before 7 d), the deceleration period (7-365 d), and the metastable period (after 365 d). Drying shrinkage in the first stage (7 d before) increases quickly owing to the fast water loss, and its development in the last two stages is attributed to the increment of the pore volume of mortar with the radius below 50 nm, especially the increment of the pore volume fraction of the pore radius within the size range between 7.3 nm and 12.3 nm. There is no change in the drying shrinkage development trend of mortar with fly ash addition, and three steps in the service life, but fly ash addition in the mortar restrains its value. There is a linear relationship between the drying shrinkage and fly ash content, which means that drying shrinkage reduces with fly ash addition.     

Growth and characterization of indium doped zinc oxide films sputtered from powder targets

Indium doped Zn O films were grown on quartz glass substrates by radio frequency magnetron sputtering from powder targets. Indium content in the targets varied from 1at% to 9at%. In doping on the structure, optical and electrical properties of Zn O thin films were studied. X-ray diffraction shows that all the films are hexagonal wurtzite with c-axis perpendicular to the substrates. There is a positive strain in the films and it increases with indium content. All the films show a high transmittance of 86% in the visible light region. Undoped Zn O thin film exhibits a high transmittance in the near infrared region. The transmittance of indium doped Zn O thin films decreases sharply in the near infrared region, and a cut-off wavelength can be found. The lowest resistivity of 4.3×10~(-4) Ω·cm and the highest carrier concentration of 1.86×10~(21) cm~(-3) can be obtained from Zn O thin films with an indium content of 5at% in the target.     

Interface trap effect on the transient characteristics of a photovoltaic InSb infrared detector

The transient characteristics can be significantly affected by the interface trap. In order to reveal the intrinsic mechanism and provide some references for the design of detectors, the interface trap effect on the transient characteristics of a back-illuminated photovoltaic InSb infrared detector is studied with two-dimensional simulations. The relationships between interface traps and some key physical parameters, such as the hole concentration, the recombination rate and the electric field, are analyzed to reveal the intrinsic mechanisms of the influence of the interface traps on the transient characteristics. Studies show that with the increase of the interface trap density, the recombination rate and the electric field near the interface increase, the hole concentration decreases, and the “black holes” in current density distribution appear and move forward to the pn junction. And the transient photoresponse decreases with the increase of the interface trap density.     

Optimization of Waste Gate Drive Circuit of Two-Stage Turbocharging System

A two stage turbocharging control system was proposed, in which the pressure regulator valve with a close-loop pressure adjusting function instead of a high speed on-off solenoid valve, is used as a driving mechanism of waste gate. A digital-analog (DA)conversion circuit based on pulse width modulation (PWM) generates one analog voltage signal required by the pressure regulating valve control. The principle of the DA conversion circuit was analyzed, meanwhile, the performance of the conversion circuit was improved by adopting a speed-up capacitor, which helps to increase the stability and responsiveness of the control voltage generated by the conversion circuit; the structure parameters of the circuit was optimized by simulation. After the optimization, the ripple wave of circuit output voltage was kept within 16.mV under the 12.bit conversion accuracy, the conversion time of the circuit could be reduced to 4.ms. The engine bench test show that the turbocharging boost pressure control system which adopted the circuit had a rather good stable control accuracy(the steady state within 0.8%) and dynamic response(the regulation time is less than 4.s).     

Efficiency analysis and optimization of wireless power transfer system for freely moving biomedical implants

In the wireless power transfer system for freely moving biomedical implants,the receiving unit was generally inefficient for the reason that its design parameters including the receiving coil's dimension and receiving circuits' topology were always determined by experiments.In order to build the relationship between these parameters and the total transfer efficiency,this paper developed a novel efficiency model based on the impedance model of the coil and the circuit model of the receiving circuits.According to the design constraints,the optimal design parameters in the worst case were derived.The results indicate that the combination of the two-layered receiving coil and half-bridge rectifier has more advantages in size,efficiency and safety,which is preferred in the receiving unit.Additionally,when the load resistance increases,the optimal turn number of the receiving coil basically keeps constant and the corresponding transmitting current and total efficiency decrease.For 100 Ω load,the transmitting current and total efficiency in the worst case were measured to be 5.30 A and 1.45% respectively,which are much better than the published results.In general,our work provides an efficient method to determine the design parameters of the wireless power transfer system for freely moving biomedical implants.     

Overall efficiency optimization of controllable mechanical turbo-compounding system for heavy duty diesel engines

A controllable mechanical turbo-compounding (CMTC) system including continuously variable transmission (CVT) and power turbine bypass valve is proposed to recover waste heat from engine exhaust. The combined matching principle considering swallowing capacity of both charging turbine and power turbine, main gear ratio is investigated at first based on the analysis of individual influence. Then the effects and strategies of CVT and power turbine bypass valve are studied for better performance under off-design conditions. At last, the transient response of intake pressure of engine with CMTC system is researched and the fuel saving potential is tested under driving cycle conditions. The results indicate that the overall fuel efficiency elevates at the off-design conditions if CVT is adopted due to the improvement of power turbine operating efficiency by speed modulation. The diversion of exhaust through power turbine bypass valve under the low load condition is necessary. The back pressure of the charging turbine infuences the transient response of intake pressure for a fixed CMTC configuration. A method featured by the assistance of power turbine bypass valve is tested to improve the transient response of the intake pressure. The fuel consumption reduces by 2% and 3.4% under highway fuel economy test (HWFET) and Tianjin 503 (TJ503) driving cycles respectively.     

Load identification in one dimensional structure based on hybrid finite element method

The new hybrid elements are proposed by combing modified Hermitian wavelet elements with ANASYS elements. Then hybrid elements are substituted into finite element formulations to solve the load identification. Transfer matrix can be constructed by using the inverse Newmark algorithm and hybrid finite element method. Loads can obtain through the responses and the transfer matrix. Load identification law was studied under different excitation cases in rod and Timoshenko beam. Regularization method is adopted to solve ill-posed inverse problem of load identification. Compared with ANSYS results, hybrid elements and HCSWI elements can accurately identify the applied load. Numerical results show that the algorithm of hybrid elements is effective. The accuracy of hybrid elements and HCSWI elements can be verified by comparing the load identification result of ANASYS elements with the experiment data. Hermitian wavelet finite element methods have high accuracy advantage but it is difficult to apply the engineering practice. In practical engineering, complex structure can be analyzed by using the hybrid finite element methods which can be obtained the high accuracy in the crucial component.     

Adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control for coordinated longitudinal and lateral motions of multiple autonomous vehicles in a platoon

In this paper, the platoon control problem of autonomous vehicles in highway is studied. Since the autonomous vehicles have the characteristics of nonlinearities, external disturbances and strong coupling, a novel adaptive fuzzy sliding coordinated control system is constructed to supervise the longitudinal and lateral motions of autonomous vehicles, in which the fuzzy system is employed to approximate the unknown nonlinear functions. Due to the low sensitivity to disturbances and plant parameter variations, the proposed control approach is an efficient way to handle with the complex dynamic plants operating under un-certainty conditions. The asymptotic stability of adaptive coordinated platoon close-loop control system is verified based on the Lyapunov stability theory. The results indicate that the presented adaptive coordinated platoon control approach can accurately achieve the tracking performance and ensures the stability and riding comfort of autonomous vehicles in a platoon. Finally, simulation test is exploited to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control approach.