A newly developed method of producing nanofibers, called forcespinning, has proven to be a viable alternative to mass produce nanofibers. Unlike electrospinning, the most common method currently being employed (which draws fibers through the use of electrostatic force), forcespinning utilizes centrifugal forces which allow for a host of new materials to be processed into nanofibers (given that electric fields are not required) while also providing a significant increase in yield and ease of production. This work presents a detailed explanation of the fiber formation process. The study is conducted using high speed photography to capture the jet initiation process at the orifice and to track the trajectories of the resulting jets. The effects that influential controllable parameters have on the fiber trajectories and final fiber diameters are presented. The forcespinning controllable parameters include the spinneret angular velocity and aspect ratio, orifice radius and orientation, fluid viscoelasticity and surface tension, fluid fill level, solvent evaporation rate, temperature, and distance of spinneret orifice to collector. V

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Currently, railroad bearing temperatures are monitored using wayside infrared devices known as hot-box detectors (HBDs). HBDs take a snapshot of the bearing temperature at designated wayside detection sites which, depending on the track, may be spaced as far apart as 65 km (∼40 mi). Even though these devices have significantly reduced the number of derailments since their implementation, their discrete nature and limited accuracy prevents them from being utilized as a bearing health monitoring system. Future technologies are focusing on continuous temperature tracking of bearings. Since placing sensors directly on the bearing cup is not feasible due to cup indexing during service, the next logical location for such sensors is the bearing adapter. Understanding the thermal behavior of bearing adapters during operation is essential for sensor selection and placement within the adapter (e.g., typical temperature sensors have operating ranges of up to 125°C). To this end, this paper quantifies the steady-state heat transfer to the bearing adapter through a series of experiments and finite element analyses. The commercial software package ALGOR 20.3™ is used to conduct the thermal finite element analyses. Different heating scenarios are simulated with the purpose of obtaining the bearing adapter temperature distribution during normal and abnormal operating conditions. This paper presents an experimentally validated finite element thermal model which can be used to attain temperature distribution maps of bearing adapters in service conditions. These maps are useful for identifying ideal locations for sensor placement.

In the railroad industry, distressed bearings in service are primarily identified using wayside hot-box detectors (HBDs). Current technology has expanded the role of these detectors to monitor bearings that appear to “warm trend” relative to the average temperatures of the remainder of bearings on the train. Several bearings set-out for trending and classified as nonverified, meaning no discernible damage, revealed that a common feature was discoloration of rollers within a cone (inner race) assembly. Subsequent laboratory experiments were performed to determine a minimum temperature and environment necessary to reproduce these discolorations and concluded that the discoloration is most likely due to roller temperatures greater than 232 °C (450 °F) for periods of at least 4 h. The latter finding sparked several discussions and speculations in the railroad industry as to whether it is possible to have rollers reaching such elevated temperatures without heating the bearing cup (outer race) to a temperature significant enough to trigger the HBDs. With this motivation, and based on previous experimental and analytical work, a thermal finite element analysis (FEA) of a railroad bearing pressed onto an axle was conducted using ALGOR 20.3™. The finite element (FE) model was used to simulate different heating scenarios with the purpose of obtaining the temperatures of internal components of the bearing assembly, as well as the heat generation rates and the bearing cup surface temperature. The results showed that, even though some rollers can reach unsafe operating temperatures, the bearing cup surface temperature does not exhibit levels that would trigger HBD alarms.