Effects of Water-cement Ratio and Hydration Heat Regulating Materials on Hydration Process of Early-age Cementitious Materials

By means of low-field nuclear magnetic resonance(LF-NMR),the transverse relaxation time(T_(2))signals of physically bound water in cement paste were monitored to indicate water content change and characterize the early-age hydration process.With the curves of the T_(2)signals and hydration time obtained,the hydration process could be divided into four typical periods using the null points of the second derivative curve,and the influences of water-cement ratio(w/c)and hydration heat regulating materials(HHRM)on hydration process were analyzed.The experimental results showed that the hydration rate of pure cement paste in accelerated period presented a positive correlation with w/c.Compared to pure cement paste,the addition of HHRM extended all four periods,and led to a much faster hydration rate in initial period as well as a slower rate in accelerated period.Finally,according to the LFNMR test results,the early-age hydration model of cementitious materials was proposed considering w/c and HHRM content.

Fabrication, microstructure and properties of SiCp/Cu heat sink materials

Cu-coated powder was fabricated by electroless plating process, and the composition and morphology of coated powder were studied. Moreover, Cu-30, 40, 50 vol.%SiCp heat sink materials were fabricated by hot pressing using coated and uncoated powder. And the microstructure and thermophysical properties of the heat sink materials were also studied. The results show that SiCp particles distribute uniformly in heat sink materials and the interface between SiCp particles and Cu matrix is clear and well bonded. On the condition of same volume fraction of SiCp, the thermal conductivity of the material using coated powder is larger than that of the material using uncoated powder. Under experiment conditions, the thermal conductivity and coefficient of thermal expansion of Cu-30 vol.%SiCp heat sink material is 236.2 W·m-1·K-1 and 9.9×10-6/K (30-200 ℃) respectively. It provides important reference data for future experiments.

Fabrication of Al_2O_3-NaCl Composite Heat Storage Materials by One-step Synthesis Method

Thermal energy storage is an attractive option for effectiveness since it gives flexibility and reduces energy consumption and costs. New composite materials for storage and transformation of heat of NaCl-Al2O3composite materials were synthesized by one-step synthesis method. The chemical composition, morphology, structure, and thermal properties were investigated by XRD, EDS, SEM, and DSC. The results show that NaCl can be absorbed by Al2O3particle from 800 to 900 ℃ for Al2O3particle surface is rich active structure. The results also indicate that the leakage of NaCl when the phase change can be prevented by Al2O3particles and the enthalpy of phase change of NaCl-Al2O3material is 362 J/g. The composites have an excellent heat storage capacity. Therefore, this study contributes to one new thought and method to prepare high temperature heat storage material and this material can be applied in future thermal engineering.

Hybrid graded element model for transient heat conduction in functionally graded materials

This paper presents a hybrid graded element model for the transient heat conduction problem in functionally graded materials （FGMs）. First, a Laplace transform approach is used to handle the time variable. Then, a fundamental solution in Laplace space for FGMs is constructed. Next, a hybrid graded element is formulated based on the obtained fundamental solution and a frame field. As a result, the graded properties of FGMs are naturally reflected by using the fundamental solution to interpolate the intra-element field. Further, Stefest＇s algorithm is employed to convert the results in Laplace space back into the time-space domain. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is assessed by several benchmark examples. The results demonstrate well the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed method.

Heat transport in low-dimensional materials: A review and perspective

Heat transport is a key energetic process in materials and devices. The reduced sample size, low dimension of the problem and the rich spectrum of material imperfections introduce fruitful phenomena at nanoscale. In this review, we summarize recent progresses in the understanding of heat transport process in low-dimensional materials, with focus on the roles of defects, disorder, interfaces, and the quantum- mechanical effect. New physics uncovered from computational simulations, experimental studies, and predictable models will be reviewed, followed by a perspective on open challenges.

Preparation and Characterization of Mullite-Silicon Carbide Heat Absorbing Ceramics for Solar Thermal Tower Plant

The in-situ synthesized mullite bonded SiC ceramics for solar thermal tower plant were prepared from Silicon carbide （SIC）, manufactured aluminum hydroxide （Al（OH）3） and Suzhou kaolin via semi-dry pressing and pressureless firing. The results indicate that sample B3 （designed mullite content 15 wt%） fired at 1 400 ℃ exhibited optimal performance with a bending strength of 97.41 MPa. Sample B3 can withstand 30-cycles thermal shock without cracking （wind cooling from 1 100 ℃ to room temperature）, and the bending strength after thermal shock decreased by 17.92%. When the service temperature is 600℃, the thermal diffusivity, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity and heat capacity are 6.48× 10-2 cm：.s-1, 0.69 kJ·kg-1. K-1, 9.62 W·m-1·K-1 and 977.76 kJ·kg-1, respectively. The XRD and SEM results show that SiC, mullite, or-quartz, and tridymite are connected closely, which gives the material a good bending strength. After 30-time thermal shock cycles, the structure of samples becomes loose. SiC grains are intersectingly arranged with rodshape mullite, exhibiting a favorable thermal shock resistance. The addition of Al（OH）3 and Suzhou kaolin can accelerate the synthesis of mullite, thus to reduce the firing temperature effectively. The volume effect of tfidymite is relatively small, improving the thermal shock resistance of materials. A higher designed muUite content yields a lower loss rate of bending strength. The mullite content should not be more than 15 wt% or else the bending strength would be diminished.

Mechanical Properties and Microstructure of Al_(2)O_(3)/SiC Composite Ceramics for Solar Heat Absorber

Al_(2)O_(3)/SiC composite ceramics were prepared fromα-Al_(2)O_(3) and SiC by a pressureless sinter method in this study.The effect of SiC contents on the mechanic properties,phase compositions and microstructure is studied.Experimental results show that the vickers hardness,wear resistance and thermal conductivity of the samples increase with the increase in the SiC content,and the hardness of the sample reaches 16.22 GPa,and thermal conductivity of the sample reaches 25.41 W/(m.K)at room temperature when the SiC content is 20 wt%(B5)and the sintering temperature is at 1640℃.Higher hardness means higher scour resistance,and it indicates that the B5 material is expected to be used for the solar heat absorber of third generation solar thermal generation.The results indicate the mechanism of improving mechanical properties of Al_(2)O_(3)/SiC composite ceramics:SiC plays a role in grain refinement that the grain of SiC inhibits the grain growth of Al_(2)O_(3),while the addition of SiC changes the fracture mode from the intergranular to the intergranular-transgranular.

A meshless model for transient heat conduction analyses of 3D axisymmetric functionally graded solids

A meshless numerical model is developed for analyzing transient heat conductions in three-dimensional （3D） axisymmetric continuously nonhomogeneous functionally graded materials （FGMs）. Axial symmetry of geometry and boundary conditions reduces the original 3D initial-boundary value problem into a two-dimensional （2D） problem. Local weak forms are derived for small polygonal sub-domains which surround nodal points distributed over the cross section. In order to simplify the treatment of the essential boundary conditions, spatial variations of the temperature and heat flux at discrete time instants are interpolated by the natural neighbor interpolation. Moreover, the using of three-node triangular finite element method （FEM） shape functions as test functions reduces the orders of integrands involved in domain integrals. The semi-discrete heat conduction equation is solved numerically with the traditional two-point difference technique in the time domain. Two numerical examples are investigated and excellent results are obtained, demonstrating the potential application of the proposed approach.

High-temperature acoustic properties of porous titanium fiber metal materials

The high-temperature acoustic absorption performance of porous titanium fiber material was investigated in terms of sample thickness, porosity, temperature, air-cavity thickness and double-layer structure arrangement. The effects on absorption coefficient were systematically assessed. The results show that the sound absorption performance is improved by increasing the sample porosity and/or thickness, and/or increasing the air-cavity thickness. Meanwhile, increasing the temperature gives better acoustic absorption performance in the low frequency range but also lowers the performance in the high frequency range, while double-layer structure enables better acoustic absorption performance.

Study on the Pyrolytic Carbon Generated by the Electric Heating CVD Method

A new method of fabricating C/C composite materials, namely electric heating CVD method, was used, which electrified the carbon fiber directly by using the conductivity of itself. Acetylene was used as the carbon source with nitrogen as dilution gas, and the pyrolytic carbon started to deposit on the carbon fiber surface when the deposition temperature was reached. The morphology of pyrolytic carbon was characterized by SEM, and the surface properties of carbon fibers before and after CVD were characterized by Raman spectroscopy. The experimental results show that the electric heating method is a novel method to fabricate C/C composite materials, which can form a dense C/C composite material in a short time. The order degree and the average crystallite size of the carbon fiber surface were decreased after the experiment.

Temperature and Humidity Control System Identification Based on Neural Network in Heating and Drying System

Artificial neural network has unique advantages for massively parallel processing, distributed storage capacity and self-learning ability. The paper mainly constructs neural network identifier and neural network controller for system identification and control on temperature and hmnidity of heating and drying system of materials. And the paper introduces the structure and principles of neural network, and focuses on analyzing learning algorithm, training algorithm and limitation of the most widely applied multi-layer feed-forward neural network （ BP network） , based on which the paper proposes introducing momentum to improve BP network.

Two Temperature Heat Flux of Semi Infinite Piezoelectric Ceramic Rod

The theory of two-temperature generalized thermoelasticity is used to solve the problem of heating a semi-infinite rod made of a piezoelectric ceramic material within the framework of generalized thermopiezoelasticity theory by supplying the rod a certain amount of heat uniformly distributed over a finite time period to the finite end of the rod. The Laplace transform formalism is used to solve the proposed model. Inverse Laplace transforms are computed numerically using a method based on Fourier expansion techniques. The physical parameters (i.e., conductive temperature, dynamical temperature, stress, strain, and displacement distributions) are investigated graphically.

Effect of Ca Addition and Heat Treatment on the A390(S)/AM60(L) Interface Microstructure

Overcasting is a new kind of dissimilar joining technique used to produce the aluminum（solid）/magnesium（liquid） bonding bi-metallic material in this study. For the Al/Mg（A390/AM60） bi-metallic samples, the interface microstructures are the research points, which directly influence the mechanical properties. It is, therefore, of vital importance to find a method to improve the interface microstructures. This research focused on the effect of the calcium（Ca） addition in the liquid Mg alloys and the heat treatment on the A390/AM60 interface microstructures of the bi-metallic samples. The testing results showed that, with Ca addition in AM60, owing to two possible reasons, the interface microstructure and the shear strength of the A390/AM60 bi-metallic samples could be improved. The heat treatment could further improve the interface microstructure and the mechanical properties by dissolving β-Mg_（17）Al_（12） into α-Mg and destroying the Mg_2Si layer structure.

Theoretical Studies on the Structure and Detonation Properties of a Furazanbased Energetic Macrocycle Compound

Based on the full optimized molecular geometric structure at 6-311＋＋G＊＊ level,the density（ρ）,detonation velocity（D）,and detonation pressure（P） for a new furazan-based energetic macrocycle compound,hexakis[1,2,5]oxadi-azole[3,4-c：3＇,4＇-e;3＇＇,4＇＇-g：3＇＇＇,4＇＇＇-k：3＇＇＇＇,4＇＇＇＇-m：3＇＇＇＇＇,4＇＇＇＇＇-o][1,2,9,10]-tetraazacyclohexadecine,were investigated to verify its capacity as high energy density material（HEDM）. The infrared spectrum was also predicted. The heat of formation（HOF） was calculated using designed isodesmic reaction. The calculation on the bond dissociation energies（BDEs） was done and the pyrolysis mechanism of the compound was studied. The result shows that the N3–O1 bond in the ring may be the weakest one and the ring cleavage is possible to happen in thermal decomposition. The condensed phase HOF and the crystal density were also calculated for the title compound. The detonation data show that it can be considered as a potential HEDM. These results would provide basic information for the molecular design of novel high energy materials.

Thermoacoustic theory of graphene films considering heat transfer of substrate materials

Based on thermoacoustic theory, a coupled thermal-mechanical model for graphene films is established, and the analytical solutions for thermal-acoustic radiation from a graphene thin film are obtained. The sound pressure of the graphene film generator on different substrates is measured, and the measurement data is compared with the theoretical results. The frequency response from the experimental results is consistent with the theoretical ones, while the measured values are slightly lower than the theoretical ones. Therefore, the accuracy of the proposed theoretical model is verified. It is shown that thermal-acoustic radiation from a graphene thin film reveals a wide frequency response. The sound pressure level increases with the frequency in the low frequency range, while the sound pressure varies smoothly with frequency in the high frequency range. Thus it can be used as excellent thermal generator. When the thermal effusivity of the substrate is smaller, then the sound pressure of grapheme films will be higher. Furthermore, the sound pressure decreases with the increase of heat capacity per unit area of grapheme films. Results will contribute to the mechanism of graphene films generator and its applications in the design of loudspeaker and other related areas.

Study of ZrO_2 nanopowders based stearic acid phase change materials

ZrO2 nanopowders based stearic acid phase change materials （PCMS） were prepareo oy mgn-energy milling. The concept of heat capacity factor （HCF） was used to analyze the thermal properties of the materials. The heat storage property of PCMs, containing the same content of stearic acid （23~ by mass） in the starting materials but synthesized by different technical processes, was investigated by using HCE It was found that there were vast influences of different dispersants on the heat capacity. The samples orelaared with chloroform provided the best heat storage ability in all samples tested.

Applications of low temperature calorimetry in material research

Low temperature calorimetry is an experimental method of heat capacity measurements, and heatcapacity is one of the most important and fundamental thermodynamic properties of substances. Theheat capacity can provide an average evaluation of the thermal property of a sample since it is a bull（property of substances. In the other hand, the condensed states of substances could be mainly controlledby the molecular motions, intermolecular interactions, and interplay among molecular structures. Thephysical property reflected in a material may be closely related to the energy changes in these threefactors, which can be directly observed in a heat capacity curve. Therefore, low temperature calorimetryhas been used not only to obtain heat capacity, entropy, enthalpy and Gibbs free energy, but also toinvestigate and understand lattice vibrations, metals, superconductivity, electronic and nuclearmagnetism, dilute magnetic systems and structural transitions. In this review, we have presented theconcept of low temperature calorimetry and its applications in the related field of material researches,such as nano-materials, magnetic materials, ferroelectric materials, phase change materials and othermaterials.

Drying of suspensions and solutions on inert particle surface in mechanically spouted bed dryer

To eliminate some disadvantages of the conventional spouted bed dryers the mechanically spouted bed （MSB） system was developed. This dryer type is convenient to use inert particles providing an increased surface area for drying of materials of high-moisture content and heat sensitive materials. On three different drying tasks are demonstrated the experimental optimization of process parameters to obtain products of demanded quality. The main object was at drying of AIO（OH） suspension to preserve the particle size under 2.5μm and to obtain product with a moisture content of about 0.05 kg/kg （d.b.）. For this reason a very thin particle coating and intensive abrasion had to be assured. At drying of tomato concentrates the thermoplasticity makes the process very difficult. To jump over the deliquescent and sticky state developed at the critical temperature-moisture content values a very short drying time （8-10 s） must be provided. The third task was to form powder-like product from bovine serum albumin （BSA） solution having very low solid content （2-4%）. The selected process parameters given in this paper resulted in a mean particle size of less than 20 μm while the soluble oreserved orotein content was higher than 90%.

Computational fluid dynamics simulation of friction stir welding:A comparative study on different frictional boundary conditions

Numerical simulation based on computational fluid dynamics （CFD） is a useful approach for quantitatively investigating the underlying thermal-mechanical conditions during FSW, such as temperature field and material deformation field. One of the critical issues in CFD simulation of FSW is the use of the frictional boundary condition, which represents the friction between the welding tool and the workpiece in the numerical models. In this study, three-dimensional numerical simulation is conducted to analyze the heat transfer and plastic deformation behaviors during the FSW of AA2024. For comparison purposes, both the boundary velocity （BV） models and the boundary shear stress （BSS） models are employed in order to assess their performances in predicting the temperature and material deformation in FSW. It is interesting to note that different boundary conditions yield similar predictions on temperature, but quite different predictions on material deformation. The numerical predictions are compared with the experimental results. The predicted deformation zone geometry by the BSS model is consistent with the experimental results while there is large difference between the predictions by the BV models and the experimental measurements. The fact that the BSS model yields more reasonable predictions on the deformation zone geometry is attributed to its capacity to automatically adjust the contact state at the tool/workpiece interface. Based on the favorable predictions on both the temperature field and the material deformation field, the BSS model is suggested to have a better performance in numerical simulation of FSW than the BV model.

Electrically tunable pore morphology in nanoporous gold thin films

Nanoporous gold （np-Au） is an emerging nanostructured material that exhibits many desirable properties, including high electrical and thermal conductivity, high surface area-to-volume ratio, tunable pore morphology well-established surface-binding chemistry, and compatibility with microfabrication. These features make np-Au a popular material for use in fuel cells, optical and electrical biosensors, drug delivery vehicles, neural electrode coatings, and as a model system for nanoscale mechanics. In each of its many applications, np-Au morphology plays an essential role in the overall device operation. Therefore, precise morphological control is necessary to attain optimal device performance. Traditionally thermal treatment by furnaces and hot plates is used to obtain np-Au with self-similar but coarser morphologies. However, this approach lacks the ability to create different morphologies on a single substrate and requires high temperatures （〉 250 ℃） incompatible with most plastic substrates. Herein, we report electro-annealing as a novel method that permits control of the extent and location of pore coarsening on a single substrate in one fast treatment step. The electro-annealing entails much lower temperatures （〈 150 ℃） than traditional thermal treatment, putatively due to electrically assisted phenomena contributing to the thermally activated surface diffusion of gold atoms, responsible for coarsening. Overall, this approach is easily scaled to display multiple pore morphologies on a single chip, therefore enabling high-throughput screening of optimal nanostructures for specific applications.