To make the geometrical basis for soft matters with curved surfaces such as biomembranes as simple as possible, a symmetrical analytical system was developed in conventional differential geometry. The conventional second fundamental tensor is replaced by the so-called conjugate fundamental tensor. Because the differential properties of the conjugate fundamental tensor and the first fundamental tensor are symmetrical, the symmetrical analytical system including the symmetrical differential operat...

Titanium produces different compounds in gray iron. In order to determine their characteristics, a scanning electron microscope, an energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and an optical microscopy were used to analyze the morphology, distribution, and composition of titanium-containing compounds in metallographic specimens and machined surfaces in four gray irons. The results show that the titanium-containing compounds in the gray irons are complex compounds containing V, Nb, Mn, S, and other met...

Thermal stress in castings results from nonuniform cooling. The thermal stress and the deformation can change the casting and mold contact conditions which then alter the heat transfer between the casting and the mold. The contact element method was used to study the interaction between a sand mold and a casting. The contact status was then fed back to the heat transfer analysis between the sand mold and the casting to re-evaluate the heat transfer coefficient based on the gap size or pressure b...

Vermicular cast iron is used in certain fields because of its special physical properties. However, it is difficult to control the quality from the front of the furnace owing to the narrow range of vermiculizer and other elements that can be added to the iron. A real time method was developed to monitor the vermicular-graphite ratio of the cast iron based on fast measurements of the melt surface tension. The system includes a detector and a control unit that measure the amplitude and frequency o...

The melt quality of ductile iron can be related to the melt's thermal analysis cooling curve. The freezing zone of the thermal analysis cooling curve was found to indicate the melt quality of the ductile iron. A comprehensive difference parameter, Ω, of the thermal analysis cooling curves was found to be related to the properties of ductile iron melts such as composition, temperature, and graphite morphology. As Ω approached 0, the thermal analysis cooling curves were found to ...

Semi-solid metal casting and forming is a promising production method for a wide range of metal alloys. In spite of many applications for semi-solid processed light alloys, few works have reported on the semi-solid processing of iron and steel. In this research, an inclined plate was used to change the dendritic structure of iron to globular. The effects of the length and slope of the plate on the casting structure were examined. The results show that the process effectively changes the dendriti...

Numerical simulations were used to optimize the casting design and conditions for large cast iron castings for marine engines. Simulations of the mold filling and solidification sequences were used to analyze the problems of previous casting conditions with marked improvements for large cylinder liner parts. The amount and positions of chills were optimized to improve the mechanical properties and to minimize the shrinkage and micro porosity in the castings. Ultra sonic testing, penetration test...

The objective of this paper is to review the factors influencing the formation of degenerated graphite layers on the surfaces of ductile iron castings for chemical resins-acid molding and core-making systems and how to reduce this defect. In the resin mold technique the sulphur in the P-toluol sulphonic acid (PTSA), usually used as the hardener, has been identified as one factor causing graphite degeneration at the metal-mold interface. Less than 0.15% S in the mold (or even less than 0.07% S) c...

The chemical composition of cast iron used for casting ball bearing machining disks was varied to optimize the properties such as castability, hardenability, and durability in ball machining. The cast iron characteristics were most strongly dependent on the Ni content and the carbon saturation degree, S_c. This paper describes the types of test specimens, the working conditions, and the experimental results. The increase of the degree of carbon saturation reduces the tendency ...

The thermal conductivity/diffusivity of pearlitic grey irons with various carbon contents was investigated by the laser flash method. The materials were cast in controlled thermal environments producing three dissimilar cooling rates. The cooling rates together with the carbon content largely influence the thermal conductivity of grey iron. Linear relationships exist between the thermal conductivity and the carbon content, the carbon equivalent, and the fraction of the former primary solidified ...

An analytical expression is presented for the susceptibility of liquid cast iron to solidify according to the Fe-C-X metastable system (also known as the chilling tendency of cast iron, CT). The analysis incorporates the nucleation and growth processes associated with the eutectic transformation. The CT is related to the physicochemical state of the liquid, the eutectic cells in the flake graphite, and the number of nodules in nodular cast iron. In particular, the CT can be related to the critic...

Long-span aircraft hangars have features which differ from other large structural systems. The temperature stresses due to temperature variations often greatly impact the mechanical performance of the structure. The paper presents an analysis of the heat transfer processes and factors which influence the temperature distribution. The AMECO-A380 aircraft hangar at the Beijing Capital International Airport was selected as a practical example to illustrate the use of finite volume analysis to calcu...

Problem-solving processes in value management (VM) workshops in the construction industry are experience-based, and the quality of these workshops depends very much on the experience of the team members. The efficiency and effectiveness of VM workshops can be improved by better reusing the experience of previous VM cases and field knowledge. This paper describes a new approach to facilitate VM workshops in the construction industry using data mining (DM) techniques. The feasibility of integratin...

Thick cylindrical shells under transverse loading exhibit an elephant foot buckling mode, whereas moderately thick cylindrical shells show a diamond buckling mode. There exists some intermediate geometry at which the transition between buckling modes can take place. This behavior is significantly influenced by the radius-to-thickness ratio and the material yield strength, rather than the length-to-radius ratio and the axial force. This paper presents a critical value at which the transition of b...

The accessibility of a destination-based transportation system is defined to quantify the performance of transportation systems which access a distinct destination. The access cost is used to reflect the utility of the transportation system including the fatigue and inconvenience in the total cost. The cost is quantified by two coefficients which represent the different characteristics of various people. The average cost and the income-relative accessibility are used to describe various aspects ...

The two important features of self-organizing maps (SOM), topological preservation and easy visualization, give it great potential for analyzing multi-dimensional time series, specifically traffic flow time series in an urban traffic network. This paper investigates the application of SOM in the representation and prediction of multi-dimensional traffic time series. First, SOMs are applied to cluster the time series and to project each multi-dimensional vector onto a two-dimensional SOM plane wh...

This paper presents an optimized topology for urban traffic sensor networks. Small world theory is used to improve the performance of the wireless communication system with a heterogeneous transmission model and an optimal transmission radius. Furthermore, a series of simulations based on the actual road network around the 2^nd Ring Road in Beijing demonstrate the practicability of constructing artificial “small worlds”. Moreover, the particle swarm optimization method is u...

Roundabouts have been used successfully in cities throughout the world and are wildly used in China. The critical gap is a required parameter for calculating the capacity of roundabouts and deciding the needs for stop signs. While many studies on gap acceptance characteristics at roundabouts have been carried out in America and Europe, few have been done in China. This study was conducted to calibrate the critical gap in a roundabout in China. The differences between critical gaps on different d...

Aquatic ecosystems require ecological water allocation to prevent from being damaged by natural disasters and undue exploitation. This paper discusses and estimates the ecological water requirements (EWRs) of typical areas in the Huaihe Basin to determine rational allocations of water resources and promote regional improvements of the ecological environment. The main river course, including Hongze Lake and Nansi Lake, was selected as the study subject. Calculational methods for the river and lak...

A blended polymer adsorbent prepared using acrylic acid and polyvinylidene fluoride was used to remove copper from aqueous solutions. The polymer was prepared using thermally induced polymerization and phase inversion. The blended polymer was characterized by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD), environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and N₂ adsorption/desorption experiments. The sorption data was fit to linearized adsorption isotherms o...