Microstructure and mechanical properties of friction stir weld of dissimilar AZ31-O magnesium alloy to 6061-T6 aluminum alloy

Dissimilar friction stir welding between AZ31-O Mg and 6061-T6 Al alloys was investigated. 3 mm thick plates of aluminum and magnesium were used. Friction stir welding operations were performed at different rotation and travel speeds. The rotation speeds varied from 600 to 1400 r/min, and the travel speed varied from 20 to 60 mm/min. Defect-free weld was obtained with a rotation speed of 1000 r/min and travel speed of 40 mm/min. Metallographic studies showed that the grain size in the stir zone is much finer than that in the base metals. Complex flow pattern was formed in the stir zone. Microhardness measurement revealed an uneven distribution in the stir zone. Tensile test results indicated that the tensile strength of the welded specimen is about 76% of AZ31 Mg alloy and 60% of the 6061 Al alloy in tensile strength. SEM fracture surface image of the welded specimen indicated that the welded specimen failed through brittle-mode fracture.     

An innovative fabrication of nano-HA coatings on Ti-CaP nanocomposite layer using a combination of friction stir processing and electrophoretic deposition

In the present study, a combination of friction stir processing and electrophoretic deposition was used to fabricate nano-hydroxyapatite coatings on the Ti-CaP nanocomposite surface layer. A constant tool rotation rate of 250 rpm, travel speed of 16 mm/min and plunge depth of 1.2 mm with a tool tilt angle of 3° were used to incorporate nano-hydroxyapatite particles into Ti–6Al–4V substrates. Microstructure of the stir zone was analyzed using optical and scanning electron microscopy. Microhardness profile and AFM analysis of substrates were then studied. The electrophoretic deposition of nano-HA particles was carried out at constant voltage of 30 V after 60 s. The as-deposited nano-HA coating was characterized employing scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. The results of adhesion test and potentiodynamic polarization measurements showed that Ti-CaP nanocomposite layer could effectively increase the bonding strength between coating and substrate as well as corrosion resistance.     

Fracture Toughness of Functionally Graded Steels

In this study, fracture toughness of functionally graded steels in both crack divider and crack arrester configurations has been studied. Spot-welded plain carbon steel and austenitic stainless steel with different thicknesses and arrangements were used as electrodes of electroslag remelting to produce functionally graded steels. Fracture toughness of the specimens in crack divider configuration was found to depend on the arrangements of the primary electrodes’ pieces together with the type of the containing phases. In crack arrester configuration, the fracture toughness was found to depend on the crack tip position and the distance of the crack tip with respect to the bainitic or martensitic intermediate layers.     

A modified honey bee mating optimization algorithm for multiobjective placement of renewable energy resources

Electrical generators of renewable electricity resources are quiet, clean and reliable. Optimal placement of renewable electricity generators (REGs) results in reduction of objective functions like losses, costs of electrical generation and voltage deviation. Because of recent technology developments of photovoltaic units, wind turbine and fuel cell units, only these generators are considered in this paper. This work presents a multiobjective optimization algorithm for the siting and sizing of renewable electricity generators. The objectives consist of minimization of costs, emission and losses of distributed system and optimization of voltage profile. This multiobjective optimization is solved by the Improved honey bee mating optimization (HBMO) algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, an external repository is considered to save non-dominated (Pareto) solutions found during the search process. Since the objective functions are not the same, a fuzzy clustering technique is used to control the size of the repository within the limits. This algorithm is executed on a typical 70-bus test system. Results of the case study show the proper siting and sizing of REGs are important to improve the voltage profile, reduce costs, emission and losses of distribution system. The main feature of the algorithm refers to its accuracy and calculation speed.     

Digital Image Processing Technique to Investigate the Hydrodynamics of an Airlift Reactor with Double Downcomer

Digital image processing, an innovative cost‐effective technique, was employed to investigate the hydrodynamics of a rectangular internal loop airlift reactor with double downcomer. The whole reactor was divided into two downcomers and a riser by means of two vertical blades to achieve a new geometry. Air and water served as gas and liquid media. Experimental measurements were performed by visualizing the concentration of a colored tracer by a digital camera. The captured successive images at specified time intervals were analyzed by the ImageJ software to turn images into quantifiable data. For four reactor geometries, the residence time distribution curves in individual sections and the liquid mixing performance were determined by this noninvasive method. The speed of this technique to capture real‐time data of flow patterns may be one of the most important concerns for imaging multiphase flows in process industries.     

Trans-free Iranian vanaspati through enzymatic and chemical transesterification of triple blends of fully hydrogenated soybean,rapeseed and sunflower oils

Production of trans-free Iranian vanaspati through enzymatic and chemical transesterification of triple blends of fully hydrogenated soybean (FHSBO), rapeseed (RSO) and sunflower (SFO) oils was investigated. The slip melting point (SMP), solid fat content (SFC) at 10–40 °C and induction period of oxidation at 120 °C (IP₁₂₀) of the transesterified and initial blends were evaluated. Results indicated that all the enzymatically and chemically transesterified blends had lower SMP, SFC and IP₁₂₀ than their initial blends. No significant differences (P < 0.05) were observed between the SMP of enzymatically and chemically transesterified blends. Some enzyme treated blends had higher SFC at some temperatures than chemically transesterified ones. Enzymatically transesterified blends had higher IP₁₂₀ than those prepared by chemical transesterification. Correlation between SFC at 20 °C and saturated fatty acid (SFA) content, and between SMP and SFA of transesterified blends indicated that the SFA must be between 27.2% and 36.6% for enzymatic and 28.4% and 37.8% for chemical transesterification to obtain transesterified fats suitable for use as vanaspati.     

Salinity modelling by inverted Gaussian parameters of soil reflectance spectra

This paper presents an approach to estimate soil salinity through modelling of soil spectra using an inverted Gaussian (IG) function. The approach is tested on experimental datasets including measurements of soil physicochemical properties and their spectral reflectance which are obtained under controlled laboratory conditions. The near-infrared (NIR) and shortwave infrared (SWIR) region of the salt-affected soil spectra were fitted to an inverted Gaussian curve. Parameters of the fitted curve, such as functional depth, distance to the inflection point and area under curve, were then used as predictors in regression analysis to estimate soil salinity levels. The results suggest a successful estimation of salinity levels, especially, for soil samples treated with epsomite and bischofite solutions. Amongst the calculated IG parameters, the area under fitted curve resulted in the most accurate estimations. The results demonstrate the relative utility of high spectral resolution data for estimating soil salinity under laboratory controlled conditions.     

Mapping spatial variations of iron oxide by-product minerals from EO-1 Hyperion

This study aimed to map mine waste piles and iron oxide by-product minerals from an Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) Hyperion data set that covers an abandoned mine in southwest Spain. This was achieved by a procedure involving data pre-processing, atmospheric calibration, data post-processing, and image classification.

In several steps, the noise and artefacts in the spectral and spatial domains of the EO-1 Hyperion data set were removed. These steps include the following: (1) angular shift, which was used to translate time sequential data into a spatial domain; (2) along-track de-striping to remove the vertical stripes from the data set; and (3) reducing the cross-track low-frequency spectral effect (smile). The Fast Line-of-sight Atmospheric Analysis of Spectral Hypercubes (FLAASH) algorithm in combination with the radiance transfer code MODTRAN4 was applied for quantification and removal of the atmospheric affect and retrieval of the surface reflectance. The data set was post-processed (filtering, spectral polishing) in order to remove the negative values and noise that were produced as the a result of de-striping and atmospheric calibration. The Mahalanobis distance algorithm is used to differentiate the area covered by mine piles from other main land-use classes. The spatial variations of iron oxide and carbonate minerals within the mine area were mapped using the Spectral Feature Fitting (SFF) algorithm.

The pre-processing of the data and atmospheric correction were vital and played a major role on the quality of the final output. The results indicate that the vertical stripes can be removed rather well by the local algorithm compared to the global method and that the FLAASH algorithm for atmospheric correction produces better results than the empirical line algorithm. The results also showed that the method developed for correcting angular shifts has the advantage of keeping the original pixel values since it does not require re-sampling.

The classification results showed that the mine waste deposits can be easily mapped using available standard algorithms such as Mahalanobis Distance. The results obtained from the SFF method suggest that there is an abundance of different minerals such as alunite, copiapite, ferrihydrite, goethite, jarosite, and gypsum within the mine area. From a total number of 754 pixels that cover the mine area, 43 pixels were classified as sulphide and carbonate minerals and 711 pixels remained unclassified, showing no abundance of any dominant mineral within the area presented by these pixels.     

Measuring an antibody affinity distribution molecule by molecule

Single molecule fluorescence microscopy was used to observe the binding and unbinding of hapten decorated quantum dots to individual surface immobilized antibodies. The fluorescence time history from an individual antibody site can be used to calculate its binding affinity. While quantum dot blinking occurs during these measurements, we describe a simple empirical method to correct the apparent/observed affinity to account for the blinking contribution. The combination of many single molecule affinity measurements from different antibodies yields not only the average affinity, it directly measures the full shape and character of the surface affinity distribution function.