The effect of fibre orientation of the dry sliding wear of borsic-reinforced 2014 aluminium alloy

The effect of fibre orientation on the dry sliding wear of continuous B(SiC) fibre reinforced aluminium alloy composites was investigated using a pin-on-disc wear testing machine. The metal-matrix composites (MMC) samples were tested in the normal (N), parallel (P) and antiparallel (AP) orientations sliding against a steel counter disc at a fixed speed of 1 m s^–1 under loads of from 12 to 60 N.The results showed that for the matrix alloy and MMCs, the average wear increased linearly with load. Wear of the MMCs was insensitive to fibre content but for composites with fibre contents at or above the minimum of 16 vol% used for this work, the wear rate was about 18% of that of the unreinforced matrix. Fibre orientation had a minor effect on wear rate; the N orientation gave the lowest wear rate with the AP orientation slightly higher and the P orientation significantly higher.The average coefficients of friction of the MMCs in N and AP orientations decreased linearly with increased wear rate and non-linearly with increased load, but the P orientation was insensitive to either variable.It was concluded from these results and a metallographic examination that the mechanism of wear of MMCs was essentially oxidative wear of the matrix. The hard fibres modified this to slightly different degrees depending on their orientation relative to the wear surface and sliding direction.     

Thermodynamic analysis of solar photovoltaic cell systems

The thermodynamic characteristics of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells are investigated from a perspective based on exergy. A new efficiency is developed that is useful in studying PV performance and possible improvements. Exergy analysis is applied to a PV system and its components, and exergy flows, losses and efficiencies are evaluated. Energy efficiency is seen to vary between 7% and 12% during the day. In contrast, exergy efficiencies, which incorporate the second law of thermodynamics and account for solar irradiation exergy values, are lower for electricity generation using the considered PV system, ranging from 2% to 8%. Values of “fill factors” are determined for the system and observed to be similar to values of exergy efficiency.     

Oxidation behavior of single-crystal Al2O3-fiber-reinforced Ni3Al-based composites

A series of single-crystal Al₂O₃-fiber-reinforced Ni3Al-based intermetallic matrix composites were fabricated by pressure casting. The matrices employed were binary Ni₃Al, Ni₃Al-0.5 at. pct Cr, and Ni₃Al-0.34 at. pct Zr. The development of microstructure upon oxidation in air at either 1100 °C or 1200 °C was investigated by optical, scanning, and transmission electron microscopy. In air-oxidized binary Ni₃Al, some of the fibers were fully or partially covered with a layer of oxide. A weak fiber/matrix bond in this system, which led to fiber debonding during composite processing, is believed to be responsible for the ingress of O into the composite and oxidation of the matrix in the debonded regions at the fiber/matrix interface. Addition of Cr to Ni₃Al resulted in an almost threefold increase in fiber/matrix bond strength. No oxidation of the interface was observed. A thick layer of oxide was formed around all the fibers when the composite was thermally cycled prior to isothermal annealing. Addition of Zr to Ni₃Al resulted in the formation of a layer of ZrO₂ on the surface of the fibers during composite processing. The ZrO₂ layer provided a fast path for the diffusion of O, which led to the formation of a rootlike oxide structure around the fibers. The rootlike structure consisted of a network of Al₂O₃-covered ZrO₂.     

The IFR/DFR property of the forward recurrence-time distribution

When a failure or replacement process is modeled as a renewal process, the residual life of the unit in use at a given time is generally referred to as the forward recurrence time (RT). Distributional properties of this random variable are critically important in many applications. This paper investigates the extent to which the failure-rate function monotonicity of a life distribution is inherited by the forward RT distribution at time s of its renewal process. For DFR life distributions, the forward RT distribution is also DFR for every s⩾0. However, the corresponding property does not necessarily hold for IFR life distributions. The forward RT distribution is IFR in the limit as s→0 and as s→∞. For IFR Weibull life distributions, we demonstrate numerically that the forward RT distribution is IFR for small s. As s is increased, it alternates between being IFR and non-IFR in an interesting cyclical pattern, and remains IFR beyond a large enough s     

Film morphology and reaction rate for the CVD of tungsten by the WF6—SiH4 reaction

Journal of Electronic Materials - Low pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) of tungsten (W) by SiH4 reduction of WF6 on Si(100) surfaces was studied in a single-wafer, cold-wall reactor over a...     

Salt and pepper noise filtering with fuzzy-cellular automata

A new image denoising algorithm is proposed to restore digital images corrupted by impulse noise. It is based on two dimensional cellular automata (CA) with the help of fuzzy logic theory. The algorithm describes a local fuzzy transition rule which gives a membership value to the corrupted pixel neighborhood and assigns next state value as a central pixel value. The proposed method removes the noise effectively even at noise level as high as 90%. Extensive simulations show that the proposed algorithm provides better performance than many of the existing filters in terms of noise suppression and detail preservation. Also, qualitative and quantitative measures of the image produce better results on different images compared with the other algorithms.     

Effects of composition and phase relations on mechanical properties and crystallization of silicate glasses

Crystallization, mechanical properties, and workability are all important for the commercialization and optimization of silicate glass compositions. However, the inter-relations of these properties as a function of glass composition have received little investigation. Soda-lime-silica glasses with Na₂O-MgO-CaO-Al₂O₃-SiO₂ compositions relevant to commercial glass manufacture were experimentally studied and multiple liquidus temperature and viscosity models were used to complement the experimental results. Liquidus temperatures of the fabricated glasses were measured by the temperature gradient technique, and Rietveld refinements were applied to X-Ray powder diffraction (XRD) data for devitrified glasses, enabling quantitative determination of the crystalline and amorphous fractions and the nature of the crystals. Structural properties were investigated by Raman spectroscopy. Acoustic echography, micro-Vicker's indentation, and single-edge-notched bend testing methods were used to measure Young's moduli, hardness, and fracture toughness, respectively. It is shown that it is possible to design lower-melting soda-lime-silica glass compositions without compromising their mechanical and crystallization properties. Unlike Young's modulus, brittleness is highly responsive to the composition in soda-lime-silica glasses, and notably low brittleness values can be obtained in glasses with compositions in the wollastonite primary phase field: an effect that is more pronounced in the silica primary phase field. The measured bulk crystal fractions of the glasses subjected to devitrification at the lowest possible industrial conditioning temperatures indicate that soda-lime-silica glass melts can be conditioned close to their liquidus temperatures within the compositional ranges of the primary phase fields of cristobalite, wollastonite, or their combinations.     

Integrated Risk of Progress-Based Costs and Schedule Delays in Construction Projects

This article aims to explore the impact of the integration of risk factors into delayed milestones for construction projects. A simulation model was developed to determine the impact of schedule variability on cost estimation. To generate random scenarios a Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) technique was applied. The developed model computes the cost impact of delayed milestone in the expected budget. Using a risk integration approach revealed the critical time frame that may lead to a budget deficit for a project. As a result, a number of cost-sensitive risk factors and schedule delays were identified for the critical time period where the risk of budget deficit increases. The method of integration proposed in this article highlights the priority of risk factors and schedule delays for construction contracts involving Payments at Event Occurrences (PEO). Consequently, the developed method can be useful for practitioners in anticipation of potential increase of costs, hence, prevention of failure due to budget deficit.     

Multi-objective rule mining using a chaotic particle swarm optimization algorithm

In this paper, classification rule mining which is one of the most studied tasks in data mining community has been modeled as a multi-objective optimization problem with predictive accuracy and comprehensibility objectives. A multi-objective chaotic particle swarm optimization (PSO) method has been introduced as a search strategy to mine classification rules within datasets. The used extension to PSO uses similarity measure for neighborhood and far-neighborhood search to store the global best particles found in multi-objective manner. For the bi-objective problem of rule mining of high accuracy/comprehensibility, the multi-objective approach is intended to allow the PSO algorithm to return an approximation to the upper accuracy/comprehensibility border, containing solutions that are spread across the border. The experimental results show the efficiency of the algorithm.