Search

The vibration pretreatment–microwave curing process can achieve high-quality molding under low-pressure conditions and is widely used in the curing of resin-based composites. This study investigated the effects of the vibration pretreatment process parameters on the void content and the fiber weight fraction of T700/TRE231; specifically, their influence on the interlaminar shear strength and impact strength of the composite. Initially, an orthogonal experimental design was employed with interlaminar shear strength as the optimization target, where vibration acceleration was determined as the primary factor and dwell time as the secondary factor. Concurrently, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was performed based on process parameters that corresponded to the extremum of interlaminar shear strength, revealing a 2.17% difference in fiber weight fraction among specimens with varying parameters, indicating a minimal effect of fiber weight fraction on mechanical properties. Optical digital microscope (ODM) analysis identified interlaminar large-size voids in specimens treated with vibration energy of 5 g and 15 g, while specimens subjected to a vibration energy of 10 g exhibited numerous small-sized voids within layers, suggesting that vibration acceleration influences void escape pathways. Finally, impact testing revealed the effect of the vibration pretreatment process parameters on the impact strength, implying a positive correlation between interlaminar shear strength and impact strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary challenge during the secondary bonding process of full-height honeycomb sandwich structures is the aramid honeycomb core's height shrinkage. This paper systematically investigated the height evolution behavior of the honeycomb core by using a creep testing machine. The results showed that the out-of-plane compression deformation curve of aramid honeycomb cores is mainly divided into three stages: the dehumidification stage, the pressurization stage and the creep stage. Under conditions of high temperature and pressure, height shrinkage was attributed to the dehydration caused by moisture infiltration, and the compression creep resulted from the slippage of polymer molecular chains. Dehydration shrinkage is stable, whereas compression creep reflects typical viscoelastic polymer characteristics. By employing the viscoelastic Burgers mechanical model and applying the nonlinear surface fitting method, the total height shrinkage deformation behavior of the aramid honeycomb core during the curing process can be accurately predicted by summing the above three stages. This research contributes valuable insights for the manufacturing process of honeycomb sandwich structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organic materials are promising candidates for the electrodes of aqueous zinc-ion batteries due to their nonmetallic nature, environmental friendliness, and cost-effectiveness. However, they often suffer from significant dissolution during the charge-discharge process, which poses a major hurdle to their practical applications. Inspired by membrane-less organelles in cells, a simple and versatile strategy is proposed-constructing a Janus catholyte/cathode structured electrode based on liquid-liquid phase separation, in which redox-active organic molecules are confined in the liquid state within the activated carbon, thereby eliminating the volume effect and preventing their diffusion into the electrolyte. The customization of phase separation systems by leveraging the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity differences of various anions is successfully demonstrated. This approach allows for precise regulation of ion cluster/coordination structures, enabling the confinement of active substances while ensuring efficient ion transport. Consequently, the as-constructed Zn||Janus catholyte/cathode cells exhibit superior reversible rate capacity (186 mA h g -1 at 5.0 A g -1 ) and remarkable cycling performance (retention of 72.5% after 12 000 cycles). The strategy in building Janus catholyte/cathode structured electrodes breaks free from the limitations imposed by traditional solid-state electrodes, offering tremendous opportunities for exploring diverse advanced battery systems., (© 2024 Wiley‐VCH GmbH.)

The understanding of nonlinear propagation effects in low-crosstalk few-mode fiber is crucial for a weakly coupled mode-division multiplexed system. In this Letter, we report the first, to the best of our knowledge, experimental verification of the advantage of intramodal dispersion on mitigating intramodal cross-phase modulation in a weakly coupled few-mode fiber transmission. The experimental system is established over a 70-km multiple-ring-core few-mode fiber accommodating 6 linearly polarized modes, based on which the influences of intramodal cross-phase modulation on transmission performances of each linearly polarized mode are evaluated. Experimental results show that the intramodal cross-phase modulation of degenerate linearly polarized modes with much larger intramodal dispersion values are significantly weaker than those of non-degenerate linearly polarized modes, in which the maximum suppression of intramodal cross-phase modulation noise is up to 9.7 dB. We believe that this work would be beneficial to practical applications of weakly coupled mode-division multiplexing technologies.

We investigate the robustness of a modified multi-trench fiber (MTF) design with two gaps numerically. The excellent suppression of high-order modes is demonstrated over a wide range of the gap misalignment and the fundamental mode loss is barely affected even with the 5 dB/m scattering loss in gaps at the modified two-gap MTF for the first time. Therefore, the required fabrication accuracy decreases.