Thermal coupling links to liquid‐only transfer streams: An enumeration method for new FTC dividing wall columns

Novel dividing wall columns (DWCs) can be obtained by converting thermal couplings to liquid‐only transfer streams. Here, we develop a simple four‐step method to generate a complete set of DWCs containing n ? 2 dividing walls, for a given n‐component fully thermally coupled (FTC) distillation. Among the novel DWCs, some easy‐to‐operate DWCs possess the property that the vapor flow in every section of the DWC can be controlled during operation by means that are external to the column. We develop a simple method to enumerate all such easy‐to‐operate DWCs. We expect that the easy‐to‐operate DWCs can be operated close‐to‐optimality; leading to a successful industrial implementation of the n‐component (n ≥ 3) FTC distillation in the form of a DWC. As an illustration, we show figures of all easy‐to‐operate DWCs with two dividing walls for the four‐component FTC distillation. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 62: 1200–1211, 2016     

Image processing on the OTIS-mesh optoelectronic computer

We develop algorithms for histogramming, histogram modification, Hough transform, and image shrinking and expanding on an OTIS-mesh optoelectronic computer. Our algorithm for the Hough transform is based upon a mesh algorithm for the Hough transform which is also developed in this paper. This new mesh algorithm improves upon the previous mesh Hough transform algorithms     

Study of Electromagnetic Properties of Fabricated NiFe2O4/Polyurethane Nanocomposites

Nickel ferrite loaded (NiFe₂O₄) segmented polyurethane (SPU) nanocomposites prepared by melt mixing method using microcompounder at temperature 185 °C in recirculation mode to ensure proper dispersion and distribution of nanoparticles at optimized residency time of 5 min. Three different weight percentages of nanocomposites (3, 5, and 10 wt %) was prepared and studied the electromagnetic property of nanocomposites obtained from complex permittivity and permeability. The effect of nanofiller (NiFe₂O₄) has been studied to assess their thermal properties using thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermomechanical analysis. The nanocomposites (NiFe₂O₄/SPU) have further been studied using FE-SEM, and the micrographs show embedded NiFe₂O₄ filler uniformly dispersed in SPU matrix without agglomeration (size 20–40 nm). It is also evident that further loading of nanofiller resulted in saturation effect yielding no applicable change in thermal behavior and revealed lesser melting enthalpy due to the coalescence of the nanofillers. X-ray diffraction and vibrating sample magnetometer also support the formation of the nanocomposite. The electric and magnetic properties of NiFe₂O₄ incorporated nanocomposite (NiFe₂O₄/SPU) may have potential application in microwave absorption. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 137, 48645.     

Influence of boron clustering on the emitter quality of implanted silicon solar cells: an atom probe tomography study

The use of ion implantation doping instead of the standard gaseous diffusion is a promising way to simplify the fabrication process of silicon solar cells. However, difficulties to form high‐quality boron (B) implanted emitters are encountered when implantation doses suitable for the emitter formation are used. This is due to a more or less complete activation of Boron after thermal annealing. To have a better insight into the actual state of the B distributions, we analyze three different B emitters prepared on textured Si wafers: (1) a BCl₃ diffused emitter and two B implanted emitters (fixed dose) annealed at (2) 950°C and at (3) 1050°C (less than an hour). Our investigations are in particular based on atom probe tomography, a technique able to explore 3D atomic distribution inside a material at nanometer scale. Atom probe tomography is employed here to characterize B atomic distribution inside textured Si solar cell emitters and to quantify clustering of B atoms. Here, we show that implanted emitters annealed at 950 °C present maximum clusters due to poor solubility at lower temperature and also highest emitter saturation current density (J_0e = 1000 fA/cm²). Increasing the annealing temperature results in greatly improved J_0e (131 fA/cm²) due to higher solubility and a consequently lower number of clusters. BCl₃ diffused emitters do not contain any B clusters and presented the best emitter quality. From our results, we conclude that clustering of B atoms is the main reason behind higher J_0e in the implanted boron emitters and hence degraded emitter quality. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Millimeter-range Induced Flexo-Pyrophotronic Effect in Centrosymmetric Heterojunction for Ultrafast Night-Photomonitoring

Unlike the structure-specific piezoelectric effect, flexoelectricity is a universal phenomenon that can offer a wide range of energy-efficient, cost-effective, mechano-opto-electro-coupled applications. Even though the flexoelectric effect has been extensively studied at nanoscale, a fundamental, yet unresolved, the issue is how it can be exploited at larger scales for potential applications. Herein, the long-range (>millimeter) stimulated and regulated impact of the localized inhomogeneous strain-induced flexoelectric potential on centrosymmetric metal/titanium oxide heterojunction with nanoscale precision (≈5.8 nm) is demonstrated. The noticed phenomenon is attributed to the long-range interaction between flexoelectric and build-in potentials, which is further utilized to develop mechanically regulated (enhancement > 10⁴%), self-powered (i.e., 0 V), ultrafast (>10 million bits per second), and broadband (λ = 365–1720 nm) pyro-photosensors having high responsivity (≈1.18 mA W⁻¹). As prospective applications, proof-of-concept ultrafast night movement monitors (>720 km h⁻¹), high-performing stationery, and dynamic obstacle sensors with possible impact alerts are developed. These findings lay the groundwork for the micro-to-millimeter-range flexo-opto-electrical coupling in centrosymmetric materials, which can have a wide variety of practical applications.     

Packet classification consuming small amount of memory

In order to provide more value-added services, the Internet needs to classify packets into flows for different treatment. This function becomes a bottleneck in the router. High performance packet classification algorithms are therefore in high demand. This paper describes a new algorithm for packet classification using the concept of independent sets. The algorithm has very small memory requirements. The search speed is not sensitive to the size of the rule table or to the percentage of wildcards in the fields. It also scales well from two-dimensional classifiers to high-dimensional ones. In particular, the algorithm is inherently parallel. Hardware tailored to this algorithm can achieve very fast search speed. The update algorithm proposed is also very fast in general.     

A Microprocessor Based Energy Dispersive X-Ray Diffractometer

ABSTRACT

A microprocessor based Energy Dispersive X-ray Diffraction system is described. The system is built around three 8085 microprocessors and is suitable for performing rapid structural analysis. It can acquire four spectra in programmable memory banks and can do online data analysis. The software includes a nonlinear least square fitting program, which can fit the complete diffraction pattern at a time. To highlight the data processing capabilities of this system, we have presented the results for a simple solid.     

Enhancement of Magnetic and Dielectric Properties in Chemically Modified Multiferroic (0.90)BiFe1−x Cr x O3–(0.10)BaTiO3 Nanocomposite

Multiferroic BiFeO₃ and Cr-doped (0.90)BiFe_1?x Cr _x O₃–(0.10)BaTiO₃ (x=0.00, 0.03, and 0.05) nanocomposites were prepared by sol–gel method. Optimum calcination and sintering strategies for obtaining pure perovskite phase have been determined. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscope (TEM) were used for the structural and particle size analysis, whereas LCR and SQUID magnetometer was used for dielectric and magnetic measurements. TEM measurements show that the average particle sizes of all the samples were ～19 nm. The dielectric constant was found to be increased twofold in low frequency region with the Cr-doping for x=0.05 in (0.90)BiFe_1?x Cr _x O₃–(0.10)BaTiO₃. The hysteresis curve (M–H) exhibits ferromagnetic nature for all the samples (x=0.0, 0.03, and 0.05) and the spontaneous magnetization at room temperature was found to be 0.63 emu/gm in pure BiFeO₃, which increased to 0.99 emu/gm for x=0.05. Zero-field-cooled (ZFC) and field-cooled (FC) magnetization curves show large discrepancy suggesting spin glass behavior.     

Cardiovascular flow simulation at extreme scale

As cardiovascular models grow more sophisticated in terms of the geometry considered, and more physiologically realistic boundary conditions are applied, and fluid flow is coupled to structural models, the computational complexity grows. Massively parallel adaptivity and flow solvers with extreme scalability enable cardiovascular simulations to reach an extreme scale while keeping the time-to-solution reasonable. In this paper, we discuss our efforts in this area and provide two demonstrations: one on an extremely large and complex geometry (including many of the major arteries below the neck) where the solution is efficiently captured with anisotropic adaptivity and another case (severe abdominal aorta aneurysm) where the transitional flow leads to extremely large meshes (O(10⁹)) and scalability to extremely large core counts (O(10⁵)) for both rigid and deforming wall simulations.