Flexible Plug Research Articles

Multifunctional aqueous ferrofluid stabilized by cellulose nanofibrils with long term stability

Due to the excellent flowability and shape adaptability, ferrofluids (or magnetic fluids, MF), offer potential in food and pharma, intelligent materials, fluid seals and devices, such as, robots, and remote controllers. Here, we stabilized a ferrofluid after coprecipitation of metal nanoparticles onto cellulose nanofibrils in aqueous suspension, obtaining a colloidal system with a magnetization value of 3.55 emu/mL. The MF was stable at pH > 7 and showed contactless magnetic direct driving or indirect guiding. Several use demonstrations were tested, for instance, as a flexible plug to separate, stir/mix or seal hydrophobic liquids. In addition, the MF exhibited gradients of relative density under the space-dependent magnetic field, which endowed sorting of plastic particles, according to their density. Our findings provide guidance for the design of multifunctional cellulose-stabilized aqueous MFs.

Core Imaging Library - Part II: multichannel reconstruction for dynamic and spectral tomography.

The newly developed core imaging library (CIL) is a flexible plug and play library for tomographic imaging with a specific focus on iterative reconstruction. CIL provides building blocks for tailored regularized reconstruction algorithms and explicitly supports multichannel tomographic data. In the first part of this two-part publication, we introduced the fundamentals of CIL. This paper focuses on applications of CIL for multichannel data, e.g. dynamic and spectral. We formalize different optimization problems for colour processing, dynamic and hyperspectral tomography and demonstrate CIL’s capabilities for designing state-of-the-art reconstruction methods through case studies and code snapshots.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synergistic tomographic image reconstruction: part 2’.

Design of a Cable-Driven Auto-Charging Robot for Electric Vehicles

With the increasing popularity of electric vehicles, low level of automation for charging process has become one of the main factors restricting the development of electric vehicles. Recently, auto-charging robots which have the ability to transform manual process plugging charging plugs into charging ports to automatic plugging-unplugging operation have arisen. This paper presents a 4-DOF cable-driven auto-charging robot (CDACR) consisting of a 3-DOF cable-driven serial manipulator (CDSM) and a moving platform. In this design, the 3-DOF CDSM is actuated by six cables being routed through five disks fixed to the CDSM's rigid links. The end-effector of CDACR is a flexible plug that has the ability to withstand small elastic deformation. The control algorithm and the plugging-unplugging strategy were designed to respond to various parking situations with or without yaw error. This paper takes the lead in introducing the cable-driven robot into the field of automatic charging. Besides, through simulated charging experiments, the feasibility and effectiveness of using CDACR to realize auto-charging for electric vehicles has been demonstrated.

CHANGE OF PHYSICAL AND MECHANICAL INDICATORS OF YARN DEPENDING ON THE DESIGN OF THE SAMPLING DRUM

Increasing the spinning speed of pneumatic spinning machines is a promising way to improve its performance. Welding and wrapping are carried out through separate working bodies, which is a prerequisite for the yarn forming process. The proposed device allows for uniform disintegration of fiber material and increased efficiency. In this article, a third-type drum between two-stroke gear and a flexible voltage drum was used to improve the performance of the discrete drum on pneumo-mechanical spinning machines and to efficiently absorb the amount of dust in the fiber. For this purpose, a disassembled drum of the pneumo-mechanical spinning machine was mounted with a metal-clad gear set. At the same time, the discrete drum cylinder was made in the form of an external screwdriver mounted on the base of a flexible plug. The inner surface of the gear heads and the outside of the helmet are made in a curved shape. The height of the articulated head teeth is about 0.4 works 0.6 mm. The difference between the diameter of the saw and the diameter of the drum must meet the condition D-d = 8-1.2 mm. This means the diameter of the drum along the edges of the arrows, and d - the diameter of the drum in the middle of the arrows, while the flexible and outer valves are connected to each other. The results show that yarn made in two-winged machines with a flexible vacuum is much longer than yarn in the form of single-lined and two-wire rolls, which is so significant in the technology of yarn processing that it stretches to a certain value, which then creates tension in its effects. The 5% extension of the two-stranded headlamps is proved to be 9.19 sN / tex and 8.6 gs / tex in single-roll packages and 8.1 sN/tex in two-wheel drive machines.

Modelling structural response of flexible plug expansion joints under thermal movements

This paper focuses on experiments and finite element modelling of flexible plug expansion joints (Asphaltic Plug Joints, APJ) subject to thermally induced horizontal movements. Five geometric and structural key parameters that influence (APJs) responses under thermal movements are studied: (1) joint length; (2) joint thickness; (3) joint width; (4) anti-bonding mat; (5) movement-aid spring. The viscoelastic computational finite element models are based on properties determined with a special cyclic coaxial shear test (CAST) and validated by an integrated approach incorporating cold temperature repeated movement capacity tests with a special Joint Movement Simulator (JMS) and a 3-Dimensional Digital Image Correlation system (3D DIC). It was found that the increase of joint width significantly reduces the stress at the interface between the mastic asphalt and APJ. The results also showed, that thin joints generate lower stress levels in APJ under thermal condition. Moreover, peak stresses in APJ appeared controlled mainly by the total size of the debonded region and the horizontal movement applied. The main findings are considered valuable for superior structural design, geometry selection and construction guidelines for APJ.

Going smarter in the connection of distributed generation

This study explores and quantifies the benefits of connecting more distributed generation (DG) with and without the use of smart connections in Great Britain. We examine the impacts on different parties (Distribution Network Operators, wider society and generators). As illustration we use a specific case study. Alternative connection scenarios are proposed (with partial and full interruptible capacity quota under a mix of generation with different technology-specific curtailment levels) for integrating DG units in a constrained area of the East of England covered by the Flexible Plug and Play project. The smart (interruptible) connection option is the preferred option across all the scenarios (higher NPV/MW). The analysis of the distribution of benefits between the different parties suggests that generators capture most of the benefits while DNOs and wider society capture much less benefit. A smart connection incentive, which recreates the benefits to DNOs from an earlier losses incentive, is proposed. By contrast with other societally desirable metrics which are usually incentivised or penalised, there is currently no direct connection between more DG MWs connected and DNO incentive payments. Our proposed smart connection incentive, by charging DG for smarter connection may help to distribute more efficiently the benefits for connecting more DG.

Flexible Plug Joint System with New Material

Up to now the common material used for flexible plug joints of bridges has been based on bituminous mixtures consisting of aggregates and elastomeric-modified binders. All existing national regulations and also the European Guideline for Expansion Joints ETAG 032 are restricting flexible plug joints to these traditional bituminous mixtures. All existing asphaltic mixtures are susceptible for plastic deformations at higher temperatures including rutting whereas they cause significant reaction forces at low temperatures. These properties limit the application of the traditional joints to areas with moderate climate. In practice asphaltic plug expansion joints also often fail in the intersection between adjacent pavement and joint, causing cracks and leakages. The new expansion joint system shows essential improvements in the intersection pavement/joint by mechanical means and uses a new material based on polyurethane, which does not show negative temperature affine properties and can be processed in cold condition. The new flexible plug joint system also enables new applications, both for a wider climatic range and more complicated geometries. Furthermore the new flexible plug joint allows for larger movements up to more than 100mm and addresses a longer design working life. As the new design is not covered by existing standards and verification methods in the first phase a comprehensive research had to executed after consultation with leading European experts from Germany, Switzerland and Austria. The paper covers reports on material and system tests executed during national and European approval procedures at several European testing institutes and shows examples of installation.

Crystal Structures of SecYEG in Lipidic Cubic Phase Elucidate a Precise Resting and a Peptide-Bound State

The bacterial SecYEG translocon functions as a conserved protein-conducting channel. Conformational transitions of SecYEG allow protein translocation across the membrane without perturbation of membrane permeability. Here, we report the crystal structures of intact SecYEG at 2.7-Å resolution and of peptide-bound SecYEG at 3.6-Å resolution. The higher-resolution structure revealed that the cytoplasmic loop of SecG covers the hourglass-shaped channel, which was confirmed to also occur in the membrane by disulfide bond formation analysis and molecular dynamics simulation. The cytoplasmic loop may be involved in protein translocation. In addition, the previously unknown peptide-bound crystal structure of SecYEG implies that interactions between the cytoplasmic side of SecY and signal peptides are related to lateral gate opening at the first step of protein translocation. These SecYEG structures therefore provide a number of structural insights into the Sec machinery for further study.

A new flexible plug and play scheme for modeling, simulating, and predicting gastric emptying

BackgroundIn-silico models that attempt to capture and describe the physiological behavior of biological organisms, including humans, are intrinsically complex and time consuming to build and simulate in a computing environment. The level of detail of description incorporated in the model depends on the knowledge of the system’s behavior at that level. This knowledge is gathered from the literature and/or improved by knowledge obtained from new experiments. Thus model development is an iterative developmental procedure. The objective of this paper is to describe a new plug and play scheme that offers increased flexibility and ease-of-use for modeling and simulating physiological behavior of biological organisms.MethodsThis scheme requires the modeler (user) first to supply the structure of the interacting components and experimental data in a tabular format. The behavior of the components described in a mathematical form, also provided by the modeler, is externally linked during simulation. The advantage of the plug and play scheme for modeling is that it requires less programming effort and can be quickly adapted to newer modeling requirements while also paving the way for dynamic model building.ResultsAs an illustration, the paper models the dynamics of gastric emptying behavior experienced by humans. The flexibility to adapt the model to predict the gastric emptying behavior under varying types of nutrient infusion in the intestine (ileum) is demonstrated. The predictions were verified with a human intervention study. The error in predicting the half emptying time was found to be less than 6%.ConclusionsA new plug-and-play scheme for biological systems modeling was developed that allows changes to the modeled structure and behavior with reduced programming effort, by abstracting the biological system into a network of smaller sub-systems with independent behavior. In the new scheme, the modeling and simulation becomes an automatic machine readable and executable task.

SELF FORMING IN-THE-EAR HEARING AID WITH CONICAL STENT

A hearing aid body is provided that contains electronic hearing aid components and that is attachable to the user's body outside the ear canal. A conduit connects the hearing aid body to the flexible plug. The conduit enables sound emitted by the hearing aid to travel via the conduit to the flexible plug so that the user's able to hear a sound that is amplified by the hearing aid and received by the plug via the conduit. The conduit can be a flexible hollow tube or an electronic conduit that transmit electrical signals between the hearing aid and the plug. A stent embedded in the plug is provided, the stent having a first smaller diameter at a temperature below body temperature and being expandable to a second greater diameter when subjected to the user's body temperature, such as the temperature in the ear canal of a user.