Enhancement of Biomass Material Characterization Images Using an Improved U-Net

For scanning electronmicroscopes with high resolution and a strong electric field,biomass materials under observation are prone to radiation damage from the electron beam.This results in blurred or non-viable images,which affect further observation of material microscopic morphology and characterization.Restoring blurred images to their original sharpness is still a challenging problem in image processing.Traditionalmethods can’t effectively separate image context dependency and texture information,affect the effect of image enhancement and deblurring,and are prone to gradient disappearance during model training,resulting in great difficulty in model training.In this paper,we propose the use of an improvedU-Net(U-shapedConvolutional Neural Network)to achieve image enhancement for biomass material characterization and restore blurred images to their original sharpness.The main work is as follows:use of depthwise separable convolution instead of standard convolution in U-Net to reduce model computation effort and parameters;embedding wavelet transform into the U-Net structure to separate image context and texture information,thereby improving image reconstruction quality;using dense multi-receptive field channel modules to extract image detail information,thereby better transmitting the image features and network gradients,and reduce the difficulty of training.The experiments show that the improved U-Net model proposed in this paper is suitable and effective for enhanced deblurring of biomass material characterization images.The PSNR(Peak Signal-to-noise Ratio)and SSIM(Structural Similarity)are enhanced as well.

Terranova Render: A “Polychrome Resource for Modern Aesthetics”. A Study for Analysis and Characterization

The industry,which developed into an endless source of new formulations and technologies,supported the typological innovation that took place in the architectural field in the first half of the 20th century.The world of plaster was revolutionised by the introduction of ready-mixed mortars that only required the addition of water.The plaster was no longer created on site,and the workers only dealt with the application.In Italy,the so-called“special plasters”based on cement and/or lime with the addition of various substances,the formulations of which were kept secret by the manufacturing companies,appeared in the period after the World War I.Despite being widely spread,their composition is still little known today.Samples of Terranova plaster,characterized by high durability,were investigated in this study to understand their main characteristics.The analysed samples appear to be based on dolomitic lime with characteristic iridescent aggregates and high porosity,probably due to air-entraining agents and pigments based on oxides of different nature.The aim of this paper is to compare three samples of Terranova plaster from the Emilia-Romagna region with the literature.

Preparation, Characterization and Luminescent Properties of MCM-41 Type Materials Impregnated with Rare Earth Complex

Hybrid materials incorporating Eu-(TTA)(3). 2H(2)O (7hereafter designated as Eu-TTA, with TTA: thenoyltrifluoroacetone) in unmodified or modified MCM-41 by 3-aminopropyl-triethoxysilane (APTES) were prepared by impregnation method. The obtained materials were characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), IR and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and luminescence spectra. All the hybrid samples exhibited the characteristic emission bands of EU3+ under UV light excitation at room temperature, and the excitation spectra showed significant blue-shifts compared to the pure rare-earth complex. Although the red emission intensity in the modified hybrid was almost the half of the red emission intensity in the pure Eu-TTA complex at room temperature, the hybrid showed a much higher thermal stability due to the shielding character of the MCM-41 host.

Characterization of Elastic Modulus of Granular Materials in a New Designed Uniaxial Oedometric System

A simple uniaxial oedometric system is developed to test the elastic modulus of granular materials. The stress- strain relationship is first measured under conditions of uniaxial compression with additional lateral stress and strain, then the elastic modulus of the material is determined by the linear fitting method. It is found that the modulus is positively correlated to the grain size and negatively correlated to the container size. Arching and dragging are revealed to be the mechanism of such correlations by using the digital image correlation method and the pressure film technology based on the statistical method.

A New Type of Multielements-Doped,Carbon-based Materials Characterized by High-thermoconductiv-ity,Low Chemical Sputtering,Low RES Yield and Exposure to Plasma

Low-Z materials, such as carbon-based materials and Be, are major plasma-facing material (PFM) for current, even in future fusion devices. In this paper, a new type of multielement-doped carbon-based materials developed are presented along with experimental re-sults of their properties. The results indicate a decrease in chemical sputtering yield by one order of magnitude, a decrease in both thermal shock resistance and radiation-enhanced sublimation, an evidently lower temperature desorption spectrum, and combined properties of exposing to plasma.

THE SYNTHESIS AND CHARACTERIZATION OF Ba-CROSSLINKED POLYMER ANTI-RADIATION MATERIALS

Crosslinked poly(methyl methacrylate) and polystyrene with barium dimethacrylate [Ba(MA)_2] as crosslinking agent have been synthesized. The relationship between X-ray absorbability and the content of Ba(MA)_2 in polymers was investigated. TGA and DSC results indicated that the crosslinked polymers containing barium dimethacrylate have a much better heat stability than pure PMMA or PS. The mechanical properties of the polymers containing barium are improved in comparison with the pure PMMA.

Investigation of Microstructure, Microhardness and Thermal Properties of Ag-In Intermetallic Alloys Prepared by Vacuum Arc Meltings

Ag-In intermetallic alloys were produced by using vacuum arc furnace. Differential Scanning Calorimetry(DSC) and Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectrometry(EDX) were used to determine the thermal properties and chemical composition of the phases respectively. Microhardness values of Ag-In intermetallics were calculated with Vickers hardness measurement method. According to the experimental results, Ag-34 wt%In intermetallic system generated the best results of energy saving and storage compared to other intermetallic systems. Also from the microhardness results, it was observed that intermetallic alloys were harder than pure silver and Ag-26 wt%In system had the highest microhardness value with 143.45 kg/mm^(2).

Dynamic Recrystallization Behavior of Q370qE Bridge Steel

Bridge steel has been widely used in recent years for its excellent performance. Understanding the high-temperature Dynamic Recrystallization (DRX) behavior of high-performance bridge steel plays an important role in guiding the thermomechanical processing process. In the present study, the hot deformation behavior of Q370qE bridge steel was investigated by hot compression tests conducted on a Gleeble 3800-GTC thermal-mechanical physical simulation system at temperatures ranging from 900 ℃ to 1100 ℃ and strain rates ranging from 0.01 s^(−1) to 10 s^(−1). The obtained results were used to plot the true stress-strain and work-hardening rate curves of the experimental steel, with the latter curves used to determine the critical strains for the initiation of DRX. The Zener-Hollomon equation was subsequently applied to establish the correspondence between temperature and strain rate during the high-temperature plastic deformation of bridge steel. In terms of the DRX volume fraction solution, a new method for establishing DRX volume fraction was proposed based on two theoretical models. The good weathering and corrosion resistance of bridge steel lead to difculties in microstructure etching. To solve this, the MTEX technology was used to further develop EBSD data to characterize the original microstructure of Q370qE bridge steel. This paper lays the theoretical foundation for studying the DRX behavior of Q370qE bridge steel.

Recent Industrial Developments of Marine Composites Limit States and Design Approaches on Strength

To further exploit the potential of marine composites applications in building ship hulls,offshore structures,and marine equipment and components,design approaches should be improved,facing the challenge of a more comprehensive and explicit assessment of appropriately defined limit states.The structure ultimate/limit conditions shall be verified in principle within the whole structural domain and throughout the ship service life.What above calls for extended and reliable materials characterization on the one hand and for accurate and wide-ranging procedures in structural analyses.This paper presents an overview of recent industrial developments of marine composites limit states assessments and design approaches,as available in open literature,focusing on pleasure crafts and yachts as well as navy ships and thus showing a starting point to fill the gap in this respect.After a general introduction about composites characterization techniques,current design practice and rule requirements are briefly summarized.Both inter-ply and intra-ply failure modes and corresponding limit states are then presented along with recently proposed assessment approaches.Three-dimensional aspects in failure modes and manufacturing methods have been identified as the main factors influencing marine composite robustness.Literature review highlighted also fire resistance and hybrid joining techniques as significant issues in the use of marine composites.

Multi-dimensional characteristic construction methods of computational materials under big data environment

Characteristic construction is an important part of material data analysis.In the big data environment,the de-velopment of material data science will have implications for multidimensional data analysis methods.Among these,the machine learning method for multidimensional data models can be widely applied to material data types,including element ratios,atomic compositions,electronic arrangements,molecular structures,and energy distributions.For high-throughput computing materials,it is recommended in material data science to judge and extract the main characteristics influencing material properties and predict novel functional materials us-ing the discovered laws.Consequently,we considere the characteristic construction,learning prediction,feature extraction,and high-order analysis of computational materials as the main research purposes,and construct a composite analysis model of the material system by combining data preprocessing,data mining,data evaluation,and knowledge representation as the main steps of data analysis.This demonstrates that a method to comprehen-sively judge the properties of materials by constructing the characteristics of materials in different dimensions is essential.

An improved theoretical procedure for the pore-size analysis of activated carbon by gas adsorption

Amorphous carbon materials play a vital role in adsorbed natural gas(ANG) storage. One of the key issues in the more prevalent use of ANG is the limited adsorption capacity, which is primarily determined by the porosity and surface characteristics of porous materials. To identify suitable adsorbents, we need a reliable computational tool for pore characterization and, subsequently, quantitative prediction of the adsorption behavior. Within the framework of adsorption integral equation(AIE), the pore-size distribution(PSD) is sensitive to the adopted theoretical models and numerical algorithms through isotherm fitting. In recent years, the classical density functional theory(DFT) has emerged as a common choice to describe adsorption isotherms for AIE kernel construction. However,rarely considered is the accuracy of the mean-field approximation(MFA) commonly used in commercial software. In this work, we calibrate four versions of DFT methods with grand canonical Monte Carlo(GCMC) molecular simulation for the adsorption of CH_4 and CO_2 gas in slit pores at 298 K with the pore width varying from 0.65 to 5.00 nm and pressure from 0.2 to 2.0 MPa. It is found that a weighted-density approximation proposed by Yu(WDA-Yu) is more accurate than MFA and other non-local DFT methods. In combination with the trapezoid discretization of AIE, the WDA-Yu method provides a faithful representation of experimental data, with the accuracy and stability improved by 90.0% and 91.2%, respectively, in comparison with the corresponding results from MFA for fitting CO_2 isotherms. In particular, those distributions in the feature pore width range(FPWR)are proved more representative for the pore-size analysis. The new theoretical procedure for pore characterization has also been tested with the methane adsorption capacity in seven activated carbon samples.

Preparation,characterization,and tribological properties of silicananoparticle-reinforced B–N-co-doped reduced graphene oxide as a multifunctional additive for enhanced lubrication

Microwave-synthesized SiO_(2)-reinforced B–N-co-doped reduced graphene oxide(SiO_(2)–B–N–GO)nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray photon spectroscopy(XPS),X-ray diffraction(XRD),infrared(IR)spectroscopy,and transmission electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray(TEM/EDX)analysis.The tribological properties of the SiO2–B–N–GO prepared as anti-wear additives for enhanced lubrication were studied using a four-ball tester.The experiment results indicated that SiO_(2)–B–N–GO exhibits excellent load-carrying,anti-wear,and anti-friction properties in a base oil,especially at the optimal concentration of additives at 0.15 wt%.The wear scar diameter decreased from 0.70 to 0.37 mm and the coefficient of friction was reduced from 0.092 to 0.070,which reductions are attributed to the formation of B–N and graphene layer tribofilms of several tens of nanometers in thickness that prevented direct contact between metals.

Material development for a sustainable precast concrete block pavement

Portland cement concrete （PCC） and asphalt concrete （AC） are the most common roadway and highway construction materials which are more suitable for continuous slab pave- ments. The durability of these materials is highly dependent on construction quality and techniques, and both materials are difficult to repair. Heavy rain storms in India have recently revealed several roadway pavement failures and resulted in significant repair costs. Interlocking block type pavements are simpler to construct and maintain than both PCC and AC pavements but, have only been used for slower traffic roads due to weak interlocking at the joints. To improve the quality of block pavements, blocks made of PCC with waste tire crumb rubber partially replacing river sand （fine aggregate） are suggested. The joint interlocks can be further improved by modifying the block geometry. The material is completely recycled and is deemed more superior than concrete pavements when repair and construction techniques and costs are concerned. This paper presents the material characterization of Rubberized Concrete Blocks （RCBs） using crumb rubber particle size ranging from 0.075 mm to 4.75 mm to partially replace the fine aggregates. It also discusses the advantages of RCB over continuous material pavements.

On Modeling Bio-Scaffolds:Structural and Fluid Transport Characterization Based on 3-D Imaging Data

Bio-scaffolds which are most commonly open celled porous structures are increasingly used for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. A number of studies have shown that the bulk properties of such irregular structures are poorly modeled using idealized unit cell approaches. The paper therefore uses novel image based meshing techniques to explore both fluid flow and bulk structural properties of a bone scaffold, as accurate modeling of bio-scaffolds with non-uniform cellular structures is very important for the development of optimal scaffolds for tissue engineering application. In this study, a porous hydroxyapatite/tricalcium phosphate (HA/TCP) bone scaffold has been scanned in a Micro-CT scanner, and converted into a volumetric mesh using image processing software developed by the authors. The resulting mesh was then exported to commercial FEA and CFD solvers for analysis. Initial FEA and CFD studies have shown promising results and have highlighted the importance of accurate modeling to understand how microstructures influence the mechanical property of the scaffold, and to analyze flow regimes through the sample. The work highlights the potential use of image based meshing for the ad hoc characterization of scaffolds as well as for assisting in the design of scaffolds with tailored strength, stiffness, and transport properties.

Effect of Processing and Cultivar on Thermo-Chemical Properties of Australian-Grown Hemp Hurd(Cannabis sativa L.)

This study explored the thermo-chemical properties of industrial hemp hurd with different provenances,maturity stages,and retting protocols.The findings were then compared to hemp hurd used in the fabrication of citric acid-bonded ultra-low-density hemp hurd particleboard.Pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry(Py-GC/MS),Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR),and thermogravimetric analysis(TGA)were employed to document the variability of the hurd and comprehend the potential impact on biobased composite applications.The choice of cultivar,maturity stage,and processing modality significantly influenced the chemical composition,presence of functional groups,and thermal stability of the hurd.Py-GC/MS revealed substantial variations in the lignin-to-carbohydrate(L/C)ratio,along with the absence of fatty acids in certain cultivars.While FTIR signals confirmed consistent functional groups,differences in peak intensities were indicative of carbohydrate variations associated with maturity and retting duration,impacting the availability of hydroxyl groups for,i.e.,interparticle bonding in citric acid-based bio-composites.Furthermore,it was observed that shorter retting durations initially enhanced the thermal resistance,but prolonged retting led to accelerated degradation,significantly reducing the hurd’s residual mass.The findings indicated notable differences among the samples,emphasizing the importance of investigating variables such as provenance/cultivar,maturity,and processing modality.This assessment is essential to ensure effective agronomic practices that align the raw material characteristics with the specific requirements of intended applications,such as the fabrication of biobased hemp hurd composites.

Preparation of ZnO/GO composite material with highly photocatalytic performance via an improved two-step method

ZnO/graphene oxide（ZnO/GO） composite material,in which ZnO nanoparticles were densely coated on the GO nanosheets,was successfully prepared by an improved two-step method and characterized by IR, XRD,TEM,and UV-vis techniques.The improved photocatalytic property of the ZnO/GO composite material,evaluated by the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange（MO） under UV irradiation,is ascribed to the intimate contact between ZnO and GO,the enhanced adsorption of MO,the quick electron transfer from excited ZnO particles to GO sheets and the activation of MO molecules viaπ-πinteraction between MO and GO.

Atomically self-healing of structural defects in monolayer WSe_(2)

Minimizing disorder and defects is crucial for realizing the full potential of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenides(TMDs) materials and improving device performance to desired properties. However, the methods in defect controlcurrently face challenges with overly large operational areas and a lack of precision in targeting specific defects. Therefore,we propose a new method for the precise and universal defect healing of TMD materials, integrating real-time imaging withscanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM). This method employs electron beam irradiation to stimulate the diffusionmigration of surface-adsorbed adatoms on TMD materials grown by low-temperature molecular beam epitaxy (MBE),and heal defects within the diffusion range. This approach covers defect repairs ranging from zero-dimensional vacancydefects to two-dimensional grain orientation alignment, demonstrating its universality in terms of the types of samples anddefects. These findings offer insights into the use of atomic-level focused electron beams at appropriate voltages in STEMfor defect healing, providing valuable experience for achieving atomic-level precise fabrication of TMD materials.

MXenes and MXene-based composites for energy conversion and storage applications

MXenes have received extensive attention from scholars due to their unique layered structure,significant electrical conductivity,and excellent mechanical properties.In addition to their pristine forms,they could also be incorporated with other components for attaining hybrids and nanocomposites,accompanying with amplified functionalities.It has been widely used in lithium batteries,supercapacitors,electromagnetic shielding,tumor therapy,biosensors,photocatalysis,and other fields,and has shown great application potential in energy conversion and storage.The purpose of this article is to encyclopaedically overview the latest progress in synthesis and characterization of MXenes,while their potential applications in energy conversation such as water splitting and solar cells,as well as in energy storage such as Li-ion batteries,supercapacitors,and hydrogen energy will be comprehensively elaborated.Development opportunities and challenges are summarized.

Improved Fracture Toughness of Cryorolled and Room Temperature Rolled 6082 Al Alloys

In the present work, 6082 Al alloy has been rolled to 40% and 70% thickness reductions at the cryogenic and room temperatures for the improvement in mechanical and fracture toughness properties. All cryorolled samples are subjected to aging at different temperatures, i.e., 140, 160, and 190 ℃ to improve the strength, ductility, and fracture toughness. The microstructures of the cryorolled （CR） and room temperature rolled （RTR） alloy after 40% and 70% thickness reductions are characterized by FE-SEM to reveal the modes of failure. The results show that the starting bulk Al alloy specimen is fractured in total ductile manner, consisting of well-developed dimples over the entire surface. The mechanical properties and fracture toughness of the 70% CR alloy are found better than 70% RTR alloy due to higher dislocations density and formation of sub-grain structures in the CR alloy.

Comparative Study of Reverse Algorithms via Artificial Neural Networks Based on Simulated Indentation Tests

The advances in the instrumented indentation equipments and the need to assess the properties of materials of small volume such as those constitute the micro-electro-mechanical devices, micro-electronic packages, and thin films have propelled the interest in material characterization via indentation tests. The load-displacement curves and their characteristics, namely, the curvature of the loading path, C, and the ratio of the remaining and total work done, WR / WT, can be conveniently obtained from finite element simulations for various elasto-plastic material properties. The paper reports the comparative study on two reverse neural networks algorithms involving several combinations of databases established from the results obtained from simulated indentation tests. The performance of each set of results is analyzed and the most appropriate algorithm identified and reported. The approach with the selected neural networks model has great potential in practical applications on the characterization of a small volume of materials.