Effect of Design and Site Factors on the Long-Term Performance of Flexible Pavements

Results are presented from a study to evaluate the relative influence of design and site factors on the performance of in-service flexible pavements. The data are from the SPS-1 experiment of the Long-Term Pavement Performance program. This experiment was designed to investigate the effects of HMA surface layer thickness, base type, base thickness, and drainage on the performance of new flexible pavements constructed in different site conditions (subgrade type and climate). Base type was found to be the most critical design factor affecting fatigue cracking, roughness (IRI), and longitudinal cracking (wheel path). The best performance was shown by pavement sections with asphalt treated bases (ATB). This effect should be interpreted in light of the fact that an ATB effectively means a thicker HMA layer. Drainage and base type, when combined, also play an important role in improving performance, especially in terms of fatigue and longitudinal cracking. Base thickness has only secondary effects on performance, mainly in the case of roughness and rutting. In addition, climatic conditions were found to have a significant effect on flexible pavement performance. Wheel path longitudinal cracking and transverse cracking seem to be associated with a wet-freeze environment, while nonwheel path longitudinal cracking seems to be dominant in a freeze climate. In general, pavements built on fine-grained soils have shown the worst performance, especially in terms of roughness. Although most of the findings from this study support the existing understanding of pavement performance, they also provide an overview of the interactions between design and site factors and new insights for achieving better long-term pavement performance.     

Study on the synthesis of a macroporous ethylacrylate‐divinylbenzene copolymer,its conversion into a bi‐functional cation exchange resin and applications for extraction of toxic heavy metals from wastewater

Macroporus ethylacrylate‐divinylbenzene copolymers were synthesized by suspension polymerization using diethyl phthalate and n‐heptane as diluent. A hydrolysis study revealed that conversion of esters into carboxylic acid groups was dependent on three factors: (1) crosslinkage: increases with a decrease in crosslinkage, (2) reagent: sulfuric acid>aqueous NaOH>NaOH in a 1 : 1 water to ethylene glycol, and (3) pore volume (PV): highest when PV was ～ 0.7 mL g^?1. Sulfuric acid hydrolyzed ester to ? COOH and introduced ? SO₃H on phenyl rings, thus producing a bi‐functional resin. The functional groups were verified by IR spectroscopy and quantified by acid–base titration. The bi‐functional resin's capacity for toxic heavy metals in water samples was 12.51, 10.43, 9.43, 13.21, and 11.12 mg g^?1 for Cu, Cd, Ni, Pb, and Zn, respectively and the recoveries exceeded >95% in range of pH 2–8, showing that it is suitable for water purification. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci., 2013     

A comparative neutronic study of the standard HEU core and various potential LEU alternatives for a typical MNSR system

A comparative study has been performed for neutronic analysis of highly enriched in uranium (HEU) and potential low enriched in uranium (LEU) cores for the Pakistan Research Reactor-2 (PARR-2) taken as a typical miniature neutron source reactor (MNSR) system. The group constant generation has been carried out using transport theory code WIMS-D4 and a detailed five-group RZ-model has been used in the CITATION code for multigroup diffusion theory analysis. The neutronic analysis of the 90% HEU reference and potential LEU alternative: UO₂, U₃Si₂ and U9Mo, cores has been carried out yielding 11%, 20.7% and 14.25% enrichments with corresponding values of excess reactivity: 4.33, 4.30 and 4.07 mk. These results have been found in good agreement with recently reported Monte Carlo-based transport theory calculations. The diffusion theory-based calculated values of thermal flux profiles for axial as well as for radial directions have been found to agree well with the corresponding experimental measurements. The UO₂-based LEU core has been found having flux spectrum closest to the reference core while U9Mo core has significantly harder flux spectrum at irradiation site.     

Transportation of water-based trapped bolus of SWCNTs and MWCNTs with entropy optimization in a non-uniform channel

Neural Computing and Applications - Here, we communicate the peristalsis of single- and multi-walled CNTs through nonlinear porous, non-uniform propagating channel boundaries. Non-uniform channel...     

Inferring context with reliable collaborators: a novel similarity estimation method for recommender systems

Applied Intelligence - Additional context information is vital for context-aware recommender systems. The whole paradigm of context-aware recommender systems is built upon the availability of...     

Influence of carbon nanotubes on heat transfer in MHD nanofluid flow over a stretchable rotating disk: A numerical study

The transfer of heat is an important phenomenon in the several areas due to its numerous applications in industries. Several fluids like water, ethylene glycol and oil, and so on have very‐low thermal conductivities due to which the transfer of heat in these fluids become very low. To enhance heat transfer rate, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) including single‐walled CNTs and multi‐walled CNTs are suspended into base fluids, this mixture is known as nanofluid. The aim of this study is to examine the heat transfer rate of nanofluid in the presence of CNTs over a stretchable rotating disk. The mathematical model, developed by Tiwari and Das, is used and solved numerically by using the shooting method. The impacts of governing constraints on the dimensionless velocities, temperature, skin friction, and Nusselt number are investigated. It is noted that heat transfer rate increases by enhancing the concentration of CNTs into base fluids. The numerical results show that the solid volume fraction of the CNTs augment heat transfer rate more in ethylene glycol as compared with water.     

A review of retinal blood vessels extraction techniques: challenges,taxonomy, and future trends

Pattern Analysis and Applications - The visual exploration of retinal blood vessels assists ophthalmologists in the diagnoses of different abnormalities of the eyes such as diabetic retinopathy,...     

Transient heat transfer in a heat‐generating fin with radiation and convection with temperature‐dependent heat transfer coefficient

The transient heat transfer in a heat‐generating fin with simultaneous surface convection and radiation is studied numerically for a step change in base temperature. The convection heat transfer coefficient is assumed to be a power law function of the local temperature difference between the fin and its surrounding fluid. The values of the power exponent n are chosen to include simulation of natural convection (laminar and turbulent) and nucleate boiling among other convective heat transfer modes. The fin is assumed to have uniform internal heat generation. The transient response of the fin depends on the convection‐conduction parameter, radiation‐conduction parameter, heat generation parameter, power exponent, and the dimensionless sink temperature. The instantaneous heat transfer characteristics such as the base heat transfer, surface heat loss, and energy stored are reported for a range of values of these parameters. When the internal heat generation exceeds a threshold the fin acts as a heat sink instead of a heat source. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj ). DOI 10.1002/htj.21012