Thermodynamic simulation of the effect of slag chemistry on the corrosion behavior of alumina–chromia refractory

The corrosion behavior of alumina–chromia refractory against two kinds of industrial slags (coal slag and iron smelting slag) at 1550°C was investigated via thermodynamic simulations. In the proposed simulation model, the initial slag first attacks the matrix and surface aggregates and subsequently attacks the inner aggregates. The simulation results indicate that the slag chemistry strongly affects the phase formation and corrosion behavior of the refractory brick. Greater amounts of alumina were dissolved and spinel solid phases formed when the brick interacted with iron smelting slag. These phenomena, as well as the calculated lower viscosity, may lead to much deeper penetration than that exhibited by coal slag and to more severe corrosion compared to that induced by coal slag. The thermodynamic calculations well match the experimental observations, demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed simulation model for evaluating the corrosion behavior of alumina–chromia refractory.     

Effect of SrCO<Subscript>3</Subscript> addition on the dynamic compressive strength of ZTA

Ceramic parts usually experience dynamic load in armor applications. Therefore, studying the dynamic behaviors of ceramics is important. Limited data are available on the dynamic behaviors of ceramics; thus, it is helpful to predict the dynamic strength of ceramics on the basis of their mechanical properties. In this paper, the addition of SrCO₃ into zirconia-toughened alumina (ZTA) was demonstrated to improve the fracture toughness of ZTA due to the formation of the SrAl₁₂O₁₉ (SA6) phase. The porosity of ZTA was found to be increased by the addition of SrCO₃. These newly formed pores served as the nucleation sites of cracks under dynamic load; these cracks eventually coalesced to form damaged zones in the samples. Although the K IC values of the samples were improved, the dynamic strength was not enhanced because of the increase in porosity; in fact, the dynamic strength of ZTA ceramics decreased with the addition of SrCO₃.     

Large scale production of carbon nanotube arrays on the sphere surface from liquefied petroleum gas at low cost

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a cheap industrial material, is used as carbon source to produce carbon nanotube (CNT) arrays on ceramic spherical surface on a large scale in the floating catalyst process. The ceramic spheres provide huge surface area and good mobility, leading to the mass production of CNT arrays continuously. The arrays obtained from the surface are of good alignment, and the purity is as high as 97.5%. With the decrease of the growth temperature, CNTs in the array form with small-diameter of about 13 nm can be obtained. Therefore, with the industrial fuel as carbon source and the ceramic sphere as substrate, CNT arrays can easily be produced on large scale at low cost.     

GROUP-BUYING ONLINE AUCTION AND OPTIMAL INVENTORY POLICY IN UNCERTAIN MARKET

In this paper we consider a group-buying online auction (GBA) model for a monopolistic manufacturer selling novel products in the uncertain market. Firstly, we introduce the bidder's dominant strategy, after which we optimize the GBA price curve and the production volume together. Finally, we compare the GBA with the traditional posted pricing mechanism and find that the GBA is highly probable to be advantageous over the posted pricing mechanism in some appropriate market environments.     

Batching Scheduling in a Two-Level Supply Chain with Earliness and Tardiness Penalties

This paper studies the batch sizing scheduling problem with earliness and tardiness penalties which is closely related to a two-level supply chain problem. In the problem, there are K customer orders, where each customer order consisting of some unit length jobs has a due date. The jobs are processed in a common machine and then delivered to their customers in batches, where the size of each batch has upper and lower bounds and each batch may incur a fixed setup cost which can also be considered a fixed delivery cost. The goal is to find a schedule which minimizes the sum of the earliness and tardiness costs and the setup costs incurred by creating a new batch. The authors first present some structural properties of the optimal schedules for single-order problem with an additional assumption (a): The jobs are consecutively processed from time zero. Based on these properties, the authors give a polynomial-time algorithm for single-order problem with Assumption (a). Then the authors give dynamic programming algorithms for some special cases of multiple-order problem with Assumption (a). At last, the authors present some structural properties of the optimal schedules for single-order problem without Assumption (a) and give a polynomial-time algorithm for it.     

Orthogonal Arrays Robust to a Specified Set of Nonnegligible Effects

This paper considers experimental situations where the interested effects have to be orthogonal to a set of nonnegligible effects.It is shown that various types of orthogonal arrays with mixed strength are A-optimal for estimating the parameters in ANOVA high dimension model representation.Both cases including interactions or not are considered in the model.In particularly,the estimations of all main effects are A-optimal in a mixed strength(2,2)_3 orthogonal array and the estimations of all main effects and two-factor interactions in G_1×G_2 are A-optimal in a mixed strength(2,2)_4 orthogonal array.The properties are also illustrated through a simulation study.     

Approximating the Spectral Abscissa for Switched Linear Systems via Coordinate Transformations

In this paper,an approach of square coordinate transformation is proposed to approximate the spectral abscissa for continuous-time switched linear systems.By applying elementary transformations iteratively,a series of minimums of least μ1 matrix set measures are obtained,which are utilized to approximate the spectral abscissa of the switched system.The approach is developed into tractable numerical algorithms that provide upper bound estimates of the spectral abscissa.Numerical simulations show the effectiveness of the proposed method.     

Empirical likelihood for partially linear models under negatively associated errors

This paper proposes to use the blockwise empirical likelihood(EL) method to construct the confidence regions for the regression vector β in a partially linear model under negatively associated errors. It is shown that the blockwise EL ratio statistic for β is asymptotically χ~2 distributed. The result is used to obtain an EL-based confidence region for β. Results of a simulation study on the finite sample performance of the proposed confidence regions are reported.     

The equivalent representation of the breadth-one <Emphasis Type="Italic">D</Emphasis>-invariant polynomial subspace and its discretization

This paper demonstrates the equivalence of two classes of D-invariant polynomial subspaces, i.e., these two classes of subspaces are different representations of the breadth-one D-invariant subspace. Moreover, the authors solve the discrete approximation problem in ideal interpolation for the breadth-one D-invariant subspace. Namely, the authors find the points, such that the limiting space of the evaluation functionals at these points is the functional space induced by the given D-invariant subspace, as the evaluation points all coalesce at one point.     

Objective Bayesian analysis of degradation model with respect to a Wiener process

This paper proposes an objective Bayesian method to study the degradation model with respect to a Wiener process. The Jeffreys prior and reference prior for the parameters are derived, and the propriety of the posteriors under these priors is validated. Two sampling algorithms are introduced to compute the posteriors. A simulation study is conducted to investigate the performance of the objective Bayesian procedure. Finally, the authors apply the approach to a degradation data.