This book presents a brief history of papermaking followed by comments regarding wood as a source of fibers, including its chemical and anatomical characteristics and the influence of these aspects on the quality of the pulp produced. In addition, the author describes the effects of the pulping process, mainly a chemical process, on pulp quality and how these wood characteristics influence both the refining process as the quality of the final paper. The book further provides a broad discussion, based on experimental results, on the contribution of the main operating refining variables and the main strategies that can be used industrially to optimize the operating results. From this evaluation, the parameter that complements the specific edge load theory is identified. This parameter is related to the retention time of the fiber flocs inside the refiner.

This book covers novel techniques and materials for removing inclusions in metallic melts, resulting in significant improvements to the purity, quality, and materials properties of the cast metal product. It looks at an entirely new generation of intelligent filter materials and filter systems with functionalized surfaces for removing solid and liquid inclusions such as deoxidation products, sulfides, and nitrides carbide from metallic melts. This collection of contributed chapters addresses the overarching goal of the production of lightweight structures and high-demand construction materials within an overall substantially cleaner and more sustainable global supply chain. The chapters cover a diverse array of topics ranging in scope from the development of ceramic foam filters, to in-situ x-ray and optical characterization techniques, as well as advanced modelling of 3D-printed filter structures. Additionally, the book features a number of contributions directly transferable to industrial applications related to the clean metal casting technologies of aluminium and steel alloys.

This collection explores all aspects of metallurgical processing, materials behavior, and microstructural performance for the distinct class of 718-type superalloys and derivatives. Technical topics focus on alloy and process development, production, product applications, trends, and the development of advanced modeling tools. New developments in R&D, new processing methods, 3D printing, and other nontraditional applications also are covered.

This book is intended to shed light on the computational modeling and experimental techniques that are used in the characterization of various polymer based composite materials. It covers mechanisms, salient features, formulations, important aspects, and case studies of polymer composite materials utilized for various applications. The latest research in this area as well as possible avenues of future research is also highlighted to encourage the researchers.

This book presents the numerical results of the use of the chemical model to analyse the advancement of the reaction and the mechanical model to simulate creep and shrinkage phenomena in COMSOL Multiphysics®, as a way to reassess concrete structures suffering from those mechanisms. Both models were implemented separately to evaluate their responses and compare them with the theoretical results and experimental benchmarks presented in the literature. The numerical simulation results showed excellent agreement with the experimental results data, with maximum disagreement not exceeding 10%, indicating that the implementation of the developed numerical models behaved very efficiently.

This book presents the novel concept of plaston, which accounts for the high ductility or large plastic deformation of emerging high-performance structural materials, including bulk nanostructured metals, hetero-nanostructured materials, metallic glasses, intermetallics, and ceramics.

This book presents the latest developments in the field of vegetable oil -based composites. It focuses on different vegetable oils such as castor, linseed, corn, soybean, olive, palm, and canola oils;, and fillers from inorganic materials and agricultural residues used in the preparation of vegetable oil -based composites. There are several advantages to vegetable oil-based polymer composites, due to their universal availability, inherent biodegradability, low price, and superb environmental credentials (i.e., low eco-toxicity and low toxicity towards humans). This book will be of is of interest to researchers working in the field of bio-based composite materials for the development of green and sustainable materials.

Ceramic-matrix composites (CMCs) possess high specific strength and modulus at elevated temperature, and have already been applied in hot-section components in aero-engines. To ensure the operation reliability and safety of CMCs components, it is necessary to understand the micro damage mechanisms and internal damage state in the composites. This book focuses on the micromechanics of CMCs at elevated temperatures, including, the stress-strain behavior, proportional limit stress, residual strength, mechanical hysteresis, interface damage, strain response, and lifetime of CMCs at elevated temperatures. This book can help the material scientists and engineering designers to better understand and master the micromechanics of CMCs at elevated temperatures.

This book presents recent research in the field of piezoelectric vibration energy harvesting in which intentionally designed nonlinearities as well as inherently present are widely considered. It provides an overview of the state-of-the-art, with a sharp classification into linear and nonlinear devices, and recalls the fundamentals of piezoelectricity and magnetostatics. A detailed treatment of linear and nonlinear mathematical modeling of piezoelectric harvesters is then developed to provide the reader with a wide range of modeling possibilities. Theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches to modeling the magnetic interaction are also provided. Several cases of innovative piezoelectric harvester designs based on magnetic interaction as a frequency up-conversion mechanism (FuC) are developed. Improvements of the magnetic FuC are proposed, in combination with indirect impacts as well as the manipulation of magnetic forces with novelty methods. Novel studies on the magnetic interaction itself and its implications for the dynamic behavior of the harvester are also summarized. The book provides an integrated view of theoretical, computational, and experimental research in this field, as such it can be useful for researchers interested in linear and nonlinear piezoelectric energy harvesting, for graduate courses on smart structures and devices, microsystems, and for designers.

This book examines the electro- and magneto-mechanics of soft composite materials and structures, and focuses on magnetorheological elastomers (MREs) and dielectric elastomer composites (DECs), which are composite materials that comprise ferromagnetic and high-dielectric/conducting filler nano- and micro-particles embedded in a soft polymeric matrix. This gives rise to a coupled magneto- and electro-mechanical response at the macroscopic (order of millimeters and larger) scale when they are subjected to magneto- electro-mechanical external stimuli. While such MRE and DEC materials and devices can become unstable at some critical electro-magneto-mechanical loading, their response may be well controlled in the post-instability regime. Moreover, recent advances on the complete electro-magneto-mechanical coupling are presented. All those aforementioned features motivate the operation of these devices in this unstable region to obtain controlled pattern formation, soft robotic motion and artificial muscles, controllable band-gap acoustic and electromagnetic properties, energy harvesting as well as actively controlled stiffness (for cell-growth). The book contains four individual chapters covering work on the fundamentals (O. Lopez-Pamies) and the modeling (M. Gei) of electroactive solids, the modeling of magnetoactive solids (K. Danas), and the analysis of elastic instabilities (Y. Fu).

This book covers the latest developments in sustainable textiles and how they can help mitigate the fashion industry's environmental impact. It focuses on innovative textile production approaches by prioritizing eco-friendly materials, responsible sourcing, ethical manufacturing practices, using cutting-edge technology to create textiles that are not only sustainable but also high-performing and durable. This book further explores the wide range of possibilities for reducing the fashion industry's environmental impact, from natural dyeing techniques to biodegradable fibers. This book will be of interest to students, researchers, fashion industry professionals, environmentalists and anyone who is interested in learning more about sustainable fashion.

This book offers an in-depth investigation into the complexities of long-term structural health monitoring (SHM) in civil structures, specifically focusing on the challenges posed by small data and environmental and operational changes (EOCs). Traditional contact-based sensor networks in SHM produce large amounts of data, complicating big data management. In contrast, synthetic aperture radar (SAR)-aided SHM often faces challenges with small datasets and limited displacement data. Additionally, EOCs can mimic the structural damage, resulting in false errors that can critically affect economic and safety issues. Addressing these challenges, this book introduces seven advanced unsupervised learning methods for SHM, combining AI, data sampling, and statistical analysis. These include techniques for managing datasets and addressing EOCs.

This book provides a comprehensive study of structural design and optimization of different truss structures for size, shape, and topology of structure. It describes truss optimization based on into three categories: size optimization, shape optimization, and topology optimization.

This book provides the state-of-the art of the present understanding of avalanche phenomena in both functional materials and geophysics. The main emphasis of the book is analyzing these apparently different problems within the common perspective of out-of-equilibrium phenomena displaying spatial and temporal complexity that occur in a broad range of scales. Many systems, when subjected to an external force, respond intermittently in the form of avalanches that often span over a wide range of sizes, energies and durations. This is often related to a class of critical behavior characterized by the absence of characteristic scales. Typical examples are magnetization processes, plastic deformation and failure occuring in functional materials. These phenomena share many similarities with seismicity arising from the earth crust failure due to stresses that originate from plate tectonics.

This book is a useful source of knowledge for engineers and scientists in the field of mechanics of deformation and destruction of composite materials.