A study on the photostabilizer additives on the textile fiber reinforced polymer composites: Mechanical,thermal, and physical analysis

The effect of photostabilizers on the mechanical, thermal, and physical properties of textile fiber reinforced polymer (T‐FRP) composites was investigated. In the first phase of this study, the effect of different concentrations of ultra violet absorber (UVA), hindered amine light stabilizers (HALS) and antioxidants (AOs) into T‐FRP composites for unweathering condition are examined. Mechanical tests were performed as well as differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis for thermal properties. According to test results, there is no significant effect of photostabilizers on the mechanical and thermal properties of the T‐FRP composites. In the second phase of the study, the influence of the photostabilizers on the durability performance of T‐FRP composites is focused under the accelerated UV weathering condition by the help of tensile testing, thermal analysis, and color measurements. According to test results, only about 5% loss in mechanical properties (25% loss for composites without additives) can be observed after 240 h of UV weathering with HALS and UVA addition at adequate concentrations. In addition, AOs can be considered as a strong stabilizer on physical properties with lower color change values. This work shows that the efficiency of the photostabilizers is highly dependent on the type, concentration, and weathering time. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 58:1082–1090, 2018. © 2017 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Stability improvement of a dynamic walking system via reversible switching surfaces

Inspired by the effects of a switching surface on the stability of passive dynamic walking (Safa and Naraghi in Robotica 33(01):195–207, 2015; Safa et al. in Nonlinear Dyn. 81(4):2127–2140, 2015), this paper suggests a new control strategy for stabilization of dynamic bipedal locomotion. It verifies that the stability improvement of a dynamic walking system is feasible while preserving the speed, step-length, period, natural dynamics, and the energy effectiveness of the gait. The proposed control policy goes behind the three primary principles: (i) The system’s switching surface has to be replaced by a new one if an external disturbance is induced. (ii) The new switching surface has to be reshaped back into its old style, together with the disturbance rejection. (iii) The stabilization procedure has to be performed with as small energy consumption as possible. Because of the reversibility effects of the switching surfaces in the above rules, the terminology of “Reversible Switching Surfaces” (RSS) is employed to address the control scheme; so the control objective would be the implementation of RSS for a bipedal robotic system. In this paper, this aim is achieved by a kinematically controlled foot scheme that is implemented on a simple structured biped. The presented idea is validated by a commercial version of MSC Adams software.     

Magnetic nanocomposite of multi-walled carbon nanotube as effective adsorbent for methyl violet removal from aqueous solutions: Response surface modeling and kinetic study

Magnetic nanocomposite of multi-walled carbon nanotube (m-MWCNT) was synthesized for adsorptive removal of methyl violet (MV) from aqueous solutions. The experiments were conducted using a central composite design (CCD) with the variables of adsorbent dosage (0.4-1.2 g/L), solution pH (3-9), contact time (10-42 min) and ionic strength (0.02-0.1mol L^?1). Regression analysis showed good fit of the experimental data to a quadratic response surface model whose statistical significance was verified by analysis of variance. By applying the desirability functions, optimum conditions of the process were predicted as adsorbent dosage of 0.99g/L, pH=4.92, contact time of 40.98 minutes and ionic strength of 0.04 mol L^?1 to achieve MV removal percentage of 101.19. Experimental removal efficiency of 99.51% indicated that CCD along with the desirability functions can be effectively applied for optimizing MV removal by m-MWCNT. Based on the study, the adsorption process followed Langmuir isotherm model and pseudo-second-order kinetic model could realistically describe the dye adsorption onto m-MWCNT.     

Thermodynamic interactions of a copolyester of bisphenol A with terephthalic acid and isophthalic acid with some solvents

The retention diagrams of n‐octane, n‐nonane, n‐decane, n‐butyl acetate, isobutyl acetate, and isoamyl acetate on the polyarylate Ardel D‐100, a copolyester of bisphenol A with terephthalic acid and isophthalic acid, were plotted at temperatures between 120 and 260°C by an inverse gas chromatography technique. The glass‐transition temperature of the copolymer was determined to be 190°C from the discontinuity of these diagrams. The retention diagrams of benzene, ethyl benzene, n‐propyl benzene, isopropyl benzene, and chlorobenzene were also plotted between 200 and 260°C. The specific retention volume, weight fraction activity coefficient, Flory–Huggins polymer–solvent interaction parameter, hard‐core polymer–solvent interaction parameter, and effective exchange energy parameter were determined for the studied solvents. The parameters suggest that the studied aromatic hydrocarbons and aliphatic esters are moderately good solvents and chlorobenzene is a very good solvent for this copolyester, but the n‐alkanes are very poor solvents. The solubility parameter of this copolymer was determined to be 11.6 (cal/cm³)^1/2 at room temperature by extrapolation of the values of the solubility parameters from the studied temperatures to 25°C. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 98: 2365–2368, 2005     

Charge Photogeneration for a Series of Thiazolo‐Thiazole Donor Polymers Blended with the Fullerene Electron Acceptors PCBM and ICBA

Photoinduced charge separation in bulk heterojunction solar cells is studied using a series of thiazolo‐thiazole donor polymers that differ in their side groups (and bridging atoms) blended with two acceptor fullerenes, phenyl‐C₇₁‐butyric acid methyl ester (PC₇₁BM) and a fullerene indene‐C60 bisadduct (ICBA). Transient absorption spectroscopy is used to determine the yields and lifetimes of photogenerated charge carriers, complimented by cyclic voltammetry studies of materials energetics, wide angle X‐ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy studies of neat and blend film crystallinity and photoluminescence quenching studies of polymer/fullerene phase segregation, and the correlation of these measurements with device photocurrents. Good correlation between the initial polaron yield and the energetic driving force driving charge separation, ΔE_CS is observed. All blend films exhibit a power law transient absorption decay phase assigned to non‐geminate recombination of dissociated charges; the amplitude of this power law decay phase shows excellent correlation with photocurrent density in the devices. Furthermore, for films of one (relatively amorphous) donor polymer blended with ICBA, we observe an additional 100 ns geminate recombination phase. The implications of the observations reported are discussed in terms of the role of materials' crystallinity in influencing charge dissociation in such devices, and thus materials design requirements for efficient solar cell function.     

Persistent Heat Signature for Pose‐oblivious Matching of Incomplete Models

Although understanding of shape features in the context of shape matching and retrieval has made considerable progress in recent years, the case for partial and incomplete models in presence of pose variations still begs a robust and efficient solution. A signature that encodes features at multi‐scales in a pose invariant manner is more appropriate for this case. The Heat Kernel Signature function from spectral theory exhibits this multi‐scale property. We show how this concept can be merged with the persistent homology to design a novel efficient pose‐oblivious matching algorithm for all models, be they partial, incomplete, or complete. We make the algorithm scalable so that it can handle large data sets. Several test results show the robustness of our approach.     

Clostridioides difficile Flagellin Activates the Intracellular NLRC4 Inflammasome

Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile), is a major cause of nosocomial diarrhea and colitis. C. difficile flagellin FliC contributes toxins to gut inflammation by interacting with the immune Toll-like receptor 5 (TLR5) to activate nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kB) and mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signaling pathways. Flagella of intracellular pathogens can activate the NLR family CARD domain-containing protein 4 (NLRC4) inflammasome pathway. In this study, we assessed whether flagellin of the extracellular bacterium C. difficile internalizes into epithelial cells and activates the NLRC4 inflammasome. Confocal microscopy showed internalization of recombinant green fluorescent protein (GFP)-FliC into intestinal Caco-2/TC7 cell line. Full-length GFP-FliC activates NLRC4 in Caco-2/TC7 cells in contrast to truncated GFP-FliC lacking the C-terminal region recognized by the inflammasome. FliC induced cleavage of pro-caspase-1 into two subunits, p20 and p10 as well as gasdermin D (GSDMD), suggesting the caspase-1 and NLRC4 inflammasome activation. In addition, colocalization of GFP-FliC and pro-caspase-1 was observed, indicating the FliC-dependent NLRC4 inflammasome activation. Overexpression of the inflammasome-related interleukin (interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-18, and IL-33) encoding genes as well as increasing of the IL-18 synthesis was detected after cell stimulation. Inhibition of I-kappa-B kinase alpha (IKK-α) decreased the FliC-dependent inflammasome interleukin gene expression suggesting a role of the NF-κB pathway in regulating inflammasome. Altogether, these results suggest that FliC internalizes into the Caco-2/TC7 cells and activates the intracellular NLRC4 inflammasome thus contributing to the inflammatory process of C. difficile infection.     

TEM study of structural and microstructural characteristics of a precipitate phase in Ni-rich Ni–Ti–Hf and Ni–Ti–Zr shape memory alloys

The precipitates formed after suitable thermal treatments in seven Ni-rich Ni–Ti–Hf and Ni–Ti–Zr high-temperature shape memory alloys have been investigated by conventional and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. In both ternary systems, the precipitate coarsening kinetics become faster as the Ni and ternary element contents (Hf or Zr) of the bulk alloy are increased, in agreement with the precipitate composition measured by energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis. The precipitate structure has been found to be the same in both Hf- and Zr-containing ternary alloys, and determined to be a superstructure of the B2 austenite phase, which arises from a recombination of the Hf/Zr and Ti atoms in their sublattice. Two different structural models for the precipitate phase were optimized using density functional theory methods. These calculations indicate that the energetics of the structure are not very sensitive to the atomic configuration of the Ti–Hf/Zr planes, thus significant configurational disorder due to entropic effects can be envisaged at high temperatures. The precipitates are fully coherent with the austenite B2 matrix; however, upon martensitic transformation, they lose some coherency with the B19′ matrix as a result of the transformation shear process in the surrounding matrix. The strain accommodation around the particles is much easier in the Ni–Ti–Zr-containing alloys than in the Ni–Ti–Hf system, which correlates well with the lower transformation strain and stiffness predicted for the Ni–Ti–Zr alloys. The B19′ martensite twinning modes observed in the studied Ni-rich ternary alloys are not changed by the new precipitated phase, being equivalent to those previously reported in Ni-poor ternary alloys.