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Applied Sciences, Volume 7, Issue 4

April 2017 - 121 articles

Cover Story: Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging non-isothermal membrane separation process having broad spectrum of applications e.g. it is a promising technique for desalting highly saline water. For an efficient process realization application of non-wetted porous hydrophobic membranes are required.
In the presented work, TiO2 and Al2O3 ceramic membranes were efficiently functionalized with fluorine-free grafting molecules. As a result, highly hydrophobic surfaces (CA = 111°–132°) possessing low surface free energy (31–52 mN•m-1) and low roughness (23–51 nm) were achieved. Membranes were subsequently tested in air gap membrane distillation showing high permeate flux and salt retention close to 100%. View the paper
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Articles (121)

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
101 Citations
8,358 Views
14 Pages

24 April 2017

In this research, a two-way coupling of discrete phase model is developed in order to track the discrete nature of aluminum oxide particles in an obstructed duct with two side-by-side obstacles. Finite volume method and trajectory analysis are simult...

  • Feature Paper
  • Article
  • Open Access
13 Citations
7,266 Views
11 Pages

Comparison of Light Trapping in Silicon Nanowire and Surface Textured Thin-Film Solar Cells

  • Rion Parsons,
  • Asman Tamang,
  • Vladislav Jovanov,
  • Veit Wagner and
  • Dietmar Knipp

24 April 2017

The optics of axial silicon nanowire solar cells is investigated and compared to silicon thin-film solar cells with textured contact layers. The quantum efficiency and short circuit current density are calculated taking a device geometry into account...

  • Article
  • Open Access
14 Citations
6,853 Views
12 Pages

23 April 2017

Polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) bits are commonly used drill bits in the petroleum drilling industry. Cracks often occur on the surface of a bit, which may result in the unexpected suspension of the drilling operation, or even accidents. Theref...

  • Article
  • Open Access
9 Citations
6,486 Views
14 Pages

23 April 2017

This paper presents a pushover analysis using ABAQUS (Dassault Company, Providence, Rhodes Island, USA) for spatial reinforced concrete (RC) frames. The main purpose is to study the effect of the infills on failure patterns of the RC frames. The Fini...

  • Article
  • Open Access
115 Citations
11,660 Views
13 Pages

Dense Pure Tungsten Fabricated by Selective Laser Melting

  • Dianzheng Wang,
  • Chenfan Yu,
  • Xin Zhou,
  • Jing Ma,
  • Wei Liu and
  • Zhijian Shen

23 April 2017

Additive manufacturing using tungsten, a brittle material, is difficult because of its high melting point, thermal conductivity, and oxidation tendency. In this study, pure tungsten parts with densities of up to 18.53 g/cm3 (i.e., 96.0% of the theore...

  • Article
  • Open Access
27 Citations
7,484 Views
23 Pages

22 April 2017

A pounding tuned mass damper (PTMD) is introduced by making use of the energy dissipated during impact. In the proposed PTMD, a viscoelastic layer is attached to an impact limitation collar so that energy can be further consumed and transferred to he...

  • Article
  • Open Access
77 Citations
13,027 Views
21 Pages

A Scenario-Adaptive Driving Behavior Prediction Approach to Urban Autonomous Driving

  • Xinli Geng,
  • Huawei Liang,
  • Biao Yu,
  • Pan Zhao,
  • Liuwei He and
  • Rulin Huang

22 April 2017

Driving through dynamically changing traffic scenarios is a highly challenging task for autonomous vehicles, especially on urban roadways. Prediction of surrounding vehicles’ driving behaviors plays a crucial role in autonomous vehicles. Most traditi...

  • Article
  • Open Access
11 Citations
5,586 Views
18 Pages

22 April 2017

Using Petri nets (PNs) to control discrete event systems (DES) has many benefits, because of their graphical representations, the possibility of parallel process control, and their formal descriptions. Amongst the different PNs that are applied for t...

  • Article
  • Open Access
15 Citations
7,858 Views
17 Pages

21 April 2017

Sprinkler selection influences the water distribution uniformity of center pivot irrigation systems. The sprinkling uniformity of the center pivot is crucial for the yield and quality of crops on a large scale. Rotating and fixed spray plate sprinkle...

  • Article
  • Open Access
35 Citations
5,289 Views
11 Pages

21 April 2017

With the increasing proportion of photovoltaic (PV) power in power systems, the problem of its fluctuation and intermittency has become more prominent. To reduce the negative influence of the use of PV power, we propose a short-term PV power predicti...

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Appl. Sci. - ISSN 2076-3417