The Corrosion Characteristics and Tensile Behavior of Reinforcement under Coupled Carbonation and Static Loading
This paper describes the non-uniform corrosion characteristics and mechanical properties of reinforcement under coupled action of carbonation and static loading. The two parameters, namely area-box (AB) value and arithmetical mean deviation (Ra), are adopted to characterize the corrosion morphology and pitting distribution from experimental observations. The results show that the static loading affects the corrosion characteristics of reinforcement. Local stress concentration in corroded reinforcement caused by tensile stress drives the corrosion pit pattern to be more irregular. The orthogonal test results from finite element simulations show that pit shape and pit depth are the two significant factors affecting the tensile behavior of reinforcement. Under the condition of similar corrosion mass loss ratio, the maximum plastic strain of corroded reinforcement increases with the increase of Ra and load time-history significantly.
Studies on catalytic pyrolysis of empty fruit bunch (EFB) using Taguchi's L9 Orthogonal Array
Abstract This paper investigates the effects of four reaction parameters that include type of catalyst, catalyst loading, reaction temperature and nitrogen gas flowrate on the liquid (bio-oil) yield from the catalytic pyrolysis of Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB). The experimental design is based on Taguchi's L9 Orthogonal Array in which the reaction parameters are varied at three levels. The maximum liquid yield is predicted based on systematic experimental runs, and is found to be at 5 wt-% of H-Y catalyst, 500 °C and at nitrogen flowrate of 100 ml min −1 . The predicted maximum liquid yield is validated with an experimental run at the corresponding predicted conditions. The bio-oil produced at the optimum reaction condition is characterized and compared with known bio-oil standards in the literature.
One step thermal conversion of lignin to the gasoline range liquid products by using zeolites as additives
One step thermal conversion of lignin to gasoline range liquid products was accomplished by pyrolyzing softwood (SW) kraft lignin with select zeolites at 600 °C. Gel Permeation Chromatography (GPC) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) including quantitative 13C, 31P-NMR and Heteronuclear Single-Quantum Correlation (HSQC)-NMR were used to characterize various pyrolysis oils. By employing a zeolite catalyst aliphatic hydroxyl groups decreased by 70–100% in the resulting bio-oil and the content of carboxylic acid groups also decreased by 44–85% in comparison to a control pyrolysis oil generated with no additive. Of the additives studied MFI and MOR zeolites provided the best in situ decarboxylation of bio-oils. The results of 13C-NMR indicated after the use of FAU and BEA zeolites, the pyrolysis oils contained ∼80% less methoxy groups than the native pyrolysis oil, and almost all the oxygen (up to ∼87%) belonged to phenolic hydroxyl groups. In addition, the average molecular weight of these two upgraded pyrolysis oils decreased by ∼60% with respect to the control pyrolysis oil and they had a molecular weight profile in the gasoline range (80–120 g mol−1). By adding MFI, FAU and BEA zeolites, the pyrolysis oils contained some polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). In contrast, there were very limited amount of PAH in FER and MOR upgraded pyrolysis oils and almost no PAH in the native pyrolysis oil.