The formation of β‐polypropylene crystals in a compatibilized blend of isotactic polypropylene and polyamide‐6

Compatibilized polypropylene (PP)/polyamide (PA6) blends with and without β nucleating agent (β‐NA) are prepared, and are designated as Blend‐0.3 and Blend‐0, respectively. The melting and crystallization characteristic of the blends crystallized under different cooling rates and different crystallization temperatures are studied. It is observed that high β‐PP content can be developed in Blend‐0.3 only at slow cooling rates (<5°C/min), whereas high α‐PP content is formed at fast cooling rates. Isothermal crystallization analysis of Blend‐0 indicates that PA6 is an effective NA for α‐PP in the lower temperature range, whereas the α‐nucleating effect disappears in the higher temperature range. Blend‐0.3 can, therefore, be viewed as a system containing both α‐ and β‐NAs, simultaneously. PA6 is competing with β‐NA in inducing PP crystallization. Under the normal injection of Blend‐0.3, the melt will be cooled through the higher temperature that favors the effectiveness of β‐NA rapidly because of the faster cooling rate. However, the α‐nucleation effect from PA6 predominate at the lower temperature. This explains the difficulty in obtaining high β‐PP content in Blend‐0.3 from injection molding. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2011. © 2010 Society of Plastics Engineers     

卡拉胶硬胶囊

<正>硬胶囊系指已大规模生产的空胶囊,它是由两个部分(胶囊帽和胶囊体)组成的,只在生产后装填内容物,然后组合和密封在一起。硬胶囊在大多数情况下是用单相水溶液以所谓的蘸胶法加工过程生产的。     

岩爆模拟材料的筛选试验研究

根据岩爆模拟试验的要求,进行了相似材料的配合比试验,筛选出若干适合作为岩爆模型的相似材料。试验过程中就试验设备、材料配合比、模型制作、典型试验等方面进行了有益的探讨。     

Flux-blending schemes for interface capture in two-fluid flows

This paper is aimed at developing a robust algorithm (FBICS) to capture the interface between two immiscible fluids without the need of interface reconstruction. The advection equation of the volume fraction is solved using the fully conservative finite volume method. Determination of the convective flux through each cell face is based on blending of high resolution schemes and compressive schemes to preserve the sharpness and boundedness of the interface. The flux-blending practice is fulfilled with the use of flux limiters. Test on simple advection flow problems indicates that the well-known CICSAM and HRIC schemes lose accuracy as the Courant number increases. In contrast, the present method maintains high-accuracy performance for Courant numbers up to one. The capability of the method to cope with the complicated dynamics of free surface flows is demonstrated via calculation of the collapsing flow of a water column with an obstacle.     

Quality Culture Auditing for Engineering Consultants

Design is one of the most important aspects in the engineering project cycle. To improve the quality of engineering consulting firms, various quality techniques and practices have been proposed by researchers. Most researchers agree that the successful implementation of such quality practices depends on the quality culture of the consultant organization. Therefore, a thorough understanding of the overall quality culture that exists in a consultant organization is essential. The purpose of this paper is to develop a pragmatic tool, a quality culture auditing (QCA) questionnaire, which enables engineering consulting firms to measure the quality culture quantitatively through a scoring system. The responses obtained from 30 engineering consulting firms that participated in the QCA show that the scores obtained can be a good indicator of a consultant organization’s current quality culture. Using these results as the basis, benchmarking exercises and parametric studies can also be conducted. Through the use of QCA, an engineering consultant can pinpoint areas of weakness so that more effort can be put into these areas for future improvement.     

Manifestation of external size reduction effects on the yield point of nanocrystalline rhodium using nanopillars approach

In this study, pure rhodium was fabricated and mechanically investigated at the nanoscale for the first time. The nanopillars approach was employed to study the effects of size on the yield point. Nanopillars with different diameters were fabricated using electroplating followed by uniaxial compression tests. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used as a quality control technique by imaging the pillars before and after compression to ensure the absence of cracks, buckling, barrelling or any other problems. Transmission electron microscopy and SEM were used as microstructural characterization techniques. Due to substrate-induced effects, only the plastic region of the stress–strain curves were investigated, and it was revealed that the yield point increases with size reduction up to certain limit, then decreases with further reduction of the nanopillar size (diameter). The later weakening effect is consistent with the literature, which demonstrates the reversed size effect (the failure of the plasticity theory) in nanocrystalline metals, i.e. smaller is weaker. In this study, however, the effect of size reduction is not only weakening, but is strengthening-then-weakening, which the authors believe is the true behavior of nanocrystalline materials.     

44—ASPECTS OF SEAM-STRENGTH PREDICTION: PART II

Physical and mathematical models of strength behaviour to explain the angle-of-bias effects postulated in Part I are further examined and various modifications suggested. Comparison between experimental results on a wide range of woven fabrics and theoretical predictions with the basic model and its modifications is made, and a good fit between experimental results and theoretical predictions is found and described.     

A catalogue of genes in the cardiovascular system as identified by expressed sequence tags

The heart, which is composed of all the cellular components of the circulatory system, is a representative organ for obtaining genes expressed in the cardiovascular system in normal and disease states. We used partial sequences of cDNA clones, or expressed sequence tags, to identify and tag genes expressed in this organ. More than 3500 partial sequences representing > 3000 cDNA clones have been obtained from either the 5' or 3' end of inserts derived from human heart cDNA libraries. Of 3132 cDNA clones analyzed by sequence similarity searching against the GenBank/EMBL data bases, 1485 (47.4%) were found to represent additional, previously undiscovered genes, whereas 267 clones were matched to human brain expressed sequence tags. Clones matching to known genes were catalogued according to their putative structural and cellular functions. cDNA probes from reverse-transcribed mRNAs of fetal and adult hearts were used to study differential expression of selected clones in cardiac development. Cataloguing genes expressed in the heart may provide insight into the genes involved in health and cardiovascular disease.