In this work, a CW CO2 laser was used for cutting samples of the fiber-reinforced
plastics (FRP) of three different types of reinforcing material; aramide, glass and carbon.
Cutting process was investigated throughout the variation of some parameters of cutting
process and their effects on cutting quality as well as the effect of an inert gas exist in the
interaction region and finally using a mechanical chopper in order to enhance the cutting
quality. Results obtained explained the possibility to perform laser cutting with high
quality in these materials by good control of the parameters and conditions of the process.

This paper discusses a comparative study to relate parametric and non-parametric mode decomposition algorithms for response-only data. Three popular mode decomposition algorithms are included in this study: the Eigensystem Realization Algorithm with the Natural Excitation Technique (NExT-ERA) for the parametric algorithm, as well as the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) for the non-parametric algorithms. A comprehensive parametric study is provided for (i) different response types, (ii) excitation types, (iii) system damping, and (iv) sensor spatial resolution to compare the mode shapes and modal coordinates of using a 10-DOF building model. The mode decomposition results are also compared using

Over the last few years, there has been a worldwide increase in the use of composite materials for rehabilitation of deficient reinforced concrete structures. One important application of this technology is the use of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) jacket to provide external confinement of reinforced concrete columns. Square concrete column specimens 100×100×1000 mm with concrete
compressive strength of about 30 and 50 MPa, steel fiber volume fraction 0%, 0.5%, 0.75%, and percentage of longitudinal reinforcement 2.01%, 3.14% and 4.52% were tested until failure in previous research. In this research seven tested columns were repaired and rehabilitated using one layer of CFRP flexible wraps and tested to determine their ultim

PPSU hollow fiber nanofiltration membranes are prepared by applying two concentrations and various extrusion pressures according to the phase inversion method. Cross-sectional area and outer structures were characterized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). In additional to the pore size distribution, either the mean roughness or the mean pore size of the PPSU hollow fiber surfaces was evaluated by AFM. It was found that the morphology of the PPSU fibers had both sponge-like and finger-like structures through different extrusion pressures and PPSU concentrations. The mean pore size and mean roughness for inner and outer surfaces were seen to be decreased with the increase of extrusion pressure at

The control of an aerial flexible joint robot (FJR) manipulator system with underactuation is a difficult task due to unavoidable factors, including, coupling, underactuation, nonlinearities, unmodeled uncertainties, and unpredictable external disturbances. To mitigate those issues, a new robust fixed-time sliding mode control (FxTSMC) is proposed by using a fixed-time sliding mode observer (FxTSMO) for the trajectory tracking problem of the FJR attached to the drones system. First, the underactuated FJR is comprehensively modeled and converted to a canonical model by employing two state transformations for ease of the control design. Then, based on the availability of the measured states, a cascaded FxTSMO (CFxTSMO) is constructed to estim

The Backstepping Sliding Mode Control is a control technique used for controlling nonlinear systems. In this paper, the performance of the backstepping sliding mode controller schemes for the angular velocity control for a rotary actuator of an angular velocity control system that utilizes a novel hydraulic flow control method called inlet throttling was investigated. For the angular velocity dynamic, a linear state feedback with suitable high gain is designed as the virtual controller, where steady state error can be made arbitrarily small according to the gain value. A time varying sliding variable is then selected based on the designed virtual controller. The resulting control design is robust, and the maximum error of the angular veloci