Microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ91D magnesium alloy by expendable pattern shell casting with different mechanical vibration amplitudes and pouring temperatures

To refine the microstructure and improve the mechanical properties of AZ91 D alloy by expendable pattern shell casting(EPSC),the mechanical vibration method was applied in the solidification process of the alloy.The effects of amplitude and pouring temperature on microstructure and mechanical properties of AZ91 D magnesium alloy were studied.The results indicated that the mechanical vibration remarkably improved the sizes,morphologies and distributions of the primaryα-Mg phase andβ-Mg17 Al12 phase,and the densification and tensile properties of the AZ91 D alloy.With an increase in amplitude,the microstructures were gradually refined,resulting in a continuous increase in mechanical properties of the AZ91 D alloy.While,with the increase of pouring temperature,the microstructures were continuously coarsened,leading to an obvious decrease of the mechanical properties.The tensile strength and yield strength of the AZ91 D alloy with a vibration amplitude of 1.0 mm and a pouring temperature of 730℃were 60%and 38%higher than those of the alloy without vibration,respectively.

Gating system optimization of low pressure casting A356 aluminum alloy intake manifold based on numerical simulation

To eliminate the shrinkage porosity in low pressure casting of an A356 aluminum alloy intake manifold casting, numerical simulation on fi lling and solidifi cation processes of the casting was carried out using the ProCAST software. The gating system of the casting is optimized according to the simulation results. Results show that when the gating system consists of only one sprue, the fi lling of the molten metal is not stable; and the casting does not follow the sequence solidifi cation, and many shrinkage porosities are observed through the casting. After the gating system is improved by adding one runner and two in-gates, the fi lling time is prolonged from 4.0 s to 4.5 s, the fi lling of molten metal becomes stable, but this casting does not follow the sequence solidifi cation either. Some shrinkage porosity is also observed in the hot spots of the casting. When the gating system was further improved by adding risers and chill to the hot spots of the casting, the shrinkage porosity defects were eliminated completely. Finally, by using the optimized gating system the A356 aluminum alloy intake manifold casting with integrated shape and smooth surface as well as dense microstructure was successfully produced.

Mechanism of Capacity Fading Caused by Mn(Ⅱ)Deposition on Anodes for Spinel Lithium Manganese Oxide Cell

The capacity fade of spinel lithium manganese oxide in lithium-ion batteries is a bottleneck challenge for the large-scale application.The traditional opinion is that Mn（Ⅱ） ions in the anode are reduced to the metallic manganese that helps for catalyzing electrolyte decomposition.This could poison and damage the solid electrolyte interface（SEI） film,leading to the the capacity fade in Li-ion batteries.We propose a new mechanism that Mn（Ⅱ） deposites at the anode hinders and/or blocks the intercalation/de-intercalation of lithium ions,which leads to the capacity fade in Li-ion batteries.Based on the new mechanism assumption,a kind of new structure with core-shell characteristic is designed to inhabit manganese ion dissolution,thus improving electrochemical cycle performance of the cell.By the way,this mechanism hypothesis is also supported by the results of these experiments.The LiMn2-xTixO4 shell layer enhances cathode resistance to corrosion attack and effectively suppresses dissolution of Mn,then improves battery cycle performance with LiMn_2O_4 cathode,even at high rate and elevated temperature.

Model test of helical angle effect on coal loading performance of shear drum

The work presented in this paper focuses on improving coal loading performance of shear drum.Employing the similarity theory,we carried out a dimensional analysis of the correlation parameters which influence coal loading performance of shear drum.On the basis of similarity criterion,proportional relationship between the model and the prototype was taken on the condition of taking 1/3 as the similarity coefficient.Besides taking 1600 mm drum as the prototype,four helical angle models of shearer drums(15°,18°,21°,24°) were developed.Simultaneously,based on an established cutting test-bed,coal loading performance tests for the four drums were carried out at the same drum rotational and haulage speeds.After analyzing the data of coal-loading performance and torque,we concluded that:both the coal loading performance and torque vary along the track of the parabola with the opening side facing downwards;the best coal loading performance arises when the helical angle is at 19.3°,while the biggest torque arises at 22.1°;and the coal loading performance had nonlinear relationship with the torque.

Development of Flow Stress of AISI H13 Die Steel in Hard Machining

An approach was presented to characterize the stress response of workpiece in hard machining, accounting for the effect of the initial workpiece hardness in addition to temperature, strain and strain rate on flow stress in this paper. AISI H13 die steel was chosen to verify this methodology. The proposed flow stress model demonstrates a good agreement with experimental data. Therefore, the proposed model can be used to predict the corresponding flow stress-strain response ofAISl H13 die steel with variation of the initial workpiece hardness in hard machining.

Research on lamellar structure and micro-hardness of directionally solidified Sn-58Bi eutectic alloy

In this work,the Sn-58Bi(weight percent) eutectic alloy was directionally solidified at a constant temperature gradient(G = 12 K.mm-1) with different growth rates using a Bridgman type directional solidification furnace.A lamellar microstructure was observed in the Sn-58Bi samples.The lamellar spacing and micro-hardness of longitudinal and transversal sections were measured.The values of lamellar spacing of both longitudinal and transversal sections decrease with an increase in growth rate.The microhardness increases with an increase in the growth rate and decreases with an increase in the lamellar spacing.The dependence of lamellar spacing on growth rate,and micro-hardness on both growth rate and lamellar spacing were obtained by linear regression analysis.The relationships between the lamellar spacing and growth rate,microhardness and growth rate,and micro-hardness and lamellar spacing for transversal and longitudinal sections of Sn-58Bi eutectic alloy were given.The fitted exponent values obtained in this work were compared with the previous similar experimental results and a good agreement was obtained.

Modeling and Control Strategy of Built-in Skin Effect Electric Tracing System

In order to ensure the safety of fluid flow in deep-water submarine pipelines,a safe and energy-saving built-in skin effect electric heat tracing technology was adopted as the thermal management strategy.The magnetic field distribution of built-in skin effect heating system is analyzed based on the mechanism of built-in skin effect heating system,so as to obtain the equivalent circuit model of built-in skin effect electric heating system.Meanwhile,heating power is introduced as an intermediate variable to establish the relationship between power supply frequency and built-in skin effect heating temperature.Aiming at the skin effect electric heating system,an Active Disturbance Rejection Control(ADRC)method is proposed macroscopically based on Hammerstein model.Firstly,the parameters of Hammerstein model are identified and optimized using the auxiliary model and standard particle swarm optimization algorithm.Then,the ADRC controller of linear link is designed,and the required heating temperature is used to solve the intermediate variable heating power.Finally,inversion calculation is applied in the nonlinear link to solve the required power frequency,so as to achieve the purpose of efficient heating and verify the feasibility and effectiveness of control strategy through simulation.

Fine-Grained Action Recognition Based on Temporal Pyramid Excitation Network

Mining more discriminative temporal features to enrich temporal context representation is considered the key to fine-grained action recog-nition.Previous action recognition methods utilize a fixed spatiotemporal window to learn local video representation.However,these methods failed to capture complex motion patterns due to their limited receptive field.To solve the above problems,this paper proposes a lightweight Temporal Pyramid Excitation(TPE)module to capture the short,medium,and long-term temporal context.In this method,Temporal Pyramid(TP)module can effectively expand the temporal receptive field of the network by using the multi-temporal kernel decomposition without significantly increasing the computational cost.In addition,the Multi Excitation module can emphasize temporal importance to enhance the temporal feature representation learning.TPE can be integrated into ResNet50,and building a compact video learning framework-TPENet.Extensive validation experiments on several challenging benchmark(Something-Something V1,Something-Something V2,UCF-101,and HMDB51)datasets demonstrate that our method achieves a preferable balance between computation and accuracy.

Constructal design of a rectangular porous fin considering minimization of maximum temperature difference and pumping power consumption

A heat dissipation model of a rectangular porous fin is established based on constructal theory. First, the constructal design of rectangular porous fin is conducted by selecting a complex function minimization, which composed of linear weighting sum of maximum temperature difference and pumping power consumption, as optimization objective. Effects of gap height, air inlet velocity, total porous fin volume and porosity on the optimal constructs are investigated, respectively. The findings show that the complex function can attain its double minimum at a value of 0.802 when the fin length and number are optimized, and the corresponding optimal fin length and number are 8.01 mm and 10, respectively. In comparison to original design, the complex function and maximum temperature difference after twice optimization are decreased by 19.80% and 66.31%, respectively.Second, the comprehensive performance of porous fin is improved by simultaneously optimizing the fin length and number. The artificial neural network is applied to predict the fin performances, which is used to conduct multi-objective optimization based on NSGA-II algorithm. Optimal structure of porous fin for multiple requirements is gained by LINMAP and TOPSIS decisionmaking strategies. The findings in this study can serve as theoretical guides for fin thermal designs of electronic devices.

Constructal design of a rectangular parallel phase change microchannel in a three-dimensional electronic device

Based on constructal theory,a rectangular parallel phase change microchannel model in a three-dimensional electronic device(TDED)is established with R134a as the cooling fluid.Based on the minimization of a complex function(CF)composed of linear weighting sum of maximum temperature difference and pumping power consumption,constructal design of the TDED is conducted first;and then,maximum temperature difference and pumping power consumption are minimized by non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II methods.The results reveal that there exist an optimal mass flow rate(0.0012 kg/s)and a quadratic optimal aspect ratio(AR)(0.39)of the microchannel which lead to quadratic minimum CF(0.817).Compared with the original value,the CF after optimization is reduced by 18.34%.Reducing the inlet temperature of cooling fluid and microchannel number appropriately can help to enhance the overall performance of TDED.By using the artificial neural network and genetic algorithms in the toolboxes of Matlab software,the optimal AR gained in the Pareto solution set is located between 0.2–0.45.The smallest deviation index among three discussed strategies is 0.346,and the corresponding optimal AR is 0.413,which is selected as the optimal design strategy of the microchannel in the TDED under multiple requirements.The findings in this study can serve as theoretical guides for thermal designs of electronic devices.

Constructal design of printed circuit recuperator for S-CO_(2)cycle via multi-objective optimization algorithm

Based on a constructal theory,the structure design of a printed circuit recuperator with a semicircular heat transfer channel for supercritical CO_(2)cycle is carried out.First,a complex function composed of weighted sum of the reciprocal of total heat transfer rate and total pumping power consumption is regarded as an optimization objective,and total volumes of the recuperator and heat transfer channel are regarded as constraints.The optimal heat transfer channel radius and minimum complex function of the recuperator are obtained.It turns out that heat transfer rate,pumping power consumption,and complex function under the optimal construct of recuperator are reduced by 15.10%,82.44%,and 32.33%,respectively.There exists the optimal single plate channel number which results in the double minimum complex function.Second,for the purpose of minimizing the reciprocal of heat transfer rate and pumping power consumption,NSGA-II algorithm is used to achieve multi-objective optimization,and the minimum deviation index derived by the decision-making methods is 0.076,which can be taken as multi-objective optimal design scheme for printed circuit recuperator with semicircular heat transfer channels.The findings presented here can serve as theoretical recommendations for the structure design of printed circuit recuperator.

Power-optimization of multistage non-isothermal chemical engine system via Onsager equations,Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman theory and dynamic programming

The research on the output rate performance limit of the multi-stage energy conversion system based on modern optimal control theory is one of the hot spots of finite time thermodynamics.The existing research mainly focuses on the multi-stage heat engine system with pure heat transfer and the multi-stage isothermal chemical engine(ICE)system with pure mass transfer,while the multi-stage non ICE system with heat and mass transfer coupling is less involved.A multistage endoreversible non-isothermal chemical engine(ENICE)system with a finite high-chemical-potential(HCP)source(driving fluid)and an infinite low-chemical-potential sink(environment)is researched.The multistage continuous system is treated as infinitesimal ENICEs located continuously.Each infinitesimal ENICE is assumed to be a single-stage ENICE with stationary reservoirs.Extending single-stage results,the maximum power output(MPO)of the multistage system is obtained.Heat and mass transfer processes between the reservoir and working fluid are assumed to obey Onsager equations.For the fixed initial time,fixed initial fluid temperature,and fixed initial concentration of key component(CKC)in the HCP source,continuous and discrete models of the multistage system are optimized.With given initial reservoir temperature,initial CKC,and total process time,the MPO of the multistage ENICE system is optimized with fixed and free final temperature and final concentration.If the final concentration and final temperature are free,there are optimal final temperature and optimal final concentration for the multistage ENICE system to achieve MPO;meanwhile,there are low limit values for final fluid temperature and final concentration.Special cases for multistage endoreversible Carnot heat engines and ICE systems are further obtained.For the model in this paper,the minimum entropy generation objective is not equivalent to MPO objective.

Power output and efficiency optimization of endoreversible non-isothermal chemical engine via Lewis analogy

Compared with endoreversible heat engine with pure heat transfer and endoreversible isothermal chemical engine with pure mass transfer,endoreversible non-isothermal chemical engine(ENICE)is a more reasonable model of practical mass exchanger,solid device and chemo-electric systems.There exists heat and mass transfer(HMT)simultaneously between working fluid and chemical potential reservoir in ENICE.There is coupled HMT effect that in ENICE should be considered.There are two ways to consider this coupled effect.One is based on Onsager equations,and another is based on Lewis analogy.For the mathematical and physical description of the above HMT process,the model using Onsager equations are more appropriate in the linear HMT region not far from the equilibrium state,while that based on Lewis analogy is more appropriate in nonlinear HMT region far from the equilibrium state.Different from the previous research on the power optimization of ENICEs with Onsager equations,this paper optimizes power and efficiency of ENICE based on Lewis analogy.HMT processes are assumed to obey Newtonian heat transfer law(q∝ΔT,and T is temperature)and Fick's diffusive mass transfer law(g∝Δc,and c is concentration),respectively.Analytical results of power output and corresponding vector efficiency(η_(T)andη_(μ))of ENICE are obtained,which provide important parallel results with those based on Onsager equations.They include special cases for endoreversible Carnot heat engine with q∝ΔT and endoreversible isothermal chemical engine with g∝Δc.Adopting Lewis analogy in the modelling of ENICEs with simultaneous HMT is an important work.It provides important analytical and numerical results different from those with Onsager equations obtained previously and enriches the research contents of FTT.The research results in this paper have a certain guiding significance for the optimal designs of single irreversible NICEs,multistage NICE systems,practical mass exchangers,solid devices,chemo-electric systems,and so on.

Performance analyses of a novel finned parabolic trough receiver with inner tube for solar cascade heat collection

Designing highly-efficient parabolic trough receiver(PTR)contributes to promoting solar thermal utilization and alleviating energy crisis and environmental problems.A novel finned PTR with inner tube(FPTR-IT),which can provide different grades of thermal energy with two heat transfer fluids(oil and water),is designed to improve thermal efficiency.In this FPTR-IT,an inner tube and straight fins are employed to respectively lessen heat loss at upper and lower parts of the absorber.Based on the design,a numerical model is developed to investigate its performance.Comparisons with other PTRs indicate that the FPTR-IT can combine the advantages of PTR with inner tube and finned PTR and obtain the best performance.Moreover,performance evaluation under broad ranges of direct normal irradiances(300–1000 W/m^(2)),flow rates(50–250 L/min)and inlet temperatures(400–600 K)of oil as well as flow rates(3.6–10 L/min)and inlet temperatures(298.15–318.15 K)of water is investigated.Compared with conventional PTR,heat loss is reduced by 20.7%–63.2%and total efficiency is improved by 0.03%–4.27%.Furthermore,the proportions of heat gains for water and oil are located in 8.3%–73.9%and-12.0%–64.3%,while their temperature gains are located in 11.6–37.9 K and-1.2–19.6 K,respectively.Thus,the proposed FPTR-IT may have a promising application prospect in remote arid areas or islands to provide different grades of heat for electricity and freshwater production.

Power and efficiency optimizations of Maisotsenko-Atkinson,Dual and Miller cycles and performance comparisons with corresponding traditional cycles

Maisotsenko cycle(M-cycle)has been combined with some cooling and power cycles,and behaves important thermodynamic advantage.Finite-time thermodynamics(FTT)is applied to establish three endoreversible models of M-Atkinson,M-Dual and M-Miller cycles.They are performed based on models of endoreversible Atkinson,Dual and Miller cycles by combing FTT model with M-cycle concept.Power output(POW)and thermal efficiency(TEF)of those M-cycles are studied and optimized by numerical calculations.The maximum power output(MPO)and the corresponding pressure ratio and TEF,the maximum TEF and the corresponding pressure ratio and POW,as well as optimal ranges of pressure ratio are obtained.Effects of mass flow rate of circulating water injection,initial cycle temperature and maximum cycle temperature on cycle POW,TEF and optimal pressure ratio range are analyzed.The optimal performances of the three M-cycles are compared with those of traditional Atkinson,Dual and Miller cycles under the same conditions.The results show that for the three M-cycles,end temperature of adiabatic expansion process of M-cycle is less than that of the corresponding traditional cycle,POW and TEF at arbitrary pressure ratio of M-cycle are much higher than those of the corresponding traditional cycle,and performance characteristics of M-cycles are superior to those of the corresponding traditional cycles.

Photothermal hygroscopic hydrogel for simultaneous generation of clean water and electricity

Harvesting water from the air using adsorbents and obtaining fresh water by solar-driven desorption is considered as one of the most effective ways to solve the freshwater crisis in arid and desert regions.Based on a simple and low-cost photothermal hygroscopic hydrogel,a new strategy is proposed to boost solar energy efficiency by coupling solar-driven atmospheric water harvesting technology with thermoelectric power generation technology in this paper.Photothermal hygroscopic hydrogel ink PAM-CaCl_(2)is prepared by in situ polymerization using Acrylamide as monomer,Ammonium persulfate as thermal initiator and CaCl_(2)as hygroscopic component.During the day,the photothermal hygroscopic hydrogel absorbs solar energy and evaporates its own internal water to obtain fresh water.Simultaneously,the residual waste heat is utilized to power the thermoelectric panel,which produces electricity based on Seebeck effect.At night,the hydrogel harvests water molecules in the air to achieve regeneration.This hybrid system can achieve a water production rate of 0.33 kg m^(-2)h^(-1)and an additional electrical energy gain of 124 mW m^(-2)at 1 kW m^(-2)solar intensity.Theoretical model of the hybrid system is developed to understand the heat flow and thermoelectric generation process.The results provide new insights into energy and freshwater replenishment options in arid or desert areas with abundant solar energy.

Energy and exergy analyses and optimizations for two-stage TEC driven by two-stage TEG with Thomson effect

Based on the non-equilibrium thermodynamics and energy and exergy analyses,a thermodynamic model of two-stage thermoelectric(TE)cooler(TTEC)driven by two-stage TE generator(TTEG)(TTEG-TTEC)combined TE device is established with involving Thomson effect by fitting method of variable physical parameters of TE materials.Taking total number of TE elements as constraint,influences of number distributions of TE elements on three device performance indictors,that is,cooling load,maximum COP and maximum exergetic efficiency,are analyzed.Three number distributions of TE elements are optimized with three maximum performance indictors as the objectives,respectively.Influences of hot-junction temperature of TTEG and coldjunction temperature of TTEC on optimization results are analyzed,and difference between optimization results corresponding to three performance indicators are studied.Optimal performance intervals and optimal variable intervals are provided.Influences of Thomson effect on three general performance indicators,three optimal performance indicators and optimal variables are comparatively discussed.Thomson effect reduces three general performance indicators and three optimal performance indicators of device.When hot-and cold-junction temperatures of TTEG and TTEC are 450,305,325 and 295 K,respectively,Thomson effect reduced maximum cooling load,maximum COP and maximum exergetic efficiency from 9.528 W,9.043×10^(-2)and2.552%to 6.651 W,6.286×10^(-2)and 1.752%,respectively.

Constructal design progress for eight types of heat sinks

This review paper summarizes constructal design progress performed by the authors for eight types of heat sinks with ten performance indexes being taken as the optimization objectives,respectively,by combining the methods of theoretical analysis and numerical calculation.The eight types of heat sinks are uniform height rectangular fin heat sink,non-uniform height rectangular fin heat sink,inline cylindrical pin-fin heat sink(ICPHS),plate single-row pin fin heat sink(PSRPHS),plate inline pin fin heat sink(PIPHS),plate staggered pin fin heat sink(PSPHS),single-layered microchannel heat sink(SLMCHS)with rectangular cross sections and double-layered microchannel heat sink(DLMCHS)with rectangular cross sections,respectively.And the ten performance indexes are heat transfer rate maximization,maximum thermal resistance minimization,minimization of equivalent thermal resistance which is defined based on the entransy dissipation rate(equivalent thermal resistance for short),field synergy number maximization,entropy generation rate minimization,operation cost minimization,thermo-economic function value minimization,pressure drop minimization,enhanced heat transfer factor maximization and efficiency evaluation criterion number maximization,respectively.The optimal constructs of the eight types of heat sinks with different constraints and based on the different optimization objectives are compared with each other.The results indicated that the optimal constructs mostly are different based on different optimization objectives under the same boundary condition.The optimization objective should be suitable chosen based on the focus when the constructal design for one heat sink is performed.The results obtained herein have some important theoretical significances and application values,and can provide scientific bases and theoretical guidelines for the thermal design of real heat sinks and their applications.

Performance optimization of a class of combined thermoelectric heating devices

A detailed model of thermally-driven combined thermoelectric(TE) heating device is established. The device consists of twostage TE heat pump(TTEH) and two-stage TE generator(TTEG) with four external heat exchangers(HEXs). Both internal losses and external heat transfer irreversibilities are considered in the model. The heating capacity and the coefficient of performance(COP) of the device are improved through numerical optimization,which is of great significance to the application of the device. The distribution of the total TE element number among four TE devices and the distribution of the total external heat conductance among the four external HEXs are optimized. The results show that both the reservoir temperatures of TTEG and TTEH have significant influences on the performance and the corresponding optimum parameters of the device. The COP can reach 0.14 after optimization when the temperature difference of heat source is 150 K and the temperature difference of heating is 10 K.