Quantitative analysis of complex carbo-nitride precipitates in steels

Two new types of extraction replicas for precipitate analysis in steels have been developed. These replicas, based on alumina, allow accurate quantification of the carbon to nitrogen ratios in carbo-nitride precipitates using parallel electron energy loss spectroscopy in the TEM. Experiments on microalloyed steels show the importance of the nitrogen content in promoting precipitation even at low temperatures.     

SULFUR RECOVERY WITH REDUCED EMISSIONS, LOW CAPITAL INVESTMENT AND HYDROGEN CO-PRODUCTION

The main disadvantage of the Claus process is that by introducing air as oxidant a large volume of tail gas is produced. This must be treated to reduce atmospheric emissions of sulfur-containing gases. The costs of the tail-gas unit are a significant fraction of the total capital and operating costs for sulfur recovery. A new process uses thermal decomposition of hydrogen sulfide in the presence of carbon dioxide instead of air oxidation. The products of this reaction are hydrogen, carbon monoxide, elemental sulfur, water vapor and carbonyl sulfide. Carbonyl sulfide is easily converted to H₂S and C0₂ by liquid- or vapor-phase hydrolysis. Unreacted H₂S and C0₂ are recovered by absorption and recycled to the reactor. Since no air is introduced, there is no tail gas and the tail-gas unit is eliminated, giving a substantial reduction in capital investment. The concentrations of sulfur-containing gases in the product streams depend only on the operation of the absorber and stripper units and can be controlled to very low levels by increasing stripper boil-up. Process operating costs depend on the level of sulfur recovery required and can also be much lower than those of the modified Claus Process.

The process chemistry depends on a shift in the equilibrium of H₂S decomposition caused by reaction of hydrogen with C0₂ by the reverse of the water-gas-shift reaction. Catalysts for this chemistry have been identified. Reactor conversion is further improved by rapid cooling of the reactor effluent gas. Other aspects of process design and operation confer further advantages with respect to the Claus process; however, the process equipment used is similar to that used in a Claus plant. Retrofit of existing plant to the new technology can therefore be considered.     

Input design for guaranteed fault diagnosis using zonotopes

An input design method is presented for guaranteeing the diagnosability of faults from the outputs of a system. Faults are modeled by discrete switches between linear models with bounded disturbances and measurement errors. Zonotopes are used to efficiently characterize the set of inputs that are guaranteed to lead to outputs that are consistent with at most one fault scenario. Provided that this set is nonempty, an element is then chosen that is minimally harmful with respect to other control objectives. This approach leads to a nonconvex optimization problem, but is shown to be equivalent to a mixed-integer quadratic program that can be solved efficiently. Methods are given for reducing the complexity of this program, including an observer-based method that drastically reduces the number of binary variables when many sampling times are required for diagnosis.     

Racking focus and tracking focus on live video streams: a stereo solution

The ability to produce dynamic Depth of Field effects in live video streams was until recently a quality unique to movie cameras. In this paper, we present a computational camera solution coupled with real-time GPU processing to produce runtime dynamic Depth of Field effects. We first construct a hybrid-resolution stereo camera with a high-res/low-res camera pair. We recover a low-res disparity map of the scene using GPU-based Belief Propagation, and subsequently upsample it via fast Cross/Joint Bilateral Upsampling. With the recovered high-resolution disparity map, we warp the high-resolution video stream to nearby viewpoints to synthesize a light field toward the scene. We exploit parallel processing and atomic operations on the GPU to resolve visibility when multiple pixels warp to the same image location. Finally, we generate racking focus and tracking focus effects from the synthesized light field rendering. All processing stages are mapped onto NVIDIA’s CUDA architecture. Our system can produce racking and tracking focus effects for the resolution of 640×480 at 15 fps.     

Mechanisms of antioxidant action: The role of nitroxyl radicals in the stabilization of PVC

Hindered amines and their derived oxidation products, the hindered nitroxyls and hydroxylamines are processing stabilizers and photoantioxidants for poly(vinyl chloride). The evidence suggests that oxidation of the amines occurs very rapidly and completely during mechanooxidation and that the resulting redox couple operates by a catalytic mechanism as described previously for hydrocarbon polymers.     

Time and shear dependent rheology of maleated polyethylene and its nanocomposites

Dipole-dipole and/or hydrogen-bonding interactions between the pendant functional groups within maleated high-density polyethylene (PE-g-MAn) establish a physical polymer network, whose formation kinetics and shear-sensitivity are revealed by dynamic oscillatory testing. The pronounced time and shear dependent viscoelastic properties of PE-g-MAn were not observed for a corresponding imide derivative, PE-g-imide, presumably due to weakened functional group associations in the latter material.The melt compounding of PE-g-MAn with onium-ion exchanged montmorillonite clay (NR₄⁺-MM) resulted in a partially exfoliated hybrid nanocomposite structure, whose viscoelastic behaviour differed significantly from that of the unfilled polymer. The presence of dispersed clay platelets altered the extent of functional group associations, thereby changing the dynamics of network formation.     

Multilayer background modeling under occlusions

A multilayer background modeling technique is presented for video surveillance. Rather than simply classifying all features in a scene as either dynamically moving foreground or long-lasting, stationary background, a temporal model is used to place each scene object in time relative to each other. Foreground objects that become stationary are registered as layers on top of the background layer. In this process of layer formation, the algorithm deals with ”fake objects” created by moved background, and noise created by dynamic background and moving foreground objects. Objects that leave the scene are removed based on the occlusion reasoning among layers. The technique allows us to understand and visualize a scene with multiple objects entering, leaving, and occluding each other at different points in time. This scene understanding leads to a richer representation of temporal scene events than traditional foreground/background segmentation. The technique builds on a low-cost background modeling technique that makes it suitable for embedded, real-time platforms.     

CONCENTRATED ACID CONVERSION OF PINE SOFTWOOD TO SUGARS. PART I: USE OF A TWIN-SCREW REACTOR FOR HYDROLYSIS PRETREATMENT

The first stage of a two-step concentrated sulfuric acid process that converts softwood sawdust to sugars has been explored. The research focuses on the ability of an in-house custom fabricated corotating twin-screw reactor (TSR) to effectively break down and solubilize crystalline cellulose into low molecular weight carbohydrates. Based on design of experiment (DOE) screening results, a four-level, two-factor experimental model building DOE was undertaken. Solid sawdust conversion to liquid, screw torque, and TSR exit pressure were measured or recorded at each experimental condition to yield percent conversion of solids, processed material viscosity, and material energy requirements. Thereafter, model quadratic equations were fitted to the experimental data and found to be statistically significant. Based on data obtained in the DOE the process was optimized to establish a base case operating condition. The acid-treated product made at base case twin-screw operating conditions showed a 38.2% conversion of dry sawdust solids to soluble liquids. The dry solids conversion reduced 73.8% of all hemicellulose and 44.4% of all cellulose to soluble monomers and oligosaccharides.     

Apparatus for measuring physical adsorption on intact supported porous membranes

We present a non-destructive, reusable apparatus with which to measure physical adsorption isotherms of intact porous membranes. We developed a two-piece sample container to make reliable sorption measurements of porous membranes, the properties of which may differ from those of powders due to crystal intergrowth. This novel system employs a resealable container that can be immersed in a cryogenic bath, into which tubular, planar, or other porous membranes and films may be placed. Detailed sorption isotherms, including high-resolution adsorption in the low pressure (micropore-filling) region, are shown for MFI-type zeolite membranes grown on two types and configurations of α-alumina support.