Teeming stream protection using an argon shroud during casting of steel ingots

Two kinds of argon shroud protection devices with two different basic structures were designed and investigated. Industrial experiments and numerical simulations were used to examine the protection effect, and the mechanism of air entrapment during the casting of steel ingots was analyzed. The influence of the structure of the argon shroud protection device on the protection effect was investigated. An argon shroud protection device mounted to the nozzle holder on the bottom of the ladle does not provide a good protection effect because air can easily flow into the teeming system and cause reoxidation of molten steel during teeming. By contrast, an argon shroud protection device seated on the top of the central trumpet provides an excellent protection effect, where air has little chance of flowing into the teeming system during casting. The feasibilities of the argon shroud protection devices are discussed.     

Condition-Based Spare Ordering Model for a Two-Stage Degrading System

Proper supply of spares is critical to guarantee safe operation,improve service quality and reduce maintenance costs.This paper proposes a condition-based spare ordering model for a two-stage degrading system,which consists of inflection point transfer process and two-stage degradation process with continuous degradation process and random external shocks.External shocks itself does not directly lead to system failure,but it will speed up the degradation process.In turn,degradation can also make the system more vulnerable to shocks.In general,the degradation rate at the defective stage is greater than that at the normal stage.The proposed model depends on system degradation process and spare lead-time.In order to achieve accurate maintenance and deal with emergency maintenance caused by system rapid degradation after inflection point transfer time,the model considers both the regular lead-time and expedited lead-time.Before inflection point transfer time,regular spare ordering policy is performed.After inflection point transfer time,expedited spare ordering policy is implemented.The decision variable of the model is the ordering time.The objective of this study is to determine the optimal ordering time such that the expected cost rate is minimized.Finally,a numerical example is presented to illustrate the proposed model and sensitivity analysis on critical parameters is carried out.     

Thickness-related synchronous increase in strength and ductility of ultrafine-grained pure aluminum sheets

To explore the specimen size effect of mechanical behavior of ultrafine-grained (UFG) materials with different structures, UFG Al sheets processed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) were selected as target materials and the dependency of tensile behavior on sheet thickness (t) was systematically investigated. The strength and ductility of ECAPed UFG Al sheets were improved synchronously as t increased from 0.2 to 0.7 mm, and then no apparent change occurred when t reached to 0.7 and 1.0 mm. The corresponding microstructure evolved from dislocation networks in equiaxed grains into the walls and subgrains and finally into the dominated cells in elongated grains or subgrains. Meanwhile, dense shear lines (SLs) and shear bands (SBs) were clearly observed and microvoids and cracks were initiated along SBs with the increase of t. These observations indicated that the plastic deformation of UFG Al sheets was jointly controlled by shear banding, dislocation sliding, and grain-boundary sliding. Furthermore, the propagation of SBs became difficult as t increased. Finally, the obtained results were discussed and compared with those of annealed UFG Al and UFG Cu.     

Effects of TiC on the microstructure and formation of acicular ferrite in ferritic stainless steel

The formation mechanism of acicular ferrite and its microstructural characteristics in 430 ferrite stainless steel with TiC additions were studied by theory and experiment. Using an edge-to-edge matching model, a 5.25 mismatch between TiC (FCC structure) and ferritic stainless steel (BCC structure) was identified, which met the mismatch requirement for the heterogeneous nucleation of 430 ferritic stainless steel. TiC was found to be an effective nucleation site for the formation of acicular ferrite in a smelting experiment, as analyzed by metallographic examination, Image-Pro Plus 6.0 analysis software, and SEM-EDS. Furthermore, small inclusions in the size of 2-4 μm increased the probability of acicular ferrite nucleation, and the secondary acicular ferrite would grow sympathetically from the initial acicular ferrite to produce multi-dimensional acicular ferrites. Moreover, the addition of TiC can increase the average microstrain and dislocation density of 430 ferrite stainless steel, as calculated by Williamson-Hall (WH) method, which could play some role in strengthening the dislocation.     

Microstructure and mechanical properties of railway wheels manufactured with low-medium carbon Si-Mn-Mo-V steel

The suitability of carbide-free bainite steel as railway wheel materials was investigated. The low-medium carbon Si-Mn-Mo-V steel was designed to make railway wheels by forging and rolling. The slack quenching with water was conducted on the tread of rim section by programmed control to simulate isothermal heat treatment after being austenitized. Microstructures and mechanical properties have been studied. The results indicate that the microstructure of the rim is mainly carbide-free bainite, and the mixed microstructure of bainitic ferrite and granular bainite is observed in web and hub. The mechanical properties are superior to both the standard requirements and the commercial production, such as CL60 plain carbon. The Charpy impact energy is relatively high at room and/or subzero temperatures. The force-displacement curves and fractographies reveal the excellent ability of resistance to crack initiation and propagation.     

Metagenomic and functional analysis of hindgut microbiota of a wood-feeding higher termite

From the standpoints of both basic research and biotechnology, there is considerable interest in reaching a clearer understanding of the diversity of biological mechanisms employed during lignocellulose degradation. Globally, termites are an extremely successful group of wood-degrading organisms and are therefore important both for their roles in carbon turnover in the environment and as potential sources of biochemical catalysts for efforts aimed at converting wood into biofuels. Only recently have data supported any direct role for the symbiotic bacteria in the gut of the termite in cellulose and xylan hydrolysis. Here we use a metagenomic analysis of the bacterial community resident in the hindgut paunch of a wood-feeding 'higher' Nasutitermes species (which do not contain cellulose-fermenting protozoa) to show the presence of a large, diverse set of bacterial genes for cellulose and xylan hydrolysis. Many of these genes were expressed in vivo or had cellulase activity in vitro, and further analyses implicate spirochete and fibrobacter species in gut lignocellulose degradation. New insights into other important symbiotic functions including H2 metabolism, CO2-reductive acetogenesis and N2 fixation are also provided by this first system-wide gene analysis of a microbial community specialized towards plant lignocellulose degradation. Our results underscore how complex even a 1-microl environment can be.     

A novel process for comprehensive utilization of vanadium slag

Traditional processes for treating vanadium slag generate a huge volume of solid residue and a large amount of harmful gas, which cause serious environmental problems. In this study, a new process for the comprehensive utilization of vanadium slag was proposed, wherein zeolite A and a V₂O₅/TiO₂ system were synthesized. The structural properties of the as-synthesized zeolite A and the V₂O₅/TiO₂ system were characterized using various experimental techniques, including X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, and infrared spectroscopy. The results reveal that zeolite A and the V₂O₅/TiO₂ system are successfully obtained with high purity. The results of gas adsorption measurements indicate that the prepared zeolite A exhibits high selectivity for CO₂ over N₂ and is a candidate material for CO₂ capture from flue-gas streams.     

Forming mechanism of ink layer on the printing plate in inking process and influencing factors of its thickness

Ink layer thickness on the printing plate greatly influences uniformity of ink transferred to the substrates , which is an important indicator of printing quality , so the study of ink layer and its thick-ness is important for improving the quality of printing products .Ansys CFX is used here to build a model of ink fluid adhering to lower vibrator roller , form inking roller , and printing plate for analy-zing ink transferring in inking process .Ink layer thickness on each position of the model is acquired to analyze the forming mechanism of ink layer on printing plate , as well as the influence of oscilla-tion speed of lower vibrator roller and dot area percentage of plate on ink layer thickness of printing plate.It can be concluded that , in the case of fixed ink supplying amount , ink layer thickness in-creases along with the increasing of oscillation speed , and decreases when the dot area percentage is getting larger and the minimum is got when the dot area percentage is 100%.At last , experiment of plate inking on print ability tester verifies the correctness of the simulation analysis .     

Studies of world carbon fiber industry from a perspective of patent analysis

Patents are the manifestation of the industry R&D endeavor;therefore, World carbon fiber in-dustry from the perspective of patent analysis is studied .Findings from the analysis show a continual increase of carbon fibers patents since 1969 , and the growth rate began even faster after the year of 2005.Five countries (Japan, China, US, Germany and Korea) took dominant positions in global carbon fibers R&D , and the sum of patents applied in these five countries accounted for 80%of the total patents in the world .Corporations do play an active role in global carbon fibers R&D , and over 60%of patents were applied by corporations .Among them , the top 3 corporations were all from Ja-pan, which had much more patents than the other patent assignees .Furthermore, most corporations were not active in cooperation with others , except Toyota Motor Corp .Global carbon fibers R&D fo-cused on sheet manufacture cloth , core wire layer , heat connect provide and filter activated draw . And there is big difference between Japan and China in the R&D focus .China ’ s corporations have exhibited rapid growth in the number of patent applications in recent years , but there is still a large gap between China and foreign countries in view of global patent layout and influence .By providing the insight into the evolution of global carbon fibers industrial and technological development through the perspective of patent analysis , this study hopes to provide an objective statistic reference for fu-ture policy directions and academic researches .     

A survey of occlusion detection method for visual object

Occlusion problem is one of the challenging issues in vision field for a long time , and the occlu-sion phenomenon of visual object will be involved in many vision research fields .Once the occlusion occurs in a visual system , it will affect the effects of object recognition , tracking, observation and operation , so detecting occlusion autonomously should be one of the abilities for an intelligent vision system .The research on occlusion detection method for visual object has increasingly attracted atten-tions of scholars .First, the definition and classification of the occlusion problem are presented . Then, the characteristics and deficiencies of the occlusion detection methods based on the intensity image and the depth image are analyzed respectively , and the existing occlusion detection methods are compared.Finally, the problems of existing occlusion detection methods and possible research directions are pointed out .