Geometrical study of mixed adhesive joints for high-temperature applications

The use of adhesives for high-performance structural applications has significantly increased in the last decades. However, the use of adhesive joints in adverse environmental conditions is still limited due to the reduced capability of adhesives to withstand large thermal gradients. Dual adhesive joints, which contain two adhesives with remarkably different mechanical behaviours, are a technique suitable for being used in extreme temperatures. The object of this study is a ceramic–metal joint, representative of the thermal protection systems of some aerospace vehicles. In this paper, several joint-mixed joint geometries are presented, studied with recourse to finite element analysis. In a first phase, the three-dimensional finite element models and the material properties are validated against experimental data. In a second phase, the model geometry is modified, with the aim of understanding the effect of several changes in the joints’ mechanical behaviour and comparing the merits of each geometry. The models’ presented good agreement was found between experimental and numerical data and the alternative geometries allowed the introduction of additional flexibility on the joint but at the cost of lower failure load.     

Socially-Aware Multimedia Dissemination in Personal Mobile Networks

Wireless Personal Communications - Mobile multimedia entertainment is pervasive on mobile devices, leading people to access, store and disseminate a diversity of multimedia contents anytime and...     

CIGI2011: A heuristic method for resource-constrained project scheduling with activity overlapping

The overlapping of activities is a common practice to accelerate the execution of engineering projects. This technique consists in executing in parallel two activities, normally executed in a sequential way, by allowing the downstream activity to start before the end of the upstream activity based on preliminary information. In this paper, we propose a constructive heuristic for the resource-constrained project scheduling problem with overlapping modes (RCPSP-OM). Given a set of activities to execute, the RCPSP-OM consists in determining the order of execution in time of a set of activities so as to minimize the total project duration, while respecting precedence relations, resource constraints and overlapping possibilities. The heuristic implies that rework tasks related to overlapping are added to downstream activities and that the consumption of the resources is constant throughout the execution of the project (including rework). The method also considers that the possible overlapping modes for every couple of activities and the duration of rework tasks associated with every mode are known in advance. Results show that, when the objective consists in minimizing the project duration, the consideration of the costs associated to activity overlapping allows to significantly reducing the cost of reworks. On the other hand, when the objective consists in maximizing the gains related to the project execution, the search for the best trade-off between acceleration and increase of project costs enables to avoid losses.     

Design of Watertight Barriers for Retention Ponds of Cyanide Using Sludge from Water Purification Station （Ziga）

In a context of sustainable development and use of eco- materials, it was examined the possibility of using sewage sludge from the water treatment plant of Ziga as an inorganic support to achieve sealing barriers that can withstand high stresses to overcome any weaknesses of the geological barrier （called passive barrier）. The station Ziga that potabilises the water from the river Nakamb6 is located 45 km north east of Ouagadougou. Some experiments on the rheology of sludge from Ziga as well as the filtration of the mixture Ziga＇s sludge and clays from Nouna, Zorgho and Ticare, three regions of Burkina Faso, were conducted. These studies demonstrated the complex hydro-mechanical behavior of Ziga＇s slurries： Newtonian fluid thixotropic threshold for solids contents less than 16.5 wt% and non-Newtonian for higher values. Sludge from the water treatment station Ziga have a hydraulic conductivity of 10^-8 m/s. The results are below regulatory requirements. However, the permeability can be reduced to achieve the value of 10^-9 m/s in particular by adding the clay from Zorgho or Nouna to mixtures of Ziga＇s sludge and neutral leachate, typically mineral water. Beside neutral leachate, two types of leachate were used. One type is composed of acid leachate and the other type is basic. It was shown that the limewater solutions cause deterioration of the seal probably due to the presence of hydroxide ions.     

Overview of the scientific production in the Pharmacy area in Brazil: profile and productivity of researchers granted with fellowships by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development

In Brazil, the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) distributes productivity fellowships in research (RS) as a recognition to individuals with outstanding productivity levels in their areas. The aim of this study is to evaluate the scientific production of the Brazilian Pharmacy area, one division of the Health Sciences Great Area of CNPq, considering the profile and productivity levels of RS fellows. The results showed that most of the 156 active RS fellows in 2015 were female, with doctorate completed in the Southeast region (mainly in University of São Paulo) and with research activities developed in the South and Southeast regions. Most of their work was published in journals classified as B1 and B2 Qualis in Pharmacy by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), with high prevalence of publications in local journals and/or specialized on medicinal plants. Besides, they featured much dependence on advising and productivity indexes related to the category and level of RS fellowship. The evolution of such data must be continually evaluated to determine the influence of CNPq productivity fellowships on performance and stratification of researchers in the Pharmacy area in Brazil.