Preparation of High‐Performance Conductive Polymer Fibers through Morphological Control of Networks Formed by Nanofillers

A general method is described to prepare high‐performance conductive polymer fibers or tapes. In this method, bicomponent tapes/fibers containing two layers of conductive polymer composites (CPCs) filled with multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWNT) or carbon black (CB) based on a lower‐melting‐temperature polymer and an unfilled polymer core with higher melting temperature are fabricated by a melt‐based process. Morphological control of the conductive network formed by nanofillers is realized by solid‐state drawing and annealing. Information on the morphological and electrical change of the highly oriented conductive nanofiller network in CPC bicomponent tapes during relaxation, melting, and crystallization of the polymer matrix is reported for the first time. The conductivity of these polypropylene tapes can be as high as 275 S m^?1 with tensile strengths of around 500 MPa. To the best of the authors' knowledge, it is the most conductive, high‐strength polymer fiber produced by melt‐processing reported in literature, despite the fact that only ～5 wt.% of MWNTs are used in the outer layers of the tape and the overall MWNT content in the bicomponent tape can be much lower (typically ～0.5 wt.%). Their applications could include sensing, smart textiles, electrodes for flexible solar cells, and electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding. Furthermore, a modeling approach was used to study the relaxation process of highly oriented conductive networks formed by carbon nanofillers.     

Secure Energy Harvesting Communications with Relay Selection over Nakagami-m Fading Channels

In this paper, an energy harvesting relay network over Nakagami-m fading is investigated. In the considered system, the power beacon can provide wireless energy for the source and relays which deploy time-switching-based radio frequency energy harvesting technique. Two relay selection schemes, namely partial relay selection and optimal relay selection, are proposed in order to enhance the system performance. In the former, the source only has the channel state information of the first hop, while in the latter it has the full knowledge of the channel state information. The eavesdropper is able to wiretap to the signal transmitted from the source and the relays. The exact closed-form expressions of secrecy outage probability are derived. The results show that optimal relay selection performs better than partial relay selection. With increasing number of relays, the considered system shows better performance. In addition, the energy harvesting duration has a significant effect on the secrecy outage probability.     

Comparative Study of Surface Chemical Composition and Oxide Layer Modification upon Oxygen Plasma Cleaning and Piranha Etching on a Novel Low Elastic Modulus Ti25Nb21Hf Alloy

Metals are widely employed for many biological artificial replacements, and it is known that the quality and the physical/chemical properties of the surface are crucial for the success of the implant. Therefore, control over surface implant materials and their elastic moduli may be crucial to avoid undesired effects. In this study, surface modification upon cleaning and activation of a low elastic modulus Ti alloy (Ti25Hf21Nb) was investigated. Two different methods, oxygen plasma (OP) cleaning and piranha (PI) solution, were studied and compared. Both surface treatments were effective for organic contaminant removal and to increase the Ti-oxide layer thickness rather than other metal-oxides present at the surface, which is beneficial for biocompatibility of the material. Furthermore, both techniques drastically increased hydrophilicity and introduced oxidation and hydroxylation (OH)-functional groups at the surface that may be beneficial for further chemical modifications. However, these treatments did not alter the surface roughness and bulk material properties. The surfaces were fully characterized in terms of surface roughness, wettability, oxide layer composition, and hydroxyl surface density through analytical techniques (interferometry, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), contact angle, and zinc complexation). These findings provide essential information when planning surface modifications for cleanliness, oxide layer thickness, and surface hydroxyl density, as control over these factors is essential for many applications, especially in biomaterials.     

Improving tensile strength and toughness of melt processed polyamide 6/multiwalled carbon nanotube composites by in situ polymerization and filler surface functionalization

The effect of processing method and condition on the dispersion status of multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and mechanical properties of the MWCNT/polyamide 6 (PA6) composites are investigated. Different melt processing conditions are used to dilute the master batch produced by melt process or in situ polymerization. Both MWCNTs and carboxyl group functionalized MWCNTs (MWCNTs‐COOH) are compounded with PA6 at different loadings (0.1, 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75 wt %) to study the effect of chemical modification of MWCNTs on the mechanical properties of the final composites. It is demonstrated that chemical modification of MWCNTs has a positive effect on the strength of the composites as an increase of 5–10 MPa was observed. More importantly, a near 5 MPa increase in strength and more importantly, a maximum of 138% increase in strain at break were observed for the composites produced by in situ polymerization, indicating a toughening and strengthening effect of CNT on the composites. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

Non-linear self-driven spectral tuning of Extreme Ultraviolet Femtosecond Pulses in monoatomic materials

Self-action nonlinearity is a key aspect–either as a foundational element or a detrimental factor–of several optical spectroscopies and photonic devices. Superc...     

Seismic performance of pendulum and translational roof-garden TMDs

In a previous paper, the authors already introduced the concept of the roof-garden TMD, an innovative passive vibration absorber for building structures, meant to combine the dynamic response mitigation capabilities of traditional tuned mass dampers (TMDs) with the environmental advantages of traditional roof gardens. In order to limit the mistuning effect and control loss due to the intrinsic variability of its mass, a roof-garden TMD of the rolling-pendulum type, advantageously characterized by a mass-independent natural period although unfortunately inherently non-linear, was then proposed and its performance assessed for increasing values of mass uncertainty and excitation levels.In the present study, the rolling-pendulum type is compared with the well-known translational configuration, the latter expectedly more prone to mistuning and yet insensitive to seismic intensity because of its linear behaviour. The trade-off between the two schemes is first explored for the case of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) structure under a variety of design scenarios and then demonstrated through simulations on a building structure recently completed in a seismic site in Central Italy and designed to host a roof-garden atop for architectural purposes.