Gypsum-based Silica Gel Humidity-controlling Composite Materials:Preparation,Characterization,and Performance

Gypsum was used as substrate,and silica gel was mixed into substrate at a certain mass ratio to prepare humidity-controlling composites;moreover,the moisture absorption and desorption properties of gypsum-based composites were compared with adding different silica gel particle size and proportion.The morphological characteristics,the isothermal equilibrium moisture content curve,moisture absorption and desorption rate,moisture absorption and desorption stability,and humidity-conditioning performance were tested and analyzed.The experimental results show that,compared with pure-gypsum,the surface structure of the gypsum-based composites is relatively loose,the quantity,density and aperture of the pores in the structure increase.The absorption and desorption capacity increase along with the increase of silica gel particle size and silica gel proportion.When 3 mm silica gel particle size is added with a mass ratio of 40%,the maximum equilibrium moisture content of humidity-controlling composites is 0.161 g/g at 98% relative humidity(RH),3.22 times that of pure-gypsum.The moisture absorption and desorption rates are increased,the equilibrium moisture absorption and desorption rates are 2.68 times and 1.61 times that of pure-gypsum at 58.5% RH,respectively.The gypsum-based composites have a good stability,which has better timely response to dynamic humidity changes and can effectively regulate indoor humidity under natural conditions.

Controllable thermal rectification design for buildings based on phase change composites

Phase-change material(PCM)is widely used in thermal management due to their unique thermal behavior.However,related research in thermal rectifier is mainly focused on exploring the principles at the fundamental device level,which results in a gap to real applications.Here,we propose a controllable thermal rectification design towards building applications through the direct adhesion of composite thermal rectification material(TRM)based on PCM and reduced graphene oxide(rGO)aerogel to ordinary concrete walls(CWs).The design is evaluated in detail by combining experiments and finite element analysis.It is found that,TRM can regulate the temperature difference on both sides of the TRM/CWs system by thermal rectification.The difference in two directions reaches to 13.8 K at the heat flow of 80 W/m^(2).In addition,the larger the change of thermal conductivity before and after phase change of TRM is,the more effective it is for regulating temperature difference in two directions.The stated technology has a wide range of applications for the thermal energy control in buildings with specific temperature requirements.

Fuzzy Feedback Control for Electro-Hydraulic Actuators

Electro-hydraulic actuators(EHA)have recently played a significant role in modern industrial applications,especially in systems requiring extremely high precision.This can be explained by EHA’s ability to precisely control the position and force through advanced sensors and innovative control algorithms.One of the promising approaches to improve control accuracy for EHA systems is applying classical to modern control algorithms,in which the proportional–inte-gral–derivative(PID)algorithm,fuzzy logic controller,and a hybrid of these methods are popular options.In this paper,we developed a novel version of the fuzzy control algorithm and linear feedback control method,namely fuzzy lin-ear feedback control,to improve the control performance.To achieve the highest performance,wefirst designed a mathematical EHA model based on the Matlab/Simulink software packages thanks to the selected parameters,which are similar to a real EHA system.Then,we respectively applied PID,fuzzy PID(FPID),and fuzzy linear feedback control(FLFC)before comparing them to have a full view of the outstanding advantages of the proposed algorithm.The simulation results showed that the proposed FLFC algorithm is approximately 99%and 77%super-ior in performance to the PID and feedback control algorithms,respectively.

Composite control for coagulation process with time delay and disturbances

A composite control scheme consisting of modepredictive control （MPC） and disturbance observer （DOB） iproposed to solve the control performance degradationproblem of the turbidity of the treated water in the presence osignificant changes in raw water quality, water flow rate andinternal model mismatch disturbances. The MPC is employedas a feedback controller for the coagulation process with alarge time delay. The DOB is adopted to estimate the severedisturbances in the turbidity control, such as large changes inraw water quality and water flow rate. The estimated valuesare applied for feed-forward compensation to rejecdisturbances. Finally, the disturbance rejection performancesfor step disturbances and time-varying disturbances in thenominal case and model mismatch case are tested. Thesimulation results illustrate that, compared with the MPCmethod, the proposed method can significantly improve thedisturbance rejection performance in the turbidity control othe treated water, no matter if in the presence of externadisturbances or internal model mismatch disturbances.

Resilient Time-Varying Formation-Tracking of Multi-UAV Systems Against Composite Attacks: A Two-Layered Framework

This paper studies the countermeasure design problems of distributed resilient time-varying formation-tracking control for multi-UAV systems with single-way communications against composite attacks,including denial-of-services(DoS)attacks,false-data injection attacks,camouflage attacks,and actuation attacks(AAs).Inspired by the concept of digital twin,a new two-layered protocol equipped with a safe and private twin layer(TL)is proposed,which decouples the above problems into the defense scheme against DoS attacks on the TL and the defense scheme against AAs on the cyber-physical layer.First,a topologyrepairing strategy against frequency-constrained DoS attacks is implemented via a Zeno-free event-triggered estimation scheme,which saves communication resources considerably.The upper bound of the reaction time needed to launch the repaired topology after the occurrence of DoS attacks is calculated.Second,a decentralized adaptive and chattering-relief controller against potentially unbounded AAs is designed.Moreover,this novel adaptive controller can achieve uniformly ultimately bounded convergence,whose error bound can be given explicitly.The practicability and validity of this new two-layered protocol are shown via a simulation example and a UAV swarm experiment equipped with both Ultra-WideBand and WiFi communication channels.

PID Controller Optimization by GA and Its Performances on the Electro-hydraulic Servo Control System

A proportional integral derivative （PID） controller is designed and attached to electro-hydraulic servo actuator system （EHSAS） to control the angular position of the rotary actuator which control the movable surface of space vehicles. The PID gain parameters are optimized by the genetic algorithm （GA）. The controller is verified on the new state-space model of servo-valves attached to the physical rotary actuator by SIMULINK program. The controller and the state-space model are verified experimentally. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the PID controller adaptive by GA to control the angular position of the rotary actuator as compared with the classical PID controller and the compensator controller.

Fuzzy iterative learning control of electro-hydraulic servo system for SRM direct-drive volume control hydraulic press

A new kind of volume control hydraulic press that combines the advantages of both hydraulic and SRM(switched reluctance motor) driving technology is developed.Considering that the serious dead zone and time-variant nonlinearity exist in the volume control electro-hydraulic servo system,the ILC(iterative learning control) method is applied to tracking the displacement curve of the hydraulic press slider.In order to improve the convergence speed and precision of ILC,a fuzzy ILC algorithm that utilizes the fuzzy strategy to adaptively adjust the iterative learning gains is put forward.The simulation and experimental researches are carried out to investigate the convergence speed and precision of the fuzzy ILC for hydraulic press slider position tracking.The results show that the fuzzy ILC can raise the iterative learning speed enormously,and realize the tracking control of slider displacement curve with rapid response speed and high control precision.In experiment,the maximum tracking error 0.02 V is achieved through 12 iterations only.

Separate Control of High Frequency Electro-hydraulic Vibration Exciter

The working frequency of the conventional electro-hydraulic vibration exciters,which consist of a servo valve and a hydraulic cylinder,is generally restricted within a narrow range due to limited frequency response capability of the servo valve itself.To counteract such restriction,a novel scheme for an electro-hydraulic vibrator,controlled by a two-dimensional valve（2D valve） and a bias valve in parallel,is therefore proposed.The frequency,amplitude and offset are independently controlled by rotary speed,axial sliding of the spool of the 2D valve and axial sliding of the spool of the bias valve.The principle of separate control was presented and the regulation approach of frequency,amplitude and offset was discussed.A mathematical model of the hydraulic power mechanism for the proposed vibration exciter was established to investigate the relationship between the amplitude and the axial sliding of the 2D valve＇ spool,as well as that between the offset and the axial sliding of the bias valve＇s spool at various frequencies.An experimental system was built to validate the theoretical analysis.It is verified that the 2D exciter is capable of working smoothly in a frequency range of 5- 200 Hz.And its frequency,amplitude and offset can be controlled respectively by either closed loop or open loop method.There is a linear relationship between the output amplitude and the spool axial opening of the 2D valve until a point when the flow rate becomes saturate and the amplitude remains constant.The offset displacement of the cylinder＇s piston is linearly proportional to the axial displacement of the spool of the bias valve,when the valve opening is less than 25%.Thereafter,the slop of the offset curve decreases and tends to saturate.The proposed electro-hydraulic vibration controlled by the 2D valve not only facilitates the realization of high-frequency electro-hydraulic vibration,the high-accuracy of vibration can also be achieved by means of independent controls to the frequency,amplitude and offset.

Present Status and Prospect of High-Frequency Electro-hydraulic Vibration Control Technology

Electro-hydraulic vibration equipment(EHVE)is widely used in vibration environment simulation tests,such as vehicles,weapons,ships,aerospace,nuclear industries and seismic waves replication,etc.,due to its large output power,displacement and thrust,as well as good workload adaptation and multi-controllable parameters.Based on the domestic and overseas development of high-frequency EHVE,dividing them into servo-valve controlled vibration equipment and rotary-valve controlled vibration equipment.The research status and progress of high-frequency electro-hydraulic vibration control technology(EHVCT)are discussed,from the perspective of vibration waveform control and vibration controller.The problems of current electro-hydraulic vibration system bandwidth and waveform distortion control,stability control,offset control and complex vibration waveform generation in high-frequency vibration conditions are pointed out.Combining the existing rotary-valve controlled high-frequency electro-hydraulic vibration method,a new twin-valve independently controlled high-frequency electro-hydraulic vibration method is proposed to break through the limitations of current electro-hydraulic vibration technology in terms of system frequency bandwidth and waveform distortion.The new method can realize independent adjustment and control of vibration waveform frequency,amplitude and offset under high-frequency vibration conditions,and provide a new idea for accurate simulation of high-frequency vibration waveform.

The Controllability, Observability, and Stability Analysis of a Class of Composite Systems with Fractional Degree Generalized Frequency Variables

This paper is concerned with fundamental properties of a class of composite systems with fractional degree generalized frequency variables, including controllability, observability and stability. Firstly, some necessary and sufficient conditions are given to guarantee controllability and observability of such composite systems. Then we prove that the stability problem of such composite systems can be reduced to judging whether a fractional degree polynomial is stable. Finally, the stability analysis result is applied in the supervisory control of fractional-order multi-agent systems, and an example is provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Synthesis and analysis of new humidity-controlling composite materials

Gypsum is a traditional building material. To improve the humidity-controlling properties of gypsum, we prepared a new type of humidity-controlling composite using the sol-gel method. Methods to determine the maximum equilibrium moisture content and speed of adsorption/desorption were subsequently applied to analyze the performance of the samples. The appearance and structural properties of the samples were characterized by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM). The experimental results show that the humidity-controlling gel with added LiCl exhibits high moisture storage and that the equilibrium maximum moisture content is 5.652 g/g at a 75.29% relative humidity (RH). A mass ratio of LiCl/sol = 0.15 is demonstrated to be appropriate for the preparation of the new humidity-controlling composites. A coarse network with tiny pores is observed on the surface of the new humidity-controlling composites, and this pore network provides sufficient space for moisture adsorption.

Compensation for secondary uncertainty in electro-hydraulic servo system by gain adaptive sliding mode variable structure control

Based on consideration of the differential relations between the immeasurable variables and measurable variables in electro-hydraulic servo system,adaptive dynamic recurrent fuzzy neural networks(ADRFNNs) were employed to identify the primary uncertainty and the mathematic model of the system was turned into an equivalent linear model with terms of secondary uncertainty.At the same time,gain adaptive sliding mode variable structure control(GASMVSC) was employed to synthesize the control effort.The results show that the unrealization problem caused by some system's immeasurable state variables in traditional fuzzy neural networks(TFNN) taking all state variables as its inputs is overcome.On the other hand,the identification by the ADRFNNs online with high accuracy and the adaptive function of the correction term's gain in the GASMVSC make the system possess strong robustness and improved steady accuracy,and the chattering phenomenon of the control effort is also suppressed effectively.

Magneto-rheological elastomer (MRE) based composite structures for micro-vibration control

Magneto-rheological elastomers （MILEs） are used to construct composite structures for micro-vibration control of equipment under stochastic support-motion excitations. The dynamic behavior of MREs as a smart viscoelastic material is characterized by a complex modulus dependent on vibration frequency and controllable by external magnetic fields. Frequency-domain solution methods for stochastic micro-vibration response analysis of the MRE-based structural systems are developed to derive the system frequency-response function matrices and the expressions of the velocity response spectrum. With these equations, the root-mean-square （RMS） velocity responses in terms of the one-third octave frequency band spectrum can be calculated. Further, the optimization problem of the complex moduli of the MRE cores is defined by minimizing the velocity response spectra and the RMS velocity responses through altering the applied magnetic fields. Simulation results illustrate the influences of MRE parameters on the RMS velocity responses and the high response reduction capacities of the MRE-based structures. In addition, the developed frequency-domain analysis methods are applicable to sandwich beam structures with arbitrary cores characterized by complex shear moduli under stochastic excitations described by power spectral density functions, and are valid for a wide frequency range.

Barrier Lyapunov functions-based dynamic surface control with tracking error constraints for ammunition manipulator electro-hydraulic system

This paper focuses on the dynamic tracking control of ammunition manipulator system. A standard state space model for the ammunition manipulator electro-hydraulic system(AMEHS) with inherent nonlinearities and uncertainties considered was established. To simultaneously suppress the violation of tracking error constraints and the complexity of differential explosion, a barrier Lyapunov functionsbased dynamic surface control(BLF-DSC) method was proposed for the position tracking control of the ammunition manipulator. Theoretical analysis prove the stability of the closed-loop overall system and the tracking error converges to a prescribed neighborhood asymptotically. The effectiveness and dynamic tracking performance of the proposed control strategy is validated via simulation and experimental results.

Nonlinear dynamic characteristics and optimal control of a giant magnetostrictive film-shaped memory alloy composite plate subjected to in-plane stochastic excitation

The nonlinear dynamic characteristics and optimal control of a giant magnetostrictive film （GMF）-shaped memory alloy （SMA） composite plate subjected to in-plane stochastic excitation are studied. GMF is prepared based on an SMA plate, and combined into a GMF-SMA composite plate. The Van der Pol item is improved to explain the hysteretic phenomena of GMF and SMA, and the nonlinear dynamics model of a GMF-SMA composite cantilever plate subjected to in-plane stochastic excitation is developed. The stochastic stability of the system is analyzed, and the steady-state probability density function of the dynamic response of the system is obtained. The condition of stochastic Hopf bifurcation is discussed, the reliability function of the system is provided, and then the probability density of the first-passage time is given. Finally, the stochastic optimal control strategy is proposed by the stochastic dynamic programming method. Numerical simulation shows that the stability of the trivial solution varies with bifurcation parameters, and stochastic Hopf bifurcation appears in the process; the system＇s reliability is improved through stochastic optimal control, and the first- passage time is delayed. A GMF-SMA composite plate combines the advantages of GMF and SMA, and can reduce vibration through passive control and active control effectively. The results are helpful for the engineering applications of GMF-SMA composite plates.

Pressure-tracking control of a novel electro-hydraulic braking system considering friction compensation

This work presents an integrated pressure-tracking controller for a novel electro-hydraulic brake(EHB) system considering friction and hydraulic disturbances. To this end, a mathematical model of an EHB system, consisting of actuator and hydraulic sub-systems, is derived for describing the fundamental dynamics of the system and designing the controller. Due to sensor inaccuracy and measurement noise, a Kalman filter is constructed to estimate push rod stroke for generating desired master cylinder pressure. To improve pressure-tracking accuracy, a linear friction model is generated by linearizing the nonlinear Tustin friction model, and the unmodeled friction disturbances are assumed unknown but bounded. A sliding mode controller is designed for compensating friction disturbances, and the stability of the controller is investigated using the Lyapunov method. The performance of the proposed integrated controller is evaluated with a hardware-in-the-loop(HIL) test platform equipped with the EHB prototype. The test results demonstrate that the EHB system with the proposed integrated controller not only achieves good pressure-tracking performance, but also maintains robustness to friction disturbances.

Halloysite Nanotube Composited Thermo-responsive Hydrogel System for Controlled-release

Halloysite nanotube-composited thermo-responsive hydrogel system has been successfully developed for controlled drug release by copolymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide （NIPAM） with silane-modified halloysite nanotubes （HNT） through thermally initiated free-radical polymerization. With methylene blue as a model drug, thermo-responsive drug release results demonstrate that the drug release from the nanotubes in the composited hy-drogel can^be well controlled by manipulating the environmental temperature. When the hydrogel network is swol- len at temperature below the lower critical solution temperature （LCST）, drug releases steadily from lumens of the embedded nanotubes, whereas the drug release stops when hydrogel shrinks at temperature above the LCST. The release of model drug from the HNT-composited hydrogel matches well with its thermo-responsive volume phasetransition, and shows characteristics of well controlled release. The design strategy and release results of the pro- posed novel HNT-composited thermo-responsive hydrogel system provide valuable guidance for designing respon- s_i_ve nanocomposites for controlled-release of active agents.

High precise control method for a new type of Piezoelectric electro-hydraulic servo valve

A new type of piezoelectric electro-hydraulic servo valve system was proposed. And then multilayer piezoelectric actuator based on new piezoelectric ceramic material was used as the electricity-machine converter of the proposed piezoelectric electro-hydraulic servo valve. The proposed piezoelectric electro-hydraulic servo valve has ascendant performance compared with conventional ones. But the system is of high nonlinearity and uncertainty, it cannot achieve favorable control performance by conventional control method. To develop an efficient way to control piezoelectric electro-hydraulic servo valve system, a high-precise fuzzy control method with hysteresis nonlinear model in feedforward loop was proposed. The control method is separated into two parts: a feedforward loop with Preisach hysteresis nonlinear model and a feedback loop with high-precise fuzzy control. Experimental results show that the hysteresis loop and the maximum output hysteresis by the PID control method are 4.22% and 2.11 μm, respectively; the hysteresis loop and the maximum output hysteresis by the proposed control method respectively are 0.74% and 0.37 μm, respectively; the maximum tracking error by the PID control method for sine wave reference signal is about 5.02%, the maximum tracking error by the proposed control method for sine wave reference signal is about 0.85%.

Coating thickness control in continuously fabricating metallic glass-coated composite wires

A continuous production process was developed for coating bulk metallic glasses on the metallic wire surface. The effects of processing parameters, including the drawing velocity and coating temperature, on the coating thickness were investigated. It is found that the coating thickness increases with the increase in drawing velocity but decreases with the increase in coating temperature. A fluid mechanical model was developed to quantify the coating thickness under various processing conditions. By using this theoretical model, the coating thickness was calculated, and the calculated values are in good agreement with the experimental data.

ADVANCED QUALITY CONCEPTS AND COMPOSITE RELIABILITY THROUGH STATISTICALPROCESS CONTROL

The physical properties of thermosetting resins and resin based composites may be influenced by changes in any one of the mang formulating or process related variables involved in their manufacture. When resins and composite materials are required to perform in aggressive environments, reliable and predicable performance is essential and therefore these materials must be prepared and tested in accorkance with a strictquality plan. This paper outlines the elements of statistical process control (S.P.C.)as it may be applied to non-metallic materials and discusses the concept of Capability Index (Cp).