Efficiency Improvement of Dual-Band Wireless Power Transfer (DB-WPT) System with U-shape Resonator and Capacitively Loaded E-shape Defected Ground Structure (DGS)

Wireless Personal Communications - The ceaseless increase in the number of the wireless Internet of Things (IoT) devices has resulted in the need of different traffic engineering techniques to...     

Synthesis and characterization of novel biodegradable water dispersed poly(ether-urethane)s and their MWCNT-AS nanocomposites functionalized with aspartic acid as dispersing agent

New biodegradable poly(ether-urethane)s (PEU)s were synthesized via the reaction of L-leucine anhydride cyclo-peptide, polyethylene glycol-1000 and hexamethylene diisocyanate. Then, they were end-functionalized with aspartic acid (AS) as a dispersing agent and were dispersed in water. MWCNTs were also functionalized by AS under microwave irradiation. Polymer/MWCNT-AS composites and polymer/MWCNT-AS water dispersed composites were prepared through an ultrasound-assisted method. We have designed these PEUs with two different structural architectures (PA1and PA2) which can be readily dispersed in water (PA1-D and PA2-D). The structure and properties of the polymers, MWCNTs-AS and PEUs/MWCNTs-AS composites were investigated by FTIR and NMR spectroscopy methods and FE-SEM, TEM and TGA techniques. The particle sizes of the resulting PA1-D and PA2-D dispersions were in the range of 200–300 nm. The results showed that by increasing MWCNT-AS loading, the degradation rate and particle sizes of the dispersed composites decreased, while thermal stability and dispersion stability of the composite systems increased. The degradation tests of polymers and their composites in PBS at 37 °C after 10 days showed weight losses ranging from 23 to 44 and 17–37%, respectively. The cytotoxicity study of polymers using the direct-contact test on L929 mouse fibroblast cell line showed no toxicity. Other properties such as thermal stability, dispersion’s particle size, degradation rate and morphology of the composites were studied, and the effect of simultaneous dispersion of MWCNTs-AS and PEUs in water on the properties of the resulting mixtures was studied. We suggest that these polymers have tunable properties which may potentially be considered for drug carriers’ studies.     

Application of self-collimated beams in realizing all-optical photonic crystal-based half-adder

In this paper an all-optical half-adder was proposed by using self-collimation effect in two-dimensional photonic crystals. Self-collimation effect was obtained in XM direction for wavelength 1500 nm by using square lattice rod-type photonic crystal structure. Plane wave expansion and finite-difference time-domain methods were used to obtain the band structure diagram and simulate the optical behavior of the proposed structure, respectively. The maximum delay time and required input intensity are 1 ps and 54 mW/μm², respectively. The normalized power-level margins for logics 0 and 1 were obtained to be about 20 and 70%, respectively. The total footprint of the structure is about 75 μm², which is suitable for all optical integrated circuits.     

Numerical simulation of solvent and water assisted electrical heating of oil sands including aquathermolysis and thermal cracking reactions

Simulations of bitumen recovery using solvent‐ and water‐assisted electrical heating of oil sands are presented to evaluate the process and to study gas generation. Aquathermolysis and thermal cracking and dissolution of acid‐gases in water are included. Steam‐assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is also simulated for comparison. Results show that gas generation negatively impacts SAGD. However, in electrical heating dissolution of gases into solvent weakens their negative impact. Results indicate that SAGD generates a larger gas volume than electrical heating. In both processes, methane is found to be the major species in the produced gas and H₂S concentration can reach high values. While the effect of acid–gas solubility in water on oil recovery is not evident its effect on generated gas volume is significant. Simulation results demonstrate that electrical heating is more energy efficient than SAGD. These results find application in design of experiments and pilot and field‐scale implementation of the process. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 4243–4258, 2017     

Stability of gravitationally unstable double diffusive transient boundary layers with variable viscosity in porous media

We study the double diffusive convection (DDC) in porous media through linear stability analysis (LSA) and direct numerical simulations (DNS). Unlike the previous studies that assume static solutal or thermal fields, the developed model is able to capture the transient behavior of both fields. We show that under the assumption of static field, the role of Lewis number cannot be distinguished. Under transient fields, we conclude that higher Lewis numbers result in earlier instability of the boundary layers. Moreover, the effect of viscosity contrast is explained in terms of the mobility of the boundary layer. The DNS results confirm the validity of LSA predictions. We also obtain the critical Rayleigh number and show that in the presence of viscosity contrast, it can be much smaller than the conventional limit of 4π². This study provides a better understanding of the transient nature of DDC in the presence of viscosity variations. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 2471–2482, 2017     

All-optical 6- and 8-channel demultiplexers based on photonic crystal multilayer ring resonators in Si/C rods

In this paper, we employed multilayer ring resonators in a silicon rod base structure to realize 6-channel and 8-channel demultiplexers based on two-dimensional photonic crystals. Both the main rings and basic structures are composed of silicon rods, and the interior rings of the multilayer rings are composed of carbon. Employing silicon and carbon rods of different radii in multilayer ring resonators enhanced the coupling efficiency between the rings and waveguides. The average quality factor and power transmission efficiency were 4320 and 93%, respectively. Crosstalk values from \(-11\) to ?46 dB in conjunction with the mentioned characteristics suggest the use of the device for optical communication applications. The compact size of the proposed structure and the materials used make the proposed demultiplexer suitable for optical integrated circuits.     

Recycling zinc oxide varistor blocks for electro‐active silicone composites

The recycling process toward the elimination of varistor wastes into new electro‐active silicon composites has been investigated. We studied the dependence of the E‐J characteristics on the aggregate content in the polymer matrix. Formulations with 40 vol.% metal oxide varistor aggregates in the 100‐200 μm range exhibit reliable nonlinear behavior with a switching voltage of 280±30 V/mm. The breakdown voltage of the composite decreases as both filler's diameter and filler's volume fraction increases in the 550‐220 V/mm and 440‐280 V/mm range, respectively. This paves the way for the valorization of varistors based zinc oxide (ZnO) ceramics.