Microkinetic model for the pyrolysis of methyl esters: From model compound to industrial biodiesel

A tool for the generation of decomposition schemes of large molecules has been developed. These decomposition schemes contain radicals which can be eliminated from the model equations if both the μ‐hypothesis and the pseudosteady‐state approximation are valid. The reaction rate coefficients and thermodynamic parameters have been calculated by incorporating a comprehensive group additive framework. A microkinetic model for the pyrolysis of methyl esters with a carbon number of up to 19 has been generated using this tool. It is validated by comparing calculated and experimental yields of the pyrolysis of methyl decanoate and novel rapeseed methyl ester pyrolysis data in the temperature range from 800 to 1100 K and methyl ester partial pressure range from 1 × 10^?3 to 1 × 10^?2 MPa. This modeling frame work allows to not only assess the use of methyl ester mixtures as potential feedstock for olefin production but also their effect as blend‐in or trace impurity. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 61: 4309–4322, 2015     

Detection and Localization of Delaminations in Thin Carbon Fiber Reinforced Composites with the Ultrasonic Polar Scan

In this paper, the hybrid compliance-stiffness matrix method for simulating wave propagation in (delaminated) multilayered media with viscoelastic anisotropy has been confronted with high-quality amplitude and phase experiments on delaminated composites, obtained using the ultrasonic polar scan setup (UPS) in transmission by considering harmonic as well as pulsed ultrasound. Results are presented for multiple thin carbon/epoxy laminates with an artificial edge delamination induced by a foil insert, showing a good agreement between experimental recording and numerical modeling. The obtained results further reveal the feasibility of the harmonic UPS to detect and even locate the depth-position of multiple delaminations in fiber reinforced composites. Considering that the harmonic UPS method does not rely on the detection of different echoes like the classical C-scan, but rather expounds the conditions for efficient stimulation of guided waves in the solid, the method is found to be highly suited for inspecting thin composite materials for the presence of delaminations.     

Validation of a Source–Receiver Model for Road Traffic-Induced Vibrations in Buildings. II: Receiver Model

The objective of part II of this paper is to couple the validated source model for free-field traffic-induced vibrations, which has been presented in part I of the paper, to a receiver model that incorporates the structure and accounts for dynamic soil–structure interaction. The incident wave field is applied to the structure and the response is calculated using a subdomain formulation for dynamic soil–structure interaction. A finite element method is applied to the structure, while the unbounded soil domain is calculated with a boundary element method using the Green’s functions of a homogeneous or a layered half-space. The results of elaborate in situ experiments in and around a single family dwelling during the passage of a truck on joints in a concrete pavement and on a plywood unevenness, are used for the validation of the numerical prediction model. The predicted structural response during the passage of a truck at a speed v = 50?km/h is compared with the experimental results. The agreement between the numerical and the experimental results is very good for the passage on the plywood unevenness and satisfactory for the passage on the joints between the concrete plates.     

Comparison of Shearography to Scanning Laser Vibrometry as Methods for Local Stiffness Identification of Beams

Local stiffness of Euler–Bernoulli beams can be identified by dividing the bending moment of a deformed beam by the local curvature. Curvature and moment distributions can be derived from the modal shape of a beam vibrating at resonance. In this article, the modal shape of test beams is measured by both scanning laser vibrometry (SLV) and shearography. Shearography is an interferometric optical method that produces full‐field displacement gradients of the inspected surface. Curvature can be obtained by two steps of derivation of the modal amplitude (in the case of SLV) or one step of derivation of the modal shape slope (in the case of shearography). Three specially prepared aluminium beams with a known stiffness distribution are used for the validation of both techniques. The uncertainty of the identified stiffness distributions with both techniques is compared and related to their signal‐to‐noise ratios. A strength and weakness overview at the end of the article reveals that the shearography is the technique that shows the most advantages.     

Optimally configured convolutional neural network for Tamil Handwritten Character Recognition by improved lion optimization model

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In recent data, Optical character recognition (OCR) systems have laid hands in the field of most popular language recognitions. Unlike other languages, the Tamil...     

Ultrasonic Characterizaion of Subsurface 2D Corrugation

The ultrasonic backscattering technique is employed for the characterization of a 2D surface corrugation which is superposed on or hidden on the backside of a polycarbonate sample. In contrast to previous studies where the incident angle at well-defined and a-priori known symmetry orientations of the surface structure is varied in order to extract the characteristic periodicities, the backscatter polar scan method incorporates an additional variation of the orientation of the vertical insonification plane within the experimental measurement protocol. As such, the characteristic periodicities as well as the surface symmetries can be extracted without any prior knowledge of the surface structure. As a benefit compared to optical methods, we have also validated this extended methodology for the investigation of a 2D subsurface corrugation. Although the diffraction conditions do not change in comparison with a visible 2D surface corrugation, we remark that additional attention is required in the sense that the elastic properties of the substrate material put further restrictions to the range of applicable ultrasonic frequencies. The characterized periodicities and symmetries are in excellent agreement with the design parameters of the (hidden) 2D surface grating.     

Equilibrium thickness of a biofilm

A steady-state problem for the consumption of a substrate by a biofilm is solved for a wide range of biochemical parameters in view of the equation describing the balance between the growth and destruction of the biofilm. The applicability areas of the analytical solutions for different problem parameters along with the expressions for their boundaries are presented. A region of the parameters of the problem in which the biofilm cannot exist under equilibrium-thickness conditions is found.     

A weakly singular boundary integral equation in elastodynamics for heterogeneous domains mitigating fictitious eigenfrequencies

A boundary element formulation applied to dynamic soil–structure interaction problems with embedded foundations may give rise to inaccurate results at frequencies that correspond to the eigenfrequencies of the finite domain embedded in an exterior domain of semi-infinite extent. These frequencies are referred to as fictitious eigenfrequencies. This problem is illustrated and mitigated modifying the original approach proposed by Burton and Miller for acoustic problems, which combines the boundary integral equations in terms of the displacement and its normal derivative using a complex coupling parameter . Hypersingular terms in the original boundary integral equation are avoided by replacing the normal derivative by a finite difference approximation over a characteristic distance h, still leading to an exact boundary integral equation. A proof of the uniqueness of this formulation for small h and a smooth boundary is given, together with a parametric study for the case of a rigid massless cylindrical embedded foundation. General conclusions are drawn for the practical choice of the dimensionless coupling parameter and the dimensionless distance