A robust weakly compressible SPH method and its comparison with an incompressible SPH

This paper presents a comparative study for the weakly compressible (WCSPH) and incompressible (ISPH) smoothed particle hydrodynamics methods by providing numerical solutions for fluid flows over an airfoil and a square obstacle. Improved WCSPH and ISPH techniques are used to solve these two bluff body flow problems. It is shown that both approaches can handle complex geometries using the multiple boundary tangents (MBT) method, and eliminate particle clustering‐induced instabilities with the implementation of a particle fracture repair procedure as well as the corrected SPH discretization scheme. WCSPH and ISPH simulation results are compared and validated with those of a finite element method (FEM). The quantitative comparisons of WCSPH, ISPH and FEM results in terms of Strouhal number for the square obstacle test case, and the pressure envelope, surface traction forces, and velocity gradients on the airfoil boundaries as well as the lift and drag values for the airfoil geometry indicate that the WCSPH method with the suggested implementation produces numerical results as accurate and reliable as those of the ISPH and FEM methods. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Trend Assessment by the Innovative-Şen Method

Hydro-meteorological time series may include trend components mostly due to climate change since about three to four decades. Trend detection and identification in a better and refined manner are among the major current research topics in water resources domain. Even though different methodologies can be found for trend detection in literature, two well-known procedures are the Mann-Kendall (MK) trend test and recently innovative-?en trend method, which provides different aspects of the trend. The theoretical basis and application of these two methods are completely different. The MK test gives a holistic monotonic trend without any categorization of the time series into a set of clusters, but the innovative-?en method is based on cluster and provides categorical trend behavior in a given time series. The main purpose of this paper is to provide important differences between these two approaches and their possible similarities. The applications of the two approaches are given for hydro-meteorological records including relative humidity, temperature, precipitation and runoff from Ergene drainage basin in the north-western part of Turkey. It is observed that although MK trend test does not show significant trend almost in all the cases, the innovative-?en approach yields trend categorizations as “very low”, “low”, “medium” “high” and “very high”, which should be taken into consideration in future flood (“very high”) and drought (“very low”) studies.     

A feasibility study using simulation-based optimization and Taguchi experimental design method for material handling—transfer system in the automobile industry

Nowadays, so as to adapt to the global market, where competition is getting tougher, firms producing through the modern production approach need to bring not the only performance of the system designed both during the research and development phase and the production phase but also the performance of the product to be developed as well as the process to be improved to the highest level. The Taguchi method is an experimental design technique seeking to minimize the effect of uncontrollable factors, using orthogonal arrays. It can also be designed as a set of plans showing the way data are collected through experiments. Experiments are carried out using factors defined at different levels and a solution model generated in ARENA 3.0 program using SIMAN, which is a simulation language. Many experimental investigations reveal that the speed and capacity of automated-guided vehicle, the capacities of local depots, and the mean time between shipping from the main depot are the major influential parameters that affect the performance criteria of the storage system. For the evaluation of experiment results and effects of related factors, variance analysis and signal/noise ratio are used and the experiments are carried out in MINITAB15 according to Taguchi L16 scheme. The purpose of this study is to prove that experimental design is an utilizable method not only for product development and process improvement but it can also be used effectively in the design of material handling–transfer systems and performance optimization of automation technologies, which are to be integrated to the firms.     

The effect of atmospheric plasma treatment of recycled carbon fiber at different plasma powers on recycled carbon fiber and its polypropylene composites

To increase the mechanical properties of recycled carbon fiber-reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites, recycled carbon fibers (RCF) were subjected to atmospheric plasma treatment at different plasma powers (100, 200, and 300 W). The changes on surface topography and roughness of RCF were examined by atomic force microscopy. Plasma treatment of RCF increased the roughness value of RCF. The variation of surface elemental compositions and tensile strength of RCF were determined by using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and tensile test, respectively. Plasma-treated RCF-reinforced PP composites were fabricated using high speed thermo-kinetic mixer. Plasma treatment of RCF at 100 W increased the tensile and flexural strength values of RCF-reinforced PP composites considerably by 17 and 11%, respectively. However, plasma treatment of RCF at higher plasma powers (200 W and 300 W) decreased tensile and flexural strength values of composites because of the etching of RCF. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47131.     

Novel mixed ligand complexes of Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(II), and Zn(II) with 1,10-phenanthroline and acesulfame. Synthesis,structural analysis and hydrogen adsorption study

Four novel metal organic framework (MOF) structures containing acesulfame (ace) and 1,10-phenanthroline (phen) ligands of Co²⁺, Ni²⁺, Cu²⁺ and Zn²⁺ metal cations were synthesized. The crystal structure analysis of three compounds (1, 2, and 3) was also performed. The structural formula for complex 4 is proposed based on spectroscopic and thermal analysis data. It has been determined that structures 1, 2, and 4 are in a distorted octahedral geometry. It has been suggested that the charge balance of the coordination sphere with 2+ is provided by two monoanionic ace ligands located outside the coordination sphere as counter-ion. In structure 3, there are two Cu^II metal cations, two phen ligands coordinated as bidentate to each metal cation and ace ligand that provides monoanionic-monodentate coordination. The Cu²⁺ cation has distorted bipyramidal geometry. The maximum hydrogen gas adsorption has been found 1.4575 mL/g (0.046 wt%) for the Ni complex.     

Robust estimation in flat fading channels under bounded channel uncertainties

We investigate channel equalization problem for time-varying flat fading channels under bounded channel uncertainties. We analyze three robust methods to estimate an unknown signal transmitted through a time-varying flat fading channel. These methods are based on minimizing certain mean-square error criteria that incorporate the channel uncertainties into their problem formulations instead of directly using the inaccurate channel information that is available. We present closed-form solutions to the channel equalization problems for each method and for both zero mean and nonzero mean signals. We illustrate the performances of the equalization methods through simulations.