Solubility of helium in melts of the metallic glass system Pd-Ni-P and in related systems

Glass melts of the metallic alloy system Pd_10–70Ni_10–70P_14–26 were saturated with helium gas during the melt-spinning process. Some melts with platinum substituted for palladium; manganese, iron or cobalt for nickel; and boron for phosphorus could also be saturated. The helium could be extracted from the glasses and the amount of gas was quantitatively measured with a mass spectrometer. The helium solubilities, obtained between 750 and 1250° C, varied between about 2 and 45 (l He per mol glass) (T/273). These solubilities turned out to be strongly composition-dependent. This fact is discussed in terms of different short-range order structure units which are directly related to the free volume available for the gas solution process.     

Polymer melt elongation—methods,results, and recent developments

For film blowing of polyethylene it has been shown previously that melt elongation is very powerful for polymer characterization. With two types of rheometers, simple (also called “uniaxial”) elongational tests as well as creep tests can be performed homogeneously. In simple elongation, the melts of branched polyethylene show a remarkable strain hardening. With respect to their advantages and disadvantages, these rheometers complement each other. For multiaxial elongations the various modes of deformation can be performed by means of the rotary clamp technique. With the strain rate components ordered such that \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \dot \varepsilon $\end{document}₁₁ ? \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \dot \varepsilon $\end{document}₂₂ ≥ \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \dot \varepsilon $\end{document}₃₃, the ratio m = \documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \dot \varepsilon $\end{document}₂₂/\documentclass{article}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$ \dot \varepsilon $\end{document}₁₁ characterizes the test mode. The Stephenson definition of the elongational viscosities makes use of the linear viscoelastic material equation and proves to be very efficient because the linear shear viscosity (t) (“stressing” viscosity) can act as the reference for the nonlinear behavior in elongation. Results are given for polyisobutylene measured not only in simple, equibiaxial, and planar elongations, but also in new test modes with a change of m during the deformation. This allows one to investigate the consequences of a deformation-induced anisotropy of the rheological behavior.     

聚乙烯与聚丙烯单组分复合材料研究进展

综述了聚乙烯、聚丙烯单组分复合材料的发展概况及最新研究动态。介绍了熔融膜压法、粉末浸渍法、溶液浸渍法三类制备聚乙烯单组分复合材料的传统方法。重点介绍了热压法、共挤出热压法两类制备单组分复合材料的创新方法。分析了各制备方法的优缺点:熔融法、粉末法与溶液法效率均较低且复合材料中纤维含量较少,力学性能不佳;热压法由于初始材料为100％纤维,从而综合效率较高,力学性能良好,缺点为加工温度过于苛刻;共挤出热压法效率较高,在具有高的增强相含量的同时拥有较宽的加工温度范围,缺点为增强相强度需进一步提高。最后介绍了单组分复合材料的应用并对其研究与应用前景作了展望。     

A Distributed O(1)-Approximation Algorithm for the Uniform Facility Location Problem

We investigate a metric facility location problem in a distributed setting. In this problem, we assume that each point is a client as well as a potential location for a facility and that the opening costs for the facilities and the demands of the clients are uniform. The goal is to open a subset of the input points as facilities such that the accumulated cost for the whole point set, consisting of the opening costs for the facilities and the connection costs for the clients, is minimized. We present a randomized distributed algorithm that computes in expectation an ${\mathcal {O}}(1)$ -approximate solution to the metric facility location problem described above. Our algorithm works in a synchronous message passing model, where each point is an autonomous computational entity that has its own local memory and that communicates with the other entities by message passing. We assume that each entity knows the distance to all the other entities, but does not know any of the other pairwise distances. Our algorithm uses three rounds of all-to-all communication with message sizes bounded to $\mathcal{O}(\log(n))$ bits, where n is the number of input points. We extend our distributed algorithm to constant powers of metric spaces. For a metric exponent ?≥1, we obtain a randomized ${\mathcal {O}}(1)$ -approximation algorithm that uses three rounds of all-to-all communication with message sizes bounded to $\mathcal{O}(\log(n))$ bits.     

Blocking Grain Boundaries in Yttria-Doped and Undoped Ceria Ceramics of High Purity

CeO₂ samples doped with 10, 1.0, and 0.1 mol% Y₂O₃ and undoped CeO₂ samples of high purity were studied by impedance spectroscopy at temperatures <800°C and under various oxygen partial pressures. According to microstructural investigations by SEM and analytical STEM (equipped with EDXS), the grain boundaries were free of any second phase, providing direct grain-to-grain contacts. An amorphous siliceous phase was detected at only a few triple junctions, if at all; as a result, its contribution to the grain-boundary resistance was negligible. Nevertheless, the specific grain-boundary conductivities were still 2–7 orders of magnitude lower than the bulk conductivities, depending on dopant concentration, temperature, and oxygen partial pressure. The charge carrier transport across the grain boundaries occurred only through the grain-to-grain contacts, whose properties were then determined by the space-charge layer. The space-charge potential in acceptor-doped CeO₂ was positive, causing the simultaneous depletion of oxygen vacancies and accumulation of electrons in the space-charge layer. The very low grain-boundary conductivities can be accounted for by the oxygen-vacancy depletion; the accumulation of electrons became evident in weakly doped and undoped CeO₂ at high temperatures and under low oxygen partial pressures.     

Wiederaufarbeitung von Kernbrennstoffen

Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels . The present waste disposal concept for nuclear power plant requires the rapid construction of a reprocessing plant in the Federal Republic of Germany, with the location still being uncertain (Bavaria or Lower Saxony). The task of such a plant will consist in recovering usable nuclear fuels and processing them to new fuel elements. Waste materials are prepared for final disposal. The components of the plant are presented with their design data, associated development plans are discussed, and changes with respect to former plans, in particular the maintenance concept, are outlined. The article also reports the present status of the licensing procedure and current planning.     

Polymerization of liquid propylene with a fourth‐generation Ziegler–Natta catalyst: Influence of temperature,hydrogen, monomer concentration,and prepolymerization method on powder morphology

Liquid propylene was polymerized in a 5‐L autoclave batch reactor using a commercially available TiCl₄/MgCl₂/Al(ethyl)₃/DCPDMS Ziegler–Natta catalyst, with a phthalate ester as internal electron donor. The powders from these polymerizations were characterized using laser diffraction particle size distribution (PSD) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and bulk density measurements. These characteristics were analyzed as a function of the process conditions, including hydrogen and monomer concentration, polymerization temperature, and the prepolymerization method. It was shown that polymerization temperature influences the powder morphology to a large extent. At low temperatures, high‐density particles were obtained, showing regular shaped particle surfaces and low porosities. With increasing temperature, the morphology gradually was transferred into a more open structure, with irregular surfaces and poor replication of the shape of the catalyst particle. When using a prepolymerization step at a relatively low temperature, the morphology obtained was determined by this prepolymerization step and was independent from conditions in main polymerization. The morphology obtained was the same as that observed after a full polymerization at temperature. Even when using a short polymerization at an increasing temperature, the morphology was strongly influenced by the initial conditions. The effect of variation in hydrogen concentration supported the conclusion that the initial polymerization rate determines the powder morphology. In the absence of hydrogen, high bulk densities, and regularly shaped particles were obtained, even at high temperatures. With increasing hydrogen concentration, the reaction rates increased rapidly, and with that changed the morphology. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 87: 1421–1435, 2003