Tribological studies of unpolished laser surface textures under starved lubrication conditions for use in air-conditioning and refrigeration compressors

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the tribological performance of different laser surface texture patterns, with unpolished material bulges around the dimples, under realistic operating conditions of starved lubrication, for use in air-conditioning and refrigeration compressors. Compared to untextured gray cast iron surfaces, the texture patterns showed significant tribological improvements. Long durability tests also highlighted the long term usefulness of surface texturing. The dominant wear mode of the texture patterns was found to be mechanical polishing and the tribological behavior was found to be largely independent of the type of lubricant or refrigerant.     

Effects of water parameters on the degradation of microcystin-LR under visible light-activated TiO2 photocatalyst

A study was performed to determine the effect of pH, alkalinity, natural organic matter (NOM) and dissolved oxygen in the performance of nitrogen and fluorine doped TiO₂ (NF-TiO₂) for the degradation of hepatotoxin microcystin-LR (MC-LR) in synthetic and natural water under visible light irradiation. The initial degradation rate of MC-LR was fastest under acidic conditions (3.50 ± 0.02 × 10⁻³ μM min⁻¹ at pH 3.0) and decreased to 2.29 ± 0.07 × 10⁻³ and 0.54 ± 0.02 × 10⁻³ μM min⁻¹ at pH 5.7 and 7.1, respectively. Attractive forces between the opposite charged MC-LR and NF-TiO₂ are likely responsible for the enhancement in the photocatalytic decomposition of MC-LR resulting from increased interfacial adsorption. For carbonate buffered solutions, the photocatalytic activity of NF-TiO₂ was reduced when increasing the carbonate concentration up to 150 mg CaCO₃ L⁻¹. The scavenging of radical species by the bicarbonate ion at pH 7.1 is discussed. In the presence of NOM, the degradation rates decreased as pH and initial concentration of the NOM increased. The inhibition was higher with fulvic acid than humic acid under alkaline conditions. Oxygenated solution yields higher NF-TiO₂ photocatalytic degradation of MC-LR compared to nitrogen sparged solution at pH 5.7. The involvement of specific reactive oxygen species implicated in the photodegradation is proposed. Finally, no significant degradation is observed with various natural waters spiked with MC-LR under visible light (λ > 420 nm) but high removal was achieved with simulated solar light. This study provides a better understanding of the interactions and photocatalytic processes initiated by NF-TiO₂ under visible and solar light. The results indicate solar photocatalytic oxidation is a promising technology for the treatment of water contaminated with cyanotoxins.     

Ferrite-loaded cavity-backed antennas including nonuniform and nonlinear magnetization effects

A method of analyzing both the electromagnetic and the magnetostatic phenomena involved in ferrite-loaded cavity-backed antennas is presented. The high-frequency modeling of the antenna is based on a hybrid of the finite element method (FEM) with the method of moments (MoM). The (magnetostatic) demagnetizing process of the finite ferrite loadings is modeled with the use of a nonlinear static FEM. The results of the magnetostatic analysis are used to compute the internal field of the ferrite samples. Through the use of an appropriate ferrite permeability tensor, the nonuniform internal bias field is incorporated into the high-frequency FEM/MoM analysis. The input impedance characteristics of two different ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) antennas are presented using different ferrite models. Results for the tuning range and sensitivity are presented for different bias directions. The numerical results are also compared with experimental data.     

Elastic contact mechanics-based contact and flash temperature analysis of impact-induced head disk interface damage

Shock-induced impulsive slider-disk contact during operation poses a major challenge for modern hard disk drives (HDD). The high contact pressure and surface temperature that are usually associated with such impact could lead to the loss of data or even catastrophic failure of the head-disk interface, rendering the HDD inoperable. In this work, an elastic contact mechanics-based analysis was performed to investigate the impact between a slider corner and a disk surface. First, the analysis uses a homogeneous, smooth contact based on Hertzian impact theory, and trends of critical contact parameters were discussed for various combinations of impact velocities and slider corner radii. From these results, disk plastic failure was identified based on the mean contact pressure. Then, a similar approach was adopted to extend the impact analysis to consider the effects of mechanical properties and thickness of various layers, adhesion, and roughness on the severity of slider-disk impact. Lastly, flash temperatures during the impact were calculated for various conditions, and it was found that thermal erasure could occur under current head-disk impact conditions.     

A comparative study on the electrical and mechanical behaviour of multi‐walled carbon nanotube composites prepared by diluting a masterbatch with various types of polypropylenes

Polypropylene (PP) nanocomposites with multi‐walled carbon nanotubes (CNT) were produced by a small‐scale masterbatch melt dilution technique using five PP differing in melt flow index (MFI) and degree of maleination. PP used in a masterbatch has MFI = 12 (PP₁₂), the others used PP which have MFI = 2 or MFI = 8. The state of CNT dispersion as assessed by melt rheological and morphological investigations indicated a better dispersion when using unmodified PP with MFI = 8 (PP₈) and the masterbatch's PP₁₂. Electrical conductivity results showed nanotube percolation at contents between 1.1 and 2.0 vol %, whereas lower values were obtained for the matrices with the best dispersion, i.e., PP₈ and PP₁₂. The dependencies of the relative Young's modulus on the CNT content showed that the maleinization improved the interfacial interactions between the components, especially in the case of maleated PP with MFI = 8 (PP‐MA₈), but the better dispersion was prevented by the incompatibility between polar groups of PP‐MA and the nonpolar origin masterbatch PP₁₂. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009     

Cocaine Induces Cytoskeletal Changes in Cardiac Myocytes: Implications for Cardiac Morphology

Cocaine is one of the most widely abused illicit drugs worldwide and has long been recognised as an agent of cardiac dysfunction in numerous cases of drug overdose. Cocaine has previously been shown to up-regulate cytoskeletal rearrangements and morphological changes in numerous tissues; however, previous literature observes such changes primarily in clinical case reports and addiction studies. An investigation into the fundamental cytoskeletal parameters of migration, adhesion and proliferation were studied to determine the cytoskeletal and cytotoxic basis of cocaine in cardiac cells. Treatment of cardiac myocytes with cocaine increased cell migration and adhesion (p < 0.05), with no effect on cell proliferation, except with higher doses eliciting (1–10 μg/mL) its diminution and increase in cell death. Cocaine downregulated phosphorylation of cofilin, decreased expression of adhesion modulators (integrin-β3) and increased expression of ezirin within three hours of 1 μg/mL treatments. These functional responses were associated with changes in cellular morphology, including alterations in membrane stability and a stellate-like phenotype with less compaction between cells. Higher dose treatments of cocaine (5–10 μg/mL) were associated with significant cardiomyocyte cell death (p < 0.05) and loss of cellular architecture. These results highlight the importance of cocaine in mediating cardiomyocyte function and cytotoxicity associated with the possible loss of intercellular contacts required to maintain normal cell viability, with implications for cardiotoxicity relating to hypertrophy and fibrogenesis.     

Advantages of CO2 compared to R410a refrigerant of tribologically tested Aluminum 390-T6 surfaces

Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is currently being investigated as a viable alternative refrigerant due to its environmental advantages. Much research is still needed regarding thermodynamic, tribological, and design issues, yet CO₂ is a promising environmentally friendly refrigerant. This study investigates the physical and chemical changes of aluminum alloy disks that occur with increased severity tribotesting in the presence of either R410a or CO₂ refrigerants while submerged in POE lubricant. Visibly and through surface profilometry, this study clearly shows that R410a environment results in increased disk wear compared to CO₂ environment. In addition, Auger Electron Spectroscopy analysis was conducted showing that the oxygen concentration tends to increase with testing duration for both R410a and, to a greater extent, CO₂ tested samples. When Auger data were compared for the R410a submerged in POE, CO₂ submerged in PAG, and CO₂ submerged in POE, the CO₂ tested samples had significantly higher oxygen concentrations. This indicates that CO₂ refrigerant is promoting a strong oxygenated layer, which reduces wear.     

Fault‐Tolerant Control Allocation for Overactuated Nonlinear Systems

This paper addresses the problem of fault‐tolerant control allocation for input affine nonlinear systems. The proposed scheme is divided in three main tasks: fault detection and estimation using a nonlinear observer, fault isolation through a bank of unknown input observers with a resetting policy to reduce the effects of nonlinearities and control reconfiguration based on reduced order allocation. Analytical results regarding the isolability and reconfigurability of actuator faults are derived and a simulation example is used to illustrate the the proposed fault tolerant control methodology.     

Distributed adaptive fault‐tolerant leader‐following formation control of nonlinear uncertain second‐order multi‐agent systems

This paper presents a distributed integrated fault diagnosis and accommodation scheme for leader‐following formation control of a class of nonlinear uncertain second‐order multi‐agent systems. The fault model under consideration includes both process and actuator faults, which may evolve abruptly or incipiently. The time‐varying leader communicates with a small subset of follower agents, and each follower agent communicates to its directly connected neighbors through a bidirectional network with possibly asymmetric weights. A local fault diagnosis and accommodation component are designed for each agent in the distributed system, which consists of a fault detection and isolation module and a reconfigurable controller module comprised of a baseline controller and two adaptive fault‐tolerant controllers, activated after fault detection and after fault isolation, respectively. By using appropriately the designed Lyapunov functions, the closed‐loop stability and asymptotic convergence properties of the leader‐follower formation are rigorously established under different modes of the fault‐tolerant control system.     

Adhesion and Friction Evaluation of Textured Slider Surfaces in Ultra-Low Flying Head-Disk Interfaces

To achieve extremely high-density magnetic recording of 1Tbit per square inch using conventional technologies, the distance between the recording slider and the rotating disk needs to be less than 5nm. For successful operation, disk and slider surfaces must also be extremely smooth with root-mean-square roughness values of few angstroms. However, ultra-low flying super smooth head-disk interfaces may be exposed to a significant amount of intermittent contact, adhesion, stiction and friction that can cause the interface to collapse. In order to circumvent such problems, many novel techniques have been proposed, such as laser zone texturing, contact pads and surface microtexturing. A reliable method to reduce adhesion and friction in ultra-low flying head-disk interfaces is to control the area of contact and roughen the interface, which allows the slider to fly at sub-5nm with minimal contact. A technique known as preferential texturing provides a unique roughening of the air-bearing surface, where parts of the surface are removed, i.e., subtractive texturing process. In this paper, the effect of preferential texturing (roughening) of slider air-bearing surfaces on the adhesion and friction forces are investigated using quasi-dynamic models. The simulation results show that surface texturing reduces adhesion and friction by reducing the effective area of contact between the slider and media surfaces and by preferentially roughening the interface. The simulation results of friction compare favorably with experimental data.