Influence of Soft Reduction on Internal Quality of High Carbon Steel Billets

Centre segregation is the main reason for cup fracture during drawing of high carbon wire rod. Therefore, producing continuously cast billets with very low centre segregation is an important objective. The soft reduction technology is considered to be an effective method to minimize centre segregation. In order to clarify the effectiveness of soft reduction on internal quality of high carbon steel billets, soft reduction was applied in a laboratory casting machine while the solid fraction in the core area of billets was varied. A coupled temperature/displacement Finite Element model was developed to calculate the solid fraction with the commercial software ABAQUS. Centre segregation, centre porosity, homogeneity of elements and equiaxed crystal zone were obviously improved by applying soft reduction, especially when the solid fraction was about 0.9.     

Fast probabilistic design procedure for axially compressed composite cylinders

A semi-analytic probabilistic procedure is presented that enables a fast prediction of the stochastic distribution of buckling load of cylindrical shells caused by the scattering of geometry, wall-thickness, material properties and loading imperfection. Compared to Monte Carlo simulations the semi-analytic method requires significantly fewer buckling load calculations giving equally accurate results. Knowing the distribution function of buckling load, a level of reliability is chosen and a design load is defined, which is lower than all test results and less conservative than NASA SP-8007.     

Sedimentation and suspension flows: Historical perspective and some recent developments

Sedimentation and suspension flows play an important role in modern technology. This special issue joins nine recent contributions to the mathematics of these processes. The Guest Editors provide a concise account of the contributions to research in sedimentation and thickening that were made during the 20th century with a focus on the different steps of progress that were made in understanding batch sedimentation and continuous thickening processes in mineral processing. A major breakthrough was Kynch's kinematic sedimentation theory published in 1952. Mathematically, this theory gives rise to a nonlinear first-order scalar conservation law for the local solids concentration. Extensions of this theory to continuous sedimentation, flocculent and polydisperse suspensions, vessels with varying cross-section, centrifuges and several space dimensions, as well as its current applications are reviewed.     

Modelling of Manganese Sulphide Formation during Solidification,Part II: Correlation of Solidification and MnS Formation

The high temperature properties of steels depend on the solidification parameters and the formation parameters of manganese sulphide precipitates. Therefore, the occurrence of MnS precipitations in relation to primary and secondary microstructures was studied for different steel grades with a primary delta‐ferritic solidification or a primary austenitic solidification. The liquidus and solidus temperatures as well as the δ‐γ‐transformation temperature were calculated thermodynamically and measured by a DTA analysis in order to describe the solidification and transformation temperature range. The MnS formation temperature was calculated thermodynamically and compared to the results of SEM/EDX investigations on fracture surfaces of hot tensile specimens torn at different temperatures after in situ melting and controlled solidification. A special focus of these investigations was the location of MnS precipitates in relation to the primary and secondary grain boundaries. To explain the results, calculations were carried out taking into account the supersaturation of manganese and sulphur during the solidification in residual melt on the primary grain boundaries.     

Do human factors experts accept the ISO 9241 Part 10—Dialogue Principle—standard?

This paper presents the results of an international questionnaire survey that was developed to analyse how the potential addressees of the ISO 9241 part 10 standard—human factor (HF) experts engaged in the design, evaluation, purchase, and application of software systems—accept the first committee draft of this standard. It reports how HF experts from nine countries evaluated the First Committee Draft of ISO 9241 Part 10. Inquiries were made about whether the standard provides a framework for the design and evaluation of dialogue systems, or whether the subject of the standard is mature enough to be published as an international recommendation. Results indicate a widespread approval among 90 HF experts of the form and content of ISO 9241 Part 10.     

Code Analysis for Temporal Predictability

The execution time of software for hard real-time systems must be predictable. Further, safe and not overly pessimistic bounds for the worst-case execution time (WCET) must be computable. We conceived a programming strategy called WCET-oriented programming and a code transformation strategy, the single-path conversion, that aid programmers in producing code that meets these requirements. These strategies avoid and eliminate input-data dependencies in the code. The paper describes the formal analysis, based on abstract interpretation, that identifies input-data dependencies in the code and thus forms the basis for the strategies provided for hard real-time code development. This work has been supported by the ARTIST2 Network of Excellence on Embedded Systems Design of IST FP6. Raimund Kirner is an assistant professor in computer science in the Real-Time Systems Group of the Vienna University of Technology. He received a Master's degree in computer science and a doctoral degree in technical sciences both from the Vienna University of Technology in Austria in the years 2000 and 2003, respectively. His research interests include worst-case execution time analysis, compiler support for worst-case execution time analysis, and the verification of real-time systems. Peter Puschner is a professor in computer science at Vienna University of Technology. His main research focus is on worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis for real-time programs. Puschner has been working on WCET analysis for more than ten years and has strongly influenced the state of the art in this field. He has published numerous papers on WCET analysis and software/hardware architectures supporting temporal predictability. He was a guest editor for the special issue on WCET analysis of the Kluwer International Journal on Real-Time Systems and chaired the program committee of the IEEE International Symposium on Object-oriented Real-time distributed Computing in 2003 and the Euromicro Real-Time Systems Conference in 2004. In 2000/2001 Peter Puschner spent one year as a Marie-Curie research fellow at the University of York, England.     

Molecular modeling and QSAR studies on K(ATP) channel openers of the benzopyran type

The present paper describes our molecular modeling and quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs) studies on K(ATP) channel openers (KCOs) of the benzopyran type. In the first part we performed molecular modeling investigations with seven benzopyrans, varied at the C3- and C4-positions, in order to understand which molecular features at these positions are essentially effecting the biological activity. The impact of C6-substitution on biological activity was studied in the second part via HANSCH analysis. For this purpose physicochemical properties (charge distributions, lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) energies, desolvation energies, volumes and dipole moments) were calculated for a set of 50 C6-varied benzopyrans. A QSAR equation was developed showing a relationship between the vasodilator activity and the direction of the dipole vector of the ligands. The conclusion can be drawn that a direct interaction between the C6-substituents and the receptor structure is not of primary importance. However, the substitutents influence the orientation of the whole ligand approaching the binding site. An unfavorably oriented ligand cannot bind to the binding site, thus exhibiting weak activity.     

Fuel-rich methane oxidation in a high-pressure flow reactor studied by optical-fiber laser-induced fluorescence,multi-species sampling profile measurements and detailed kinetic simulations

A versatile flow-reactor design is presented that permits multi-species profile measurements under industrially relevant temperatures and pressures. The reactor combines a capillary sampling technique with a novel fiber-optic Laser-Induced Fluorescence (LIF) method. The gas sampling provides quantitative analysis of stable species by means of gas chromatography (i.e. _CH4${\mathrm{CH}}_4$, _O2,CO,_CO2${\mathrm{O}}_2\text{,}\mathrm{CO}\text{,}{\mathrm{CO}}_2$, _H2O,_H2${\mathrm{H}}_2\mathrm{O}\text{,}{\mathrm{H}}_2$, _C2${\mathrm{C}}_2$_H6${\mathrm{H}}_6$, _C2${\mathrm{C}}_2$_H4${\mathrm{H}}_4$), and the fiber-optic probe enables in situ detection of transient LIF-active species, demonstrated here for C_H2${\mathrm{H}}_2$O. A thorough analysis of the LIF correction terms for the temperature-dependent Boltzmann fraction and collisional quenching are presented. The laminar flow reactor is modeled by solving the two-dimensional Navier–Stokes equations in conjunction with a detailed kinetic mechanism. Experimental and simulated profiles are compared. The experimental profiles provide much needed data for the continued validation of the kinetic mechanism with respect to _C1${\mathrm{C}}_1$ and _C2${\mathrm{C}}_2$ chemistry; additionally, the results provide mechanistic insight into the reaction network of fuel-rich gas-phase methane oxidation, thus allowing optimization of the industrial process.