Effect of impurities (graphite) on the high-temperature creep properties of NiAl

Previous high-temperature compression creep studies of NiAl have shown peculiar behaviour in the temperature range 700 to 900° C, which was perhaps due to precipitation of impurities in the matrix. To isolate the impurity effect, high-purity NiAl samples with 0.15 at% and 0.20 at% carbon (graphite) additions have been creep tested at four temperatures between 700 and 850° C. Addition of graphite has been shown to produce a significant reduction in the creep strength of the alloyS. However, alloys with higher graphite concentrations have shown better creep resistance than those with lower graphite concentrations. Transmission electron microscopy indicates the presence of competing softening and hardening mechanisms in the alloys. Softening is due to the graphite particles acting as a dislocation source. Hardening results from a grain-boundary hardening mechanism due to the graphite particles segregating at grain boundaries and a dislocation-impurity (fine graphite) interaction, developing a Cottrell-like atmosphere.     

Exact fuzzy optimal solution of fully fuzzy linear programming problems with unrestricted fuzzy variables

Kumar et al. (Appl. Math. Model. 35:817?C823, 2011) pointed out that there is no method in literature to find the exact fuzzy optimal solution of fully fuzzy linear programming (FFLP) problems and proposed a new method to find the fuzzy optimal solution of FFLP problems with equality constraints having non-negative fuzzy variables and unrestricted fuzzy coefficients. There may exist several FFLP problems with equality constraints in which no restriction can be applied on all or some of the fuzzy variables but due to the limitation of the existing method these types of problems can not be solved by using the existing method. In this paper a new method is proposed to find the exact fuzzy optimal solution of FFLP problems with equality constraints having non-negative fuzzy coefficients and unrestricted fuzzy variables. The proposed method can also be used to solve the FFLP problems with equality constraints having non-negative fuzzy variables and unrestricted fuzzy coefficients. To show the advantage of the proposed method over existing method the results of some FFLP problems with equality constraints, obtained by using the existing and proposed method, are compared. Also, to show the application of proposed method a real life problem is solved by using the proposed method.     

崛起的印度钢铁业

一、印度钢铁工业发展历史和现状从远古时代开始,铁在人类的生活中就非常重要。无论是战争还是和平年代,钢铁对现代文明的发展是必不可少的。为了了解印度的钢铁工业,首先有必要简要地回顾一下印度的钢铁制造史。印度是一个古老的国度,文化遗产丰富。印度是一片不同地域间存在惊人差异的土地,而两百多年的殖民统治更造就了多样化的印度。除了几家糖厂和纺     

Design and Analysis of Internet-Based Tele-Coordinated Multi-Robot Systems

The coordination of multi-robots is required in many scenarios for efficiency and task completion. Combined with teleoperation capabilities, coordinating robots provide a powerful tool. Add to this the Internet and now it is possible for multi-experts at multi-remote sites to control multi-robots in a coordinated fashion. For this to be feasible there are several hurdles to be crossed including Internet type delays, uncertainties in the environment and uncertainties in the object manipulated. In addition, there is a need to measure and control the quality of tele-coordination. To this end, the measure of force sensed by each robot is suggested and justified as a coordination index. It was proven that if n robots are event-transparent and event-synchronous then they can be teleoperated under random delay conditions to coordinate to any index value, which is feasible under no delay conditions. The design procedure that ensures a system can satisfy a small coordination index was presented and analyzed.In addition, the design and analysis of event-synchronous systems using Petri Nets is detailed. The Petri Net design methodology is presented for both event-synchronous single operator single robot teleoperation systems and event-synchronous multi-operator multi-robot teleoperation systems.The theory developed was tested by bilaterally tele-coordinating two mobile manipulators via the Internet. The experimental results confirmed the theoretical results presented.     

Processing of alumina and zirconia nano-powders and compacts

Magnesia–doped alumina and yttria–doped zirconia nano-powders were synthesized using sucrose as a chelating agent and template material from the aqueous solutions of aluminium nitrate, magnesium nitrate, ytrrium nitrate and zirconyl nitrate, respectively. Synthesis parameters were optimized with varying sucrose to metal ion ratio, calcinations time, and temperature to produce these nano-powders. As-synthesized powders were characterized by room temperature X-ray diffraction, BET surface area analyzer and transmission electron microscopy. Y₂O₃–ZrO₂ nano-powders had particle size in the range of 80–200 nm with specific average surface area of 119 m²/g and for MgO–Al₂O₃ powders, particle sizes were 30–200 nm with the specific average surface area of 250 m²/g. Our results indicate that this synthesis method is a versatile one and can be applied to a variety of oxide-based materials to form nano-powders. Nano-powders were compacted uniaxially and densified in a muffle furnace. Sintered discs were used for hardness testing and density measurements, as well as for microstructural characterization.     

Failure Investigation of Boiler Water Wall Tubes of a Thermal Power Station

Failure investigation was carried out on boiler water wall tubes of a thermal power plant through visual inspection, chemical analysis, and metallurgical analysis. Failure was in the form of thin/micro cracks along the length of the tubes which were located at the girth welding joint of tubes. Experimental results revealed that the cracking was from inward to outward of the tube thickness. Discontinuities/cavities were observed in the welded region which might have occurred due to lack of fusion of base metal and the weld metal. Cracks were initiated from the sharp corner/crack tip of the cavities/discontinuities present at the welded region under the action of hoop/thermal stress existed during the operation. Nature of the crack propagation indicates the case of typical hydrogen-induced cracking. Moreover, the presence of the cavities/discontinuities reduced the cross-sectional area of tubes resulting increased stress intensity. Increased stress beyond the flow stress of the material assisted by hydrogen-induced effect resulted the cracking of the tubes. In order to mitigate the problem, proper welding of tubes joints should be carried out followed by proper inspection after weld. Secondly, hydrogen dissolution during welding should be prevented and treatment for its removal after welding should be carried out.     

Metronidazole-loaded nanostructured lipid carriers to improve skin deposition and retention in the treatment of rosacea

The objective of the present investigation was to improve the skin deposition and retention of metronidazole (MTZ) in rosacea therapy by incorporating it into nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs). The main challenge in this endeavor was the partial hydrophilicity of MTZ, which mandated careful selection of excipients, including solid and liquid lipids, surfactants, and their ratios in combination. NLCs were produced by the phase inversion temperature method and finally converted into a gel for topical application. The prepared nanoparticles were evaluated for their particle size, zeta potential, entrapment efficiency, solid-state characteristics, surface morphology, in vitro drug release, and permeation through excised skin. The gel was additionally characterized for its pH, drug content, viscosity, and spreadability. The prepared nanoparticles were spherical in shape and of size less than 300?nm. Incorporation of judiciously chosen excipients made possible a relatively high entrapment efficiency of almost 40%. The drug release was found to be biphasic, with an initial burst release followed by sustained release up to 8?hours. In comparison to the plain drug gel, which had a tissue deposition of 11.23%, the NLC gel showed a much superior and desirable deposition of 26.41%. The lipophilic nature of the carrier, its size, and property of occlusion enabled greater amounts of drug to enter and be retained in the skin, simultaneously minimizing permeation through the skin, i.e. systemic exposure. The results of the study suggest that NLCs of anti-rosacea drugs have the potential to be used in the therapy of rosacea.     

Morphology,Mineralogy and Mixing of Individual Atmospheric Particles Over Kanpur (IGP): Relevance of Homogeneous Equivalent Sphere Approximation in Radiative Models

Estimation of the direct radiative forcing (DRF) by atmospheric particles is uncertain to a large extent owing to uncertainties in their morphology (shape and size), mixing states, and chemical composition. A region-specific database of the aforementioned physico-chemical properties (at individual particle level) is necessary to improve numerically-estimated optical and radiative properties. Till date, there is no detailed observation of the above mentioned properties over Kanpur in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP). To fill this gap, an experiment was carried out at Kanpur (IITK; 26.52°N, 80.23°E, 142 m msl), India from April to July, 2011. Particle types broadly classified as (a) Cu-rich particles mixed with carbon and sulphur (b) dust and clays mixed with carbonaceous species (c) Fe-rich particles mixed with carbon and sulfur and (d) calcite (CaCO₃) particles aged with nitrate, were observed. The frequency distributions of aspect ratio (AR; indicator of extent of particle non-sphericity) of total 708 particles from April to June reveal that particles with aspect ratio range >1.2 to ≤1.4 were abundant throughout the experiment except during June when it was found to shift to high AR range, >1.4 to ≤1.6 (followed with another peak of AR i.e. >2 to ≤2.4) due to dust storm conditions enhancing the occurrence of more non-spherical particles over the sampling site. The spherical particles (and close to spherical shape; AR range, 1.0 to ≤1.2) were found to be <20% throughout the experiment with a minimum (11.5%) during June. Consideration of Homogeneous Equivalent Sphere Approximation (HESA) in the optical/radiative model over the study region is found to be irrelevant during the campaign.     

Tracer design for magnetic particle imaging (invited)

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) uses safe iron oxide nanoparticle tracers to offer fundamentally new capabilities for medical imaging, in applications as vascular imaging and ultra-sensitive cancer therapeutics. MPI is perhaps the first medical imaging platform to intrinsically exploit nanoscale material properties. MPI tracers contain magnetic nanoparticles whose tunable, size-dependent magnetic properties can be optimized by selecting a particular particle size and narrow size-distribution. In this paper we present experimental MPI measurements acquired using a homemade MPI magnetometer: a zero-dimensional MPI imaging system designed to characterize tracer performance by measuring the derivative of the time-varying tracer magnetization, M'(H(t)), at a driving frequency of 25 kHz. We show that MPI performance is optimized by selecting phase-pure magnetite tracers of a particular size and narrow size distribution; in this work, tracers with 20 nm median diameter, log-normal distribution shape parameter, σ(v), equal to 0.26, and hydrodynamic diameter equal to 30 nm showed the best performance. Furthermore, these optimized MPI tracers show 4?×?greater signal intensity (measured at the third harmonic) and 20% better spatial resolution compared with commercial nanoparticles developed for MRI.