Natural and artificial weathering characteristics of stabilized acrylic–urethane paints

Depth-profiling by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), microhardness and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations have been used to monitor degradation chemistries in two-package acrylic–urethane coatings when exposed to different exposure conditions. Three artificial and three natural weathering protocols (QUV, ASTM D5894, ISO20340, Pipady (south of France), Bandol (south of France) and Kure Beach (USA)) were selected for this study. The same chemical events were found to occur under all conditions, particularly under natural and artificial exposures. Both loss of the amide II band at 1520 cm⁻¹ and carbonyl growth occurred but at relatively low rate owing to the presence of hindered-amine light stabilizers in the film. A less typical loss of urea biuret linkages also occurs during all exposures and results in a change in the balance between urethane and urea links across the depth of the film during weathering. The chemical degradation of the polymer matrix involves the formation of species that are readily ablated from the surface and results in loss of gloss, increase in hardness and a rougher topology. The dramatic loss of gloss observed after Pipady and Bandol exposures show that loss of gloss should not be systematically correlated to the advance in chemical degradation.     

Mathematical modelling of influence functions in computer-controlled polishing: Part I

Computer-controlled polishing (CCP) is commonly used to finish high-quality surfaces, such as optical lenses. Based on magnetorheological finishing (MRF), a mathematical model to calculate the polishing tool characteristic (influence function) was developed and verified experimentally. The first part of this paper introduces the model to predict the size and shape of an influence function. The second part of this paper describes the calculation of the distribution of material removal within the size of an influence function. The model supersedes the current cumbersome procedure for determining an influence function and thus results in considerably improved and more economical manufacture. Furthermore, the model enables the quality of the final surface to be enhanced when polishing complex, for example aspherical or free-form, workpiece geometries and provides the first step in the application of time-variant influence functions.     

Microdroplet size prediction in microfluidic systems via artificial neural network modeling for water-in-oil emulsion formulation

In this paper, an experimental study and modeling by artificial neural networks were carried out to predict the generated microdroplet dimensionless size in a microfluidic system in order to formulate a water-in-oil emulsion. The various parameters that affect the size of microdroplets (flow rates, viscosities, surface tensions of both the two phases and the diameter of the microchannel) are studied and further grouped into dimensionless numbers; we used these numbers as input to the neural network and the dimensionless length as output. The better neural network architecture has 10 neurons in the hidden layer with a mean square error of 1.4 10^?6 and a determination’s coefficient near 1 value. The relative importance of inputs on the size of the microdroplets has been determined using the Garson algorithm and the results are in good agreement with other works.     

三峡库区大石板滑坡区排水系统效果评估

结合三峡库区大石板滑坡工程实例 ,以连续 36天的降雨过程为条件 ,利用已有的地下水位观测资料 ,采用人工神经网络方法预测滑坡内地下水位在排水工程实施前后的变化 ,以此作为非饱和—饱和—非衡定地下渗流计算的特定水头边界。根据计算的地下水位进行滑坡稳定性分析 ,结合稳定分析成果对排水系统工程的效果进行评价。结果表明 ,地下排水工程的实施可较大幅度地提高滑坡的稳定性。     

The artificial binaphthyl amino acid 6-amino-6′-carboxyethyl-2-methoxy-2′-hydroxy-1,1′-binaphthyl (Bna): synthesis and assembly of Bna peptides

The new binaphthyl-based amino acid 6-amino-6′-carboxyethyl-2-methoxy-2′-hydroxy-1,1′-binaphthyl (Bna) is presented, which combines the axially chiral binaphthyl core, a phenolic OH-group as well as terminating amino and carboxyl groups in one structure. The large aromatic rings of the compound provide molecular spacing and π-surface attraction in assembled Bna oligoamides. The synthesis of Bna derivatives is reported, both with the (R)- and with the (S)-binaphthyl skeleton. Several dipeptides of (R)- or (S)-Bna units combined with natural amino acids, were prepared as ‘building blocks’ for the synthesis of extended Bna peptides. The tetrapeptide Boc-(S)-Val-(S)-Bna(OH)-(S)-Val-(S)-Bna(OPiv)-O-n-But (12) and the pentapeptide Boc-(S)-Val-(S)-Bna(OH)-(S)-Val-(S)-Bna(OH)-Gly-OH (13) were prepared via conventional solution phase synthesis and solid phase synthetic techniques, respectively. Compound 12 shows an interesting dynamic ¹H NMR spectrum suggesting compact and aggregated forms in dichloromethane. Compound 13 accelerates the enolisation of acetone. The use of more complex Bna peptides as organo catalysts is proposed.     

Synthesis of oligo(p-phenylene)-linked dyads containing free base, zinc(II) or thallium(III) porphyrins for studies in artificial photosynthesis

A series of (p-phenylene)_n-linked meso-mesityl-substituted porphyrin dyads (n=2-4) was prepared via Suzuki coupling of zinc(II) and free base porphyrin building blocks. The resulting zinc(II)/free base porphyrin dyads were demetalated. The series of free base porphyrin dimers (n=1-4), four other porphyrin dimers (with p-phenylene, diphenylethyne or diphenylbutadiyne linkers; and aryl or tridec-7-yl meso substituents), and several benchmark monomers were converted to the thallium(III)chloride complexes under mild conditions. The collection of eight Tl(III)Cl/Tl(III)Cl dimers is designed for studies of ground-state hole-transfer processes and comparison with the excited-state energy- and hole-transfer processes of the corresponding Zn(II)/free base dyads. Altogether, 18 new porphyrin arrays and benchmark monomers have been prepared.     

Mass deacidification and reinforcement of papers and books VI - Study of aminopropylmethyldiethoxysilane treated papers

In libraries and archives some of the items which, upon ageing, have acidified considerably since their production are so brittle that they cannot be handled without risking loss of material. In contrast to current deacidification processes, aminoalkylakoxysilanes (AAAS) improve the mechanical properties of paper. A simple AAAS, aminopropylmethyldiethoxysilane (AMDES) was used as a model to better understand previous observations made on these systems (hydrolysis, condensation and possible reactions with the organic substrate). The evaluation of the mechanical properties of papers that were treated with AMDES showed that there was no formation of a polymer network on the fibres’ surface. However, treated papers not only exhibited a high alkaline reserve, but also a significant increase in both their tensile breaking length and their folding endurance. Treatment of hygrothermally aged papers with AMDES provided improved folding endurance as well as a good resistance to ageing. Various oxidation treatments of the model papers using sodium hypochlorite led to the conclusion that the nature of the oxidised groups formed on cellulose did not seem to play a significant role in the strengthening mechanism but rather that this effect of AMDES mainly arose from hydrogen bonding between the two molecules.     

去甲氯胺酮半抗原及其全抗原的合成与鉴定

在低温条件下,去甲氯胺酮与琥珀醛酸反应,合成了半抗原羧基-去甲氯胺酮,电喷雾质谱鉴定结果表明,目标半抗原合成成功;通过碳二亚胺法将半抗原与载体蛋白偶联制备人工抗原,红外光谱法鉴定结果表明,人工抗原合成成功,基质辅助激光解析电离飞行时间质谱鉴定表明去甲氯胺酮半抗原与牛血清白蛋白的偶联比为11:1。经动物免疫,获得高效价特异性多克隆抗体,抗血清效价可达5.12×104。     

Artificial boundary conditions for the numerical solution of the Euler equations by the discontinuous galerkin method

We present artificial boundary conditions for the numerical simulation of compressible flows using high-order accurate discretizations with the discontinuous Galerkin (DG) finite element method. The construction of the proposed boundary conditions is based on characteristic analysis and applied for boundaries with arbitrary shape and orientation. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed boundary treatment enables to convect out of the computational domain complex flow features with little distortion. In addition, it is shown that small-amplitude acoustic disturbances could be convected out of the computational domain, with no significant deterioration of the overall accuracy of the method. Furthermore, it was found that application of the proposed boundary treatment for viscous flow over a cylinder yields superior performance compared to simple extrapolation methods.     

Geometry effect on the magnetic ordering of geometrically frustrated rectangular and triangular magnets

We investigate the effect of geometry on the ground-state ordering of artificially frustrated magnetic rectangular and triangular lattices by Monte Carlo method. By varying the vertical lattice spacing while keeping the horizontal one fixed, we show that when the ratio of vertical to horizontal lattice spacing, labeled by η, is less than 1.82, the ground state of the rectangular lattice presents long-range antiferromagnetic order and for η?1.82 the ground state changes to long-range mixed ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic order. For the frustrated triangular lattice, the short-range ordered state as well as two long-range ordered ground states occurs transiently at η=0.87 and 2, where the energies of the two ground states with long-range order are approximately equal. In addition, the level of frustration of both frustrated lattices is found to be largely relevant to the ratio η.