An environmentally friendly approach, which consists in coupling a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) based atmospheric plasma treatment with a coating of an aqueous phase polyurethane dispersion (PUD) containing blocked polyisocyanates, is proposed to improve the adhesion of a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) film onto a poly-(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) textile fabric. In this study, a screening digital design of experiment plan (DOE) was developed to determine the influence of process parameters on the adhesion between film and fabric and to evaluate the best possible adhesion value. The process parameters considered are: the dielectric barrier discharge power, the speed of the fabric undergoing the treatment, the concentration of polyisocyanates (NCO) in the PUD and the air gap. The adhesion was measured by a peeling test and further scanning electron microscope observations were carried out. Results showed that an increase of both the processing power and the NCO content in PUD, as well as the decrease in the DBD speed, had a positive effect on the adhesion. In addition, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and contact angle measurements demonstrated an increase in the oxygen/carbon atomic percentage ratio between the reference fabric and the treated fabric. Thus, the calibrated oxidation of the PET treated with DBD plasma treatment leads to a greater chemical and physical interaction with the TPU film, which results in better film-fabric adhesion.

Chitooligosaccharides with degree of polymerization from 5 to 15 have been modified with different lipophilic chains, from fatty epoxide to fatty acids. Their interfacial properties such as critical micellar concentrations, interfacial rheology and interfacial tension were studied to establish structure-properties relationships. Their ability to self-assemble as well as their micellar shape were assessed by light scattering (dynamic and static) and transmission electron microscopic analyses. Finally, their emulsion stabilities and rheological properties were evaluated with Turbiscan and allow the conclusion that 1% (w/w) DP10 oligomers modified with Tall oil fatty acid was able to stabilize oil in water emulsions (60/40 w/w) for at least 55 days.

This paper is devoted to the investigation of the density sorting of grains using water jigging. Experiments achieved in a laboratory scale water jig for two initial binary bed configurations are studied and compared to numerical results. The vertical composition of the deposit is estimated after different number of water pulses to represent the sorting evolution in time. Simulations are based on a multiscale model in which the fluid is solved at a larger scale than the grain diameter using the finite element method, while the grains are considered as rigid bodies and solved using the nonsmooth contact dynamics. Key parameters are numerically varied and observed to determine the sensitivity of the process.

The use of bio-based concretes performed with lignocellulosic aggregates constitute an interesting solution for reducing the energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and CO 2 generated by the building sector. Indeed, bio-based materials could be used as an alternative of traditional materials such as expended polystyrene and mineral resources (e.g. glass and rock wools) for insulation. Furthermore, these bio-based concretes are known for their interesting insulation properties, indeed they allow to enhance thermal properties of buildings and enables moisture management which lead to design efficient building materials. For this purpose, bio-based concrete using rice straw as aggregate are studied in this present work. The impact of the characteristics of rice straw particle (particle size distribution, bulk density, and water absorption capacity, etc.) on both the mechanical and thermal properties of the bio-based concrete are investigated. Five formulations of rice straw concrete are examined, compared and then classified in terms of insulation properties and mechanical properties. The assessments are based on the measurement of density and thermal conductivity. The variation of compressive strength in function of the characteristics (mean particle length) of rice straw particle are assessed and discussed. The investigation covers also the porosity and density. Tests are also carried out on agricultural by-products with a view to highlight their chemical, physical and structural proprieties. The results show that the use of large particles with low water absorption capacity induce lighter concretes with the density between 339 and 505 kg/m3 and lead to a high compressive strength with a high mechanical deformability. Furthermore, it appears that an increase in the average length of rice straw particle lead to decrease of thermal conductivity of bio-based concretes. It varies from 0.062 to 0.085 W/(m.K).

Since both the yield stress and bleeding originate from the network of interacting cement particles, their correlation seems to be possible. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existence of this correlation by varying solid volume fraction of cement paste. The static yield stress measurements were carried out using a traditional rheological test, and bleeding was determined by turbidimetry measurements. It appears that the correlation between yield stress and bleeding depends strongly on the solid volume fraction.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of the settling behaviour of sediment particles during resuspension on the mobilisation of pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Sediments were collected in different areas (basin, channel, beach) of a Mediterranean harbour, located in the south of France (the Grau du Roi harbour), and then separated into different size fractions: large (80–1000 μm), intermediate (40–80 μm), and fine (< 40 μm). Total PAHs concentrations in the initial sediment ranged from 320 to 1043 μg kg-1. Study of the settling behaviour of the PAH-contaminated sediment revealed two sedimentation regimes: sedimentation by mass, which exhibits a sharp interface between the supernatant and the deposit, and sedimentation by clarification with no interface. It appears that sediment particles settle either by the clarification regime or by a combination of the two sedimentation regimes, depending on the size fraction. Particle size distribution monitoring during the settling process allowed the identification of sediment particles less than 20 μm which remain in the water column up to 20 min after resuspension and appear to be the ones that can potentially mobilise PAHs.

This paper is devoted to the construction of a new fast-to-evaluate model for the prediction of 2D crack paths in concrete-like microstructures. The model generates piecewise linear cracks paths with segmentation points selected using a Markov chain model. The Markov chain kernel involves local indicators of mechanical interest and its parameters are learnt from numerical full-field 2D simulations of craking using a cohesive-volumetric finite element solver called XPER. The resulting model exhibits a drastic improvement of CPU time in comparison to simulations from XPER.