Liquefaction evaluation at a California substation site

A probabilistic seismic hazard analysis, in conjunction with subsurface geologic investigations, was used to evaluate the liquefaction potential of sand layers at Western Area Power Adminstration's Tracy, California, substation site. The seismic hazard analysis evaluates the peak ground acceleration corresponding to a lower level earthquake with a 50-percent probability of occurrence in 150 years, and two upper level earthquakes with a 10-percent probability of occurrence in 50 and 100 years. Based on the results of the geologic investigations and seismologic studies, it was concluded that the potential of liquefaction at the site for the design earthquakes was low     

Pulsatile ocular blood flow variations with axial length and refractive error

Benign symmetric lipomatosis (BSL), also known as Madelung's disease, is a rare condition and characterized by diffuse but painless growth of unencapsulated lipomas. A close correlation to alcohol and nicotine abuse, metabolic disturbances and malignant tumours have been observed. Surgical treatment is frequently followed by recurrence, nevertheless, it can yield satisfactory functional and cosmetic results. A case of BSL with uncommonly distributed tumors is reported.     

Optimum expansion planning of an unconventional generation systemoperating in parallel with a large scale network

A package for the long-term optimal expansion planning of a generation system with renewable energy sources operating in parallel with a large-scale network is presented. The algorithm utilizes meteorological data, load demand data, and estimated economical parameters and determines the candidate plans for the expansion period. A forward dynamic programming algorithm is utilized to determine the optimal plan. Results from the application of the method to a local grid are presented     

Bestimmung der Abtragungsraten von Zirconium,Tantal und der Legierung Tantal-40Niob in fluoridhaltiger azeotroper Salpetersäure mit Hilfe der Radiotracer-Methode

The radiotracer technique as a means to investigate the corrosion of zirconium, tantalum, and a Ta-40Nb alloy in fluoride containing azeotropic nitric acid Zirconium and tantalum as well as the tantalum 40% niobium alloy are of considerable technical importance due to their high corrosion resistance against numerous corrosive media. With respect to corrosion testing in analytically pure azeotropic nitric acid in the temperature range between 20 and 121°C, corrosion rates were determined for zirconium: 7 · 10^?6 to 5 · 10^?4 mm/y, for tantalum: 10^?8 to 4 · 10^?6 mm/y, and for the Ta-40Nb alloy: 2 · 10^?7 to 8 · 10^?6 mm/y [1]. These corrosion rates will be markedly increased by adding small amounts of fluorides or by fluoride impurities. The radiotracer method after neutron activation was applied to determine the corrosion rates in azeotropic fluoride containing nitric acid. Even minute additions of fluorides strongly affect the corrosion resistance of zirconium. In the range between 0.15 and 10 ppm F^? and at a temperature of 108°C, corrosion rates between 5.3 · 10^?3 and 3.1 mm/y were measured. It was impossible to establish a limit for the fluoride concentration, below which the corrosion rate of zirconium will not be adversely influenced. The corrosion rates of tantalum and the Ta-40Nb alloy are considerably increasing above a fluoride concentration of 10 ppm. The highest corrosion rates measured were between 8.4 · 10^?3 mm/y at 50°C/280 ppm F^? and 1.4 · 10^?2 mm/y at 110°C/320 ppm F^?. Within the range of this investigation, the corrosion resistance of tantalum was higher than that of the Ta-40Nb alloy by one order of magnitude. The corrosion resistance of zirconium and tantalum was not influenced by any treatment of the samples before testing.     

Simple digital control improving dynamic performance of powerfactor preregulators

This paper presents the practical implementation of a fully digital control for boost power factor preregulators (PFPs). The control algorithm, which is simple and fast, provides a significant improvement in the system's dynamic performance compared to the usual analog control techniques. The paper discusses the design criteria and the actions taken for the implementation of the digital control, which is performed by means of a standard microcontroller (Siemens 80C166). The effectiveness of the approach is assessed by experimental tests     

Backyard Range-the story of compact, directional low-impedance loopantennas (LILAs) for short-wave broadcast reception

The development of a horizontal version of the tuned, wide-strip low-impedance loop antenna (LILA) for use as a short-wave broadcast receiving antenna is recounted. The horizontal loop antenna (HLA) received the horizontal electric field component of the down-coming sky wave (actually, the projection of the vertical magnetic field component) relatively unattenuated, for elevation angles of arrival up to about 45°, while rejecting the predominantly vertically-polarized ground-wave electric field by 20 to 30 dB     

Lightpath communications: an approach to high bandwidth opticalWAN's

An architectural approach that meets high bandwidth requirements by introducing a communication architecture based on lightpaths, optical transmission paths in the network, is introduced. Since lightpaths form the building block of the proposed architecture, its performance hinges on their efficient establishment and management. It is shown that although the problem of optimally establishing lightpaths is NP-complete, simple heuristics provide near optimal substitutes for several of the basic problems motivated by a lightpath-based architecture