Low cycle fatigue life prediction in shot‐peened components of different geometries—part I: residual stress relaxation

In this study, the residual stress relaxation behaviour occurring during low‐cycle fatigue in shot‐peened specimens with either a flat or a notched geometry has been studied. A representative low‐pressure steam turbine material, FV448, was used. The residual stress and strain hardening profiles caused by shot peening were measured experimentally and were then incorporated into a finite element model. By allowing for both effects of shot peening, the residual stress relaxation behaviour was successfully simulated using this model and correlated well with the experimental data. Although more modelling work may be required to simulate the interaction between shot peening effects and external loads in a range of notched geometries, the model predictions are consistent with the specimens tested in the current study. The novelty of this study lies in the development of such a modelling approach which can be used to effectively simulate the complex interaction between shot peening effects and external loads in notched regions. Compared with the un‐notched geometry, the notched geometry was found to be more effective in retaining the improvement in fatigue life resulting from shot peening, by restricting the compressive residual stress relaxation during fatigue loading.     

Fracture mechanics of plate debonding: Validation against experiment

The debonding of FRP plates from concrete beams is not amenable to finite-element analysis; fracture mechanics, based on a global energy balance, offers a better alternative. An analytical model with energy calculations based on a revised version of Branson’s model (to take account of the reaction to the force in the FRP) has already been developed. This paper presents comparisons with a variety of experiments reported in the literature and shows that the model can correctly determine both the failure load and the failure mechanism. The paper shows that debonding often propagates in the concrete, just above the interface, and hence the failure load is dependent on the Mode I fracture energy of concrete. The method can also be used to determine when premature adhesive failure occurred prior to debonding within the concrete substrate.     

Fracture Mechanics of Plate Debonding

This paper presents a fracture mechanics model to determine the load at which FRP plates will debond from reinforced concrete beams. This will obviate the need for finite-element analyses to be used in situations where there is an infinite stress concentration and where the exact details of the interface geometry and properties are unknowable. The paper shows how fracture mechanics concepts based on energy release rates, can be used to answer the question “Will this existing interface crack extend?” Possible modes of debonding are analyzed as is the effect of the plate curtailment location on the debonding mode.     

The effects of proteins and low molecular weight surfactants on spray drying of model sugar-rich foods: Powder production and characterisation

The effects of proteins and low molecular weight surfactants (LMS) on spray drying and powder characteristics of model sugar-rich foods have been studied. Fructose and sucrose were selected as model sugar-rich foods and sodium caseinate (NaCas) was selected as a model protein. Sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL) and Polysorbate 80 (Tween-80) were chosen as model ionic and non-ionic low molecular weight surfactants. The feed solutions for spray drying had 25% solid concentration in all. To achieve identical powder recoveries of the order of 80% much higher NaCas:fructose ratio (30:70) was required compared to NaCas:sucrose ratio (0.5:99.5) which corresponded to 7.89% and 0.13% of sodium caseinate (initial bulk concentration), respectively. There was no change in powder recovery when the SSL concentration was increased from 0.01% to 0.05% in fructose-NaCas-SSL solution and also addition of 0.01% Tween-80 into fructose-NaCas solution did not affect the powder recovery (76.7 ± 2.3%), however, it was slightly affected with the increase of Tween-80 to 0.05% (69.0 ± 1.9%). At NaCas concentration above critical micelle concentration of NaCas (>3% w/w), the presence of up to 0.05% low molecular weight surfactants had either no effect or minimal effect on the surface coverage of the droplets/particles and also on the powder recovery depending on the nature of the low molecular weight surfactants. The surface protein coverage and the recovery of the powder in sucrose-protein systems were very sensitive in the presence of low molecular weight surfactants due to being below the critical micelle concentration of NaCas. SSL displaced 2.0% and 29.3% of proteins from the droplet surface of sucrose-NaCas-SSL, respectively, when its concentration was varied from 0.01% to 0.05% thereby reducing the powder recovery from 75.5% to 30%. The addition of 0.01% Tween-80 in sucrose-NaCas solution resulted in a 48.2 ± 1.5% reduction in powder recovery and at 0.05% concentration, it displaced a substantial amount of NaCas from the droplet surface and no powder was recovered. These phenomena are explained on the basis of surface-glass transition temperature, dynamic surface tension, nature of surfactants and glass transition temperature of sugars used. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy results showed that the powders of sucrose-NaCas, sucrose-NaCas with 0.01% SSL and all powders of fructose were amorphous.     

A modelling approach to assessing the feasibility of the integration of power stations with steam electrolysers

Hydrogen, combined with fuel cell technology, is an option for reducing our reliance on hydrocarbon-based fuels. Solid oxide electrolyser cells (SOECs) have been studied as a possible technology to produce hydrogen from steam. As the current global energy mix is heavily reliant on hydrocarbon-based fuels, utilising existing technologies such as coal fired power plants, combined with SOECs in an integrated system, may enable a path towards reducing carbon dioxide emissions as well as creating a way of introducing ‘cleaner’ fuel.     

In situ 4D tomography image analysis framework to follow sintering within 3D-printed glass scaffolds

We propose a novel image analysis framework to automate analysis of X-ray microtomography images of sintering ceramics and glasses, using open-source toolkits and machine learning. Additive manufacturing (AM) of glasses and ceramics usually requires sintering of green bodies. Sintering causes shrinkage, which presents a challenge for controlling the metrology of the final architecture. Therefore, being able to monitor sintering in 3D over time (termed 4D) is important when developing new porous ceramics or glasses. Synchrotron X-ray tomographic imaging allows in situ, real-time capture of the sintering process at both micro and macro scales using a furnace rig, facilitating 4D quantitative analysis of the process. The proposed image analysis framework is capable of tracking and quantifying the densification of glass or ceramic particles within multiple volumes of interest (VOIs) along with structural changes over time using 4D image data. The framework is demonstrated by 4D quantitative analysis of bioactive glass ICIE16 within a 3D-printed scaffold. Here, densification of glass particles within 3 VOIs were tracked and quantified along with diameter change of struts and interstrut pore size over the 3D image series, delivering new insights on the sintering mechanism of ICIE16 bioactive glass particles in both micro and macro scales.     

Prospective Pharmacological Potential of Resveratrol in Delaying Kidney Aging

Aging is an unavoidable part of life. The more aged we become, the more susceptible we become to various complications and damages to the vital organs, including the kidneys. The existing drugs for kidney diseases are mostly of synthetic origins; thus, natural compounds with minimal side-effects have attracted growing interest from the scientific community and pharmaceutical companies. A literature search was carried out to collect published research information on the effects of resveratrol on kidney aging. Recently, resveratrol has emerged as a potential anti-aging agent. This versatile polyphenol exerts its anti-aging effects by intervening in various pathologies and multi-signaling systems, including sirtuin type 1, AMP-activated protein kinase, and nuclear factor-κB. Researchers are trying to figure out the detailed mechanisms and possible resveratrol-mediated interventions in divergent pathways at the molecular level. This review highlights (i) the causative factors implicated in kidney aging and the therapeutic aspects of resveratrol, and (ii) the effectiveness of resveratrol in delaying the aging process of the kidney while minimizing all possible side effects.     

Low cycle fatigue life prediction in shot‐peened components of different geometries – part II: life prediction

This study investigates the effects of shot peening on the low‐cycle fatigue performance of a low‐pressure steam turbine blade material. The finite element model incorporating shot‐peening effects, which has been introduced in part I, has been used to predict the stabilised stress/strain state in shot‐peened samples during fatigue loading. The application of this model has been extended to different notched geometries in this study. Based on the modelling results, both the Smith–Watson–Topper and Fatemi–Socie critical plane fatigue criteria have been used to predict the fatigue life of shot‐peened samples (treated with two different peening intensities) with varying notched geometries. A good agreement between experiments and predictions was obtained. The application of a critical distance method considering the stress and strain hardening gradients near the shot‐peened surface has been found to improve the life prediction results. The effects of surface defects on the accuracy of life predictions using the proposed method were also discussed.     

CNN and Fuzzy Rules Based Text Detection and Recognition from Natural Scenes

In today’s real world, an important research part in image processing is scene text detection and recognition. Scene text can be in different languages, fonts, sizes, colours, orientations and structures. Moreover, the aspect ratios and layouts of a scene text may differ significantly. All these variations appear assignificant challenges for the detection and recognition algorithms that are considered for the text in natural scenes. In this paper, a new intelligent text detection and recognition method for detectingthe text from natural scenes and forrecognizing the text by applying the newly proposed Conditional Random Field-based fuzzy rules incorporated Convolutional Neural Network (CR-CNN) has been proposed. Moreover, we have recommended a new text detection method for detecting the exact text from the input natural scene images. For enhancing the presentation of the edge detection process, image pre-processing activities such as edge detection and color modeling have beenapplied in this work. In addition, we have generated new fuzzy rules for making effective decisions on the processes of text detection and recognition. The experiments have been directedusing the standard benchmark datasets such as the ICDAR 2003, the ICDAR 2011, the ICDAR 2005 and the SVT and have achieved better detection accuracy intext detection and recognition. By using these three datasets, five different experiments have been conducted for evaluating the proposed model. And also, we have compared the proposed system with the other classifiers such as the SVM, the MLP and the CNN. In these comparisons, the proposed model has achieved better classification accuracywhen compared with the other existing works.     

Eigenstrain modelling of residual stresses generated by laser shock peening

This paper presents an eigenstrain (misfit strain) model of the residual stresses generated by laser shock peening (LSP). The shock wave is first modelled as a dynamic pressure load in an explicit finite element (FE) model and the stabilised plastic strain distribution is extracted. This strain distribution is then incorporated as an eigenstrain distribution in a static FE model and the residual stresses generated by the original shock wave are obtained as the elastic response to the eigenstrain. In order to focus on the basic mechanics, an elastic-perfectly plastic material model is assumed. Similarly, a simplified pressure/time variation (a triangular ramp with the peak pressure occurring at the half the total pulse duration) is assumed in order to characterise the pressure pulse. The peak pressure and the duration of the pressure pulse are determined in a way that they are consistent with experimental results. The analysis is extended to study the case of multiple pulses and the results show that the process generates compression in a surface layer of about 1.5-2 mm deep. Furthermore, the results demonstrate that the magnitudes of subsurface tensile stresses are of the order of one fifth of the material's yield strength for typical peening conditions.