Influences of material properties of components on formability of two-layer metallic sheets

Formability of two-layer metallic sheet is constrained by plastic instability and localized necking. Forming limit diagram (FLD) is an accepted measure of sheet metal formability. The formability of two-layer sheets depends on the material properties of their components such as strain hardening exponent, strain rate sensitivity coefficient, stiffness coefficient, and grain size. In this paper, the effects of the mentioned parameters on the FLD of two-layer sheets are investigated with a theoretical model which has been verified with an experimental approach. The results show that the forming limit of two-layer sheet lies between the forming limits of its components depends on their material properties.     

In-situ generated ZnO nanoparticles for enhanced performance of thin film nanocomposite membrane in forward osmosis process

This work developed a novel approach to the in-situ synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles to modify the polysulfone (PSf) porous membrane substrate. The zinc acetate was added to the casting solution, and ZnO nanoparticles were synthesized during phase inversion. The non-solvent pH and zinc acetate concentration controlled the ZnO synthesis and loading. Their effect on the substrates properties in terms of morphology, hydrophilicity and porosity was studied thoroughly. The result shows that the ZnO nanoparticles was not formed in acidic pH, while ZnO nanoparticles with size of 20 nm could be easily formed in basic pH. The successful synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles was investigated using FTIR and EDX analysis. The EDX images verify that in-situ synthesis led to a more uniform dispersion than conventional incorporation method. Then the effect of ZnO loading on the interfacial reaction and polyamide (PA) structure was investigated. SEM images verify the successful synthesis of a uniform and defect-free PA thin film on ZnO modified substrates. FO performance results show an enhancement in water flux and salt rejection as a result of ZnO incorporation in thin film nanocomposite (TFN) membranes, where TFN 1 wt.% in-situ membrane showed 40% higher water flux than the control TFC membrane. The porous and hydrophile substrate in TFN 1 wt.% in-situ membrane is responsible for improved separation performance. These modified membranes displayed uniform dispersion of ZnO nanoparticles within substrates, confirming that this method could effectively restrain the aggregation of the nanoparticles.     

Effect of Boundary Form Disturbances on the Frequency Response of Planar Vibrations of Piezoceramic Plates. Experimental Investigation

Strength of Materials - Experimental results for forced planar vibrations of parallelogram-shaped piezoceramic plates are presented. The concept of this study is to evaluate the potentials of...     

Toughening of MgAl2O4 spinel/ Si3N4 nanocomposite fabricated by spark plasma sintering

The main objective of this work is to compare the hardness, fracture toughness, and optical transparency of MgAl₂O₄ spinel (magnesium aluminate), MgAl₂O₄ spinel/ Si₃N₄ nanocomposite, and the heat-treated spinel/Si₃N₄ nanocomposite. For this purpose, the commercial spinel nanopowder and the laboratory-made spinel/ Si₃N₄ nanocomposite powder were sintered using spark plasma sintering (SPS). A heat treatment at 1000?°C for 4?h was carried out on the as-sintered nanocomposite. The field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) mapping, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Nanoindentation, and Vickers microhardness analyses were used to determine microstructure, elemental analysis, functional group, hardness, and indentation toughness of the samples. The results showed that the hardness and toughness of the heat-treated sample are more than those of the as-SPSed nanocomposite as much as 15.7% and 25.7%, respectively. Also, the values of optical transmission of the nanocomposite sample in the visible range (400–800?nm) and infrared region (800–2000?nm) were lower than those of pure spinel.     

Applying Fuzzy c-means approach as a novel method for prediction of interfacial tension between carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons

The worldwide demand for energy increases and also the price of crude oil increases so these reasons have been caused the searchers have motivated to investigate enhanced of oil recovery (EOR) processes. The carbon dioxide injection is recognized as one of the favorable approaches of EOR because of high displacement efficiency, environmentally aspects and lower cost. The Interfacial tension between crude oil and carbon dioxide is known as one of the critical factors which affect the performance of injection. The main objective of the present investigation is development of Fuzzy c-means (FCM) approach as novel method to estimate interfacial tension between carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons as function of pressure, temperature, liquid and gas densities and molecular weight of alkane. The performance of predicting model was evaluated statistically and graphically and the results confirmed the ability of the model to predict interfacial tension between carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons.     

Adaptive non‐linear control for cancer therapy through a Fokker–Planck observer

In recent years, many efforts have been made to present optimal strategies for cancer therapy through the mathematical modelling of tumour‐cell population dynamics and optimal control theory. In many cases, therapy effect is included in the drift term of the stochastic Gompertz model. By fitting the model with empirical data, the parameters of therapy function are estimated. The reported research works have not presented any algorithm to determine the optimal parameters of therapy function. In this study, a logarithmic therapy function is entered in the drift term of the Gompertz model. Using the proposed control algorithm, the therapy function parameters are predicted and adaptively adjusted. To control the growth of tumour‐cell population, its moments must be manipulated. This study employs the probability density function (PDF) control approach because of its ability to control all the process moments. A Fokker–Planck‐based non‐linear stochastic observer will be used to determine the PDF of the process. A cost function based on the difference between a predefined desired PDF and PDF of tumour‐cell population is defined. Using the proposed algorithm, the therapy function parameters are adjusted in such a manner that the cost function is minimised. The existence of an optimal therapy function is also proved. The numerical results are finally given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.Inspec keywords: physiological models, cancer, patient treatment, probability, stochastic processes, tumours, Fokker‐Planck equation, statistical analysis, cellular biophysicsOther keywords: adaptive nonlinear control, cancer therapy, Fokker‐Planck observer, tumour cell growth behavior, mathematical modelling, tumour‐cell population dynamics, optimal control theory, stochastic Gompertz model, empirical data, statistical methods, logarithmic function, probability density function, nonlinear stochastic observer     

High Microwave Absorption of Nano-Fe3O4 Deposited Electrophoretically on Carbon Fiber

Production of magnetite (nano-Fe₃O₄)-coated carbon fibers (MCCFs) composites using the electrophoretic deposition (EPD) technique has been investigated in the present research. Fe₃O₄ nano-powder was synthesized by the reduction of Fe (III)-tri-ethanolamine (TEA) in an aqueous alkaline solution. By the deposition of nano-Fe₃O₄ particles distributed stably in a suspension on the surface, a uniform and compact Fe₃O₄ thin-film was fabricated on nitric acid-treated carbon fiber. According to the results, the strongest reflection loss (RL) of MCCFs was recognized to be ?11 dB at 10.37 and 11.4 GHz for a layer of 1.7 mm in thickness. EPD was introduced as a suitable method for the production of MCCFs due to its low cost, easy productivity and time efficiency as well as the high absorption properties of the resulting MCCFs compared with the previous reported works.     

The Quest for Hydrological Signatures: Effects of Data Transformation on Bayesian Inference of Watershed Models

Hydrological models contain parameters, values of which cannot be directly measured in the field, and hence need to be meaningfully inferred through calibration against historical records. Although much progress has been made in the model inference literature, relatively little is known about the effects of transforming calibration data (or error residual) on the identifiability of model parameters and reliability of model predictions. Such effects are analyzed herein using two hydrological models and three watersheds. Our results depict that calibration data transformations significantly influence parameter and predictive uncertainty estimates. Those transformations that distort the temporal distribution of calibration data, such as flow duration curve, normal quantile transform, and Fourier transform, considerably deteriorate the identifiability of model parameters derived in a formal Bayesian framework with a residual-based likelihood function. Other transformations, such as wavelet, BoxCox and square root, while demonstrating some merits in identifying specific model parameters, would not consistently improve predictive capability of hydrological models in a single objective inverse problem. Multi-objective optimization schemes, however, may present a more rigorous basis to extract several independent pieces of information from different data transformations. Finally, data transformations might offer a greater potential to evaluate model performance and assess specific sections of model behavior, rather than to calibrate models in a single objective framework. Findings of this study shed light on the importance and impacts of data transformations in search of hydrological signatures.     

An Android runtime security policy enforcement framework

Today, smart phone’s malwares are deceptive enough to spoof itself as a legal mobile application. The front-end service of Trojans is attractive enough to deceive mobile users. Mobile users download similar malwares without knowing their illegitimate background threat. Unlike other vendors, Android is an open-source mobile operating system, and hence, it lacks a dedicated team to analyze the application code and decide its trustworthiness. We propose an augmented framework for Android that monitors the dynamic behavior of application during its execution. Our proposed architecture called Security Enhanced Android Framework (seaf) validates the behavior of an application through its permissions exercising patterns. Based on the exercised permissions’ combination, the mobile user is intimated about the dangerous behavior of an application. We have implemented the proposed framework within Android software stack and ported it to device. Our initial investigation shows that our solution is practical enough to be used in the consumer market.