Electron‐beam initiated polymerization of acrylate compositions, 2. Simulation of thermal effects in thin films

The thermal effects taking place during the electron beam‐induced polymerization of acrylate type formulations were numerically simulated on the basis of the general heat equation applied to a one‐dimensional system. The nature, the dimensions and the environment of the polymerizing medium were defined for representing the actual conditions of kinetic experiments performed with a 175 kV laboratory accelerator and FTIR monitoring. The modeled system was constituted of a polymerizable composition coated onto a NaCl plate, initially at 20°C in gaseous nitrogen at the same constant temperature, with or without a PET film covering the reactive layer. Polymerization profiles describing the progress of the reaction as a function of dose were modeled on a phenomenological basis from actual data obtained by discontinuous FTIR monitoring of typical epoxy acrylate or polyurethane acrylate compositions. The influence of the reactive layer thickness (10/100 μm), dose rate (10–110 kGy·s^–1), maximum polymerization heat (200–400 J·g^–1) on the temperature‐time variations was examined for continuous irradiation. In spite of the relatively small thickness of the reactive layer, significant temperature rise is simulated when heat production is large and fast compared to energy dissipation at the reactive layer boundaries. The obtained data substantiate the fact that upon fractionated EB‐treatment with small dose increments (down to 0.6 kGy per pass) at low dose rate (down to 10 kGy·s^–1) the heat release can be considered weak and without noticeable influence on the conversion data processed for a detailed kinetic analysis. For example, a maximal temperature rise of 6°C was calculated for a fractionated irradiation of 2 kGy increments at 19 kGy·s^–1 applied to a polymerizable formulation releasing a maximum enthalpy of 300 J·g^–1.     

Distributed time-varying formation tracking of multi-quadrotor systems with partial aperiodic sampled data

In this article, a distributed formation tracking controller is proposed for Multi-agent systems (MAS) consisting of quadrotors. It is considered that each quadrotor in the MAS only shares its translation position information with its neighbors. Moreover, position information is transmitted at nonuniform and asynchronous time instants. The control system is divided into an outer-loop for the position control and an inner-loop for the attitude control. A continuous-discrete time observer is used in the outer-loop to estimate both position and velocity of the quadrotor and its neighbors using discrete position information it receives. Then, these estimated states are used to design the position controller in order to enable quadrotors to generate the required geometric shape. A finite-time attitude controller is designed to track the desired attitude as dictated by the position controller. Finally, a closed-loop stability analysis of the overall system including nonlinear coupling is performed.

     

Autonomous and non-autonomous fixed-time leader–follower consensus for second-order multi-agent systems

Nonlinear Dynamics - This paper addresses the problem of consensus tracking with fixed-time convergence, for leader–follower multi-agent systems with double-integrator dynamics, where only a...     

Influence of an oxidation of the carbon fiber surface by boiling nitric acid on the adhesion strength in carbon fiber‐acrylate composites cured by electron beam

A time‐dependent oxidation of carbon fibers in boiling nitric acid was used to investigate the influence of a modification of the fiber surface properties on the adhesion strength with an acrylate resin cured by electron beam (EB). For each time of treatment, a characterization of the surface topography and the surface chemistry was done (topography at a micrometric and nanometric scale, specific surface area, temperature programmed desorption, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis). The oxidation of the fiber surface in boiling nitric acid created a rough surface, which significantly increased the specific surface area, and also generated a high density of hydroxyl groups, carboxylic acids and lactones in comparison to untreated fibers. The adhesion strength with the acrylate resin cured by EB was measured by a pull‐out test. For comparison, an isothermal ultraviolet curing of the matrix was also investigated. The value of the interfacial shear strength, determined by the Greszczuk's model, was increased by the oxidation of the carbon fiber surface for both curing processes, but lower values were systemically obtained with EB curing. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A distributed fault detection scheme in disturbed heterogeneous networked systems

Nonlinear Dynamics - This paper deals with the problem of distributed fault detection and isolation in multi-agent systems with disturbed high-order dynamics subject to communication uncertainties...