Theoretical Studies of the Interaction between Screw Surface and Material in the Mixer

Mixing is one of the most commonly used processes in food, animal feed, chemical, cosmetic, etc., industries. It is supposed to provide high-quality homogenous, nutritious mixtures. To provide appropriate mixing of materials while maintaining the process high efficiency and low energy consumption it is crucial to explore and describe the material flow caused by the movement of mixing elements and the contact between particles. The process of mixing is also affected by structural features of the machine components and the mixing chamber, speed of mixing, and properties of the mixed materials, such as the size of particles, moisture, friction coefficients. Thus, modeling of the phenomena that accompany the process of mixing using the above-listed parameters is indispensable for appropriate implementation of the process. The paper provides theoretical power calculations that take into account the material speed change, the impact of the material friction coefficient on the screw steel surface and the impact of the friction coefficient on the material, taking into account the loading height of the mixing chamber and the chamber loading value. Dependencies between the mixer power and the product degree of fineness, rotational speed of screw friction coefficients, the number of windings per length unit, and width of the screw tape have been presented on the basis of a developed model. It has been found that power increases along with an increase in the value of these parameters. Verification of the theoretical model indicated consistence of the predicted power demand with the power demand determined in tests performed on a real object for values of the assumed, effective loading, which was 65–75%.

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Frictional Behavior of Cochlear Electrode Array Is Dictated by Insertion Speed and Impacts Insertion Force

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11115162 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (11) ◽

pp. 5162

Author(s):

Dana Dohr ◽

Nicklas Fiedler ◽

Wolfram Schmidt ◽

Niels Grabow ◽

Robert Mlynski ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Friction Coefficient ◽

Cochlear Implant ◽

Electrode Array ◽

Mechanical Trauma ◽

Electrode Arrays ◽

Friction Behavior ◽

Insertion Force ◽

Friction Coefficients ◽

Electrode Insertion ◽

The Impact

Background: During cochlear implantation, the electrode array has significant friction with the sensitive endocochlear lining and causes mutual mechanical trauma while the array is being inserted. Both, the impact of insertion speed on electrode friction and the relationship of electrode insertion force and friction have not been adequately investigated to date. Methods: In this study, friction coefficients between a CI electrode array (31.5 mm) and a tissue simulating the endocochlear lining have been acquired, depending on different insertion speeds (0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 mm/s). Additionally, the electrode insertion forces during the placing into a scala tympani model were recorded and correlated with the friction coefficient. Results: It was shown that the friction coefficient reached the lowest value at an insertion speed of 0.1 mm/s (0.24 ± 0.13), a maximum occurred at 1.5 mm/s (0.59 ± 0.12), and dropped again at 2 mm/s (0.45 ± 0.11). Similar patterns were observed for the insertion forces. Consequently, a high correlation coefficient (0.9) was obtained between the insertion forces and friction coefficients. Conclusion: The present study reveals a non-linear increase in electrode array friction, when insertion speed raises and reports a high correlation between friction coefficient and electrode insertion force. This dependence is a relevant future parameter to evaluate and reduce cochlear implant insertion trauma. Significance statement: Here, we demonstrated a dependence between cochlear electrode insertion speed and its friction behavior and a high correlation to insertion force. Our study provides valuable information for the evaluation and prevention of cochlear implant insertion trauma and supports the optimization of cochlear electrode arrays regarding friction characteristics.

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Piezoelectric β-polymorph formation of new textiles by surface modification with coating process based on interfacial interaction on the conformational variation of poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) chains

The European Physical Journal Applied Physics ◽

10.1051/epjap/2020200158 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 91 (3) ◽

pp. 31301

Author(s):

Nabil Chakhchaoui ◽

Rida Farhan ◽

Meriem Boutaldat ◽

Marwane Rouway ◽

Adil Eddiai ◽

...

Keyword(s):

High Efficiency ◽

Vinylidene Fluoride ◽

Research Work ◽

Research Area ◽

Interfacial Interaction ◽

Tetraethyl Orthosilicate ◽

Poly Vinylidene Fluoride ◽

Carbon Nanofillers ◽

The Impact ◽

Advanced Applications

Novel textiles have received a lot of attention from researchers in the last decade due to some of their unique features. The introduction of intelligent materials into textile structures offers an opportunity to develop multifunctional textiles, such as sensing, reacting, conducting electricity and performing energy conversion operations. In this research work nanocomposite-based highly piezoelectric and electroactive β-phase new textile has been developed using the pad-dry-cure method. The deposition of poly (vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF) − carbon nanofillers (CNF) − tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS), Si(OCH2CH3)4 was acquired on a treated textile substrate using coating technique followed by evaporation to transform the passive (non-functional) textile into a dynamic textile with an enhanced piezoelectric β-phase. The aim of the study is the investigation of the impact the coating of textile via piezoelectric nanocomposites based PVDF-CNF (by optimizing piezoelectric crystalline phase). The chemical composition of CT/PVDF-CNC-TEOS textile was detected by qualitative elemental analysis (SEM/EDX). The added of 0.5% of CNF during the process provides material textiles with a piezoelectric β-phase of up to 50% has been measured by FTIR experiments. These results indicated that CNF has high efficiency in transforming the phase α introduced in the unloaded PVDF, to the β-phase in the case of nanocomposites. Consequently, this fabricated new textile exhibits glorious piezoelectric β-phase even with relatively low coating content of PVDF-CNF-TEOS. The study demonstrates that the pad-dry-cure method can potentially be used for the development of piezoelectric nanocomposite-coated wearable new textiles for sensors and energy harvesting applications. We believe that our study may inspire the research area for future advanced applications.

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Markets for Purchased Farm Inputs

Voprosy Ekonomiki ◽

10.32609/0042-8736-2005-6-60-71 ◽

2005 ◽

pp. 60-71

Author(s):

E. Serova ◽

O. Shick

Keyword(s):

Agricultural Policy ◽

Financial Constraints ◽

Information Sources ◽

Animal Feed ◽

Government Policies ◽

Market Institutions ◽

Policy Makers ◽

Government Organizations ◽

The Impact ◽

Farm Inputs

Russian policy makers argue that agriculture suffers from decapitalization due to financial constraints faced by producers. This view is the basis for the national agricultural policy, which emphasizes reimbursement of input costs and substitutes government and quasi-government organizations for missing market institutions. The article evaluates the availability of purchased farm inputs, the efficiency of their use, the main problems in the emergence of market institutions, and the impact of government policies. The analysis focuses on five groups of purchased inputs: farm machinery, fertilizers, fuel, seeds, and animal feed. The information sources include official statistics and data from two original surveys.

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Designing an Automated Composter for Food Waste Management with the Implementation of Internet of Things

Journal of Sustainable Natural Resources ◽

10.30880/jsunr.2020.01.02.002 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 1 (2) ◽

Author(s):

N. A. Fakharulrazi ◽

◽

F. Yakub ◽

M. N. Baba ◽

L. F. Zhao ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Internet Of Things ◽

Food Waste ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Animal Feed ◽

Modern Technology ◽

Constant Attention ◽

Whole Process ◽

Handling Cost ◽

Unpleasant Odor ◽

Environmentally Friendly Method

Composting food waste is a delicate procedure that requires specific infrastructure and machinery that can gradually transform the wastes to nutrient-rich manure. Nevertheless, it also desires a constant attention by experts to achieve a quality outcome. Therefore, automatic composting machinery is a promising new idea as modern technology is taking over the world with it high efficiency. The objective of this paper is to build a fully automated composting machine that can help to reduce food waste using a more efficient and environmentally friendly method. This machine has its special features of heating, cooling and grinding which is simple and easy to use for every consumer at just one touch of a button. In addition, it uses a special filter to eliminate unpleasant odor to ensure consumer’s space of mind. The composting process uses node microcontroller (MCU) to run its operation and Internet of Things (IoT) with a developed mobile application to measure the amount of food waste, current process and its moisture content before turning the waste into high nutrient flakes at around 10% of its original volume. It will also notify the consumer when the whole process is done and the final product is ready to use. The produced flakes are good for nurturing soils, use as fertilizer, and renewable source of energy or animal feed. The benefit is to help reduce handling cost of waste at landfill. Excessive logistical energy is required to send food waste to landfill if conventional equipment is applied. This product has a high potential to penetrate the end users who usually cooks at home and also the industrial food manufacturers whether from medium to large which produces a lot of raw waste. Essentially, this machine allows food waste, through implementation of IoT to be converted to usable fertilizer.

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ACOUSTIC PANEL CHICKEN FEATHER WASTE ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY

10.31224/osf.io/ge89b ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Ansarullah ◽

Ramli Rahim ◽

Baharuddin Hamzah ◽

Asniawaty Kusno ◽

Muhammad Tayeb

Keyword(s):

Animal Feed ◽

Environmentally Friendly ◽

Selling Price ◽

Chicken Feather ◽

Chicken Feathers ◽

The Road ◽

Feather Waste ◽

Chicken Feather Waste ◽

Almost All ◽

The Impact

Chicken feathers are the result of waste from slaughterhouses and billions ofkilograms of waste produced by various kinds of poultry processing. This hal is a veryserious problem for the environment because it causes the impact of pollution. Hasmany utilization of chicken feather waste such as making komocen, accessories,upholstery materials, making brackets to the manufacture of animal feed but from theresults of this activity cannot reduce the production of chicken feathers that hiscontinuously increase every year. This is due to the fact that the selling price of chickenmeat has been reached by consumers with middle to upper economic levels. This caneasily be a chicken menu in almost all restaurants and restaurants to the food stalls onthe side of the road. An alternative way of utilizing chicken feathers is to makecomposite materials in the form of panels. Recent studies have shown that the pvacmaterial can be utilized as a mixing and adhesive material with mashed or groundfeathered composites to form a panel that can later be used as an acoustic material.The test results show that the absorption of chicken feathers and pvac glue into panelscan absorb sound well with an absorption coefficient of 0.59, light. This result is veryeconomical so it is worth to be recommended as an acoustic material. Apart from theresults of research methods carried out is one of the environmentally friendly activitiesin particular the handling of waste problems

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New Equation for Predicting Pipe Friction Coefficients Using the Statistical Based Entropy Concepts

Entropy ◽

10.3390/e23050611 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 23 (5) ◽

pp. 611

Author(s):

Yeon-Woong Choe ◽

Sang-Bo Sim ◽

Yeon-Moon Choo

Keyword(s):

Friction Coefficient ◽

Accurate Determination ◽

Mean Velocity ◽

Friction Coefficients ◽

Flow Discharge ◽

Comparison Results ◽

Flow Loss ◽

Key Variables ◽

New Equation

In general, this new equation is significant for designing and operating a pipeline to predict flow discharge. In order to predict the flow discharge, accurate determination of the flow loss due to pipe friction is very important. However, existing pipe friction coefficient equations have difficulties in obtaining key variables or those only applicable to pipes with specific conditions. Thus, this study develops a new equation for predicting pipe friction coefficients using statistically based entropy concepts, which are currently being used in various fields. The parameters in the proposed equation can be easily obtained and are easy to estimate. Existing formulas for calculating pipe friction coefficient requires the friction head loss and Reynolds number. Unlike existing formulas, the proposed equation only requires pipe specifications, entropy value and average velocity. The developed equation can predict the friction coefficient by using the well-known entropy, the mean velocity and the pipe specifications. The comparison results with the Nikuradse’s experimental data show that the R2 and RMSE values were 0.998 and 0.000366 in smooth pipe, and 0.979 to 0.994 or 0.000399 to 0.000436 in rough pipe, and the discrepancy ratio analysis results show that the accuracy of both results in smooth and rough pipes is very close to zero. The proposed equation will enable the easier estimation of flow rates.

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Evaluating polymer interplay after hot water pretreatment to investigate maize stem internode recalcitrance

Biotechnology for Biofuels ◽

10.1186/s13068-021-02015-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Amandine Leroy ◽

Xavier Falourd ◽

Loïc Foucat ◽

Valérie Méchin ◽

Fabienne Guillon ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Cell Wall ◽

Negative Impact ◽

Lignin Content ◽

Structural Features ◽

Hot Water ◽

Condensed State ◽

Structural Factors ◽

Water Pretreatment ◽

Hot Water Pretreatment ◽

The Impact

Abstract Background Biomass recalcitrance is governed by various molecular and structural factors but the interplay between these multiscale factors remains unclear. In this study, hot water pretreatment (HWP) was applied to maize stem internodes to highlight the impact of the ultrastructure of the polymers and their interactions on the accessibility and recalcitrance of the lignocellulosic biomass. The impact of HWP was analysed at different scales, from the polymer ultrastructure or water mobility to the cell wall organisation by combining complementary compositional, spectral and NMR analyses. Results HWP increased the kinetics and yield of saccharification. Chemical characterisation showed that HWP altered cell wall composition with a loss of hemicelluloses (up to 45% in the 40-min HWP) and of ferulic acid cross-linking associated with lignin enrichment. The lignin structure was also altered (up to 35% reduction in β–O–4 bonds), associated with slight depolymerisation/repolymerisation depending on the length of treatment. The increase in $${T}_{1\rho }^{H}$$ T 1 ρ H , $${T}_{HH}$$ T HH and specific surface area (SSA) showed that the cellulose environment was looser after pretreatment. These changes were linked to the increased accessibility of more constrained water to the cellulose in the 5–15 nm pore size range. Conclusion The loss of hemicelluloses and changes in polymer structural features caused by HWP led to reorganisation of the lignocellulose matrix. These modifications increased the SSA and redistributed the water thereby increasing the accessibility of cellulases and enhancing hydrolysis. Interestingly, lignin content did not have a negative impact on enzymatic hydrolysis but a higher lignin condensed state appeared to promote saccharification. The environment and organisation of lignin is thus more important than its concentration in explaining cellulose accessibility. Elucidating the interactions between polymers is the key to understanding LB recalcitrance and to identifying the best severity conditions to optimise HWP in sustainable biorefineries.

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Nonlocal and Size-Dependent Dielectric Function for Plasmonic Nanoparticles

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app9153083 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (15) ◽

pp. 3083

Author(s):

Kai-Jian Huang ◽

Shui-Jie Qin ◽

Zheng-Ping Zhang ◽

Zhao Ding ◽

Zhong-Chen Bai

Keyword(s):

Metallic Nanoparticles ◽

High Efficiency ◽

Finite Size ◽

Plasmonic Nanostructures ◽

Accurate Analysis ◽

Finite Size Effects ◽

Size Dependent ◽

Quantum Size ◽

The Impact ◽

Electron Energy Loss

We develop a theoretical approach to investigate the impact that nonlocal and finite-size effects have on the dielectric response of plasmonic nanostructures. Through simulations, comprehensive comparisons of the electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) and the optical performance are discussed for a gold spherical dimer system in terms of different dielectric models. Our study offers a paradigm of high efficiency compatible dielectric theoretical framework for accounting the metallic nanoparticles behavior combining local, nonlocal and size-dependent effects in broader energy and size ranges. The results of accurate analysis and simulation for these effects unveil the weight and the evolution of both surface and bulk plasmons vibrational mechanisms, which are important for further understanding the electrodynamics properties of structures at the nanoscale. Particularly, our method can be extended to other plasmonic nanostructures where quantum-size or strongly interacting effects are likely to play an important role.

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Analysis of High-Friction Surface Texture with Respect to Friction and Wear

Coatings ◽

10.3390/coatings11070758 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 758

Author(s):

Cibi Pranav ◽

Minh-Tan Do ◽

Yi-Chang Tsai

Keyword(s):

Friction Coefficient ◽

Surface Texture ◽

Safety Concern ◽

Future Research ◽

Scanning System ◽

Novel Approach ◽

Texture Parameters ◽

Aggregate Loss ◽

Friction Surfaces ◽

The Impact

High Friction Surfaces (HFS) are applied to increase friction capacity on critical roadway sections, such as horizontal curves. HFS friction deterioration on these sections is a safety concern. This study deals with characterization of the aggregate loss, one of the main failure mechanisms of HFS, using texture parameters to study its relationship with friction. Tests are conducted on selected HFS spots with different aggregate loss severity levels at the National Center for Asphalt Technology (NCAT) Test Track. Friction tests are performed using a Dynamic Friction Tester (DFT). The surface texture is measured by means of a high-resolution 3D pavement scanning system (0.025 mm vertical resolution). Texture data are processed and analyzed by means of the MountainsMap software. The correlations between the DFT friction coefficient and the texture parameters confirm the impact of change in aggregates’ characteristics (including height, shape, and material volume) on friction. A novel approach to detect the HFS friction coefficient transition based on aggregate loss, inspired by previous works on the tribology of coatings, is proposed. Using the proposed approach, preliminary outcomes show it is possible to observe the rapid friction coefficient transition, similar to observations at NCAT. Perspectives for future research are presented and discussed.

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The Impact of Heat Treatment on the Behavior of a Hot-Dip Zinc Coating Applied to Steel During Dry Friction

Materials ◽

10.3390/ma14030660 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 660

Author(s):

Dariusz Jędrzejczyk ◽

Elżbieta Szatkowska

Keyword(s):

Heat Treatment ◽

Wear Resistance ◽

Friction Coefficient ◽

Dry Friction ◽

Zinc Coating ◽

Pin On Disc ◽

The One ◽

The Impact ◽

Coating Hardness ◽

Anticorrosion Properties

The analyzed topic refers to the wear resistance and friction coefficient changes resulting from heat treatment (HT) of a hot-dip zinc coating deposited on steel. The aim of research was to evaluate the coating behavior during dry friction after HT as a result of microstructure changes and increase the coating hardness. The HT parameters should be determined by taking into consideration, on the one hand, coating wear resistance and, on the other hand, its anticorrosion properties. A hot-dip zinc coating was deposited in industrial conditions (according EN ISO 10684) on disc-shaped samples and the chosen bolts. The achieved results were assessed on the basis of tribological tests (T11 pin-on-disc tester, Schatz®Analyse device, Sindelfingen, Germany), microscopic observations (with the use of optical and scanning microscopy), EDS (point and linear) analysis, and microhardness measurements. It is proved that properly applied HT of a hot-dip zinc coating results in changes in the coating’s microstructure, hardness, friction coefficient, and wear resistance.

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