Morphological and chemical classification of fine particles over the Yellow Sea during spring, 2015-2018.

Airborne fine particles can affect climate change and human health; moreover, they can be transported over significant distances. However, studies on characteristics of individual particles and their morphology, elemental composition, aging processes, and spatial distribution after long-range transport over the Yellow Sea are limited. Therefore, in this study, we conducted shipborne measurements of fine particulate matter of less than 2.5 µm in diameter (PM2.5) over the Yellow Sea and classified the individual particles into seven types based on their morphology and composition. Overall, the percentage of organic-rich particles was the highest, followed by that of sea spray, sulfur-rich, dust, metals, fly ash, soot, and other particles. Near Shandong, China, the percentage of fly ash and sulfur-rich particles increased, while an increased percentage of only sulfur-rich particles was observed near the Korean Peninsula. In the open sea, the PM2.5 concentrations were the lowest, and sea spray particles predominated. During the cruises, three types (Types 1, 2, and 3) of events with substantially increased PM2.5 concentrations occurred, each with different dominant particles. Type 1 events frequently featured air masses from northern China and Mongolia with high wind speeds and increased dust particles. Type 2 events involved air masses from China with high wind speeds; fly ash, soot, organic-rich particles, and the sulfate percentage in PM2.5 increased. Type 3 events displayed stagnant conditions and local transport (from Korea); soot, dust particles, and the secondary sulfate and nitrate percentages in PM2.5 increased. Thus, different types of transport affected concentrations and dominant types of fine particles over the Yellow Sea during spring.

Note: Vibration suppression using tunable vibration absorber based on stiffness variable magneto-rheological gel.

This paper proposes a novel adaptive tunable vibration absorber (TVA) based on a smart material the magnetorheological gel (MRG) to achieve a wide range of tonal vibration suppression on the primary system to protect any connected sensitive device. The vibration suppression performance of the MRG TVA was analyzed by conducting a modal test of the primary system under different magnetic fields. The experiment verified that the proposed MRG TVA can be controlled to produce 379% of stiffness change or 115% of tuning frequency under just 200 mT magnetic field. The proposed MRG TVA was found to possess a wider tuning frequency range than the TVA based on other smart material such as magnetorheological elastomer.