Mechanism of cone-shaped carbon nanotube bundle formation by plasma treatment

Formation of the cone-shaped multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) bundles was investigated with the consideration of the induced dipole moments of the MWCNTs interaction under the ion irradiation which is accelerated by the applied sheath electric field for the various argon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen plasmas. Vertically grown MWCNTs were irradiated by energetic ion whose energy and dose were controlled by the sheath formed on the MWCNT substrate. Plasma irradiation was carried out in a downstream region separated from the plasma source region, providing that the irradiated ion density and energy could be controlled precisely with the sheath electric field. In argon and hydrogen plasmas, the cone-shaped MWCNT bundle was not fabricated, while it was formed successfully in nitrogen and oxygen plasmas. Especially, the oxygen plasma was the most effective in the formation of the bundle. The mechanism of the bundle formation could be explained by a model explaining the interaction between the induced dipole moment of the MWCNT and the sheath electric field. For the nitrogen and oxygen plasma irradiated MWCNT, the induced dipole moment could be enhanced by C-N and C-O bonds so the size of the bundle is proportional to the ion irradiation and the sheath electric field.     

Effects of work hardening models on low-cycle fatigue evaluations of coiled tubing with CT-100 steel

In the present study, low-cycle fatigue life of a coiled tubing (CT) with a CT-100 steel was evaluated by using various work hardening models. Tensile and low-cycle fatigue tests were performed, and experimental results were used to calibrate material model constants. A nonlinear finite element model was constructed in the ABAQUS program by using a CT fatigue test machine. During the test cycles, bending and straightening conditions were repeated and histories of strains were collected. The multiaxial low-cycle fatigue life was calculated by using Manson–Coffin relation and Tresca criterion. The kinematic and combined hardening models can be used to evaluate the fatigue life of CT, and their results are conservative compared with the fatigue test results. Results of the present study can be used as the basic data in establishing CT fatigue analysis.     

Experimental study on the life prediction of servo motors through model-based system degradation assessment and accelerated degradation testing

The advent of smart factories has resulted in the frequent utilization of industrial robots within factories to increase production automation and efficiency. Due to the increase in the number of industrial robots, it has become more important to prevent any unexpected breakdowns of the factory. As a result, the lifespan prediction of machinery has become a crucial factor because such failures can be directly associated with factory productivity resulting in significant losses. Most of the failures occur within one of the core components of the robot arm, the servo motor, and thus we will focus on the analysis of the servo motor in this study. However, sensor attachment to such equipment is considered difficult due to the dynamic movement of the robot arm, meaning that internal instrumentation should be utilized during analysis. In addition, no definite measure to determine the degradation of the motor exists, and thus a new degradation index is proposed in this study. Therefore, in this study, the lifespan of the servo motor will be estimated through accelerated degradation testing methods based on a new system degradation assessment method, which estimates the fault of the system using observer-based residuals with encoder data obtained from internal instrumentation.     

Solubility and electrochemical properties of chemically modified polyaniline‐gold/camphor sulfonic acid composites

Polyaniline nanocomposites encapsulating gold nanoparticles on camphor sulfonic acid (CSA) surface were prepared via the polymerization of aniline hydrochloride with different concentrations of CSA using HAuCl₄ as oxidant. The synthesized composites were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and UV–visible spectroscopy. Surface morphology was studied by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The embedded crystallinity of the composites was investigated by X‐ray diffraction analysis. The solubility of the nanocomposites was studied using water, N‐methyl‐2‐pyrrolidinone, chloroform, and dimethylformamide solvents. The room temperature direct current conductivity of the composites was also observed in solution state. Electrical property of the composites was examined using cyclic voltammetric measurements at room temperature. The fabricated polymer nanocomposites with better solubility in water and some organic solvents will have various applications in electrical devices and biosensors. POLYM. COMPOS., 36:245–252, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Pipe crack identification based on the energy method and committee of neural networks

A crack identification method using an equivalent bending stiffness for cracked beam and committee of neural networks is presented. The equivalent bending stiffness is constructed based on an energy method for a straight thin-walled pipe, which has a through-the-thickness crack, subjected to bending. Several numerical analysis for a steel cantilever pipe using the equivalent bending stiffness are carried out to extract the natural frequencies and mode shapes of the cracked beam. The extracted modal properties are used in constructing a training patterns of a neural network. The input to the neural network consists of the modal properties and the output is composed of the crack location and size. Multiple neural networks are constructed and each individual network is trained independently with the different initial synaptic weights. Then, the estimated crack locations and sizes from different neural networks are averaged. Crack detection is carried out for 16 damage cases using the proposed method, and the identified crack locations and sizes agree reasonably well with the exact values.     

Enhancement in electron transport and light emission efficiency of a Si nanocrystal light-emitting diode by a SiCN/SiC superlattice structure

We report an enhancement in light emission efficiency of Si nanocrystal (NC) light-emitting diodes (LEDs) by employing 5.5 periods of SiCN/SiC superlattices (SLs). SiCN and SiC layers in SiCN/SiC SLs were designed by considering the optical bandgap to induce the uniform electron sheet parallel to the SL planes. The electrical property of Si NC LED with SiCN/SiC SLs was improved. In addition, light output power and wall-plug efficiency of the Si NC LED with SiCN/SiC SLs were also enhanced by 50% and 40%, respectively. This was attributed to both the formation of two-dimensional electron gas, i.e., uniform electron sheet parallel to the SiCN/SiC SL planes due to the conduction band offset between the SiCN layer and SiC layer, and an enhanced electron transport into the Si NCs due to a lower tunneling barrier height. We show here that the use of the SiCN/SiC SL structure can be very useful in realizing a highly efficient Si NC LED.     

A collision resolution algorithm for clump-free fast moving cloth

Cloth animation is an important area of computer graphics due to its numerous applications. However, so far a fast moving cloth with multiple wrinkles has been difficult to animate because of the cloth clump problem. Cloth clumps are the frozen areas where cloth pieces are clustered unnaturally — an obstacle in making a realistic cloth animation. Hence we present a novel cloth collision resolution algorithm that prevents clump formation during fast cloth motions. The goal of our resolution algorithm is to make cloth move swiftly without having any unnatural frozen cloth clumps, while preventing any cloth-cloth and rigid-cloth penetrations at any moment of a simulation. The non-penetration status of cloth is maintained without the formation of cloth clumps regardless of the speed of cloth motion. Our algorithm is based on a particular order that we found in the resolution of cloth collisions, and can be used with any structural modeling approaches such as spring-masses or finite elements. This paper includes several realistic simulation examples involving fast motions that are clump-free.     

A study of through-thickness texture gradients in rolled sheets

A method to simulate shear effects and through-thickness texture gradients in rolled sheet materials is introduced. The strain history during a rolling pass is idealized by superimposing a sine-shaped evolution of the ₁₃ shear component to a plane-strain state. These generic strain histories are enforced in a visco-plastic self-consistent (VPSC) polycrystal deformation model to simulate texture evolution as a function of through-thickness position. The VPSC scheme is deemed superior to a full constraints (FC) or relaxed constraints (RC) approach, because it allows one to fully prescribe diagonal and shear-strain-rate components while still accounting for grain-shape effects. The idealized strain states are validated by comparison with deformation histories obtained through finite-element method (FEM) calculations. The through-thickness texture gradients are accounted for by introducing a relative variation of the sine-shaped ₁₃ shear with respect to the plane-strain component. The simulation results are validated, in turn, by comparison with typical examples of through-thickness texture gradients observed experimentally in rolled plates and in sheets of fcc and bcc materials.