Free radical generation upon plasma treatment of cotton fibers and their initiation efficiency in surface-graft polymerization

Low-temperature plasma was used to activate mercerized cotton fabrics, to be followed by grafting with various methacrylates. Careful analysis of the experimental electron spin resonance (ESR) lineshapes of cotton samples treated at different RF powers made it possible to recognize and quantify four different species of free radicals still persistent 30 h after irradiation in the samples maintained under inert atmosphere. The decay rate of these species at room temperature was also evaluated with the analysis of the time evolution of the ESR spectra. The nature of the free radical species actually involved in the monomer grafting reaction has been discussed for cotton fabrics prepared under different plasma treatment conditions by analyzing the ESR lineshapes.     

Gas-powder flow in blast furnace with different shapes of cohesive zone

With high PCI rate operations, a large quantity of unburned coal/char fines will flow together with the gas into the blast furnace. Under some operating conditions, the holdup of fines results in deterioration of furnace permeability and lower production efficiency. Therefore, it is important to understand the behaviour of powder (unburnt coal/char) inside the blast furnace when operating with different cohesive zone (CZ) shapes. This work is mainly concerned with the effect of cohesive zone shape on the powder flow and accumulation in a blast furnace. A model is presented which is capable of simulating a clear and stable accumulation region in the lower central region of the furnace. The results indicate that powder is likely to accumulate at the lower part of W-shaped CZs and the upper part of V- and inverse V-shaped CZs. For the same CZ shape, a thick cohesive layer can result in a large pressure drop while the resistance of narrow cohesive layers to gas-powder flow is found to be relatively small. Implications of the findings to blast furnace operation are also discussed.     

A paradigmatic system to study the transition from zero/Hopf to double-zero/Hopf bifurcation

A two-d.o.f.?system experiencing codimension-three double-zero/Hopf bifurcation is considered. This is a special bifurcation which simultaneously involves a defective and a nondefective pair of critical eigenvalues, therefore, requiring a perturbation method specifically tailored on it. A nonstandard version of the multiple scale method is implemented, in which fractional power expansions, both for state-variables and time are used, and high-order arbitrary amplitudes are introduced. Bifurcation equations are obtained, governing the slow flow on the center manifold, which turns out to be tangent to the space spanned by the four critical eigenvectors. These are used to analyze the transition from codimension-three to codimension-two single-zero/Hopf bifurcations, occurring when the modulus of the damping is increased from small to order-one values. Bifurcation charts are obtained, displaying the role of quasi-periodic motions in the transition.     

Topological realizations of ortho-projection graphs

We discuss the production of ortho-projection graphs from alternating knot diagrams, and introduce a more general construction of such graphs from “splittings” of closed, non-orientable surfaces. As our main result, we prove that this new topological construction generates all ortho-projection graphs. We present a minimal example of an ortho-projection graph that does not arise from a knot diagram, and provide a surface-splitting that realizes this graph.     

Enthalpy Relaxation of Polymers: On the Possible Role of Liquid‐Crystalline Order

Isothermal physical ageing experiments were performed by differential scanning calorimetry to probe the enthalpy relaxation in a methacrylate copolymer carrying azobenzene mesogenic side groups. Further evidence of the ability of the configurational entropy model developed by Gomez Ribelles in describing the structural relaxation mechanism of polymers is provided. The trend of the equilibrium structural relaxation time was also determined as a function of the reduced temperature T_g/T. The comparison of the aging dynamics of the copolymer with those of previous analogous copolymers containing different amounts of azobenzene counits allowed us to highlight effects of the liquid‐crystalline nematic order on the properties of structural relaxation.

     

A prime curve is determined by its -matrix

We show that a prime generic immersion is determined up to ambient isotopy by its vertex-face matrix, and give an algorithm for obtaining the curve's Gauss code directly from that matrix.

     

Free and forced linear dynamics of a homogeneous model for beam-like structures

A homogeneous shear beam model is used here to address the free and forced dynamic behavior of a multi-story building. After a brief recall of the model, which is taken from the literature, and the hypotheses on which it is grounded, discussion on the free dynamics is carried out, highlighting the intriguing organization of the natural frequencies and modes in triplets, as functions of the wave-number. Then, the properties of the undamped and proportionally damped forced response to external loads is evaluated, and a discussion on the effects of the tip mass related to the top story is addressed. A case-study is analyzed to show the reliability of the homogeneous model, after comparing the outcomes with those provided by F.E.M. procedures applied to the corresponding multi-d.o.f. structure.