Impact of surface hardening treatment generated by shot peening on the fatigue life of brass alloy

Brass alloy is widely used because of some attractive properties such as high electrical and thermal conductivity. But its fatigue performance after surface treatment is not very well explored in literature. Thus, in the present work, particular emphasis was given to the influence of surface treatment by shot peening on the fatigue life of brass alloy, throughout surface roughness and microstructural evolution. Fatigue tests were performed on unpeened, peened and peened then polished specimens. Various times of surface hardening treatment as 30, 60 and 120 min were considered. Experimental results reveal that the fatigue life of peened brass alloy decrease for all studied hardening treatment conditions. Surface roughness and microstructural properties showed large sensitivity to the shot peening process of brass alloy.     

Analytical evaluation of two monovarietal virgin olive oils cultivated in the south of Tunisia: Jemri‐Bouchouka and Chemlali‐Tataouin cultivars

BACKGROUND: The characterisation of virgin olive oils from two Tunisian cultivars, growing in the Tataouin zone, namely Jemri‐Bouchouka, a rare olive cultivar, and Chemlali‐Tataouin, was carried out. Several analytical parameters were evaluated; these include quality index, fatty acids, phenolic, chlorophyll, carotenoid, squalene, α‐tocopherol compositions and oxidative stability. RESULTS: Jemri‐Bouchouka olive oil had the highest value of oleic acid (74.50%) while Chemlali‐Tataouin was characterised by a high percentage of palmitic acid (14.75%), which makes this oil freeze at a low temperature. On the other hand, Jemri‐Bouchouka oil was characterised by a low phenolic and α‐tocopherol content (267.72 mg GAE kg^?1 and 278.34 mg kg^?1, respectively). Ten phenolic compounds were identified. The main phenols found in the two olive oils were oleuropein aglycon and pinoresinol. All phenolic compounds showed significant correlations with oxidative stability. CONCLUSION: The analytical parameters of virgin olive oil that were determined in this study were greatly influenced by cultivar. © 2012 Society of Chemical Industry     

Blanking tool wear modeling using the finite element method

One of the main objectives of the numerical process design in metal forming is to develop adequate tool design and establish process parameter in order to increase tool life and to improve part quality and complexity while reducing manufacturing cost. The prediction of tool wear in sheet metal blanking/punching processes is investigated in this paper using the finite element method. A wear prediction model has been implemented in a finite element code in which the tool wear is a function of the normal pressure and some material parameters. A damage model is used in order to describe crack initiation and propagation into the sheet. The distribution of the tool wear on the tool profile is obtained and compared to industrial observations. Furthermore, a numerical investigation has been carried out to study the effect of tool wear on the burr formation.     

Recovery of Hydroxytyrosol Rich Extract from Two‐Phase Chemlali Olive Pomace by Chemical Treatment

Abstract: A very simple method is proposed to produce hydroxytyrosol, a commercially unavailable compound with well‐known biological properties which justify a potential commercial application. The 2‐phase Chemlali olive pomace is selected as substrate for chemical treatment. Different conditions of chemical treatment, including concentration of acid and alkaline solutions, time and temperature, were assayed. A high amount of hydroxytyrosol (1360 mg/kg of fresh 2‐phase olive pomace) was obtained using water bath after treatment at 80 °C for 90 min with 1 M of H₃PO₄. However, treatment of 2‐phase Chemlali olive pomace using autoclave apparatus could produce a large amount of hydroxytyrosol (1993.60 and 1515.88 mg/kg of fresh alperujo, 1 M acid and basic catalyst, respectively). By taking into consideration practical and economic aspects, acid‐catalyzed treatment was more effective using autoclave conditions, whereas the alkali catalyzed conditions were not very suitable. This study could provide useful information for industry to produce the potentially bioactive compound. Practical Application: The 2‐phase Chemlali olive pomace is selected as substrate for chemical treatment. Treatment of “alperujo” using water bath or autoclave apparatus was carried out. A high amount of hydroxytyrosol was obtained using autoclave apparatus.     

Predicting the Bubble-Point Pressure and Formation-Volume-Factor of Worldwide Crude Oil Systems

This paper presents models for predicting the bubble-point pressure (P_b) and oil formation-volume-factor at bubble-point (B_ob) for crude oil samples collected from several regions around the world. The regions include major producing oil fields in North and South America, North Sea, South East Asia, Middle East, and Africa. The model was developed using artificial neural networks with 5200 experimentally obtained PVT data sets. This represents the largest data set ever collected to be used in developing P_b and B_ob models. An additional 234 PVT data sets were used to investigate the effectiveness of the neural network models to predict outputs from inputs that were not used during the training process. The network model is able to predict the bubble-point pressure and the oil formation-volume-factor as a function of the solution gas-oil ratio, the gas relative density, the oil specific gravity, and the reservoir temperature. In order to obtain a generalized accurate model, back propagation with momentum for error minimization was used. The accuracy of the models developed in this study was compared in details with several published correlations. This study shows that if artificial neural networks are successfully trained, they can be excellent reliable predictive tools to estimate crude oil properties better than available correlations. The network models can be easily incorporated into any reservoir simulators and/or production optimization software.     

Characterization of RF sputtered thin film potassium sodium niobate (KNN) with silicon and nickel electrodes

A low cost recipe for thin film deposition of Potassium Sodium Niobate, (Na,K)NbO₃ (KNN) is pursued. The use of expensive noble metals as electrodes was avoided and instead highly doped silicon was used for both the structural layer and the bottom electrode. Nickel was used for the top electrode. In order to evaluate the outcome, the films were studied in terms of stoichiometry, crystal structure and leakage current density. RF sputtering of thin films of KNN at room temperature was successfully done. Proper crystal structure (Perovskite structure) was achieved after post deposition annealing. Though the leakage current density exhibited high dependency on the polarity of the applied voltage, a leakage current density of 1 × 10⁻⁶ A/cm² at 100 kV/cm was measured. A stoichiometry study revealed that the relative ratio of the volatile elements (Na and K) in the samples was within the acceptable range, however, a total loss of about 25–33 % was observed.

     

A Sliding Mode Multiobserver Based on an Uncoupled Multimodel: An Application on a Transesterification Reaction

This paper concerns the design of robust sliding mode multiobserver for nonlinear systems. A discrete uncoupled multimodel structure is retained for the modeling of nonlinear systems. Unlike the classically used multimodel structures, the retained uncoupled multimodel is known by its flexibility of modeling, thus, the structures of the partial models are adapted to the complexity of the local models in each operating zone. Sufficient conditions are provided, in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), to ensure the asymptotic stability of the proposed sliding mode multiobserver. A convergence analysis is achieved to obtain the convergence radius. A numerical example and a real time application on a transesterification reactor are carried out to illustrate, once again, the performance of the proposed sliding mode multiobserver in terms of precision and rapidity of convergence.     

Sliding wear transition for the CW614 brass alloy

Dry sliding wear tests were performed on a CW614 brass alloy using a pin-on-ring configuration. Wear kinetics were measured within a load range of 20–80 N and sliding velocity ranging from 1 to 7 m/s. Chemical compositions, morphologies and microstructures of worn surfaces and wear debris were characterised by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (EDS). Two main wear regimes have been observed: severe wear and mild wear. The results of wear tests and metallographic investigations on worn surfaces have been summarised in a wear mechanism map. It was found that the wear transition is controlled by a critical temperature at the contact surface.