Influences of pre-forming on preparation of SiC by microwave heating

Silicon carbide (SiC) crystals were synthesized by microwave sintering using coal and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS) as raw materials. A sol-gel method was carried out to coat coal mineral particles with silicon dioxide (SiO₂). The mixed raw powders were pre-formed by uniaxial pressing into cylindrical pellets in dimension of ~ 30?×?3?mm². The pre-forming pressure was selected at 0?MPa, 1?MPa, 2?MPa, 3?MPa, 4?MPa and 5?MPa respectively, which led to different apparent density of the green pellets. The influence of apparent density of green pellets on microwave heating behavior was investigated. Different microwave thermal effects were analyzed. Techniques of XRD、SEM were carried out to characterize samples. It was found that pre-forming pressure showed crucial influences on microwave thermal effects and electric field (E-field) intensification. No SiC crystal could be formed without pre-forming pressure. Pre-forming pressure might be the prerequisite for synthesis of SiC by microwave heating. Five consecutive and indispensable heating stages including accumulation of residual air, microwave plasma generation, complex chemical reactions, nucleation and grain growth of SiC crystallites could be distinguished for samples under pre-forming pressure. Different pre-forming pressure leads to changes in heating behavior as well as morphologies of SiC crystals. ~ 4?MPa might be the optimized pre-forming pressure for both microwave plasma effects and E-field intensification.     

Influence of interface morphology on erosion failure of thermal barrier coatings

The thermal barrier coating system (TBCs) has complex structure and works in severe service environment. Erosion is one of the main factors causing the failure of TBCs. In the present study, the particle erosion process of atmospheric plasma sprayed (APS) thermal barrier coatings at elevated temperature was simulated by the finite element method. The effects of interface morphology on the penetration depth, particle ricochet velocity and interface stress state were studied, and the key parameters such as particle size, initial velocity and erosion position were also considered. The cosine curve with constant wavelength and varying amplitude was used to represent different interface roughness of TBCs. The results show that the interface morphology has little effect on the penetration depth of top coat (TC) and the particle ricochet velocity. The influence of particle erosion position related to the interface morphology is obvious. Basically, the greater the interface roughness is, the more violent the interfacial stress fluctuation is. During the erosion process, the stress in the middle of the interface is significantly higher than that at other positions. These results facilitate understanding of the particle erosion failure mechanism of APS TBCs. The influence of interface morphology should be considered in erosion research.     

An overview of Salmonella thermal destruction during food processing and preparation

Each year there are an estimated one million non-typhoidal Salmonella infections in the U.S. and about 20,000 of those infected persons require hospitalization. These infections cost Americans almost $4 billion per year. Worldwide, there are more than 80 million cases of foodborne salmonellosis. Numerous food preservation methods have been developed for extending the shelf life of food and inhibiting the growth of foodborne pathogens such as Salmonella. Food processing and preparation methods using heat (thermal treatments) are considered to be the most effective methods for elimination of Salmonella in food. In this review we discuss the use of thermal treatments for elimination of Salmonella in or on many food products, including poultry, meats, eggs, produce and low water activity foods.     

Porous mullite ceramics with enhanced compressive strength from fly ash-based ceramic microspheres: Facile synthesis,structure, and performance

Porous mullite ceramics are widely used in heat insulation owing to their high temperature and corrosion resistant properties. Reducing the thermal conductivity by increasing porosity, while ensuring a high compressive strength, is vital for the synthesis of high-strength and lightweight porous mullite ceramics. In this study, ceramic microspheres are initially prepared from pre-treated high-alumina fly ash by spray drying, and then used to successfully prepare porous mullite ceramics with enhanced compressive strength via a simple direct stacking and sintering approach. The influence of sintering temperature and time on the microstructure and properties of porous mullite ceramics was evaluated, and the corresponding formation mechanism was elucidated. Results show that the porous mullite ceramics, calcined at 1550 °C for 3 h, possess a porosity of 47%, compressive strength of 31.4 MPa, and thermal conductivity of 0.775 W/(m?K) (at 25 °C), similar to mullite ceramics prepared from pure raw materials. The uniform pore size distribution and sintered neck between the microspheres contribute to the high compressive strength of mullite ceramics, while maintaining high porosity.     

Computationally efficient multi-phase models for a proton exchange membrane fuel cell: Asymptotic reduction and thermal decoupling

Generally, multi-phase models for the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) that seek to capture the local transport phenomena are inherently non-linear with high computational overhead. We address the latter with a reduced multi-phase, multicomponent, and non-isothermal model that is inexpensive to compute without sacrificing geometrical resolution and the salient features of the PEMFC - this is accomplished by considering a PEMFC equipped with porous-type flow fields coupled with scaling arguments and leading-order asymptotics. The reduced model is verified with the calibrated and validated full model for three different experimental fuel cells: good agreement is found. Overall, memory requirements and computational time are reduced by around 2-3 orders of magnitude. In addition, thermal decoupling is explored in an attempt to further reduce computational cost. Finally, we discuss how other types of flow fields and transient conditions can be incorporated into the mathematical and numerical framework presented here.     

Preparation of the thermally stable conducting polymer PEDOT - Sulfonated poly(imide)

We describe the template polymerization of EDOT with sulfonated poly(amic acid) (SPAA), resulting in a stable conducting polymer aqueous dispersion, PEDOT-SPAA, with particle size ca. 63 nm. In films of PEDOT-SPAA, the sulfonated poly(amic acid) template undergoes imidization within 10 min at temperatures greater than 150 °C, resulting in PEDOT-sulfonated poly(imide) (PEDOT-SPI) with 10-fold conductivity enhancement. This material is highly thermally stable as compared to PEDOT-PSS. Thermal stability is necessary for many processing applications of conducting polymers, including annealing for OPVs and melt-processing of polycarbonate for device encasement. Isothermal TGA experiments were run at 300 °C for PEDOT-PSS and PEDOT-SPAA and we found that PEDOT-SPAA had a smaller slope for degradation. Annealing of films at 300 °C for 10 min caused the conductivity of PEDOT-PSS films to be unmeasurable (<1 × 10⁻⁵ S/cm), while those of PEDOT-SPAA increased 6-fold. Secondary doping of the PEDOT-SPAA system with additives commonly used for PEDOT-PSS was also investigated.     

The Effect of Un-saturates on Low-Temperature Oxidation of Crude Oil

Abstract

Low-temperature oxidation (LTO) of four Arabian crudes as well as blends of naphtha with a super-light crude was investigated employing differential thermal analysis. The mass fraction of un-saturates in the reactants varied between 0.2 and 0.9. All reactants showed LTO peaks between 230 and 264°C; heat flow at the peak, however, varied widely. The data revealed a clear increase in LTO-generated heat as the reactant's content of un-saturates increased. The lightest crude with 51.1 °API gravity and un-saturates fraction of 0.2 showed the least LTO reactivity. It is, therefore, concluded that the un-saturates content of a crude is an influential factor in its LTO tendency and, thus, its potential for spontaneous ignition and other enhanced-recovery techniques that rely on LTO.     

A Computational Study of Thrust Vectoring Control Using Dual Throat Nozzle

Dual throat nozzle （DTN） is fast becoming a popular technique for thrust vectoring. The DTN is designed with two throats, an upstream minimum and a downstream minimum at the nozzle exit, with a cavity in between the upstream throat and exit. In the present study, a computational work has been carried out to analyze the performance of a dual throat nozzle at various mass flow rates of secondary flow and nozzle pressure ratios （NPR）. Two-dimensional, steady, compressible Navier-Stokes equations were solved using a fully implicit finite volume scheme. The present computational results were validated with available experimental data. Based on the present results, the control effectiveness of thrust-vectoring is discussed in terms of the thrust coefficient and the coefficient of discharge.     

Comparison of properties of native and extruded amaranth (Amaranthus cruentus L. - BRS Alegria) flour

The aim of this study was to compare some of the properties of native and extruded amaranth flour obtained under mild and severe extrusion conditions. The chemical composition of the flours was similar. Flours obtained by both extrusion processes presented high solubility in water, low values of L∗ (luminosity) and an absence of endothermic peak on the DSC method. Water absorption, retrogradation tendency, final viscosity and the viscous behavior by rheology analysis were also studied. The results indicate that extruded flours have a good potential as an ingredient for food exposed to heat treatment at a high temperature and mechanical shear, for use in instant meal products. On the other hand, original flour properties are comparable to those of amaranth starch, which exhibits similarly high quality paste stability, low solubility in water, and elastic behavior, and could be used as a substitute for raw flour in a range of food formulas.     

Effect of EHL Contact Conditions on the Behavior of Traction Fluids

New infinitely variable transmission (IVT) systems are under development for the automotive industry as a means to achieving significant fuel economy benefits. These systems rely on the lubricating fluid to transmit the drive train loads across the interface of the transmission components. This requires the development of new fluids that exhibit high traction properties under elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) conditions. However, it has been reported recently that the traction performance of some fluids can reduce dramatically as temperature is reduced. This may place severe operational limits on IVT systems and suggests that the low-temperature traction properties of fluids for these systems should be studied in order to understand the mechanism for the observed reduction in traction.

The work reported here is an experimental study aimed at identifying whether low temperature traction reduction is related to a fundamental change in rheological behavior specific to the fluids tested or to more generic changes in the EHL contact conditions. A series of model experiments were performed using a mini traction machine (MTM) on three high-viscosity polybutene samples. The results have been mapped against previously reported non-dimensional parameters used to identify different EHL regimes. The results show that dramatic reductions in traction occur when the contact transitions from the rigid piezo-viscous (RP) toward the rigid iso-viscous (RI) region. Similar results were also found for two other high-viscosity fluids of different molecular structure and lower traction properties. The results support the hypothesis that the reduction in traction observed at low temperature is due to a change in EHL contact conditions rather than being solely due to a change in the rheological performance of the test fluids.