Structural characterization of basalt-based glass–ceramic coatings

There are a lot of technologically interesting characteristics of glass–ceramics, which are hard, wear resistant, oxidation and corrosion resistant ceramic materials. In the present study, the production of the basalt-based glass–ceramic coating by atmospheric plasma spray technique and their structural characterization were reported. Basalt-based glass coating was performed on AISI 1040 steel substrate which was pre-coated with Ni–5 wt% Al by using plasma spray gun. Basalt coatings of the glass form were crystallized at 800, 900 and 1000 °C for 1–4 h in orders to transform to the glass–ceramic structure. The presence of augite [(CaFeMg)SiO₃], diopside [Ca(Mg_0.15Fe_0.85)(SiO₃)₂] and aluminian diopside [Ca(Mg,Al)(Si,Al)₂O₆] crystalline phases formed in the basalt-based glass–ceramic coating layer was detected by X-ray diffraction analysis. Optical microscopy with micrometer was used for metallographic examinations. Differential scanning calorimeter was used for determining the crystallization temperature of glass form basalt-based coatings. Microhardness measurements were carried out on the basalt-based glass–ceramic coating layer with Vickers indenter. The hardness of coating layers is changing between 1009 and 1295 HV_0.05 depending on crystallization temperature and process times. It was found that, the higher the crystallization temperature, the more the crystalline phases were resulted. In addition, the lower the crystallization temperature and the longer the treatment time, the harder the coating layer became.     

Numerical Analysis of a Tunnel Support Design in Conjunction with Empirical Methods

In this paper, preliminary support design of a tunnel was analyzed by numerical and empirical approaches. The case study for this analysis is a tunnel to be constructed on the Bilecik-Istanbul roadway in Turkey. The rock mass properties of the tunnel route and design support recommendations were obtained by using an empirical approach. The rock mass properties obtained from the empirical method were used as input parameters for the numerical analysis. The empirical and numerical results, in terms of support design, were evaluated. It was seen that the numerical analysis results supported by empirical values were logical and reliable.     

Transient thermo-reflectance measurements of the thermal conductivity and interface resistance of metallized natural and isotopically-pure silicon

The transient thermoreflectance method has been used to measure the thermal conductivity of natural silicon and isotopically-pure silicon-28 layers that are epitaxially grown on natural silicon substrates. The measurements were performed at room temperature for both a low level (10¹⁶) and a higher level (2×10¹⁹) of Boron doping of the epitaxial layers. The results indicate a gain of approximately 55% in the thermal conductivity of Si²⁸ as compared to that of natural Si, at both low and higher levels of doping, and a loss of approximately 19% for both types of silicon due to the higher level of doping.     

Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Fire Protection Lobby on Stair Pressurization System in a High-Rise Building

In this study, the stair pressurization system in a 40-storey high office building in Istanbul is investigated through field tests, in order to understand the effect of the presence of a non-pressurized vestibule (fire protection lobby, FPL) before entering the stair at each floor. The building without FPL is simulated by keeping only one of the two doors (of the stair and FPL) open at each floor. This method gave an opportunity to fix other parameters affecting the stair pressurization system and check solely the effect of FPL. Two different cases are taken into account, where the first one (all doors closed) analyses the condition that all stair doors are kept closed and the second one (critical doors are open) is conducted when the stairwell is opened to the floor on a given level (fire floor) and the stair termination door at the discharge floor is kept open. For both cases, the availability of the FPL is investigated by using the aforementioned arrangement. Under the conditions with approximately the same pressurized air flow rate at all doors closed condition, it is found that the availability of FPL increases the pressure difference between the stairwell and the corridor by a factor of approximately 2.2. This is also justified by using empirical formulations available in literature, where this ratio is calculated as 2.0. The results of this study showed that the FPL arrangement improves the effectiveness of pressurization system in a very high-rise building, despite some tolerable drawbacks.     

Web image retrieval using majority-based ranking approach

Web image retrieval has characteristics different from typical content-based image retrieval; web images have associated textual cues. However, a web image retrieval system often yields undesirable results, because it uses limited text information such as surrounding text, URLs, and image filenames. In this paper, we propose a new approach to retrieval, which uses the image content of retrieved results without relying on assistance from the user. Our basic hypothesis is that more popular images have a higher probability of being the ones that the user wishes to retrieve. According to this hypothesis, we propose a retrieval approach that is based on a majority of the images under consideration. We define four methods for finding the visual features of majority of images; (1) majority-first method, (2) centroid-of-all method, (3) centroid-of-top K method, and (4) centroid-of-largest-cluster method. In addition, we implement a graph/picture classifier for improving the effectiveness of web image retrieval. We evaluate the retrieval effectiveness of both our methods and conventional ones by using precision and recall graphs. Experimental results show that the proposed methods are more effective than conventional keyword-based retrieval methods.     

One step densification of SDC—Na2CO3 nano-composite electrolytes for SOFC applications by cold sintering process

Sm_0.2Ce_0.8O_1.9- 30% Na₂CO₃ (Sm doped ceria (SDC)-30N) nano-composite electrolytes were densified in a single step via cold sintering process (CSP). At 200°C and 450 MPa of uniaxial pressure, samples up to 97% of their theoretical density could be obtained. The effect of processing parameters, such as temperature, uniaxial pressure, processing duration, and moisture content, on the densification of the nano-composite electrolytes was investigated. The thermal, microstructural, and electrical properties of nano-composites were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry, X-ray diffractometer, scanning electron microscope, and EIS analysis. SDC crystallite sizes were found to be around 25 nm, barely coarsened after CSP by which the true nano nature of the nano-composite could be preserved. Because, by conventional processing high density values could not be attained and high processing temperatures in excess of 600°C had to be used, promoting particle coarsening. The highest total electrical conductivity was found to be 2.2 × 10⁻² S cm⁻¹ at 600°C, with an activation energy of 0.83 eV for SDC-30N nano-composites. The present investigation revealed that the implementation of cold sintering technique resulted in significant enhancements in the densification of nano-composite electrolytes, thereby rendering them suitable for efficient utilization in SOFC applications, as compared to the conventional production methods.