This studies are directed towards measuring the electrical conductivity of the (CuSe)1-xSex metal chalcogenide semi-conductor composites, with different stoichiometric compositions of Se (x = 0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.5, 0.6, 0.8,1.0) in bulk form. The electrical conductivity measurement was carried out at room temperature, using the parallel plate technique. The (CuSe)1-xSex composites were prepared using solid state reaction, by varying the ratio of CuSe:Se, in the reaction mixture. The electrical conductivity of (CuSe)1-xSex was determined to be in the range of 1.17 x 10-8 to 1.02 x 10-1 S/cm. The finding indicated that the electrical conductivity value tended to decrease as the concentration of Se increased. The effect of the concentration of Se, on electrical conductivity of (CuSe)1-xSex composites, is discussed in this paper.
The purpose of this research is to enhance the gain signal amplification by using dual
pump double pass configuration in comparative with single pump double pass that are
commonly used as conventional optical amplifier configuration in optical
communication system nowadays. Two input signals power have been implemented
which are -30 and 0 decibel (dB). The input signal defined as low and high input signals
power by using a pump power of 1480 nm. The amplification of EDFA in this study have
been taken place in conventional band (C) band and long wavelength band (L) band of
EDFA within the range of 1515 to 1615 nm. Therefore, to understand the performance
of the gain amplification, the OptiSystem software simulator version 13 has been used
for simulation and the values of fiber length and pump power has been varied for both
configurations. It has been found that the, dual pump double pass configuration has
shown better gain performance at lower input signal power compared to the single
pump double pass configuration.
This paper reports the effect of microbending losses in single mode optical fiber
for pressure sensing system application. Several types of periodical corrugated
plates were fabricated, namely cylindrical-structured surface (Plate A) and
rectangular-structured surface (Plate B) with thicknesses of corrugated parts
were varied at 0.1 cm, 0.2 cm and 0.3 cm. Laser sources with excitation
wavelengths of 1= 1310 nm and 2= 1550 nm were launched at the first end
of the fiber. The values of losses were recorded by using an optical power
meter. It was clearly seen that the microbending losses were polynomially
increased with the increment of applied pressure and the thicknesses of
corrugated parts of Plate A and Plate B. The maximum microbending losses of
1.5185 dBm/kPa was resulted as SMF was coupled with corrugated plates B
with thicknesses of 0.3cm by using excitation wavelength of 1550nm. These
values reduced to 0.7628 dBm/kPa and 0.4014 dBm/kPa as the thicknesses
were decreased to 0.2cm and 0.1cm respectively. In comparison with a plain
plate which acted as a reference indicator, the maximum percentage of
microbending losses was obtained as 74.29 % for Plate A and 95.02 % for Plate
B. In conclusions, we successfully proved the ability of SMF as a pressure sensor
by manipulating the microbending losses experienced by the fiber. The
employment of 1550nm of laser wavelength results better sensitivity sensor
where the system able to detect large losses as the pressure applied on the
corrugated surfaces.
The effects of hole size on open hole tensile properties of Kevlar-glass fibre hybrid composite laminates were thoroughly investigated in this work. Woven Kevlar/glass fibre epoxy composite laminates were fabricated using hand lay-up and vacuum bagging technique. Specimens of five different hole size (1 mm, 4 mm, 6 mm, 8 mm and 12 mm) were carefully prepared before the tensile test was performed according to ASTM D5766. Results indicated that hybridizing Kevlar to glass fibres improved tensile strength and failure strain of hybrid composite specimen. In addition, increasing the hole size reduced strength retention of the hybrid specimen from 96% for 1 mm hole size to 62% and 44% for 6 mm and 12 mm, respectively. Fractography analysis showed that several types of failure mechanisms were observed such as brittle failure, ductile failure, fibre breakage, delamination and fibre-matrix splitting. It is concluded that as hole size increased, failure behaviour changed from a matrix dominated failure mode to a fibre-dominated failure mode.
This paper presents an evaluation of the alternative use of natural cellulose coir fibres for
soil reinforcement. Soil reinforcement is defined as a technique to improve the engineering properties
of soil. Inserting natural fibres into the soil has been proposed as a reinforcement method. Randomly
distributed coir fibre reinforced soils have recently attracted increasing attention in geotechnical
engineering due to their strength. Furthermore, there is a need to develop an innovative and
sustainable pre-treatment method to improve the effectiveness and performance of coir fibre as soil
reinforcement. The primary purpose of this paper is, therefore, to review the characteristics, benefits,
applications and weaknesses of coir fibre as soil reinforcement.
The nutrient composition, cooking characteristics and sensory properties of beef patties incorporated with various level of cornsilk were studied. The beef patties were formulated with either 2, 4 or 6% of cornsilk. Protein content increased in line with the cornsilk level in both raw and cooked beef patties. Both raw and cooked patties incorporated with 6% cornsilk recorded the highest protein concentration at 17.2 and 23.3%, respectively. Both raw and cooked patties containing 6% cornsilk recorded the lowest concentration of fat at 12.4 and 11.4%, respectively. All cooked patty samples recorded moisture content ranging from 40.42-42.98%. Beef patty formulated with 6% cornsilk recorded the highest cooking yield at 80.13% compared to other treatments. The addition of cornsilk did not change the sensory properties and consumer acceptability of cornsilk-based beef patties. Cornsilk fibre was effective in improving cooking yield, moisture and fat retention and enhancing texture of beef patties.
The culms of bamboo Bambusa rigida ranging from 1, 3 and 5 year old were obtained and investigated for anatomical characteristics in different ages, heights and zones in radial direction of culm wall thickness. The vascular bundles were denser and smaller at the top portion and outer zone of all age groups. No significant differences in vascular bundle frequency and size were found among the tree age groups. Metaxylem vessels did not vary significantly among ages. Fibre and parenchyma were longer in the middle portion of the height and middle zone in radial direction of culms wall. No significant differences in fibre and parenchyma length were observed in all age groups. The wall thicknesses of fibre and parenchyma were thicker in the top portion and outer zone. Furthermore, the wall thicknesses of fibre and parenchyma increased significantly from 1 to 3 year, showing that there is a maturing progress from 1 to 3 year.
The proximate analyses, physical traits and sensory properties of chicken patties incorporated with different levels of cornsilk dietary fibre were studied. The patties were formulated with 2%, 4% and 6% dried ground cornsilk. The protein content increased in line with the cornsilk level in both raw and cooked chicken patties. Cooked chicken patties incorporated with 6% cornsilk showed the highest protein concentration at 28.42% and the lowest fat concentration at 14.60%, respectively. All cooked patty samples recorded moisture content ranging from 42.73-46.40%. Patty formulated with 6% cornsilk recorded the highest cooking yield at 83.03%. Cornsilk fibre has been successful in improving cooking yield and in retaining moisture and fat of chicken patties. The addition of cornsilk fibre does not change the sensory properties and the acceptability of chicken patties.
The mechanical strength of magnetic lumen loaded handsheets was reported to be lower than the unloaded handsheets. This effect is due to the deposition of filler inside the fiber lumen and some on the fibre surface which interfere with the fibre to fibre bonding. Hence, in order to improve the handsheets strength, cationic starch is used as a dry strength additive. In this study, mixed tropical hardwood pulps were used throughout the experiment. The magnetite particles were deposited in the fibre lumen via the lumen loading technique. The addition of cationic starch was found to increase the handsheet strength. However, it disturbed and influenced the location and distribution of the magnetic fillers. Some of the magnetite particles were observed to be displaced from the fiber lumen and pit apertures. The charges of the filler particles and cationic starch played an important role in producing charge repulsion and pulling effect which lead to filler dislocation.
Pilling is one of the fabric faults that originally found in knitted woolen goods especially made from soft twisted yarns. The rubbing action on loose fibres that is present on the fabric surface gives a high tendency to form pills which gives poor appearance to the fabric. This study was carried out to investigate the effect of repeated launderings on the propensity of pilling formation by using pill grade machine. The primary objective of this study was to determine the pilling behaviour of different types of weft knitted fabrics after a repeated number of laundering cycles. The study was conducted using two types of knitted fabrics; cotton and polyester with three types of knitted structures; interlock, 1x1 rib and plain jersey. The various number of laundering cycles were given on the fabrics and followed by 15,000 revolutions of ICI pilling box. The results showed that polyester fibre has better pilling resistance due to its exceptional strength, whilst in terms of fabric structure, plain jersey showed an excellent resistance. This is due to the higher density and compact structure that it possessed.
Composite structures are made of multidirectional (MD) fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite laminates, which fail due to multiple damages in matrix, interface, and fiber constituents at different scales. The yield point of a unidirectional FRP composite is assumed as the lamina strength limit representing the damage initiation phenomena, while yielding of MD composites in structural applications are not quantified due to the complexity of the sequence of damage evolutions in different laminas dependent on their angle and specification. This paper proposes a new method to identify the yield point of MD composite structures based on the evolution of the damage dissipation energy (DDE). Such a characteristic evolution curve is computed using a validated finite element model with a mesoscale damage-based constitutive model that accounts for different matrix and fiber failure modes in angle lamina. The yield point of composite structures is identified to correspond to a 5% increase in the initial slope of the DDE evolution curve. The yield points of three antisymmetric MD FRP composite structures under flexural loading conditions are established based on Hashin unidirectional (UD) criteria and the energy-based criterion. It is shown that the new energy concept provides a significantly larger safe limit of yield for MD composite structures compared to UD criteria, in which the accumulation of energy dissipated due to all damage modes is less than 5% of the fracture energy required for the structural rupture.
Recently, natural fiber-reinforced polymers (NFRPs) have become important materials in many engineering applications; thus, to employ these materials some final industrial processes are needed, such as cutting, trimming, and drilling. Because of the heterogeneous nature of NFRPs, which differs from homogeneous materials such as metals and polymers, several defects have emerged when processing the NFRPs through traditional cutting methods such as high surface roughness and material damage at cutting zone. In order to overcome these challenges, unconventional cutting methods were considered. Unconventional cutting methods did not take into account the effects of cutting forces, which are the main cause of cutting defects in traditional cutting processes. The most prominent unconventional cutting processes are abrasive waterjet (AWJM) and laser beam (LBM) cutting technologies, which are actually applied for cutting various NFRPs. In this study, previously significant studies on cutting NFRPs by AWJM and LBM are discussed. The surface roughness, kerf taper, and heat-affected zone (HAZ) represent the target output parameters that are influenced and controlled by the input parameters of each process. However, this topic requires further studies on widening the range of material thickness and input parameter values.
This paper presents short wavelength operation of tunable thulium-doped mode-locked lasers with sweep ranges of 1702 to 1764 nm and 1788 to 1831 nm. This operation is realized by a combination of the partial amplified spontaneous emission suppression method, the bidirectional pumping mechanism and the nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR) technique. Lasing at emission bands lower than the 1800 nm wavelength in thulium-doped fiber lasers is achieved using mode confinement loss in a specially designed photonic crystal fiber (PCF). The enlargement of the first outer ring air holes around the core region of the PCF attenuates emissions above the cut-off wavelength and dominates the active region. This amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) suppression using our presented PCF is applied to a mode-locked laser cavity and is demonstrated to be a simple and compact solution to widely tunable all-fiber lasers.
Tension stiffening is a characteristic behavior of reinforced concrete (RC) beams which is directly affected by the bond-slip property of steel bar and concrete interfaces. A beam strengthened with a near-surface mounted (NSM) technique would be even more affected by tension stiffening, as the NSM reinforcement also possess a bond-slip property. Yet assessing how much the tension stiffening of NSM contributes to the behavior of RC beams is difficult due to the fact that bond-slip effects cannot be directly incorporated into a strain-based moment-curvature analysis. As such, the tension stiffening is typically incorporated through various empirical formulations, which can require a great deal of testing and calibrations to be done. In this paper a relatively new method, which can be called the mechanics-based segmental approach, is used to directly simulate the tension stiffening effect of NSM reinforcements on RC beams, without the need for empirical formulations to indirectly simulate the tension stiffening. Analysis shows that the tension stiffening of NSM fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) contributes a significant portion to the stiffness and strength of the strengthened RC beam not only during serviceability, but at all load levels.
A D-shaped polarization-maintaining fiber (PMF) as fiber optic sensor for the simultaneous monitoring of strain and the surrounding temperature is presented. A mechanical end and edge polishing system with aluminum oxide polishing film is utilized to perform sequential polishing on one side (lengthwise) of the PMF in order to fabricate a D-shaped cross-section. Experimental results show that the proposed sensor has high sensitivity of 46 pm/µε and 130 pm/°C for strain and temperature, respectively, which is significantly higher than other recently reported work (mainly from 2013) related to fiber optic sensors. The easy fabrication method, high sensitivity, and good linearity make this sensing device applicable in various applications such as health monitoring and spatial analysis of engineering structures.
A new compact silicon grating coupler enabling fibre-to-chip light coupling at a minimized taper length is proposed. The proposed coupler, which incorporates a hollow tapered waveguide, converts the spot-size of optical modes from micro- to nano-scales by reducing the lateral dimension from 15 µm to 300 nm at a length equals to 60 µm. The incorporation of such a coupler in photonic integrated circuit causes a physical footprint as small as 81 µm × 15 µm with coupling efficiency and 3-dB coupling bandwidth as high as 72% and 69 nm respectively.
In this study, tapered polymer fiber sensors (TPFSs) have been employed to detect the vibration of a reinforced concrete beam (RC beam). The sensing principle was based on transmission modes theory. The natural frequency of an RC beam was theoretically analyzed. Experiments were carried out with sensors mounted on the surface or embedded in the RC beam. Vibration detection results agreed well with Kistler accelerometers. The experimental results found that both the accelerometer and TPFS detected the natural frequency function of a vibrated RC beam well. The mode shapes of the RC beam were also found by using the TPFSs. The proposed vibration detection method provides a cost-comparable solution for a structural health monitoring (SHM) system in civil engineering.
Palm pressed fibre (PPF) is a lignocellulose biomass generated from palm oil mill that is rich in cellulose. The present work aimed to combine acid hydrolysis followed by high-pressure homogenisation (HPH) to produce nanocrystal cellulose (CNC) with enhanced physicochemical properties from PPF. PPF was alkaline treated, bleached, acid hydrolysed and homogenised under high pressure condition to prepare CNC. The effects of homogenisation pressure (10, 30, 50, 70 MPa) and cycles (1, 3, 5, 7) on the particle size, zeta potential and rheological properties of CNC produced were investigated. HPH was capable of producing CNC with better stability. Results revealed that utilizing 1 cycle of homogenisation at a pressure of 50 MPa resulted in CNC with the smallest dimension, highest aspect ratio, moderate viscosity and exceptionally high zeta potential. Subsequently, 0.15% (CNC 0.15 -PE) and 0.30% (CNC 0.30 -PE) of CNC was used to stabilise oil-in-water emulsions and their stability was evaluated against different pH, temperature and ionic strength. All the CNC-stabilised emulsions demonstrated good thermal stability. CNC 0.30 -PE exhibited larger droplets but higher stability than CNC 0.15 -PE. In short, CNC with gel like structure has a promising potential to serve as a natural Pickering emulsifier to stabilise oil-in-water emulsion in various food applications.
This work investigates the extraction of cellulose nanocrystals (CNC) from bamboo fibre as an alternative approach to utilize the waste bamboo fibre. In this study, bamboo fibre was subjected to acid hydrolysis for efficient isolation of CNC from bamboo fibre. The extracted CNC's were morphologically, characterized via Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The energy Dispersive X-rays (EDX) provided the elemental composition of the prepared CNC's and X-ray diffractometer (XRD) exhibited their crystallinity. The physiochemical analysis was done via Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR); and their thermal analysis was revealed by Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) and Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). As from their morphological investigations, rod like structures of CNC's were observed under SEM analysis with higher carbon content as demonstrated by EDX, while needle shaped CNC's were observed from TEM and AFM studies. Acid hydrolysis for 45 min resulted into higher degree of crystallinity and higher yield of CNC's about 86.96% and 22% respectively. Owing to higher quality of CNC's obtained as a result of efficient and modified techniques, these can find potential usage in nanocomposites for biomedical and food packaging application.
Lead (Pb) can pollute the environment and food through air, water and other means, resulting in human exposure to lead pollution, and there is no threshold level of lead toxicity, even small doses of lead will have a range of harmful effects in humans. This study demonstrates for the first time that dietary addition of soluble dietary fiber (SDF) from Prunus persica dregs reduces lead bioaccumulation in mice, and eliminates lead through feces. Compared with lead-exposed mice, SDF supplementation effectively prevented lead-induced changes in colon tissue, and increased expression of tight junction proteins (ZO-1 and occludin). We analyzed the effects of SDF on gut microbiota and metabolites by a combination of 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing and untargeted metabolomics. The results showed that SDF altered lead-induced perturbations in the layout and structure of the gut microbiota, including increased Desulfovibrio and Alistipes abundance and decreased Bacteroidetes abundance. Meanwhile, we also provide evidence that SDF supplementation alters the levels of amino acids, bile acids, and lipids in the gut, and that these metabolites are closely associated with microbiota with good lead binding capacity. Therefore, we speculate that SDF has the potential to provide a protective effect against intestinal damage by promoting lead excretion.