Fracture energy of sustainable geopolymer composites with and without the addition of slaughterhouse by-products as fibre-reinforcement: An experimental investigation

This work focuses on the development and on the mechanical characterization of geopolymer composites to be used as sustainable plasters or mortars. The starting point of the work is the synthesis of a geopolymer binder, which is subsequently used for the production of two different mortars: the first one is obtained by simply adding fine aggregates (control mortar), while in the second case, also slaughterhouse wastes (SHW) are included in the admixture. Nowadays, slaughtering industry produces a large amount of biological wastes, that are usually discarded via incineration or landfills. Among SHW, horns and hooves, which are rich in keratin, can be potentially used as additives in the manufacturing process of mortars, both in the form of fibre-reinforcement, as well as fine aggregates and fillers. In the second mortar considered in this work, 2% of SHW fibres and 2% of SHW filler are added in the admixture. The mechanical properties of the three products are experimentally investigated and compared to each other. Apart for compressive strength, close attention is paid to the flexural behaviour and to the determination of fracture energy. To evaluate the effect of SHW addition on crack propagation and width, digital image correlation technique is also adopted

Effects of magnetic field gradients on the aggregation dynamics of colloidal magnetic nanoparticles

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.We have used low-field H-1 nuclear-magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) to investigate the aggregation dynamics of magnetic particles in ionic ferrofluids (IFFs) in the presence of magnetic field gradients. At the beginning of the experiments, the measured NMR spectra were broad and asymmetric, exhibiting two features attributed to different dynamical environments of water protons, depending on the local strength of the field gradients. Hence, the spatial redistribution of the magnetic particles in the ferrofluid caused by the presence of an external magnetic field in a time scale of minutes can be monitored in real time, following the changes in the features of the NMR spectra during a period of about an hour. As previously reported [Heinrich et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2011, 106, 208301], in the homogeneous magnetic field of a NMR spectrometer, the aggregation of the particles of the IFF proceeds in two stages. The first stage corresponds to the gradual aggregation of monomers prior to and during the formation of chain-like structures. The second stage proceeds after the chains have reached a critical average length, favoring lateral association of the strings into hexagonal zipped-chain superstructures or bundles. In this work, we focus on the influence of a strongly inhomogeneous magnetic field on the aforementioned aggregation dynamics. The main observation is that, as the sample is immersed in a certain magnetic field gradient and kept there for a time tinh, magnetophoresis rapidly converts the ferrofluid into an aggregation state which finds its correspondence to a state on the evolution curve of the pristine sample in a homogeneous field. From the degree of aggregation reached at the time tinh, the IFF sample just evolves thereafter in the homogeneous field of the NMR spectrometer in exactly the same way as the pristine sample. The final equilibrium state always consists of a colloidal suspension of zipped-chain bundles with the chain axes aligned along the magnetic field direction.DFG, SPP 1681, Feldgesteuerte Partikel-Matrix-Wechselwirkungen: Erzeugung, skalenübergreifende Modellierung und Anwendung magnetischer Hybridmaterialie

A Cylindrical GEM Inner Tracker for the BESIII experiment at IHEP

The Beijing Electron Spectrometer III (BESIII) is a multipurpose detector that collects data provided by the collision in the Beijing Electron Positron Collider II (BEPCII), hosted at the Institute of High Energy Physics of Beijing. Since the beginning of its operation, BESIII has collected the world largest sample of J/{\psi} and {\psi}(2s). Due to the increase of the luminosity up to its nominal value of 10^33 cm-2 s-1 and aging effect, the MDC decreases its efficiency in the first layers up to 35% with respect to the value in 2014. Since BESIII has to take data up to 2022 with the chance to continue up to 2027, the Italian collaboration proposed to replace the inner part of the MDC with three independent layers of Cylindrical triple-GEM (CGEM). The CGEM-IT project will deploy several new features and innovation with respect the other current GEM based detector: the {\mu}TPC and analog readout, with time and charge measurements will allow to reach the 130 {\mu}m spatial resolution in 1 T magnetic field requested by the BESIII collaboration. In this proceeding, an update of the status of the project will be presented, with a particular focus on the results with planar and cylindrical prototypes with test beams data. These results are beyond the state of the art for GEM technology in magnetic field

Particle Probe of Horava-Lifshitz Gravity

Kehagias-Sfetsos black hole in Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity is probed through particle geodesics. Gravitational force of KS black hole becomes weaker than that of Schwarzschild around horizon and interior space. Particles can be always scattered or trapped in new closed orbits, unlike those falling forever in Schwarzschild black. The properties of null and timelike geodesics are classified with values of coupling constants. The precession rates of the orbits are evaluated. The time trajectories are also classified under different values of coupling constants for both null and timelike geodesics. Physical phenomena that may be observable are discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

Construction techniques and performances of a full size prototype Micromegas chamber for the ATLAS muon spectrometer upgrade

A full scale prototype of a Micromegas precision tracking chamber for the upgrade of the ATLAS detector at the LHC Collider has been built between October 2015 and April 2016. This paper describes in detail the procedures used in constructing the single modules of the chamber in various INFN laboratories and the final assembly at the Frascati National Laboratories (LNF). Results of the chamber exposure to the CERN H8 beam line in June 2016 are also presented. The performances achieved in the construction and the results of the test beam are compared with the requirements, which are imposed by the severe environment during the data-taking of the LHC foreseen for the next years

Unconventional Cosmology

I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction. The second is an "emergent" scenario, which can be implemented in the context of "string gas cosmology". I will compare these scenarios with the inflationary one and demonstrate that all three lead to an approximately scale-invariant spectrum of cosmological perturbations.Comment: 45 pages, 10 figures; invited lectures at the 6th Aegean Summer School "Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology", Chora, Naxos, Greece, Sept. 12 - 17 2012, to be publ. in the proceedings; these lecture notes form an updated version of arXiv:1003.1745 and arXiv:1103.227