Mechanism of microstructural modification of the interfacial transition zone by using blended materials

Applying blended materials with finer particle size or high reactivity could be an effective and economic way for improving the microsturcture of interfacial transition zone (ITZ). In this study, the porosity characteristics of ITZ in concrete made with OPC and blended binders were determined quantitatively by using backscattered electron microscopy (BSE) image analysis and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) measurements. This paper especially focused on the effects of slag and limestone filler on the thickness and pore structure of the ITZ. Results indicated that the porosity at each distance reduces with increasing limestone filler from 0 to 5%, and a significant increase is observed in the sample with 10% of limestone filler. The addition of 5% of limestone filler is able to densify the pore structure of both ITZ and bulk matrix. The reduction in pore volume in the range coarser than 100 nm contributed to the largest decrease in the total pores. Increasing the incorporation level of limestone filler to 10% resulted in an increase in the total porosity. The influences of slag on the porosity characteristics were highly dependent on the replacement level and the determined pore size regions. The addition of 35% of slag reduces the porosity at all distances and produces a denser microstructure both in the ITZ and bulk cement matrix. However, this improvement disappears when the substitution amount reaches to 70%. The incorporation of slag as a partial substitute for Portland cement tends to refine the pore structure

Investigation of the deterioration of blended cement concrete under sulfate attack in terms of interfacial transition zone

The importance of the porous interfacial transition zone to the chemical aggression of concrete is obvious when one considers the relations existing between porosity, permeability, chemical composition and the sulfate attack. In this study, the effect of ITZ quantity through varying aggregate content on the deterioration of blended cement concrete under sulfate attack, was determined to understand better the relationship between sulfate ions and concrete microstructure. The ITZ quantity was directly proportional to the aggregate volume fraction. Therefore, the effect of ITZ on sulfate resistance ability of concrete made with pure OPC and blended binders was evaluated by a comparison among mortars with systematically varied aggregate volume fraction. The porosity distribution with the ITZ was determined by using a quantitative backscattered electron microscopy (BSE) image analysis. It was found that the incorporation of moderate amount of Limestone filler is able to compact the microstructure of both ITZ and bulk matrix by filling effect and nucleation sites effect. The effects of slag on the porosity of ITZ were dependent on the replacement rate. The degree of deterioration had a slight tendency to increase for the samples prepared with higher aggregate volume content, which means high ITZ volume fraction. For the sulfate to reach the interior of the samples, it must move through the bulk cement matrix. The effect of aggregate and ITZ can only be notable when the interior structure was exposed to the sulfate ions. The presence of ITZ was normally accompanied by a denser bulk cement matrix. This could limit the ingress of sulfate ions and delay the formation of expansive products in initial stage. After the sulfate penetrates into the interior of the samples, the inner structure was expected to exert more significant influences on the deterioration

Influence of the interfacial transition zone and interconnection on chloride migration of portland cement mortar

Available experimental studies on the effect of the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) on transport properties of cement-based composite materials appear to be ambiguous. The main objective of this work was to enhance the understanding of the relationship between ITZ and transport properties of Portland cement-based materials by using both a rapid chloride migration test and theoretical calculations. A densification factor which is related to aggregate volume content was introduced to further determine the transport of ITZ. Results indicate that the overall porosity decreased with increasing aggregate volume content due to the dilution effect by impermeable aggregates. The porosity was above the theoretical dilution line obtained from P0 x (1-Vagg) for mortars with more than 20 % of aggregate, which can be attributed to the presence of high porous ITZ. On the other hand, more porous ITZ was expected to be accompanied by a denser bulk cement matrix, which leaded to a decrease in the porosity of mortar with less than 35 % of aggregate. The ITZ effect would dominate the blocking aggregate, densification and tortuosity of bulk paste when aggregate volume content exceeded 0.35. The ratio between the migration coefficient of the ITZ and that of the matrix (DITZ/Dmatrix) increased with aggregate volume content and assumed ITZ thickness. In addition, the influence of ITZ increased with increasing the degree of interconnection slightly until 1.0. Beyond this value, a sudden increase in DITZ/Dmatrix ratio was observed indicating the negative percolation effect when the adjacent ITZ start to interconnect

Delay-dependent stabilization of stochastic interval delay systems with nonlinear disturbances

This is the post print version of the article. The official published version can be obtained from the link below - Copyright 2007 Elsevier Ltd.In this paper, a delay-dependent approach is developed to deal with the robust stabilization problem for a class of stochastic time-delay interval systems with nonlinear disturbances. The system matrices are assumed to be uncertain within given intervals, the time delays appear in both the system states and the nonlinear disturbances, and the stochastic perturbation is in the form of a Brownian motion. The purpose of the addressed stochastic stabilization problem is to design a memoryless state feedback controller such that, for all admissible interval uncertainties and nonlinear disturbances, the closed-loop system is asymptotically stable in the mean square, where the stability criteria are dependent on the length of the time delay and therefore less conservative. By using Itô's differential formula and the Lyapunov stability theory, sufficient conditions are first derived for ensuring the stability of the stochastic interval delay systems. Then, the controller gain is characterized in terms of the solution to a delay-dependent linear matrix inequality (LMI), which can be easily solved by using available software packages. A numerical example is exploited to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design procedure.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Nuffield Foundation of the UK under Grant NAL/00630/G, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

High-Resolution Modeling of the Predictability of Convective Systems, and Influences by Absorbing Aerosols Over Northern India and the Himalayas Foothills During Boreal Summer

The Himalayas foothills region (HFR) is an important component of the South Asian monsoon. To the south, the HFR borders the fertile, populous, and heavily polluted Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP). To the north, it rises to great height (approx. 4-5 km) to the Tibetan Plateau over a distance of less than 100 km. The HFR itself consists of complex mountainous terrain, with strong orographic forcing for precipitation. During the late spring and early summer, dust aerosol from the Thar and Middle East deserts , as well as moisture from the Arabian Sea were transported to the western part of the western part of the IGP and foothills spurs pre-monsoon severe thunderstorm over the region. During the monsoon season (mid June -August) convection from the Bay of Bengal, spread along the foothills northwestward to northern Pakistan. Recent climate model studies and preliminary observations have indicted not only the importance of dynamical forcing of precipitation in the HFR, but also possible strong impacts by the dense aerosols, from both local sources, and remote transport, that blanket the IGP from late spring up to the onset of the monsoon in June, and during monsoon breaks in July. In this work, we use the NASA Unified Weather Research and Forecasting (Nu-WRF) model to study the predictability ( 1-7 days) South Asian monsoon rainfall system. Results of 7 -day forecast experiments using an embedded domain of 27 km and 9 km resolution were conducted for the period June 11- July 15, 2008, with and without aerosol forcing are carried out to assess the intrinsic predictability of rainfall over the HFR, and possible impacts by aerosol direct effect, and possible connection of large-scale South Asian monsoon system

Robust H∞ finite-horizon filtering with randomly occurred nonlinearities and quantization effects

The official published version of this article can be found at the link below.In this paper, the robust H∞ finite-horizon filtering problem is investigated for discrete time-varying stochastic systems with polytopic uncertainties, randomly occurred nonlinearities as well as quantization effects. The randomly occurred nonlinearity, which describes the phenomena of a nonlinear disturbance appearing in a random way, is modeled by a Bernoulli distributed white sequence with a known conditional probability. A new robust H∞ filtering technique is developed for the addressed Itô-type discrete time-varying stochastic systems. Such a technique relies on the forward solution to a set of recursive linear matrix inequalities and is therefore suitable for on-line computation. It is worth mentioning that, in the filtering process, the information of both the current measurement and the previous state estimate is employed to estimate the current state. Finally, a simulation example is exploited to show the effectiveness of the method proposed in this paper.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Royal Society of the UK, the National 973 Program of China under Grant 2009CB320600, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 60974030, the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 10ZR1421200, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Almost sure H∞ sliding mode control for nonlinear stochastic systems with Markovian switching and time-delays

This paperinvestigatesthealmostsure H1 sliding mode control (SMC) problem for non linear stochastic systems with Markovian switching and time-delays. An integral sliding surface is first constructed for the addressed system. Then, by employing the topping time method combined with martingale in equalities, sufficient conditions are established to ensure the almost surely exponential stability and the H 1 performance of the system dynamics in the specified sliding surface. ASMC law is designed to guarantee the reach ability of the specified sliding surface almost surely. Furthermore, the obtained results are applied to a class of special nonlinear stochastic systems with Markovian switching and time-delays, where the desired SMC law is obtained in terms of the solutions to a set of matrix in equalities. Finally, a numerical example is given to show the effectiveness of the proposed SMC scheme

Expert Consensus on Microtransplant for Acute Myeloid Leukemia in Elderly Patients -Report From the International Microtransplant Interest Group

Recent studies have shown that microtransplant (MST) could improve outcome of patients with elderly acute myeloid leukemia (EAML). To further standardize the MST therapy and improve outcomes in EAML patients, based on analysis of the literature on MST, especially MST with EAML from January 1st, 2011 to November 30th, 2022, the International Microtransplant Interest Group provides recommendations and considerations for MST in the treatment of EAML. Four major issues related to MST for treating EAML were addressed: therapeutic principle of MST (1), candidates for MST (2), induction chemotherapy regimens (3), and post-remission therapy based on MST (4). Others included donor screening, infusion of donor cells, laboratory examinations, and complications of treatment

Effective adsorption of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) by hydrocalumite (CaAl-LDH-Cl) induced by self-dissolution and re-precipitation mechanism

Hydrocalumite (CaAl-LDH-Cl) were synthesized through a rehydration method involving a freshly prepared tricalcium aluminate (C3A) with CaCl2 solution. To understand the intercalation behaviour of sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) with CaAl-LDH-Cl, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometer (ICP) and elemental analysis have been undertaken. The sorption isotherms with SDS reveal that the maximum sorption amount of SDS by CaAl-LDH-Cl could reach 3.67 mmol•g-1. The results revealed that CaAl-LDH-Cl holds a self-dissolution property, about 20-30% of which is dissolved. And the dissolved Ca2+, Al3+ ions are combined with SDS to form CaAl-SDS or Ca-SDS precipitation. It has been highlighted that the composition of resulting products is strongly dependent upon the SDS concentration. With increasing SDS concentrations, the main resulting product changes from CaAl-SDS to Ca-SDS, and the value of interlayer spacing increased to 3.27 nm