Sunlight heats the greenhouse air temperature and tomato cracking decreases marketable product up to 90%. A shade screen reduced incoming radiation during warm and sunny conditions to reduce tomato cracking. A fuzzy controller managed greenhouse irrigation to reduce tomato cracking using as variables solar radiation and substrate temperature. The embedded controller presented 9 rules and three ...

Acidic zeolites are indispensable catalysts in the petrochemical industry because they select reactants and their chemical pathways based on size and shape. Voids of molecular dimensions confine reactive intermediates and transition states that mediate chemical reactions, stabilizing them by van der Waals interactions. This behavior is reminiscent of the solvation effects prevalent within enzym...

Designing self-healing into cementitious materials can open a new world of opportunities for resilient concrete infrastructure under service loading conditions. The self-healing process should be robust as well as repeatable, allowing for self-repair after multiple damage events. The repeatability poses great challenges when self-healing strategies mainly rely on the formation of low-strength c...

This paper reviews recent research on cement based composites design for damage tolerance. Specific focus is placed on the influence of fiber and interface properties on the complementary energy of the composite crack bridging behavior, which in turn governs the mechanics of composite fracture. The theoretical concepts are illustrated with examples of highly damage tolerant cement based composi...

The direct, by-product-free conversion of basic feedstocks to products of medicinal and agricultural relevance is a broad goal of chemical research. Butadiene is a product of petroleum cracking and is produced on an enormous scale (about 12 × 10(6) metric tons annually). Here, with the use of a ruthenium catalyst modified by a chiral phosphate counterion, we report the direct redox-triggered ca...

Dehydrogenation processes play an important role in the petrochemical industry. High selectivity towards olefins is usually hindered by numerous side reactions a conventional cracking/pyrolysis technology. Herein, we show recent studies devoted to selective ethylene production via oxidative and non-oxidative reactions. This review summarizes progress that has been achieved with ethane conversio...

Abstract Simulation of heavy oil thermal cracking process is very important but few researches have been published now. In this paper, a simulation framework based on the carbon number-based approach(CNCA) has been established. A systematic division rule is put forward for dividing cracked products into 59 carbon number components. Then the cracking reaction network has been structured and the ...

analytical detection of cracking in connections of steel moment resisting frames using simple damage indices is important since these cracks are not visible unless the connections are uncovered. in this paper, applicability of three cumulative damage indices for detection of cracking in a cover plate welded moment connection is investigated. the damage indices considered in this study are based...