Thermogravimetry analysis,compressive strength and thermal conductivity tests of non-autoclaved aerated Portland cement–fly ash–silica fume concrete

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - This paper reports the investigated thermogravimetry analysis, compressive strength and thermal conductivity tests of non-autoclaved aerated Portland...     

Effect of curing time on the hydration and material properties of cold-bonded high-calcium fly ash–Portland cement lightweight aggregate

Journal of Thermal Analysis and Calorimetry - Artificial aggregates, such as fly ash lightweight aggregates, can be used as eco-friendly alternatives to natural aggregates. This work aims to...     

Effects of atmospheric turbulence and building sway on optical wireless-communication systems

Urban optical wireless communication (UOWC) systems are considered a last-mile technology. UOWC systems use the atmosphere as a propagation medium. To provide a line of sight the transceivers are placed on high-rise building. However, dynamic wind loads, thermal expansion, and weak earthquakes cause buildings to sway. These sways distort the alignment between transmitter and receiver, causing pointing errors, the outcome of which is fading of the received signal. Furthermore, atmospheric turbulence causes fluctuations in both the intensity and the phase of the received signal, resulting in impaired link performance. A bit-error probability (BEP) model is developed that takes into account both building sway and turbulence-induced log amplitude fluctuations (i.e., fading of signal intensity) in the regime in which the receiver aperture, D0, is smaller than the turbulence coherence diameter, d0. It is assumed that the receiver has knowledge about the marginal statistics of the signal fading and the instantaneous signal-fading state.     

Microstructure: Surface and cross-sectional studies of hydroxyapatite formation on the surface of white Portland cement paste in vitro

The formation of hydroxyapatite was investigated at the surface and at the cross-section of white Portland cement paste samples before and after immersion in simulated body fluid. Scanning electron microscope images showed that hydroxyapatite were found at the surface of white Portland cement after immersion in simulated body fluid. Hydroxyapatite grains of mostly ≈1 μm size with some grain size of ≈2-3 μm were seen after 4 days immersion period. More estabilshed hydroxyapatite grain size of ≈3 μm grains were observed at longer period of immersion at 7 and 10 days. The cross-section of the samples was investigated using line scanning technique and was used to determine the hydroxyapatite layer. A strong spectrum of phosphorus is detected up to 6-8 μm depth for samples after 4, 7 and 10 days immersion in simulated body fluid when compared to weak spectrum detected before immersion. The increase in the phosphorus spectrum corresponds to the hydroxyapatite formation on the surface of the samples after the samples were placed in simulated body fluid.     

A CW ultrasonic bolt-strain monitor

There exists a need for a relatively inexpensive system for measuring strain in bolts. The torque wrench is one technique for straining bolts which has been widely applied. Unfortunately, friction in the bolt threads and between the nut and the work tend to make such a simple system inaccurate. In practice, a torque wrench is unacceptable for many situations where strain is critical. In this article, an ultrasonic technique is described which can indicate changes in bolt strain to better than one part in 10⁴. The technique is based on the one-dimensional propagating-ultrasonic-wave model and uses a new ultrasonic instrument called a Reflection Oscillator Ultrasonic Spectrometer which is a closed-loop feedback marginal-oscillator system that frequency locks the device to the peak of a mechanical resonance in the bolt. The instrument indicates a shift in the bolt resonance frequency due to elongation and changes in velocity of sound due to strain. Data are presented comparing a standard torque wrench to the ultrasonic monitor for different measured stresses on the bolt as well as for different bolt conditions. The strain instrument can be used to monitor changing stresses, to measure material properties and may be applied as a strain gage or load cell.     

On shifted Eisenstein polynomials

We study polynomials with integer coefficients which become Eisenstein polynomials after the additive shift of a variable. We call such polynomials shifted Eisenstein polynomials. We determine an upper bound on the maximum shift that is needed given a shifted Eisenstein polynomial and also provide a lower bound on the density of shifted Eisenstein polynomials, which is strictly greater than the density of classical Eisenstein polynomials. We also show that the number of irreducible degree \(n\) polynomials that are not shifted Eisenstein polynomials is infinite. We conclude with some numerical results on the densities of shifted Eisenstein polynomials.