Spectral Analysis of Some Distillates from Asphalt Cracking and Evaluation of UTIMAC as Cracking Catalyst

This paper demonstrates the spectral analysis of some distillates obtained from asphalt cracking in the presence of a conventional expensive catalyst, i.e., HZSM‐5, and local cheap and readily available clay, i.e., UTIMAC. Each distillate was fractionated into pentane soluble (PI) and pentane insoluble (PI) fractions based on solubility in n, pentane. Both PS and PI obtained in the case of HZSM‐5 and UTIMAC were analyzed by ¹H‐NMR spectrophotometry using CDCl₃ as dissolving solvent and tetramethylsilane (TMS) as internal standard. It is evident from the profiles that both catalysts caused the generation of some peaks ascribed to methylene and methene configurations in the aliphatic region. Bands corresponding to aromatic configurations were also generated. The results indicate that the cheap local catalyst used has comparable suitability with the conventional expensive catalyst in terms of asphalt cracking.     

A mild and efficient palladium–triethylsilane system for reduction of olefins and carbon–carbon double bond isomerization

The versatility of palladium(II) acetate and palladium on activated charcoal catalysts with triethylsilane has been investigated in the hydrogenation and the isomerization of carbon–carbon double bond of 1‐alkenes. The reduction of 1‐alkenes was carried out in the presence of triethylsilane, ethanol and a catalytic amount of palladium(II) acetate or palladium on activated charcoal, at room temperature. This facile and efficient method affords high yields for hydrogenation of unsaturated alkenes to the corresponding alkanes. Then the carbon–carbon double bond isomerization of 1‐alkenes was tested using the same catalysts in the absence of solvent. The system palladium(II) acetate‐triethylsilane was found to be more effective compared with palladium on an activated charcoal–triethylsilane system at room temperature, while comparable results were obtained at 50 °C for both catalysts. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Chirality and correlations in graphene

Graphene is described at low energy by a massless Dirac equation whose eigenstates have definite chirality. We show that the tendency of Coulomb interactions in lightly doped graphene to favor states with larger net chirality leads to suppressed spin and charge susceptibilities. Our conclusions are based on an evaluation of graphene's exchange and random-phase-approximation correlation energies. The suppression is a consequence of the quasiparticle chirality switch which enhances quasiparticle velocities near the Dirac point.     

Synthesis of oxime phosphoranes from reaction between triphenylphosphine and acetylenic esters in the presence of oxime derivatives

A new one-pot, simple and effective procedure is presented for the preparation of O-containing phosphorus ylides by the Michael addition reaction of N-methylpyrrole-2-carbaldehydoxime, pyridin-2-carbaldehydoxime or acetophenonoxime with acetylenic esters.     

A multistep collocation method for solving advection equations with delay

Advection equations with delay are appeared in the modeling of the dynamics of structured cell populations. In this article, we construct an efficient two-dimensional multistep collocation method for the numerical solution of a class of advection equations with delay. Equations with aftereffect and equations with both aftereffect and retardation of a state variable are considered. Computability of the algorithm and convergence properties of the proposed numerical method are analyzed for solutions in appropriate Sobolev spaces, and it is shown that the proposed scheme enjoys the spectral accuracy. Numerical examples are given and comparison with other existing methods in the literature is made to demonstrate the efficiency, superiority and high accuracy of the presented method.     

Application of an Itô-based approximation method to random vibration of a pinching hysteretic system

In this paper, an extension of the Cumulant-Neglect closure scheme is utilized for the random vibration analysis of a single degree of freedom system with a general pinching hysteresis restoring force. The hysteresis element used in the system model can simulate commonly observed forms of stiffness, strength and pinching degradations. The second order statistics of the system response to a stationary Gaussian white noise input are derived using an Itô-based approximation technique. The validity of these response statistics are then verified by comparing them to Monte Carlo simulation results. The numerical studies performed for different combinations of degradation parameters and excitation levels show that the response estimates obtained by this solution method are in good agreement with Monte Carlo simulation. These studies also indicate the applicability of this technique for response analysis of complicated forms of non-linearities.     

Influence of M w of LDPE and vinyl acetate content of EVA on the rheology of polymer modified asphalt

Asphalt binder was modified by low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA) polymers to investigate the structure–property relationships of polymer-modified asphalt (PMA). The PMA was prepared in a high-shear blender at 160 °C. The optimum blending time (OBT) for each polymer was determined following a separate investigation. OBT was influenced by M_w, MWD, and polymer structure. The influence of M_w of LDPE and vinyl acetate (VA) content of EVA on PMAs was studied by rheological tools. Polymer modification improved the rheological properties of base asphalt. EVA–PMAs were found to be less temperature sensitive than LDPE-modified asphalts. LDPE modification increased flow activation energy (E_a) but EVA modification decreased E_a. Both VA content and M_w of LDPE have influenced the storage stability of PMAs. The low-temperature properties of PMAs and short ageing tests were not influenced by polymer type. On the other hand, the high-temperature properties of PMAs were strongly influenced by M_w of LDPE and VA content of EVA. Overall, EVA with low VA content showed the best temperature resistance to high- temperature deformations, the highest upper service temperature as well as the best storage stability.     

Experimental and numerical investigation of concrete properties effects on fracture toughness under complex loading

Abstract

This article is presenting the common experimental specimen for determining the fracture toughness of the first pure mode and second pure mode. The Notched beam is chosen from a presented common specimen in the form of three-point flexure beam and four-point flexure beam that were built in the concrete laboratory. For prevention of cracks growth, a critical load of first pure mode and the second pure mode of each specimen computed. Obtained results are used for computing the fracture toughness. For the purpose of investigating the effective fracture parameters in the suggested specimen, finite element analysis on the mentioned geometry is performed. Obtained results show that different parameters are effective on the fracture toughness including crack length, cement percentage, water and the thickness of biggest used aggregate in the sand. Also with changing each of these parameters, the fracture mechanic properties are changed. Each of these effects is examined separately in this article and the conclusions presented in tables and figures.

Communicated by Dumitru Caruntu.     

Printable Bioelectronics To Investigate Functional Biological Interfaces

Thin‐film transistors can be used as high‐performance bioelectronic devices to accomplish tasks such as sensing or controlling the release of biological species as well as transducing the electrical activity of cells or even organs, such as the brain. Organic, graphene, or zinc oxide are used as convenient printable semiconducting layers and can lead to high‐performance low‐cost bioelectronic sensing devices that are potentially very useful for point‐of‐care applications. Among others, electrolyte‐gated transistors are of interest as they can be operated as capacitance‐modulated devices, because of the high capacitance of their charge double layers. Specifically, it is the capacitance of the biolayer, being lowest in a series of capacitors, which controls the output current of the device. Such an occurrence allows for extremely high sensitivity towards very weak interactions. All the aspects governing these processes are reviewed here.