Low velocity impact response of flax/polypropylene hybrid roving based woven fabric composites: Where does it stand with respect to GRPC?

Flax-PP based thermally bonded roving (TBR) has a unique structure where the flax fibres remain twist-free and fully aligned along the roving axis. The present study describes an experimental investigation on the low velocity impact (LVI) behaviour of the TBR based woven fabric composites and compares the same with plain woven glass fabric reinforced PP composites (GRPC). Two different fabric architectures namely plain woven (PW) and unidirectional (UD) are fabricated using flax/PP based TBR. These TBR based woven fabrics and the glass fabric/PP sheets are consolidated in a compression moulding machine and the resultant composite-laminates are tested for their LVI behaviour. The impact test results revealed that the glass/PP composites absorb more energy and exhibit a higher peak load than both TBR based PW and UD fabric composites. However, the specific load and energy of all flax/PP composites are higher than the glass/PP composite. The damage tolerance of all composite laminates are evaluated by comparing their flexural strength before and after the impact. It is observed that the proportionate loss in flexural strength due to impact thrust is larger in case of glass/PP composites than all flax-PP composites.     

Electrochemical Oxidative Determination and Electrochemical Behavior of 4‐Nitrophenol Based on an Au Electrode Modified with Electro‐polymerized 3,5‐Diamino‐1,2,4‐triazole Film

A simple and fast electrochemical method was described and evaluated to determine the hazardous compound, 4‐nitrophenol (4NP). In this work, concentration of 4NP was determined by differential wave voltammetry (DPV). A gold electrode (Au) was modified with 3,5‐diamino‐1,2,4‐triazole (35DT). The modified electrode (35DT‐Au) was characterized by using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), fouirer transform infrared spektrofotometre (FTIR), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and DPV. The modified electrode showed more sensitivity towards 4NP compared to unmodified one. A wide linear concentration range from 0.24 to 130.6 μM was obtained for 4NP with a detection limit of 0.09 μM. In the reproducibility and repeatability studies, the relative standard deviation (RSD%) values of the method were obtained as 3.72 % and 2.56 %, respectively, which are acceptable values. This proposed method was successfully used for the analysis of 4NP in lake and tap water samples. Simplicity, sensitivity, selectivity and high efficiency of the proposed method can be used in routine analysis of trace amounts of 4NP in polluted waters.     

Multivalent ions and biomolecules: Attempting a comprehensive perspective

Ions are ubiquitous in nature. They play a key role for many biological processes on the molecular scale, from molecular interactions, to mechanical properties, to folding, to self-organisation and assembly, to reaction equilibria, to signalling, to energy and material transport, to recognition etc. Going beyond monovalent ions to multivalent ions, the effects of the ions are frequently not only stronger (due to the obviously higher charge), but qualitatively different. A typical example is the process of binding of multivalent ions, such as Ca²⁺, to a macromolecule and the consequences of this ion binding such as compaction, collapse, potential charge inversion and precipitation of the macromolecule. Here we review these effects and phenomena induced by multivalent ions for biological (macro)molecules, from the “atomistic/molecular” local picture of (potentially specific) interactions to the more global picture of phase behaviour including, e. g., crystallisation, phase separation, oligomerisation etc. Rather than attempting an encyclopedic list of systems, we rather aim for an embracing discussion using typical case studies. We try to cover predominantly three main classes: proteins, nucleic acids, and amphiphilic molecules including interface effects. We do not cover in detail, but make some comparisons to, ion channels, colloidal systems, and synthetic polymers. While there are obvious differences in the behaviour of, and the relevance of multivalent ions for, the three main classes of systems, we also point out analogies. Our attempt of a comprehensive discussion is guided by the idea that there are not only important differences and specific phenomena with regard to the effects of multivalent ions on the main systems, but also important similarities. We hope to bridge physico-chemical mechanisms, concepts of soft matter, and biological observations and connect the different communities further.     

Wave propagation in fluid-conveying viscoelastic single-walled carbon nanotubes with surface and nonlocal effects

In this paper, the transverse wave propagation in fluid-conveying viscoelastic single-walled carbon nanotubes is investigated based on nonlocal elasticity theory with consideration of surface effect. The governing equation is formulated utilizing nonlocal Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and Kelvin-Voigt model. Explicit wave dispersion relation is developed and wave phase velocities and frequencies are obtained. The effect of the fluid flow velocity, structural damping, surface effect, small scale effects and tube diameter on the wave propagation properties are discussed with different wave numbers. The wave frequency increases with the increase of fluid flow velocity, but decreases with the increases of tube diameter and wave number. The effect of surface elasticity and residual surface tension is more significant for small wave number and tube diameter. For larger values of wave number and nonlocal parameters, the real part of frequency ratio raises.     

Characterization of magnetic labels for bioassays

Magnetic nanoparticles differing by their size have been synthesized to use them for multiparametric testing, based on their differing magnetic properties. The nanoparticle has two essential roles: to act as a probe owing to its specific magnetic properties and to carry on its surface precursor groups for the covalent coupling of biological recognition molecules, such as antibodies, nucleic acids. A totally unique, newly patented, method has been used to characterize magnetic signatures using the MIAplex technology. The MIAplex reader, developed by Magnisense, measures the non-linear response of the magnetic labels when they are exposed to a multi-frequency alternating magnetic field. This specific signature based on d²B(H)/dH² was correlated to other more conventional magnetic detection methods (superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID) and Mössbauer).     

Waterhammer modelling of viscoelastic pipes with a time-dependent Poisson's ratio

Poisson's ratio in viscoelastic materials is a function of time. However, recently developed waterhammer models of viscoelastic pipes consider it constant. This simplifying assumption avoids cumbersome calculations of double convolution integrals which appear if Poisson's ratio is time-dependent. The present research develops a mathematical model taking the time dependency of Poisson's ratio into account for linear viscoelastic pipes. Poisson's ratio is written in terms of relaxation function and bulk modulus which is assumed to be constant. The relaxation function is obtained from creep function given as the viscoelastic property data of pipe material. The results obtained from the present waterhammer model are compared with the experimental data for two different flow rates. The comparison reveals that with the application of the time-dependent Poisson's ratio and unsteady friction, the viscoelastic data of mechanical tests can directly be used for waterhammer analysis with less need for the calibration of the flow configuration. It was also shown that the creep curve calibrated based on the present model is closer to the actual creep curve than that calibrated based on previous models.     

An approach to constitutive modelling of elasto-plasticity via ensemble averaging of the dislocation transport

Using an averaging procedure for large ensembles of dislocations, a basic but mathematically non-trivial modelling framework is developed for the transport of dislocation densities in a macroscopically homogeneous and isotropic film of a crystalline solid subjected to uniform shear. It has the form of a system of nonlinear, non-local partial differential equations of the first order with a source-type right-hand side. The solution to this system is studied numerically, and the associated average stress is evaluated as a function of time. The resulting stress-strain relations exhibit a size effect similar to those that previously motivated strain-gradient plasticity theories.     

Dynamical behaviour of Liu system with time delayed feedback

This paper investigates the dynamical behaviour of the Liu system with time delayed feedback. Two typical situations are considered and the effect of time-delay parameter on the dynamics of the system is discussed. It is shown that the Liu system with time delayed feedback may exhibit interesting and extremely rich dynamical behaviour. The evolution of the dynamics is shown to be complex with varying time-delay parameter. Moreover, the strange attractor like ‘wormhole＇ is detected via numerical simulations.     

Small Ball Probabilities of Fractional Brownian Sheets via Fractional Integration Operators

We investigate the small ball problem for d-dimensional fractional Brownian sheets by functional analytic methods. For this reason we show that integration operators of Riemann–Liouville and Weyl type are very close in the sense of their approximation properties, i.e., the Kolmogorov and entropy numbers of their difference tend to zero exponentially. This allows us to carry over properties of the Weyl operator to the Riemann–Liouville one, leading to sharp small ball estimates for some fractional Brownian sheets. In particular, we extend Talagrand's estimate for the 2-dimensional Brownian sheet to the fractional case. When passing from dimension 1 to dimension d2, we use a quite general estimate for the Kolmogorov numbers of the tensor products of linear operators.