Nano-Tribological Study on a Super-Hydrophobic Film Formed on Rough Aluminum

A novel super-hydrophobic stearic acid (STA) film with a water contact angle of 166° was prepared by chemical adsorption on aluminum wafer coated with polyethyleneimine (PEI) film. The micro-tribological behavior of the super-hydrophobic STA monolayer was compared with that of the polished and PEI-coated Al surfaces. The effect of relative humidity on the adhesion and friction was investigated as well. It was found that the STA monolayer showed decreased friction, while the adhesive force was greatly decreased by increasing the surface roughness of the Al wafer to reduce the contact area between the atomic force microscope (AFM) tip and the sample surface to be tested. Thus the friction and adhesion of the Al wafer was effectively decreased by generating the STA monolayer, which indicated that it could be feasible and rational to prepare a surface with good adhesion resistance and lubricity by properly controlling the surface morphology and the chemical composition. Both the adhesion and friction decreased as the relative humidity was lowered from 65% to 10%, though the decrease extent became insignificant for the STA monolayer.

Analysis of super compact finite difference method and application to simulation of vortex-shock interaction

Turbulence and aeroacoustic noise high-order accurate schemes are required, and preferred, for solving complex flow fields with multi-scale structures. In this paper a super compact finite difference method (SCFDM) is presented, the accuracy is analysed and the method is compared with a sixth-order traditional and compact finite difference approximation. The comparison shows that the sixth-order accurate super compact method has higher resolving efficiency. The sixth-order super compact method, with a three-stage Runge-Kutta method for approximation of the compressible Navier-Stokes equations, is used to solve the complex flow structures induced by vortex-shock interactions. The basic nature of the near-field sound generated by interaction is studied.

Respuesta al tratamiento super ovulatorio, con Folltropin-V (analogo sintetico de la hormona foliculoestimulante-FSH), en hembras bovinas donantes, de las razas Pardo Suizo y Reyna, en fincas de la Universidad Nacional Agraria, Managua

El presente trabajo investigativo fue realizado en las fincas Las Mercedes y Santa Rosa, ambas propiedad de la Universidad Nacional Agraria, ubicadas en el departamento de Managua-Nicaragua. El objetivo de la presente investigación fué conocer si hay influencia del factor raza en la respuesta súper ovulatoria una vez aplicado el tratamiento hormonal súper ovulatorio FOLLTROPIN-V (análogo sintético de la hormona foliculoestimulante-FSH) en hembras bovinas donantes de las razas Pardo Suizo y Reyna. El tamaño requerido de la muestra fue de 10 hembras donantes para cada raza en estudio; las cuales fueron previamente seleccionadas según la calidad genética de cada hembra, la edad comprendida entre 3-5 años y los resultados del examen clínico y ginecológico que se les realizó para saber si cumplían con los requisitos ó parámetros de salud estimados para esta técnica de mejoramiento productivo. Los datos se obtuvieron mediante el conteo de cuerpos lúteos y folículos a través de palpación rectal de los ovarios; el mismo día en que se realizó la recolecta de los embriones; los cuales fueron llevados al laboratorio para ser clasificados según su estado de desarrollo y calidad, posteriormente fueron transferidos ó congelados. Los resultados obtenidos a ravés del análisis de la respuesta superovulatoria, indican que no existe una diferencia significativa del factor raza, sin embargo se observó que la raza Reyna se comportó mejor que la raza Pardo Su izo al dar mayor cantidad de cuerpos lúteos (R: 14.75 - PS: 11.5) y embriones (R: 9.25 – PS: 5.6), pero sí se atribuye a la raza, la calidad y el estado de desarrollo embrionario que se obtuvieron, siendo la raza Reyna la que obtuvo mejor calidad de embriones aunque por ser la que más embriones dió, también fue la que brindó mayor cantidad de embriones degenerados y oocitos infértiles que son intransferibles.

Assessing the road-damaging potential of heavy vehicles

The relative influence of various heavy vehicle design features on road-damaging potential is discussed. Testing procedures that could be used to measure the road-damaging potential of heavy vehicles are examined. A validated vehicle simulation is used to examine some of the characteristics of dynamic tyre forces generated by typical leaf sprung and air sprung articulated heavy vehicles for typical highway conditions. The proposed EC suspension test is simulated and the results compared with dynamic tyre forces generated under highway conditions. It is concluded that the road-damaging potential of a vehicle cannot be assessed by the simplistic parametric measurement of the proposed EC test. It is questionable whether a vehicle that passes the test will be any more 'road friendly' than one that fails.

Spatial repeatability of dynamic tyre forces generated by heavy vehicles

Road damage due to heavy vehicles is thought to be dependent on the extent to which lorries in normal traffic apply peak forces to the same locations along the road. A validated vehicle simulation is used to simulate 37 leaf-sprung articulated vehicles with parametric variations typical of vehicles in one weight class in the highway vehicle fleet. The spatial distribution of tyre forces generated by each vehicle is compared with the distribution generated by a reference vehicle, and the conditions are established for which repeated heavy loading occurs at specific points along the road. It is estimated that approximately two-thirds of vehicles in this class (a large proportion of all heavy vehicles) may contribute to a repeated pattern of road loading. It is concluded that dynamic tyre forces are a significant factor influencing road damage, compared to other factors such as tyre configuration and axle spacing.