Modeling of the Magnetization and Magnetocaloric Effect in Ni2MnGa Heusler Alloy with the Effective Field Theory

Journal of Low Temperature Physics - This study modeled and investigated the magnetocaloric effect in Ni2MnGa Heusler alloy characterized by its magnetic entropy change (ΔSm) and its...     

Comparison of copper emission rates from wood treated with different preservatives to the environment

This study describes a laboratory method for the estimation of emission from preservative-treated wood in the different situations where emissions could enter the environment for use classes 3 (not in contact with ground) and 4 and 5 (in contact with the ground, fresh water or sea water) according to OECD Guidelines. Samples of scotch pine sapwood (Pinus sylvestris L.) were treated with CCA (1% and 2%), ACQ-1900 (3% and 7%), ACQ-2200 (2%), Tanalith E 3491 (2% and 2.8%), and Wolmanit CX-8 (2%).     

Copolymer analysis by UV spectroscopy

An extensive and detailed analysis of copolymers was made by developing a rapid spectrophotometric method. Successful analysis of composition in styrene-p-methoxystyrene, styrene-p-chlorostyrene, and styrene-p-fluorostyrene copolymers were performed by UV spectrometry. Their absorption bands were investigated either with respect to pure polystyrene or with respect to the homopolymer of the other constituent at the same wavelength. Attempts to analyze copolymers of styrene-4-vinylpyridine and styrene-N-vinylcarbazole by similar methods were unsuccessful.     

Accurate and simple synthesis formulas for coplanar waveguides

Simple and accurate closed‐form formulas obtained by using a differential evolution algorithm are presented for the synthesis of coplanar waveguides (CPW). The results of the synthesis formulas proposed in this article are compared with those of the quasi‐static analysis, the synthesis formulas reported by the other researchers and also the experimental works available in the literature. The accuracy of the proposed synthesis formulas is found to be better than 0.75% for 9256 CPWs samples. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2008.     

A novel chaotic Henry gas solubility optimization algorithm for solving real-world engineering problems

The paper proposes a novel metaheuristic based on integrating chaotic maps into a Henry gas solubility optimization algorithm (HGSO). The new algorithm is named chaotic Henry gas solubility optimization (CHGSO). The hybridization is aimed at enhancement of the convergence rate of the original Henry gas solubility optimizer for solving real-life engineering optimization problems. This hybridization provides a problem-independent optimization algorithm. The CHGSO performance is evaluated using various conventional constrained optimization problems, e.g., a welded beam problem and a cantilever beam problem. The performance of the CHGSO is investigated using both the manufacturing and diaphragm spring design problems taken from the automotive industry. The results obtained from using CHGSO for solving the various constrained test problems are compared with a number of established and newly invented metaheuristics, including an artificial bee colony algorithm, an ant colony algorithm, a cuckoo search algorithm, a salp swarm optimization algorithm, a grasshopper optimization algorithm, a mine blast algorithm, an ant lion optimizer, a gravitational search algorithm, a multi-verse optimizer, a Harris hawks optimization algorithm, and the original Henry gas solubility optimization algorithm. The results indicate that with selecting an appropriate chaotic map, the CHGSO is a robust optimization approach for obtaining the optimal variables in mechanical design and manufacturing optimization problems.

     

A combo technology of autotrophic and heterotrophic denitrification processes for groundwater treatment

In this study,a sequential process (heterotrophic up-flow column and completely mixed membrane bioreactors) was proposed combining advantages of the both processes.The system was operated for 249 days with simulated and real groundwater for nitrate removal at concentrations varying from 25 to 145 mg·L-1 NO3-N.The contribution of heterotrophic process to total nitrate removal in the system was controlled by dozing the ethanol considering the nitrate concentration.By this way,sulfur based autotrophic denitrification rate was decreased and the effluent sulfate concentrations were controlled.The alkalinity requirement in the autotrophic process was produced in the heterotrophic reactor,and the system was operated without alkalinity supplementation.Throughout the study,the chemical oxygen demand in the heterotrophic reactor effluent was (23.7 ± 22) mg·L-1 and it was further decreased to(7.5 ± 7.2) mg·L-1 in the system effluent,corresponding to a 70％ reduction.In the last period of the study,the real groundwater containing 145 mg·L-1 NO3-N was completely removed.Membrane was operated without chemical washing in the first 114 days.Between days 115-249 weekly chemical washing was required.     

Dipole moments of copolymers in relation to the distribution of polar monomer unit sequences

A method for evaluating the dipole moments of copolymers in relation to the distribution of polar unit sequences is proposed. Experimental data on the synthesis and dipole moments of styrene-p-chlorostyrene and styrene-p-methoxystyrene copolymers were used to calculate the effective dipole moment of a polar unit in a copolymer. For this purpose, we assumed the following effective moment values for the corresponding polar unit sequences along the copolymer chains: when both of the nearest neighbours are polar, μ_PP, when one of the nearest neighbours is polar and the other is non-polar, μ_PS, and when both of the nearest neighbours are non-polar, μ_SS. The relative magnitudes of μ_SS, μ_PS and μ_PP calculated for both copolymers reflect the influence of dipole-dipole interactions on the effective dipole moment of a polar unit in a copolymer molecule.     

A Comparative Study of Non-traditional Methods for Vehicle Crashworthiness and NVH Optimization

In this paper, metamodeling and five well-known metaheuristic optimization algorithms were used to reduce the weight and improve crash and NVH attributes of a vehicle simultaneously. A high-fidelity full vehicle model is used to analyze peak acceleration, intrusion and component’s internal-energy under Full-Frontal, Offset-Frontal, and Side crash scenarios as well as vehicle natural frequencies. The radial basis functions method is used to approximate the structural responses. A nonlinear surrogate-based mass minimization was formulated and solved by five different optimization algorithms under crash-vibration constraints. The performance of these algorithms is investigated and discussed.     

Hybrid Taguchi-differential evolution algorithm for optimization of multi-pass turning operations

Hybridizing of the optimization algorithms provides a scope to improve the searching abilities of the resulting method. The purpose of this paper is to develop a novel hybrid optimization algorithm entitled hybrid robust differential evolution (HRDE) by adding positive properties of the Taguchi's method to the differential evolution algorithm for minimizing the production cost associated with multi-pass turning problems. The proposed optimization approach is applied to two case studies for multi-pass turning operations to illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm in machining operations. The results reveal that the proposed hybrid algorithm is more effective than particle swarm optimization algorithm, immune algorithm, hybrid harmony search algorithm, hybrid genetic algorithm, scatter search algorithm, genetic algorithm and integration of simulated annealing and Hooke-Jeevespatter search.     

A path planning model based on nested regular hexagons using weighted centroid localization

In many wireless sensor network (WSN) applications, the location of a sensor node is crucial for determining where the event or situation of interest occurred. Therefore, localization is one of the critical challenges in WSNs. Mobile anchor node assisted localization (MANAL) is one of the promising solutions for the localization of statically deployed sensors. The main problem in MANAL localization is that the path planning of the mobile anchor (MA) node should be done so that the localization error in the network will be minimal and that all unknown nodes in the network are covered. This paper proposes a new path planning approach called nested hexagons curves (NHexCurves) for MANAL. NHexCurves guarantees that it will receive messages from at least three non-collinear anchors to locate all unknown nodes in the network. The proposed model has compared six different path planning schemes in the literature using weighted centroid localization (WCL). In these comparisons, first of all, localization errors of the models are compared using some statistical concepts. Second, the variation of the localization error according to parameters such as resolution (R) and the standard deviation of noise (σ) is observed. Then, with similar approaches, the standard deviation of errors, localization ratio, scalability performances, and finally, path lengths of the models are examined. The simulation results show that the NHexCurves static path planning model proposed in this study stands out compared to other models with high localization error and localization ratio performance, especially at low resolutions, due to its path design. At the same time, the lowest error values according to σ are obtained with the proposed model among all models considered.