Assessment of the Tumbling-Snake Model against Linear and Nonlinear Rheological Data of Bidisperse Polymer Blends

Coupling Effect of LDPE Molecular Chain Structure and Additives on the Rheological Behaviors of Cable Insulating Materials

The rheological behaviors of low-density polyethylene doped with additives (PEDA) determine the dynamic extrusion molding and structure of high-voltage cable insulation. However, the coupling effect of additives and molecular chain structure of LDPE on the rheological behaviors of PEDA is still unclear. Here, for the first time, the rheological behaviors of PEDA under uncross-linked conditions are revealed by experiment and simulation analysis, as well as rheology models. The rheology experiment and molecular simulation results indicate that additives can reduce the shear viscosity of PEDA, but the effect degree of different additives on rheological behaviors is determined by both chemical composition and topological structure. Combined with experiment analysis and the Doi-Edwards model, it demonstrates that the zero-shear viscosity is only determined by LDPE molecular chain structure. Nevertheless, different molecular chain structures of LDPE have different coupling effects with additives on the shear viscosity and non-Newtonian feature. Given this, the rheological behaviors of PEDA are predominant by the molecular chain structure of LDPE and are also affected by additives. This work can provide an important theoretical basis for the optimization and regulation of rheological behaviors of PEDA materials used for high-voltage cable insulation.

Adoption of Snake Variable Model-Based Method in Segmentation and Quantitative Calculation of Cardiac Ultrasound Medical Images

This paper intends to explore the effect of the enhanced snake variable model in the segmentation of cardiac ultrasound images and its adoption in quantitative measurement of cardiac cavity. First, the basic principles of the traditional snake model and the gradient vector flow (GVF) snake model are explained. Then, an ellipsoid model is constructed to obtain the initial contour of the heart based on the three-dimensional volume of cardiac ultrasound image, and a discretized triangular mesh model is generated. Finally, the vortical gradient vector flow (VGVF) external force field is introduced and combined with the greedy algorithm to process the deformation of the initial ellipsoid contour of the heart. The segmentation effect is quantitatively evaluated regarding the area overlap rate (AOR) and the mean contour distance (MCD). The results show that the VGVF snake model can segment the deep recessed area of the "U-shaped map" in contrast to the traditional snake model and the GVF snake model. After being applied to ultrasonic image segmentation, the VGVF snake model obtains the segmentation result that is close to the doctor's manual segmentation result, and the average AOR and MCD are 97.4% and 3.2, respectively. The quantitative evaluation of the cardiac cavity is carried out based on the segmentation results, and the measurement of the volume change of the left ventricle within a cardiac cycle is realized. To sum up, VGVF snake model is superior to the traditional snake and GVF snake models in terms of ultrasonic image segmentation, which realizes the three-dimensional segmentation and quantitative calculation of the cardiac cavity.