Impact behavior of aminosilane functionalized nanosilica based shear thickening fluid impregnated Kevlar fabrics

In the present work, two types of shear thickening fluids have been synthesized by using neat and aminosilane functionalized silica nanoparticles and their viscosity curves have been obtained by the rheometer. Based on the values of peak viscosity of synthesized shear thickening fluids, the surface functionalized nanosilica based shear thickening fluid has been chosen as a best candidate due to the high viscosity for impregnation into the neat Kevlar of different layers viz. four (04) and eight (08) layers for velocity impact study. The experimental investigations reveal high energy absorption of shear thickening fluid impregnated Kevlar as compared to the neat Kevlar. The maximum energy absorption 62 J is achieved corresponding to the initial velocity 154 m∙s⁻¹ for 08 layers shear thickening fluid impregnated Kevlar specimen. The data have also been analytically determined and validated with the experimental data. The experimental data have good agreement with the analytical data within the accuracy of around 15 to 20%. The present findings can have significant inferences towards the fabrication of shear thickening fluids using nanomaterials for numerous applications such as soft armors, dampers, nanofinishing and so forth.     

Electrospun microporous gelatin–polycaprolactone blend tubular scaffold as a potential vascular biomaterial

The work reported involved the fabrication of an electrospun tubular conduit of a gelatin and polycaprolactone (PCL) blend as an adventitia‐equivalent construct. Gelatin was included as the matrix for increased biocompatibility with the addition of PCL for durability. This is contrary to most of the literature available for biomaterials based on blends of gelatin and PCL where PCL is the major matrix. The work includes the assiduous selection of key electrospinning parameters to obtain smooth bead‐free fibres with a narrow distribution of pore size and fibre diameter. Few reports elucidate the optimization of all electrospinning parameters to fabricate tubular conduits with a focus on obtaining homogeneous pores and fibres. This stepwise investigation would be unique for the fabrication of gelatin–PCL electrospun tubular constructs. The fabricated microfibrous gelatin–PCL constructs had pores of size ca 50–100 μm reportedly conducive for cell infiltration. The measured value of surface roughness of 57.99 ± 17.4 nm is reported to be favourable for protein adhesion and cell adhesion. The elastic modulus was observed to be similar to that of the tunica adventitia of the native artery. Preliminary in vitro and in vivo biocompatibility tests suggest safe applicability as a biomaterial. Minimal cytotoxicity was observed using MTT assay. Subcutaneous implantation of the scaffold demonstrated acute inflammation which decreased by day 15. The findings of this study could enable the fabrication of smooth bead‐free microfibrous gelatin–PCL tubular construct as viable biomaterial which can be included in a bilayer or a trilayer scaffold for vascular tissue engineering. © 2019 Society of Chemical Industry     

Sintering studies of nano-crystalline zinc oxide

Sintering and grain growth of nano-crystalline undoped ZnO has been studied in detail over a wide range of temperature and holding time. Below 800 °C, sintering of over 70% theoretical density is not observed, irrespective of particle size. At 900 °C for 6 h, the nano-crystalline sample sinters to 99% of theoretical density whereas the density for as received sample is 93% of theoretical density. However, at 1300 °C or higher, the densification is found to be much faster and after a few hours becomes independent of holding time. Grain growth studies reveal a similar feature of attaining saturation over holding time. The average saturated grain size is found to be ∼1.5 and ∼2.2 μm at 800 and 900 °C, respectively, while at 1300 °C or higher, it is in between 12 and 13 μm.     

Fast frequency estimation and tracking using Lagrange interpolation

A computationally efficient and accurate frequency estimation and tracking algorithm is proposed, based on the adaptive frequency estimator (AFE) of Etter and Hush. A Lagrange interpolator (a fractional delay filter) is used to estimate the gradient of the performance surface of the adaptation, which enables highly accurate estimation. The performance of the new algorithm is demonstrated in the context of tracking a chirp signal in noise     

Comparative hall measurements on wet- and dry-oxidized 4H-SiC MOSFETs

Hall measurements have been used to compare the properties of 4H-SiC inversion-mode MOSFETs with “wet” and “dry” gate oxides. While the field-effect mobilities were approximately 3–5 cm²/Vs, the Hall mobilities in 4H-SiC MOSFETs in the wet and dry oxide samples were approximately 70–80 cm²/Vs. The dry-oxidized metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistors (MOSFETs) had a higher transconductance, improved threshold voltage, improved subthreshold slope, and a higher inversion carrier concentration compared to the wet-oxidized MOSFETs. The difference in characteristics between the wet- and the dry-oxidized MOSFETs is attributed to the larger fixed oxide charge in the dry oxide sample and a higher interface trap density in the wet oxide sample.     

Biodegradation of gelatin–g-poly(ethyl acrylate) copolymers

Gelatin-g-poly(ethyl acrylate) copolymers were prepared in an aqueous medium, using K₂S₂O₈ initiator. The composition of the graft copolymers was dependent upon temperature and duration of the reaction. The number of grafting sites was small and molecular weight of the grafted poly(ethyl acrylate) branches was high. Three copolymer samples with grafting efficiencies of 33.3%, 61.0%, and 84.0%, were tested for their microbial susceptibility in a synthetic medium employing a mixed inoculum of Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Serratia marcescens and the percent weight losses were 12%, 10.1%, and 6.0%, respectively, after 6 weeks of incubation. The extent of degradation seems to decrease with increasing grafting efficiency. There was initial rapid weight loss accompanied by the exponential increase in bacterial population and pH of the culture medium during the first week. The nitrogen analysis also showed the utilization of the polymer. A parallel set of experiments, carried out by employing the samples as the only source of both carbon and nitrogen, showed a marginal but definite increase in the utilization of the polymer.     

Development of a Sensor Fusion Strategy for Robotic Application Based on Geometric Optimization

Fusion of multi-sensor information is an important technology, which is growing exponentially due to its tremendous application potential in many areas. Effective fusion of data from sensors is very critical in increasing an intelligent system's capability to accomplish complex tasks. Appropriate fusion technologies are needed to be developed specially when a system requires redundant sensors to be used. More the redundancy in sensors, more is the computational complexity for controlling the system and more is its intelligence level. This research presents a strategy developed for multiple sensor fusion, based on geometric optimization. Each sensor's uncertainty has been modeled using classical Lagrangian optimization techniques. However, the uniqueness and effectiveness of the present technique lies on the fact that starting from the optimized value as initial estimate the accuracy of the sensory information has further been improved up to any pre defined bounded range, by developing two architectures – FFA (fission–fusion architecture) and FDD (fusion in differential domain). Sufficient evidences and analyses have been provided in the paper to show its effectiveness in various applications.     

Network and device-level impacts: performance and reliability of active I/O storage systems

Distributed active storage architectures are designed to offload user-level processing to the peripheral from the host servers. In this paper, we report preliminary investigation on performance and fault recovery designs, as impacted by emerging storage interconnect protocols and state-of-the-art storage devices. Empirical results obtained using validated device-level and interconnect data demonstrate the significance of the said parameters on the overall system performance and reliability.     

Microarchitectures for Managing Chip Revenues under Process Variations

As transistor feature sizes continue to shrink intothe sub-90nm range and beyond, the effects of process variationson critical path delay and chip yields have amplified. A commonconcept to remedy the effects of variation is speed-binning, bywhich chips from a single batch are rated by a discrete range offrequencies and sold at different prices. In this paper, we discussstrategies to modify the number of chips in different bins andhence enhance the profits obtained from them. Particularly, wepropose a scheme that introduces a small Substitute Cacheassociated with each cache way to replicate the data elementsthat will be stored in the high latency lines. Assuming a fixedpricing model, this method increases the revenue by as much as13.8% without any impact on the performance of the chips.     

A unique method for reducing losses of bends in dielectric optical wave guide

The dielectric optical wave guide is finding growing attention at millimeter wave frequencies. However the dielectric optical waveguide radiates at bends and thus transmission loss increases. These radiations are in the outword direction of bends. This output radiation at output bends arises due to change in phase velocities of the propagating wave at the centre of the dielectric guide and the phase velocity at the outer surface of the dielectric guide. A unique methiod is suggested to avoid these radiation losses.Experimental results are also shown at microwave frequencies.