Photoacoustic Thermal Characterization of Porous Rare-Earth Phosphate Ceramics

The laser induced non-destructive photoacoustic technique has been employed to measure the thermal diffusivity of lanthanum phosphate ceramics prepared by the sol–gel route. The thermal diffusivity value was evaluated by knowing the transition frequency between the thermally thin to thermally thick region from the log–log plot of photoacoustic amplitude versus chopping frequency. Analysis of the data was carried out on the basis of the one-dimensional model of Rosencwaig and Gersho. The present investigation reveals that the sintering temperature has great influence on the propagation of heat carriers and hence on the thermal diffusivity value. The results were interpreted in terms of variations in porosity with sintering temperature as well as with changes in grain size.     

A modular algorithm for resource allocation

This paper concerns resource allocation in distributed message passing systems, i.e., the scheduling of accesses to exclusive system resources shared among concurrent processes. An efficient modular resource allocation algorithm is presented that uses any arbitrary resource allocation algorithm as a subroutine. It improves the performance of the subroutine by letting each process wait only for its currently conflicting processes, and therefore, allows more concurrency. For appropriate choices of the subroutine, we obtain resource allocation algorithms with the minimum worst case response times. Simulation studies were conducted which also indicate that on average, the obtained algorithms perform faster and require a smaller number of messages than other previously known algorithms, especially when resource contention among processes is high and the average time that a process remains in the critical region is large. Received: May 1997 / Accepted: May 1998     

Subroutines for some plasma surface interaction processes: physical sputtering, chemical erosion, radiation enhanced sublimation, backscattering and thermal evaporation

A suite of FORTRAN subroutines/functions to generate data using empirical formulas for physical sputtering of mono-atomic targets for any elemental incident ion (atom), chemical erosion of graphite, Radiation Enhanced Sublimation (RES) of graphite, the number and energy backscattering coefficients for any elemental incident ion (atom) on a compound target and thermal evaporation of graphite is presented. Since chemical erosion, RES and thermal evaporation depend on the surface temperature of graphite, a subroutine implementing the 1-D heat diffusion equation to determine the temperature of any plasma-facing graphite surface is implemented. As an example to illustrate the use of these subroutines/functions, a simple model for the erosion of a plasma-facing surface, consisting of a simple collisionless sheath model, a 1-dimensional steady state heat diffusion model and 0-dimensional steady state particle balance at the target is developed and a sample listing of the program is presented.

Program summary

Title of program: Plasma Surface Interaction Codes (PSIC)Catalog identifier: ADTRProgram summary URL:http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/ADTRProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University of Belfast, N. IrelandComputers for which the program has been designed for and others on which it has been tested: Program is designed for any computer with a FORTRAN-77 compiler. It has been tested on a Linux PC with g77, Absoft f77, f90, f95, Fujitsu f95, Lahey f95Operating systems under which the program has been tested: Linux, UNIXProgramming language used: FORTRAN-77Memory required to execute with typical data: Negligible (executable is 178 861 bytes; add to it the memory used by the Fortran library linked to)No. of bits in a word: 16No. of processors used: 1Has the code been vectorized or parallelized?: NoNo. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 11 619No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 1015Distribution format: tar gzip fileNature of physical problems: 0-D plasma surface interaction model used to demonstrate calls to subroutines for physical sputtering yield, chemical erosion yield of graphite, RES of graphite, backscattering coefficients, thermal evaporation of graphite and 1-D heat diffusion in graphite.Method of solution: Semi-empirical formulas are used for the PSIs and analytical formulas are used for thermal evaporation and 1-D heat diffusion in graphite.Restrictions on the complexity of the problem: All the PSIs (except for the backscattering coefficients) are valid only for a monoatomic target. The heat diffusion solution is not valid for non-uniform plasmas and for targets for which the heat diffusion is not isotropic.Typical running time: Example program takes much less than 0.01 secondUniversal features of the program: None     

Correlating Photoluminescence and Photocatalytic Activity of Mixed-phase Nanocrystalline Titania

Mixed-phase nanocrystalline titania with varying rutile-content has been synthesized via solvent mixing and calcination treatment of sol–gel derived nanocrystalline anatase and rutile precursors. The mixed-phase nanocrystalline titania has been characterized using different analytical techniques for analyzing their phase contents, nanocrystallite size distribution, band-gap, and photoluminescence. The photocatalytic activity of mixed-phase nanocrystalline titania has been studied by monitoring the degradation of methylene blue dye in an aqueous solution under ultraviolet-radiation exposure. A strong correlation between photoluminescence and photocatalytic activity has been demonstrated for the mixed-phase nanocrystalline titania.     

Interactions between SiC fibers and a titanium alloy during infrared liquid infiltration

The rapid interaction between SiC fibers (SCS-0) and a liquid titanium alloy has been investigated using an infrared processing technique. Experimental results revealed that disso-lution of the fibers in the alloy occurred within seconds without forming a continuous layer of reaction products at the interface. Thermodynamic analysis indicated that SiC is unstable in the presence of liquid titanium and dissociates into Si and C in the metal. With increasing carbon concentration, TiC will form when the carbon solubility limit in Ti is exceeded. The Ti-rich corner of the Ti-Si-C phase diagram with supercooled liquid Ti at 1300 °C was used to illustrate the tendency of TiC formation in this system. The fiber-matrix interface comprised two distinct morphologies: uniform dissolution fronts and scalloped dissolution fronts. The uniformly dis-solved domains are believed to be caused by an isothermal dissolution mechanism controlled by a zeroth-order chemical reaction, whereas the scalloped interfaces are believed to be caused by an accelerated dissolution mechanism resulting from localized heating. A model employing heat balance and reaction kinetics indicates that the conditions for accelerated dissolution are satisfied by the observed dissolution rates in the scalloped domains.     

Using rapid infrared forming to control interfaces in titanium-matrix composites

Control of the fiber-matrix reaction during composite fabrication is commonly achieved by shortening the processing time, coating the reinforcement with relatively inert materials, or adding alloying elements to retard the reaction. To minimize the processing time, a rapid infrared forming (RIF) technique for metal-matrix composite fabrication has been developed. Experiments have shown that the RIF technique is a quick, simple, and low-cost process to fabricate titanium-alloy matrix composites reinforced with either silicon carbide or carbon fibers. Due to short processing times, typically on the order of 1–2 minutes in an inert atmosphere for composites with up to eight-ply reinforcements, the interfacial reaction is limited and well controlled. Composites fabricated by this technique have mechanical properties that are either comparable to or, in several cases, superior to those made with conventional diffusion-bonding techniques.