Robust stabilization of a nonlinear cement mill model

Plugging is well known to be a major cause of instability in industrial cement mills. A simple nonlinear model able to simulate the plugging phenomenon is presented. It is shown how a nonlinear robust controller can be designed in order to fully prevent the mill from plugging.

Cement bentonite cutoff walls for polluted sites

Cement-bentonite (CB) cutoff walls have long been used to control ground water flow and contaminant migration at polluted sites. Hydraulic conductivity and unconfined compressive strength are two short-term properties often used by industry and owners in CB specification and are important parameters discussed in this paper. For polluted sites, long-term compatibility is also an important issue. These properties are coupled to a number of external factors including the mix design, construction sequence, presence/absence of contaminants at the site. Additional short-term properties for engineering assessment include the stressstrain characteristics in both drained and undrained shear in both with and without confinement as well as one-dimensional consolidation properties. Long term CB properties are affected by aging, reaction chemistry, drying, in situ stress state, and interaction with the polluted environment. © 2013 Taylor & Francis Group.

Q-switched modelocking using carbon nanotubes in an ultrafast laser inscribed ytterbium doped bismuthate glass waveguide laser

Passive modelocking using carbon nanotubes is achieved in a linear cavity waveguide laser realized by ultrafast laser inscription in ytterbium doped bismuthate glass. The pulses observed under a Q-switched envelope have a repetition rate of 1.5 GHz. © 2012 OSA.

Compressive response of glass fiber composite sandwich structures

Sandwich panels with crushable foam cores have attracted significant interest for impulsive load mitigation. We describe a method for making a lightweight, energy absorbing, glass fiber composite sandwich structure and explore it is through thickness (out-of-plane) compressive response. The sandwich structure utilized corrugated composite cores constructed from delamination resistant 3D woven E-glass fiber textiles folded over triangular cross section prismatic closed cell, PVC foam inserts. The corrugated structure was stitched to 3D woven S2-glass fiber face sheets and infiltrated with a rubber toughened, impact resistant epoxy. The quasi-static compressive stress-strain response of the panels was experimentally investigated as a function of the strut width to length ratio and compared to micromechanical predictions. Slender struts failed by elastic (Euler) buckling which transitioned to plastic microbuckling as the strut aspect ratio increased. Good agreement was observed between experimental results and micromechanical predictions over the wide range of core densities investigated in the study.

Preliminary model development for predicting strength and stiffness of cement-stabilized soils using artificial neural networks

This paper presents ongoing work on data collection and collation from a large number of laboratory cement-stabilization projects worldwide. The aim is to employ Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to establish relationships between variables, which define the properties of cement-stabilized soils, and the two parameters determined by the Unconfined Compression Test, the Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS), and stiffness, using E50 calculated from UCS results. Bayesian predictive neural network models are developed to predict the UCS values of cement-stabilized inorganic clays/silts, as well as sands as a function of selected soil mix variables, such as grain size distribution, water content, cement content and curing time. A model which can predict the stiffness values of cement-stabilized clays/silts is also developed and compared to the UCS model. The UCS model results emulate known trends better and provide more accurate estimates than the results from the E50 stiffness model. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Development of predictive models for cement stabilized soils

Factors that affect the engineering properties of cement stabilized soils such as strength are discussed in this paper using data on these factors. The selected factors studied in this paper are initial soil water content, grain size distribution, organic matter content, binder dosage, age and curing temperature, which has been collated from a number of international deep mixing projects. Some resulting correlations from this data are discussed and presented. The concept of Artificial Neural Networks and its applicability in developing predictive models for deep mixed soils is presented and discussed using a subset of the collated data. The results from the neural network model were found to emulate the known trends and reasonable estimates of strength as a function of the selected variables were obtained. © 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Glass reinforced glass

Laminated glass units are traditionally used to provide a degree of post-fracture strength, but the residual strength is often limited to relatively low levels suffi cient for holding the glass fragments together for a predetermined amount of time. It is possible to achieve a higher level of residual strength, but this requires specific boundary conditions and/or opaque reinforcing materials. This paper describes the experimental investigations on laminated glass units that can provide a signifi cant degree of post-fracture resistance, without the need of boundary restraints or opaque reinforcing materials. The glass units are composed entirely of combinations of conventional transparent interlayers and commercially available glass (annealed, heat treated and chemically strengthened). The paper also describes an empirical energy based interpretation of the mechanical response of the laminated units.

Strength and drying shrinkage of reactive MgO modified alkali-activated slag paste

Conventional alkali-activated slag (AAS) cements suffer from significant drying shrinkage which hinders their widespread application. This paper investigates the potential of using commercial reactive MgO to reduce the drying shrinkage of AAS. Two different reactive MgOs were added at a content of 2.5-7.5 wt% of the slag, which was activated by sodium hydroxide and water-glass. The strength and the drying shrinkage of those reactive MgO modified AAS (MAAS) pastes were measured up to 90 days. It is found that MgO with high reactivity accelerated the early hydration of AAS, while MgO with medium reactivity had little effect. The drying shrinkage was significantly reduced by highly reactive MgO but it also generated severe cracking under the dry condition. On the other hand, medium-reactive MgO only showed observable shrinkage-reducing effect after one month, but the cement soundness was improved. The hydration products, analysed by X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analysis and scanning electron microscopy techniques, showed that Mg was mainly incorporated in the hydrotalcite-like phases. It is concluded that the curing conditions and the time of hydrotalcite-like phases formation and their quantity are crucial to the developed strength and shrinkage reduction properties of MAAS, which are highly dependent on the reactivity and content of reactive MgO. Crown Copyright © 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Mechanical and fracture properties of cement-based bi-materials after thermal cycling

This study investigates the effect of thermal cycles on the fracture properties of the cement-based bi-materials. Sixty eight cubes were exposed to a varied number of 24-hour thermal cycles ranging from 0 to 90 and subsequently were tested in a wedge splitting configuration. The mechanical and fracture properties of normal strength and high strength concretes are substantially improved after 30 thermal cycles, but less so after 90 thermal cycles both in isolation and when bonded to an ultra high-performance fibre-reinforced cement-based composite. © 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

MgO expansive cement and concrete in China: Past, present and future

Uniquely, China employs MgO already contained in cement clinker or as an expansive additive to compensate for the thermal shrinkage of mass concrete, particularly dam concrete, with almost 40 years' experience in both research activities and industrial applications. Compensating shrinkage with expansion produced by MgO has been proved to effectively prevent thermal cracking of mass concrete, and reduce the cost of temperature control measures and speed up the construction process. Moreover, the expansion properties of MgO could be designed flexibly, through adjusting its microstructure by changing the calcination conditions (calcining temperature and residence time). The collective knowledge and experience of MgO expansive cement and concrete is worthy of sharing with relevant engineers and researchers globally but dissemination has been hindered as most of the relevant literature is published in Chinese. This paper reviews the history, state-of-the-art progress and future research needs in the field of MgO expansive cement and concrete. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.

Enhancing the carbonation of MgO cement porous blocks through improved curing conditions

The use of reactive magnesia (MgO) as the binder in porous blocks demonstrated significant advantages due to its low production temperatures and ability to carbonate, leading to significant strengths. This paper investigates the enhancement of the carbonation process through different curing conditions: water to cement ratio (0.6-0.9), CO2 concentration (5-20%), curing duration (1-7 days), relative humidity (55-98%), and wet/dry cycling frequency (every 0-3 days), improving the carbonation potential through increased amounts of CO2 absorbed and enhanced mechanical performance. UCS results were supported with SEM, XRD, and HCl acid digestion analyses. The results show that CO2 concentrations as low as 5% can produce the required strengths after only 1 day. Drier mixes perform better in shorter curing durations, whereas larger w/c ratios are needed for continuous carbonation. Mixes subjected to 78% RH outperformed all the others, also highlighting the benefits of incorporating wet/dry cycling to induce carbonation. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.

Glass-polymer superlattice for integrated optics

Glass and polymer interstacked superlattice like nanolayers were fabricated by nanosecond-pulsed laser deposition with a 193-nm-ultraviolet laser. The individual layer thickness of this highly transparent thin film could be scaled down to 2 nm, proving a near atomic scale deposition of complex multilayered optical and electronic materials. The layers were selectively doped with Er3\+ and Eu3\+ ions, making it optically active and targeted for integrated sensor application. © The Authors.