Membrane distillation is a process that utilizes differences in vapor pressure to permeate water through a macro-porous membrane and reject other non-volatile constituents present in the influent water. This review considers the fundamental heat and mass transfer processes in membrane distillation, recent advances in membrane technology, module configurations, and the applications and economics of membrane distillation, and identifies areas that may lead to technological improvements in membrane distillation as well as the application characteristics required for commercial deployment. Keywordsa function of temperature, vapor pressure, and of the gas molecular mass K 0 membrane characteristic defined by Equation (9) Kn Knudsen number K(T) a function of temperature and molecular weight of the gas l mean free path of the molecules l m distance between parallel spacer fibres (m) LEP Limit Entry Pressure (kPa) M molecular mass (g/mol) M w molecular weights of water (g/mol) M a molecular weights of air (g/mol) n number of CNTs per unit cross section in bucky-paper P pressure in the air gap (kPa) half time to reach the maximum intensity-laser flash technique (s) t proportion of conductive heat (balance due to evaporative heat) loss through the membrane T mean temperature in the pores (K)

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The 2000 NEHRP Provisions include simplified methods of analysis of inelastic buildings equipped with linear viscous, nonlinear viscous, and hysteretic damping devices. These methods are based in part on the data presented in the paper. Nonlinear response-history analysis was used to validate the methods. The derivation of the 2000 NEHRP simplified methods for calculating the maximum acceleration and maximum velocity in damped framing systems are presented. These simplified methods produce exact or conservative estimates of peak displacement and peak acceleration, and reasonable estimates of peak velocities. The estimated velocities are within 25% of the average values obtained from response-history analysis for a broad range of periods and damping ratios. Velocity correction factors are provided to calculate peak velocity given the pseudo-velocity.

Wave propagation was investigated in the Bouligand-like structure from within the dactyl club of the stomatopod, a crustacean that is known to smash their heavily shelled preys with high accelerations. We incorporate the layered nature in a unitary material cell through the propagator matrix formalism while the periodic nature of the material is considered via Bloch boundary conditions as applied in the theory of solid state physics. Our results show that these materials exhibit bandgaps at frequencies related to the stress pulse generated by the impact of the dactyl club to its prey, and therefore exhibiting wave filtering in addition to the already known mechanisms of macroscopic isotropic behavior and toughness.

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