Development of a fast neutron radiography converter using wavelength-shifting fibers

A fluorescent converter for fast neutron radiography (FNR) comprising a scintillator and hydrogen-rich resin has been developed and applied to electronic imaging. The rate of the reaction between fast neutrons and the converter is increased by thickening the converter, but its opaqueness attenuates emitted light photons before they reach its surface. To improve the luminosity of a fluorescent converter for FNR, a novel type of converter was designed in which wavelength-shifting fibers were adopted to transport radiated light to the observation end face. The performance of the converter was compared with that of a polypropylene-based fluorescent converter in an experiment conducted at the fast-neutron-source reactor YAYOI in the University of Tokyo.     

Implicit integration and consistent tangent modulus of a time‐dependent non‐unified constitutive model

This paper describes the implicit integration and consistent tangent modulus of an inelastic constitutive model with transient and steady strain rates, both of which are time‐ and temperature‐dependent; the transient rate is influenced by the evolution of back stress decomposed into parts, while the steady rate depends only on applied stress and temperature. Such a non‐unified model is useful for high‐temperature structural analysis and is practical owing to the ease in determining material constants. The implicit integration is shown to result in two scalar‐valued coupled equations, and the consistent tangent modulus is derived in a quite versatile form by introducing a set of fourth‐rank constitutive parameters into the discretized evolution rule of back stress. The constitutive model is, then, implemented in a finite element program and applied to a lead‐free solder joint analysis. It is demonstrated that the implicit integration is very accurate if the multilinear kinematic hardening model of Ohno and Wang is employed, and that the consistent tangent modulus certainly affords quadratic convergence to the Newton–Raphson iteration in solving nodal force equilibrium equations. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improvements of the T-Ω method for 3-D eddy currentanalysis

An improved T-Ω method that can analyze magnetic fields produced not only by eddy currents but also by magnetizing currents is proposed. The method is applied to the analysis of 3-D eddy-current models with holes. The usefulness of the method is investigated by comparing calculated results with measured results and with results obtained by the A-Φ method. The T-Ω method has the advantage that the CPU time can be considerably reduced when most of the analyzed region is current-free and the eddy current flows two-dimensionally. The method is especially effective when the shape of the winding is simple and the distribution of magnetizing current is known beforehand. It is not effective when most of the analyzed region is current-carrying     

An important factor affecting synergism on coprocessing of Taiheiyo coal with Athabasca oil sand bitumen

A series of mixtures of Japanese subbituminous Taiheiyo coal and Athabasca oil sand bitumen (AOB) with various coal concentrations (0–100 wt%) was coprocessed in a 70 ml autoclave at 420°C for 1 h in the presence of H₂ (50 kg/cm² at room temperature) and sulfided Ni---Mo/Al₂O₂ catalyst. The mixture containing 2 wt% coal produced the largest amount of hexane soluble fraction (HS) and the smallest amount of benzene insoluble fraction (BI). Thus, a synergistic liquid production occurred for this mixture with 2 wt% coal by suppressing the retrogressive reactions which proceeded for pure AOB. The HS obtained from mixtures with 2–30 wt% showed higher H/C ratios and lower heteroatom contents than those obtained from pure AOB and the mixtures with more than 30 wt% coal. The amounts of transferable hydrogen contained in the mixtures were estimated using anthracene as a hydrogen acceptor. The mixtures with 2–10 wt% coal contained higher amounts of donor hydrogen than pure AOB. The HS yield from the various mixtures was correlated with the amount of donor hydrogens contained in the mixtures, except for the mixture with 10 wt% coal. Thus, the important factor which results in synergism is suggested to be the amount of donor hydrogens contained in the feed mixtures.     

A scheme of picosecond pulse shaping using gain saturationcharacteristics of semiconductor laser amplifiers

To obtain high power, well shaped picosecond pulses from gain-switched semiconductor lasers, the use of dynamic gain saturation characteristics of semiconductor laser amplifiers was investigated theoretically and experimentally. A configuration of a reflected-wave amplifier (RWA) with single-side external coupling is introduced for pulse shaping, which is found to be suitable for enhancing dynamic gain saturation. By a combination of a distributed feedback laser oscillator at 1.3 μm in wavelength and a reflected-wave amplifier of 400 μm cavity length with asymmetric facet reflectivities of 0.01% and 30%, single-mode optical pulses with almost no tailing, full width at half maximum of 15 ps, and peak power exceeding 50 mW were obtained without pulse broadening, despite the considerable tail structure of the incident pulse     

Measurement of aerosol particles by dynamic light scattering-I. effects of non-Gaussian concentration fluctuation in real time photon correlation spectroscopy

Effects of non-Gaussian concentration fluctuations in real time photon correlation spectroscopy were investigated with several sizes of mono-disperse polystyrene latex particles. The non-Gaussian correlation model for a full or a quasi-full (scaled) correlator showed good performance for particle sizing in the case of scaled correlation. The clipped correlation showed an equivalent performance with the scaled correlation except for the case of non-Gaussian fluctuation, where the measured diameter became inaccurate more rapidly with decreasing particle concentration in the scattering volume. The cause of such an instability of PCS in the clipped mode is attributed to baseline fluctuations of the correlogram induced by information loss of the clipped correlator.     

A new voltage control equipment using fuzzy inference

Power system control equipment needs higher sensitivity and operational reliability. Advanced voltage control equipment is needed for reducing the frequency of tap changes and improving the characteristics (the relationship between the actual voltage and reference voltage) of the voltage to meet today's power system requirements. However, these objectives are in a trade-off relationship. Studies of voltage control derived from a knowledge base suitable for electric power systems can satisfy these objectives using fuzzy inference. Compared with corresponding conventional equipment, the new equipment improved the deviation of 30 min average voltage of 30 percent. This paper describes the design concept of new voltage control equipment using fuzzy inference. In addition, field test results are described along with rules of fuzzy inference, membership functions, and the deviation of 30 min average voltage through detailed simulation.     

High-performance carbon counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Here, we reported that a new carbon electrode prepared with an activated carbon was superior to a Pt sputtered electrode as the counter electrode of dye-sensitized solar cells. The photovoltaic performance was largely influenced by the roughness factor of carbon electrode. The open-circuit voltage increased by about 60 mV using the carbon counter electrode compared to the Pt counter electrode because of positive shift of the formal potential for I₃⁻/I⁻ couple.     

Hydrodynamic interaction and coalescence of two droplets under large step shear strains

We observed change in distance between two droplets in each step after application of large multi-step shear strains. Experiments were performed using a sliding plate apparatus. Large step shear strains were applied to two polyisobutylene droplets in poly(dimethyl siloxane) matrix in the same plane between the plates. The distance between the two droplets decreases with increasing the total shear strain, which is given by the product of the step strain magnitude and the number of application of the step strains. The two droplets coalesce when the distance becomes less than the diameter of the droplets. The slope for plots of the distance versus the total strain is independent of the step strain magnitude. This indicates that the effect per unit strain on the distance is the same, irrespective of the strain magnitude. It is suggested that a stronger hydrodynamic interaction between the droplets is the main cause for the droplet approach.