Enlightenment of Intelligent Construction in the Construction of First-Class University Campus

In September 2017, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly announced the first batch of “double first-class” construction universities, aiming to improve China’s education level and strengthen the country’s core competitiveness. In addition to first-class teaching and first-class scientific research, first-class universities should also have first-class campuses. The campus of a first-class university should have a complete range of infrastructure, scale, and function to meet the requirements of school-running and scientific research; it should also advocate sustainable development, which includes the concept of energy-saving, smart, and green. The traditional production methods and management models of the construction industry are far from being able to meet the needs of the construction and development of first-class campuses. Digital, intelligent, and informatized construction models are the only way for current campus construction.

Water reuse in the food industry

Due to the significant growing demand for water, it is urgent to those in the food industry to consider a more rational and sustainable use of such a scarce natural resource. This chapter highlights alternative food processing methods that contemplate recycling and reusing water. Based on a systematic literature review, it highlights the adoption of cleaner production methods. The chapter focus on the meat and fresh produce sectors where evidence shows that water sustainability related methods is the most needed. Suggestions are proposed to minimize water waste through the treatment of effluents and decrease the impact of effluent pollution on the environment. In so doing, clear environmental and economic benefits could be achieved through the reduction of costs and value-adding to the final product. Yet, the implementation of Cleaner Production Methods would require support from the industry, policymakers, and consumers to encourage the recycling and reuse of water.

Water Sensitivity of Hemp-Foam Concrete

The necessity to build energy-efficient and low environmental impact buildings favors the development of biobased light-weight materials as hemp-foam concretes. In this context, experimental protocols were developed to study the effects of hemp shiv and the production methods on the water sensitivity of bio-based foamed concrete (BBFC). Foam concrete incorporates several materials and compounds: cement, protein-based foaming agent, ground granulated blast–furnace slag, metakaolin as a binder, and hemp shiv as bio-based aggregates. The study investigated first the effect of the incorporation of hemp shiv (from 0 to 15 vol%) and then the elaboration method, comparing direct method versus preformed method on the resulting physical properties, the isotherms sorption-desorption and the capillary water absorption of hemp-foam concretes. We observe an increasing porosity of the concrete with hemp shives content. Additionally, hemp shives increase the adsorption and the capillary absorption of water. Moreover, the preformed method produces concretes more sensitive to water than the direct methods since it increases its porosities.

Investigation of the Operational and Technological Reliability of the Small-size Internal Threading Process

The article presents the results of research in the direction of improving technological equipment for internal threading of parts in a flexible automated production. Methods for assessing the operational and technological reliability of a flexible manufacturing module (FMM) of thread processing are considered, which can be used as the basis for the developed method of synthesis of its elements. It is proposed to consider the technological system of the flexible manufacturing module (FMM) of thread processing as a system in which transitions from state to state occur under the action of the simplest flows with parameters of the transition probabilities of a continuous Markov chain. The developed mathematical model describing the state of the FMM taking into account the failures of the functioning of its elements, parametric failures, as well as taking into account the recovery after these types of failures, makes it possible to reflect the influence on the operation of the module of the parameters of the flows of failures and restorations of the tool, machine tool, fixture, loading device. The solution of the obtained systems of equations of final probabilities allows for given (or experimentally obtained) intensities of failure streams (functioning and parametric) for FMM threading to obtain the values of the probability of failure-free operation, as well as the probabilities of finding the system in an inoperative state due to corresponding failures. The measures taken make it possible to solve the synthesis problem at the level of structural and layout optimization, so that at the stage of parametric synthesis to determine the elements that are vulnerable according to the developed criterion, the improvement of which will lead to the creation of the most efficient system.

Analysis of particles size distributions in Mg(OH)2 precipitation from highly concentrated MgCl2 solutions

Magnesium is a raw material of great importance, which attracted increasing interest in the last years. A promising route is to recover magnesium in the form of Magnesium Hydroxide via precipitation from highly concentrated Mg2+ resources, e.g. industrial or natural brines and bitterns. Several production methods and characterization procedures have been presented in the literature reporting a broad variety of Mg(OH)2 particle sizes. In the present work, a detailed experimental investigation is aiming to shed light on the characteristics of produced Mg(OH)2 particles and their dependence upon the reacting conditions. To this purpose, two T-shaped mixers were employed to tune and control the degree of homogenization of reactants. Particles were analysed by laser static light scattering with and without an anti-agglomerant treatment based on ultrasounds and addition of a dispersant. Zeta potential measurements were also carried out to further assess Mg(OH)2 suspension stability.

Production Techniques of Metallic Foams in Lightweight Materials

Lightweight materials were needed in many different areas, especially in order to reduce the required energy in areas such as automotive and aerospace industries. Metallic foams attract attention in lightweight material applications due to their unique properties. The pores in its structure provide advantages in many applications, both structural and functional by promising both ultra-lightweight construction, energy absorption, and damping insulation. Production techniques of metallic foams can generally be classified as liquid, solid, gas, and ionic state production according to the physical state of the metal at the beginning of the process. The production technique should be chosen according to the usage area and desired properties of the metallic foam and the suitability in terms of cost and sustainability of production. For this reason, the details of the production techniques should be known and the products that can be obtained and their properties should be understood. In this respect, this chapter emphasizes the production methods from past to present.