A model for reactive porous transport during re-wetting of hardened concrete

A mathematical model is developed that captures the transport of liquid water in hardened concrete, as well as the chemical reactions that occur between the imbibed water and the residual calcium silicate compounds residing in the porous concrete matrix. The main hypothesis in this model is that the reaction product -- calcium silicate hydrate gel -- clogs the pores within the concrete thereby hindering water transport. Numerical simulations are employed to determine the sensitivity of the model solution to changes in various physical parameters, and compare to experimental results available in the literature.Comment: 30 page

Handling and Manipulation of Microcomponents: Work-Cell Design and Preliminary Experiments

The paper introduces an experimental setup for the automatic manipulation of microcomponents, based on a 4 dof robot with Shoenflies motion and a two-camera vision system. The general architecture of the work-cell is presented. The work-cell functionality was tested via repeatability experiments using a set of vacuum grippers. Due to their intrinsic simplicity, vacuum grippers are very cheap and appear a promising solution for micromanipulation. An innovative nozzle for a vacuum gripper was designed, fabricated and tested, comparing its performance with traditional needles. The design was conceived to reduce the frequency of occlusions of the gripper and handle a wide range of particles. The performed tests evaluate the success and precision of the part release. Indeed, this is a crucial aspect of micromanipulation because microparts tend to stick to the gripper preventing the successful performance of manipulation tasks. The results confirm that adhesive effects prevent the release of components. For this reason different strategies were adopted in order to improve the efficiency in the release of stuck components. This solution increases the percentage of release and, setting appropriately the intensity of the pressure, it does not affect negatively the accuracy nor the repeatability of the positioning

Borehole cement and rock properties studies. Progress report for the period up to 1 August 1976

Research on the use of cements in radioactive waste isolation is reported. Other research is reported on the effects of thermal treatments of clays and shales on their cation exchange capacities and relative sorptive properties for cations. Development of instrumentation for measuring thermal properties of cements at atmospheric pressure was completed. A method was developed for measuring heat flow in shales and cement. Data on thermodynamic properties of cements and shales are included. Studies of shales, siltstones, and evaporites including scanning electron microscopy are in progress. (JRD