An adaptive degradation‐based maintenance model taking into account both imperfect adjustments and AGAN replacements

This paper presents an adaptive maintenance model for equipment that can be adjusted (minor preventive maintenance, imperfect state) or replaced (major preventive maintenance, as good as new) at specific scheduled times based on degradation measurements. An initial reliability law that uses a degradation‐based model is built from the collection of hitting times of a failure threshold. Inspections are performed to update the reliability, the remaining useful life, and the optimum time for preventive maintenance. The case of both as good as new replacements and imperfect adjustments is considered. The proposed maintenance model is based on the optimization of the long‐term expected cost per unit of time. The model is then tested on a numerical case study to assess its effectiveness. This results in an improvement for the occurrences of maintenance tasks that minimizes the mean cost per unit of time as well as an optimized number of adjustments that can be considered before replacing an item. The practical application is a decision aid support to answer the 2 following questions: Should we intervene now or wait for the next inspection? For each intervention, should we adjust or replace the item of equipment? The originality is the presence of 2 criteria that help the maintainer to decide to postpone or not the preventive replacement time depending on the measured degradation and to decide whether the item should be adjusted or replaced.     

Parametric modeling of an electromagnetic compression device with the proper generalized decomposition

Optimization of forming processes seeks an optimal choice of many process parameters. In Electromagnetic Material Forming (EMF), parameters associated to the geometry of the forming device or related to the generation of the pulsed currents have to be set, and are of primary importance to achieve the proper geometry of the formed part. Usual optimization procedures proceed by defining a trial choice of the set of parameters and then evaluate the optimality of a given cost function computed from a direct analysis. This iterative process requires many assessments of the cost function and may lead to a prohibitive computation cost since the direct analysis may involve a structural analysis. Others approaches have been proposed to circumvent this problem; based on a separated representation of the solution, the Proper Generalized Decomposition allows for a parametric resolution by introducing optimization parameters as extra-coordinates of the problem, hence the optimization procedure reduces to a simple post-treatment of the multidimensional numerical solution. The aim of this work is to develop a numerical tool dedicated to the optimization of the design of an electromagnetic compression device. This tool should enable to optimize process parameters of the generator and geometrical parameters of the electromagnetic forming device by solving the set of electromagnetic equations in quasistatics. To this end, we take advantage of the Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD) to perform a parametric resolution. We show solutions computed with a parameterization of the discharged current, and with a parameterization of the geometry considering a multi-layered structure. Finally, an example of optimization procedure is shown on the latter solution, seeking the configuration maximising the radial component of the resultant compression force applied on the part to be formed.     

Flagging incorrect nucleotide sequence reagents in biomedical papers: To what extent does the leading publication format impede automatic error detection?

Scientometrics - In an idealised vision of science the scientific literature is error-free. Errors reported during peer review are supposed to be corrected prior to publication, as further research...     

Molecular Semiconductors for Logic Operations: Dead-End or Bright Future?

The field of organic electronics has been prolific in the last couple of years, leading to the design and synthesis of several molecular semiconductors presenting a mobility in excess of 10 cm² V⁻¹ s⁻¹. However, it is also started to recently falter, as a result of doubtful mobility extractions and reduced industrial interest. This critical review addresses the community of chemists and materials scientists to share with it a critical analysis of the best performing molecular semiconductors and of the inherent charge transport physics that takes place in them. The goal is to inspire chemists and materials scientists and to give them hope that the field of molecular semiconductors for logic operations is not engaged into a dead end. To the contrary, it offers plenty of research opportunities in materials chemistry.     

Influence of pressure cycling on damage evolution in an unfilled EPDM exposed to high-pressure hydrogen

This study aims to reveal the internal damage evolution process in a transparent ethylene propylene diene rubber (EPDM) under high-pressure hydrogen cycles (9 and 15 MPa). Damage accumulation of EPDM was tracked from in-situ pictures during cycling. Several dedicated image processing routines allowed the discrimination of mechanisms (separated cavities, clusters and cracks) and sometimes the qualification of their morphology (size distribution, number, ratio of cavities reappearing at any cycle). Numerous small cavities were observed at any cycle, some of them being clustered under the highest pressure. Only part of them systematically appeared again. Some of these cavities inflated and “absorbed” small cavities around them when clustered. Finally, a few cracks were nucleated from some large cavities and grew, following a “stop and grow” process.     

A medial axis based method for irregular grain shape representation in DEM simulations

This paper describes a novel method for representing arbitrary grain shapes in discrete element method (DEM) simulations. The method takes advantage of the efficient sphere contact treatment in DEM and approximates the overall grain shape by combining a number of overlapping spheres. The method is based on the medial axis transformation, which defines the set of spheres needed for total grain reconstruction. This number of spheres is then further diminished by selecting only a subset of reconstructing spheres and opting for a grain approximation rather than a full grain reconstruction. The effects of the grain approximating parameters on the key geometrical features of the grains and the overall mechanical response of the granular medium are monitored by an extensive sensitivity analysis. The results of DEM quasi-static oedometric compression on a granular sample of approximated grains exhibit a high level of accuracy even for a small number of spheres.     

Preparation of Activated Carbon from Cashew Nut Shells for Water Purification

Russian Journal of Non-Ferrous Metals - The application of the agricultural waste of cashew nut shells (CNSs) from the Ivory Coast is proposed for the production of activated carbon (AC) used in...