Dibutyl phthalate (DBP) is a phthalic acid ester and is widely used in polymeric products to make them more flexible. DBP is found in almost every plastic material and is believed to be persistent in the environment. Various analytical methods have been used to measure DBP in different matrices. Considering the ubiquitous nature of DBP, the most important challenge in DBP analyses is the contam...

This paper presents a Gaussian radial basis function neural network based on sliding mode control for trajectory tracking and vibration control of a flexible joint manipulator. To study the effectiveness of the controllers, designed controller is developed for tip angular position control of a flexible joint manipulator. The adaptation laws of designed controller are obtained based on sliding m...

Paper, as an inexpensive substrate for flexible electronics and energy devices, has garnered great attention because of its abundance, biodegradability, renewability and sustainability. However, the intrinsic opacity and higher roughness of regular paper greatly restricts further applications. One promising method is to use cellulose nanofibers (CNs) to fabricate nanopaper with a high optical t...

Biofuel, a form of renewable fuel, has promising future, especially as the alternative fuel for transportation. Biofuel is usually blended with petroleum fuel and used in flex fuel engines. Since the characteristics of biofuel are quite different from those of the petroleum based fuel, it is very important to optimize the combustion properties for biofuel engines under different fuel blends. Th...

There is much interest in developing fuel cells for commercial applications. This interest is driven by technical and environmental advantages offered by the fuel cell, including high performance characteristics, reliability, durability, and clean power. A fuel cell is similar to a battery—it uses an electrochemical process to directly convert chemical energy to electricity. Unlike a battery, h...

Ultra-thin chips of less than 20 lm become flexible, allowing integration of silicon IC technology with highly flexible electronics such as food packaging sensor systems or healthcare and sport monitoring tags as wearable patches or even directly in clothing textile. The ultra-thin chips in these products will be bent to a very high curvature, which puts a large strain on the chips during use. ...

This paper presents an application of Continuum (i.e. Lagrangian) and Finite Element Techniques to flexible manipulator arms for derivation of the corresponding Dynamic Equations of Motion. Specifically a one-link flexible arm is considered for detailed analysis, and the results are extended for the case of a two - link flexible manipulator. Numerical examples are given for the case of both one...

This paper presents the design, modeling, and testing of a flexible tactile sensor and its applications. This sensor is made of polymer materials and can detect the 2D surface texture image and contact-force estimation. The sensing mechanism is based on the novel contact deflection effect of a membrane. We measure the deflection of the membrane with measuring the strain in the membrane with emb...