Experimental study on interaction between membrane structures and wind environment

The interaction between membrane structures and their environment can be either static or dynamic. Static interaction refers to interaction with static air, while dynamic interaction refers to wind and its effects. They can be evaluated by two parameters, added mass and radiation/aerodynamic damping, which are experimentally investigated in this study. The study includes the effects of both the static and dynamic interaction on structural dynamic characteristics, and the relationship between the interaction parameters and the covered area of a membrane structure for the static interaction and the relationship between the interaction parameters and wind direction and speed for the dynamic interaction. Experimental data show that the dynamic interaction is strongly correlated with the structural modes, i.e., the interaction of the symmetric modes is much larger than the anti-synmletric modes; and the influence of the dynamic interaction is significant in wind-induced response analysis and cannot be ignored. In addition, it is concluded that the structural natural frequency is remarkably decreased by this interaction, and the frequency band is significantly broadened.

Multi-objective optimization of membrane structures based on Pareto Genetic Algorithm

A multi-objective optimization method based on Pareto Genetic Algorithm is presented for shape design of membrane structures from a structural view point.Several non-dimensional variables are defined as optimization variables,which are decision factors of shapes of membrane structures.Three objectives are proposed including maximization of stiffness,maximum uniformity of stress and minimum reaction under external loads.Pareto Multi-objective Genetic Algorithm is introduced to solve the Pareto solutions.Consequently,the dependence of the optimality upon the optimization variables is derived to provide guidelines on how to determine design parameters.Moreover,several examples illustrate the proposed methods and applications.The study shows that the multi-objective optimization method in this paper is feasible and efficient for membrane structures;the research on Pareto solutions can provide explicit and useful guidelines for shape design of membrane structures.

FORMATION AND MICROSTRUCTURE OF POLYETHYLENE MICROPOROUS MEMBRANES THROUGH THERMALLY INDUCED PHASE SEPARATION

Microporous membranes of low-high density polyethylene and their blends were prepared bythermally-induced phase separation of polymer/long-aliphatic chain alcohol (diluent) mixtures.The microstructures of this particular membrane, which depends on the diluent properties,polymer concentration and cooling rate, were observed by scanning electron microscopy.'Beehive-type,'leafy-like, and lacy porous structure morphologies can be formed,depending onthe blend composition and phase separation conditions, which were discussed by the polymer anddiluent crystallization processes.

Effects of Irradiation on the Structure-activity Relationship of Konjac Glucomannan Molecular Chain Membrane

To know the effects of irradiation on the konjac glucomannan （KGM） molecular chain membrane, KGM membrane solution was treated with the irradiation dose of 0-20 kGy in this study, and the structure and properties of KGM membrane were analyzed with Infrared spectrum, Raman spectrum, X-ray, SEM scanning and so on. The results revealed that the effects of different irradiation doses on the KGM molecular chain structure were different. Higher irradiation dose （20 kGy） resulted in partial damage against KGM membrane crystal structure, and there was no obvious change for the amorphous structure; with membrane property test, the tensile strength of KGM membrane gradually increased with the increase of irradiation dose and its elongation at break reduced, but these changes were not significant, WVP value reduced; with SEM, the membrane surface treated with irradiation was smoother even than the membrane without treatment. In addition, when increasing the irradiation dose, membrane surface became more even, and arrangement was more orderly and compact. KGM membrane nrooerties, and it is an ideal Irradiation modification could effectively improve the modification method.

STRUCTURE AND EXPRESSION OF EPSTEIN-BARR VIRUS MEMBRANE ANTIGEN IN RECOMBINANT VACCINIA VIRUS

The Epstein-Barr virus membrane antigen was constructed and inserted into vaccinia virus, Tian-tan strain in order to study the effect of this virus on EB infection and tumorogenesis. The EBV-derived membrane antigen was expressed under the control of a 7.5 K promoter of vaccinia virus. The antibody against the membrane antigen of EB virus was produced on rabbits vaccinated with recombinant vaccinia virus.

Transformation of Structure and Properties of Vesicles Induced by Transition Metal Ions

This paper proved that octodecyl propylenediamine could form vesicles in pure water and aqueous solution of CuCl2 or Cu（NO3）2. The structure and morphology of vesicles were different when the copper （Ⅱ） salt was added to the solution. The results showed that both the counterions and the ligands had strong influence on the configuration of coordinated structures and packing model in bilayer membrane of vesicles.

Experiment and evaluation of wrinkling strain in a corner tensioned square membrane

Prediction of wrinkling characteristics is strongly correlated with the strain perpendicular to wrinkling direc- tion. In this paper, the strain field of wrinkled membrane is tested by VIC-3D system based on the digital image correlation technique. Experimental results are validated by the tension wrinkling simulation. The experimental strain perpendicular to wrinkling direction is analyzed in depth. The wrinkling strain of a square wrinkled membrane under corner tension is extracted from experimental strain perpendicular to wrinkling direction. A quantitative characterization format of the experimental wrinkling strain is proposed. A modified prediction method of wrinkling amplitude is presented based on the experimental wrinkling strain. The re- sults show that the precision of modified prediction model has improved 13.2% compared with the classical prediction model. The results reveal that the modified model can give an accurate prediction of the wrinkling amplitude.

Prediction on Deflection of Inflated Beam

The bending stiffness of the inflated beam is considered as a constant before wrinkles appear, and it decreases obviously as wrinkles propagate. The formula of the bending stiffness is obtained based on the membrane theory in this paper. Furthermore, the definition of dimensionless bending stiffness factor is presented; the relationship of bending stiffness factor and wrinkling factor is derived; the bending stiffness factor is simplified as different linear functions with wrinkling factor, and the simplified model of bending stiffness of inflated beam under bending is also obtained. The bending stiffness including expression of wrinkling factor is substituted into the deflection differential equation, and then the slope and deflection equation of the inflated beam is deduced by integrating the deflection differential equation. Finally, the load-deflection curve is obtained, which is compared with the experimental data in a previous paper. It has a good agreement with each other.

Wrinkle-crease interaction behavior simulation of a rectangular membrane under shearing

Wrinkling analysis of a rectangular membrane with a single crease under shearing is performed to understand the wrinkle-crease interaction behaviors. The crease is considered by introducing the residual stresses from creasing and the effective modulus into the baseline configuration with assumed circular cross-sectional crease geometry. The wrinkling analysis of the creased membrane is then performed by using the direct perturb-force （DP） simulation technique which is based on our modified displacement components （MDC） method. Results reveal that the crease may influence the stress transfer path in the membrane and further change the wrinkling direction. The crease appears to improve the bending stiffness of the membrane which has an effective resistance on the wrinkling evolution. The effects of the crease orientation on wrinkle-crease interaction are studied toward the end of this paper. The results show that the wrinkling amplitude, wavelength, and direction increase as the crease orientation increases, and the wrinkling number decreases with the increasing crease orientation. These results will be of great benefit to the analysis and the control of the wrinkles in the membrane structures.

A study on wrinkling characteristics and dynamic mechanical behavior of membrane

An eigenvalue method considering the membrane vibration of wrinkling out-of-plane deformation is introduced, and the stress distributing rule in membrane wrinkled area is analyzed. A dynamic analytical model of rectangular shear wrinkled membrane and its numerical analysis approach are also developed. Results indicate that the stress in wrinkled area is not uniform, i.e. it is larger in wrinkling wave peaks along wrinkles and two ends of wrinkle in vertical direction. Vibration modes of wrinkled membrane are strongly correlated with the wrinkling configurations. The rigidity is larger due to the heavier stress in the part of wrinkling wave peaks. Therefore, wave peaks are always located at the node lines of vibration mode. The vibration frequency obviously increases with the vibration of wave peaks.

Shape analysis and optimization of airbag for space inflatable antenna

The characteristics of normal inflatable antennas are described in this paper.For its deficiency such as low stiffness,a new-style of rigid-flexible coupling inflatable antenna is introduced.The advantages and system-composition are presented.Airbag is an important component,and the shape and stress distribution of airbag is important for the whole structure.Thus,shape-state analysis is performed.The uniformity of constrained force at joint between airbag and rib will impact the state of joint,or even the deployment process.Therefore,a shape optimization of airbag is developed on the base of genetic algorithms,and the best shape of airbag is finally obtained.Therefore,the stress distribution of airbags will be uniformed and the antenna structure system will be more reliability.

The Mechanical Characteristics and Experimental Study of the Stratospheric Airship

Stratospheric airship is a special near-space air vehicle which has lots of advantages than other traditional flying aircrafts, such as long endurance, strong survival ability, low cost, excellent resolution detector etc. In addition, the stratospheric airship can be an ideal stratospheric bearing platform. This paper firstly gave an overview describing some technical differences between the stratospheric airship and the traditional airship, including the working environment, design specifications, structure characteristics, energy system, flying modes, and so on. Some technical difficulties including the materials, power system which apply to the stratospheric airship and deformation of the huge hull, super-heating effect, and station-keeping were discussed. Furthermore, technical target, technical specifications, design concept, and overview of flying tested about two stratospheric demonstration airships which were representative achievements of the research on the stratospheric airship in China were introduced. Finally, the predictions about the progress and direction of development were discussed.

Nitrogen release characteristics of polyethylene-coated controlled-release fertilizers and their dependence on membrane pore structure

In this study, controlled-release fertilizers （CRFs） with five different nitrogen release periods were pre- pared by coating large urea particles with polyethylene （PE） membranes under various experimental conditions. The preliminary and differential solubility rates, release periods, and membrane pore sizes of the obtained CRFs were measured using water immersion, scanning electron microscopy, and mercury porosimetry. For all CRF samples, the median pore diameters of the membranes were equal to 4.5-5.3 nm and pores with sizes smaller than 10 nm accounted for 86-96% of the total pore surface area. The obtained pore diameter distributions differed for the five studied types of CRF, having release periods of 1,2, 4, 6, and 8 months. Thus, for the CRFs with a 1-month release period, the maximum pore diameter reached a magnitude of 4000 nm, while this value did not exceed 30 nm for the CRFs with a release period of 8 months. Hence, we have established a relationship between the release period of CRFs and their effective maximum pore sizes.

Altering membrane structure to enhance water permeability and performance of anion exchange membrane fuel cell

Water management has been proven significant for enhancing both performance and durability of anion exchange membrane fuel cell. Besides searching new material, decreasing membrane thickness and modifying operation parameters, a simple and universal method of altering membrane structure is proposed in this work. Composite membranes made by unique processing method that includes both casting and electrospinning processes were compared with traditional casting membrane, all with the same thickness of 40 μm. Comparing to traditional casting membrane, the composite membrane put at proper position shows a higher water permeability, thus even more than 50% enhancement of the peak performance.

COUPLING COMPUTATION OF THE FLOW FIELD AND THE LARGE DEFORMATION OF MEMBRANE STRUCTURE OF STRATOSPHERE AIRSHIPS

In this article, the mathematical model of the coupling of the three-dimensional fluid flow and the large deformation of membrane structure is established. The fluid-structure coupling interaction is simulated using the computational codes developed by the authors. By analyzing the interactions of membrane and flow field, the aeroelasticity of the airship is detailed. All the results are adopted in the focused study of the stratosphere airship in trimmed state.

An ultrasound simulation method for carotid arteries with a wall structure of three membranes

Ultrasound simulation for carotid arteries is helpful to the performance assessments of vessel wall detection and signal processing methods by using ultrasound techniques. An ul- trasound simulation method of carotid artery wall with a three-membrane structure is proposed in present study. According to the ultrasound speckle distributions varying with the shapes and densities of scatterer distributions, as well as the statistic results of the clinical images, the parameters of distributions, densities and intensities of scatterers for different kinds of tissues in the carotid artery phantoms are determined. Each region is acoustically characterized using FIELD II software to produce the radio frequency echo signals, from which ultrasound images are derived. The results based on 30 simulations show that the echo distributions of the intimae, mediae, adventitias and blood are consistent with the clinical ones. Moreover, compared with the results from the central frequency of 8 MHz, the mean measurements for thicknesses of the intima, media and adventitia membranes, as well as the lumen diameter from the simulation images based on 12 MHz are the same as the preset ones, and the maximum relative errors are the 4.01%, 1.25%, 0.04% and 0.15%, respectively. The simulation under this condition is more realistic.

Shifts in microbial community structure and diversity in a MBR combined with worm reactors treating synthetic wastewater

The chemical oxygen demand（COD） and NH3-N removal, membrane fouling, sludge characteristics and microbial community structure in a membrane bioreactor（MBR） coupled with worm reactors（SSBWR） were evaluated for 210 days. The obtained results were compared to those from a conventional MBR（C-MBR） operated in parallel. The results indicated that the combined MBR（S-MBR） achieved higher COD and NH3-N removal efficiency,slower increase in membrane fouling, better sludge settleability and higher activities of the related enzymes in the activated sludge. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis was used to analyze the microbial community structures in the C-MBR and the S-MBR. The microbial community structure in the S-MBR was more diverse than that in the C-MBR. Additionally, the slow-growing microbes such as Saprospiraceae, Actinomyces, Frankia, Clostridium, Comamonas,Pseudomonas, Dechloromonas and Flavobacterium were enriched in the S-MBR, further accounting for the sludge reduction, membrane fouling alleviation and wastewater treatment.

Second Shape Finding Analysis of Membrane Structures

A second shape finding method was developed to improve the nonlinear finite element based shape finding method. The curved shape is obtained by raising the control points above the projection plane. The convergence was improved using pseudo material properties to get a preliminary shape, and then using the real properties to get the final shape. A large number of examples were analyzed to verify the validity and practicality of this method. The results show that the final curved surface after the second shape finding process is always quite similar to the first one. Moreover, the curved surface obtained after the second shape finding process is accurate and will be realized in real materials.

Myristoylation of EV71 VP4 is Essential for Infectivity and Interaction with Membrane Structure

The Enterovirus 71(EV71)VP4 is co-translationally linked to myristic acid at its amino-terminal glycine residue.However,the role of this myristoylation in the EV71 life cycle remains largely unknown.To investigate this issue,we developed a myristoylation-deficient virus and reporter(luciferase)pseudovirus with a Gly-to-Ala mutation(G2A)on EV71 VP4.When transfecting the EV71-G2 A genome encoding plasmid in cells,the loss of myristoylation on VP4 did not affect the expression of viral proteins and the virus morphology,however,it did significantly influence viral infectivity.Further,in myristoylation-deficient reporter pseudovirus-infected cells,the luciferase activity and viral genome RNA decreased significantly as compared to that of wild type virus;however,cytopathic effect and viral capsid proteins were not detected in myristoylation-deficient virus-infected cells.Also,although myristoylation-deficient viral RNA and proteins were detected in the second blind passage of infection,they were much fewer in number compared to that of the wild type virus.The replication of genomic RNA and negative-strand viral RNA were both blocked in myristoylation-deficient viruses,suggesting that myristoylation affects viral genome RNA release from capsid to cytoplasm.Besides,loss of myristoylation on VP4 altered the distribution of VP4-green fluorescent protein protein,which disappeared from the membrane structure fraction.Finally,a liposome leakage assay showed that EV71 myristoylation mediates the permeability of the model membrane.Hence,the amino-terminal myristoylation of VP4 is pivotal to EV71 infection and capsidmembrane structure interaction.This study provides novel molecular mechanisms regarding EV71 infection and potential molecular targets for antiviral drug design.

Design and application of solar sailing: A review on key technologies

Solar sail technology has been proposed and developed for space explorations with advantages of low launch cost,no-propellant consumption,and continuous thrust,which has great potentials in earth polar detection,interstellar explorations and etc.The development of solar sail has made significant progress in structural design,manufacturing,materials,orbit transfer,and stability control in the past few decades,which makes meaningful contributions to astronomy,physics,and aerospace science.Technological breakthroughs of Solar Radiation Pressure(SRP)propulsion and interstellar transfer have been achieved in current solar sail missions.However,there are still many challenges and problems need to be solved.This paper attempts to summarize the research schemes and potential applications of solar sailing in space missions from the viewpoint of key technologies,so as to provide an overall perspective for researchers in this field.Analyses of the key technologies of solar sailing system design are provided.Finally,challenges and prospective development of solar sailing are discussed.