Experimental study on the load bearing behavior of geosynthetic reinforced soil bridge abutments with different facing conditions

This paper presents an experimental study on reduced-scale model tests of geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) bridge abutments with modular block facing, full-height panel facing, and geosynthetic wrapped facing to investigate the influence of facing conditions on the load bearing behavior. The GRS abutment models were constructed using sand backfill and geogrid reinforcement. Test results indicate that footing settlements and facing displacements under the same applied vertical stress generally increase from full-height panel facing abutment, to modular block facing abutment, to geosynthetic wrapped facing abutment. Measured incremental vertical and lateral soil stresses for the two GRS abutments with flexible facing are generally similar, while the GRS abutment with rigid facing has larger stresses. For the GRS abutments with flexible facing, maximum reinforcement tensile strain in each layer typically occurs under the footing for the upper reinforcement layers and near the facing connections for the lower layers. For the full-height panel facing abutment, maximum reinforcement tensile strains generally occur near the facing connections.     

A greedy reduced basis scheme for multifrequency solution of structural acoustic systems

The solution of frequency dependent linear systems arising from the discretization of vibro-acoustic problems requires a significant computational effort in the case of rapidly varying responses. In this paper, we review the use of a greedy reduced basis scheme for the efficient solution in a frequency range. The reduced basis is spanned by responses of the system at certain frequencies that are chosen iteratively based on the response that is currently worst approximated in each step. The approximations at intermediate frequencies as well as the a posteriori estimations of associated errors are computed using a least squares solver. The proposed scheme is applied to the solution of an interior acoustic problem with boundary element method (BEM) and to the solution of coupled structural acoustic problems with finite element method and BEM. The computational times are compared to those of a conventional frequencywise strategy. The results illustrate the efficiency of the method.     

Breaking the purity-stability dilemma in pure Cu with grain boundary relaxation

High purity metals are increasingly demanded in modern manufacturing industries, but their processing and applications are limited by a dilemma that purer metals are thermally and mechanically less stable. The reduced stability of pure metals originates from the weakened drag effect of impurity atoms on the mobility of grain boundaries (GBs) that are hard to stabilize without alloying. Following recent studies on stabilizing nanograined metals by tailoring structures of GBs, here we report that structural relaxation of GBs breaks the purity-stability dilemma in pure Cu. Contrary to the conventional impurity effect, thermal stability and hardness of nanograined Cu samples with relaxed GBs increase (rather than decrease) with higher purities. The discovered anomalous impurity effect, owing to suppression of GB relaxation process with impurity atoms, offers an alternative vector to stabilizing purer metals for advanced processing and applications.     

Persistence of lower dimensional invariant tori in a class of reversible systems

In this paper we prove the persistence of lower dimensional invariant tori for a class of reversible systems without any non-degeneracy condition. In the proof, we use the special nature that the dimension of the frequency ω is 2 and the modified KAM iteration to prove the persistence of lower dimensional hyperbolic invariant tori, but the frequency has some small shifts from small perturbations.     

Automatic monitoring system for individual dairy cows based on a deep learning framework that provides identification via body parts and estimation of body condition score

Body condition score (BCS) is a common tool for indirectly estimating the mobilization of energy reserves in the fat and muscle of cattle that meets the requirements of animal welfare and precision livestock farming for the effective monitoring of individual animals. However, previous studies on automatic BCS systems have used manual scoring for data collection, and traditional image extraction methods have limited model performance accuracy. In addition, the radio frequency identification device system commonly used in ranching has the disadvantages of misreadings and damage to bovine bodies. Therefore, the aim of this research was to develop and validate an automatic system for identifying individuals and assessing BCS using a deep learning framework. This work developed a linear regression model of BCS using ultrasound backfat thickness to determine BCS for training sets and tested a system based on convolutional neural networks with 3 channels, including depth, gray, and phase congruency, to analyze the back images of 686 cows. After we performed an analysis of image model performance, online verification was used to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the system. The results showed that the selected linear regression model had a high coefficient of determination value (0.976), and the correlation coefficient between manual BCS and ultrasonic BCS was 0.94. Although the overall accuracy of the BCS estimations was high (0.45, 0.77, and 0.98 within 0, 0.25, and 0.5 unit, respectively), the validation for actual BCS ranging from 3.25 to 3.5 was weak (the F1 scores were only 0.6 and 0.57, respectively, within the 0.25-unit range). Overall, individual identification and BCS assessment performed well in the online measurement, with accuracies of 0.937 and 0.409, respectively. A system for individual identification and BCS assessment was developed, and a convolutional neural network using depth, gray, and phase congruency channels to interpret image features exhibited advantages for monitoring thin cows.     

An Investigation into the Thermal Boundary Resistance Associated with the Twin Boundary in Bismuth Telluride

The thermal boundary resistances (TBRs) of twin boundaries occurring at three different atomic layers (Te1, Bi, and Te2) of bismuth telluride (Bi₂Te₃) are investigated in use of the non-equilibrium molecular dynamics (NEMD) simulation method. The simulation results show that among all, the Te1-twin boundaries bring about a lowest interfacial energy corresponding to a most stable system, which explains why this type of twin boundaries is mostly often observed in the laboratory; the Te2-twin boundaries on the other hand possess a largest interfacial energy, resulting in a least stable system. The order in magnitude of the TBRs associated with these three types of twin boundaries is Te2-twin > Bi-twin > Te1-twin. Moreover, the TBR associated with a pair of twin boundaries separated by a distance of 4 unit cell (UC) is found to be about twice as large as that of a single twin boundary of the same type. It implies that the mutual coupling, which causes an increase in TBRs, may be ignored and the effect of twin boundaries may be counted individually as long as the separation distance is larger than 4 UC.     

涂层工艺及参数对巧克力制品品质的影响

通过单因素和正交试验,研究了巧克力涂层温度、涂层厚度和冷却条件对巧克力涂层产品品质的影响。结果表明:巧克力冷却条件是影响巧克力涂层产品品质的首要因素,其次是涂层温度和涂层厚度。优化后最终成品巧克力涂层工艺参数是:36℃的涂层温度、0.5 mm的涂层厚度和12℃-10℃-12℃的冷却条件。     

Investigation on the pinch point position in heat exchangers

The pinch point is important for analyzing heat transfer in thermodynamic cycles.With the aim to reveal the importance of determining the accurate pinch point,the research on the pinch point position is carried out by theoretical method.The results show that the pinch point position depends on the parameters of the heat transfer fluids and the major fluid properties.In most cases,the pinch point locates at the bubble point for the evaporator and the dew point for the condenser.However,the pinch point shifts to the supercooled liquid state in the near critical conditions for the evaporator.Similarly,it shifts to the superheated vapor state with the condensing temperature approaching the critical temperature for the condenser.It even can shift to the working fluid entrance of the evaporator or the supercritical heater when the heat source fluid temperature is very high compared with the absorbing heat temperature.A wrong position for the pinch point may generate serious mistake.In brief,the pinch point should be founded by the iterative method in all conditions rather than taking for granted.     

Influence of the grain structure of yttria thin films on the hydrogen isotope permeation

Steel components are required in the infrastructure and the facilities of the hydrogen economy. The high hydrogen pressures in the hydrogen economy lead to embrittlement and surface corrosion of the steels. For the functionality of the facilities it is necessary to suppress the embrittlement and the surface corrosion of the steels by protective layers, e.g. ceramic thin films. With regard to fusion power plants ceramic thin films on the structural steel materials are also required. These thin films work as a tritium permeation barrier that is necessary to prevent the loss of the radioactive fuel inventory. Oxide thin films, e.g. Al₂O₃, Er₂O₃, and Y₂O₃, are promising candidates as tritium permeation barrier layers. In terms of the application in the first wall, this is especially true for yttrium due to its favorably short decay time after neutron activation compared to the other candidates. The Y₂O₃ layers with thicknesses of 0.5 μm–1 μm are deposited on both substrate sides by RF magnetron sputter deposition. Since the microstructure of the barrier layer plays an important role for the permeation reduction, layers with three different magnetron process modes and thus three different microstructures are prepared. After annealing the cubic crystal structure of all thin films is verified by X-ray diffraction and the different microstructures are investigated by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The Y₂O₃ stoichiometry of all thin films and a chromium oxide material segregation at the interface are verified by analysis methods such as X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The permeation reduction factors of all thin films are determined in gas-driven deuterium permeation experiments. Corresponding to the three different microstructures, reduction factors of 25, 45, and 1100 are identified. Thus, the permeation reduction is strongly dependent on the Y₂O₃ microstructure. The measurement results suggest that a high density of grain boundaries leads to a high hydrogen permeation.     

New batch and continuous systems for converting hydrogen from water hyacinth

Water hyacinth was the chosen alternative biomass for H₂ production in this study. A batch and a continuous pilot plant systems are proposed. A batch system of 500?ml capacity was developed first for finding an appropriate biomass ratio which was found to be 2.5%wt. Results from the batch system was used to construct a kinetic model of water hyacinth hydrolysis. The same biomass and water ratio was used in the continuous system. Besides water hyacinth, glucose and cellulose?+?lignin biomasses were tested. During processing, temperature, pressure, and electric consumption of the system were recorded. The quality and quantity of gas products were analyzed by gas chromatography (GC). The water hyacinth biomass attained the highest rate of H₂ production (providing energy of 11.43?kWh/mole of glucose). Comparing the batch and continuous pilot systems, the continuous system achieved 2.7 times more H₂ mole% than the batch system did.