Comparison of Oxidation Stability and Quenchant Cooling Curve Performance of Soybean Oil and Palm Oil

The potential use of vegetable oil-derived industrial oils continues to be of great interest because vegetable oils are relatively non-toxic, biodegradable, and they are a renewable basestock alternative to petroleum oil. However, the fatty ester components containing conjugated double bonds of the triglyceride structure of vegetable oils typically produce considerably poorer thermal-oxidative stability than that achievable with petroleum basestocks under typical use conditions. Typically, these conditions involve furnace loads of hot steel (850 °C), which are rapidly immersed and cooled to bath temperatures of approximately 50-60 °C. This is especially true when a vegetable oil is held in an open tank with agitation and exposed to air at elevated temperatures for extended periods of time (months or years). This paper will describe the thermal-oxidative stability and quenching performance of soybean oil and palm oil and the resulting impact on the heat transfer coefficient. These results are compared to typical fully formulated, commercially available accelerated (fast) and an unaccelerated (slow) petroleum oil-based quenchants.     

Physicochemical Properties of Different Types of Starch Phosphate Monoesters

Different types of starch were phosphorylated to different degrees of substitution using monosodium and disodium hydrogen orthophosphate at 160 °C under vacuum. Generally, phosphation enhanced the physicochemical properties of the modified starches compared to their native counterparts. Solubility and swelling power greatly increase when phosphorylation was carried out to a low degree of substitution, while the solubility and swelling power decreased gradually by increasing the degree of substitution. However, the values of the monoesters were still higher than those of the corresponding native polysaccharides. Viscosities of different starch types except corn amylose showed the highest values at the lowest degree of substitution, when the degree of phosphation increased the viscosity values decreased. Native potato starch formed a clear paste (96% transmittance) due to the presence of phosphate groups while the paste clarity of potato starch decreased gradually by increasing the degree of phosphation. Generally, phosphorylation increased the light transmittance of the other starches investigated at the lowest degree of substitution but the clarity decreased by increasing the degree of substitution.     

Randomized data selection in detection with applications to distributed signal processing

Performing robust detection with resource limitations such as low-power requirements or limited communication bandwidth is becoming increasingly important in contexts involving distributed signal processing. One way to address these constraints consists of reducing the amount of data used by the detection algorithms. Intelligent data selection in detection can be highly dependent on a priori information about the signal and noise. In this paper, we explore detection strategies based on randomized data selection and analyze the resulting algorithms' performance. Randomized data selection is a viable approach in the absence of reliable and detailed a priori information, and it provides a reasonable lower bound on signal processing performance as more a priori information is incorporated. The randomized selection procedure has the added benefits of simple implementation in a distributed environment and limited communication overhead. As an example of detection algorithms based upon randomized selection, we analyze a binary hypothesis testing problem, and determine several useful properties of detectors derived from the likelihood ratio test. Additionally, we suggest an adaptive detector that accounts for fluctuations in the selected data subset. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach in distributed sensor networks applications are also discussed.     

Effect of Grain Size on Scratch Interactions and Material Removal in Alumina

Dramatic effects of scratch interactions on material removal are observed in alumina. A series of parallel scratches are made in aluminas with different grain sizes to investigate the influence of scratch interactions on the material removal process in abrasive machining. The separation distance between the two scratches and the normal load are varied and subsurface microfracture and damage modes are examined to assess the mechanisms of material removal. A very small amount of material is removed when the separation distance between the two parallel scratches is large or when the two scratches completely overlap. However, at intermediate distances the volume of material removed increases dramatically as a result of the interactions between the two scratches. The maximum amount of material removed and the corresponding distance between the two scratches are found to depend strongly on the grain size and the load. Observations of surface and subsurface damage reveal that grain dislodgement is the predominant mechanism of material removal, irrespective of the grain size. The relation between grain size, scratch interactions, and the material removal process in grinding and abrasive machining of ceramics is discussed in terms of the short-crack toughness of ceramics.     

Effect of Microstructure on Material-Removal Mechanisms and Damage Tolerance in Abrasive Machining of Silicon Carbide

Effects of microstructural heterogeneity on material-removal mechanisms and damage-formation processes in the abrasive machining of silicon carbide are investigated. It is shown that the process of material removal in a conventional silicon carbide material with equiaxed-grain micro-structure and strong grain boundaries consists of the formation and propagation of transgranular cracks which results in macroscopic chipping. However, in a silicon carbide material, containing 20 vol% yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG) second phase, with elongated-grain micro-structure and weak grain boundaries, intergranular micro-cracks are formed at the interphase boundaries, leading to dislodgment of individual grains. These different mechanisms of material-removal affect the nature of machining-induced damage. While in the conventional silicon carbide material the machining damage consists of transgranular median/radial cracks, in the heterogeneous silicon carbide material, abrasive machining produces interfacial micro-cracks distributed within a thin surface layer. These two distinct types of machining damage result in a different strength response in the two forms of silicon carbide materials. In the case of the conventional silicon carbide, grinding damage results in a dramatic decrease in strength relative to the as-polished specimens. In contrast, the ground heterogeneous silicon carbide specimens show no strength loss at all.