Dielectric barrier discharges (DBD) can be described as the presence of contact with the discharge of one or more insulating layers located between two cylindrical or flat electrodes connected to an AC/pulse dc power supply. In this work, the properties of the plasma generated by dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) system without and with a glass insulator were studied. The plasma was generated at a constant voltage of 4 kV and fixed distance between the electrodes of 5 mm, and with a variable flow rate of argon gas (0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and 2.5) L/min. The emission spectra of the DBD plasmas at different flow rates of argon gas have been recorded. Boltzmann plot method was used to calculate the plasma electron temperature (Te), and Stark broadeni

As one type of heating furnaces, the electric heating furnace (EHF) typically suffers from time delay, non-linearity, time-varying parameters, system uncertainties, and harsh en-vironment of the furnace, which significantly deteriorate the temperature control process of the EHF system. In order to achieve accurate and robust temperature tracking performance, an integration of robust state feedback control (RSFC) and a novel sliding mode-based disturbance observer (SMDO) is proposed in this paper, where modeling errors and external disturbances are lumped as a lumped disturbance. To describe the characteristics of the EHF, by using convection laws, an integrated dynamic model is established and identified as an uncertain nonlinear second ord

A ‘locking-bolt’ demountable shear connector (LBDSC) is proposed to facilitate the deconstruction and reuse of steel-concrete composite structures, in line with achieving a more sustainable construction design paradigm. The LBDSC is comprised of a grout-filled steel tube and a geometrically compatible partially threaded bolt. The latter has a geometry that ‘locks’ the bolt in compatible holes predrilled on the steel flange and eliminates initial slip and construction tolerance issues. The structural behaviour of the LBDSC is evaluated through nine pushout tests using a horizontal test setup. The effects of the tube thickness, strength of concrete slab, and strength of infilled grout on the shear resistance, initial stiffness, and du

To determine the abilities of salivary E‐cadherin to differentiate between periodontal health and periodontitis and to discriminate grades of periodontitis.

Poly urea formaldehyde –Bentonite (PUF-Bentonite) composite was tested as new adsorbent
for removal of mefenamic acid (MA) from simulated wastewater in batch adsorption
procedure. Developed a method for preparing poly urea formaldehyde gel in basic media by
using condensation polymerization. Adsorption experiments were carried out as a function of
water pH, temperature, contact time, adsorbent dose and initial MA concentration .Effect of
sharing surface with other analgesic pharmaceuticals at different pH also studied. The
adsorption of MA was found to be strongly dependent to pH. The Freundlich isotherm model
showed a good fit to the equilibrium adsorption data. From Dubinin–Radushkevich model the
mean free

In this research, the removal of cadmium (Cd) from simulated wastewater was investigated by using a fixed bed bio-electrochemical reactor. The effects of the main controlling factors on the performance of the removal process such as applied cell voltage, initial Cd concentration, pH of the catholyte, and the mesh number of the cathode were investigated. The results showed that the applied cell voltage had the main impact on the removal efficiency of cadmium where increasing the applied voltage led to higher removal efficiency. Meanwhile increasing the applied voltage was found to be given lower current efficiency and higher energy consumption.  No significant effect of initial Cd concentration on the removal efficie