A strategy for the electro-organic synthesis of new hydrocaffeic acid derivatives

Electrochemical treatment processes can significantly contribute to the protection of the environment through the minimization of waste and toxic materials in effluents. From a pharmaceutical point of view and due to the existing resemblance between the electrochemical and biological reactions, it can be assumed that the oxidation mechanisms on the electrode and in the body share similar principles. In this paper, the application of electrochemical studies in the design of an environmentally friendly method was delineated for the new hydrocaffeic acid (HCA, 3,4-dihydroxy hydrocinnamic acid) derivatives synthesis at carbon electrodes in an undivided cell. In this cell, the EC mechanism reaction was involved, comprising two steps alternatively; (1) electrochemical oxidation and (2) chemical reaction. In particular, the electro-organic reactions of HCA, an important biological molecule, were studied in a water–acetonitrile (90:10 v/v) mixture in the presence of benzenesulfinic acid (3) and p-toluenesulfinic acid (4). The research included the use of a variety of experimental techniques, such as cyclic voltammetry, controlled-potential electrolysis and product spectroscopic identification.     

Generalized Gabor filters for palmprint recognition

Orientation-based coding approaches have recently been widely employed for face and palmprint recognition where generally, one starts with a set of Gabor filters to extract orientation information and then proceeds to code dominant orientations as features for each point of the palmprint. However, as the Gabor filter is developed to model two-dimensional receptive fields of simple cells in straits cortex, it might not be our best choice when dealing with curved and complex structures inherent in the palmprint texture. Motivated by this intuition, this paper shows that Gabor filters are a subset of a bigger family of filters which we refer to as generalized Gabor filter (GGF). Depending on the values of its parameters, a GGF takes a rather diverse shapes and orientations, which results in a potentially finer feature extraction capability. We show this improved capability by employing GGFs in the palmprint verification process. In applying our method, two different sub-banks of GGFs are defined for the orientation-based feature extraction of palmprints, and when compared with Gabor filters, it will be shown that GGFs have the upper hand in capturing orientation features. Furthermore, compared with the competitive code—one of the well-known orientation-based coding methods—the number of employed orientations is reduced to half. This would automatically compensate for a double usage of the filter banks, which otherwise could increase the time complexity of using GGFs. These ideas are further elaborated using a set of experiments on PolyU II and PolyU 2D/3D palmprint databases. The results show the preeminence of using GGFs both in terms of accuracy and efficiency.     

Numerical analysis of plastic deformation of a circular sheet metal subjected to transverse impact loading

Based on the concept of Tensor Code a numerical method is presented for analysis of the plastic deformation process of circular sheet metals subjected to transverse impact loading. In the solution process, the equation of motion is solved explicitly with finite difference method in a series of small time steps over a Lagrangian mesh of zones. Using this method, a code has been developed and utilized for investigation of the deformation behavior of an explosively loaded circular sheet metal under various conditions. Deformation characteristics of a sheet under rectangular and triangular pressure distributions are discussed. It is shown that when these simple distributions are combined with each other, their individual effects on the deformation behavior are also combined in the deformation process. Effects of shape and duration of pressure pulse as well as boundary conditions have been explored. Moreover, results of the numerical simulation have been compared with those of theoretical solution and experiments reported by other researchers. Good agreements between them show the validity of the developed code.     

Working Pressure, Deformation Modes and Fracture in Open-Piercing of Cylindrical Disks Made of Compacted Sintered Aluminium Powder

An experimental investigation into the quasi-static open-piercing of sintered aluminium powder compacts made initially in the form of thin and thick disks was made, using four different shaped punches, i.e. solid circular, annular (circular ring-type), triangular, and square. Typical results of punch load with punch movement and progressive changes in shapes of the specimens were observed and the onset of fracture was noted in each case. Available theory for calculating the piercing force was applied in a few cases and the results were compared with the experiments. These and other observations on the mechanical and metallurgical aspects of the deformation are given and the results commented upon.     

Investigation of the high velocity impact behavior of nanocomposites

In this article, the ballistic behavior of the glass/epoxy/nanoclay hybrid nanocomposites is studied. The fiber glass used is a plain weave 200 g/m², while the nanoclay is an organically modified montmorillonite nanoclay (Closite 30B). The epoxy resin system is made of Epon 828 as the epoxy prepolymer and Jeffamine D‐400 as the curing agent. 0, 3, 5, 7, and 10 wt% of nanoclay particles are dispersed in the epoxy resin. Ballistic tests are performed using flat‐ended projectiles in impact velocities 134 m/s and 169 m/s. The results show that the energy absorption capability and mechanical properties of the composite can be significantly enhanced by adding nanoparticles. When the impact velocity is 134 m/s, near than the ballistic limit, the most increase in the energy absorption capability is observed in 3 wt% nanoclay while with the impact velocity 169 m/s, beyond the ballistic limit, the highest increase is observed in 10 wt% nanoclay. POLYM. COMPOS., 37:1173–1179, 2016. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers     

A comment on the axial crush of metallic honeycombs by Wu and Jiang

In the paper published by Wu and Jiang (Int. J. Impact. Eng. 19(5/6) (1997) 439), the experimental results of quasi-static and impact tests on six types of honeycomb cellular structures have been compared with theoretical predictions. The values of some of the parameters used in the formulae in their paper, seem to be incorrect. In this paper the cause of inaccuracy and the correct values of these parameters have been presented.     

Preparation of the γ-Al2O3/PANI nanocomposite via enzymatic polymerization

Peroxidase-catalyzed template-guided polymerization of aniline in the presence of γ- alumina nanosheet (NS) particles have been carried out in aqueous media and γ-Al₂O₃/PANI nanocomposite was obtained. The polymerization of aniline occurred in aqueous solution in the presence of SPS (sulfonated polystyrene) as a template and SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) as a surfactant. Both obtained nanocomposites were comparable by SEM images. It was demonstrated that the γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI-SPS nanocomposite has higher conductivity and the γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI-SDS nanocomposite has higher void areas. The higher conductivity of γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI-SPS nanocomposite is attributed to the higher coated areas of γ-Al₂O₃ NS during polymerization in comparison with γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI-SDS which are not coated efficiently as the former. The FT-IR studies showed that the γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI nanocomposite was formed by interaction of the polyaniline (PANI) and γ-Al₂O₃ NS. FTIR also showed that the amount of PANI in γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI-SPS is more than in γ-Al₂O₃ NS/PANI-SDS. POLYM. COMPOS., 2009. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Forming Limit Diagram Prediction of Tailor-Welded Blank Using Experimental and Numerical Methods

The forming limit diagram (FLD) is a useful method for characterizing the formability of sheet metals. In this article, different numerical models were used to investigate the FLD of tailor-welded blank (TWB). TWBs were CO₂ laser-welded samples of interstitial-free (IF) steel sheets with difference in thickness. The results of the numerical models were compared with the experimental FLD as well as with the empirical model proposed by the North American Deep Drawing Research Group. The emphasis of this investigation is to determine the performance of these different approaches in predicting the FLD. These numerical models for FLD are: second derivative of thinning (SDT), effective strain rate (ESR), major strain rate (MSR), thickness strain rate (TSR), and thickness gradient (TG). Results of this research show necking will be happened, when the value of MSR, TSR, ESR criteria is maximum, TG????0.78 and SDT criterion has the first peak in forming process time. The value of dome height of TWB samples at failure was predicted based on the numerical models for samples with different widths. These numerical predictions were compared with the experimental results. The SDT model indicates a better agreement with experimental results in prediction of both the FLD and the limit dome height (LDH) in comparison to the other numerical models. Both numerical and experimental results show that minimum of LDH is happened in plane strain condition.     

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of Temperature Effect on Thickness Distribution in Warm Hydroforming of Aluminum Tubes

Reduction of weight and increase of corrosion resistance are among the advantageous applications of aluminum alloys in automotive industry. Producing complicated components with several parts as a uniform part not only increases their strength but also decreases the production sequences and costs. However, achieving this purpose requires sufficient formability of the material. Tube hydroforming is an alternative process to produce complex products. In this process, the higher the material formability the more uniform will be the thickness distribution. In this research, tube hydroforming of aluminum alloy (AA1050) at various temperatures has been investigated numerically to study temperature effect on thickness distribution of final product. Also a warm hydroforming set-up has been designed and manufactured to evaluate numerical results. According to numerical and experimental results in the case of free bulging, unlike the constrained bulging, increase of the process temperature causes more uniform thickness distribution and therefore increases the material formability.