Wear Behavior of Multiwalled Carbon Nanotube/AZ31 Composite Obtained by Friction Stir Processing

Multiwalled carbon nanotubes were homogenously dispersed into a magnesium alloy (AZ31) using friction stir processing. The microstructural features, mechanical behaviors including microhardness, and wear properties were investigated. The results showed a significant improvement in wear resistance in the friction stir-processed AZ31 alloy containing multiwalled carbon nanotubes compared to that of the as-received alloy. This was attributed to its higher microhardness and lower coefficient of friction due to the presence of finer matrix grains and uniform dispersion of multiwalled carbon nanotubes.     

Enzyme activity and biochemical changes of three date palm cultivars with different softening pattern during ripening

The physicochemical composition changes during palm ripening were studied. The activities of invertase and cell wall-modifying enzymes, namely pectin methylesterase (PME), β-galactosidase (β-Gal), endo-1,4-β-d-glucanase (EGase), and cellulase were monitored during growth and ripening of Shahani, Piarom and Deiry cultivars with different textures. Also, we estimated the concentrations of six organic acids by HPLC. Reducing sugars, most of organic acid, pH and TSS increased up to the full-ripe stage of all date types. On the contrary, moisture, macro and microelements and proteins decreased during the same period. Despite a considerable rise in invertase activity (200 units) during ripening of Shahani, no significant trend could be discerned in Deiry cultivar (8 units) at different stages. Our results also showed that cell wall enzymes were increased in activity during ripening and these increases were coincident with fruit softening. Furthermore, our results showed that the composition and the variation of the chemical compositions mainly depended on the cultivar and maturity stage.     

Investigation on Sound Absorption Function and Mechanical Behavior of Polycarbonate/Nanosilica-based Nanocomposites

The present study reports the morphological, mechanical, and sound absorption properties of polycarbonate-based nanocomposites containing nanosilica (0.3 and 0.6?wt%). To this end, the specimens were prepared by melt mixing in a twin-screw extruder. The scanning electron microscopy was also used to ensure the well distribution of nanosilica in the polymeric matrix. The mechanical properties were investigated by tensile, flexural strength, Izod impact, and hardness tests. At the end, sound absorption coefficient of the specimens was checked by standing wave sound impedance tube method in the frequency range of 250–6,300?Hz. The results showed that only a small amount of nanosilica could improve the mechanical properties of specimens. However, the sound absorption function of specimens had a gradual improvement by increasing nanosilica content. Tensile modulus and strength at yield of the nanocomposite specimens were higher than that of the neat polycarbonate. On the contrary, a decrease in elongation at break was reported, which was attributed to the reduced mobility of the polymer chains due to the presence of nanoparticles. The same behavior was observed in the test results of Izod impact strength of nanocomposites so that adding nanosilica with the wt% of 0.6 to the neat polycarbonate, the impact strength improved by only 5.3%. According to the findings, polycarbonate composites with 0.3?wt% nano-silica, in addition to strengthening the mechanical properties (tensile modulus, flexural strength, and stiffness), could improve the acoustic characteristics of the specimens in low and mid frequencies. The findings also revealed that the performance of pure polycarbonate and 6?wt% nanosilica polycarbonate in upper frequency range was higher and approximately the same as that for 3?wt% nanosilica polycarbonate.     

Power system stabilizer design using hybrid multi-objective particle swarm optimization with chaos

novel technique for the optimal tuning of power system stabilizer (PSS) was proposed, by integrating the modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) with the chaos (MPSOC). Firstly, a modification in the particle swarm optimization (PSO) was made by introducing passive congregation (PC). It helps each swarm member in receiving a multitude of information from other members and thus decreases the possibility of a failed attempt at detection or a meaningless search. Secondly, the MPSO and chaos were hybridized (MPSOC) to improve the global searching capability and prevent the premature convergence due to local minima. The robustness of the proposed PSS tuning technique was verified on a multi-machine power system under different operating conditions. The performance of the proposed MPSOC was compared to the MPSO, PSO and GA through eigenvalue analysis, nonlinear time-domain simulation and statistical tests. Eigenvalue analysis shows acceptable damping of the low-frequency modes and time domain simulations also show that the oscillations of synchronous machines can be rapidly damped for power systems with the proposed PSSs. The results show that the presented algorithm has a faster convergence rate with higher degree of accuracy than the GA, PSO and MPSO.     

An electrochemical sensor based on V2O5 nanoparticles for the detection of ciprofloxacin

This research constructed and utilized a screen-printed electrode (SPE) modified with V₂O₅ nanoparticles (NPs) (V₂O₅/SPE) employed in order to sensitively and selectively quantify ciprofloxacin with exceptional accuracy in the phosphate buffer solution (PBS) with the use of differential pulse voltammetry (DPV). Moreover, electrochemical properties of this new V₂O₅/SPE sensor have been examined using diverse characterization procedures. Very good V₂O₅/SPE electrochemical features offered sensitive ciprofloxacin voltammetric determination with the reduced limit of detection (LOD?=?0.01 µM) toward electrocatalytic oxidation of ciprofloxacin in comparison with the bare SPE. Finally, this new disposable sensor exhibited higher sensitivity and thus has been efficiently utilized to determine ciprofloxacin in the real samples.

     

Stability assessment of earth slope using modified particle swarm optimization

This paper has proposed an effective method to determine the minimum factor of safety (FS) and associated critical failure surface in slope stability analysis. The search for the minimum FS based on limit equilibrium methods is a complex optimization problem as the objective function is non-smooth and non-convex. Recently, particle swarm optimization (PSO) as a meta-heuristic optimization algorithm has been developed with success in treating various types of problems. In the current study, a new approach of PSO is proposed to calculate the safety factor of earth slopes. The safety factors of the general slip surfaces are calculated using Spencer method of slices, and each new slip surface is randomly generated by straight line technique. The reliability and efficiency of the proposed algorithm are examined by considering a number of published cases. The results indicate that the new method can predict a more critical failure mechanism with a lower FS and can outperform the other methods in the literature as well as standard PSO. Finally, the proposed method will be validated by considering an existing slope failure in Ulu Klang, Malaysia.     

Design,analysis and simulation of a novel linear capacitive tilt micro-sensor

A new capacitive structure for tilt sensor based on the MEMS technology is designed, analyzed and simulated. With a detailed analysis, we achieve to a precise relation between capacitance and inclination angle. Taking advantage of cylindrical structure in our design, we reach to a linear relationship between capacitance and tilt angle. In three designs of our capacitive tilt micro-sensor, there are 1, 2 and 4 micro capacitors. These capacitors have a common plate of mercury which is movable. Another plate is fixed. Displacement of mercury according to the deflection tends to the variations of capacitors and subsequently total capacitance of the tilt micro-sensor changes. In each of three designs for this micro-sensor, output capacitance (C_out) is introduced with a special equation for obtaining a linear and continues relationship between C_out and tilt angle. The last proposed micro-sensor structure with 4 micro capacitors, shows linear relationship for C_out over tilt measurement range of ?180° to +180° on one axis besides proper sensitivity.