Characterization of High Melt Strength Polypropylene Synthesized via Silane Grafting Initiated by In Situ Heat Induction Reaction

High melt strength polypropylene (HMSPP) was synthesized by in situ heat induction reaction, in which pure polypropylene (PP) powders without any additives were used as a basic resin and vinyl trimethoxysilane (VTMS) as a grafting and crosslinking agent. The grafting reaction of VTMS with PP was confirmed by FTIR. The structure and properties of HMSPP were characterized by means of various measurements. The content of grafted silane played a key role on the melt strength and melt flow rate (MFR) of HMSPP. With increasing the content of grafted silane, the melt strength of HMSPP increased, and the MFR reduced. In addition, due to the existence of cross-linking structure, the thermal stability and tensile strength of HMSPP were improved compared with PP.

Lanthanide complex/polymer composite optical resin with intense narrow band emission, high transparency and good mechanical performance

Novel composite resins possessing good luminescent properties have been synthesized through a free radical copolymerization of styrene, alpha-methylacrylic acid and the binary or ternary complexes of lanthanide ions (Eu3+ and Tb3+). These polymer-based composite resins not only possess good transparency and mechanical performance but also exhibit an intense narrow band emission of lanthanide complexes under UV excitation. We characterized the molecular structure, physical and mechanical performance, and luminescent properties of the composite resins. Spectra investigations indicate that alpha-methyl-acrylic acid act as both solubilizer and ligand. Photoluminescence measurements indicate that the lanthanide complexes show superior emission lines and higher intensities in the resin matrix than in the corresponding pure complex powders, which can be attributed to the restriction of molecular motion of complexes by the polymer chain networks and the exclusion of water molecules from the complex. We also found that the luminescence intensity decreased with increasing content of alpha-methylacrylic acid in the copolymer system. The lifetime of the lanthanide complexes also lengthened when they were incorporated in the polymer matrix. In addition, we found that the relationships between emission intensity and Tb (Eu) content exhibit some extent of concentration quenching.

THE RADIATION STABILITY OF PERFLUOROALKOXY RESIN

By examining the changes in melting temperature, heat of fusion, tensile strength and ultimate elongation at 150-degrees-C, and weight loss, radiation effects on perfluoroalkoxy resins (PFA) were investigated. The results show that at the temperatures used here the predominant effect caused by radiation on PFA is degradation of the molecular weight. The radiation stability is much better than that of polytetrafluoroethylene, however.

STRUCTURE AND PROPERTIES OF SEQUENTIALLY POLYMERIZED PROPYLENE-B-[ETHYLENE-CO-PROPYLENE]-B-PROPYLENE COPOLYMERS

The structure and properties of presumed block copolymers of polypropylene (PP) with ethylene-propylene random copolymers (EPR), i.e., PP-EPR and PP-EPR-PP, have been investigated by viscometry, transmission electron microscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, gel permeation chromatography, wide-angle x-ray diffraction, and other techniques testing various mechanical properties. PP-EPR and PP-EPR-PP were synthesized using delta-TiCl3-Et2AlCl as a catalyst system. The results indicate that the intrinsic viscosity of these polymers increases with each block-building step, whereas the intrinsic viscosity of those prepared by chain transfer reaction (strong chain-transfer reagent hydrogen was introduced between block-building steps during polymerization) hardly changes with the reaction time. Compared with PP / EPR blends, PP-EPR-PP block copolymers have lower PP and polyethylene crystallinity, and lower melting and crystallization temperatures of crystalline EPR. Two relaxation peaks of PP and EPR appear in the dynamic spectra of blends. They merge into a very broad relaxation peak with block sequence products of the same composition, indicating good compatibility between PP and EPR in the presence of block copolymers. Varying the PP and EPR content affects the crystallinity, density, and morphological structure of the products, which in turn affects the tensile strength and elongation at break. Because of their superior mechanical properties, sequential polymerization products containing PP-EPR and PP-EPR-PP block copolymers may have potential as compatibilizing agents for isotactic polypropylene and polyethylene blends or as potential heat-resistant thermoplastic elastomers.

Energy conversion in shape memory alloy heat engine - Part II: Simulation

In this paper, a theoretical model proposed in Part I (Zhu et al., 2001a) is used to simulate the behavior of a twin crank NiTi SMA spring based heat engine, which has been experimentally studied by Iwanaga et al. (1988). The simulation results are compared favorably with the measurements. It is found that (1) output torque and heat efficiency decrease as rotation speed increase; (2) both output torque and output power increase with the increase of hot water temperature; (3) at high rotation speed, higher water temperature improves the heat efficiency. On the contrary, at low rotation speed, lower water temperature is more efficient; (4) the effects of initial spring length may not be monotonic as reported. According to the simulation, output torque, output power and heat efficiency increase with the decrease of spring length only in the low rotation speed case. At high rotation speed, the result might be on the contrary.

Effects of heat-treatment processes on the electroless Ni-B coating and its natural aging mechanism

A Ni-B coating was prepared with EN using potassium borohydride reducing agent. The as-plated micro-structure of the coating was confirmed from XRD to be a mixture of amorphous and supersaturated solid solution. Three kinds of phase transformation were observed from the DSC curve. Different from the previous works, the formation of Ni4B3 and Ni2B was found during some transformation processes. The key factors which influence the variation of micro-hardness and micro-structure in deposits are the formation, the size and amount of Ni3B, Ni4B3 and Ni2B. Aging of the deposits treated under some heat treatment conditions occurred at room temperature. Changes of the micro-hardness indicated aging phenomena evidently. the natural aging phenomena are concerned with various kinds of decomposition of borides, especially with Ni4B3 phase. The extent of natural aging depends on the formation and the quantity of Ni(4)B3 and Ni2B.

Heat-Transfer Study of External Superheater of CFB Incinerator

The heat transfer coefficients for horizontally immersed tubes have been studied in model internally circulating fluidized bed (ICFB) and pilot ICFB incinerators. The characteristics in the ICFB were found to be significantly different from those in a bubbling bed. In ICFB, there is a flowing zone with high velocity, a heat exchange zone, and a moving zone with low velocity. The controllable heat transfer coefficients in ICFB strongly depend on the fluidized velocity in the flowing zone, and also the flow condition in the moving zone. The heat exchange process and suitable bed temperature can be well controlled according to this feature. Based on the results of experiments, a formulation for heat transfer coefficient has been developed. These results were applied to an external superheater of a CFB incinerator with a 450 degreesC steam outlet in a waste-to-energy pilot cogeneration plant of 12 MW in Jiaxing City, China.

土壤传热特性的实验研究(Experimental Study of Soil Heat Diffusivity)

发展了测定实验室土样热扩散率的方法,介绍了研制的实验装置和建议的操作程序。给出的实验结果表明土壤热扩散率随土壤空隙率、含水量和温度等许多参数而变化。

Determination of Proper Processing Conditions of Material Surface Heat Treatment Through Finite Element Method

A two-dimensional model has been developed based on the experimental results of stainless steel remelting with the laminar plasma technology to investigate the transient thermo-physical characteristics of the melt pool liquids. The influence of the temperature field, temperature gradient, solidification rate and cooling rate on the processing conditions has been investigated numerically. Not only have the appropriate processing conditions been determined according to the calculations, but also they have been predicted with a criterion established based on the concept of equivalent temperature area density (ETAD) that is actually a function of the processing parameters and material properties. The comparison between the resulting conditions shows that the ETAD method can better predict the optimum condition.

Anisotropic thermopiezoelectric solids with an elliptic inclusion or a hole under uniform heat flow

The two-dimensional problem of a thermopiezoelectric material containing an elliptic inclusion or a hole subjected to a remote uniform heat flow is studied. Based on the extended Lekhnitskii formulation for thermopiezoelectricity, conformal mapping and Laurent series expansion, the explicit and closed-form solutions are obtained both inside and outside the inclusion (or hole). For a hole problem, the exact electric boundary conditions on the hole surface are used. The results show that the electroelastic fields inside the inclusion or the electric field inside the hole are linear functions of the coordinates. When the elliptic hole degenerates into a slit crack, the electroelastic fields and the intensity factors are obtained. The effect of the heat how direction and the dielectric constant of air inside the crack on the thermal electroelastic fields are discussed. Comparison is made with two special cases of which the closed solutions exist and it is shown that our results are valid.

Three-Dimensional Modeling of Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow in Laminar-Plasma Material Re-Melting Processing

Modeling study is performed concerning the heat transfer and fluid flow for a laminar argon plasma jet impinging normally upon a flat workpiece exposed to the ambient air. The diffusion of the air into the plasma jet is handled by using the combined-diffusion-coefficient approach. The heat flux density and jet shear stress distributions at the workpiece surface obtained from the plasma jet modeling are then used to study the re-melting process of a carbon steel workpiece. Besides the heat conduction within the workpiece, the effects of the plasma-jet inlet parameters (temperature and velocity), workpiece moving speed, Marangoni convection, natural convection etc. on the re-melting process are considered. The modeling results demonstrate that the shapes and sizes of the molten pool in the workpiece are influenced appreciably by the plasma-jet inlet parameters, workpiece moving speed and Marangoni convection. The jet shear stress manifests its effect at higher plasma-jet inlet velocities, while the natural convection effect can be ignored. The modeling results of the molten pool sizes agree reasonably with available experimental data.

Conjugate Model for Heat and Mass Transfer of Porous Wall in the High Temperature Gas Flow

Heat and mass transfer of a porous permeable wall in a high temperature gas dynamical flow is considered. Numerical simulation is conducted on the ground of the conjugate mathematical model which includes filtration and heat transfer equations in a porous body and boundary layer equations on its surface. Such an approach enables one to take into account complex interaction between heat and mass transfer in the gasdynamical flow and in the structure subjected to this flow. The main attention is given to the impact of the intraporous heat transfer intensity on the transpiration cooling efficiency.

Investigation on Depth of Heat Affected Zone of Discharge Spot by High Repetitive Rate YAG Laser-Induced Discharge Texturing

It is known that the press formability and the elongation of laser textured sheet are improved, and the service life of textured roll is longer than that of the un-textured roll due to hardening of the treated surface. One of the goals to develop high repetitive rate YAG laser-induced discharge texturing (LIDT) is to get deeper hardening zone. By observing and measuring cross-section of LIDT spots in different discharge conditions, it is found that the single-crater, which is formed by the discharge conditions of anode, which is covered by an oil film and with rectangular current waveform, has the most depth of heat affected zone (HAZ) comparing with other crater shapes when discharge energy is the same. The depth of HAZ is mainly depends on pulse duration when the discharge spot is single-crater. The results are analyzed.

Combined Effects of Silica Filler and Its Interface in Epoxy Resin

In this paper, mechanical properties of silica-filled epoxy resin are tested. The tests show that at elevated temperatures, the material’s properties (e.g. yield stress, flow stress, etc.) vary immonotonically with filler volume fraction. Nanoindentation test results suggest that an interface region, stronger than the matrix, is formed in the materials. The formation of the interface has positive effects on the yield strengths of materials. The addition of particles in the matrix produces a large disturbance in stress distribution, leading to stress concentration in the matrix. The stress concentration has negative effects on the yield strengths of materials. The calculation demonstrates that the maximum stress in samples varies immonotonically with particulate concentration. So, the immonotonic variation of mechanical behavior of materials may be rooted in the contradictory effects of the interface region and the stress concentration caused by particulate addition.

Micro- and macroscopic characterizations of the viscoelastic fracture of resin-based fibre composites

Micro- and macroscopic characterizations of the viscoelastic fracture of a unidirectional carbon-fibre-reinforced epoxy composite are presented. First, the micro-cracking behavior of the material is studied by the use of scanning electron microscopy; the in situ creep cracking process is observed and the crack propagation is measured. In order to obtain insight into the mechanisms of the observed creep cracking, macroscopic investigations were also carried out. Finite-element method simulations were carried out to calculate the stress distribution and the variation of stresses with time. A theoretical analysis of the orthotropy of viscoelastic fracture behavior of the material is also conducted.