Development of advanced fiber-reinforced polymer composites by polymer hybridization technique: Emphasis on cure kinetics,mechanical, and thermomechanical performance

Polymer hybridization technique, consisting of an interlayer arrangement of different polymers, acts as the most economical and promising technique in augmenting the glass fiber-reinforced polymer composite's mechanical properties. This investigation focuses on the effect of cure kinetics on the flexural behavior of glass-polymer hybrid (GPH) composite, and also elucidates the comparative analysis on the mechanical behavior of glass-epoxy (GE) composite, glass-vinyl ester (GVE) composite, and GPH composite. The optimal postcuring temperature has been found to be 200°C for GPH composite among the other postcuring temperatures conducted at 140, 170, and 230°C. Among all these abovementioned composites, highest flexural strength and interlaminar shear strength properties have been recorded by the 200°C postcured GPH composite leading to 10.87 and 18.76% increment, respectively, compared with GE composite. Furthermore, thermomechanical characterization has been done to know the viscoelastic behavior of the GPH composite postcured at different temperatures using dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. The fracture morphology of flexural tested composite samples demonstrated a combination of failure modes. Relevant information on the chemical restructuring and fracture morphology of experimented composite material using Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) has also been studied.     

Micro-mechanical Behaviour of AA2014 Alloy During Hot Tensile Testing

Nowadays, critical aircraft application demands high end performance of respective aerospace materials. Al–4.5 %Cu alloy known as duralumin have extensive application on spacecraft, as ring rolled and heat treated condition. However, behaviour of the same alloy at high temperature is always a thirst area to improve the understanding. This paper mainly focussed on the behaviour of duralumin alloy during hot tensile testing. Hot tensile testings were done at six different temperatures ranging from room temperature to 300 °C. Mechanical properties at various temperatures were measured and studied along with the microstructural changes at all experimental conditions. Thermodynamic software package FactSage simulation was employed to identify the precipitates expected to precipitate at high temperature. Important conclusions were drawn from both theoretical and experimental observations.     

High temperature tensile properties of 316LN stainless steel investigated using automated ball indentation technique

Type 316LN stainless steel (SS) is the principal structural material for the components of sodium cooled fast reactors operating under elevated temperature conditions. In order to assess the degradation in strength of service exposed components using a small specimen testing technique such as automated ball indentation (ABI), it is necessary to carry out prior detailed ABI studies on the virgin material. In this investigation, the tensile behaviour of as-received 316LN SS were investigated at several temperatures in the range 298–973 K using ABI technique. The load-depth of indentation data measured from ABI tests was analyzed using semi-empirical relationships to obtain the tensile properties. The yield stress and the flow curves were determined by correlating ABI results with corresponding uniaxial tensile test results. Trend curve for tensile strength with temperature, as estimated from ABI tests, exhibited a plateau region in the temperature around 823 K, similar to uniaxial tensile tests. The variations of strength coefficient, strain hardening exponent, yield ratio, hardness and uniform ductility with temperature were evaluated from ABI tests. The ABI technique was found to estimate the influence of temperature on tensile properties sensitively.     

Editorial

Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering -     

Development of Phosphodiesterase–Protein-Kinase Complexes as Novel Targets for Discovery of Inhibitors with Enhanced Specificity

Phosphodiesterases (PDEs) hydrolyze cyclic nucleotides to modulate multiple signaling events in cells. PDEs are recognized to actively associate with cyclic nucleotide receptors (protein kinases, PKs) in larger macromolecular assemblies referred to as signalosomes. Complexation of PDEs with PKs generates an expanded active site that enhances PDE activity. This facilitates signalosome-associated PDEs to preferentially catalyze active hydrolysis of cyclic nucleotides bound to PKs and aid in signal termination. PDEs are important drug targets, and current strategies for inhibitor discovery are based entirely on targeting conserved PDE catalytic domains. This often results in inhibitors with cross-reactivity amongst closely related PDEs and attendant unwanted side effects. Here, our approach targeted PDE–PK complexes as they would occur in signalosomes, thereby offering greater specificity. Our developed fluorescence polarization assay was adapted to identify inhibitors that block cyclic nucleotide pockets in PDE–PK complexes in one mode and disrupt protein-protein interactions between PDEs and PKs in a second mode. We tested this approach with three different systems—cAMP-specific PDE8–PKAR, cGMP-specific PDE5–PKG, and dual-specificity RegA–R_D complexes—and ranked inhibitors according to their inhibition potency. Targeting PDE–PK complexes offers biochemical tools for describing the exquisite specificity of cyclic nucleotide signaling networks in cells.     

Insights into discrepancy in power generation among glucose and malate grown Rubrivivax benzoatilyticus JA2 microbial fuel cells

In this study, Rubrivivax benzoatilyticus JA2^T (=ATCC BAA-35^T = JCM 13220^T = MTCC 7087^T), an anoxygenic photosynthetic bacterium, was subjected to altered conditions and observed for changes in power outcome in the two chambered microbial fuel cells (MFCs), the basis of which was established using metabolomic studies. This is an extension to our previous studies, which showed that, under photo heterotrophic conditions, glucose in the form of a solitary carbon resource in minimal media, caused the strain JA2 to exhibit altered growth rates, progressive loss of pigmentation and reduced cell size (3–4 μm), compared to malate grown cells (6–7 μm). When R. benzoatilyticus JA2 cells were grown in malate bio-anodes, they presented higher potentials (289.22 ± 4.6 mV or 436.22 OCV per mg dry weight) compared to glucose bioanodes (163 ± 5.5 mv or 188.98 OCV per mg dry weight). Insights from the metabolomic footprints and fingerprints have revealed differential regulation of key components in the central metabolic pathway such as fumarate, citrate and succinate, which are significantly increased in malate grown bio anodes. Strain JA2 cells when grown with malate as substrate are densely grown on the electrodes and exhibited reduced size, when observed under SEM, which contrasts with control cells grown on malate broth. The artificial selection pressure of the MFC and the different metabolic pathways followed by these bacteria are the reasons for such discrepancy in the power production by the strain JA2. These adaptations may indicate survival advantage during the electron transfer and growth in bio anodes. The study throws light on what types of effluents would be more suitable as substrates for R. benzoatilyticus JA2 microbial fuel cells.     

SMTIBEA: a hybrid multi-objective optimization algorithm for configuring large constrained software product lines

Software and Systems Modeling - A key challenge to software product line engineering is to explore a huge space of various products and to find optimal or near-optimal solutions that satisfy all...     

Dual role of grass clippings as buffering agent and biomass during anaerobic co-digestion with food waste

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - There is a dire need to replace the chemical buffers that regulate the redox environment in single-stage anaerobic digestion of food waste. Hence, the...     

Chitosan–silver nanocomposites: New functional biomaterial for health-care applications

Chitosan–silver nanocomposites (CS-HDA-AgNCs) was prepared using chitosan, biogenic silver nanocomposites, and crosslinker, hexamethylene 1,6-di(amino carboxysulfonate) (HDA). The film is flexible and transparent. Its physical, mechanical, thermal, hydrophilicity, and swelling properties were improved by HDA (2.5%). The antimicrobial activity of CS-HDA-AgNCs were not displayed any remarkable zone of inhibition but showed toxic effect in the presence of normal 3T3 fibroblasts and cancer HeLa cells. It decreases to ca. 5–7% for both cell lines. In conclusion, it can be mentioned that the CS-HDA-AgNCs, a kind of new functional biomaterial, could be useful for health-care applications.     

Performance investigation in modified and improved augmented power generation Kalina cycle using Python

In the generation of electricity and cogeneration, Kalina cycle is considered as one of the competitors to organic Rankine cycle. With the simplicity and identical components of the binary mixture, Kalina system makes it more prominent to get developed and implemented as well with its environmental friendly associate. This work proposes a new improved Kalina cycle system to convert the natural source from sun to useful work. The proposed system utilizes heat source suitable to medium temperature heat applications. The proposed cycle have 2 units of solar collector, favoring an additional heat recovery and higher performance. Solar hot source temperature and pressure are 190°C and 45 bar with additional flow to the turbine of 1.15 kg/s. Energy and second law analysis have considered in evaluating the performance of the proposed plant. The energy analysis shows minimum value of net power, energy efficiency and plant efficiency as 241 kW, 15.5% and 5.7. The exergy analysis defines that, to the proposed cycle, the exergy efficiency initializes at 77% with more exergy destruction at turbine with 31%. With the parametric analysis, the system is amended to have the maximum values of energy and exergy performances as 18.5%, 7.1% and 85%. The parametric study identifies the optimum value of the inlet temperature and pressure of the pump and turbine.