Journal of Advanced Materials in Engineering (Esteghlal)

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In electric arc furnace steelmaking units, the essential parameters are reducing price, increasing production and decreasing environmental pollution. Electric arc furnaces are the largest users of electric energy in industry. The most important techniques that can be used to reduce the electric energy consumption in electric arc furnaces are scrap preheating, stirring, use of burners and hot charge and foamy slag. Between these methods, the use of foamy slag is the most useful and economical factor. Foamy slag can reduce the amount of energy, electrodes, refractory consumption, and tap to tap time while it also increases productivity. In this study, method of production and optimum conditions for foamy slag in a 200-ton electric arc furnace were investigated. The use of foamy slag in this research can reduce the electric energy consumption from 670 to 580 kwh/t and the melting time from 130 to 115 min. and that the electric power input can be increased. It also shows that with foamy slag, the optimum amount of FeO in slag is 20-24 percent and the optimum basicity is 2-2.2. Keywords: electric arc furnace, energy, DRI, foamy slag

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In this paper, the application of evaporative cooling for refrigeration cycle to reduce power consumption in hot climates is emphasized. Experimental and analytical investigations were performed in order to specify the effect of evaporative cooling condenser instead of the commonly used air cooling condenser in window-air-conditioners. Evaporative condenser can reject more heat, thereby preventing the reduction of cooling capacity and increasing power consumption of window-air-conditioners during very hot seasons. Two designs were developed for evaporative condensers. In the direct injection design, water is injected on the condenser coil directly while in the media pad design, water is injected on the media pad installed before the condenser. Thermodynamic properties of the systems after modification were measured and compared with the ordinary situation. Analysis of the results show that using these methods, the coefficient of performance increases by about 25% and power consumption decreases by about 13%. It is also anticipated that further modifications in these designs may yield better results

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With progress in radar systems, a number of methods have been developed for signal processing and detection in radars. A number of modern radar signal processing methods use time-frequency transforms, especially the wavelet transform (WT) which is a well-known linear transform. The interference canceling is one of the most important applications of the wavelet transform. In Ad-hoc detection methods, the interference is firstly canceled and then a simple detector, like an energy detector, is used. Therefore, we have used wavelet-based approaches to cancel the interference and then an energy detector has been employed. In this paper, it is shown that in practical cases where the performance of matched filter or near-matched filter is degraded, wavelet-based methods are more efficient. Also, we have shown that for cases where targets with slow radial velocity or one close to blind velocity are removed by the MTI filter, wavelet-based denoising has a better performance.

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Forced hydraulic jump in a horizontal stilling basin with one and two continuous sills at the downstream end of an ogee standard weir was investigated. Experiments were completed on sills of five different heights which were fixed at two different distances from the toe of the weir. The main characteristics of the jump such as the sequent depth ratio, relative roller length, and relative energy loss were analysed. Based on the momentum equation and using an experimental coefficient, a method was adopted to predict the sequent depth ratio. Using the results of the experiments, an analytical expression was developed for the prediction of the relative roller length. These methods agree well with the writers, and other investigators, experiments. The results of experiments on one and two prolonged sills showed that by increasing the height of the sill or shortering the distance of the sill from the toe of the weir, the reduction of the sequent depth and also the roller length obtains, but the energy loss increases

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Energy absorber systems like metallic dampers for controlling the structural vibrations due to earthquake have witnessed considerable development in the past few decades. Also there are some studies on the energy absorption of thin-walled tubes due to impact load. Thin-walled tubes have a large deformation capacity and are suitable energy absorbers in the structure during an earthquake provided that a suitable inelastic buckling mode obtains. This paper deals with the study of energy dissipation in accordion thin-walled tubes and their behavior due to axial cyclic loads. For this purpose, experimental and analytical studies have been performed. Experimental studies were conducted on specimens available in the market by dynamic tension and compression actuator. Analytical studies are based on finite element methods and nonlinear inelastic dynamic analysis. These studies are focused on the effects of mechanical and geometrical parameters of these tubes like shape, thickness, diameter, length and material type of tube on the amount of energy dissipation and axial stiffness. The results show that accordion thin-walled tubes exhibit satisfactory energy absorption behavior and that proper selection of the parameters yields the optimum design of this metallic damper.

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There is a demand for reduced power consumption in the vapor compression refrigeration cycle. Coefficient of performance of window-air conditioners considerably decreases and power consumption increases under very hot conditions. These problems have encouragecl studies aimed at improving the performance of window-air-conditioners by enhancing the heat transfer rate in the condenser. In this article, a new design for application of evaporative cooling in the condenser of window-air conditioners is introduced and experimentally investigated. In this design, two pads equipped with a water injection system are located on both sides of the air-conditioner to cool down the air flow passing over the condenser. The experimental results showed that thermodynamic characteristics of the system considerably improved while power consumption decreased by about 15% and the coefficient of performance increased by about 55%.

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In recent years, many different plans have been considered to use the nuclear energy gained from inertial confinement fusion (ICF) as attempts to obtain high energy efficiencies. In conventional ICF methods, a small amount (about mg) of the deuterium–tritium compound is confined in a small spherical chamber of a few millimeters in radius and compressed by laser or heavy ion beams with powers in the order of W. The consequent plasma froming at the center of the chamber is an essential issue for fusion. The hydrodynamical instabilities during the fuel compression process arising in the conventional ICF technique leads to a decline in energy efficiency. The new plans for reducing instabilities involve compression of the fuel chamber in two stages using laser or ion beams. In the first stage, fuel is preheated by laser or ion and in the second phase, relativistic electrons are constructed by -W laser phases in the fuel. This heating method has come to be known as a fast “ignition method”. More recently, cylindrical rather than spherical fuel chambers with magnetic control in the plasma domain have been also considered. In this work, fast ignition method in cylindrical fuel chambers will be investigated and transportation of the relativistic electrons will be calculated using MCNP code and the Fokker–Planck program. Furthermore, the transfer rate of relativistic electron energy to the fuel will be calculated. Our calculations show that the fast ignition method and cylindrical chambers guarantee a higher energy efficiency than the one-step ignition and that it can be considered an appropriate substitute for the current ICF techniques.

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Charpy impact energy of functionally graded steels in the form of crack arrester configuration was investigated. Functionally graded steels which contain layers of ferrite, austenite, bainite and/or martensite could be produced by electroslag remelting. The results showed that notch tip position and the distances of notch with respect to the bainite and martensite layers significantly affect the impact energy of the specimens. Generally, the plastic deformation zone ahead of a crack in a functionally graded material depends on the position of the notch tip where according to the direction of gradient slope may increase or decrease. The closer the notch tips to the brittle phase, the smaller the impact energy of the specimen and vice versa. The effect of plastic zone size on impact energy of functionally graded steels was notionally investigated.

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The soft magnetic nanocrystalline Fe73.5Si13.5B9Cu1Nb3 alloy (FINEMET®) is produced by heat treatment of amorphous precursor. Determining kinetic parameters of amorphous structure transformation to nanocrystalline allows the control of microstructure (e.g. size and volume fraction of nanocrystalline grains) in order to achieve desired soft magnetic properties by optimizing the heat treatment conditions. In this research, the nanocrystallization kinetics of amorphous FINEMET alloy were studied using isoconversional and isokinetic methods under non-isothermal conditions of various heating rates ranging from 5 to 20˚C/min. The changes in the microstructure and magnetic properties of amorphous ribbon during nanocrystallization process were studied using X-ray diffractometry and hysteresisgraph, respectively.

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In this paper, the behavior of energy absorption of crush-boxes, made of Aluminum foam advanced material, was investigated based on foam cellular structure homogeneity. Therefore, thin-walled tubes of Cu-Zn30wt.%.brass alloy with 27 mm diameter and 1 mm thickness were filled with A356-10vol.%SiC-Xwt.%. of TiH2 foam liquid. Foam samples with 1, 1.5, 2wt.%. of TiH2 were prepared by Form Grip into the brass tubes in order to produce crush-box .Then the crush-boxes as energy absorber elements were compressed by un-axial loading and then behaviors of progressive buckling foams were measured. Results showed by decreasing A356-10vol.% SiC foam density from 0.93 to 0.88 and then 0.43 g/cm3, the energy absorption would be changed from 12955 to 13465 and then to 11192 J, respectively. The sample with 1.5wt.% of TiH2 and density of 0.88 g/cm3 had the maximum energy absorption. Also, the results of foams cellular structure images showed that foams of homogenous cellular structure had a sizeable effect on the progressive buckling behavior. We developed a new parameter as "sorting coefficient", which can release the foams cellular structure non-homogeneity, and change the crush-boxes energy absorption during the progressive plastic buckling.

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In this study, at first Al-Al2O3 composite powders having different volume fractions of Al2O3 (0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 vol.%) were produced by low energy mechanical alloying, which were used as foam materials. Then, composite foams with 50, 60, and 70 percent of porosity were produced by space-holder technique. Spherical carbamide particles (1-1.4 mm) were used to achieve spherical porosities. In order to investigate the compressive behavior of foams, the compression test with strain rate of 10-3 S-1 was performed on the foam samples. The results showed that the compressive properties depended on the volume fraction of Al2O3 and porosity fraction. Generally, by decreasing the porosity fraction, the compressive properties were improved. The composite foams containing 10 vol.% Al2O3 showed superior compressive properties in comparison to other foams studied in this work.

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In this research, crystallization of Fe36Cr12Mo10 and α-Fe phases in devitrification of Fe51Cr18Mo7B16C4Nb4 amorphous alloy was studied using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. For evaluation of crystallization kinetics, differential scanning calorimetric tests were carried out at different heating rates. Results showed that two-step crystallization led to the formation of Fe36Cr12Mo10 and α-Fe phases in the structure of alloy. Activation energy of crystallization of Fe36Cr12Mo10 and α-Fe phases measured according to Kissinger-Starink model were 747 and 880 kJ/mol, respectively. Results growth mechanism along with the decreasing nucleation rate in crystallization of Fe36Cr12Mo10 and α-Fe phases.

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Despite a great thermodynamic driving force, copper cementation by aluminum from sulfate solutions involves a relatively slow kinetics due to the presence of the passive oxide film on the surface of aluminum. The previous studies have confirmed the positive effect of the presence of small amounts of chloride ion on reducing the scale of this problem. In this paper, the effect of concurrent ball milling on the kinetics of this process has been investigated. The cementation experiments were carried out in a polyamide jar with alumina balls inside by planetary ball milling. The studied parameters were ball number (0, 4), temperature (25-55 °C) and time (0-240 s). All experiments were conducted at constant condition of [Cu²⁺] = 6 g/L, [Cl⁻] = 75 mg/L, rotation speed of 160 rpm, average aluminum particle size of 279 µm and [H⁺] = 1.94×10^-3. The results showed that concurrent ball milling reduces the induction period of the cementation process to less than 120 s.  The apparent rate constant of cementation showed the positive influence of simultaneous milling on the kinetics of the studied cementation process. Moreover, activation energies of the induction and main periods were calculated to be respectively 86 and 26 kJ.mol^-1, indicating the shift of the reaction mechanism from chemical control to mass transfer control.
 

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