ALBERT

Notes: For ages, activated carbon has been unarguably the most preferred material for chemicalwarfare protective clothing by armies across the globe. Although the morphology in whichit is used has changed from granular form to fiber form, there has not been much change inthe chemical composition or functionality (ASZM-TEDA grade). In this paper weinvestigate to find out if there is a possibility of replacement of the activated carbon byother materials. Before we find the answer to this question, it is important to reason outwhy replacement is thought of in the first place.Activated carbon is a versatile material that brings with it several good qualities like largesurface area, adsorptive nature, fire-resistant, robustness and availability of aplenty. Someof its disadvantages include heavy weight and low breathability (moist activated carbonwill adsorb oxygen from the environment causing breathing difficulties). One otherdisadvantage which is often overlooked by the user is the disposal of the suits after usage.Activated carbon merely adsorbs the nerve and mustard agents and once they becomesaturated, they are classified as hazardous materials necessitating safe disposal. The usedwear is normally sent back to the supplier of manufacturer where it would be essentiallydecontaminated by bleaching and then disposed by incineration or landfill. Thus, if thereis a material that can ensure breathability is of light weight and has the capacity todecontaminate the adsorbed warfare agents in situ, it would be ideal for use in theprotective clothing.In this paper novel electrospun ceramic nanostructures are introduced which are capableof reactive decontamination of nerve and mustard agents. The decontaminationefficiencies of the ceramic nanofibers are presented as tested against simulants of nerveand mustard agents. Electrospinning was chosen as the fabrication method because it is asimple traditional technique that is capable of manufacturing nano sized structures in alarge scale. Moreover, electrospun materials possess more activity due to their surfacecharge density. The contribution of nano-size scale to the reactivity of the fibers isshown. All these project the electrospun nanostructured ceramics as the best possiblesubstitutes to activated carbon

Notes: The superplastic properties of Ti3Al base alloy have been investigated in the range of900~1020°C and strain rate range of 3.3×10-4~3.3×10-2s-1 .The largest elongation of 1570% wasobtained under the optimal superplastic deformation condition of 980°C and 3.3×10-4 s-1. Them-value varied from 0.46 to 0.59, its maximum value was obtained at 980°C.The microstructure ofthe alloy after heat treatment was composed of two phases of small spherical α2 phase particlesdistributing in βtransus matrix. Microstructure change has an obvious effect on the superplasticproperties of Ti3Al-based alloy. At 980°C,when theα2 phase grain size changed from large to smallthen large and the cavitations in the fracture surface were larger and deeper with decreasing strainrate, the alloy showed the larger elongation and the lower flow stress

Notes: In this paper, a new algorithm based on Meshless Local Petrov-Galerking (MLPG) methodis presented for analyzing the crack dynamic propagation. A new modified Moving Least Squaresapproximation is proposed to simplify the treatment of essential boundary conditions. Explicit centraldifference with lumped mass matrix is adopted for the time integral. Visibility criterion with crackedge node adding technique and the maximum hoop stress criterion are used to describe the crackpropagation and forecast the crack propagation direction. Based on this algorithm, three-point bendspecimen for impact fracture test is investigated. Comparing the results with those obtained by thelaser caustic method and high-speed photographs, the accuracy of the present algorithm is proved

Notes: Surfactant-zirconium phosphate composites were prepared by surfactant cetyltrimethylammoniumbromide intercalating to α-zirconium phosphate. The interlayer spacing of the lamellarstructure was greatly expanded to 39.6 Å, as compared to 7.6 Å of α-zirconium phosphate. The molarratio of surfactant to α-zirconium phosphate in the composites was found to be 1/1.46. The expandedinterlayer separation is beneficial for complicated guest molecules intercalating to the galleries of thecomposites

Notes: In this paper the effect of isothermal forging process parameters on the microstructure andthe mechanical properties of TA15 titanium alloy was researched. The results of the tests indicatethat, in the range of temperature of 850 ºC~980 ºC and deformation degree of 20%~60%, with theincrease of temperature or deformation, as the reinforcement of deformation recrystallization, theprimary α-phase tends to the spherical shape and secondary α-phase transforms from the acicularshape to fine and spherical shape with disperse distribution, which enhance the tensile properties atroom and high temperature. With the increment of forging times, the spheroidization of primaryα-phase aggrandizes and secondary α-phase transforms from spherical and acicular shape to widestrip shape, which decrease the tensile properties at room and high temperature. The preferableisothermal forging process parameters are temperature of 980 ºC, deformation degree of 60%, andfew forging times

Notes: A tangent modulus of soil mass which allows for a piece-wise linear approximation of thehyperbolic response curve is particularly suited for incremental construction simulation. Theparameter identification of nonlinear constitutive model of soil mass is based on an inverse analysisprocedure, which consists of minimizing the objective function representing the difference betweenthe experimental data and the calculated data of the mechanical model. The artificial neural networkis applied to estimate the model parameters of soil mass. The weights of neural network are trainedby using the Levenberg-Marquardt approximation which has a fast convergent ability. Theparameter identification results illustrate that the proposed neural network has not only highercomputing efficiency but also better identification accuracy. The numerically computational resultswith finite element method show that the forecasted displacements at observing points according toidentified model parameters can precisely agree with the observed displacements

Notes: In most engineering applications, solutions derived from the lower bound theorem of limitanalysis are particularly valuable because they provide a safe estimate of the load that will causecollapse. In this paper, the lower bound theorem is firstly implemented making use of the meshlesslocal Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) method with natural neighbour interpolation. In the present MLPGformulation, the natural neighbour interpolation is employed for constructing trial functions, whilethe three-node triangular FEM shape function is used as the test function over a local sub-domain. Theself-equilibrium stress field is expressed by linear combination of several self-equilibrium stress basisvectors with parameters to be determined. These self-equilibrium stress basis vectors can begenerated by performing an equilibrium iteration procedure during elasto-plastic incrementalanalysis. The Complex method is used to solve these nonlinear programming sub-problems anddetermine the maximal load amplifier. The numerical results show that the present solution procedurefor limit analysis is effective and accurate

Notes: The finite element model of coupling the thermal field with structural analysis is proposedin order to analyze the thermo-stress of casting ladle structure. The thermal fields of casting ladle withrefractory lining structure are computed according to the thermal properties of materials andboundary conditions. Numerical simulation shows that that computed outer temperatures of castingladle agree with measured ones. The thermo-stress of casting ladle structure is simulated by takingthermal loadings as the loading conditions of the steel shell structure. Material behaviors weredescribed by the Drucker–Prager plasticity model and Von Mises yield criterion. Calculation resultsof thermo-stress fields shows the outer shell structure is safety under the action of thermal loadings