A study of the local site effects on the ground response for the city of Eskişehir,Turkey

Bulletin of Engineering Geology and the Environment - Local soil characteristics play a key role in determining soil-structure interaction and reliability of the superstructure behavior under...     

Properties of Carbopol Solutions as Models for Yield-Stress Fluids

ABSTRACT: The effect of pH on the non-Newtonian viscosity (η)of aqueous Carbopol 940 solutions is presented with high resolution (pH increments about 0.4) between pH = 2.8 and 12.7. Aqueous NaOH was used to adjust pH of 1.48 wt % Carbopol solutions. A Contraves viscometer was used to measure steady-flow shear stress at known shear rate (γ) over the range γ= 8 to 195 s⁻¹. Yield stresses and shear-thinning η(γ) were observed. Data were fitted with a Herschel-Bulkley model, whose parameters (including yield stress) were expressed as functions of pH. Comparisons were made of η(γ) to the dynamic viscometric properties η'(ω) and η*(ω) for comparable ranges of γ and frequency (ω): A fairly close match was found between η and η* but η«η'. pH dependence included previously unreported extrema of h(pH) in the range of pH = 6.2 to 6.6. Because of sensitive control of rheological properties with pH, Carbopol solutions can be used to mimic a great range of shear-thinning and yield-stress behavior that should make them useful for model studies directed toward process and equipment design and evaluation.     

五轴铣削加工中心坐标转换数学模型的建立及应用

首先以 HERMLE C1200 U 为例分析了五轴铣削加工中心的基本结构,然后据此给出了涉及多轴铣削加工中心后置处理角度分配和坐标变换的数学模型,最后介绍了以此数学模型为核心,为UG 软件开发的后置处理软件 UG-HERP1.0的解决方案。     

Interaction of Yttria with Uranium Fluoride Gases (UFn, n= 4, 6) at High Temperatures

The corrosion mechanism and microstructural characteristics of yttria (Y₂O₃) exposed to uranium hexafluoride (UF₄) and uranium tetrafluoride gases at temperatures above 900°C were investigated. Processed yttria samples were exposed for times ranging from 5 to 40 min. A weight increase was observed after each test exposure. An outer corrosion scale composed of UO₂ and YF₃, and an inner corrosion layer of YF₃, were observed following the UF₆ reaction at nearly 1200 K. During the UF₄ exposure, an outer layer containing a liquid mixture of fluoride, oxygen, yttrium, uranium compounds, a secondary reaction layer of UO₂ followed by an inner layer composed of a solution of Y₂O₃ and YF₃, possibly in the form of YOF inner layer, were observed. It was found that the corrosion process is controlled by the diffusion which is evidenced by the parabolic growth rate of the secondary layer. After completion of the solidification process, the formation of a eutectic region and dendrites were observed throughout the outer scale. In general, at temperatures above 1173 K, high corrosion rates were observed, and yttria did not appear to be a viable containment material for UF₄ and UF₆.     

Development of a suitable model for characterizing photovoltaic arrays with shaded solar cells

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of non-uniform solar irradiation distribution on energy output of different interconnected configurations in photovoltaic (PV) arrays. In order to find which configuration is less susceptible to mismatch effects, a PV module model is developed. This model can take into consideration the effects of bypass diodes and the variation of the equivalent circuit parameters with respect to operating conditions. The proposed model can provide sufficient degree of precision as well as solar cell-based analysis in analyzing large scale PV arrays without increasing the computational effort. In order to produce more reliable and robust simulations, improved and extended algorithms are presented. Some results are discussed in detail and some recommendations are extracted by testing several shading scenarios.     

Self-sufficient Cytochrome P450s and their potential applications in biotechnology

Cytochrome P450s(CYPs) are ubiquitously found in all kingdoms of life, playing important role in various biosynthetic pathways as well as degradative pathways; accordingly find applications in a vast variety of areas from organic synthesis and drug metabolite production to modification of biomaterials and bioremediation.Significantly, CYPs catalyze chemically challenging C—H and C—C activation reactions using a reactive high-valent iron-oxo intermediate generated upon dioxygen activation at their heme center,while the other oxygen atom is reduced to the level of water by electrons provided through a reductase partner protein.Self-sufficient CYPs, encoding their heme domain and reductase protein in a single polypeptide, facilitate increased catalytic efficiency and render a less complicated system to work with.The self-sufficient CYP enzyme from CYP102A family(CYP102A1, BM3) is among the earliest and most-investigated model enzymes for mechanistic and structural studies as well as for biotechnological applications.An increasing number of self-sufficient CYPs from the same CYP102 family and from other families have also been reported in last decade.In this review, we introduce chemistry and biology of CYPs, followed by an overview of the characteristics of self-sufficient CYPs and representative reactions.Enzyme engineering efforts leading to novel self-sufficient CYP variants that can catalyze synthetically useful natural and non-natural(nature-mimicking) reactions are highlighted.Lastly, the strategy and efforts that aim to circumvent the challenges for improved thermostability, regio-and enantioselectivity,and total turnover number; associated with practical use of self-sufficient CYPs are reviewed.     

Interval type-2 fuzzy inverse controller design in nonlinear IMC structure

In the recent years it has been demonstrated that type-2 fuzzy logic systems are more effective in modeling and control of complex nonlinear systems compared to type-1 fuzzy logic systems. An inverse controller based on type-2 fuzzy model can be proposed since inverse model controllers provide an efficient way to control nonlinear processes. Even though various fuzzy inversion methods have been devised for type-1 fuzzy logic systems up to now, there does not exist any method for type-2 fuzzy logic systems. In this study, a systematic method has been proposed to form the inverse of the interval type-2 Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy model based on a pure analytical method. The calculation of inverse model is done based on simple manipulations of the antecedent and consequence parts of the fuzzy model. Moreover, the type-2 fuzzy model and its inverse as the primary controller are embedded into a nonlinear internal model control structure to provide an effective and robust control performance. Finally, the proposed control scheme has been implemented on an experimental pH neutralization process where the beneficial sides are shown clearly.     

Investigation of Ant System parameter interactions by using design of experiments for job-shop scheduling problems

In recent years, one of the most important and promising research fields has been metaheuristics to find optimal or near-optimal solutions for NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Improving the quality of the solution or the solution time is basic research area on metaheuristics. Modifications of the existing ones or creation of hybrid approaches are the focus of these efforts. Another area of improving the solution quality of metaheuristics is finding the optimal combination of algorithm control parameters. This is usually done by design of experiments or one-at-a-time approach in genetic algorithms, simulated annealing and similar metaheuristics. We observe that, in studies which use Ant Colonies Optimization (ACO) as an optimization technique; the levels of control parameters are determined by some non-systematic initial experiments and the interactions of the parameters are not studied yet.In this study, the parameters of Ant System have been investigated on different sized and randomly generated job-shop scheduling problems by using design of experiments. The effects and interactions of the parameters have been interpreted with the outputs of the experiments. Referring to the statistical analysis it is observed that none of the interactions between the Ant System parameters has a significant effect on makespan value. A specific fractional experimental design is suggested instead of the full factorial design. Depending on the findings from the benchmark problems it will be a reliable approach to use the suggested design for saving time and effort in experiments without sacrificing the solution quality.     

An interdisciplinary heuristic evaluation method for universal building design

This study highlights how heuristic evaluation as a usability evaluation method can feed into current building design practice to conform to universal design principles. It provides a definition of universal usability that is applicable to an architectural design context. It takes the seven universal design principles as a set of heuristics and applies an iterative sequence of heuristic evaluation in a shopping mall, aiming to achieve a cost-effective evaluation process. The evaluation was composed of three consecutive sessions. First, five evaluators from different professions were interviewed regarding the construction drawings in terms of universal design principles. Then, each evaluator was asked to perform the predefined task scenarios. In subsequent interviews, the evaluators were asked to re-analyze the construction drawings. The results showed that heuristic evaluation could successfully integrate universal usability into current building design practice in two ways: (i) it promoted an iterative evaluation process combined with multi-sessions rather than relying on one evaluator and on one evaluation session to find the maximum number of usability problems, and (ii) it highlighted the necessity of an interdisciplinary ad hoc committee regarding the heuristic abilities of each profession. A multi-session and interdisciplinary heuristic evaluation method can save both the project budget and the required time, while ensuring a reduced error rate for the universal usage of the built environments.