Binder melt: Quantification using SEM/EDS and its effects on composite solid propellant combustion

The present study reports the development of a novel technique to quantify binder melt on the surface of the propellant. Non-aluminized AP-HTPB propellants of 86% particulate loading are used to illustrate the technique. Elemental maps of unburnt and extinguished propellant surface are obtained using EDS (Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy). Overlap between the elements is identified and the elemental maps are processed to calculate AP and binder area exposed in unburnt and extinguished samples. The AP area exposed is found to be around 72.3% and 63.3% for unburnt and extinguished samples, respectively, indicating a reduction in AP exposed area with extinguished samples. This has been attributed to the binder melt discussed in literature but never quantified. Simulations have been carried out to analyze and understand the effects of this binder melt. A random packing algorithm is used to simulate propellant packs. Also, a methodology to account for binder melt layer is introduced and is used to capture AP exposed areas. Effect of binder melt in propellants with different solid loading and varying particle size is discussed. It is shown that fine AP particles are more prone to being covered by binder melt than the coarse AP particles. A possible explanation to the behavior of plateau burning propellants observed in literature has been provided through this analysis.     

基于超二次曲面的颗粒材料缓冲性能离散元分析

自然界或工业中普遍是由非球形颗粒组成的复杂体系,与球形颗粒相比,非球形颗粒间的高离散和咬合互锁可使冲击载荷引起的能量有效衰减实现缓冲作用.基于连续函数包络的超二次曲面单元能准确地描述非球形颗粒的几何形态,并可精确地计算单元间的接触碰撞作用.本文采用离散元方法对冲击载荷作用下非球形颗粒物质的缓冲性能进行数值分析,并与圆柱体冲击的理论结果和球体冲击的实验结果进行对比验证.在此基础之上,进一步研究了筒底作用力在不同颗粒层厚度和形状等因素影响下的变化规律.计算结果表明:不同颗粒形状都存在一个临界厚度H_c.当HH_c时,缓冲率随H的增加而增加;当HH_c时,缓冲率的变化不再显著并趋于稳定值.此外,减小颗粒表面尖锐度和增加或减小圆柱形和长方形颗粒的长宽比都会提高颗粒材料的缓冲效果.     

Experimental analysis of interface contact behavior using a novel image processing method

The spatial and temporal evolution of real contact area of contact interface with loads is a challenge. It is generally believed that there is a positive linear correlation between real contact area and normal load. However, with the development of measuring instruments and methods, some scholars have found that the growth rate of real contact area will slow down with the increase of normal load under certain conditions, such as large-scale interface contact with small roughness surface,which is called the nonlinear phenomenon of real contact area. At present, there is no unified conclusion on the explanation of this phenomenon. We set up an experimental apparatus based on the total reflection principle to verify this phenomenon and analyze its mechanism. An image processing method is proposed, which can be used to quantitative analysis micro contact behaviors on macro contact phenomenon. The weighted superposition method is used to identify micro contact spots, to calculate the real contact area, and the color superimposed image is used to identify micro contact behaviors.Based on this method, the spatiotemporal evolution mechanism of real contact area nonlinear phenomena is quantitatively analyzed. Furthermore, the influence of nonlinear phenomenon of real contact area on the whole loading and unloading process is analyzed experimentally. It is found that the effects of fluid between contact interface, normal load amplitude and initial contact state on contact behavior cannot be ignored in large-scale interface contact with small roughness surface.     

Parallel-vector algorithms for particle simulations on shared-memory multiprocessors

Over the last few decades, the computational demands of massive particle-based simulations for both scientific and industrial purposes have been continuously increasing. Hence, considerable efforts are being made to develop parallel computing techniques on various platforms. In such simulations, particles freely move within a given space, and so on a distributed-memory system, load balancing, i.e., assigning an equal number of particles to each processor, is not guaranteed. However, shared-memory systems achieve better load balancing for particle models, but suffer from the intrinsic drawback of memory access competition, particularly during (1) paring of contact candidates from among neighboring particles and (2) force summation for each particle. Here, novel algorithms are proposed to overcome these two problems. For the first problem, the key is a pre-conditioning process during which particle labels are sorted by a cell label in the domain to which the particles belong. Then, a list of contact candidates is constructed by pairing the sorted particle labels. For the latter problem, a table comprising the list indexes of the contact candidate pairs is created and used to sum the contact forces acting on each particle for all contacts according to Newton’s third law. With just these methods, memory access competition is avoided without additional redundant procedures. The parallel efficiency and compatibility of these two algorithms were evaluated in discrete element method (DEM) simulations on four types of shared-memory parallel computers: a multicore multiprocessor computer, scalar supercomputer, vector supercomputer, and graphics processing unit. The computational efficiency of a DEM code was found to be drastically improved with our algorithms on all but the scalar supercomputer. Thus, the developed parallel algorithms are useful on shared-memory parallel computers with sufficient memory bandwidth.     

Fast synchrotron X-ray tomography study of the packing structures of rods with different aspect ratios

We present a fast synchrotron X-ray tomography study of the packing structures of rods with different aspect ratios. Utilizing the high flux of the X-rays generated from the third-generation synchrotron source, we can complete a high- resolution tomography scan within a short period of time, after which the three-dimensional （3D） packing structure can be obtained for the subsequent structural analysis. The image phase-retrieval procedure has been implemented to enhance the image contrast. We systematically investigated the effects of particle shape and aspect ratio on the structural properties including packing density and contact number. It turns out that large aspect ratio rod packings will have wider distributions of free volume fraction and larger mean contact numbers.     

Calibrating a nanoindenter for very shallow depth indentation using equivalent contact radius

Nanoindenter tips are usually modelled as axisymmetric cones, with calibration involving finding a fitting function that relates contact area to contact depth. For accurate calibration of shallow depth indentation, this is not ideal because it means that deeper indents tend to dominate the fitting function. For an axisymmetric object, it is always possible to define an equivalent contact radius (which, in the case, of nanoindentation is linearly related to the reduced modulus) and to obtain a fitting function that relates this equivalent contact radius to indentation depth. The equivalent contact radius approach is used here to provide shallow depth calibration of a nanoindenter tip at three separate times. The advantage of the equivalent contact radius methodology is that it provides a clearer physical interpretation of the changes in tip shape than a conventional area-based fit. We also show that the minimum depth for a reliable hardness measurement is obtainable and increases as the tip blunts with age but that consistent measurements of very near surface elastic moduli can be made if the blunting of the tip over time is fully accounted for in the tip area function calibration.     

An infrared thermal image processing framework based on superpixel algorithm to detect cracks on metal surface

Infrared thermography has been used increasingly as an effective non-destructive technique to detect cracks on metal surface. Due to many factors, infrared thermal image has low definition compared to visible image. The contrasts between cracks and sound areas in different thermal image frames of a specimen vary greatly with the recorded time. An accurate detection can only be obtained by glancing over the whole thermal video, which is a laborious work. Moreover, experience of the operator has a great important influence on the accuracy of detection result. In this paper, an infrared thermal image processing framework based on superpixel algorithm is proposed to accomplish crack detection automatically. Two popular superpixel algorithms are compared and one of them is selected to generate superpixels in this application. Combined features of superpixels were selected from both the raw gray level image and the high-pass filtered image. Fuzzy c-means clustering is used to cluster superpixels in order to segment infrared thermal image. Experimental results show that the proposed framework can recognize cracks on metal surface through infrared thermal image automatically.     

Microstructure characterization of granular materials

This paper presents techniques and algorithms to compute microstructure properties of irregular-shaped granulate assemblies utilizing 3D images. The techniques are capable of extracting microstructure properties of particles such as centeroid, particle size distribution, shape indices (i.e., sphericiy and angularity), number of contacts (i.e., distribution of coordination numbers), contact network, packing efficiency, distribution of local void ratio and radial distribution function. Such properties are critical parameters for micromechanical-based numerical models to capture micro- and macromechanical behavior of geomaterials. X-ray microtomography was used to reconstruct high-resolution 3D image of a natural sand system to represent granular materials. Microstructure properties of the sand system were computed and compared with properties of a computer-simulated image of periodic random spheres. Findings indicate that the use of simplified systems of idealized spheres to model micro- and macromechanical behavior of granular systems can lead to inaccurate results due to the differences in the microstructure between both systems. Methods presented in this paper enabled capturing a more realistic microstructure that can be incorporated in micromechanical models to better simulate, understand, or explain macroscale behavior of granular materials based on their actual microstructure.     

Combined X‐ray diffraction and alpha particle X‐ray spectrometer analysis of geologic materials

The shallow interrogation depth of the lightest elements (Na, Mg, Al, and Si) detected by the particle‐induced X‐ray emission branch of the Curiosity Rover's alpha particle X‐ray spectrometer suggests that the X‐rays of these elements very likely emerge from a single mineral grain. This reality violates the assumption of atomic homogeneity at the micron scale made in both existing spectrum‐reduction approaches for the alpha particle X‐ray spectrometer. Consequently, analytical results for these elements in igneous geochemical reference materials exhibit deviations from certified concentrations in a manner that can be related to the total alkali‐silica diagram. A computer code is introduced here to provide quantitative prediction of these deviations using the mineral abundances determined from X‐ray diffraction. The latter are converted to area coverage fractions to represent the sample surface, and a fundamental parameters computation predicts the elemental X‐ray yields from each mineral and sums these. In this process, the chemistry of each individual mineral has to be varied by an iterative simplex approach; X‐ray yields are computed and compared with the peak areas from the fit of the bulk sample. When the difference between mineral yields and peak areas for each element are minimized, the mineral formulae are set and elemental X‐ray yields provided. The ratio between the summed mineral X‐ray yields and the corresponding yields based on the homogeneity assumption may then be compared directly with the concentration deviations measured in our earlier work. For several rock types, good agreement is found, thereby consolidating our understanding of the effects of sample mineralogy on alpha particle X‐ray spectrometer results. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A coarse-to-fine kernel matching approach for mean-shift based visual tracking

Mean shift is an efficient pattern match algorithm. It is widely used in visual tracking fields since it need not perform whole search in the image space. It employs gradient optimization method to reduce the time of feature matching and realize rapid object localization, and uses Bhattacharyya coefficient as the similarity measure between object template and candidate template. This thesis presents a mean shift algorithm based on coarse-to-fine search for the best kernel matching. This paper researches for object tracking with large motion area based on mean shift. To realize efficient tracking of such an object, we present a kernel matching method from coarseness to fine. If the motion areas of the object between two frames are very large and they are not overlapped in image space, then the traditional mean shift method can only obtain local optimal value by iterative computing in the old object window area, so the real tracking position cannot be obtained and the object tracking will be disabled. Our proposed algorithm can efficiently use a similarity measure function to realize the rough location of motion object, then use mean shift method to obtain the accurate local optimal value by iterative computing, which successfully realizes object tracking with large motion. Experimental results show its good performance in accuracy and speed when compared with background-weighted histogram algorithm in the literature.     

溶液液滴蒸发变干的环状沉积

液体蒸发驱动的颗粒自组装现象在许多的工业技术中有重要应用. 本文利用显微镜观测含有颗粒物质的液滴变干后留在固体表面的颗粒形成的环状沉积图案. 采用微米粒径的SiO₂小球水溶液液滴蒸发变干模拟咖啡环的形成过程, 结果发现液滴蒸发过程中接触线的钉扎是环状沉积的必要条件. 在液滴蒸发过程中颗粒随着补偿流不断的向液滴边缘移动, 聚集在接触线处形成环. 液滴蒸发变干后残留在液滴内部的颗粒数随颗粒质量分数的增加而增加, 可以达到单层的颗粒排列. 而玻璃衬底上的颗粒环在颗粒质量分数很小时, 形成单层排列, 且一排一排地生长. 蒸发过程中颗粒环由于液滴边缘的尺寸限制向液滴中心缓慢移动. 这会导致液滴中不同大小颗粒的分离. 关键词： 液滴 接触线 蒸发 颗粒     

Morphology of Nanostructured Films for Environmental Applications: Simulation of Simultaneous Sintering and Growth

A sequential Brownian dynamics approach was used to establish the morphological evolution of a nanostructured particle deposit accounting for random diffusion, particle–particle and particle–surface interactions through van der Waals forces, and sintering of deposited particles. Monodisperse (30nm radius) titanium dioxide particles were used in the simulations. A linear sintering law rate expression was used to account for the decrease in total surface area of the deposit. Characteristics such as packing thickness, total surface area, and fractal dimension are reported as a function of time during the deposition process. Sintering resulted in higher fractal dimensions (as defined) for the deposits, and elevated temperatures resulted in more compact deposits.     

Conversion from phase map to coordinate: Comparison among spatial carrier, Fourier transform, and phase shifting methods

For full-field phase measurement methods, many algorithms have been developed to extract a phase map from fringe image(s). Both phase wrapping and unwrapping algorithms have been extensively investigated by many researchers, but few papers can be found on how to calculate the coordinates of surface points from a phase map. This paper focuses on algorithms that show how a phase map can be used to calculate coordinates. Details are given for single image methods such as Fourier transform, spatial carrier methods, and multiple image methods like traditional phase-shifting methods. Algorithms that can be used to convert a phase map to coordinates and some issues related to these conversion algorithms are discussed. An artifact is measured using these phase measurement methods. The results show that using the correct algorithm to convert a phase map to coordinates is a key to obtaining accurate measurement results.     

A Hybrid Rao-NM Algorithm for Image Template Matching

This paper proposes a hybrid Rao-Nelder–Mead (Rao-NM) algorithm for image template matching is proposed. The developed algorithm incorporates the Rao-1 algorithm and NM algorithm serially. Thus, the powerful global search capability of the Rao-1 algorithm and local search capability of NM algorithm is fully exploited. It can quickly and accurately search for the high-quality optimal solution on the basis of ensuring global convergence. The computing time is highly reduced, while the matching accuracy is significantly improved. Four commonly applied optimization problems and three image datasets are employed to assess the performance of the proposed method. Meanwhile, three commonly used algorithms, including generic Rao-1 algorithm, particle swarm optimization (PSO), genetic algorithm (GA), are considered as benchmarking algorithms. The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective and efficient in solving image matching problems.     

多模跟踪技术在轮式侦察车图像处理器的应用

为解决目标旋转形变、遮挡、光照变化等目标跟踪的难题,对粒子滤波和尺度不变特征变换（SIFT）算法进行了改进,结合两种算法提出了决策主导模式的多模跟踪技术。该技术采用粒子滤波预测目标位置进行粗定位,SIFT特征匹配进行精定位的方法,在解决上述难题上有很好的鲁棒性。将该技术应用于轮式侦察车图像处理器,并进行了各种实验验证,结果证明了提出算法的有效性。     

Relationship between the real contact area and contact force in pre-sliding regime

The pre-sliding regime is typically neglected in the dynamic modelling of mechanical systems. However, the change in contact state caused by static friction may decrease positional accuracy and control precision. To investigate the relationship between contact status and contact force in pre-sliding friction, an optical experimental method is presented in this paper.With this method, the real contact state at the interface of a transparent material can be observed based on the total reflection principle of light by using an image processing technique. A novel setup, which includes a pair of rectangular trapezoidal blocks, is proposed to solve the challenging issue of accurately applying different tangential and normal forces to the contact interface. The improved Otsu's method is used for measurement. Through an experimental study performed on polymethyl methacrylate(PMMA), the quantity of contact asperities is proven to be the dominant factor that affects the real contact area. The relationship between the real contact area and the contact force in the pre-sliding regime is studied, and the distribution of static friction at the contact interface is qualitatively discussed. New phenomena in which the real contact area expands along with increasing static friction are identified. The aforementioned relationship is approximately linear at the contact interface under a constant normal pressure, and the distribution of friction stress decreases from the leading edge to the trailing edge.     

Physics of Radio-Frequency Plasmas,by Pascal Chabert and Nicholas Braithwaite

The mechanism whereby powders may be compressed to form solid objects is not properly understood, largely because, until recently, the process has not been studied by sufficiently powerful techniques. This paper describes a number of techniques developed for a detailed study of powder compaction. Methods for measuring specific surface areas of powders and powder compacts, and hence the areas of contact between the particles, are discussed and reasons for selecting an adsorption method are explained. A gas adsorption apparatus capable of determining very small specific surface areas is described, as is the use of the scanning electron microscope. Both techniques were used to investigate particle fracture during compaction. In addition the study of pore size gives valuable insight into the movement of particle fragments once they have been produced. The use of mercury porosimetry in this connection is described.     

Droplet Size Distribution and Sphericity Measurements of Low‐Density Sprays Through Image Analysis

An image analysis technique has been developed in order to determine the drop size distributions of sprays produced by low‐velocity plain cylindrical jets. The particle sizing method is based on incoherent backlight images. Each drop is analyzed individually in the image. The two‐dimensional image resulting from the projection of the three‐dimensional object shape (the drop) on a screen (the video sensor surface) is modeled. The model, based on the point spread function formulation, has been developed to derive a relation between contrast and relative width of individual drops. This relation is used to extend the domain of validity of drop size in terms of size range, out of focus and image resolution. The shape parameter is determined for each drop image through morphological analysis. Spherical and non‐spherical droplets are then sorted on the basis of this parameter. Non‐spherical drops are regarded as non‐fully atomized liquid bulks or coalesced drops. Finally, the droplet size distribution of true spherical droplets is established for a low‐velocity plain cylindrical liquid jet.     

Three-dimensional clogging structures of granular spheres near hopper orifice

The characteristic clogging structures of granular spheres blocking three-dimensional granular flow through hopper outlet are analyzed based on packing structures reconstructed using magnetic resonance imaging techniques.Spheres in clogging structures are arranged in a way with typical features of load-bearing,such as more contacting bonds close to the horizontal plane and more mutually-stabilized contact configurations than packing structures away from the orifice.The requirement of load-bearing inevitably leads to the cooperativity of clogging structures with a correlation length of several particle diameters.This correlation length being comparable with the orifice diameter suggests that a clogging structure is composed of several mutually-stabilized structural motifs to span the orifice perimeter,instead of a collection of independent individual spheres to cover the whole orifice area.Accordingly,we propose a simple geometric model to explain the unexpected linear dependence of the average size of three-dimensional clogging structures on orifice diameter.     

Influence of the long-range forces in non-Gaussian random-packing dynamics

In this paper, we perform molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study the random packing of spheres with different particle size distributions. In particular, we deal with non-Gaussian distributions by means of the Lévy distributions. The initial positions as well as the radii of five thousand non-overlapping particles are assigned inside a confining rectangular box. After that, the system is allowed to settle under gravity towards the bottom of the box. Both the translational and rotational movements of each particle are considered in the simulations. In order to deal with interacting particles, we take into account both the contact and long-range cohesive forces. The normal viscoelastic force is calculated according to the nonlinear Hertz model, whereas the tangential force is calculated through an accurate nonlinear-spring model. Assuming a molecular approach, we account for the long-range cohesive forces using a Lennard-Jones (LJ)-like potential. The packing processes are studied assuming different long-range interaction strengths.