Optical and electrical characterization of a gold nanoparticle dispersion in a chiral liquid crystal matrix

We report on the effect of gold nanoparticle (Au NP) dispersion in a chiral nematic liquid crystal (LC). Polarized optical microscopy and X-ray diffraction measurements evidence the insurgence of an order change in the LC host. Moreover, a comparative analysis based on dielectric and voltammetric spectroscopies performed on pure LC and on Au NP-doped LC shows that Au NP’s presence besides affecting LC order influences its electric properties: ion conductivity results importantly reduced, and beyond a threshold value of the applied field electrophoresis phenomena are induced.     

Dynamic allocation for input redundant control systems

In this paper we address control systems with redundant actuators and characterize the concepts of weak and strong input redundancy. Based on this characterization, we propose a dynamic augmentation to a control scheme which performs the plant input allocation with the goal of employing each actuator in a suitable way, based on its magnitude and rate limits. The proposed theory is first developed for redundant plants without saturation and then extended to the case of magnitude saturation first and of magnitude and rate saturation next. Several simulation examples illustrate the proposed technique and show its advantages for practical application.     

A Comprehensive Overview on the Latest Progress in the Additive Manufacturing of Metal Matrix Composites: Potential,Challenges, and Feasible Solutions

Nowadays, as an emerging technology, additive manufacturing(AM) has received numerous attentions from researchers around the world. The method comprises layer-by-layer manufacturing of products according to the 3D CAD models of the objects. Among other things, AM is capable of producing metal matrix composites(MMCs). Hence, plenty of works in the literature are dedicated to developing different types of MMCs through AM processes. Hence, this paper provides a comprehensive overview on the latest research that has been carried out on the development of the powder-based AM manufactured MMCs from a scientific and technological viewpoint, aimed at highlighting the opportunities and challenges of this innovative manufacturing process. For instance, it is documented that AM is not only able to resolve the reinforcement/matrix bonding issues usually faced with during conventional manufacturing of MMCs, but also it is capable of producing functionally graded composites and geometrically complex objects. Furthermore, it provides the opportunity for a uniform distribution of the reinforcing phase in the metallic matrix and is able to produce composites using refractory metals thanks to the local heat source employed in the method. Despite the aforementioned advantages, there are still some challenges needing more attention from the researchers. Rapid cooling nature of the process, significantly different coe fficient of expansion of the matrix and reinforcement, processability, and the lack of suitable parameters and standards for the production of defect-free AM MMCs seem to be among the most important issues to deal with in future works.     

High glass transition temperature polyester coatings for the protection of stones

Copolymers of lactic acid with mandelic or salicylic acid were synthetized through ring‐opening polymerization (ROP) and tested as protective coatings for stones. Most notably, glass transition temperature (T_g), hydrophobicity, and UV barrier properties were increased, making these materials more suitable as protective coating for outdoor stones than poly(lactic acid). A T_g of 76°C was obtained for the alternating copolymer lactic acid/mandelic acid and it was considerably higher than the one of poly(lactic acid) with similar molecular weight (50–55°C). Furthermore, the introduction of a perfluorinated moiety as chain‐end group, using a perfluoro alcohol as initiator of the ROP process, allowed to increase the hydrophobicity and stability of the new coatings. These polymers showed a good protective efficiency when applied on marble stones and preliminary stability tests under solar light showed low degradation, good stability to photo‐oxidative conditions, and negligible color changes after an aging time of 1000 h. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42323.     

Polycarbonate‐based composites reinforced by in situ polytetrafluoroethylene fibrillation: Preparation,thermal and rheological behavior

Fibrillar reinforced composites of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polycarbonate (PC) were prepared by in situ fibrillation of PTFE into PC matrix using twin screw extruder. Different samples were obtained by varying the relative ratio between PC and PTFE. The rheological properties of the PC/PTFE composites were found to depend on concentration of the PTFE fibrils. The melt strength analysis in nonisothermal conditions was also studied. The increase in force and decrease in drawability with increasing the PTFE content are associated with the PTFE fibrils formed in situ during the thermomechanical process in twin screw extruder. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2015 , 132, 42401.     

Magnetic resonance image denoising using nonlocal maximum likelihood paradigm in DCT‐framework

The data acquired by magnetic resonance (MR) imaging system are inherently degraded by noise that has its origin in the thermal Brownian motion of electrons. Denoising can enhance the quality (by improving the SNR) of the acquired MR image, which is important for both visual analysis and other post processing operations. Recent works on maximum likelihood (ML) based denoising shows that ML methods are very effective in denoising MR images and has an edge over the other state‐of‐the‐art methods for MRI denoising. Among the ML based approaches, the Nonlocal maximum likelihood (NLML) method is commonly used. In the conventional NLML method, the samples for the ML estimation of the unknown true pixel are chosen in a nonlocal fashion based on the intensity similarity of the pixel neighborhoods. Euclidean distance is generally used to measure this similarity. It has been recently shown that computing similarity measure is more robust in discrete cosine transform (DCT) subspace, compared with Euclidean image subspace. Motivated by this observation, we integrated DCT into NLML to produce an improved MRI filtration process. Other than improving the SNR, the time complexity of the conventional NLML can also be significantly reduced through the proposed approach. On synthetic MR brain image, an average improvement of 5% in PSNR and 86%reduction in execution time is achieved with a search window size of 91 × 91 after incorporating the improvements in the existing NLML method. On an experimental kiwi fruit image an improvement of 10% in PSNR is achieved. We did experiments on both simulated and real data sets to validate and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 25, 256–264, 2015     

Aromatic triblock polymers from natural sources as protective coatings for stone surfaces

Aromatic triblock polymers were synthesized, characterized, and tested as protective coatings for stone surfaces. Syntheses were carried out by a ring opening polymerization process from specifically synthesized monomers ((3S)‐6‐methyl‐3‐phenyl‐1,4‐dioxan‐2,5‐dione or 1,4‐benzodioxepin‐3‐methyl‐2,5‐dione) and a perfluoropolyether diol (Fluorolink D10‐H), as chain initiator. Polymers were characterized through spectroscopic and analytical techniques while their stability under photo‐oxidative conditions was tested using a Solar Box. An excellent stability to environmental conditions was noticed with very low degradation during accelerated aging tests up to 1000 h, as detected by FTIR, molecular weight, DSC and weight loss. Furthermore, these polymers formed an excellent protective coating on the stone surface as shown by capillary water absorption test. Finally, as expected, very stable coatings were obtained as shown by aging tests. The stone surface showed negligible changes of color and a good hydrorepellency confirming a good durability of treatments. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43377.     

Additive Manufacturing of Ceramics Enabled by Flash Pyrolysis of Polymer Precursors with Nanoscale Layers

We show that a polymer‐based route to ceramics can be implemented into additive manufacturing by reducing the time for pyrolysis to about a second, which we call flash pyrolysis. Repetitive deposition of nanometer scale coatings of the ceramic, in this way, is employed to create defect‐free infiltrations of carbon fiber composites. The mechanical strength of the fibers is retained in the composite. Excellent wetting properties of the polymer precursor permits three‐dimensional, conformal coating through the three stages of infiltration: nanoscale coating of the single fibers, filling of interstitial spaces between the fibers, and a buildup of the coating over the entire composite. The flash pyrolysis method will enable a new genre of polymer‐derived ceramics made into net shape by this unusual method of additive manufacturing.