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Nontransparent flat parts with weak rigidity are widely used in precision physics experiments, aerospace, and other fields in which parallelism is required. However, existing methods cannot meet requirements due to the limitation of measurement size and accuracy. This paper proposes a new method for measuring parallelism of nontransparent flat parts with high accuracy and then builds a submicrometer-level parallelism measuring system. The 3D model of the whole part is reconstructed by thickness and flatness, which are measured respectively. Subsequently, parallelism is evaluated by the principle of minimum directional zone. The method is verified by an experiment with a thin copper substrate sized ⊘200 m m ×2.48 m m on the parallelism measuring system. The experiment result shows that the part's parallelism is 7.41 µm, and the expanded uncertainty of parallelism measurement system is 0.34 µm, k =2.

Ultrasonic elliptical vibration cutting (UEVC) is a promising hybrid machining technique for ultra-precision cutting. In this paper, an available and propagable design of the UEVC device is proposed through detailed mechanism analysis. The one-dimensional longitudinal vibration theory and Timoshenko beam theory are utilized and the frequency equations of the designed structure are proposed and solved by analytical solution. Thus, the preliminary size parameters of the proposed structure are obtained according to theoretical analysis, and then appropriate structural adjustment and dimensional parameters optimization are performed based on the modal analysis. The resonance frequencies of the longitudinal and bending vibrations can be adjusted to be the same, and two installation holes are determined near the wave node of the second longitudinal vibration mode and the fourth bending mode. Then the resonant frequency and tool trajectory of the manufactured prototype are verified by laser vibrometer, which are consistent with the design. Cutting experiments on pure iron with the proposed device shows that the mirror surface is achieved with nearly no tool wear. Therefore, the proposed design of the device which works in these two resonant modes can be applied for ultra-precision elliptical vibration cutting., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Although flooding technology has found wide application in low-permeability reservoir development practices, the oil recovery enhancement mechanisms for different injection fluids still lack specific focus based on comprehensive investigations. Therefore, in this paper, supercritical CO 2 (ScCO 2 ), N 2 , and water injection processes in oil-saturated low-permeability tight cores were comparatively studied. To reveal the effect of physicochemical properties of the injection fluid on the oil recovery efficiency, the Berea sandstones with three permeability levels and kerosene were employed in this study to exclude other parameter influences. The flooding processes employing various injection media were investigated based on quantitative comparisons of the oil recovery factor and the displacement pressure difference at two system pressures. The experimental results show recovery efficiencies of 59-91 and 84-92% with the increasing permeability for the ScCO 2 injection process at system pressures of 15 and 25 MPa, respectively, which are much higher than 26-40 and 21-52% in the N 2 case and 43-46 and 45-49% in the water cases. Interfacial tension (IFT) measurement results indicate that miscibility conditions have been achieved for the ScCO 2 /oil system, thus leading to much higher oil recovery. On the other hand, the pressure difference results show a similar magnitude of 10 MPa/m for both ScCO 2 and N 2 processes, which is much lower than the 100 MPa/m for the water flooding cases. Comprehensive comparison shows that ScCO 2 shows great advantages in the application of unconventional reservoirs. It is expected that our research work could enrich the investigations of CO 2 flooding and the in-depth understanding of the mechanisms and better guide the utilization of CO 2 ., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (© 2022 The Authors. Published by American Chemical Society.)

To reduce the influence of internal residual stress on the processing deformation of thin-walled hydrogen-resistant steel components, combined aging cryogenic and high-temperature treatment was used to eliminate the residual stress, and the effect of cryogenic process parameters on the initial residual stress of the specimens was compared and analyzed based on the contour method. X-ray diffraction, electron backscatter diffraction, and transmission electron microscopy were used to research the mechanism of the effect of cryogenic treatment on the internal residual stress of the specimen. After forging, the internal residual stress distribution of the hydrogen-resistant steel specimens without aging was characterized by tensile stress on the core and compressive stress on both sides, with a stress amplitude of -350-270 MPa. After compound treatment of -130 °C for 10 h and 350 °C for 2 h, the internal residual stress distribution remained unchanged, and the stresses decreased to -150-100 MPa. The internal residual stresses were reduced by 57-63% compared with the untreated specimens. The cryogenic treatment did not cause phase transformation and carbide precipitation of the hydrogen-resistant steel material. Instead, grain refinement and dislocation density depletion were the main reasons for the reduction in internal residual stresses in the specimens.

Thin-walled parts are widely used in shock wave and detonation physics experiments, which require high surface accuracy and equal thickness. In order to obtain the wall thickness of thin-walled spherical shell parts accurately, a new measurement method is proposed. The trajectories, including meridian and concentric trajectories, are employed to measure the thickness of thin-walled spherical shell parts. The measurement data of the inner and outer surfaces are unified in the same coordinate system, and the thickness is obtained based on a reconstruction model. The meridian and concentric circles' trajectories are used for measuring a spherical shell with an outer diameter of Φ210.6 mm and an inner diameter of Φ206.4 mm. Without the data in the top area, the surface errors of the outer and inner surfaces are about 5 μm and 6 μm, respectively, and the wall-thickness error is about 8 μm with the meridian trajectory.

To investigate the mechanism of surface modification of pure iron by atmospheric pressure plasma treatment (APPT), the surface wettability of pure iron was characterized by using a contact-angle measuring instrument, and the mechanical properties of pure iron were measured by a tensile testing machine and nanoindentation instrument. Molecular dynamics simulations were used to explain the modification mechanism of the surface wettability and the mechanical behavior of pure iron by APPT. The experimental results show that pure iron treated by APPT is superhydrophilic, with reduced tensile strength and surface hardness. This result agrees with the molecular dynamics simulation, which shows that the pure iron material hydrophilicity improved after APPT. The behavior was attributed to the formation of hydrogen bonds on the surface of the pure iron after APPT. The surface binding energy of the pure iron material increased between the water molecule and the residual N atom that was induced by APPT. The N atom that was introduced by the APPT led to Fe bond fracture, and the N atom reduced the Fe bond strength, which resulted in a reduction of material yield strength and microhardness.

Nanoparticle (NP)-stabilized foam technology has found potential applications in CO 2 enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and greenhouse gas geological storage practices and accordingly attracts lots of research interest. To screen the optimal formula for the satisfactory foam performance, orthogonal experimental design (OED) is used in this paper for the complex multifactor multilevel system consisting of five influential factors of NP size, surfactant concentration, NP concentration, temperature, and salinity at four different levels in the range of 7-40 nm, 0-0.15 wt %, 0-0.2 wt %, 25-55 °C, and 0-3 wt %, respectively. Based on the orthogonal principle, only 16 experiments were performed to analyze the effect of various factors on the foam height and foam half-life properties. In addition to showing that the influence of the single factor on foam static properties, OED results reveal that the surfactant concentration and temperature are dominating factors on foamability and stability of the NP-stabilized CO 2 foam, respectively. Finally, NP-stabilized CO 2 foam with satisfactory static characteristics is obtained with the OED recommended composition of a 0.15 wt % surfactant concentration, 0.1 wt % NP concentration, and NP size of 7 nm in 1 wt % saline solution at temperatures of 30 and 50 °C, validating that the OED method could substantially facilitate the laboratory screening and optimization process for a successful NP-stabilized CO 2 foam application., Competing Interests: The authors declare no competing financial interest., (Copyright © 2020 American Chemical Society.)

In order to improve the CO 2 foam stability at high temperature and salinity, hydrophilic silica nanoparticles (NPs) were added into a dilute zwitterionic surfactant solution to stabilize supercritical CO 2 (SC-CO 2 ) foam. In the present paper, the foaming capacity and stability of SC-CO 2 foam were investigated as a function of NP concentration at elevated temperatures and pressures. It was observed that the drainage rate of SC-CO 2 foam was initially fast and then became slower with NPs adsorption at the gas-liquid interface. The improved foam stability at high temperature was attributed to the enhanced disjoining pressure with addition of NPs. Furthermore, an obvious increase in the foam stability was noticed with the increasing salinity due to the screening of NP charges at the interface. The rheological characteristics including apparent viscosity and surface elasticity, resistance factor, and microstructures of SC-CO 2 foam were also analyzed at high temperature and pressure. With addition of 0.7% NPs, SC-CO 2 foam was stabilized with apparent viscosity increased up to 80 mPa·s and resistance factor up to 200. Based on the stochastic bubble population (SBP) model, the resistance factor of SC-CO 2 foam was simulated by considering the foam generation rate and maximum bubble density. The microstructural characteristics of SC-CO 2 foam were detected by optical microscopy. It was found that the effluent bubble size ranged between 20 and 30 μm and the coalescence rate of SC-CO 2 foam became slow with the increasing NP concentration. Oscillation measurements revealed that the NPs enhanced surface elasticity between CO 2 and foam agents for resisting external disturbances, thus resulting in enhanced film stability and excellent rheological properties., (Copyright © 2019 Li, Wei, Xiong, Ouyang, Shao, Dai, Liu and Du.)

The improvement and mechanism of the fatigue resistance of TC21 high-strength titanium alloy with a high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) sprayed WC-17Co coating was investigated. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the corresponding stress measurement instrument, a surface roughness tester, a micro-hardness tester, and a scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to determine the properties of the HVOF WC-17Co coating with or without shot peening. The fatigue behavior of the TC21 titanium alloy with or without the WC-17Co coating was determined by using a rotating bending fatigue testing machine. The results revealed that the polished HVOF sprayed WC-17Co coating had almost the same fatigue resistance as the TC21 titanium alloy substrate. This resulted from the polishing-induced residual surface compressive stress and a decrease in the stress concentration on the surface of the coating. Moderate-intensity shot peening of the polished WC-17Co coatings resulted in significant improvement of the fatigue resistance of the alloy. Furthermore, the fatigue life was substantially higher than that of the substrate, owing to the deep distribution of residual stress and high compressive stress induced by shot peening. The improved surface toughness of the coating can effectively delay the initiation of fatigue crack propagation.

A metallurgical zirconium nitride (ZrN) layer was fabricated using glow metallurgy using nitriding with zirconiuming prior treatment of the Ti6Al4V alloy. The microstructure, composition and microhardness of the corresponding layer were studied. The influence of this treatment on fretting wear (FW) and fretting fatigue (FF) behavior of the Ti6Al4V alloy was studied. The composite layer consisted of an 8-μm-thick ZrN compound layer and a 50-μm-thick nitrogen-rich Zr-Ti solid solution layer. The surface microhardness of the composite layer is 1775 HK 0.1 . A gradient in cross-sectional microhardness distribution exists in the layer. The plasma ZrN metallurgical layer improves the FW resistance of the Ti6Al4V alloy, but reduces the base FF resistance. This occurs because the improvement in surface hardness results in lowering of the toughness and increasing in the notch sensitivity. Compared with shot peening treatment, plasma ZrN metallurgy and shot peening composite treatment improves the FW resistance and enhances the FF resistance of the Ti6Al4V alloy. This is attributed to the introduction of a compressive stress field. The combination of toughness, strength, FW resistance and fatigue resistance enhance the FF resistance for titanium alloy.

Mitral valve (MV) edge-to-edge repair (ETER) is a surgical procedure for the correction of mitral valve regurgitation by suturing the free edge of the leaflets. The leaflets are often sutured at three different positions: central, lateral and commissural portions. To study the effects of position of suture on left ventricular (LV) fluid mechanics under mitral valve ETER, a parametric model of MV-LV system during diastole was developed. The distribution and development of vortex and atrio-ventricular pressure under different suture position were investigated. Results show that the MV sutured at central and lateral in ETER creates two vortex rings around two jets, compared with single vortex ring around one jet of the MV sutured at commissure. Smaller total orifices lead to a higher pressure difference across the atrio-ventricular leaflets in diastole. The central suture generates smaller wall shear stresses than the lateral suture, while the commissural suture generated the minimum wall shear stresses in ETER.

A numerical method of the left ventricle (LV) deformation, an elongation model, was put forth for the study of LV fluid mechanics in diastole. The LV elongated only along the apical axis, and the motion was controlled by the intraventricular flow rate. Two other LV models, a fixed control volume model and a dilation model, were also used for model comparison and the study of LV fluid mechanics. For clinical sphere indices (SIs, between 1.0 and 2.0), the three models showed little difference in pressure and velocity distributions along the apical axis at E-peak. The energy dissipation was lower at a larger SI in that the jet and vortex development was less limited by the LV cavity in the apical direction. LV deformation of apical elongation may represent the primary feature of LV deformation in comparison with the secondary radial expansion. The elongation model of the LV deformation with an appropriate SI is a reasonable, simple method to study LV fluid mechanics in diastole.