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At least 199 records · Page 11

Size, shape and flow characterization of ground wood chip and ground wood pellet particles

Size, shape and density of biomass particles influence their transportation, fluidization, rates of drying and thermal decomposition. Pelleting wood particles increases the particle density and reduces the variability of physical properties among biomass particles. In this study, pine chips prepared for pulping and commercially produced pine pellets were ground in a hammer mill using grinder screens of 3.2, 6.3, 12.7 and 25.4mmperforations. Pellets consumed about 7 times lower specific grinding energy than chips to produce the same size of particles. Grinding pellets produced the smaller particles with narrower size distribution than grinding chips. Derived shape factors in digital image analysis showed that chip particles were rectangular and had the aspect ratios about one third of pellet particles. Pellet particles were more circular shape. The mechanical sieving underestimated the actual particle size and did not represent the size of particles correctly. Instead, digital imaging is preferred. Angle of repose and compressibility tests represented the flow properties of ground particles. Pellet particles made a less compacted bulk, had lower cohesion and did flow easier in a pile of particles. In conclusion, particle shape affected the flow properties more than particle size

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Recycling of WEEE: Characterization of spent printed circuit boards from mobile phones and computers

Highlights: > This paper presents new and important data on characterization of wastes of electric and electronic equipments. > Copper concentration is increasing in mobile phones and remaining constant in personal computers. > Printed circuit boards from mobile phones and computers would not be mixed prior treatment. - Abstract: This paper presents a comparison between printed circuit boards from computers and mobile phones. Since printed circuits boards are becoming more complex and smaller, the amount of materials is constantly changing. The main objective of this work was to characterize spent printed circuit boards from computers and mobile phones applying mineral processing technique to separate the metal, ceramic, and polymer fractions. The processing was performed by comminution in a hammer mill, followed by particle size analysis, and by magnetic and electrostatic separation. Aqua regia leaching, loss-on-ignition and chemical analysis (inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy - ICP-OES) were carried out to determine the composition of printed circuit boards and the metal rich fraction. The composition of the studied mobile phones printed circuit boards (PCB-MP) was 63 wt.% metals; 24 wt.% ceramics and 13 wt.% polymers; and of the printed circuit boards from studied personal computers (PCB-PC) was 45 wt.% metals; 27 wt.% polymers and ceramics 28 wt.% ceramics. The chemical analysis showed that copper concentration in printed circuit boards from personal computers was 20 wt.% and in printed circuit boards from mobile phones was 34.5 wt.%. According to the characteristics of each type of printed circuit board, the recovery of precious metals may be the main goal of the recycling process of printed circuit boards from personal computers and the recovery of copper should be the main goal of the recycling process of printed circuit boards from mobile phones. Hence, these printed circuit boards would not be mixed prior treatment. The results of this paper show that copper concentration is increasing in mobile phones and remaining constant in personal computers.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Observations of modal coupling due to bolted joints in an experimental benchmark structure

The goal of this paper is to present a set of measurements from a benchmark structure containing two bolted joints to support future efforts to predict the damping due to the joints and to model nonlinear coupling between the first two elastic modes. Bolted joints introduce nonlinearities in structures, typically causing a softening in the natural frequency and an increase in damping because of frictional slip between the contact interfaces within the joint. These nonlinearities pose significant challenges when characterizing the response of the structure under a large range of load amplitudes, especially when the modal responses become coupled, causing the effective damping and natural frequency to not only depend on the excitation amplitude of the targeted mode, but also the relative amplitudes of other modes. In this work, two nominally identical benchmark structures, known in some prior works as the S4 beam, are tested to characterize their nonlinear properties for the first two elastic modes. Detailed surface measurements are presented and validated through finite element analysis and reveal distinct contact interactions between the two sets of beams. The free-free test structures are excited with an impact hammer and the transient response is analyzed to extract the damping and frequency backbone curves. A range of impact amplitudes and drive points are used to isolate a single mode or to excite both modes simultaneously. Differences in the nonlinear response correlate with the relative strength of the modes that are excited, allowing one to characterize mode coupling. Each of the beams shows different nonlinear properties for each mode, which is attributed to the different contact pressure distributions between the parts, although the mode coupling relationship is found to be consistent between the two. Lastly, the test data key finding are presented in this paper and the supporting data is available on a public repository for interested researchers.

42 ENGINEERING↗

The Explosive Hazards of Icosahedral Carboranes and Dodecaborate with Common Oxidizers and Salts

Carboranes find use in a wide variety of applications ranging from specialty catalysts to medicinal uses. Certain functionalized carboranes are described as explosive materials, although their nonfunctionalized precursors are regarded as inherently stable and not explosive. Herein, we report new findings on the sensitization of nonfunctionalized 12-vertex ortho-, meta-, and para-carboranes as well as dodecaborate in physical mixtures with several common inorganic salts. These mixtures were evaluated for explosive properties with drop hammer impact tests, friction tests, and differential scanning calorimetry thermal gravimetric analysis (DSC-TGA). Results indicate explosive sensitization to mechanical stimuli for the nonfunctionalized carboranes tested with a wide variety of inorganic salts, especially oxidizers. Sensitization of these compounds has not previously been reported, and raising awareness to the broader scientific community on this matter is warranted, especially as several of the mixtures evaluated are more sensitive to mechanical stimuli than primary explosives such as lead azide or pentaerythritol tetranitrate.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Wear Mechanism Analysis of a New Rotary Shear Biomass Comminution System

A new biomass comminution system, Crumbler rotary shear, was developed to process fuel-grade biomass. The rotary shear is more efficient than the traditional hammer mill in comminuting high-moisture biomass and producing more uniform particles with minimal fines. However, the milling unit experiences significant wear in processing dirty woodchips. This study investigated the wear mechanisms of the rotary shear system based on analysis of the minerals carried by woodchips and characterization of actual worn components. Abrasive wear was found to be the dominant effect, and localized adhesive wear (material transfer), microfracture (chipping), and plastic deformation were additional effects. Connections have been made between the wear progression of key cutting components and the particle size change of biomass extrinsic minerals. On the basis of the wear mechanism understanding, mitigations based on advanced tool materials and optimized tool geometric designs are being developed for improving the tool life and cutting efficiency.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

Evaluation of Methods to Predict Reactivity of Gold Nanoparticles

Several methods have appeared in the literature for predicting reactivity on metallic surfaces and on the surface of metallic nanoparticles. All of these methods have some relationship to the concept of frontier molecular orbital theory. The d-band theory of Hammer and Nørskov is perhaps the most widely used predictor of reactivity on metallic surfaces, and it has been successfully applied in many cases. Use of the Fukui function and the condensed Fukui function is well established in organic chemistry, but has not been so widely applied in predicting the reactivity of metallic nanoclusters. In this article, we will evaluate the usefulness of the condensed Fukui function in predicting the reactivity of a family of cubo-octahedral gold nanoparticles and make comparison with the d-band method.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Can a shock-induced phonon up-pumping model relate to impact sensitivity of molecular crystals, polymorphs and cocrystals?

Impact sensitivity engineering of high-energy molecular crystals requires accurate predictive models. For this purpose, the promising multi-phonon based approach is selected, assessing a bit more its strengths and weaknesses. Presently used with high-quality phonon calculations of 22 molecular crystals, using a physics-based criterion to determine the phonon bath extent, the resulting intrinsic shock sensitivity index (SSI) is compared to the most common marker of impact sensitivity, h 50 , as determined from drop-weight impact tests. Selecting a data subset from experiments performed under very similar conditions (2.5 kg hammer with grit and 30–40 mg samples), the model can predict h 50 values for mono-molecular crystals with very good accuracy, including the ability to discriminate the polymorphs of HMX and CL20. This very good agreement validates an initial indirect up-pumping mechanism occurring under these conditions, where the doorway modes also interact with the phonon bath. However, the phonon bath criterion for mono-molecular crystals does not transfer well to cocrystals. Owing to the vibrational coupling of the co-molecules, it seems a broader phonon bath should be considered. Additionally recalling experimental uncertainty and various experimental factors affecting h 50 values for a given compounds, we recommend that the density of the sample, granularity and morphology be systematically considered and reported along with measurements, which will in turn allow for more systematic data and predictive capabilities for sensitivity models.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Halogenated PETN derivatives: interplay between physical and chemical factors in explosive sensitivity

Determining the factors that influence and can help predict energetic material sensitivity has long been a challenge in the explosives community. Decades of literature reports identify a multitude of factors both chemical and physical that influence explosive sensitivity; however no unifying theory has been observed. Recent work by our team has demonstrated that the kinetics of “trigger linkages” (i.e., the weakest bonds in the energetic material) showed strong correlations with experimental drop hammer impact sensitivity. These correlations suggest that the simple kinetics of the first bonds to break are good indicators for the reactivity observed in simple handling sensitivity tests. Herein we report the synthesis of derivatives of the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) in which one, two or three of the nitrate ester functional groups are substituted with an inert group. Experimental and computational studies show that explosive sensitivity correlates well with Q (heat of explosion), due to the change in the number of trigger linkages removed from the starting material. In addition, this correlation appears more significant than other observed chemical or physical effects imparted on the material by different inert functional groups, such as heat of formation, heat of explosion, heat capacity, oxygen balance, and the crystal structure of the material.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Influence of the van der Waals interaction in the dissociation dynamics of N{sub 2} on W(110) from first principles

Using ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) calculations, we investigate the role of the van der Waals (vdW) interaction in the dissociative adsorption of N{sub 2} on W(110). Hitherto, existing classical dynamics calculations performed on six-dimensional potential energy surfaces based on density functional theory (DFT), and the semi-local PW91 and RPBE [Hammer et al. Phys. Rev. B 59, 7413 (1999)] exchange-correlation functionals were unable to fully describe the dependence of the initial sticking coefficient on the molecular beam incidence conditions as found in experiments. N{sub 2} dissociation on W(110) was shown to be very sensitive not only to short molecule-surface distances but also to large distances where the vdW interaction, not included in semilocal-DFT, should dominate. In this work, we perform a systematic study on the dissociative adsorption using a selection of existing non-local functionals that include the vdW interaction (vdW-functionals). Clearly, the inclusion of the non-local correlation term contributes in all cases to correct the unrealistic energy barriers that were identified in the RPBE at large molecule-surface distances. Among the tested vdW-functionals, the original vdW-DF by Dion et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 246401 (2004)] and the ulterior vdW-DF2 give also an adequate description of the N{sub 2} adsorption energy and energy barrier at the transition state, i.e., of the properties that are commonly used to verify the quality of any exchange-correlation functional. However, the results of our AIMD calculations, which are performed at different incidence conditions and hence extensively probe the multi-configurational potential energy surface of the system, do not seem as satisfactory as the preliminary static analysis suggested. When comparing the obtained dissociation probabilities with existing experimental data, none of the used vdW-functionals seems to provide altogether an adequate description of the N{sub 2}/W(110) interaction at short and large distances.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Room temperature colossal superparamagnetic order in aminoferrocene–graphene molecular magnets

Intensive studies are published for graphene-based molecular magnets due to their remarkable electric, thermal, and mechanical properties. However, to date, most of all produced molecular magnets are ligand based and subject to challenges regarding the stability of the ligand(s). The lack of long-range coupling limits high operating temperature and leads to a short-range magnetic order. Herein, we introduce an aminoferrocene-based graphene system with room temperature superparamagnetic behavior in the long-range magnetic order that exhibits colossal magnetocrystalline anisotropy of 8 × 10 5 and 3 × 10 7 J/m 3 in aminoferrocene and graphene-based aminoferrocene, respectively. These values are comparable to and even two orders of magnitude larger than pure iron metal. Aminoferrocene [C 10 H 11 FeN] + is synthesized by an electrophilic substitution reaction. It was then reacted with graphene oxide that was prepared by the modified Hammers method. The phase structure and functionalization of surface groups were characterized and confirmed by XRD, FT-IR, and Raman spectroscopy. To model the behavior of the aminoferrocene between two sheets of hydroxylated graphene, we have used density functional theory by placing the aminoferrocene molecule between two highly ordered hydroxylated sheets and allowing the structure to relax. Here, the strong bowing of the isolated graphene sheets suggests that the charge transfer and resulting magnetization could be strongly influenced by pressure effects. In contrast to strategies based on ligands surface attachment, our present work that uses interlayer intercalated aminoferrocene opens routes for future molecular magnets as well as the design of qubit arrays and quantum systems.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Consistent solutions of the radiation diffusion equation in spherical and cylindrical geometries

We have extended the radiation diffusion model of Hammer and Rosen [Phys. Plasmas 10, 1829 (2003)] to diverging spherical and cylindrical geometries. The effect of curvilinear geometry on the supersonic, expanding wavefront increases as the internal radius of a spherical or cylindrical shell approaches zero. Small spherical geometries are important for modeling systems at the size scale of inertial confinement fusion capsules, at these scales existing quasi-analytic models for planar geometry significantly disagree with the results of simulation. With this method, the benefits of rapid iteration can be applied to common spherical systems at much smaller length scales. We present comparisons between numerical diffusion solutions and the analytic model to give ranges of applicability for the model.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

Combinatorial Deposition of Ultrathick Ta-W-Au-Bi High-Entropy Alloys for Next-Generation Hohlraums by Direct-Current Magnetron Sputtering

Hohlraum temperature calculations with the model by J. H. Hammer and M. D. Rosen predict a higher X-ray drive from Ta-W-Au-Bi high-entropy alloys compared to pure Au and recently developed Ta 4 Au and Au-Bi hohlraums. Here, we study the microstructure and properties of 25-75−µm-thick Ta-W-Au-Bi alloy films deposited via combinatorial direct-current magnetron sputtering. All of the films have promising physical properties, including high electrical resistivity, that satisfy the requirements for magnetically assisted inertial confinement fusion experiments. While porosity tends to increase with increasing Bi content, we also found that films with Bi content > 44 at. % exhibited densification close to the substrate/film interface and formed a single-phase alloy. In conclusion, these findings provide a potential path forward for the development of Ta-W-Au-Bi alloys for next-generation hohlraum materials.

Magnetron sputtering↗

Experimental modal analysis of SSR1 cryomodule for numerical model tuning and validation

The present activity aims to test the Cryomodule SSR1 to validate the corresponding mixed multibody-finite element numerical model and to determine the range of frequencies in which the first natural modes of the structure lie. The experimental activity consisted of a hammer test of the cryomodule at an early assembly stage at which the internal parts, constituting the cold mass, are accessible and, thus, many accelerometers can be attached to the beam string. The comparison between the experimental results obtained for the sub-assembly and the numerical results obtained for the corresponding sub-model, derived from the previously developed complete model, allowed to assess the validity of the numerical model and to get feedback on the effectiveness of the placement of the sensors in capturing the dynamic response of the system during transportation.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

Structural modifications of low-energy heavy-ion irradiated germanium

Heavy-ion irradiation of crystalline germanium (c-Ge) results in the formation of a homogeneous amorphous germanium (a-Ge) layer at the surface. This a-Ge layer undergoes structural modification such as a strong volume expansion accompanied by drastic surface blackening with further ion irradiation. In the present paper we investigate the mechanism of this ion-induced structural modification in a-Ge basically for the irradiation with I ions (3 and 9 MeV) at room and low temperature as a function of ion fluence for the ion incidence angles of {Theta}=7 deg. and {Theta}=45 deg. For comparison, Ag- and Au-ion irradiations were performed at room temperature as a function of the ion fluence. At fluences two orders of magnitude above the amorphization threshold, morphological changes were observed for all irradiation conditions used. Over a wide range of ion fluences we demonstrate that the volume expansion is caused by the formation of voids at the surface and in the depth of the projected ion range. At high ion fluences the amorphous layer transforms into a porous structure as established by cross section and plan view electron microscopy investigations. However, the formation depth of the surface and buried voids as well as the shape and the dimension of the final porous structure depend on the ion fluence, ion species, and irradiation temperature and will be discussed in detail. The rate of the volume expansion (i.e., porous layer formation) depends linearly on the value of {epsilon}{sub n}. This clearly demonstrates that the structural changes are determined solely by the nuclear energy deposited within the amorphous phase. In addition, at high ion fluences all perpendicular ion irradiations lead to a formation of a microstructure at the surface, whereas for nonperpendicular ion irradiations a nonsaturating irreversible plastic deformation (ion hammering) without a microstructure formation is observed. For the irradiation with ion energies of several MeV, the effect of plastic deformation shows a linear dependence on the ion fluence. Based on these results, we provide an explanation for the differences in surface morphology observed for different angles of incidence of the ion beam will be discussed in detail.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Pressure fields produced by single-bubble collapse near a corner

Damage produced by repeated bubble collapse to neighboring rigid objects in hydraulic systems is an important consequence of cavitation. Although bubble collapse near a single wall has received significant attention in the past, few studies exist on the dynamics of bubbles collapsing near a corner, i.e., two flat rigid surfaces intersecting at a right angle. In this work we quantify the pressure fields produced by a single bubble collapsing near two perpendicular rigid walls. Using a high-order accurate shock- and interface-capturing method to solve the three-dimensional compressible Navier-Stokes equations for gas and liquid flows, we simulate the dynamics of a single bubble collapsing at different initial stand-off distances from the two walls. In contrast to a bubble collapsing near a single wall, the collapse of bubbles within a critical stand-off distance is not symmetric about the bisecting plane due to the interaction between the bubble and the second wall. The second wall affects the pressure produced during the collapse in the following ways: (i) For bubbles initially located sufficiently close to both walls, the reentrant jet produced during collapse no longer points in the direction normal to the closest wall but at an angle toward the corner, (ii) the part of the emitted shock with the highest amplitude propagates in line with the jet, and (iii) the bubble migrates in that same direction during its collapse with a dependence on the stand-off distance, consistent with predictions made using Kelvin impulse. The location of maximum pressure along the walls is measured for the different initial stand-off distances. Using acoustic arguments, we find a semiempirical relationship to predict the initial stand-off distances for which the maximum pressure occurs in the corner. Here we find that when the bubble is sufficiently close to equidistant from each boundary, the maximum pressure is observed in the corner due to the water-hammer and implosion shocks reflecting off the boundaries and intersecting in the corner. We also show that when bubbles are initially attached to either wall the wall pressure produced can be significantly increased compared to bubbles detached from either wall.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Detection and Localization of Damaged Photovoltaic Cells and Modules Using Spread Spectrum Time Domain Reflectometry

The operating efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) plants can be improved if damaged or degraded modules can be detected and identified. Currently, string-level power electronics can detect problems with modules or cabling but not locate them, which would facilitate addressing these issues. Here, we investigate the ability of spread spectrum time domain reflectometry (SSTDR) to both detect and locate/identify damaged cells and modules within a series-connected PV string. We tested the ability of SSTDR to detect and locate single-cell mini-modules and full-sized PV modules, which were intentionally damaged by impacts with a hammer (breaking the glass and damaging the silicon below) or by cutting through some or all busbars. Damage to the glass and silicon of cells was detected and located within a small string of minimodules. Busbar damage was detectable only if an open was created by cutting through all intercell busbars. Furthermore, physical impact damage to the glass and silicon of a full-sized PV module could be detected, but further development of signal processing is needed to achieve localization of such damaged modules within a string.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Q-Cluster: Quantum Error Mitigation Through Noise-Aware Unsupervised Learning

Quantum error mitigation (QEM) is critical in reducing the impact of noise in the pre-fault-tolerant era, and is expected to complement error correction in fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC). In this work, we propose a novel QEM approach, Q-Cluster, that uses unsupervised learning (clustering) to reshape the measured bit-string distribution. Our approach starts with a simplified bit-flip noise model. It first performs clustering on noisy measurement results, i.e., bit-strings, based on the Hamming distance. The centroid of each cluster is calculated using a qubit-wise majority vote. Next, the noisy distribution is adjusted with the clustering outcomes and the bitflip error rates using Bayesian inference. Our simulation results show that Q-Cluster can mitigate high noise rates (up to 40% per qubit) with the simple bit-flip noise model. However, real quantum computers do not fit such a simple noise model. To address the problem, we (a) apply Pauli twirling to tailor the complex noise channels to Pauli errors, and (b) employ a machine learning model, ExtraTrees regressor, to estimate an effective bit-flip error rate using a feature vector consisting of machine calibration data (gate & measurement error rates), circuit features (number of qubits, numbers of different types of gates, etc.) and the shape of the noisy distribution (entropy). Our experimental results show that our proposed Q-Cluster scheme improves the fidelity by a factor of 1.46x, on average, compared to the unmitigated output distribution, for a set of low-entropy benchmarks on five different IBM quantum machines. Our approach outperforms the state-of-art QEM approaches RZNE [28], M3 [24], Hammer [35], and QBEEP [33] by 1.26x,1.29x,1.47x, and 2.65 x, respectively.

42 ENGINEERING↗