Optimum weight design of fiber composite plates in flexure based on a two level strategy

This paper offers a method for weight optimization of multilayer fiber composite plates under the action of lateral loadings. The objective is to design a fiber composite plate of minimum thickness which can sustain multiple static loadings applied normal to its surface without exhibiting failure based on Tsai-Hill criterion in any of its layers. In this investigation, fiber orientation angles are treated as discrete variables, which can vary only by pre-assigned increments, while thicknesses of layers are treated as continuous variables. The optimization procedure is based on a two stage strategy; in the first of which only the fiber orientation angles for the layers are treated as variables, and in the second, only the layer thicknesses. A powerful criterion based on a load factor has been defined to find the best angle for a new layer in the first stage, and the method of center points has been used for thickness optimization in the second stage. After any angle and thickness optimization has been done, a new layer is added to the thickness and the procedure is repeated for other new layers. The end of the two stage procedure is signaled whenever the thickness of the new layer in the optimization process approaches zero; meaning that no new layers would improve the set of layers already found. In this way at the end of the optimization procedure the plate thickness would be made of a minimum number of layers whose fibers are optimally oriented, and whose thicknesses are minimal. A poor choice of layers in the stack produce near zero thickness for the respective layer, and are thus deleted from the set. A repeat process is performed after each cycle, to modify layer angles in order to compensate for errors due to approximations involved. The priorities exercised in the choice of new layers for inclusion in the set and exclusion of all the un-necessary ones, allow an optimal state of stacking sequence to be achieved. Several examples are given to demonstrate the operation of the algorithm.     

A Tractable Class of Maximal Hedging Policies in Multi-Part Manufacturing Systems

The flow control problem in multi-part failure prone manufacturing systems is considered. While computationnaly attractive, the near optimal controllers of Caramanis and Sharifnia, suffer from the drawback that the production capacity set must be approximated via a very restricted set of inscribed hypercubes, namely those for which a componentwise feasibility requirement is satisfied. Also, due to the completely decoupled nature of production along each component, utilization of the restricted capacity set is suboptimal. A class of capacity set incribed hypercube policies called simple maximal hedging (SMH) policies is introduced. In SMH policies production levels along the various components of the capacity set are coupled, the componentwise feasibility requirement is lifted, and there is no underutilization of production capacity if needed. In a p part types manufacturing system, for partwise additive cost functionals, it is shown that performance evaluation of a given SMH policy reduces to the analysis of p decoupled (fictitious) semi-Markovian machines. The machines are Markovianized via first passage-time analysis and a Padé approximants technique. Numerical optimization over the class of SMH policies in a sample manufacturing system indicates that their performance can come close to that of the optimal control.     

Effect of Iron sulfate as electrolyte additive on plasma electrolytic oxidation of aluminum alloy

This study has been carried out to investigate the incorporation of Iron(II) sulfate as an additive of electrolyte on formed AA1010 aluminum alloy, using plasma electrolytic oxidation method in silicate-based electrolytes containing Iron(II) sulfate. In order to fabricate nanocomposite coating, silicon nitride nanopowder was added to electrolyte. The effects of iron(II) sulfate additive on the voltage-time trend, microstructure, compositions, wear, and corrosion resistances of PEO coatings were investigated. In addition, current density and concentration of additive were studied as parameters that were effective on coating. Results showed that although FeSO₄ enters to the coating structure, but it does not develop a new phase. The corrosion and wear behavior of coated samples with FeSO₄ indicate an improvement as compared to those without additive.     

Facile one-pot synthesis of novel dicyanoanilines fused to tetrahydro-4H-thiopyran-4-one ring via Et3N/H2O catalyzed pseudo four-component reaction

A facile procedure is developed for one-pot synthesis of a new group of dicyanoanilines. Tetrahydro-4H-thiopyran-4-one, 1, undergoes a pseudo four-component reaction with various aldehydes bearing different groups and two equivalents of malononitrile in aqueous media in the presence of triethylamine (Et₃N). As a result, novel thiopyran-fused dicyanoanilines 4 are formed efficiently in the reaction mixtures in 90–97% yield within 9–12?h mixing at 40°C. Due to the polarity of the medium, products precipitate in the mixture spontaneously allowing for easy purification by recrystallization avoiding cumbersome chromatographic separations. Characterization of the products was performed by spectroscopic methods and, in one case, was further supported by X-ray crystallographic experiments.     

High Gain Modified Dual-Band and Dual-Circularly Polarized Array Antenna

Wireless Personal Communications - A novel design of double-layer dual-band circularly polarized array antennas (DDCPAAs) is presented in this paper. First, a DDCP single antenna is introduced as...     

Locality‐Conscious Nested‐Loops Parallelization

To speed up data‐intensive programs, two complementary techniques, namely nested loops parallelization and data locality optimization, should be considered. Effective parallelization techniques distribute the computation and necessary data across different processors, whereas data locality places data on the same processor. Therefore, locality and parallelization may demand different loop transformations. As such, an integrated approach that combines these two can generate much better results than each individual approach. This paper proposes a unified approach that integrates these two techniques to obtain an appropriate loop transformation. Applying this transformation results in coarse grain parallelism through exploiting the largest possible groups of outer permutable loops in addition to data locality through dependence satisfaction at inner loops. These groups can be further tiled to improve data locality through exploiting data reuse in multiple dimensions.     

An assessment of k-ε turbulence models for gas distribution analysis

This paper presents the gas distribution analysis by injecting air fountain into the containment and simulations with the HYDRAGON code. Turbulence models of standard k-ε(SKE), re-normalization group k-ε(RNG) and a realizable k-ε(RLZ) are used to assess the effects on the gas distribution analysis during a severe accident in a nuclear power plant. By comparing with experimental data,the simulation results of the RNG and SKE turbulence models agree well with the experimental data on the prediction of dimensionless density distributions. The results illustrate that the turbulence model choice had a small effect on the simulation results, particularly the region near to the air fountain source.     

Multiscale analysis of viscoelastic laminated composite plates using generalized differential quadrature

In this paper, a laminated composite plate is analyzed using a multiscale method. At first, material properties of a lamina are obtained using an analytical micromechanical approach called simplified unit cell method (SUCM), and then in structural level, the generalized differential quadrature method (GDQM) is used to analyze a laminated composite plate. By means of the Boltzmann superposition principle, the viscoelastic behavior of the matrix is obtained. The Prony series is considered to define the compliance of matrix. To verify the results, graphiteT300/epoxy5208 composite material is analyzed and the results are compared with existing experimental data. The multiscale algorithm includes obtaining overall properties of the composite by SUCM; then, these properties are used to define the bending stiffness. Governing equations of motion of laminated composite plate are solved via GDQM and Newton–Raphson method. Variations of stresses and displacements versus time and volume fraction of the fibers are shown for laminated composite plates with different boundary conditions.     

Grafting of sulfamethoxazole on acrylic acid−vinyl methyl ketone copolymer using the schiff base reaction−application as a drug delivery system

A series of poly(acrylic acid-co-methylvinylketone–graft–sulfamethoxazole)(AVMDS) species was synthesized for drug carrier applications. The synthesis involved two steps: copolymerization of acrylic acid(AA) with methyl vinyl ketone(MVK) through the free radical route and subsequent grafting of the sulfamethoxazole (SMX) onto the copolymer via the Schiff base reaction of the primary amine of SMX with the carbonyl groups of the MVK units. The structures and properties of the materials were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR), X-ray diffraction(XRD), differential scanning calorimetry(DSC), and scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). An in-vitro cytotoxicity test of the drug-carrier systems via MTT assay revealed no significant cytotoxic effect at concentrations up to 100?µg?·?ml^?1. The dynamic release of SMX from these systems through a retro-imidation reaction (inverse Schiff base reaction) was investigated in depth, where the diffusion through the polymer matrix, the enhancement of the water solubility of SMX, the influence of the initial drug concentration, the pH of the medium, and the effect of the degree of swelling of the polymer matrix on the release dynamics were evaluated. The AVMGS4 and AVMGS1 drug carrier systems containing 3.58 and 1.18?wt% of SMX were the best performing systems.