Novel Al2O3‐C Refractories with Less Residual Carbon Due to Nanoscaled Additives for Continuous Steel Casting Applications

A new generation of thermal shock resistant Al₂O₃‐C refractories with approximately 30% less residual carbon and functionalized due to nanoscaled additives based on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and alumina nanosheets (α‐Al₂O₃) were developed and investigated after coking at 1000 and 1400 °C. With the aid of electron backscatter diffraction analyses (EBSD) on fracture surfaces of the carbon bonded samples, Al₃CON was identified on the nanosheet shapes already at 1000 °C coking temperature. The Al₃CON new phase based on the reaction between alumina nanosheets and CNTs offers a chemical interconnecting phase for the carbon as well as for the oxide alumina filler. The new refractory composite structure presents excellent thermo‐mechanical properties in spite the lower carbon content. In addition, due to EDS and EBSD analyses amorphous whiskers and platelets within the system of Si? O were observed in samples coked at 1000 °C, that were transformed to crystalline β‐SiC‐whiskers in samples coked at 1400 °C.     

The slow start power controlled MAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks and its performance analysis

We propose and evaluate the performance of a new MAC-layer protocol for mobile ad hoc networks, called the Slow Start Power Controlled (abbreviated SSPC) protocol. SSPC improves on IEEE 802.11 by using power control for the RTS/CTS and DATA frame transmissions, so as to reduce energy consumption and increase network throughput and lifetime. In our scheme the transmission power used for the RTS frames is not constant, but follows a slow start principle. The CTS frames, which are sent at maximum transmission power, prevent the neighbouring nodes from transmitting their DATA frames at power levels higher than a computed threshold, while allowing them to transmit at power levels less than that threshold. Reduced energy consumption is achieved by adjusting the node transmission power to the minimum required value for reliable reception at the receiving node, while increase in network throughput is achieved by allowing more transmissions to take place simultaneously. The slow start principle used for calculating the appropriate DATA frames transmission power and the possibility of more simultaneous collision-free transmissions differentiate the SSPC protocol from the other MAC solutions proposed for IEEE 802.11. Simulation results indicate that the SSPC protocol achieves a significant reduction in power consumption, average packet delay and frequency of RTS frame collisions, and a significant increase in network throughput and received-to-sent packets ratio compared to IEEE 802.11 protocol.     

Improving through-thickness conductivity of carbon fiber reinforced polymer using carbon nanotube/polyethylenimine at the interlaminar region

The through-thickness conductivity of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composite was increased by incorporating multiwalled carbon nanotubes in the interlaminar region. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) were dispersed in a polyethylenimine (PEI) binder, which was then coated onto the carbon fiber fabric. Standard vacuum-assisted resin infusion process was applied to fabricate the composite laminates. This modification technique aims to enhance the electrical conductivity in through-thickness direction for the purpose of nondestructive testing, damage detection, and electromagnetic interference shielding. CNT concentrations ranging from 0 to 0.75 wt% were used and compared to pristine CFRP samples (reference). The through-thickness conductivity of the CFRP exhibited an improvement of up to 781% by adopting this technique. However, the dispersion of CNT in PEI led to a viscosity increase and poor wetting properties which resulted in the formation of voids/defects, poor adhesion (as shown in scanning electron micrographs) and the deterioration of the mechanical properties as manifested by interlaminar shear strength and dynamic mechanical analysis measurements.     

Leading edge erosion of wind turbines: Effect of solid airborne particles and rain on operational wind farms

Leading edge erosion (LEE) affects almost all wind turbines, reducing their annual energy production and lifetime profitability. This study presents results of an investigation into 18 operational wind farms to assess the validity of the current literature consensus surrounding LEE. Much of the historical research focuses on rain erosion, implying that this is the predominant causal factor. However, this study showed that the impact of excessive airborne particles from seawater aerosols or from adverse local environments such as nearby quarries greatly increases the levels of LEE. Current testing of leading edge protection coatings or tapes is based on a rain erosion resistivity test, which does little to prove its ability to withstand solid particle erosion and may drive coating design in the wrong direction. Furthermore, it was shown that there is little correlation between test results and actual field performance. A method of monitoring the expected level of erosion on an operational wind turbine due to rain erosion is also presented. Finally, the energy losses associated with LEE on an operational wind farm are examined, with the average annual energy production dropping by 1.8% due to medium levels of erosion, with the worst affected turbine experiencing losses of 4.9%.     

Prediction of Coating Properties of Thermally Sprayed WC–Co on Complex Geometries

This work outlines the development of an analytical software tool that enables the prediction of various coating properties on any given sprayable geometry. The prediction is achieved by analyzing the input computer-aided design geometry and by correlating the resulting kinematic conditions with experimental measurements. The results of the developed tool have been validated experimentally using HVOF-sprayed WC-17Co coatings. Specifically, coating thickness, microhardness, WC vol.% and specific sliding wear rate are examined and their values are predicted for the case of the external spray of a rotor-like model.     

Monitoring of zero-inflated Poisson processes with EWMA and DEWMA control charts

The zero-inflated Poisson (ZIP) distribution is an extension of the ordinary Poisson distribution and is used to model count data with an excessive number of zeros. In ZIP models, it is assumed that random shocks occur with probability p, and upon the occurrence of random shock, the number of nonconformities in a product follows the Poisson distribution with parameter λ. In this article, we study in more detail the exponentially weighted moving average control chart based on the ZIP distribution (regarded as ZIP-EWMA) and we also propose a double EWMA chart with an upper time-varying control limit to monitor ZIP processes (regarded as ZIP-DEWMA chart). The two charts are studied to detect upward shifts not only in each parameter individually but also in both parameters simultaneously. The steady-state performance and the performance with estimated parameters are also investigated. The performance of the two charts has been evaluated in terms of the average and standard deviation of the run length, and compared with Shewhart-type and CUSUM schemes for ZIP distribution, it is shown that the proposed chart is very effective especially in detecting shifts in p when λ remains in control (IC) and in both parameters simultaneously. Finally, one real example is given to display the application of the ZIP charts on practitioners.     

The SAINT observatory subsystem: an open-source intelligence tool for uncovering cybersecurity threats

International Journal of Information Security - Data from Online Social Networks, search engines, and the World Wide Web are forms of unstructured knowledge that are not regularly used in...     

On using reservoir computing for sensing applications: exploring environment-sensitive memristor networks

Abstract

Recently, the SWEET sensing setup has been proposed as a way of exploiting reservoir computing for sensing. The setup features three components: an input signal (the drive), the environment and a reservoir, where the reservoir and the environment are treated as one dynamical system, a super-reservoir. Due to the reservoir-environment interaction, the information about the environment is encoded in the state of the reservoir. This information can be inferred (decoded) by analysing the reservoir state. The decoding is done by using an external drive signal. This signal is optimised to achieve a separation in the space of the reservoir states: Under different environmental conditions, the reservoir should visit distinct regions of the configuration space. We examined this approach theoretically by using an environment-sensitive memristor as a reservoir, where the memristance is the state variable. The goal has been to identify a suitable drive that can achieve the phase space separation, which was formulated as an optimization problem, and solved by a genetic optimization algorithm developed in this study. For simplicity reasons, only two environmental conditions were considered (describing a static and a varying environment). A suitable drive signal has been identified based on intuitive analysis of the memristor dynamics, and by solving the optimization problem. Under both drives the memristance is driven to two different regions of the one-dimensional state space under the influence of the two environmental conditions, which can be used to infer about the environment. The separation occurs if there is a synchronisation between the drive and the environmental signals. To quantify the magnitude of the separation, we introduced a quality of sensing index: The ability to sense depends critically on the synchronisation between the drive and environmental conditions. If this synchronisation is not maintained the quality of sensing deteriorates.     

Discharge Redistribution as a Key Process for Heuristic Optimization of Energy Production with Pumps as Turbines in a Water Distribution Network

Water Resources Management - Water distribution networks often exhibit excess pressure that could lead to extensive leakage and infrastructure damages. While this problem can be mitigated with...