The newly emerged steel plate concrete (SC), benefited from a composite effect of steel and concrete materials, has been applied to shield building and internal structures of AP1000 nuclear power plants. The detection of bond-slip between steel plate and concrete is of great importance to provide early warnings of steel plate and concrete debonding and to ensure the safety of SC structures. In this paper, an active sensing approach using smart aggregates (SAs) is developed to detect the initiation and to monitor the development of bond-slip. A SA, designed by sandwiching a fragile piezoceramic patch between protection materials, can be utilized as both actuator and sensor by taking advantage of the piezoelectricity of piezoceramic material. Two SC beams with distinct shear reinforcement ratios t ( ) r were experimentally investigated. Based on the wavelet packet decomposition of the received signals from SAs, the initiation of bond-slip is detected, and the development of bond-slip is quantitatively monitored to better understand the structural performance of SC beams, including the stiffness and capacity. The bond-slip severities of the two SC beams are compared to study the improvement of bond-slip condition rendered by providing more shear reinforcement.
Photodynamic therapy for deep-lying lesions needs an appropriate imaging modality, precise evaluation of tissue oxygen and an effective photosensitizer. Gadolinium based metalloporphyrins Gd(III)-HMME is proposed in this study as a potential multifunctional theranostic agent, as photosensitizer, ratiometric oxygen sensor and MRI contrast agent. The time resolved spectroscopy revealed the luminescence peak of Gd(III)-HMME at 710 and 779 nm with a lifetime of 64 μs in oxygen-free methanol to be phosphorescent. This phosphorescence is strongly dependent on dissolved oxygen concentration. Its intensity in oxygen saturated methanol solution is 21% of that in deoxygenated solution. The singlet oxygen quantum yields ΦΔ of HMME and Gd(III)-HMME in air saturated methanol solution were determined to be 0.79 and 0.40 respectively using comparative spectra method. These phenomena indicate that the oxygen sensibility and production of singlet oxygen of Gd(III)-HMME can fulfill the requirement of PDT treatment.
A quantum cutting mechanism for the sublinear near-IR power dependence property in Tb3+-Yb3+ codoped NaYF4 powders were investigated both experimentally and theoretically. The slopes of Yb3+ luminescence intensity versus excitation power were fitted to be between 0.5 and 1. We have developed a quantum cutting rate equation model to explain the anomalous sublinear phenomenon and an assessment factor was introduced to help understand the physical mechanism. Experimental results showed that the linear downconversion process combined with second-order nonlinear process induced the sublinear power dependence property with the latter to be the dominant process.
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