Context. Pluto's tenuous nitrogen (N2) atmosphere undergoes strong seasonal effects due to high obliquity and orbital eccentricity, and has been recently (July 2015) observed by the New Horizons spacecraft. Goals are (i) construct a well calibrated record of the seasonal evolution of surface pressure on Pluto and (ii) constrain the structure of the lower atmosphere using a central flash observed in 2015. Method: eleven stellar occultations by Pluto observed between 2002 and 2016 are used to retrieve atmospheric profiles (density, pressure, temperature) between $\sim$5 km and $\sim$380 km altitude levels (i.e. pressures from about 10 microbar to 10 nanobar). Results: (i) Pressure has suffered a monotonic increase from 1988 to 2016, that is compared to a seasonal volatile transport model, from which tight constraints on a combination of albedo and emissivity of N2 ice are derived; (ii) A central flash observed on 2015 June 29 is consistent with New Horizons REX profiles, provided that (a) large diurnal temperature variations (not expected by current models) occur over Sputnik Planitia and/or (b) hazes with tangential optical depth of about 0.3 are present at 4-7 km altitude levels and/or (c) the nominal REX density values are overestimated by an implausibly large factor of about 20% and/or (d) higher terrains block part of the flash in the Charon facing hemisphere.
Laser-assisted high speed milling is a subtractive machining method that employs a laser to thermally soften a difficult-to-cut material’s surface in order to enhance machinability at a high material removal rate with improved surface finish and tool life. However, this machining with high speed leads to high friction between workpiece and tool, and can result in high temperatures, impairing the surface quality. Use of conventional cutting fluid may not effectively control the heat generation. Besides, vegetable-based cutting fluids are invariably a major source of food insecurity of edible oils which is traditionally used as a staple food in many countries. Thus, the primary objective of this study is to experimentally investigate the effects of water-soluble sago starch-based cutting fluid on surface roughness and tool’s flank wear using response surface methodology (RSM) while machining of 316 stainless steel. In order to observe the comparison, the experiments with same machining parameters are conducted with conventional cutting fluid. The prepared water-soluble sago starch based cutting fluid showed excellent cooling and lubricating performance. Therefore, in comparison to the machining using conventional cutting fluid, a decrease of 48.23% in surface roughness and 38.41% in flank wear were noted using presented approach. Furthermore, using the extreme learning machine (ELM), the obtained data is modeled to predict surface roughness and flank wear and showed good agreement between observations and predictions.
Micromixing process in microfluidic devices has been broadly employed in bio-, nano-, and environmental technologies using either miscible or immiscible liquids. However, there are limited experimental studies investigating the mixing process of different densities and viscosities liquids in relation to microfluidics. Therefore, the mixing process of propan-2-ol and water, water and sodium chloride solution, propan-2-ol and sodium chloride solution were experimented and reported at 5 ≤ Re ≤ 50 in T-junction and offset T-junction microchannels. For miscible mixing experiments, i.e. propan-2-ol and water, water and sodium chloride solution, both microchannels show mixing index for each Reynolds number is directly proportional to the mixing time. At low Reynolds number, higher molecular diffusion takes place while at low flow rate, the residence time of fluid is high. The mixing performance is relatively good at high Reynolds number of 40 and 50 due to the significant convection which is caused by the effect of stretching and thinning of liquid lamellae. For immiscible propan-2-ol and sodium chloride solution mixing, offset T-junction microchannel offers better mixing performance than T-junction microchannel at both low and high Reynolds number. The chaotic mixing happened at the intersection of the T-junction microchannel due to the direct interaction of two liquids entering the junction at high momentum.
High temperature applications of self-lubricated sliding surfaces have gained industrial importance during the recent years. One popular system is based on sintered Ni-Cr composites with addition of solid lubricants. In the present work these composites were prepared under controlled sintering conditions with different combinations of solid lubricants (MoS 2 , Ag and CaF 2 ) at 1200 °C under flowing argon. The physical properties such as sintered density, relative density and porosity were studied. The microstructures and phase studies of the Ni-Cr based composites were conducted using SEM analysis while the hardness of the composites was measured by Vickers Micro Hardness Tester. The friction tests were conducted with ball on disc configuration following ASTM G-99-95a standard. The MoS 2 solid lubricant provides best lubrication at room temperature which is demonstrated by a low friction coefficient compared to pure Ni-Cr composites. The SEM pictures of worn out tracks show solid debris distribution, and filling of pores with solid lubricant phases. The time taken for stabilization of friction coefficient also varies with the type of solid lubricant. Dual and multiple additions of solid lubricants are also able to reduce the friction of coefficient compared to pure Ni-Cr composite.
Abstract The ExoClock project has been created to increase the efficiency of the Ariel mission. It will achieve this by continuously monitoring and updating the ephemerides of Ariel candidates, in order to produce a consistent catalog of reliable and precise ephemerides. This work presents a homogenous catalog of updated ephemerides for 450 planets, generated by the integration of ∼18,000 data points from multiple sources. These sources include observations from ground-based telescopes (the ExoClock network and the Exoplanet Transit Database), midtime values from the literature, and light curves from space telescopes (Kepler, K2, and TESS). With all the above, we manage to collect observations for half of the postdiscovery years (median), with data that have a median uncertainty less than 1 minute. In comparison with the literature, the ephemerides generated by the project are more precise and less biased. More than 40% of the initial literature ephemerides had to be updated to reach the goals of the project, as they were either of low precision or drifting. Moreover, the integrated approach of the project enables both the monitoring of the majority of the Ariel candidates (95%), and also the identification of missing data. These results highlight the need for continuous monitoring to increase the observing coverage of the candidate planets. Finally, the extended observing coverage of planets allows us to detect trends (transit-timing variations) for a sample of 19 planets. All the products, data, and codes used in this work are open and accessible to the wider scientific community.
Abstract The increment of sterilization resistant bacteria minimizes the effectiveness of disinfectants which leads researchers into studying other means in minimizing bacterial contamination on surfaces. Hence, this study plans to investigate surfaces with the ability to discourage bacterial adhesion and reduces the need for frequent sterilization. This study tested the feasibility of applying snakeskin inspired microstructures onto a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface to reduce bacterial adhesion and increase its antibacterial properties. In theory, the microstructure of snakeskin is smaller or about the same size as a bacterium making it unfeasible for bacterial adhesion. The embeddedelastomeric stamping method was used for the biomimicry of snakeskin onto PDMS surfaces. The replicated snakeskin and controlled (no microstructure) PDMS samples were layered with Poly-DL-lactic acid (PDLLA) nanosheet of different thickness. Then, the morphology of the surfaces was observed using a scanning electron microscope. The surface of the samples was tested with Staphylococcus aureus and Bacillus with compliance of the ISO 22196 standard to evaluate the antimicrobial activity. Our results revealed, surfaces with snakeskin microstructures displayed a 16% reduction in bacterial adhesion compared to flat PDMS. Whereas the presence of nanosheet does not significantly affect the adhesion of bacteria on the replicated snakeskin. These findings suggest that surfaces with the presence of snakeskin microstructures possess antibacterial property.
