Study of the interaction between asphalt and plastic wastes in new polymer modified binders (PMB)

The aim of this study is evaluating the interaction between several base pen grade asphalt binders (35/50, 50/70, 70/100, 160/220) and two different plastic wastes (EVA and HDPE), for a set of new polymer modified binders produced with different amounts of both plastic wastes. After analysing the results obtained for the several polymer modified binders evaluated in this study, including a commercial modified binder, it can be concluded that the new PMBs produced with the base bitumen 70/100 and 5% of each plastic waste (HDPE or EVA) results in binders with very good performance, similar to that of the commercial modified binder.

Renewable energy system for an isolated micro grid

This paper presents the development of the power electronics needed for the interaction between the electrical generator of a wind turbine and an isolated ac micro grid. In this system there are basically two types of receptors for the energy produced by the wind turbine, which are the loads connected to the isolated micro grid and the batteries used to store energy. There are basically two states in which the system will work. One of the states is when there is enough wind power to supply the loads and the extra energy is used to charge the batteries. The other state is when there is low wind power and the batteries have to compensate the lack of power, so that the isolated micro grid has enough power to supply at least the priority loads. In this paper are presented the hardware and the control algorithm for the developed system. The topology was previously tested in computer simulations, using the software PSIM 9.0, and then validated with the implementation of a laboratory prototype.

Search for metastable heavy charged particles with large ionisation energy loss in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV using the ATLAS experiment

Many extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of charged heavy long-lived particles, such as R-hadrons or charginos. These particles, if produced at the Large Hadron Collider, should be moving non-relativistically and are therefore identifiable through the measurement of an anomalously large specific energy loss in the ATLAS pixel detector. Measuring heavy long-lived particles through their track parameters in the vicinity of the interaction vertex provides sensitivity to metastable particles with lifetimes from 0.6 ns to 30 ns. A search for such particles with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is presented, based on a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 18.4 fb−1 of pp collisions at s√ = 8 TeV. No significant deviation from the Standard Model background expectation is observed, and lifetime-dependent upper limits on R-hadrons and chargino production are set. Gluino R-hadrons with 10 ns lifetime and masses up to 1185 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level, and so are charginos with 15 ns lifetime and masses up to 482 GeV.