Simplified Numerical Model for Determining Load-Bearing Capacity of Steel-Wire Ropes.

Steel-wire rope is a mechanical component that has versatile uses and on which human lives depend. One of the basic parameters that serve to describe the rope is its load-bearing capacity. The static load-bearing capacity is a mechanical property characterized by the limit static force that the rope is able to endure before it breaks. This value depends mainly on the cross-section and the material of the rope. The load-bearing capacity of the entire rope is obtained in tensile experimental tests. This method is expensive and sometimes unavailable due to the load limit of testing machines. At present, another common method uses numerical modeling to simulate an experimental test and evaluates the load-bearing capacity. The finite element method is used to describe the numerical model. The general procedure for solving engineering tasks of load-bearing capacity is by using the volume (3D) elements of a finite element mesh. The computational complexity of such a non-linear task is high. Due to the usability of the method and its implementation in practice, it is necessary to simplify the model and reduce the calculation time. Therefore, this article deals with the creation of a static numerical model which can evaluate the load-bearing capacity of steel ropes in a short time without compromising accuracy. The proposed model describes wires using beam elements instead of volume elements. The output of modeling is the response of each rope to its displacement and the evaluation of plastic strains in the ropes at selected load levels. In this article, a simplified numerical model is designed and applied to two constructions of steel ropes, namely the single strand rope 1 × 37 and multi-strand rope 6 × 7-WSC.

The determination of cystatin C in biological samples via the surface plasmon resonance method.

Surface plasmon resonance imaging biosensors have a number of advantages that make them superior to other analytical methods. These include the possibility of label-free detection, speed and high sensitivity to low protein concentrations. The aim of this study was to create and analyze biochips, with the help of which it is possible to test cystatin C in patient urine samples and compare the results with the one-time traditional ELISA method. The main advantage of the surface plasmon resonance imaging method is the possibility of repeated measurements over a long period of time in accordance with clinical practice. The surface of the biochip was spotted with anticystatin C and a negative control of mouse IgG at a ratio of 1:1. The aforementioned biochip was first verified using standard tests and then with patient samples, which clearly confirmed the required sensitivity even for very low concentrations of cystatin C.

Design of Plasmonic-Waveguiding Structures for Sensor Applications.

Surface plasmon resonance has become a widely accepted optical technique for studying biological and chemical interactions. Among others, detecting small changes in analyte concentration in complex solutions remains challenging, e.g., because of the need of distinguishing the interaction of interest from other effects. In our model study, the resolution ability of plasmonic sensing element was enhanced by two ways. Besides an implementation of metal-insulator-metal (MIM) plasmonic nanostructure, we suggest concatenation with waveguiding substructure to achieve mutual coupling of surface plasmon polariton (SPP) with an optical waveguiding mode. The dependence of coupling conditions on the multilayer parameters was analyzed to obtain optimal field intensity enhancement.

Evidence of Tetrahedrally Coordinated Nickel Cations in Nanostructured NiFe2O4.

Nanostructured nickel ferrite (NiFe2O4) is prepared via high-energy ball milling of the bulk counterpart at ambient temperature. The structure of the as-prepared nanoferrite is characterized by Raman spectroscopy and 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy. Due to the ability of these spectroscopic techniques to probe the local environment of ions, valuable complementary insight into the nature of the local structural disorder of nanosized NiFe2O4 is provided. For the first time, evidence is given of the tetrahedrally coordinated nickel cations in the nanomaterial.