Effects of Heat Treatment in a Wet Hydrogen Atmosphere on the Reliability of Sintered α-Silicon Carbide

Sintered α-SiC was exposed, for times up to 2 h, to a flowing wet H₂ atmosphere ( P _H2O= 1 × 10^-4 MPa) at temperatures of 1300°, 1400°, and 1500°C. The effect of such conditions on the reliability of the ceramic was estimated by comparing the Weibull modulus of the groups of specimens, tested in four-point flexure, before and after exposure. The Weibull modulus of as-polished specimens was 6.7, indicating a wide variation in room-temperature flexural strength. The Weibull modulus was increased to 14.2 by the heat treatment for 2 h in wet H₂ at 1400°C. The average strength was also improved from 347 to 446 MPa by such exposure. Heat treatment at 1300° and 1500°C also improved the reliability of the material, as indicated by increases in the Weibull modulus, but to less a degree than did exposure at 1400°C. The increases in reliability and average strength were attributed to the blunting of surface flaws by the formation of a thin SiO₂ layer on the sample surface.     

Vibration suppression of cart-pendulum system by combining the input-shaping control and the position-input position-output feedback control

Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology - This study is concerned with the active vibration control of a cart-pendulum system. The input-shaping control alone is not sufficient to suppress...     

Characteristics analysis of a PV-AF-SPE system under several irradiation conditions

In this paper, an integrated model of a PV-AF (Photovoltaic-Active Filter) and PV-SPE (Photovoltaic-Solid Polymer Electrolyte) system using PSCAD/EMTDC software is explained in detail. The PV-AF system, a combination of a converter system for grid-connection including active filter function and the PV system, has already been introduced in several papers. The main concept of the PV-AF system issues from “harmonics”. Conventional methods to reduce or compensate for harmonics, such as a passive filter, have some limitations. By adapting an active filter as a harmonic compensation method, however, those limitations have been overcome. In the case of a utility connected system, the photovoltaic power generation system essentially needs an inverter system. The SPE cell is a certain type of fuel cell which can produce highly pure hydrogen (about 99.99%) much as the same method with which electrolysis of water has been developed in the 1980s. Nowadays, the PV-SPE system has been focused on as a replacement of existing hydrogen production technology. This technology emits large amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Applying harmonics currents may result in some bad effects such as aging and depletion of the SPE cell. To prevent the above mentioned problems and to have a stable production of hydrogen, a combined system (PV-AF-SPE system) is proposed, and its operational characteristics and advantages are analyzed in detail.     

The effects of presenting functionally abstracted information in fault diagnosis tasks

With respect to the design of visual information display (VID) for process control, this study experimentally evaluated the effectiveness of functionally abstracted information in the task of fault diagnosis. The benefits of functional properties of work domain have been emphasized by ecological interface design (EID), a relatively new design framework for human–machine interfaces. According to the concept of EID, multilevel information representation based on abstraction hierarchy of work domain is expected to be advantageous for supporting the operator's problem solving. To investigate the advantage of EID application, an experiment was conducted using a computer-based simulation of the secondary cooling system of nuclear power plants. Three interfaces were compared: the first representing only the physical properties of the process, the second representing purpose-related generalized functions (GFs) in addition to the physical properties, and the third representing abstract functions (AFs) governing the GFs in addition to the physical properties. The results showed that the diagnostic performance was improved by displaying functionally abstracted information at both levels, and that the usefulness of the abstract information was dependent on the complexity of the diagnosis problems.     

Synthesis of LiFePO4 nanoparticles by solvothermal process using various polyol media and their electrochemical properties

Olivine structured LiFePO4 samples were synthesized by solvothermal process using various polyol media of ethylene glycol (EG), diethylene glycol (DEG), triethylene glycol (TEG), and tetraethylene glycol (TTEG) without any heating as a post procedure. The X-ray diffraction patterns of the samples prepared in EG and DEG showed the crystalline peaks with well-fitted to the positions on the basis of an olivine type structure without any impurities. In order to determine the unit cell parameters, synchrotron powder XRD patterns were fitted with whole-pattern profile matching method using FULLPROF program. The obtained samples exhibited well dispersed nanoplate morphologies excepting for the sample prepared in EG. The samples prepared in EG, DEG, TEG, and TTEG showed the reversible capacity of 118, 167, 90, and 105 mAh/g at current density of 0.1 mA/cm2, respectively. Among them, the samples reacted in DEG and TTEG showed good performances at high rate of 16C with high capacities retention.     

A nanoindentation study on the micromechanical characteristics of API X100 pipeline steel

The hardness characteristics of constituent micro-phases (ferrite and bainite) in a dual-phase API X100 pipeline steel were analyzed by nanoindentation experiments. The measured nano-hardness of the bainite phase is from 3.8 GPa to 4.9 GPa, which is much higher than that of the ferrite phase, which ranged from 1.75 GPa to 2.3 GPa. With the hardness and volume fraction of each micro-phase, attempts were made to predict the overall hardness by applying a simple rule-of-mixture. A comparison between the predicted overall hardness value and the experimentally measured value revealed that the rule-of-mixture can be successfully applied for prediction purposes. The results are discussed in terms of the grain boundary strengthening effect and the indentation size effect.     

Microstructure and Fracture Toughness of Hot-Pressed Silicon Carbide Reinforced with Silicon Carbide Whisker

The effects of β-SiC whisker addition on the microstructural evolution and fracture toughness ( K _IC) of hot-pressed SiC were investigated. Most of the whiskers added disappeared during the densifcation process by transformation into the α-phase. The remaining whiskers acted as nuclei for grain growth, resulting in the formation of large tabular grains around the whiskers. The tabular grains around the whiskers were believed to be formed because of the extreme anisotropy of the interfacial energy between α- and β-SiC. The K _IC of the material was improved significantly by the whisker addition. The increase in the K _IC was attributed to crack bridging followed by grain pullout as a result of the formation of tabular grains in a fine matrix.     

Experimental study on the effects of visualized functionally abstracted information on process control tasks

Two distinct design problems of information display for process control are information content representation and visual form design. Regarding information content, we experimentally showed the effectiveness of functionally abstracted information without the benefits of sophisticated graphical presentation in various task situations. However, since it is obvious that the effects of the information display are also influenced by display formats (i.e., visual forms) as well as the information content, further research was required to investigate the effectiveness of visualized functionally abstracted information. For this purpose, this study conducted an experiment in complex process control tasks (operation and fault diagnosis). The experimental purposes were to confirm the effectiveness of the functionally abstracted information visualized with emergent features or peculiar geometric forms and to examine the additional effects of the visualization on task performance. The results showed that functionally abstracted information presented with sophisticated visual forms helped operators perform process control tasks in more efficient and safe way. The results also indicated the importance of explicit visualization of goal–means relation between higher and lower abstraction levels. Lastly, this study proposed a framework for designing visual forms for process control display.     

In situ template polymerization of aniline on the surface of negatively charged TiO2 nanoparticles

The in situ oxidative template polymerization of aniline was performed successfully on the surface of negatively charged titania (TiO₂) nanoparticles with a mean diameter of 40 nm using ammonium persulfate and a Chem-Solv solution at pH 1 and 25 °C. SEM showed that the resulting polyaniline (PANI)/TiO₂ composites were well dispersed in solution due to the electrostatic repulsion force. Ultraviolet/visible spectroscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry showed that the optical, thermal, and electrical properties of PANI/TiO₂ composites were quite different from those of pure PANI or TiO₂, which was attributed to the strong interaction between the two components. The conductivity of the PANI/TiO₂ composite was estimated to be 0.91 × 10⁻¹ S/cm at 25 °C in the range of semiconductor.     

A framework for evaluating the usability of mobile phones based on multi-level, hierarchical model of usability factors

As a mobile phone has various advanced functionalities or features, usability issues are increasingly challenging. Due to the particular characteristics of a mobile phone, typical usability evaluation methods and heuristics, most of which are relevant to a software system, might not effectively be applied to a mobile phone. Another point to consider is that usability evaluation activities should help designers find usability problems easily and produce better design solutions. To support usability practitioners of the mobile phone industry, we propose a framework for evaluating the usability of a mobile phone, based on a multi-level, hierarchical model of usability factors, in an analytic way. The model was developed on the basis of a set of collected usability problems and our previous study on a conceptual framework for identifying usability impact factors. It has multi-abstraction levels, each of which considers the usability of a mobile phone from a particular perspective. As there are goal-means relationships between adjacent levels, a range of usability issues can be interpreted in a holistic as well as diagnostic way. Another advantage is that it supports two different types of evaluation approaches: task-based and interface-based. To support both evaluation approaches, we developed four sets of checklists, each of which is concerned, respectively, with task-based evaluation and three different interface types: Logical User Interface (LUI), Physical User Interface (PUI) and Graphical User Interface (GUI). The proposed framework specifies an approach to quantifying usability so that several usability aspects are collectively measured to give a single score with the use of the checklists. A small case study was conducted in order to examine the applicability of the framework and to identify the aspects of the framework to be improved. It showed that it could be a useful tool for evaluating the usability of a mobile phone. Based on the case study, we improved the framework in order that usability practitioners can use it more easily and consistently.