Jo Dec 22, 2022
Apatite is an important mineral resource that plays an important role in many fields such as production of phosphoric acid and phosphate fertilizer.
Flotation technology is the most important method for beneficiation of apatite, and anionic fatty acid and their salt collectors are most-commonly used collectors in the direct flotation of phosphate ores.
Anionic fatty acid collectors have been proven both theoretically and in plant practice to be highly efficient in the flotation of apatite. Under basic conditions (pH10), fatty acid is saponified, which results in a negatively charged carboxylate ion. The negatively charged carboxylate ion then reacts with calcium on the apatite surface to form calcium carboxylate. This chemisorption method is generally considered to be the primary method of fatty acid adsorption onto the apatite surface in alkaline conditions.
Although a flotation mechanism of apatite using sodium oleate as a collector has been studied by several investigators, the flotation mechanism, reaction processes and associated surface reaction products still remain controversial.
Jong Kwang Sok, a researcher at the Faculty of Mining Engineering, synthesized a new collector for apatite flotation by a series of reactions including sulfation and amidation, using sodium oleate as raw material. Then, he carried out an investigation on the flotation behavior and mechanism of oleic acid amide onto apatite by micro flotation tests, zeta potential measurements, and XPS analysis.
The flotation results showed that mixing sodium oleate and oleic acid amide could float apatite well in a pH range of 7.5–9.5 even at the acid number of 120 mgKOH/g and it exhibited better collecting capacity on apatite than a sodium oleate collector. The XPS analysis data correlated with zeta potential showed that the zeta potential of apatite became more negatively charged at around pH8.5 and the oleic ions (C17H33COO−, (C17H33COO)22− and C17H33CONH−) in the mixing collector suspension could get chemisorbed by Ca-O bond formation on the apatite surface, and that the molecular (C17H33CONH2) and micelles ((C17H33CONH2)m) in oleic acid amide could get chemisorbed on the apatite surface by Ca-O or Ca-N bond formation.
You can find more information about this in his paper “Flotation mechanism of oleic acid amide on apatite” published in the SCI Journal “Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects”.
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Jo Dec 20, 2022
Kim Jang Hak, a section head at the Faculty of Distance Education, has proposed a new learning content model and a communication interface with interactivity and feedback structure considering the requirements and levels of learners while meeting the pedagogical requirements for distance education.
Generally, distance education system consists of three components, namely, learner, learning content and learning management system.
Learning-based interaction is mainly of three types, i.e. learner-content, content-management system and learner-management system.
Learning content consists of a content object and an interaction object with communication interface. The content object is Sharable Content Object (SCO) for teaching activities like lecture, experiment, practice, etc. The interface object is for interaction with learners through the communication interface and standardized communication with the management system.
If the structure of content is properly defined and standardized for interaction and feedback control, the reusability, extension and inter-operability of content can be ensured and it can be used in other management systems. The design of the content in hierarchical structure allows reuse of some of the content object in other contents.
On the basis of SCORM, the content model and learning object metadata are defined in the figure above. In the figure, “organization” is a learning unit and “item” is learning resources. “Resource” is a reference set, that is, SCO or asset of minimum unit. The root folder of the content has index.html, imsmanifest.xml, XSD and DTD, metadata.xml and resources. The content model is in imsmanifest.xml and metadata files.
Finally, he managed to form the content by adding communication interface with four control objects for interactivity and feedback control to the content model in hierarchical structure. The communication interface is made up of display control object, learning control object, communication control object and evaluation control object.
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Jo Dec 16, 2022
A research team led by Kim Tok Su, head of the Electric Power System Institute, and Mun Yong Guk, a section head at the same institute, has developed a flow meter which measures flow in real time in hydropower plants by using Winter Kennedy method.
Winter-Kennedy method utilizes a static pressure difference between the outside and the inside of a turbine spiral due to the centrifugal force acting on the curved streams of liquid in the spiral case.
The flow calculation formula in the flow meter using Winter Kennedy is Q=khn, where K is a constant coefficient and n is a power exponent which is theoretically equal to 0.5, but could be chosen between 0.48~0.51.
Generally, the values of the constant K can be determined experimentally by using flow Q measured by other standard flow meter. However, they have established a method of determining the coefficient K through FLUENT simulation.
They have introduced and examined the proposed flow meter in a generator. The result was n=0.497 9, K=0.057 and the maximum error compared with a standard flow meter was 0.616%.
As this simulation method is helpful to estimate power exponents and flow coefficients for any spiral cases, the flow meter can be used for all hydro power plants with a spiral case. It is simple in installation and it does not disturb fluid flow. Moreover, real-time measurement is possible with low cost but high accuracy.
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Jo Dec 15, 2022
Production systems operated in practice consist of repairable components and such systems may mostly be modeled as a direct-parallel system. Thus, analysis of the reliability characteristics of a direct-cold standby system is important in the reliability analysis of the system.
Most of the components for a repairable system are not the same after repair as new ones and component’s lifetime decreases with the increase in the time of use. What is more, the time for repair increases more and more once they stop working, which finally leads to complete failure.
On the assumption that the lifetime and repair time of components follow a geometric process, Kim Man Su, a lecturer at the Faculty of Applied Mathematics, has studied the reliability of several dual series direct-parallel systems in consideration of such decrepitude.
The figure above shows a state transition graph of a system, where a circle stands for in operation and a square means break down.
It is assumed that the system consists of components 1, 2 and 3, and components 2 and 3 make up a dual cold standby system, which is then connected with component 1 directly. Here, component 1 gets priority in repair. There is a repairman. Components 2 and 3 are repaired in order of failure.
The system is a unidirectional closed dual series cold standby system. It means if component 1 fails, the system breaks down.
At the beginning, three components are all new, and components 1 and 2 are in operation and component 3 is under cold standby. When the three components in the system are in good condition, two are in operation and one is under cold standby. The repairman sets to work once one of them fails. At the same time, the standby one begins to work. When the failed one has been repaired, it is put on cold standby until the next failure. If one fails while the other is still under repair, it must wait for repair and the system breaks down. It is assumed that each component after repair is not ‘as good as a new one’.
A deteriorative repairable system will not support constant repair of its components. For a deteriorative repairable system, it seems more reasonable to assume that the successive working time of the system after repair will become shorter and shorter while the consecutive repair time of the system after failure will get longer and longer. Ultimately, it cannot work any longer, nor can it be repaired.
In a dual series cold standby system, after N cycle of component 2, when it finishes working, a plan to replace it with a new one (the same as the first dual series cold standby system) is called N replacement policy.
If the lifetime and repair time of components follow a geometric process in a unidirectional closed dual series cold standby system, the solution of state probability (density) is difficult to present analytically, so replacement cycle N needs to be defined and the characteristics of the system be analyzed.
In order to determine an effective replacement cycle, he studied the stationary conditions of the unidirectional closed system using the transitive property of the Markov chain assuming every state in all possible cases in the system.
The results showed that the proposed mathematical method could be effectively used in different pieces of research of other kinds of queuing models.
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Jo Dec 8, 2022
Humidity is an important physical quantity in all fields of human life. In recent years, fiber-optic humidity sensors with compact size, high sensitivity and good resistance to chemical corrosion and insusceptibility to electromagnetic interference have been widely studied.
Yu Hyong Su, a researcher at the Semiconductor Institute, has proposed a novel optical humidity sensor which is simple in structure, easy to make and cost-effective with high sensitivity, a wide range of operation, and good safety and reproductivity. It consists of light source, a gap and an acrylic resin film coated on PSD.
Experimental results verified very satisfactory performance of the humidity sensor in terms of its sensitivity, hysteresis, linear response to the humidity and long-term stability.
You can find more information about it in his paper “Widely sensitive optical humidity module by using acrylic resin and a position sensitivity detector” published in the SCI Journal “Optical and Quantum Electronics”.
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Jo Dec 3, 2022
Ti2AlNb‒based alloys, so-called ordered orthorhombic (O (Cmcm)) phase alloys, have a chemical composition of Ti ‒ (18 ‒ 30) Al ‒ (12.5 ‒ 30) Nb (mole fraction, %). Since the discovery of orthorhombic (O) phase, Ti2AlNb‒based alloys have received special attention as a promising candidate for advanced aerospace and automotive application due to their high specific strength, excellent creep and oxidation resistance at elevated temperatures as well as good workability.
Up to now, many studies on the fabrication of Ti2AlNb-based alloys by casting, rolling and forging have been conducted, in which the major focus was set on the elimination of disadvantages such as microstructure segregation and inhomogeneity. It is because the thermodynamic properties of Ti, Al and Nb elements including a melting point, a density, a diffusion coefficient, etc. are very different.
Recently, powder metallurgy (PM) method such as spark plasma sintering (SPS) has been applied to the fabrication of Ti2AlNb‒based alloys, which made it possible to obtain fine and homogeneous microstructure. Several endeavors have been devoted to preparing PM Ti2AlNb‒based alloys from pre‒alloyed powder and elemental powders by vacuum hot pressing, and from pre‒alloyed powder by hot isostatic pressing (HIP). However, these as‒sintered compacts showed the microstructure with coarse grain size (>40μm), due to higher sintering temperature and longer sintering time. Therefore, the strength of these Ti2AlNb‒based alloys was not so high.
In recent years, several studies on the fabrication of high strength and ductility titanium alloys with nanostructured (NS) and ultrafine grained (UFG) microstructure have been reported. One process to achieve this microstructure consists of the preparation of NS or UFG powder by high energy ball milling (HEBM) and the consolidation of the powder into dense compacts by PM methods such as HIP and SPS. For instance, using the high energy ball-milled powder as a starting material, an ultrafine grained Ti‒6Al‒4V with high mechanical properties can be obtained.
In order to produce a high strength and ductility Ti‒22Al‒25Nb alloy from pre alloyed powder, Sim Kyong Ho, a researcher at the Faculty of Materials Science and Technology, has introduced HEBM with subsequent SPS. The process is as follows. Firstly, the Ti‒22Al‒25Nb pre‒alloyed powder with a weight of 75g was put in a stainless steel vial with bearing steel balls. HEBM was carried out in a high-energy planetary ball mill (QM-3SP4) under a high purity argon atmosphere for 20h at a rotation speed of 300 rpm. The HEBMed powder was directly loaded into a high-strength graphite mould, and subsequently consolidated by a LHPD250 SPS apparatus (FCT Co. Ldt., Germany) at SPS temperatures of 950℃ for SPS time of 10 min. After sintering, the sintered compact was cooled to the room temperature (RT) in the furnace. Finally, a sintered compact, with dimensions of φ50 × 15 mm, was obtained.
The Ti‒22Al‒25Nb alloy sintered at 950℃ for 10 min under the pressure of 50 MPa from the 20 h‒HEBMed powder showed the microstructure with a large amount of UFG/NS O-phase. The yield strength, tensile strength and elongation to failure were 1 092 MPa, 1 105 MPa and 9.4%, respectively. Compared with the referenced Ti‒22Al‒25Nb alloys, the Ti‒22Al‒25Nb alloy fabricated by HEBM and subsequent SPS exhibited higher strength and good ductility at the room temperature and high temperature. This indicates that HEBM with subsequent SPS is feasible for PM Ti‒22Al‒25Nb alloy with enhanced tensile properties.
More information about this is found in his paper “Fabrication of a high strength and ductility Ti‒22Al‒25Nb alloy from high energy ball-milled powder by spark plasma sintering” published in the SCI Journal “Journal of Alloys and Compounds”.
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