Optimal control of an elastically connected rectangular plate–membrane system

The optimal control of an elastically connected rectangular plate–membrane system by point-wise actuators is considered. Problems of the type are of significant practical interest in most real mechanical structures widely used in aeronautical, civil, naval, and mechanical engineering. An index of performance is formulated, which consists of a modified energy functional of the two coupled structure at a specified time and penalty functions involving the point control actuators. Necessary conditions of optimality are derived in the form of independent integral equations which lead to explicit expressions for the point-wise actuators. The results are applied to a specific problem, and numerical results are given that reveal the effectiveness of the proposed control mechanism.     

Determination of mercury in table salt samples by on-line medium exchange anodic stripping voltammetry

A new method for the determination of traces of total mercury by using a gold film electrode in salt samples was developed. Table salts are known to contain mercury at ultra-trace level as well as a high quantity of chloride ions that cause severe disturbance during the stripping step when gold is used as the electrode material in voltammetric measurements. The interference of high chloride content in the determination of mercury was eliminated by reducing its concentration down to 3 x 10(-3) mol L(-1) level which is optimum for the determination by using on-line medium exchange procedure immediately after the deposition step. The deposition potential applied to the electrode was maintained at 0.2 V (vs. Ag/AgCl double junction electrode) while the cell content was sucked by a pump and replaced with fresh electrolyte simultaneously. The analyte loss resulted from the air contact of the electrode was prevented by this means. The mercury ions present in the salt samples were collected at +0.2 V for 60 s, the electrolyte was replaced by 0.1 mol L(-1) HClO4 and the potential was scanned, attaining a detection limit of 0.17 microg L(-1), with R.S.D. of 1.2% (S/N=3). The recovery of the method was 94.6%. The performance and accuracy of the method was compared with that of atomic fluorescence spectrometry (AFS). Consequently, this developed method can offer a wide range of application in saline samples.     

Kinetic study for adsorption of α-naphtholphthalein onto silica gel surface-imprinted polymer and non-imprinted polymer

In this study, the molecular imprinting polymer (MIP) was prepared using α-naphtholphthalein as a template, 2-(diethylamino)ethyl acrylate as a functional monomer and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate as a crosslinking agent by aid of free radical polymerization onto surfaces of vinyltrimethoxysilane modified silica gel. The MIP was extracted with acetonitrile for overnight to remove the template molecule from the MIP. Non-imprinted polymer (NIMP) was synthesized using the same materials except α-naphtholphthalein as template molecule. α-Naphtholphthalein adsorption on surfaces of the both polymer was studied at three different temperatures (19°C, 25°C and 35°C). It was observed that the adsorption capacity increased with increasing temperature and with time. The time required to reach the equilibrium for two polymers and all temperature was accepted to be nearly 6 h. The saturated adsorption amounts at the equilibrium were found as 120 mg/g, 123 mg/g and 127 mg/g at 19°C, 25°C and 35°C, respectively, for MIP, and 78 mg/g, 98 mg/g and 120 mg/g at 19°C, 25°C and 35°C, respectively, for NIMP. The mechanism of adsorption of α-naphtholphthalein onto MIP and NIMP is nearly appropriate to pseudo-first-order kinetic model with an activation energy of 11.63 kJ/mol for MIP, and 23.69 kJ/mol for NIMP. Thermodynamic parameters of activated complex in the adsorption process showed that the adsorption was carried out with an endothermic activation enthalpy, large negative entropy changes and the positive values of ΔG* that the adsorption processes is not favorable.     

Determination of Chlorine in Plastics via SrCl by Solid-Sampling High-Resolution Continuum Source Graphite Furnace Molecular Absorption Spectrometry

Solid sampling high resolution continuum source molecule absorption spectrometry (SS-HR-CS MAS) was applied for the determination of chlorine in plastic using the strontium monochloride (SrCl) molecule. For this purpose, 10?µL of 20?g L^?1 strontium (prepared from Sr(NO₃)₂) solution were pipetted with aqueous Cl standards or 0.05 to 4?mg of slivered plastic samples on a platform and introduced into the furnace. Chlorine was determined with the molecular absorption of SrCl at 635.862?nm using 1100?°C and 2200?°C for the pyrolysis and vaporization temperatures, respectively. Aqueous standards were used for calibration. The accuracy of the method was evaluated using a certified polyethylene reference material. The limit of detection and characteristic mass values of the method were 2.5?ng and 0.4?ng, respectively. The chlorine concentrations in various polyethylene beverage containers were determined.     

Centri-voltammetric determination of glutathione

Centri-voltammetry is a method for concentrating an analyte on an electrode with the aid of a centrifuge. It can be performed in the presence or the absence of a solid carrier/support. This is followed by a voltammetric (analytical) scan. Specifically, we describe here an application of the technique to the determination of glutathione (GSH). Silica gel is used as the carrier precipitate to which gold nanoparticles were added in order to improve accumulation as a result of their strong affinity for thiols. Voltammetry was performed with a carbon paste electrode modified with multi-wall carbon nanotubes. The response to GSH is linear in the 25 and 800 μM concentration range (the correlation coefficient being 0.9915) and the relative standard deviation is 3.40 % (at 250 μM of GSH and n?=?6). The procedure was successfully applied to the determination of GSH in wine and in synthetic plasma using the standard addition method. The recoveries are 100.8 % and 100.0 %, respectively.

Elemental Analysis of Tarhana by Microwave Induced Plasma Atomic Emission Spectrometry

Elemental analysis of tarhana, a traditional Turkish cereal soup, has been conducted. A new method was developed for the determination of calcium, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, and sodium, in tarhana by microwave induced plasma atomic emission spectrometry. A sample of 0.1?g were mineralized by microwave digestion in 10?mL of 65% HNO₃. A wheat flour standard reference material (GBW 08503) was used for validation. Linear calibration using standards prepared in acid was conducted for all determinations. The limits of detection were 1.21?µg?g^?1 for Ca at 393.366?nm, 0.43?µg?g^?1 for Fe at 259.940?nm, 11.5?µg?g^?1 for K at 766.491?nm, 0.12?µg?g^?1 for Mg at 285.213?nm, 0.04?µg?g^?1 for Mn at 403.076?nm, and 0.04?µg?g^?1 for Na at 588.995?nm. Ca, K, Fe, Mg, Mn, and Na were determined in tarhana with values from 0.73 to 1.61, 0.016 to 0.061, 2.02 to 4.09, 0.473 to 1.414, 0.019 to 0.043, and 0.26 to 1.83?mg?g^?1, respectively.     

Optimal boundary control of dynamics responses of piezo actuating micro-beams

Optimal control theory is formulated and applied to damp out the vibrations of micro-beams where the control action is implemented using piezoceramic actuators. The use of piezoceramic actuators such as PZT in vibration control is preferable because of their large bandwidth, their mechanical simplicity and their mechanical power to produce controlling forces. The objective function is specified as a weighted quadratic functional of the dynamic responses of the micro-beam which is to be minimized at a specified terminal time using continuous piezoelectric actuators. The expenditure of the control forces is included in the objective function as a penalty term. The optimal control law for the micro-beam is derived using a maximum principle developed by Sloss et al. [J.M. Sloss, J.C. Bruch Jr., I.S. Sadek, S. Adali, Maximum principle for optimal boundary control of vibrating structures with applications to beams, Dynamics and Control: An International Journal 8 (1998) 355–375; J.M. Sloss, I.S. Sadek, J.C. Bruch Jr., S. Adali, Optimal control of structural dynamic systems in one space dimension using a maximum principle, Journal of Vibration and Control 11 (2005) 245–261] for one-dimensional structures where the control functions appear in the boundary conditions in the form of moments. The derived maximum principle involves a Hamiltonian expressed in terms of an adjoint variable as well as admissible control functions. The state and adjoint variables are linked by terminal conditions leading to a boundary-initial-terminal value problem. The explicit solution of the problem is developed for the micro-beam using eigenfunction expansions of the state and adjoint variables. The numerical results are given to assess the effectiveness and the capabilities of piezo actuation by means of moments to damp out the vibration of the micro-beam with a minimum level of voltage applied on the piezo actuators.     

THE HOMOTHETIC MOTIONS IN THE LORENTZ 3-SPACE

In this article, the properties of the homothetic motions in three-dimensional Lorentz space are investigated. Also, some geometric results between velocity and acceleration vectors of a point in a spatial motion are obtained.     

Multilayered perceptron neural networks to compute energy losses in magnetic cores

This paper presents a new approach based on multilayered perceptrons (MLPs) to compute the specific energy losses of toroidal wound cores built from 3% SiFe 0.27 mm thick M4, 0.1  and 0.08 mm thin gauge electrical steel strips. The MLP has been trained by a back-propagation and extended delta-bar-delta learning algorithm. The results obtained by using the MLP model were compared with a commonly used conventional method. The comparison has shown that the proposed model improved loss estimation with respect to the conventional method.     

Elimination of Fast Chaotic Degrees of Freedom: On the Accuracy of the Born Approximation

We apply standard projection operator techniques known from nonequilibrium statistical mechanics to eliminate fast chaotic degrees of freedom in a low-dimensional dynamical system. Through the usual perturbative approach we end up in second order with a stochastic system where the fast chaotic degrees of freedom are modelled by Gaussian white noise. The accuracy of the perturbation expansion is analysed in detail by the discussion of an exactly solvable model.