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This article analyses high-consistency pulp refining using a disk refiner. During the experiment, the size of the gap between the rotor and stator cutters (0.5 to 1.5 mm), rotor speed (2,000 to 2,500 rpm), pulp consistency (10 to 20%), and freeness value (15 to 60 °SR) of the pulp were varied. The refining results were characterised by changes in 10 output parameters: morphological properties of cellulose fibres (average length, width, fibrillation index, water retention value, average kink angle, and coarseness) and the physical and mechanical characteristics of handsheets (breaking length, bursting strength, tearing resistance, and folding endurance). A total of 56 observations were made on the samples. Factor and cluster analysis methods were used to study the structure of correlations between the output parameters. More than 96% of the total dispersion of all output parameters was due to a change in two latent (hidden) factors: the first one was responsible for 79.6% of the dispersion and is presumably identified as the degree of external fibre fibrillation and the second one (16.6% of the dispersion) as fibre flexibility (including coarseness and average kink angle).

The mechanical and hydrodynamic phenomena occurring in the refining zones of disc refiners cause fibres to undergo fibrillation. This paper presents a study of the changes occurring during fibre fibrillation as expressed in terms of the fibrillation index when refining pulp with a 10%, 15%, and 20% consistency. The influences of the tangential force of a circular bar and a straight bar on fibre fibrillation were compared. The changes in the tangential force are shown to depend on the angle between the tangent to the cutting edge and the radius from the centre of the disk to the tangency point. Increasing the angle between the tangent to the cutting edge and the radius from the centre of the disk to the tangency point gives higher fibrillation index values. The study revealed a relationship between fibre fibrillation and the strength characteristics of handsheets.

Diamond is a promising material for terahertz applications. In this work, we use a non-invasive optical pump–terahertz probe method to experimentally study the photoinduced carrier dynamics in doped diamond monocrystals and a new diamond-silicon composite. The chemical vapor deposited diamond substrate with embedded silicon microparticles showed two photoinduced carrier lifetimes (short lifetime on the order of 4 ps and long lifetime on the order of 200 ps). The short lifetime is several times less than in boron-doped diamonds and nitrogen-doped diamonds which were grown using a high temperature–high pressure technique. The observed phenomenon is explained by the transport of photoexcited carriers across the silicon–diamond interface, resulting in dual relaxation dynamics. The observed phenomenon could be used for ultrafast flexible terahertz modulation.

We consider a group-theoretic analogue of the classic subset sum problem. In this brief note, we show that the subset sum problem is NP-complete in the first Grigorchuk group. More generally, we show NP-hardness of that problem in weakly regular branch groups, which implies NP-completeness if the group is, in addition, contracting.