Rare earth elements leaching from Chadormalu apatite concentrate: Laboratory studies and regression predictions

The extraction of rare earth elements from apatite concentrate of Chadormalu plant of Iran was studied with the dissolution of ore in nitric acid. The parameters of acidity: 60%, solid to liquid ratio: 30%, leaching time: 30 minute, agitation rate: 200 rpm, temperature: 60 °C and particle size (d₈₀): 50 microns were determined as the optimum operational conditions. The recoveries of lanthanum, cerium, neodymium and yttrium were achieved at 74, 59, 72 and 73%, respectively, in the optimized conditions. Multivariable regression was used to predict La, Ce, Nd, Y and total REEs (Y+Nd+Ce+La) leaching recoveries, using experimental data from laboratory studies. It was achieved quite satisfactory correlations of 0.93, 0.98, 0.99, 0.97 and 0.99 for the prediction of Y, Nd, Ce, La and total REEs recoveries, respectively. It was shown that the proposed equations accurately reproduce the effects of operational variables on the different REEs recoveries, and can be used to optimize the REEs leaching plant.     

An examination of the effect of variation in datum targets on part acceptance

The use of datum targets within Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) is commonplace in industry today. Datum targets are used primarily for manufacturing and inspection setups where it is not practical to have tooling that contacts the entire surface of the datum. Establishing a simulated datum from datum targets may be done physically or mathematically. In the process of establishing a simulated datum, there are several possible sources of variation. Any variation or error in establishing the datum will manifest itself as variation or error in the measurement of the distance between the feature and the datum. This paper examines the effect of variation in datum targets on part acceptance using both mathematical analysis and simulation. The focus of this examination is diametric positional tolerance of holes that reference the datum established by datum targets. A three-dimensional mathematical model of the hole position error with respect to the datum target variation is developed. Then, simulation is adopted to identify the major sources of hole position error due to errors in datum targets. It is found that the datum target variation has a profound effect on the measured location of holes referencing those datums. Explanation and validation for accepted practice are offered and some additional basic guidelines are developed for the placement of datum targets relative to hole patterns.     

Investigation of the corrosion behavior of cathodic arc evaporated stainless steel coating in 3.5% NaCl

In this paper, two major technical problems (growth defects and chromium content loss) encountering when cathodic arc evaporation physical vapor deposition (CAE-PVD) was used for deposition of stainless steel and their subsequent effects on corrosion behavior of the coating in 3.5 wt % NaCl solution have been investigated. Growth defects in spherical and needle-like shapes were the common defects that resulted from CAE-PVD of a stainless steel and played a major role in determining the corrosion behavior of the coating. The results showed a composition difference between the coating matrix (with ~11 at % Cr) and the growth defects, particularly needle-like ones (with ~15 at % Cr). According to SEM images, it seemed that the needle-like defects were passivated and were susceptible to pitting corrosion while coating matrix was corroded. The results also showed that the corrosion of the coating was influenced by two factors: building up micro-galvanic cells between the needle-like defects (as passivated regions) and both coating matrix and the spherical defects (as active sites). In addition, an intense localized corrosion (as micro-crevice corrosion) was observed around the growth defects.

     

Evolution of microstructure and mechanical properties of SUS430/C11000/SUS430 composites during the laser-forming process

Multilayered sheet metals have been widely used to achieve a wide range of favorable mechanical, physical, thermal and electrical properties. Laser beam irradiation over these materials creates extreme temperature changes that can lead to changes in the microstructural properties. Microstructure plays a very crucial role in determining the mechanical property of the irradiated region, thus determining the optimum laser processing conditions. In this study, metallographic studies, as well as tensile, fatigue and hardness tests, are undertaken on SUS430/C11000/SUS430 laminated composites that have been exposed to laser irradiation with different number of passes. This composite can be used in the microelectronics industry since it has the anti-corrosion and strength capability of stainless steel, and the electrical superiority of copper. Ytterbium fiber laser is used in such a way that the governing mechanism of the process is the temperature gradient mechanism. Evolution of the microstructure is revealed by metallography, and the fracture levels of tension and fatigue test specimens are further evaluated by SEM. This study illustrates the significant effects of successive laser irradiation on the evolution of microstructure and mechanical properties, which lead to some suggestions for improving the properties of laser-formed SUS430/C11000/SUS430 composites.     

Evaluating the geometric characteristics of cylindrical features

This paper presents mathematical models and efficient methodologies for the evaluation of geometric characteristics that define form and function of cylindrical features; namely cylindricity and straightness of median line. These two problems have similar structures and can be solved by comparable procedures. Based on the proposed methodologies, the cylindricity error evaluation can be performed using any of the following criteria: the least squares cylinders, minimum circumscribed cylinders, maximum inscribed cylinders or minimum zone cylinders. The procedures have been tested for accuracy and efficiency. The results indicate that they provide accurate results quickly.     

An Implicit Approach for Numerical Simulation of Water Hammer Induced Pressure in a Straight Pipe

Water Resources Management - An accurate prediction of propagation speed and the magnitude induced pressure in water hammer is very critical for the analysis, design, and operation of pipeline...     

New organosoluble and thermally stable poly(urea-imide)s prepared from one-pot polyaddition reactions

A new class of aromatic poly(urea-imide)s having biphenylene pendant group was prepared by the diphenyl azidophosphate (DPAP) activated one-pot polyaddition reaction of a preformed imide ring-containing dicarboxylic acid, 4-p-biphenyl-2,6-bis(4-trimellitimidophenyl)pyridine ( 1 ) with various aromatic diamines. A model compound was also synthesized by the reaction of diimide-dicarboxylic acid 1 with two mole equivalents of aniline. In this direct method the polymers were prepared by polyaddition reactions of the in situ-formed diisocyanate with the aromatic diamines. The inherent viscosities of the polymers were measured in the range of 0.11–0.15 dL g⁻¹. The ultraviolet λ_max values of the poly(urea-imide)s were also determined. Furthermore, crystallinity of the resultant polymers was evaluated by wide-angle X-ray diffraction method, and they exhibited nearly a noncrystalline nature. All of the resulting polymers exhibited excellent solubility in common polar solvents. The glass transition temperatures of the polymers determined by DSC thermograms were in the range 241–272°C. The temperatures at 10% weight loss from their TGA curves were found to be in the range 406–437°C in nitrogen. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2008     

On the self-scheduling of a power producer in uncertain trading environments

This work presents a scenario-based approach to the self-scheduling problem of a price taker power producer in a DA market. It concentrates on three categories of uncertainty including price, forced outage and generation reallocation and analyses their effects on the producer revenue. To tackle the uncertainties a set of price scenarios are so generated that their means and covariance matrix are the same as the base-case scenario. Forced outage and generation reallocation of generator for each price scenario are appropriately modeled through a probabilistic methodology. In this work Downside Risk (DR) is employed as the risk measure which quantifies the downside violations from a specified target. A risk-constrained self-scheduling problem is therefore formulated and solved as a mixed integer linear programming problem. Numerical results for a case study are discussed.     

Performance analysis of equal-gain diversity receivers over generalized Gamma fading channels

Generalized Gamma (GG) distribution is a generic model that covers many well-known fading distributions as special cases. This paper deals with the performance analysis of L-branch equal gain combining (EGC) receivers operating over GG fading channels. For these receivers and by using convergent infinite series approach, the probability of error (P_e) can be formulated in the form of an infinite series. The coefficients of P_e series can be derived by calculating complicated integrations over the fading envelope distribution. In this paper, it is shown that the required integrations for the case of GG distribution have a complex closed-form in terms of Meijer's G function, and then, a new approximation method is developed for computation of them. The proposed method only needs mean and variance of the fading envelope; hence it has low complexity and eliminates the need for calculation of complex functions. The presented numerical examples show that the developed method can approximate the required parameters and also the individual coefficients accurately and this accuracy increases with the increase of L. The proposed method is applied to analyze the probability of error performance of the L-branch EGC receiver with both coherent phase shift keying (CPSK) and frequency shift keying (CFSK) modulation schemes under different GG channel conditions. Also the effect of gain unbalance between diversity branches on the probability of error is investigated.     

Performance Evaluation of Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference System for Sediment Transport in Sewers

The application of models capable of estimating sediment transport in sewers has been a frequent practice in the past years. Considering the fact that predicting sediment transport within the sewer is a complex phenomenon, the existing equations used for predicting densimetric Froude number do not present similar results. Using Adaptive Neural Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) this article studies sediment transport in sewers. For this purpose, five different dimensionless groups including motion, transport, sediment, transport mode and flow resistance are introduced first and then the effects of various parameters in different groups on the estimation of the densimetric Froude number in the motion group are presented as six different models. To present the models, two states of grid partitioning and sub-clustering were used in Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) generation. Moreover, the training algorithms applied in this article include back propagation and hybrid. The results of the proposed models are compared with the experimental data and the existing equations. The results show that ANFIS models have greater accuracy than the existing sediment transport equations.