Rheology of poly(vinyl chloride) blends

PVC/EVA blends were studied with an extrusion plastometer in order to examine the effect of EVA on the processability of PVC. The melt flow of PVC/EVA blends containing from 4 to 30 weight percent EVA follows a simple power law between 160 and 180°C. EVA reduced the melt viscosity and enhanced processability. Blends of PVC and EVA were morphologically incompatible. The molecular weight of extruded PVC in the blends was unchanged.     

Soft and Hard Adhesion

The force needed to pull a cylindrical stud from a soft elastomeric film depends on their elastic and geometric properties. For a rigid stud and a thick elastomeric film, the pull-off stress (σ) depends on the elastic modulus (E) of the film and the radius (a) of the stud as σ ∼ (E/a)^1/2 (soft adhesion). However, when the film is very thin, the pull-off stress is significantly higher than the case with thick films, and its value depends on the elastic modulus and the thickness (h) of the film as σ ∼ (E/h)^1/2 (hard adhesion). Here, we study the pull-off behavior of a soft cylindrical stud, one flat end of which is coated with a high modulus thin baseplate. As the flexural rigidity of this baseplate is varied, we observe the transition between the two types of adhesion. We present a simple physical interpretation of the problem, which could be of value in understanding various biofouling and adhesive situations.     

Analytical melting model for extrusion: Stress of fully compacted solid polymers

Our laboratory recently published several analytical equations that can be used to predict the melting rate of fully compacted solid polymers sliding on a heated metal surface, modeling the melting mechanism inside an extruder. These equations were obtained by seeking asymptotic solutions to the differential equations describing the melting mechanism, temperature, and shear-dependent viscosity of polymer melts. Following the same asymptotic approach, we successfully developed accompanying analytical equations for predicting the stress required to slide fully compacted solid polymers on a heated metal surface. The accuracy of these analytical stress equations was found to be reasonable, although not fully satisfactory, by comparing their predictions to the experimentally measured values. The accuracy of the stress calculation is directly related to the accuracy of the viscosity values at high shear rates. The consideration of the temperature and shear dependencies of melt viscosity is most important for accurate prediction of the stress, just as it is for the melting rate. The stress not only depends on the melt rheological properties of the polymer but also on the thermodynamic properties.     

Blends of chlorinated isotactic polypropylene with poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) II. Phase studies of the miscible blends

By measuring T_g, T_m and T_c (cloud point) phase diagrams for the four miscible blends of chlorinated isotactic polypropylenes (chlorine content 39.2 (CPP-40) and 49.8 wt.-% (CP-50)) with Poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate)s (vinyl acetate contents 40 (EVA-40) and 45 wt.-% (EVA-45)) were investigated. The blend of CPP-50 with EVA-40 was the most compatible of the four blend pairs.     

Mathematical model and optimization of drying process for a through-circulation dryer

A mathematical model of a through-circulation dryer is proposed. This model approximates the drying time of constantrate drying and fallingrate drying processes. Based on the proposed model, the optimal drying conditions of maximizing the drying production rate in a continuous through-circulation dryer are obtained. The drying production rate, in terms of the independent operating variables, is a nonlinear objective function, and is optimized under the nonlinear inequality constraint functions by a differential algorithm.     

Effects of Purified Persimmon Tannin and Tannic Acid on Survival and Reproduction of Bean Bug, Riptortus clavatus

We evaluated the effects of tannic acid and purified perrsimmon tannin on survival and reproduction of bean bugs, Riptortus clavatus.Feeding behavior of R. clavatus was also examined on sweet (cv. Fuyu) and astringent (cv. Chongdosi) persimmon fruits. Soluble tannin in sweet persimmon fruits decreased from 3% in early June to 0.5% in late September, but it increased from 2 to 8% during the same period in astringent persimmon fruits. More bugs visited sweet than astringent persimmon. Numbers of piercing/sucking spots were higher on sweet than on astringent persimmon. When fed 1 and 3% solutions of persimmon tannin, adult bugs ingested only 64.1 and 9.5% of the amount of water ingested by those offered the control (distilled water). Amounts of persimmon tannin ingested by the adult bugs were 6.5 and 2.8 times higher at 1 and 3% tannin solutions compared to a 0.1% solution. Persimmon tannin exerted negative effects on survival and reproduction of R. clavatus at higher concentrations (1 and 3% solutions). Feeding of R. clavatus adults decreased with increasing tannin concentrations. When results from both sexes were pooled, 50% mortality was achieved at 11 and 4 days after treatment with the 1 and 3% tannin solutions, respectively. Reproduction decreased with 1% tannin, and no eggs were produced with 3% tannin solution. Tannic acid was similar in its effects on R. clavatus. All nymphs died 14, 12, and 7 days after feeding on 0.1, 1, and 3% tannic acid, respectively. Adults were less sensitive than nymphs, and their survival was not affected by 0.1% tannic acid. However. 1 and 3% tannic acid solutions were fatal. Survivorship decreased to 50% at 11 and 6 days after supplying tannin solutions of 1 and 3% concentrations. Higher concentrations (1 and 3%) resulted in reduced reproduction, as was seen with persimmon tannin. Our data may explain why R. clavatus does not invade sweet persimmon orchards until late July, when concentrations of soluble tannin are low enough to allow them to feed.     

Polydispersity effect on transient flow behavior of polystyrene solution

Summary The transient flow behavior of the binary blend of monodisperse polystyrene fractions is measured by a flow birefringence method. Both of the shear stress and first normal stress difference are obtained simultaneously in time by using a PMFB technique. The entanglements of the polymer chains significantly affect the rheological property of the binary blend in flow region. Especially, the entanglements of the high molecular weight fractions with themselves is proven to be the main source to the growth of first normal stress differences.     

Mechanical properties and morphology of polymer blends of poly(ethylene terephthalate) and semiflexible thermotropic liquid crystalline polyesters

Two thermotropic liquid crystalline polyesters (TLCPs) with long flexible spacer groups in the main chain were prepared by melt polymerization: one was a homopolymer with only decane groups (LCPHO) and the other was a copolymer with hexane or decane groups (LCPCO) between mesogen units. These polyesters were blended with a matrix polymer of poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the excellent interfacial adhesion between polyester and PET, and the large aspect ratio of polyester microfibrils in the blend fiber made by extruding and drawing the blend through a die. The aspect ratio was estimated by using the modified Halpin-Tsai equation. The fiber with LCPHO showed more extensive fibril formation than that with LCPCO.     

JackHare: a framework for SQL to NoSQL translation using MapReduce

As data exploration has increased rapidly in recent years, the datastore and data processing are getting more and more attention in extracting important information. To find a scalable solution to process the large-scale data is a critical issue in either the relational database system or the emerging NoSQL database. With the inherent scalability and fault tolerance of Hadoop, MapReduce is attractive to process the massive data in parallel. Most of previous researches focus on developing the SQL or SQL-like queries translator with the Hadoop distributed file system. However, it could be difficult to update data frequently in such file system. Therefore, we need a flexible datastore as HBase not only to place the data over a scale-out storage system, but also to manipulate the changeable data in a transparent way. However, the HBase interface is not friendly enough for most users. A GUI composed of SQL client application and database connection to HBase will ease the learning curve. In this paper, we propose the JackHare framework with SQL query compiler, JDBC driver and a systematical method using MapReduce framework for processing the unstructured data in HBase. After importing the JDBC driver to a SQL client GUI, we can exploit the HBase as the underlying datastore to execute the ANSI-SQL queries. Experimental results show that our approaches can perform well with efficiency and scalability.     

Robots learn to dance through interaction with humans

In this paper, we investigated an approach for robots to learn to adapt dance actions to human’s preferences through interaction and feedback. Human’s preferences were extracted by analysing the common action patterns with positive or negative feedback from the human during robot dancing. By using a buffering technique to store the dance actions before a feedback, each individual’s preferences can be extracted even when a reward is received late. The extracted preferred dance actions from different people were then combined to generate improved dance sequences, i.e. performing more of what was preferred and less of that was not preferred. Together with Softmax action-selection method, the Sarsa reinforcement learning algorithm was used as the underlining learning algorithm and to effectively control the trade-off between exploitation of the learnt dance skills and exploration of new dance actions. The results showed that the robot learnt, using interactive reinforcement learning, the preferences of human partners, and the dance improved with the extracted preferences from more human partners.