Drawdown prepreg coating method using epoxy terminated butadiene nitrile rubber to improve fracture toughness of glass epoxy composites

Laminates of fibre-reinforced prepreg have excellent in-plane mechanical properties, but have inadequate performance in the through thickness direction. Here, we address this issue by application of epoxy-terminated butadiene nitrile (ETBN) liquid rubber between the prepreg laminae using an automatic draw bar coating technique. Test results reveal that by adding ETBN in small quantities in the range of 9.33–61.33 g/m2, the interlaminar critical energy release rates (GIc and GIIc) are improved by up to 122% in mode-I and 49% in mode-II. Moreover, this finding is further supported by the dynamic mechanical analysis thermograms that clearly indicate that coating has not altered the Tg of ETBN-coated samples. Scanning electron microscopic analysis of fracture surfaces showed that rubber particles formed micro cavitations in the epoxy, causing localised rubber rich regions. These resin-rich regions require more energy to fracture, resulting in increased toughness of the glass epoxy prepreg systems. </jats:p

Investigation of the mechanical performance of carbon/polypropylene 2D and 3D woven composites manufactured through multi-step impregnation processes

In this work, pre-impregnation techniques including Dr. Ernst Fehrer (DREF) spinning and electrostatic powder coating were used to negate the poor impregnation of highly viscous thermoplastics. The DREF spun hybrid yarns and electrostatic spray coated towpregs were woven into 2D and 3D fabrics and subsequently consolidated to yield two variations of 2D and four variations of 3D composites including 3D angle inter-lock and 3D orthogonal weave. The 2D composites possessed higher tensile and flexural strength than the 3D composites. However, better notch impact properties were observed for 3D orthogonal weave. The closer wrapping in 3D orthogonal slightly improves the shock absorption capability of the composite than the angle interlock composite. Composites made from powder coated towpregs performed better than composites made from DREF spun hybrid yarns, minimizing the effect of the weave pattern. Porosity was a common feature of composites manufactured from DREF spun yarns as observed from micro-CT images

Primary Tuberculous Lymphadenitis mimicking a Dental infection - A Dental Perspective

Lymphadenitis is a common extra pulmonary manifestation of tuberculosis. Diagnosis is often challenging frequently requiring a biopsy. A case of tuberculous lymphadenitis is presented here with histological emphasis with a message that dentists need to be aware of it as a differential diagnosis even in the absence of classical signs and symptoms of tuberculosis. &nbsp

Protocol design for dynamic Delaunay triangulation

textDelaunay triangulation (DT) is a useful geometric structure for net-working applications. We define a distributed DT and present a necessary and sufficient condition for a distributed DT to be correct. This condition is used as a guide for protocol design. We investigate the design of join, leave, failure, and maintenance protocols for a set of nodes in d-dimension (d > 1) to construct and maintain a distributed DT in a dynamic environment. The join, leave, and failure protocols in the suite are proved to be correct for a single join, leave, and failure, respectively. For a system under churn, it is impossible to maintain a correct distributed DT continually. We define an accuracy metric such that accuracy is 100% if and only if the distributed DT is correct. The suite also includes a maintenance protocol designed to recover from incorrect system states and to improve accuracy. In designing the protocols, we make use of two novel observations to substantially improve protocol efficiency. First, in the neighbor discovery process of a node, many replies to the node's queries contain redundant information. Second, the use of a new failure protocol that employs a proactive approach to recovery is better than the reactive approaches used in prior work. Experimental results show that our new suite of protocols maintains high accuracy for systems under churn and each system converges to 100% accuracy after churning stopped. They are much more efficient than protocols in prior work. To illustrate the usefulness of distributed DT for networking applications, we also present several application protocols including greedy routing, finding a closest existing node, clustering, broadcast, and geocast. Bose and Morin proved in 2004 that greedy routing always succeeds to find the destination node on a DT. We prove that greedy routing always finds a closest existing node to a given point, and our broadcast and geocast protocols always deliver a message to every target node. Our broadcast and geocast protocols are also efficient in the sense that very few target nodes receive duplicate messages, and non-target nodes receive no message. Performance characteristics of greedy routing, broadcast, and geocast are investigated using simulation experiments. We also investigate the impact of inaccurate coordinates on the performance of greedy routing, broadcast, and geocast.Computer Science

Vitaly ShmatikovAccess Control in Decentralized, Distributed Systems

I would like to thank many people who have helped me during my time in graduat