Transient liquid phase sintering of high-purity mullite for high-temperature structural ceramics

High-purity mullite ceramics, promising engineering ceramics for high-temperature applications, were fabricated using transient liquid phase sintering to improve their high-temperature mechanical properties. Small amounts of ultrafine alumina or silica powders were uniformly mixed with the mullite precursor depending on the silica-alumina ratio of the resulting ceramics to allow for the formation of a transient liquid phase during sintering, thus, enhancing densification at the early stage of sintering and mullite formation by the reaction between additional alumina and the residual glassy phase (mullitization) at the final stage of sintering. The addition of alumina powder to the silica-rich mullite precursor resulted in a reaction between the glassy silica and alumina phases during sintering, thereby forming a mullite phase without inhibiting densification. The addition of fine silica powder to the mullite single-phase precursor led to densification with an abnormal grain growth of mullite, whereas some of the added silica remained as a glassy phase after sintering. The resulting mullite ceramics prepared using different powder compositions showed different sintering behaviors, depending on the amount of alumina added. Upon selecting an optimum process and the amount of alumina to be added, the pure mullite ceramics obtained via transient liquid phase sintering exhibited high density (approximately 99%) and excellent high-temperature flexural strength (approximately 320 MPa) at 1500 °C in air. These results clearly demonstrate that pure mullite ceramics fabricated via transient liquid phase sintering with compositions close to those of stoichiometric mullite could be a promising process for the fabrication of high-temperature structural ceramics used in an ambient atmosphere. The transient liquid phase sintering process proposed in this study could be a powerful processing tool that allows for the preparation of superior high-temperature structural ceramics used in the ambient processing atmosphere.     

Numerical approach to analyze fluid flow in a type C tank for liquefied hydrogen carrier (part 1: Sloshing flow)

The demand for clean energy use has been increasing worldwide, and hydrogen has attracted attention as an alternative energy source. The efficient transport of hydrogen must be established such that hydrogen may be used as an energy source. In this study, we considered the influences of various parameters in the transportation of liquefied hydrogen using type C tanks in shipping vessels. The sloshing and thermal flows were considered in the transportation of liquefied hydrogen, which exists as a cryogenic liquid at ?253 °C. In this study, the sloshing flow was analyzed using a numerical approach. A multiphase sloshing simulation was performed using the volume of fluid method for the observation and analysis of the internal flow. First, a sloshing experiment according to the gas-liquid density ratio performed by other researchers was utilized to verify the simulation technique and investigate the characteristics of liquefied hydrogen. Based on the results of this experiment, a sloshing simulation was then performed for a type C cargo tank for liquefied hydrogen carriers under three different filling level conditions. The sloshing impact pressure inside of the tank was measured via simulation and subjected to statistical analysis. In addition, the influence of sloshing flow on the appendages installed inside of the type C tank (stiffened ring and swash bulkhead) was quantitatively evaluated. In particular, the influence of the sloshing flow inside of the type C tank on the appendages can be utilized as an important indicator at the design stage. Furthermore, if such sloshing impact forces are repeatedly experienced over an extended period of time under cryogenic conditions, the behavior of the tank and appendages must be analyzed in terms of fatigue and brittle failure to ensure the safety of the transportation operation.     

UV curing-assisted 3D plotting of ceramic feedstock containing thermo-regulated phase-separable,photocurable vehicle for dual-scale porosity structure

We propose a novel approach for manufacturing dual-scale porosity alumina structures by UV curing-assisted 3D plotting of a specially formulated alumina feedstock using a thermo-regulated phase separable, photocurable camphene/triethylene glycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA) vehicle. In particular, 3D plotting process was conducted at - 5 °C, and thus an alumina suspension prepared using liquid camphene/TEGDMA at room temperature could undergo phase separation, resulting in camphene crystals surrounded by walls comprised of liquid photopolymer enclosing alumina particles. To enhance the shape retention ability of extruded filaments, polystyrene (PS) polymer was used as the tackifier. The phase-separated feedrod could be extruded favorably through a nozzle and rapidly photopolymerized by UV light during the 3D plotting process. Three-dimensionally interconnected macropores were tightly constructed, which were separated by microporous alumina filaments, where micropores were created by the removal of camphene crystals via freeze-dying. The macroporosity of porous alumina ceramics was controlled by adjusting the distance between deposited filaments, while their microporosity was kept constant, leading to tightly tailored overall porosity and mechanical properties.     

Investigation of liquid water heterogeneities in large area proton exchange membrane fuel cells using a Darcy two-phase flow model in a multiphysics code

Proper management of the liquid water and heat produced in proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells remains crucial to increase both its performance and durability. In this study, a two-phase flow and multicomponent model, called two-fluid model, is developed in the commercial COMSOL Multiphysics® software to investigate the liquid water heterogeneities in large area PEM fuel cells, considering the real flow fields in the bipolar plate. A macroscopic pseudo-3D multi-layers approach has been chosen and generalized Darcy's relation is used both in the membrane-electrode assembly (MEA) and in the channel. The model considers two-phase flow and gas convection and diffusion coupled with electrochemistry and water transport through the membrane. The numerical results are compared to one-fluid model results and liquid water measurements obtained by neutron imaging for several operating conditions. Finally, according to the good agreement between the two-fluid and experimentation results, the numerical water distribution is examined in each component of the cell, exhibiting very heterogeneous water thickness over the cell surface.     

High quality 3D reconstruction based on fusion of polarization imaging and binocular stereo vision

Polarization imaging can retrieve inaccurate objects’ 3D shapes with fine textures, whereas coarse but accurate depths can be provided by binocular stereo vision. To take full advantage of these two complementary techniques, we investigate a novel 3D reconstruction method based on the fusion of polarization imaging and binocular stereo vision for high quality 3D reconstruction. We first generate the polarization surface by correcting the azimuth angle errors on the basis of registered binocular depth, to solve the azimuthal ambiguity in the polarization imaging. Then we propose a joint 3D reconstruction model for depth fusion, including a data fitting term and a robust low-rank matrix factorization constraint. The former is to transfer textures from the polarization surface to the fused depth by assuming their relationship linear, whereas the latter is to utilize the low-frequency part of binocular depth to improve the accuracy of the fused depth considering the influences of missing-entries and outliers. To solve the optimization problem in the proposed model, we adopt an efficient solution based on the alternating direction method of multipliers. Extensive experiments have been conducted to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method in comparison with state-of-the-art methods and to exhibit its wide application prospects in 3D reconstruction.     

基于多通道的ICU脑血管疾病死亡风险预测模型

死亡风险预测指根据病人临床体征监测数据来预测未来一段时间的死亡风险。对于ICU病患，通过死亡风险预测可以有针对性地对病人做出临床诊断，以及合理安排有限的医疗资源。基于临床使用的MEWS和Glasgow昏迷评分量表，针对ICU病人临床监测的17项生理参数，提出一种基于多通道的ICU脑血管疾病死亡风险预测模型。引入多通道概念应用于BiLSTM模型，用于突出每个生理参数对死亡风险预测的作用。采用Attention机制用于提高模型预测精度。实验数据来自MIMIC [Ⅲ]数据库，从中提取3?080位脑血管疾病患者的16?260条记录用于此次研究，除了六组超参数实验之外，将所提模型与LSTM、Multichannel-BiLSTM、逻辑回归（logistic regression）和支持向量机（support vector machine, SVM）四种模型进行了对比分析，准确率Accuracy、灵敏度Sensitive、特异性Specificity、AUC-ROC和AUC-PRC作为评价指标，实验结果表明，所提模型性能优于其他模型，AUC值达到94.3%。     

5G核心网业务模型的智能化预测研究

摘 要：核心网业务模型的建立是5G网络容量规划和网络建设的基础，通过现有方法得到的理论业务模型是静态不可变的且与实际网络存在偏离。为了克服现有5G核心网业务模型与现网模型适配性较差以及规划设备无法满足用户实际业务需求的问题，提出了一种长短期记忆（long short-term memory，LSTM）网络与卷积LSTM （convolution LSTM，ConvLSTM）网络双通道融合的 5G 核心网业务模型预测方法。该方法基于人工智能（artificial intelligence，AI）技术以实现高质量的核心网业务模型的智能预测，形成数据反馈闭环，实现网络自优化调整，助力网络智能化建设。     

使能未来工厂的5G能力综述

5G系统将移动通信服务从移动电话、移动宽带和大规模机器通信扩展到新的应用领域，即所谓对通信服务有特殊要求的垂直领域。对使能未来工厂的5G能力进行了全面的分析总结，包括弹性网络架构、灵活频谱、超可靠低时延通信、时间敏感网络、安全和定位，而弹性网络架构又包括对网络切片、非公共网络、5G局域网和边缘计算的支持。希望从广度到深度，对相关的理论及技术应用做透彻、全面的梳理，对其挑战做清晰的总结，从而为相关研究和工程技术人员提供借鉴。     

Fabrication of alumina ceramics with functional gradient structures by digital light processing 3D printing technology

Alumina ceramics with different unit numbers and gradient modes were prepared by digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing technology. The side length of each functional gradient structure was 10 mm, the porosity ratio was controlled to 70%, and the number of units were (1 × 1 × 1 unit) and (2 × 2 × 2 unit) respectively. The different gradient modes were named FCC, GFCC-1, GFCC-2 and GFCC-3. SEM, XRD, and other characterization methods proved that these gradient structures of alumina ceramics had only α-Al2O3 phase and good surface morphology. The mechanical properties and energy absorption properties of alumina ceramics with different functional gradient structures were studied by compression test. The results show that the gradient structure with 1 × 1 × 1 unit has better mechanical properties and energy absorption properties when the number of units is different. When the number of units is the same, GFCC-2 and GFCC-3 gradient structures have better compressive performance and energy absorption potential than FCC structures. The GFCC-2 gradient structure with 1 × 1 × 1 unit has a maximum compressive strength of 19.62 MPa and a maximum energy absorption value of 2.72 × 105 J/m3. The good performance of such functional gradient structures can provide new ideas for the design of lightweight and compressive energy absorption structures in the future.