Research progress on material properties of clad steel

[EN] Clad steel possesses benefits of the both component metals in terms of mechanical performance, corrosion resistance, sustainability and lower full lifecycle cost, etc. As a result, it has been more and more widely used in the petroleum, chemical, marine, shipbuilding and metallurgical industries, including stainless-clad steel and titanium clad steel. Such clad steel has also great potential for application in building and bridge structures. For better understanding material properties of such clad steel, a review of research progress available in the literature is conducted herein, as well as recent research undertaken by the authors’ group at Tsinghua University. It can be found that very limited research reported in the literature mainly concerns static material properties of the clad steel, and primary relations between clad ratio and strength are suggested. The authors carried out material tests on both titanium and stainless-clad steel plates, with different clad ratios being incorporated. For the stainless-clad steel tests, both material and butt welded connections are tested, and various elevated temperatures are considered. In addition, tension coupon tests under cyclic loadings are also briefly introduced herein. Primary constitutive relations developed by the authors are reviewed in this paper. All the research findings and proposed formulae may provide an essential basis for future structural analysis, and may promote its application in structural engineering.This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51778329, 51608300), which are gratefully acknowledged.Ban, H.; Bai, R.; Chung, K.; Zhu, J.; Bai, Y. (2018). Research progress on material properties of clad steel. En Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Advances in Steel-Concrete Composite Structures. ASCCS 2018. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 653-658. https://doi.org/10.4995/ASCCS2018.2018.7010OCS65365

Fabrication of porous Al2O3-based ceramics using combustion synthesized powders

Porous Al2O3-based ceramics were fabricated from powders synthesized via a solution combustion process using starch and urea as fuels. Effects of the relative fuel-to-oxidant ratio (φe = 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0, respectively) on open porosity, pore size distribution and flexural strength of the as-prepared porous Al2O3-based ceramics were investigated. Experimental results revealed that the densification ability of the as-synthesized powders increased significantly as φe increased, and open porosity, pore size distribution and flexural strength of the porous ceramics exhibited remarkable dependence on the densification ability of the powders instead of the weight fraction of the charred organic residuals in the powders. SEM micrographs disclosed that the porous ceramics from the precursors with φe = 1.8 or 2.0 exhibited significantly homogenous microstructures including pore size and pore distribution

High glucose inhibits osteogenic differentiation through the BMP signaling pathway in bone mesenchymal stem cells in mice

Patients with diabetes tend to have an increased risk of osteoporosis that may be related to hyperglycemia. In vitro evidence has shown that high glucose can affect the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Tissue regeneration depends mainly on MSCs. However, the exact mechanisms involved in high glucose–induced bone loss remain unknown. In this study, we investigated the effects of high glucose on the proliferation and osteogenic differentiation of mice bone MSCs (BMSCs) and determined the specific mechanism of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (BMP-2) in the osteogenic differentiation of mice BMSCs in a high-glucose microenvironment. High glucose (< 25 mM) promoted cell growth but suppressed mineralization. The intracellular BMP-2 level in BMSCs cultured in a high-glucose microenvironment was significantly decreased and suppressed activation of the BMP signaling pathway. Consequently, expression of the osteogenic markers Runx2, alkaline phosphatase, and osteocalcin were decreased. Meanwhile, supplementation with ectogenic BMP-2 reversed the cell osteogenic differentiation and osteogenic marker down-regulation under high glucose. Our data indicate that BMP-2 plays an important role in regulating the osteogenic differentiation of BMSCs in a high-glucose microenvironment. Thus, it is possible that agents modifying this pathway could be used by BMSCs to promote bone regeneration in high-glucose microenvironments

Lymphoma endothelium preferentially expresses Tim-3 and facilitates the progression of lymphoma by mediating immune evasion

Angiogenesis is increasingly recognized as an important prognosticator associated with the progression of lymphoma and as an attractive target for novel modalities. We report a previously unrecognized mechanism by which lymphoma endothelium facilitates the growth and dissemination of lymphoma by interacting with circulated T cells and suppresses the activation of CD4+ T cells. Global gene expression profiles of microdissected endothelium from lymphoma and reactive lymph nodes revealed that T cell immunoglobulin and mucin domain–containing molecule 3 (Tim-3) was preferentially expressed in lymphoma-derived endothelial cells (ECs). Clinically, the level of Tim-3 in B cell lymphoma endothelium was closely correlated to both dissemination and poor prognosis. In vitro, Tim-3+ ECs modulated T cell response to lymphoma surrogate antigens by suppressing activation of CD4+ T lymphocytes through the activation of the interleukin-6–STAT3 pathway, inhibiting Th1 polarization, and providing protective immunity. In a lymphoma mouse model, Tim-3–expressing ECs promoted the onset, growth, and dissemination of lymphoma by inhibiting activation of CD4+ T cells and Th1 polarization. Our findings strongly argue that the lymphoma endothelium is not only a vessel system but also a functional barrier facilitating the establishment of lymphoma immune tolerance. These findings highlight a novel molecular mechanism that is a potential target for enhancing the efficacy of tumor immunotherapy and controlling metastatic diseases

皮膚基底細胞癌におけるZNF396分子発現と，その生物学，病理学的意義の検討

博士(医学)岐阜大学(Gifu University

Analyse du cycle de vie (ACV) d’une filière de valorisation terrestre de sédiments de dragage marins contaminés

International audienceThe dredging of the French harbors generates every year between 25 and 40 million tons of sediments, however few adapted treatment and valorization systems exist. Consequently, numerous research programs emerged such as SEDiGEST, which envisaged a scenario of backfill of the careers by treated marine sediments.The objective of this article is to assess results of the marine sediment terrestrial valorization systems in order to better identify the most impacting part of the systems. The assessment has been performed following the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology via the GaBi 6 software, EcoInvent v2.2 databases with the characterization method ReCiPe.In the backfill scenario, the comparative study of the two treatments within the same terrestrial valorization system concluded that the addition of the stabilization step with hydraulic binders seems not to be beneficial and do not reduce the potential environmental impacts.Le dragage des ports français génère chaque année entre 25 et 40 millions de tonnes de sédiments, cependant peu de filières de traitement et de valorisation adaptées existent. Par conséquence, de nombreux programmes de recherche ont émergé tel que le programme SEDiGEST qui envisageait un scénario de remblaiement des carrières par des sédiments marins traités.L’objectif de cet article est d’évaluer les impacts environnementaux de cette filière de valorisation terrestre de sédiments marins afin de mieux identifier les processus les plus pénalisants. L’évaluation a été réalisée en utilisant une Analyse de Cycle de Vie (ACV) via l’outil GaBi 6, la base de données Ecoinvent v2.2 et la méthode de caractérisation ReCiPe.Dans le scénario de remblaiement de carrière, l’étude comparative de deux alternatives au sein d’une même filière de valorisation terrestre a ainsi permis de conclure que l’ajout d’une étape de stabilisation par des liants hydrauliques ne semble pas bénéfique et ne permet pas de réduire les impacts environnementaux potentiels

Electromagnetic Modulation Signal Classification Using Dual-Modal Feature Fusion CNN

AMC (automatic modulation classification) plays a vital role in spectrum monitoring and electromagnetic abnormal signal detection. Up to now, few studies have focused on the complementarity between features of different modalities and the importance of the feature fusion mechanism in the AMC method. This paper proposes a dual-modal feature fusion convolutional neural network (DMFF-CNN) for AMC to use the complementarity between different modal features fully. DMFF-CNN uses the gram angular field (GAF) image coding and intelligence quotient (IQ) data combined with CNN. Firstly, the original signal is converted into images by GAF, and the GAF images are used as the input of ResNet50. Secondly, it is converted into IQ data and as the complex value network (CV-CNN) input to extract features. Furthermore, a dual-modal feature fusion mechanism (DMFF) is proposed to fuse the dual-modal features extracted by GAF-ResNet50 and CV-CNN. The fusion feature is used as the input of DMFF-CNN for model training to achieve AMC of multi-type signals. In the evaluation stage, the advantages of the DMFF mechanism proposed in this paper and the accuracy improvement compared with other feature fusion algorithms are discussed. The experiment shows that our method performs better than others, including some state-of-the-art methods, and has superior robustness at a low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the average classification accuracy of the dataset signals reaches 92.1%. The DMFF-CNN proposed in this paper provides a new path for the AMC field

Optical field simulation of edge coupled terahertz quantum well photodetectors

By finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulation, we report on the optical field distribution within edge coupled terahertz quantum well photodetectors (THz QWPs) in detail. The coupling efficiency of THz QWP structures are studied from three aspects, including the electrode geometry, the position of the active region and the coupling angle. According to the simulation results, proper electrode geometry is suggested in different frequency region, and the optimal position of active region and coupling angle are presented. These results provide a useful guidance for the design and fabrication of the edge coupled THz QWP

A Model-based Buck-type Active Filter using Proportional-resonant Controller and GaN HEMTs

To filter the 120Hz output current ripple in our previously designed 7.2kW single-phase EV charger, this paper proposes to equip the charger with a buck-type active filter. 650V/60A enhancement mode GaN HEMTs provided by GaN Systems Inc are adopted to work at hard-switching mode. Experimental results indicated that four such switches could be paralleled to hard switch on/off ~240A, which is the key for the buck-type active filter. A model-based proportional-resonant controller is adopted to smooth the output current. Such control will enhance the dynamic response of the active filter, compared to the conventional PI controller. The experimental output current ripple and power loss analysis are given