Ultrahigh storage density achieved with (1-x)KNN-xBZN ceramics

A series of (1-x)K_0.5Na_0.5NbO₃-xBa(Zn_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃ ((1-x)KNN-xBZN) nanostructural ceramics was successfully synthesised via solid-state reactions. These nanostructural ceramics exhibited high energy storage density compared with pure KNN ceramics. Further analysis of their dielectric/ferroelectric properties and structures revealed that the addition of BZN alloy disrupted the long-range order of the ferroelectric lattice of pure KNN and favoured the formation of ferroelectric islands and/or polar nano-regions. Consequently, the nanostructured ceramic with x = 0.05 exhibited ultrahigh energy storage density, W, of approximately 9.14 J/cm³ and recoverable energy storage density, W_rec, of approximately 4.87 J/cm³ under a fairly low applied electrical field (220 kV/cm). These values exceed the highest values ever reported for KNN-based bulk ceramics. In addition, both excellent fatigue endurance (10⁵ cycles) and temperature stability (Δε'/ε_100°C < 15 % in the range 30–390 °C) were realised with the 0.97KNN-0.03BZN ceramic. Their excellent energy storage properties render KNN-based ceramics potential candidates for application in pulsed-power systems.     

A new test method to obtain biaxial tensile behaviors of solid propellant at high strain rates

A new test method was proposed and applied for studying the biaxial tensile behaviors of hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) propellant at high strain rates. The biaxial tensile stress responses of the propellant at room temperature and at different strain rates (0.40–85.71 s^?1) were obtained through the use of biaxial tensile strip samples, a new designed aluminum apparatus and a uniaxial Instron testing machine. A high-speed camera and scanning electron microscop (SEM) were employed to observe the biaxial tensile deformation and the damage of HTPB propellant under the test conditions. The results indicated that strain rate could remarkably influence the biaxial tensile behaviors of HTPB propellant. The effect of strain rate on the characteristics of stress–strain curves, mechanical properties and fracture mechanisms was consistent with that in uniaxial tension. However, the biaxial weakening of HTPB propellant was obvious. The strain at biaxial maximum tensile stress was between 10 and 30 % lower than that at the corresponding uniaxial case. Finally, the correlations between the fracture mechanisms and the mechanical properties of HTPB propellant, stress state and the damage of HTPB propellant were discussed. The damage of the propellant under the biaxial tensile test was less serious than that under uniaxial tension at the same strain rate. In addition, continuously increasing strain rate could change the fracture mechanism of the propellant under the biaxial and uniaxial tensile tests. In this investigation, the dominating fracture mechanism of HTPB propellant changed from the dewetting and matrix tearing at lower strain rate to the particles fracture at higher strain rate.     

Auto tuning for new energy dispatch problem: A case study

The new energy dispatch problem has aroused more and more attention. In this paper, we investigate the problem of determining the optimal usage of generating power during a scheduling period. A set of MIP formulations are adopted for precise modeling of the variety of power systems (different power generation units) and the actual situation in china. Based on these formulations, we construct a new energy dispatch model which includes many MIP sub-problems. An auto-tuning MIP solver CMIP is given to effectively improve the performance of solving the proposed model. The CMIP focuses on optimizations for presolver, the LP solver for corresponding relaxation problem, and the primal heuristics. Actual predict data is used in performance experiments. Computational results conform to the viability of optimization. Our optimizations further reduce 27.6% of the average execution time compared to CPLEX.     

Application of infrared thermography for the characterization of damage in braided carbon fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites

The focus of this study is to assess, using infrared thermography, the fatigue behavior and the corresponding damage states of a textile polymeric composite plate, as a prerequisite step in the development of damage based life prediction models for such advanced composite materials. Monotonic (quasi-static) loading test results confirmed that the dominant damage mechanism is cracking in the braider yarns, which was monitored using thermographic images and confirmed by edge replication microscopic observations. Fatigue results confirmed that the saturation of braider yarn cracks during cyclic loading corresponded to changes in the stiffness degradation rate as well as the surface temperature profile. This was confirmed by edge replication and scanning electron microscopic analysis. The reported results and observations provide an important step in the validation of thermography as a powerful non-destructive evaluation tool for monitoring the development of fatigue damage as well as predicting the damage states of laminated composite materials in general, and braided polymeric composite materials in particular.     

Response of hygrothermally aged GLARE 4A laminates under static and cyclic loadings

An experimental investigation focusing on the hygrothermal aging-structural degradation–mechanical property relationship of GLARE 4A laminates was conducted. Water immersion conditioning at 80 °C for up to 4 months was carried out on GLARE 4A laminates. It was found that although the outer aluminum layers effectively protected the glass/epoxy composite layers from hygrothermal attack, the composite layers absorbed moisture through the edges. Consequently, significant decrease in both, the tensile strength and fatigue life of the GLARE 4A laminates, was observed although no structural defects were apparently identifiable in the microstructures of the conditioned laminates. Detailed experimental investigation was conducted to study the mechanism of mechanical property decay due to hygrothermal aging. It is proposed that the strength of the S2-glass fibers was not fully realized due to the weakening of the fiber/matrix interface and the deterioration of the sizing, which consequently led to the reduction in the tensile strength and fatigue life of the GLARE 4A laminates. The stiffness degradation characteristics of GLARE 4A laminates under cyclic loading were also investigated.     

Chemical synthesis and structural characterization of nanocrystalline powders of pure zirconia and yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ)

Nanocrystals of pure zirconia and yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) are obtained by a simple chemical synthesis route using sucrose, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and metal nitrates. The reaction mixture on pyrolysis and calcination gives nanocrystals. These are characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The size of the nanocrystallites for pure zirconia is in the range of about 7.0–45.0 nm and for yttria stabilized zirconia, is in the range of about 5.0–24.0 nm at 200°C and above, according to the preparative condition. At 200°C, pure zirconia forms cubic phase and this cubic phase is stable up to 600°C and then slowly transformed into monoclinic form. For yttria stabilized zirconia, the crystals are tetragonal in the temperature range from 200 to 1200°C.     

Structures and potential energy functions for ground states of PuU and U2 molecules

Pu-Pu,Pu-U and U-U interatomic potentials must be known in molecular dynamics (MD) calculation of the effects of U recoil nucleus produced by self irradiation on physical properties and phase stability in δ-Pu.Because of the lack of experimental data for fitting Pu-U and U-U potentials,electronic states and potential data of PuU and U2 molecules are obtained by ab initio calculations with B3LYP hybrid exchange-correlation functional.The valence electrons of Pu and U atoms are treated with contraction basis sets,and the cores are approximated with relativistic effective core potential.The results show that electronic states for the ground states are X11Σu+ and X9Σg+.The pair potential data are fitted with the Murrell-Sorbie analytical potential function.The LDA+U calculations on the Pu-U intermetallic compound are performed with Perdew and Wang exchange-correlation functional at the spin-polarized level.The material parameters,such as the cohesive energies,elastic constants,and bulk modulus,are used to fit the 0-K universal Rose EOS,so the Pu-U EAM potential model is obtained.     

Rotation and flipping robust region binary patterns for video copy detection

Many video fingerprints have been proposed to handle the video transformations problems when the original contents are copied and redistributed. However, most of them did not take into account flipping and rotation transformations. In this paper, we propose a novel video fingerprint based on region binary patterns, aiming to realize robust and fast video copy detection against video transformations including rotation and flipping. We extract two complementary region binary patterns from several rings in keyframes. These two kinds of binary patterns are converted into a new type of patterns for the proposed video fingerprint which is robust against rotation and flipping. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed video fingerprint is effective for video copy detection particularly in the case of rotation and flipping. Furthermore, our experimental results proved that the proposed method allows for high storage efficiency and low computation complexity, which is suitable for practical video copy system.     

A multiple-kernel LSSVR method for separable nonlinear system identification

In some nonlinear dynamic systems, the state variables function usually can be separated from the control variables function, which brings much trouble to the identification of such systems. To well solve this problem, an improved least squares support vector regression （LSSVR） model with multiple-kernel is proposed and the model is applied to the nonlinear separable system identification. This method utilizes the excellent nonlinear mapping ability of Morlet wavelet kernel function and combines the state and control variables information into a kernel matrix. Using the composite wavelet kernel, the LSSVR includes two nonlinear functions, whose variables are the state variables and the control ones respectively, in this way, the regression function can gain better nonlinear mapping ability, and it can simulate almost any curve in quadratic continuous integral space. Then, they are used to identify the two functions in the separable nonlinear dynamic system. Simulation results show that the multiple-kernel LSSVR method can greatly improve the identification accuracy than the single kernel method, and the Morlet wavelet kernel is more efficient than the other kernels.