Effects of working parameters on surface finish in ball-burnishing of hardened steels

Burnishing is a chipless finishing method, which employs a rolling tool, pressed against the workpiece, in order to achieve plastic deformation of the surface layer. Recent developments made possible burnishing of heat-treated steel components up to 65 HRC. Features of burnishing include a good roughness (comparable to grinding), as well as improvement of mechanical characteristics of the surface (fatigue strength, corrosion resistance, and bearing ratio), due to implementation of compressive stresses into the surface layer. This paper will present influences of certain burnishing parameters upon roughness, for a hardened steel component (64 HRC).     

Investigation of Mixed Mode I/II Brittle Fracture Using ASCB Specimen

Using the asymmetric semi-circular bend specimen (ASCB) with vertical crack, a series of mixed mode I/II fracture tests were performed on two different rigid polyurethanes materials. The experimental results obtained for brittle fracture are compared with the theoretical predictions based on MTS and SED criteria. The results demonstrate that the SED criterion gives better results for mode II loading conditions, while for mode I and predominantly mode I both criteria are accurate.     

New unsymmetrical complex diesters of adipic acid considered as tribological fluids

The paper presents results concerning the synthesis and characterisation of some unsymmetrical diesters of adipic acid with a mixed, complex structure in order to produce synthetic ester oils with specific tribological properties. These complex diesters have been synthesised by taking into account medium and superior aliphatic alcohols, such as n‐butanol, n‐hexanol, 2‐ethyl‐hexanol, isodecanol and isotridecanol along with special alcohols of a complex alkyl–aryl nature, namely 2‐phenoxy‐ethanol, 2‐([o‐sec butyl] phenoxy) ethanol and 2‐([p‐nonyl] phenoxy) ethanol, respectively. By varying the length of the aliphatic alcohols and also by modifying the length and position of the alkyl pendant group on the aromatic ring of the complex alkyl–aryl alcohols, three series of products have been realised. On the basis of this programme, it has been possible to obtain fluid products that show valuable tribological features with adequate and versatile characteristics. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A New Fuzzy Adaptive Algorithm to Classify Imbalanced Data

Classification of imbalanced data is a well explored issue in the data mining and machine learning community where one class representation is overwhelmed by other classes. The Imbalanced distribution of data is a natural occurrence in real world datasets, so needed to be dealt with carefully to get important insights. In case of imbalance in data sets, traditional classifiers have to sacrifice their performances, therefore lead to misclassifications. This paper suggests a weighted nearest neighbor approach in a fuzzy manner to deal with this issue. We have adapted the ‘existing algorithm modification solution’ to learn from imbalanced datasets that classify data without manipulating the natural distribution of data unlike the other popular data balancing methods. The K nearest neighbor is a non-parametric classification method that is mostly used in machine learning problems. Fuzzy classification with the nearest neighbor clears the belonging of an instance to classes and optimal weights with improved nearest neighbor concept helping to correctly classify imbalanced data. The proposed hybrid approach takes care of imbalance nature of data and reduces the inaccuracies appear in applications of original and traditional classifiers. Results show that it performs well over the existing fuzzy nearest neighbor and weighted neighbor strategies for imbalanced learning.     

Photochromic properties of polyimide and polysiloxane azopolymers

BACKROUND: One of the most important properties of the azobenzene chromophores is the photochemical trans–cis isomerization induced by UV or visible light. In azopolymers, the photoisomerization induces conformational changes in the polymer chains, which in turn lead to macroscopic variations in the chemical and physical properties of the surroundings and media. RESULTS: This work reports the photochromic behaviour and surface structuring capacity of azopolymers having rigid polyimide and flexible polysiloxane structures, respectively. These polymers have good thermostabilities, with the degradation process starting above 315 °C. The glass transition temperature of the azopolyimide is 228 °C, while that of the azopolysiloxane modified with thymine is 34 °C. CONCLUSION: The experiments show that the azobenzene groups can isomerize even in the case of the rigid polyimide, but the maximum degree of conversion to the cis isomer is less than in the case of the flexible polysiloxane. This behaviour is reversed in solution, probably due to both the thymine and azo group interactions and for conformational reasons. The azopolymers show a good surface structuring capacity. The polysiloxane is more sensitive in the case of low irradiation energy and irradiation time. By increasing the irradiation time for both polymers, the modulation depth increases and has comparable values. Copyright © 2008 Society of Chemical Industry