Stress corrosion cracking of A588 steel weldments in flue gas related environments

This study investigated stress corrosion cracking (SCC) of A588 steel welds as determined by U-bend immersion tests and slow strain rate tensile (SSRT) tests to evaluate the steel’s cracking susceptibility in various regions of the weldments. The immersion test results indicated that the fusion zone (FZ) had better corrosion resistance than the other regions in the weld. It was also demonstrated that the columnar grain boundaries exhibited a higher resistance to corrosion than the grain interior of the FZ. However, the coarse elongated ferrite in the FZ is susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement (HE), which results in the formation of microcracks. As a result, a severe degradation of the weld’s tensile properties in the saturated H₂S solution was observed. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) fractographs of tensile specimens reveal a cleavage fracture in the coarse-grained heat-affected zone (CGHAZ) and featherlike rupture in the FZ, both indicating a high sensitivity to HE.     

A miniaturized uniplanar MIMO antenna for n79/n46/millimeter-wave applications

This research suggests a compact uniplanar multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) with four ports for n79/n46/millimeter-wave (mm-wave) applications. The size of the quad MIMO is only 30 × 30 × 0.8 mm³. MIMO system consists of four identical Z-shaped radiators and common ground on the same plane and no decoupling structures are used for isolation. The system covers the bandwidth of 1.9 GHz (4.4–6.3 GHz) with a mid-frequency of 5.6 GHz and also covers the high-band frequencies ranging from 18 to 30 GHz with a bandwidth of 12 GHz. The suggested quad MIMO is fabricated on an FR-4 board, and the measured outcomes are well in line with the simulated results. An isolation value of −11 dB has been achieved for mid-band frequency and −24 dB has been attained for mm-wave bands. Through the value of DG = 10 dB, ECC < 0.07, TARC < −3 dB, MEG < −5 dB, and the ratio of MEG = 1 dB, uniplanar quad MIMO shows acceptable MIMO diversity performance. The entire system was evaluated for the users' hand specific absorption rate (SAR) impacts and is within the limits. After the complete analysis of the miniature quad MIMO antenna, an 8-port, and a 16-port uniplanar MIMO are simulated for smartphone-sized dielectric substrates and the performances were examined. The suggested MIMO system provides an efficient single-layer MIMO antenna to 5G smartphones with high bandwidth and low SAR. The proposed quad MIMO systems are suitable for both the sub-6 GHz band and the mm-wave band.     

Attribute Selection for Neural Network-Based Adaptive Scheduling Systems in Flexible Manufacturing Systems

System attribute selection is an integral part of adaptive scheduling systems. Owing to the existence of irrelevant and redundant attributes in manufacturing systems, by selecting the important attributes, better performance or accuracy in prediction can be expected in scheduling knowledge bases. In this study, we first propose an attribute selection algorithm based on the weights of neural networks to measure the importance of system attributes in a neural network-based adaptive scheduling (NNAS) system. Next, the NNAS system is combined with the attribute selection algorithm to build scheduling knowledge bases. This hybrid approach is called an attribute selection neural network-based adaptive scheduling (ASNNAS) system. The experimental results show that the proposed ASNNAS system works very well, when measured by a variety of performance criteria, as opposed to the traditional NNAS system and a single dispatching strategy. Furthermore, the scheduling knowledge bases in the ASNNAS system can provide a stronger generalisation ability compared with NNAS systems under various performance criteria. ID="A1" Correspondence and offprint requests to: Dr C.-T. Su, Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, National Chiao Tung University, 1001 Ta Hsueh Road, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan. E-mail: ctsu@cc.nctu.edu.tw     

Polyaniline and polypyrrole coatings on aluminum for PEM fuel cell bipolar plates

The conducting polymers polypyrrole and polyaniline were deposited on 6061 aluminum using cyclic voltammetry and painting, respectively. These samples are intended for proton exchange membrane fuel cell applications where surface contact resistance as well as bulk corrosion resistance are requirements for the bipolar plates that separate the cells. Corrosion current and voltage were measured on the samples as well as contact resistance between coated samples as a function of contact pressure. The polypyrrole samples showed neither improved corrosion resistance nor acceptable contact resistance. The painted polyaniline samples, however, showed about an order of magnitude reduction in corrosion current with only a minor increase in contact resistance. It is believed that in the more acidic environment of a fuel cell, the polyaniline will become even more conductive and that further reduction in contact resistance should be possible.     

数码摄像机不为人知的五个秘密

数码摄像机的热销有目共睹,从目前来看,今年市场的发展不仅保持了去年的水平,而且还增加了新的元素,关注度的提升,市场气氛的浓郁,价格的走低,让很多消费者对其产生了浓厚的兴趣。很多家庭都表示,有意在年内添置一台数码摄像机。     

Water vapour foreign-continuum absorption in near-infrared windows from laboratory measurements

For a long time, it has been believed that atmospheric absorption of radiation within wavelength regions of relatively high infrared transmittance (so-called 'windows') was dominated by the water vapour self-continuum, that is, spectrally smooth absorption caused by H(2)O--H(2)O pair interaction. Absorption due to the foreign continuum (i.e. caused mostly by H(2)O--N(2) bimolecular absorption in the Earth's atmosphere) was considered to be negligible in the windows. We report new retrievals of the water vapour foreign continuum from high-resolution laboratory measurements at temperatures between 350 and 430?K in four near-infrared windows between 1.1 and 5?μm (9000-2000?cm(-1)). Our results indicate that the foreign continuum in these windows has a very weak temperature dependence and is typically between one and two orders of magnitude stronger than that given in representations of the continuum currently used in many climate and weather prediction models. This indicates that absorption owing to the foreign continuum may be comparable to the self-continuum under atmospheric conditions in the investigated windows. The calculated global-average clear-sky atmospheric absorption of solar radiation is increased by approximately 0.46?W?m(-2) (or 0.6% of the total clear-sky absorption) by using these new measurements when compared with calculations applying the widely used MTCKD (Mlawer-Tobin-Clough-Kneizys-Davies) foreign-continuum model.     

Using the variogram to explore imagery of two different spatial resolutions

The resolution of remotely sensed data is becoming increasingly fine, and there are now many sources of data with a pixel size of 1?m×1?m. This produces huge amounts of data that have to be stored, processed and transmitted. For environmental applications this resolution possibly provides far more data than are needed: data overload. This poses the question: how much is too much? We have explored two resolutions of data—20?m pixel SPOT data and 1?m?pixel Computerized Airborne Multispectral Imaging System (CAMIS) data from Fort A. P. Hill (Virginia, USA), using the variogram of geostatistics. For both we used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Three scales of spatial variation were identified in both the SPOT and 1?m data: there was some overlap at the intermediate spatial scales of about 150?m and of 500?m–600?m. We sub‐sampled the 1?m data and scales of variation of about 30?m and of 300?m were identified consistently until the separation between pixel centroids was 15?m (or 1 in 225?pixels). At this stage, spatial scales of about 100?m and 600?m were described, which suggested that only now was there a real difference in the amount of spatial information available from an environmental perspective. These latter were similar spatial scales to those identified from the SPOT image. We have also analysed 1?m CAMIS data from Fort Story (Virginia, USA) for comparison and the outcome is similar. From these analyses it seems that a pixel size of 20?m is adequate for many environmental applications, and that if more detail is required the higher resolution data could be sub‐sampled to a 10?m separation between pixel centroids without any serious loss of information. This reduces significantly the amount of data that needs to be stored, transmitted and analysed and has important implications for data compression.     

C60膜的波导拉曼散射效应

本文首次报导粗糙玻璃表面上Ｃ６０薄膜的波导拉曼散射，相对于未粗化玻璃表现情形，在同样实验条件下，观察到大的增强，文中基于薄膜中波导模的同步激发解释了这一效应。     

Equilibrium-based sampler for determining Cu2+ concentrations in aquatic ecosystems

The bioavailability of potentially toxic metals in aquatic systems is frequently related to the dissolved free metal ion (M2+) concentration. However, typical methods used to determine M2+ are labor intensive or require sophisticated equipment. We developed an inexpensive, in situ sampling device--the "gellyfish"--that simplifies Cu2+ determinations in seawater. The gellyfish is a thin disk of polyacrylamide gel embedded with iminodiacetate (Id) groups bound to immobile beads. The sampler operates on the principle that the immobilized Id groups equilibrate with the Cu2+ concentration of the surrounding solution. Cu is then back-extracted into a known volume of 10% HNO3 and measured by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). In laboratory tests, we varied Cu2+ concentrations between 10(-12) and 10(-8) M and salinity between 5 and 35 ppt. Id-bound Cu (CuId(measured)) did not respond to changes in total Cu. However, CuId(measured) does increase in a predictable manner with increasing Cu2+, and prototype gellyfish precision (average coefficient of variation = 10%) is sufficient to resolve small differences in Cu2+ (+/-30%). Modeled Cu uptake, based on thermodynamic equilibrium speciation of Id within gellyfish, is a good predictor of CuId(measured) (r2 = 0.96 and n = 45).     

Use of passive samplers to mimic uptake of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons by benthic polychaetes

Experiments were conducted to test whether passive samplers made of low-density polyethylene (polyethylene devices, or PEDs) can estimate the extent of uptake of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) by benthic polychaetes (Nereis virens) in contaminated marine sediments. For a variety of PAHs, PEDs reached 90% equilibrium with sediment PAHs in 60 days or less. Using 60-day sediment bioaccumulation tests, we have demonstrated a significant relationship between PAH concentrations in the polychaetes and the PEDs (R2 = 0.67, p = 0.002), with the PEDs taking up less PAHs than the polychaetes. Because of this relationship, PEDs can potentially be used in a regulatory context to simulate uptake of bioavailable PAHs in contaminated marine sediments. The PED PAH concentrations were also used to calculate porewater PAH concentrations that allowed for the estimation of a linear free-energy relationship between the lipid-water distribution coefficient (Klip) and the octanol-water distribution coefficient (KOW) for PAH uptake in marine polychaetes (R2 = 0.94, p < 0.0001).