A Composite Transformer-Based Multi-Stage Defect Detection Architecture for Sewer Pipes

Urban sewer pipes are a vital infrastructure in modern cities,and their defects must be detected in time to prevent potential malfunctioning.In recent years,to relieve the manual efforts by human experts,models based on deep learning have been introduced to automatically identify potential defects.However,these models are insufficient in terms of dataset complexity,model versatility and performance.Our work addresses these issues with amulti-stage defect detection architecture using a composite backbone Swin Transformer.Themodel based on this architecture is trained using a more comprehensive dataset containingmore classes of defects.By ablation studies on the modules of combined backbone Swin Transformer,multi-stage detector,test-time data augmentation and model fusion,it is revealed that they all contribute to the improvement of detection accuracy from different aspects.The model incorporating all these modules achieves the mean Average Precision(mAP)of 78.6% at an Intersection over Union(IoU)threshold of 0.5.This represents an improvement of 14.1% over the ResNet50 Faster Region-based Convolutional Neural Network(R-CNN)model and a 6.7% improvement over You Only Look Once version 6(YOLOv6)-large,the highest in the YOLO methods.In addition,for other defect detection models for sewer pipes,although direct comparison with themis infeasible due to the unavailability of their private datasets,our results are obtained from a more comprehensive dataset and have superior generalization capabilities.

A comparison of soft magnetic composites designed from different ferromagnetic powders and phenolic resins

Soft magnetic composites （SMCs） were prepared from three different ferromagnetic powder particles： iron powder ASC 100.29, spherical FeSi particles and vitroperm （Fe73CulNb3Si16B7） flakes. Two types of hybrid organic-inorganic phenolic resins modified with either silica nanoparticles or boron were used to design a thin insulating layer perfect- ly covering the ferromagnetic particles. Fourier transform infrared （FTIR） spectrometry confirmed an incorporation of silica or boron into the polymer matrix, which manifested itself through an improved thermal stability of the hybrid resins verified by thermogravimetric-differential scanning calorimetry （TG-DSC） analysis. The core-shell particles prepared from the ferromagnetic powder particles and the modified hybrid resins were further compacted to the cylindrical and toroidal shapes for the mechanical, electrical and magnetic testing. A uniform distribution of the resin between the ferromagnetic particles was evidenced by scanning electron microscope （SEM） analysis, which was also reflected in a rather high value of the electrical resistivity. A low porosity and extraordinary high values of mechanical hardness and flexural strength were found in SMC consisting of the iron powder and phenolic resin modified with boron. The coercive fields of the prepared samples were comparable with the commercial SMCs.

Phase Evolution and Oxidation Resistance of YSZ/(Ni,Al) Composite Coatings in CH_4 Atmosphere

YSZ/（Ni, Al） composite coatings with different Ni：Al mole ratios were deposited on superalloy Inconel 600 by electrophoretic deposition（EPD） technique, followed by sintering in CH_4 atmosphere at 1 100 ℃for 2 h and isothermally oxidation at 1000 ℃ for 50 h. After sintering at 1100 ℃ for 2 h in CH_4 atmosphere, besides ZrC and t-ZrO_2 phases, the phase constitutes of Ni：Al mole ratios with 1：3, 1：2, and 1：1 were（Zr, Al）C, AlNi_3 and Ni phases, respectively. A remarkable difference in the oxidation behaviors of YSZ/（Ni, Al） composite coatings with different Ni：Al mole ratios was observed. For YSZ（Ni：Al=1：3） coated sample, oxidation at 1000 ℃ causes decomposition of the（Zr,Al）C solid solution to metallic Al, and then most of the Al is oxidized to Al_2O_3. For the YSZ（Ni：Al=1：2） coated sample, oxidation at 1000 ℃ mainly causes decomposition of the AlNi_3 phase. For YSZ（Ni：Al=1：1） coated sample, after oxidation at 1000 ℃, most of the Ni is oxidized to Ni O phase, and tolerated 50 h of oxidation and finally cracked and spalled from the specimen. YSZ（Ni：Al=1：3） and YSZ（Ni：Al=1：2） coated samples show superior oxidation resistance than that of YSZ coating. The different oxidation resistance mechanisms of YSZ/（Ni, Al） composite coatings sintered in CH_4 atmosphere were discussed.

Preparation,characterization and combustion properties of Zr/ZrH_2 particles coated with α-FeOOH crystal grains

Zr/ZrH2 particles with irregular morphologies and broad size distribution were uniformly coated with acicular α-FeOOH crystal grains via a facile route without using polymers or surfactants. The as-synthesized material was characterized by X-ray diffraction （XRD）, scanning electron microscopy （SEM）, energy dispersive X-ray （EDX）, UV-vis diffusion reflection （UV-vis） and Raman spectrometry. Based on these characterizations, the synthesis mechanism was explained in terms of combined heterogeneous nucleation and solid state transformation reaction. The presence of α-FeOOH coating greatly changed the combustion behavior of Zr/ZrH2 particles： the combustion lasting time decreased from 32 s for un-coated Zr/ZrH2 particles to 0.2 s for coated particles while the maximum temperature in the combustion process increased from 1510 ℃ to 2036℃.