An investigation on bonding interface microstructure of ceramic coating prepared on AZ91D by evaporated pattern casting technique

PbO-ZnO-Na20 ceramic coating was fabricated on the AZ91D Mg-alloy substrate surface by using of evaporated pattern casting （EPC） process. The ceramic coating was characterized through scanning electron microscopy （SEM） observation, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer （EDS） and so on. The research was emphasized on the formation process of ceramic coating and the interface bonding conditions between ceramic coating and the substrate. Results show that the glass powder （PbO-ZnO-NazO） melts when contacts with the high temperature liquid metal, and solidifies on the surface of the substrate with the decrease of temperature. Therefore, the ceramic coating was successfully prepared with the formation of the bonding interface with the substrate, Beside the influence of coating layer thickness, the vacuum level was also investigated. Further analysis indicates that oxide inclusions and decomposition products of foam pattern had a significant effect on the bonding interface： To obtain a good bonding interface between the ceramic coating and the substrate, the metal liquid oxidation and inclusions must be decreased and the decomposition products of foam pattern should be exhausted from the EPC coating completely.

Production of ammonia from plasma-catalytic decomposition of urea: Effects of carrier gas composition

Effects of carrier gas composition（N2/air） on NH3 production, energy efficiency regarding NH3 production and byproducts formation from plasma-catalytic decomposition of urea were systematically investigated using an Al2 O3-packed dielectric barrier discharge（DBD） reactor at room temperature. Results show that the presence of O2 in the carrier gas accelerates the conversion of urea but leads to less generation of NH3. The final yield of NH3 in the gas phase decreased from 70.5%, 78.7%, 66.6% and 67.2% to 54.1%, 51.7%, 49.6% and 53.4% for applied voltages of 17, 19, 21 and 23 kV, respectively when air was used as the carrier gas instead of N2.From the viewpoint of energy savings, however, air carrier gas is better than N2 due to reduced energy consumption and increased energy efficiency for decomposition of a fixed amount of urea. Carrier gas composition has little influence on the major decomposition pathways of urea under the synergetic effects of plasma and Al2 O3 catalyst to give NH3 and CO2 as the main products. Compared to a small amount of N2 O formed with N2 as the carrier gas, however,more byproducts including N2O and NO2 in the gas phase and NH4 NO3 in solid deposits were produced with air as the carrier gas, probably due to the unproductive consumption of NH3, the possible intermediate HNCO and even urea by the abundant active oxygen species and nitrogen oxides generated in air-DBD plasma.

A New Method for A Rank Subtractivity Formula

Let A be an m by n matrix of rank l, and let M and N be m by k and n by q matrices, respectively, where k is not necessarily equal to q or rank(M AN) < min(k, q). In this paper, we provide some necessary and sufficient conditions for the validity of the rank subtractivity formula: rank(A-AN(M AN)-M A) = rank(A)-rank(AN(M AN)-M A)by applying the full rank decomposition of A = F G(F ∈ Rm×l, G ∈ Rl×n, rank(A) =rank(F) = rank(G) = l) and the product singular value decomposition of the matrix pair[F M, GN ]. This rank subtractivity formula along with the condition under which it holds is called the extended Wedderburn-Guttman theorem.

HOSVD-based LPV modeling and mixed robust H_2/H_∞ control design for air-breathing hypersonic vehicle

This paper focuses on synthesizing a mixed robust H_2/H_∞ linear parameter varying（LPV） controller for the longitudinal motion of an air-breathing hypersonic vehicle via a high order singular value decomposition（HOSVD） approach.The design of hypersonic flight control systems is highly challenging due to the enormous complexity of the vehicle dynamics and the presence of significant uncertainties.Motivated by recent results on both LPV control and tensor-product（TP） model transformation approach,the velocity and altitude tracking control problems for the air-breathing hypersonic vehicle is reduced to that of a state feedback stabilizing controller design for a polytopic LPV system with guaranteed performances.The controller implementation is converted into a convex optimization problem with parameterdependent linear matrix inequalities（LMIs） constraints,which is intuitively tractable using LMI control toolbox.Finally,numerical simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Decomposition analysis applied to energy and emissions:A literature review

Decomposition analysis has been widely used to assess the determinants of energy and CO_(2)emissions in academic research and policy studies.Both the methodology and application of decomposition analysis have been largely improved in the past decades.After more than 50 years’developments,decomposition studies have become increasingly sophisticated and diversified,and tend to converge internally and integrate with other analytical approaches externally.A good understanding of the literature and state of the art is critical to identify knowledge gaps and formulate future research agenda.To this end,this study presents a literature survey for decomposition analysis applied to energy and emission issues,with a focus on the period of 2016–2021.A review for three individual decomposition techniques is first conducted,followed by a synthesis of emerging trends and features for the decomposition analysis literature as a whole.The findings are expected to direct future research in decomposition analysis.

GRAPHICAL-BASED RELIABILITY EVALUATION OF MULTIPLE DISTINCT PRODUCTION LINES

This paper proposes a graphical-based methodology to evaluate the performance of a manufacturing system in terms of network model.We focus on a manufacturing system which consists of multiple distinct production lines.A transformation technique is developed to build the manufacturing system as a manufacturing network.In such a manufacturing network,the capacity of each machine is multistate due to failure,partial failure,or maintenance.Thus,this manufacturing network is also regarded as a multistate network.We evaluate the probability that the manufacturing network can meet a given demand,where the probability is referred to as the system reliability.A simple algorithm integrating decomposition technique is proposed to generate the minimal capacity vectors that machines should provide to eventually satisfy demand.The system reliability is derived in terms of such capacity vectors afterwards.A practical application in the context of IC card manufacturing system is utilized to demonstrate the performance evaluation procedure.

Impact of Embeddedness in Global Value Chains on the Differentiation of Technological Sophistication of Exports

This paper adopts the production decomposition developed by Wang et al.(2017)and data from the World Input-Output Database(WIOD)to estimate the degrees of forward and backward participation in global value chains(GVCs)in 2000-2014 by the world’s major economies including China,and to do an empirical examination on the impact that heterogeneous forms of participation in GVCs have on the improvement of GVCs.The results show that forward participation in GVCs helps increase the sophistication of exports,while backward participation in GVCs exerts different infl uence on the sophistication of exports.While a lower level of backward participation by a country is constrained by the country’s current position in the international division of labor and thus does not help increase the sophistication of its exports,a higher level of backward participation helps break through the bottleneck of low-end locking in GVCs and increase the sophistication of exports.