The present study theoretically explored the feasibility of the capillary method for measuring near-infrared (NIR) spectra of liquid or solution samples with microlitre volume, which was proposed in our previous studies. Lambert-Beer absorbance rule was applied to establish a model for the integral absorbance of capillary, which was then implemented in numerical analyses of the effects of capillary on various spectral features and dynamic range of absorption measurement. The theoretical speculations indicated that the capillary method might be used in NIR spectroscopy, which was further supported by the empirical data collected from our experiments by comparison between capillary NIR spectra of several organic solvents and cuvette cell NIR spectra.

Polarizing beam splitter (PBS) is a critical optical component in projection display system because PBS performance greatly influences the contrast and brightness of the system. PBS performance is usually measured by spectrophotometer after coating and cementing, but the measured result cannot represent the actual performance in practice because people usually change the incident angle in one plane (horizontal plane) and do not consider the other plane (vertical plane). Geometrical polarization rotation occurring at reduced F-number influences the measuring precision of s-polarization transmittance (T_s) and p-polarization reflectance (R_p). A more accurate and practical way to measure the performance of broadband, wide-angle PBS is presented in this paper.

By applying the wavefront coding technique to an optical system, the depth of focus can be greatly increased. Several complicated methods, such as Fisher Information based method, have already been taken to optimize for the best pupil phase mask in ideal condition. Here one simple point spread function (PSF) based method with only the standard deviation method used to evaluate the PSF stability over the depth of focus is taken to optimize for the best coefficients of pupil phase mask in practical optical systems. Results of imaging simulations for optical systems with and without pupil phase mask are presented, and the sharpness of image is calculated for comparison. The optimized results showed better and much more stable imaging quality over the original system without changing the position of the image plane.

The possibility of visible red light laser being used as signal light source for Free-Space Optical (FSO) communication is proposed. Based on analysis of transmission in atmospheric channel concerning 650 nm laser beam, performance of wireless laser communication link utilizing a low power red laser diode was evaluated. The proposed system can achieve a maximum range of 300 m at data rate 100 Mb/s theoretically. An experimental short-range link at data rate 10 Mb/s covering 300 m has been implemented in our university. It is feasible to enhance the system performance such as link range and data rate by increasing transmitting power and decreasing laser beam divergence angle or through other approaches.

A new patch antenna system with a metamaterial cover is presented in this paper. The impedance, radiation pattern, and directivity of such an antenna are studied. A performance comparison between the conventional patch antenna and the new metamaterial patch antenna is given. The results show that the directivity of the metamaterial patch antenna is significantly improved. The effect of the metamaterial cover’s layer numbers on the radiation pattern of the patch antenna is also studied.

Aiming at developing exhaust gas driving automobile air conditioning systems, a hydride pair LaNi_4.61Mn_0.26Al_0.13/ La_0.6Y_0.4Ni_4.8Mn_0.2 was developed working at 393~473 K/293~323 K/263~273 K. Property tests showed that both alloys have flat plateau slopes and small hystereses; system theoretical coefficient of performance (COP) is 0.711. Based on this work pair, a function proving automobile metal hydride refrigeration system was constructed. The equivalent thermal conductivities of the activated reaction beds were merely 1.1~1.6 W/(m∙K), which had not met practical requirement. Intermittent refrigeration cycles were achieved and the average cooling power was 84.6 W at 423 K/303 K/273 K with COP being 0.26. By altering cycling parameters, experiment data showed that cooling power and system COP increase with the growth of heat source temperature as well as pre-heating and regeneration time while decrease with heat sink temperature increment. This study confirms the feasibility of automobile metal hydride refrigeration systems, while heat transfer properties of reaction beds still need to be improved for better performance.

A miniature thermoacoustic prime mover, consuming heat to radiate sound, may be considered as a potential way of heat management in microcircuits because of its simplicity and stability. A prototype with variable resonant tube length of 10 to 25 cm was built, and experiments were carried out to observe its performance, such as onset temperature, oscillation amplitude and operating frequency. The results with atmospheric air showed that proper structures and operating conditions can make the system start an oscillation at a temperature lower than 100 °C, which proves the feasibility of potential usage in electronic units. The influences of stack position, heat input power or tube inclination on the oscillation amplitude, onset temperature and operating frequency are also presented.

By analyzing heat transfer on the wall of flat steel ribbon wound vessel (FSRWV), a numerical model of temperature distribution on the entire wall (including inner core wall, flat steel ribbons, outside cylinder of jacket and insulating layer) was established by the authors. With the model, the temperature distribution and the length change in the vessel walls and flat steel ribbons in low temperature are calculated and analyzed. The results show that the flat steel ribbon wound cryogenic high-pressure vessel is simpler in structure, safer and easier to manufacture than those of conventional ones.

Two adsorption refrigeration working pairs of zeolite with water and ethanol were studied and the parameters of Dubinin-Astakhov model were regressed using the experimental data of equilibrium. The coefficient of heterogeneity varied from 1.305 to 1.52 for the zeolite-water pair and from 1.73 to 2.128 for zeolite-ethanol pair. The maximum adsorption capacity varied from 0.315 to 0.34 for zeolite-water and 0.23 to 0.28 for zeolite-ethanol, respectively. The results showed that the zeolite-water pair is suitable for solar energy cooling not only because of the high latent heat of vaporization of water but also because of the better equilibrium performance. On the other hand, zeolite-ethanol gives a high adsorption capacity at high regeneration temperature, which means it can be used in heat engine systems like buses and cars.

Ceramic materials are notable for their rigidity, insulation and resistance to hostile environment. Nevertheless, if a stressed ceramic component is exposed to chemical attack, it may suffer from a form of delayed fracture known as static fatigue. From the point of view of a designer, it is clearly desirable to determine the behavior of sub-critical crack growth; the crack path and crack growth rate, as a function of material properties and loading conditions are of particular interest. This paper presents a review of advances in stress assisted corrosion problem in history and its corresponding numerical approaches in the last decades, and finally, comes up with consideration and crucial suggestions for future work.

This paper presents the adaptive mesh finite element estimation method for analyzing 2D linear elastic fracture problems. The mesh is generated by the advancing front method and the norm stress error is taken as a posteriori error estimator for the h-type adaptive refinement. The stress intensity factors are estimated by a displacement extrapolation technique. The near crack tip displacements used are obtained from specific nodes of natural six-noded quarter-point elements which are generated around the crack tip defined by the user. The crack growth and its direction are determined by the calculated stress intensity factors. The maximum circumference theory is used for the latter. In evaluating the accuracy of the estimated stress intensity factors, four cases are tested consisting of compact tension specimen, three-point bending specimen, central cracked plate and double edge notched plate. These were carried out and compared to the results from other studies. The crack trajectories of these specimen tests are also illustrated.

Springback is caused by the redistribution of stress in sheet material after the tooling is removed. Precise prediction of sheet springback is very important in die design. Based on Hill’s yielding criterion and plane strain condition, an analytical model is proposed in this paper which takes into account the effects of contact pressure, the length of bending arm between the punch and die, transverse stress, neutral surface shifting and sheet thickness thinning on the sheet springback of V-bending. The predicted results by this analytical model indicated that the contact pressure and transverse stress have much effect on the springback when the bending ratio (the ratio of punch radius to sheet thickness) is less than five. The contact pressure declined when the length of bending arm goes up, which means that shorter length of bending arm will result in larger springback. The effect of neutral surface shifting on the springback is less than that of contact pressure and decreases with the bending ratio. However, this research showed that the influence of thickness thinning on the springback can be ignored. Comparison with finite element method (FEM) simulating results shows that the predicted results by the analytical model accord well with simulation results by FEM. In addition to that, the bending ability—the limit bending ratio for a given sheet thickness and material properties was also determined.

This paper addresses the dynamic stability problem of columns and frames subjected to axially applied periodic loads. Such a structure can become unstable under certain combinations of amplitudes and frequencies of the imposed load acting on its columns/beams. These are usually shown in the form of plots which describe regions of instability. The finite element method (FEM) is used in this work to analyse dynamic stability problems of columns. Two-noded beam elements are used for this purpose. The periodic loading is decomposed into various harmonics using Fourier series expansion. Computer codes in C++ using object oriented concepts are developed to determine the stability regions of columns subjected to periodic loading. A number of numerical examples are presented to illustrate the working of the program. The direct integration of the equations of motions of the discretised system is carried out using Newmark’s method to verify the results.

The results of an analytical investigation of the flexural behaviour of Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) beams are presented. The complete response of the SFRC beams under displacement controlled static loading was obtained using nonlinear Finite Element (FE) techniques implemented with the help of ATENA 2D software. Issues relating to the behaviour of SFRC which have a direct bearing on the FE modelling are discussed with relevance to the software employed for the nonlinear analysis. Constitutive models amenable to numerical analysis for steel fibrous concrete are presented. The structural response throughout the loading regime was captured in terms of the load-deflection behaviour, which in addition to the post-peak response characterized the failure mode of the test beams. The crack patterns at crack initiation and at the end of the tests were also recorded. Experimental results from the specimens of two other investigators were used as control values for this investigation. The response of the specimens of this investigation was evaluated in terms of initial tangent stiffness, peak loads and toughness. Good match was obtained between the results from this investigation and corresponding experimentally obtained values, wherever available. The influence of the fibre content is reflected in the observed trends in peak loads, deflection at peak loads and toughness, which are in broad agreement with known behavioral patterns of SFRC.

This paper presents the restraining moments of outriggers acting on the core wall and the equation of the horizontal top deflection based on a simplified outrigger model. The deformation compatibility conditions between outriggers and core wall as well as the finite rigidities of outriggers are also considered. One case study was carried out to analyze the horizontal top deflection and the mutation of the restraining moments caused by the variation of outrigger location. The results showed that the method adopted in the paper is simple and reasonable. Some conclusions are valuable to the safety design of high-rise building structures.

This paper firstly introduces the distribution of weathered layers, and then presents the relationship between water content and expansive force and the working model of expansive forces in expansive soil slopes. Taking the expansive soil slope of Jing-Yi Expressway as example and applying the Slices Method, this paper puts forward the stability calculation method considering the effect of expansive forces, and also proposes the treatments.

The parabolized stability equation (PSE) was derived to study the linear stability of particle-laden flow in growing Blasius boundary layer. The stability characteristics for various Stokes numbers and particle concentrations were analyzed after solving the equation numerically using the perturbation method and finite difference. The inclusion of the nonparallel terms produces a reduction in the values of the critical Reynolds number compared with the parallel flow. There is a critical value for the effect of Stokes number, and the critical Stokes number being about unit, and the most efficient instability suppression takes place when Stokes number is of order 10. But the presence of the nonparallel terms does not affect the role of the particles in gas. That is, the addition of fine particles (Stokes number is much smaller than 1) reduces the critical Reynolds number while the addition of coarse particles (Stokes number is much larger than 1) enhances it. Qualitatively the effect of nonparallel mean flow is the same as that for the case of plane parallel flows.

An optimization study using a comprehensive 3D, multi-phase, non-isothermal model of a PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell that incorporates significant physical processes and key parameters affecting fuel cell performance is presented and discussed in detail. The model accounts for both gas and liquid phase in the same computational domain, and thus allows for the implementation of phase change inside the gas diffusion layers. The model includes the transport of gaseous species, liquid water, protons, energy, and water dissolved in the ion-conducting polymer. Water is assumed to be exchanged among three phases: liquid, vapour, and dissolved, with equilibrium among these phases being assumed. This model also takes into account convection and diffusion of different species in the channels as well as in the porous gas diffusion layer, heat transfer in the solids as well as in the gases, and electrochemical reactions. The results showed that the present multi-phase model is capable of identifying important parameters for the wetting behaviour of the gas diffusion layers and can be used to identify conditions that might lead to the onset of pore plugging, which has a detrimental effect on the fuel cell performance. This model is used to study the effects of several operating, design, and material parameters on fuel cell performance. Detailed analyses of the fuel cell performance under various operating conditions have been conducted and examined.

The particle deposition behaviour of skim milk, water and maltodextrin in the conical section of a pilot-scale spray dryer was predicted using simple correlations for particle depositions in pipes. The predicted particle deposition fluxes of these materials were then compared with the measured deposition fluxes. The predicted particle deposition regimes of the spray dryer were expected to be in the diffusional and mixed (diffusional and inertial) regimes, but the experimental results suggested that the particle deposition was mainly in the inertial regime. Therefore, using the pipe correlations for predicting deposition in a pilot-scale spray dryer suggests that they do not sufficiently represent the actual deposition behaviour. This outcome indicates that a further study of particle flow patterns needs to be carried out using numerical simulations (computational fluid dynamics, CFD) in view of the additional geometrical complexity of the spray dryer.

The couette dusty flow between two horizontal parallel porous flat plates with transverse sinusoidal injection of the dusty fluid at the stationary plate and its corresponding removal by constant suction through the plate in uniform motion was analyzed. Due to this type of injection velocity the dusty flow becomes 3D. Perturbation method is used to obtain the expressions for the velocity and temperature fields of both the fluid and dust. It was found that the velocity profiles of both the fluid and dust in the main flow direction decrease with the increase of the mass concentration of the dust particles, and those in cross flow direction increase with an increase in the mass concentration of the dust particles up to the middle of the channel and thereafter decrease with increase in mass concentration of the dust particles. The skin friction components T_x and T_z in the main flow and transverse directions respectively increase with an increase in the mass concentration of the dust particles (or) injection parameter. The heat transfer coefficient decreases with the increase of the injection parameter and increases with the increase in the mass concentration of the dust particles.

A remote control system has been developed to deliver stimuli into the rat brain through a wireless micro-stimulator for animal behavior training. The system consists of the following main components: an integrated PC control program, a transmitter and a receiver based on Bluetooth (BT) modules, a stimulator controlled by C8051 microprocessor, as well as an operant chamber and an eight-arm radial maze. The micro-stimulator is featured with its changeable amplitude of pulse output for both constant-voltage and constant-current mode, which provides an easy way to set the proper suitable stimulation intensity for different training. The system has been used in behavior experiments for monitoring and recording bar-pressing in the operant chamber, controlling rat roaming in the eight-arm maze, as well as navigating rats through a 3D obstacle route. The results indicated that the system worked stably and that the stimulation was effective for different types of rat behavior controls. In addition, the results showed that stimulation in the whisker barrel region of rat primary somatosensory cortex (SI) acted like a cue. The animals can be trained to take different desired turns upon the association between the SI cue stimulation and the reward stimulation in the medial forebrain bundle (MFB).

The adsorption isotherms of mixtures of linear alkanes, involving n-pentane, n-hexane, and n-heptane in pillared layered materials (PLMs) with three different porosities Ψ=0.98, 0.94 and 0.87, and three pore widths H=1.02, 1.70 and 2.38 nm at temperature T=300 K were simulated by using configurational-bias Monte Carlo (CBMC) techniques in grand canonical ensemble. A grid model was employed to calculate the interaction between a fluid molecule and two layered boards here. For alkane mixtures, the n-heptane, the longest chain component in alkane mixtures, is preferentially adsorbed at low pressures, with its adsorption increasing and then decreasing as the pressure increases continuously while the n-pentane, the shortest chain component in alkane mixtures, is still adsorbed at high pressures; the adsorption of the longest chain component of alkane mixtures increases as the pore width and the porosity of PLMs increase.