Detection of Multiple Blockages in Parallelized Microreactors

In a plant consisting of parallelized microreactors (MRs), the product quality is lowered because of a lack of flow uniformity among them when blockage occurs. It is not practical to install sensors in every MR from the viewpoint of cost when detecting the blocked MRs. In the previous study, the multiple blockage detection (MBD) method using a small number of sensors was proposed, but its performance became low when the number of sensors decreased. Here, the conventional algorithm for MBD is improved by considering the process behavior on blockage occurrence, and the effectiveness of the improved algorithm is demonstrated through a numerical case study. The effects of flow distributor types and sensor types on the MBD performance are numerically investigated.     

Characterization and CO2 sorption properties of poly[methacryloxypropylheptacyclopentyl‐T8‐silsesquioxane‐ co‐3‐methacryloxypropyltris(trimethylsiloxy)silane]

Poly[methacryloxypropylheptacyclopentyl‐T8‐silsesquioxane (MAPOSS)‐co‐3‐methacryloxypropyltris(trimethylsiloxy)silane (SiMA)] was synthesized through free radical polymerization. The physical and carbon dioxide (CO₂) sorption properties of the copolymer membranes were investigated in terms of the MAPOSS content. As the MAPOSS content increases, the membrane density increased, suggesting a decrease in the fractional free volume. In addition, the thermal stability was improved with increasing the MAPOSS content. These are because of the polyhedraloligomericilsesquioxane (POSS) units that restrict the high mobility of poly(SiMA) segments. The glass transition temperature, T_g of the copolymers was single T_g based on the differential scanning calorimetry, suggesting that the copolymers were random and not phase separation. Based on the CO₂ sorption measurement, the POSS units play a role in reducing Henry's dissolution by suppressing the mobility of the poly(SiMA) component, while POSS units increase the nonequilibrium excess free volume, which contributes to the Langmuir dissolution. Based on these results, the introduction of MAPOSS unit is one of the effective ways to improved the thermal stability and CO₂ sorption property due to the enhancement of the polymer rigidity. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

Spontaneous hydrolytic degradability of copolyesters having tetrahydropyran rings in their backbones

Homo- and copolyesters, containing 2,5-linked tetrahydropyran rings in their backbones, were prepared by cationic ring-opening polymerization of bicyclic lactones, 2,6-dioxabicyclo [2.2.2] octan-3-one ( 1 ), and its 4-methoxy-carbonyl and 4-methoxy-carbonyl and 4-benzyloxycarbonyl derivatives ( 3 and 4 ). Copolyesters, having pendant carboxyl groups, were derived from the copolymers containing 4 as one of the comonomers by the catalytic hydrogenolysis of the pendant benzyloxy–carbonyl groups. Copolyesters, containing both 2,5-linked and 2,6-linked tetrahydropyran rings in the main chains, were obtained by the copolymerization of 1 with 6,8-dioxabicyclo [3.2.1] octan-7-one ( 13 ), which is a structural isomer of 1 . Spontaneous hydrolytic degradability of these polyesters was investigated in a phosphate buffer solution (pH 7.5) at 27°C. The degradability of the polyesters markedly depended on the molecular structure: hydrophobic pendant groups retarded the hydrolytic degradation, whereas hydrophilic pendant groups accelerated it. In particular, a small amount of pendant carboxyl groups significantly enhanced the hydrolytic degradability of the copolyesters from 1 . Polyesters, containing 2,6-linked tetrahydropyran rings in their backbones, underwent hydrolytic degradation more readily than those entirely consisting of 2,5-linked tetrahydropyran rings. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

On the separation in 2-period double round robin tournaments with minimum breaks

This paper considers the separation in 2-period double round robin tournaments (2P-DRRTs) with minimum breaks. The separation is a lower bound on the number of slots between the two games with the same opponents. None of known schemes provides 2P-DRRTs with minimum breaks and a positive separation. We first propose a new scheme to generate 2-separation 2P-DRRTs with minimum breaks, based on single round robin tournaments (SRRTs) with minimum breaks which have the last break in the third slot from the end. Our experiment results show that such SRRTs exist for 8-68 teams. Secondly, we consider maximizing the separation in general 2P-DRRTs with minimum breaks by integer programming and constraint programming, respectively. The two approaches of direct formulation and “first-break, then-schedule” decomposition are presented and compared. We obtain the maximum separation for up to 14 teams. Furthermore, we consider the application with place constraints to show the flexibility and efficiency of scheduling 2P-DRRTs with minimum breaks and a positive separation.     

Insulation characteristics and its evaluation method of N2 gas for nonstandard lightning impulse waveforms

Until recently, SF₆ gas has widely been used as the best insulating medium in substation equipment. However, SF₆ gas was specified to be a greenhouse gas at COP3 in 1997 because of its high global warming potential (GWP), and alternative insulation gases to SF₆ have been sought for a long time. Alternatives using the natural gases are considered to be suitable, but none of them show better properties for insulation as well as good environmental compatibility. Therefore, it is necessary to rationalize the equipment insulation level and reduce the test voltage of electric power apparatus to as low a level as possible. The actual lightning surge waveform (so‐called nonstandard lightning impulse waveform) occurring in the actual field is different from the standard lightning impulse waveform (1.2/50 μs). There are many cases in which the actual lightning surge waveform has a steep rise and large decay of overvoltage, and the insulation requirements are not as severe as those for the standard lightning impulse waveform. In this paper, we focused our research on N₂ gas as an SF₆ substitute and investigated the insulation characteristics of N₂ gas for a single‐frequency oscillatory waveform with various frequencies from 2.7 to 20.0 MHz and damping ratios. Based on the experimental results, it might be possible to reduce the test voltage of N₂ gas insulation by evaluating the crest value of the actual lightning surge waveform that has been converted into an equivalent standard lightning impulse waveform. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 167(2): 10–20, 2009; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20754     

Moving pick‐up‐type contactless power transfer systems and their efficiency using series and parallel resonant capacitors

The equivalent circuit, the efficiency, and the important characteristics of moving pick‐up type contactless power transfer systems are described. If the primary series capacitor and the secondary parallel capacitors are chosen correctly and the winding resistances are ignored, the equivalent circuit of the transformer with these capacitors becomes the same as an ideal transformer at the resonant frequency. This simple approximation helps to understand the phenomena occurring with load changes. Because the circuit analysis becomes simple, the approximate value of the power transfer efficiency can be derived. This paper describes the determination of the capacitor values, the derivation of the equivalent circuit and the efficiency, and test results. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 172(2): 47–54, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20970     

Microstructural analysis of the stir zone of Al alloy produced by friction stir spot welding

The present study applied friction spot joining (FSJ), which was recently developed as a lap joining technique of Al alloys, to two sheets of Al alloy 6061, 1 mm in thickness, and then examined the microstructural feature in the weld. The weld had the nugget-shaped stir zone around the exit hole of the probe, and the stir zone exhibited the equiaxed grain structure having finer grain size than that of the base material. The crystallographic texture analysis using electron backscattered diffraction method suggested that the material movement occurred along the rotating direction of the welding tool in the wide region including the stir zone. In the periphery of the nugget-shaped stir zone, which was characterized as the region having the finer grain size than that of the stir zone interior, any inclusions and precipitates were not found in the SEM scale. The weld was softened around the weld centre. The softening could be explained by dissolution and/or growth of the strengthening precipitates due to thermal cycle of FSJ.     

Proposal for a benchmark model of a laminated iron core and a large‐scale and highly accurate magnetic analysis

This paper describes a benchmark model proposed for the clarification of the characteristic of various methods for modeling the laminated iron core. In order to obtain a reference solution of the benchmark model, a large‐scale nonlinear magnetostatic field analysis with a mesh fine enough to represent the microscopic structure of the laminated iron core is carried out by using the hybrid finite element–boundary element (FE‐BE) method combined with the fast multipole method (FMM) based on diagonal forms for translation operators. The computational costs and accuracy of two kinds of homogenization methods are discussed, comparing them with the reference solution. As a consequence, it is verified that the homogenization methods can analyze magnetic fields in laminated iron core within acceptable computational costs. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 170(1): 26–35, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20809     

A new method for estimating initial rotor phase of self‐excited hybrid‐field synchronous motors

This paper proposes a new method for properly estimating the rotor initial phase (i.e., the position) of the newly emerging self‐excited hybrid‐field synchronous motors (SelE‐HFSMs), which have the rotor held by both a permanent magnet and a diode‐shorted held winding. The proposed method injects a spatially rotating high‐frequency voltage and detects the rotor phase directly by evaluating the norm of the associated current. The method is very simple, but has a high degree of usability. 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 173(3): 49–58, 2010; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience. wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.21027     

Quantum Effects on Hydrogen Isotopes Adsorption in Nanopores

We have investigated the applicability of simulations and theoretical techniques for exploring the selectivities of hydrogen isotopes. We have simulated the adsorption isotherms of H₂ in an idealized carbon slit pore at 77 K by using the grand canonical Monte Carlo simulations with the Feynman-Hibbs effective potential (FH-GCMC) and the rigorous path integral method (PI-GCMC), and we obtained good agreement between the isotherms from both simulations. This suggests that FH-GCMC, which uses the approximative Feynman-Hibbs treatment, is as useful as PI-GCMC for exploring H₂ adsorption at 77 K. Moreover, we show that the ideal adsorption solution theory (IAST) can predict the selectivity of D₂ over H₂ in the interstices of single-wall carbon nanotube (SWNT) bundles at 77 K (below 0.1 MPa) very well by comparing the obtained results with the mixture adsorption FH-GCMC simulations. This indicates that IAST is also applicable to the estimation of the selectivity of D₂ over H₂ at moderate pressures and at 77 K from experimental single-component adsorption isotherms. We also demonstrate that the FH-GCMC simulation can reproduce the experimental adsorption isotherms of H₂ and D₂ in aluminophosphate AlPO₄-5 at 77 K. Finally, we analyze the selectivity of D₂ over H₂ by IAST with the experimental single-component adsorption isotherms of H₂ and D₂ at 77 K for a variety of adsorbents: AlPO₄-5, activated carbon fibers (ACFs), HiPco SWNT, and SWNHs. The selectivities predicted by the experimental adsorption data based on the results from the FH-GCMC simulations are presented and discussed.