Concurrent engineering infrastructure. Tools, technologies andmethods in British industry

Concurrent engineering (CE) is a vital concept in the world of new product development, and up-to-date information about the extent of its adoption and the use of the enabling tools in the engineering industry is of great value. This article presents the data from an industry-wide survey of technical managers and analyses the significance of the information obtained. This reveals that CE is beginning to be widely applied, but there are significant differences between large and smaller companies, and between different industrial sectors     

Alkali release characteristics of blended cements

This paper presents results of an experimental program conducted to investigate the capacity of hydration products of different cementing materials to retain “bound” alkalis when the alkalinity of the surrounding solution drops. The study covered paste samples containing high-alkali Portland cement and various levels of silica fume and/or fly ash. The results showed that the ability of the hydration products of cement-fly ash systems to bind alkalis is a function of the CaO content of the fly ash, the binding increasing as the calcium content decreases. High-alkali fly ashes (Na₂O_e > 5.0% and CaO in the range of 15% to 20%) showed considerable amounts of alkali contributed to the test solutions. Silica fume does not have a high capacity to retain alkalis in its hydration products; however, ternary blends containing silica fume and fly ash have excellent capacity to bind and retain alkalis.     

价格已经提高到了过去几十年从未见过的水平

从海湾合作委员会(GCC)生活用纸制造业的前景来看,回顾2021第四季度,或许中东、北非和远东地区的每位参与者都对供应链困境感到惊讶,其中大部分原材料供应比以往任何时候都要困难得多。这对供需前景造成了严重的负面影响,由于缺乏供应,需求大幅增加。然而,这个消极因素很可能会产生市场的连锁反应。价格也提高到了过去几十年从未见过的水平。纸张供应商之间的价格战以前从未发生过,值得注意的是,尽管销售量减少,但利润率令人惊讶地满意。从海湾合作委员会(GCC)一些首次公开募股(IPO)公司公布的业绩,就能理解与一年前的同期相比业绩明显向好。     

Oxy‐fuel combustion technology: current status,applications, and trends

The increased level of emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere due to burning of fossil fuels represents one of the main barriers toward the reduction of greenhouse gases and the control of global warming. In the last decades, the use of renewable and clean sources of energies such as solar and wind energies has been increased extensively. However, due to the tremendously increasing world energy demand, fossil fuels would continue in use for decades which necessitates the integration of carbon capture technologies (CCTs) in power plants. These technologies include oxycombustion, pre‐combustion, and post‐combustion carbon capture. Oxycombustion technology is one of the most promising carbon capture technologies as it can be applied with slight modifications to existing power plants or to new power plants. In this technology, fuel is burned using an oxidizer mixture of pure oxygen plus recycled exhaust gases (consists mainly of CO₂). The oxycombustion process results in highly CO₂‐concentrated exhaust gases, which facilitates the capture process of CO₂ after H₂O condensation. The captured CO₂ can be used for industrial applications or can be sequestrated. The current work reviews the current status of oxycombustion technology and its applications in existing conventional combustion systems (including gas turbines and boilers) and novel oxygen transport reactors (OTRs). The review starts with an introduction to the available CCTs with emphasis on their different applications and limitations of use, followed by a review on oxycombustion applications in different combustion systems utilizing gaseous, liquid, and coal fuels. The current status and technology readiness level of oxycombustion technology is discussed. The novel application of oxycombustion technology in OTRs is analyzed in some details. The analyses of OTRs include oxygen permeation technique, fabrication of oxygen transport membranes (OTMs), calculation of oxygen permeation flux, and coupling between oxygen separation and oxycombustion of fuel within the same unit called OTR. The oxycombustion process inside OTR is analyzed considering coal and gaseous fuels. The future trends of oxycombustion technology are itemized and discussed in details in the present study including: (i) ITMs for syngas production; (ii) combustion utilizing liquid fuels in OTRs; (iii) oxy‐combustion integrated power plants and (iv) third generation technologies for CO₂ capture. Techno‐economic analysis of oxycombustion integrated systems is also discussed trying to assess the future prospects of this technology. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Frontiers in combustion techniques and burner designs for emissions control and CO2 capture: A review

The use of fossil fuel is expected to increase significantly by midcentury because of the large rise in the world energy demand despite the effective integration of renewable energies in the energy production sector. This increase, alongside with the development of stricter emission regulations, forced the manufacturers of combustion systems, especially gas turbines, to develop novel combustion techniques for the control of NO_x and CO₂ emissions, the latter being a greenhouse gas responsible for more than 60% to the global warming problem. The present review addresses different burner designs and combustion techniques for clean power production in gas turbines. Combustion and emission characteristics, flame instabilities, and solution techniques are presented, such as lean premixed air‐fuel (LPM) and premixed oxy‐fuel combustion techniques, and the combustor performance is compared for both cases. The fuel flexibility approach is also reviewed, as one of the combustion techniques for controlling emissions and reducing flame instabilities, focusing on the hydrogen‐enrichment and the integrated fuel‐flexible premixed oxy‐combustion approaches. State‐of‐the‐art burner designs for gas turbine combustion applications are reviewed in this study, including stagnation point reverse flow (SPRF) burner, dry low NO_x (DLN) and dry low‐emission (DLE) burners, EnVironmental burners (including EV, AEV, and SEV burners), perforated plate (PP) burner, and micromixer (MM) burner. Special emphasis is made on the MM combustor technology, as one of the most recent advances in gas turbines for stable premixed flame operation with wide turndown and effective control of NO_x emissions. Since the generation of pure oxygen is prerequisite to oxy‐combustion, oxygen‐separation membranes became of immense importance either for air separation for clean oxy‐combustion applications or for conversion/splitting of the effluent CO₂ into useful chemical and energy products. The different carbon‐capture technologies, along with the most recent carbon‐utilization approaches towards CO₂ emissions control, are also reviewed.     

Sink-oriented tree based data dissemination protocol for mobile sinks wireless sensor networks

Wireless Networks - Data dissemination toward static sinks causes the nearby nodes to deplete their energy quicker than the other nodes in the field (i.e., this is referred to as the hotspot...     

A Holistic Approach for Resource-aware Adaptive Data Stream Mining

Mining data streams is a field of increasing interest due to the importance of its applications and dissemination of data stream sources. Most of the streaming techniques developed so far have not addressed the need for resource-aware computing in data stream analysis. The fact that streaming information is often generated or received onboard resource-constrained computational devices such as sensor nodes and mobile devices motivates the need for resource-awareness in data stream processing systems. In this paper, we propose a generic framework that enables resource-awareness in streaming computation using algorithm granularity settings in order to change the resource consumption patterns periodically. This generic framework is applied to a novel threshold-based micro-clustering algorithm to test its validity and feasibility. We have termed this algorithm as RA-Cluster. RA-Custer is the first data stream clustering algorithm that can adapt to the changing availability of different resources. The experimental results show the applicability of the framework and the algorithm in terms of resource-awareness and accuracy.     

Stress analysis of multi-layer electronic and mechanical systems (MEMS) under fatigue and impact loading conditions

Detailed micro electronic and mechanical systems (MEMS) for a mobile microprocessor complex shape were modeled using Finite Element (FE) processing. Fatigue and impact conditions were performed on the Ball Grid Array (BGA) Integrated Circuit (IC) using Abaqus\CAE finite element analysis software. The main objective of this research is to make sure that BGA products can endure the roughness of the daily usage, where a portable electronic product is habitually coupled with potential damage of functional failure when the device falls.     

Lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy of the upper cretaceous succession of Southeastern Sinai,Egypt

The calcareous nannofossil of the Upper Cretaceous successions exposed at Taba and El sheikh Attia sections at Southeastern Sinai in Egypt have been studied to contribute in the understanding of lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy. These sediments are subdivided into six rock units (from older to younger): Raha, Abu Qada, Wata, Matulla, Thelmet and Sudr. According to its calcareous nannofossil contents the succession is subdivided into 13 biozones and subzones. They are from the base to top Microrhabdulus decoratus (CC10), Quadrum gartneri (CC11), Lucianorhabdulus maleformis (CC12), Marthasterites furcatus (CC13), Micula decussata (CC14), Reinhardtites anthophorus (CC15), Aspidlithus parcus (CC18), Calculites ovalis (CC19), Ceratolithoides aculeus (CC20), Reinhardtites levis (CC24) Zones, and Subzones Arkhangelskiella cymbiformis (CC25a), Lithraphidites quadratus (CC25b) and Micula murus (CC25c). By means of calcareous nannofossil three stage boundaries are discussed they are: the Cenomanian/Turonian, the Santonian/Campanian and the Campanian/Maastrichtian.     

Development of regression equations for local calibration of rutting and IRI as predicted by the MEPDG models for flexible pavements using Ontario's long-term PMS data

Local calibration is an important step before a transportation agency adopts the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' (AASHTO) mechanistic-empirical pavement design guide (MEPDG). This paper presents the challenges of and findings from the local calibration of flexible pavements in provincial highways under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO). A calibration database was developed that involved a hierarchical framework of the input parameters required for AASHTOWare Pavement ME (the MEPDG software) and the historical field performance data based on the MTO's second-generation pavement management system. A regression analysis is carried out for preliminary calibration of rutting and international roughness index (IRI) models by comparing the predicted distress to observed distress. The analysis suggested that whereas the MEPDG provided fairly unbiased prediction of the IRI value, it often over-predicted the total rutting. Calibrated predicted IRI and rut depth are found for Ontario's local conditions from MEPDG distress prediction models. A further clustering analysis based on Functional Class and geographical zone for the rutting and IRI, respectively, improved the precision of the locally calibrated models.