UBET analysis of the closed-pass ring rolling of rings having arbitrarily shaped profiles

A simple but effective upper-bound elemental technique (UBET) for prediction of the torque and the deformation pattern during the ring-rolling of rings having arbitrarily shaped profiles is proposed. In order to describe the three-dimensional material flow of profile ring rolling, a new element with a curvilinear side is introduced and the corresponding kinematically admissible velocity field is derived. Upper-bound analysis is carried out for rolling rings with a circular groove or protrusion having a round corner fillet. Comparing with the experimental results, the roll torque and the profile formation are predicted with reasonable accuracy. The effects of some parameters are investigated also. Despite the simplifying assumptions, some aspects of the deformation mechanics in profile ring rolling are shown to be described successfully by the proposed method.     

Influences of Ta, Nb, or Mo additions in Zr-based bulk metallic glasses on microstructure and thermal properties

The master-alloy ingots for casting bulk metallic glasses are routinely prepared by arc melting a mixture of pure elements. This paper addresses the difficulty in achieving complete and homogeneous melting of refractory component additions in Zr-based BMGs using the above procedure, and its influences on the microstructure and thermal behavior of alloys.     

In Vivo Analysis of the Biocompatibility and Bone Healing Capacity of a Novel Bone Grafting Material Combined with Hyaluronic Acid

The present in vivo study analyses both the inflammatory tissue reactions and the bone healing capacity of a newly developed bone substitute material (BSM) based on xenogeneic bone substitute granules combined with hyaluronate (HY) as a water-binding molecule. The results of the hyaluronate containing bone substitute material (BSM) were compared to a control xenogeneic BSM of the same chemical composition and a sham operation group up to 16 weeks post implantationem. A major focus of the study was to analyze the residual hyaluronate and its effects on the material-dependent healing behavior and the inflammatory tissue responses. The study included 63 male Wistar rats using the calvaria implantation model for 2, 8, and 16 weeks post implantationem. Established and Good Laboratory Practice (GLP)-conforming histological, histopathological, and histomorphometrical analysis methods were conducted. The results showed that the new hyaluronate containing BSM was gradually integrated within newly formed bone up to the end of the study that ended in a condition of complete bone defect healing. Thereby, no differences to the healing capacity of the control BSM were found. However, the bone formation in both groups was continuously significantly higher compared to the sham operation group. Additionally, no differences in the (inflammatory) tissue response that was analyzed via qualitative and (semi-) quantitative methods were found. Interestingly, no differences were found between the numbers of pro- and anti-inflammatory macrophages between the three study groups over the entire course of the study. No signs of the HY as a water-binding part of the BSM were histologically detectable at any of the study time points, altogether the results of the present study show that HY allows for an optimal material-associated bone tissue healing comparable to the control xenogeneic BSM. The added HY seems to be degraded within a very short time period of less than 2 weeks so that the remaining BSM granules allow for a gradual osteoconductive bone regeneration. Additionally, no differences between the inflammatory tissue reactions in both material groups and the sham operation group were found. Thus, the new hyaluronate containing xenogeneic BSM and also the control BSM have been shown to be fully biocompatible without any differences regarding bone regeneration.     

A Nonlinear Structure Tensor with the Diffusivity Matrix Composed of the Image Gradient

We propose a nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) for regularizing a tensor which contains the first derivative information of an image such as strength of edges and a direction of the gradient of the image. Unlike a typical diffusivity matrix which consists of derivatives of a tensor data, we propose a diffusivity matrix which consists of the tensor data itself, i.e., derivatives of an image. This allows directional smoothing for the tensor along edges which are not in the tensor but in the image. That is, a tensor in the proposed PDE is diffused fast along edges of an image but slowly across them. Since we have a regularized tensor which properly represents the first derivative information of an image, the tensor is useful to improve the quality of image denoising, image enhancement, corner detection, and ramp preserving denoising. We also prove the uniqueness and existence of solution to the proposed PDE.     

Flexibility as a source of value in the production of alternative fuels: The ethanol case

There is typically a high degree of flexibility associated with the production of alternative fuels due to the ability to source from different input raw materials or to produce different output products based on market conditions. In this paper, we consider the particular example of ethanol and seek to quantify the incremental value from flexibility in its production from sugarcane in Brazil. We accomplish this by first jointly modeling the stochastic processes for the prices of the two relevant commodities, sugar (a food commodity) and ethanol (an energy commodity) in discrete time as a bivariate lattice. This framework allows us to value the option to switch output products based on the respective price signals of the two commodities. However, unlike the usual assumption of geometric Brownian motion stochastic processes, we use the more realistic case of mean reverting commodity price processes. We estimate the parameters for these processes by applying a regression-based procedure to empirical sugar and ethanol data collected during a period from 1998 through 2008. Our results show that the option to switch outputs has significant value, even under the assumption of mean reverting prices, which has implications for both producers and policy-makers alike.     

Calculation of leak sizes in pressurised vessels and pipes according to the leak-before-break criterion

For the consideration of released mass flows and their effects within hazard studies, leakage areas need to be determined which are physically justifiable and which cannot be reasonably excluded. Applying the fracture mechanics the leak-before-break behaviour is verified by the calculation of the propagation of an initial material defect. Consequently, leakage areas of through-cracks are calculated to determine probable and maximum leakage areas. For this purpose, models for the calculation of leak sizes are compared and evaluated. Example calculations are stated for typical pressurised vessels and pipes of the chemical industry in order to check the present estimates of leakage areas. In addition, measures supporting the leak-before-break behaviour are outlined.     

A-sign und a.trust bündeln Aktivitäten

AktuellDivitec Metal

Aufbereitung von Elektro(nik)-Altger?ten     

Spatiospectral transmission of a plane-mirror Fabry-Perot interferometer with nonuniform finite-size diffraction beam illuminations

The transmission of a plane-mirror Fabry-Perot (PFP) interferometer is theoretically modeled and investigated by treating the spatial and spectral features in a unified manner. A spatiospectral transfer function is formulated and utilized to describe the beam propagation and the multiple-beam interference occurring in an ideal one-dimensional strip PFP interferometer with no diffraction loss. The spatial-frequency filtration of a finite-size beam input not only determines the transmitted spatial beam profile but also plays a crucial role in affecting the overall spectral transmittance. The inherent deviations of the spectral transmittance from what we know as the standard Airy's formula are revealed in diverse aspects, including the less-than-unity peak transmittance, the displacement of a resonance peak frequency, and the asymmetric detuning profile. Our theoretical analysis extends to the misaligned PFP interferometers, such as the cases in which non-normal-incidence beams or wedge-aligned mirrors are used that could severely degrade the effective interferometer finesse.     

Reduction of stable differential–algebraic equation systems via projections and system identification

Most large-scale process models derived from first principles are represented by nonlinear differential–algebraic equation (DAE) systems. Since such models are often computationally too expensive for real-time control, techniques for model reduction of these systems need to be investigated. However, models of DAE type have received little attention in the literature on nonlinear model reduction. In order to address this, a new technique for reducing nonlinear DAE systems is presented in this work. This method reduces the order of the differential equations as well as the number and complexity of the algebraic equations. Additionally, the algebraic equations of the resulting system can be replaced by an explicit expression for the algebraic variables such as a feedforward neural network. This last property is important insofar as the reduced model does not require a DAE solver for its solution but system trajectories can instead be computed with regular ODE solvers. This technique is illustrated with a case study where responses of several different reduced-order models of a distillation column with 32 differential equations and 32 algebraic equations are compared.