Swelling Deswelling Behavior of PS‐PNIPAAM Copolymer Particles and PNIPAAM Brushes Grafted from Polystyrene Particles & Monoliths

Two sets of emulsion particles have been synthesized. In the first set, surfactant free emulsion was used to directly synthesize PS‐PNIPAAM copolymer particles. In the second set, polystyrene particles with an ATRP initiator shell were first synthesized and subsequently grafted with PNIPAAM brushes. Swelling/deswelling behavior of both sets of particles was studied with respect to temperature and time. Monoliths with two different porosities were also formed by grafting and crosslinking of PNIPAAM chains on the aggregated particles and characterized. In all cases, swelling kinetics is sufficiently fast to use these supports for separation driven by temperature changes only. However, hindrance and cross‐linking is sensibly reducing the material performance.

     

A novel nano-configuration for thermoelectrics: helicity induced thermal conductivity reduction in nanowires

In this article, we propose a novel helical nano-configuration towards the designing of high ZT thermoelectric materials. Non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulations for 'model' bi-component nanowires indicate that a significant reduction in thermal conductivity, similar to that of flat superlattice nanostructures, can be achieved using a helical geometric configuration. The reduction is attributed to a plethora of transmissive and reflective phonon scattering events resulting from the steady alteration of phonon propagating direction that emerges from the continuous rotation of the helical interface. We also show that increasing the relative mass ratio of the two components lowers the phonon energy transmission at the interface due to differences in vibrational frequency spectra, thereby relatively 'easing' the phonon energy propagation along the helical pathway. While the proposed mechanisms result in a reduced lattice thermal conductivity, the continuous nature of the bi-component nanowire would not be expected to significantly reduce its electrical counterpart, as often occurs in superlattice/alloy nanostructures. Hence, we postulate that the helical configuration of atomic arrangement provides an attractive and general framework for improved thermoelectric material assemblies independent of the specific chemical composition.     

Nanocomposite Hydrogel Materials for Defective Cartilage Repair and Its Mechanical Tribological Behavior—A Review

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a regressive ailment that affects a large population of patients. The most common symptoms of OA in humans are cartilage abnormalities. Hydrogels are excellent candidates for cartilage regeneration and are widely accepted as implants. In the past few decades, numerous types of hydrogels have been synthesized to repair cartilage defects. This study highlights recent advances in hydrogel development for the treatment of cartilage defects. In addition, the detailed progression of tailored nanocomposite hydrogels is summarized, and emphasis has been placed on the mechanical properties, especially the tribological behavior of the developed nanocomposite hydrogels.     

Identification of stiffness and damping characteristics of axial air-foil bearings

Air-foil bearings (AFBs) are self acting hydrodynamic bearings made from sheet metal foils comprised of at least two layers. The innermost “top foil” layer traps a gas pressure film that supports a load while the layer or layers underneath provide an elastic foundation. AFBs are currently used in many commercial applications, both terrestrial and in aerospace. AFBs provide a means to eliminate the oil system leading to reduce weight and enhanced temperature capability. Regardless of the application of the AFBs, the identification of the structural characteristics is important for successful design practice. In the present work, structural characteristics (stiffness and damping) of axial AFBs are indentified in the light of experimental results. Due to the initial high torque requirement of the AFB, the experimental setup using a single AFB is proposed instead of standard two-foil bearing setups. Experiments are carried out at maximum speed of 60,000 rpm. Sub-structuring approach is used for identification of the structural (stiffness and damping) characteristics of the AFB. The results have shown that the developed experimental procedure is able to identify the stiffness and damping characteristics of axial AFBs accurately.     

Steam drum level dynamics in a multiple loop natural circulation system of a pressure-tube type boiling water reactor

Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is a pressure tube type boiling water reactor employing natural circulation as the mode of heat removal under all the operating conditions. Main heat transport system (MHTS) of AHWR is essentially a multi-loop natural circulation system with all the loops connected to each other. Each loop of MHTS has a steam drum that provides for gravity based steam–water separation. Steam drum level is a very critical parameter especially in multi-loop natural circulation systems as large departures from the set point may lead to ineffective separation of steam–water or may affect the driving head. However, such a system is susceptible to steam drum level anomalies under postulated asymmetrical operating conditions among the different quadrants of the core like feedwater flow distribution anomaly among the steam drums or power anomaly among the core quadrants. Analyses were carried out to probe such scenarios and unravel the underlying dynamics of steam drum level using system code RELAP5/Mod3.2. In addition, a scheme to obviate such problem in a passive manner without dependence on level controller was examined. It was concluded that steam drums need to be connected in the liquid as well as steam space to make the system tolerant to asymmetrical operating conditions.     

Modeling of Cadmium Removal from Domestic Wastewater in Constructed Wetlands Using STELLA Simulation Program

A mathematical model was developed to simulate cadmium removal from wastewater in free water surface (FWS) and subsurface flow (SF) constructed wetlands using STELLA simulation program. The model simulated the accumulation of cadmium in soil (Cds), uptake by plants (Cdp), and residual concentration in effluent (Cdww_eff). The model was calibrated using one-half of the experimental data for the adjustment of the coefficients and the remaining data for model verification. The comparison of simulated and experimental values of Cds, Cdp, and Cdww_eff showed good agreement. The results indicated that the developed mathematical model could be useful for predicting the fate of cadmium when treating domestic effluents in constructed wetlands.     

Effect of gum arabic concentration and inlet temperature during spray drying on physical and antioxidant properties of honey powder

The research studied the effect of gum arabic concentration at 35, 40 and 45 % with inlet temperatures of 160, 170 and 180 °C on the physico-chemical, functional and thermal properties of honey powder enriched with aonla (Emblica officinalis. Gaertn) and basil (Ocimum sanctum) extract, wherein other parameters like concentration of aonla extract (8 %), basil extract (6 %) and feed rate (0.11 mL/s) were kept as constant. Powder recovery and glass transition temperature (T_g) showed significant increase with the increase in inlet temperatures. On the other hand hygroscopicity, tapped density, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and vitamin C content showed inverse response to the increase in inlet temperatures. However powder recovery, T_g, total phenolic content, antioxidant activity and vitamin C content increased with the increase in concentration of gum arabic. On the basis of obtained results it can be concluded that honey powder with the concentration of 45 % gum arabic at 170 °C inlet temperature was found to be less hygroscopic with better powder recovery and overwhelming antioxidant properties.     

Synthesis and characterization of clinopyroxene based glasses and glass-ceramics along diopside (CaMgSi2O6)-jadeite (NaAlSi2O6) join

The crystallization behavior and mechanical characterization of glasses based upon the compositions along diopside (CaMgSi₂O₆)-jadeite (NaAlSi₂O₆) join has been investigated. Six glasses were obtained by the melt-quenching technique. Structural and thermal behaviors of these glasses were investigated by density and molar volume, infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and dilatometry. The crystallization behavior of glasses was investigated by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Sintering and crystallization behavior of the glass-ceramics were investigated under non-isothermal heating conditions up to temperatures of 850 °C. Mechanical characterization of glasses was investigated by using the measurement of Vickers indentation hardness and elastic constants such as Young's modulus (E), shear modulus (G), bulk modulus (K) and Poisson's ratio (ν). These data of the glasses were correlated with the structure of glasses, nature and role played by glass forming cations.     

Synthy: A system for end to end composition of web services

The demand for quickly delivering new applications is increasingly becoming a business imperative today. However, application development is often done in an ad hoc manner resulting in poor reuse of software assets and longer time-to-delivery. Web services have received much interest due to their potential in facilitating seamless business-to-business or enterprise application integration. A web service composition system can help automate the process, from specifying business process functionalities, to developing executable workflows that capture non-functional (e.g. Quality of Service (QoS)) requirements, to deploying them on a runtime infrastructure. Intuitively, web services can be viewed as software components and the process of web service composition similar to software synthesis. In addition, service composition needs to address the build-time and runtime issues of the integrated application, thereby making it a more challenging and practical problem than software synthesis. However, current solutions based on business web services (using WSDL, BPEL, SOAP, etc.) or semantic web services (using ontologies, goal-directed reasoning, etc.) are both piecemeal and insufficient. We formulate the web service composition problem and describe the first integrated system for composing web services end to end, i.e., from specification to deployment. The proposed solution is based on a novel two-staged composition approach that addresses the information modeling aspects of web services, provides support for contextual information while composing services, employs efficient decoupling of functional and non-functional requirements, and leads to improved scalability and failure handling. We also present Synthy, a prototype of the service composition system, and demonstrate its effectiveness with the help of an application scenario from the telecom domain.