Assessing Friction Characteristics of Liquid Lubricants

The decline of fossil fuel reserves and the increasing awareness of greenhouse gas emissions have been the primary driving forces behind the need to conserve energy. To improve fuel efficiency friction modifiers are commonly blended into lubricants. Reduction of friction will clearly lead to less energy requirements. However, an accurate evaluation of lubricant performance is not possible using existing test equipment. The main reason is that current test rigs require operating conditions that induce wear so that the measurement of friction in these rigs is not a real evaluation of friction. The paper will detail the design and commissioning of a purpose built test rig to measure frictional characteristics of various oils as well as the results of the tests performed

IT2017 Report: Implementing A Competency-Based Information Technology Program (Panel)

ACMand IEEE have developed a computing curriculum report titled Information Technology Curricular 2017: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Technology, also known as IT2017 [4]. The development of this report has received content contributions from industry and academia through surveys as well as many international conferences and workshops. Open online publication of the report became available in fall of 2017. In this special session, �ve members of the IT2017 executive committee will present a digest of the content of the report, describe the proposed IT curricular framework, and facilitate open and vigorous discussion of the report\u27s guidelines for developing new information technology programs or enhancing existing ones. The novelty of the report is its focus on industry-informed competencies that IT graduates should have to meet the growing demands of a changing technological world in the next decade. The experience should provide a better understanding of IT in a modern age

Measurement of teicoplanin by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry:development of a novel method

Teicoplanin is an antibiotic used for the treatment of endocarditis, osteomyelitis, septic arthritis and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. Teicoplanin is emerging as a suitable alternative antibiotic to vancomycin, where their trough serum levels are monitored by immunoassay routinely. This is the first report detailing the development of a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method for measuring teicoplanin in patients' serum

Degenerate Variational Integrators for Magnetic Field Line Flow and Guiding Center Trajectories

Symplectic integrators offer many advantages for the numerical solution of Hamiltonian differential equations, including bounded energy error and the preservation of invariant sets. Two of the central Hamiltonian systems encountered in plasma physics --- the flow of magnetic field lines and the guiding center motion of magnetized charged particles --- resist symplectic integration by conventional means because the dynamics are most naturally formulated in non-canonical coordinates, i.e., coordinates lacking the familiar $(q, p)$ partitioning. Recent efforts made progress toward non-canonical symplectic integration of these systems by appealing to the variational integration framework; however, those integrators were multistep methods and later found to be numerically unstable due to parasitic mode instabilities. This work eliminates the multistep character and, therefore, the parasitic mode instabilities via an adaptation of the variational integration formalism that we deem ``degenerate variational integration''. Both the magnetic field line and guiding center Lagrangians are degenerate in the sense that their resultant Euler-Lagrange equations are systems of first-order ODEs. We show that retaining the same degree of degeneracy when constructing a discrete Lagrangian yields one-step variational integrators preserving a non-canonical symplectic structure on the original Hamiltonian phase space. The advantages of the new algorithms are demonstrated via numerical examples, demonstrating superior stability compared to existing variational integrators for these systems and superior qualitative behavior compared to non-conservative algorithms

Process for Sustainably Sourced p-Xylene

Demand for para-xylene, a feedstock used to produce polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics like those found in water bottles or textile fibers, has risen steadily.14 In the PET market, there is a new sustainable focus, pushing producers to use environmentally-friendly processes to create plastic consumer products.3 The current process to create para-xylene relies on fossil fuel cracking and reforming - a decidedly non-green process. This project follows a patent by GEVO, titled Integrated Process to Selectively Convert Renewable Isobutanol to p-Xylene, that explores a green process to convert isobutanol, created from biomass, to para-xylene.20 The raw material for this project is 500,000 tons of isobutylene per year, which is sourced from biomass and has already been converted from isobutanol. The design first feeds the fresh isobutylene, as well as the diluent isooctane, into the process. Isobutylene then oligomerizes over a zeolite catalyst, with a separation following to remove the undesired byproducts. While they are undesired in the process, these byproducts are trimers which can be a valuable coproduct, similar to GEVO’s alcohol-to-jet fuel (ATJ).4 The desired intermediate, 2,4,4-trimethylpentene, proceeds to another reactor and dehydrocyclizes over a chromium oxide doped alumina catalyst. Another separation occurs to isolate para-xylene and remove hydrogen. The final product stream is 89 wt% para-xylene. According to a financial analysis over a 10-year period, the process is currently unprofitable with a negative IRR. To be competitive in para-xylene markets and reach a 15% IRR, a 79% premium is necessary. This is unattractive for a standalone production facility, leading us to recommend that this plant should not be built. However, in the future as the push toward sustainable projects increase, this design may serve as a feasible and economic process for green para-xylene