Possible Existence of Dense Ferrimagnetic Perovskite Allotropic Form of Yttrium Iron Garnet

Mixed oxides with the same chemical composition as yttrium iron garnet (YIG) were maintained at 900°C and 20 kbars for 30 min. X-ray diffraction showed that the product was single-phase. Since the diffraction pattern could be indexed as a structure similar to yttrium ortho-ferrite, YFeO₃, the product was considered to be a deformed type of perovskite. Subsequently, the lattice constants were calculated to be a = 5.27, b = 5.57, and c = 7.59 A. Both measured and calculated densities were about 6% greater than those of YIG. This material, therefore, can be called a dense allotropic form of YIG. Ferrimagnetism was observed in this phase; the Curie temperature and the magnetic moment at room temperature were estimated to be 625° C and 63 emu/g, respectively. This dense form converted to YIG on heating at 900° C for 4 hr in air. The transformation of YIG to a dense form at high pressures is inconsistent with the results reported by Marezio et al. Some possible reasons for this discrepancy are discussed.     

PERCEPTION OF GRITTINESS IN AN OIL-IN-WATER EMULSION

Microcrystalline cellulose was dispersed as a gritty substance in an emulsion, and sensory evaluation was conducted to examine the effect of the presence of oil on grittiness felt in the mouth. Samples were prepared with three types of microcrystalline cellulose of average particle size 14, 38, and 76 μm and with a concentration in water of 0.03–2.7%, with three types of emulsion with an oil-volume fraction of 0.2–0.7, and with three rates of homogenization of 500–15,000 rpm. The flow behavior and loss modulus of each sample were measured and sensory evaluation was made of the perceived grittiness. A multiple regression analysis of the data shows that the proportion of people who could perceive grittiness was influenced by the following factors and in that order: concentration of microcrystalline cellulose, oil droplet size, loss modulus, and particle size of microcrystalline cellulose. The proportion of people who perceived grittiness also increased with increasing oil droplet size. This was conceivably caused by the uneven distribution of microcrystalline cellulose particles promoted by large oil droplets. An equation was developed relating the proportion of people perceiving grittiness to the physical properties of the sample. The result indicates that factors effecting grittiness perception are identical for emulsions, aqueous suspensions, viscous suspensions and gels, studied previously.     

EFFECT OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF FOOD PARTICLES ON THE DEGREE OF GRAININESS PERCEIVED IN THE MOUTH

Nineteen food materials were pulverized and passed through standard sieves to prepare samples with different particle sizes (23–500 μm). Each sample was tested for physical properties, and sensory evaluation tests were conducted to obtain the graininess threshold value and the degree of graininess discrimination. The graininess threshold value tended to decrease and the degree of graininess discrimination tended to increase with increasing degree of circularity, with decreasing solubility, with decreasing water absorption rate- particle size coefficient, and with increasing WK₂/K₁. The degree of graininess discrimination tended to increase with increasing particle size and increasing WK₂. With a multiple-regression analysis, the graininess threshold value was expressed by six physical properties, and the degree of graininess discrimination was expressed by eight physical properties, each with high contribution rates.     

抗晶间腐蚀奥氏体不锈钢的晶界工程

Sensitization by chromium depletion due to chromium carbide precipitation at grain boundaries in austenitic stainless steels can not be prevented perfectly only by previous conventional techniques, such as reduction of carbon content, stabilization-treatment, local solution-heat-treatment, etc. Recent studies on grain boundary structure have revealed that the sensitization depends strongly on grain boundary character and atomic structure, and that low energy grain boundaries such a~ coincidence-site-lattice (CSL) boundaries have strong resistance to intergranular corrosion. The concept of grain boundary design and control has been developed as grain boundary engineering (GBE). GBEed materials are characterized by high frequencies of CSL boundaries which are resistant to intergranular deterioration of materials, such as intergranular corrosion. A thermomechanical treatment was tried to improve the resistance to the sensitization by GBE. A type 304 austenitic stainless steel was cold-rolled and solution-heat-treated, and then sensitization-heat-treated. The grain boundary character distribution was examined by orientation imaging microscopy (OIM). The intergranular corrosion resistance was evaluated by electrochemical potentiokinetic reactivation (EPR) and ferric sulfate-sulfuric acid tests. The sensitivity to intergranular corrosion was reduced by the thermomechanical treatment and indicated a minimum at a small roll-reduction The frequency of CSL boundaries indicated a maximum at the small reduction. The ferric sulfate-sulfuric acid test showed much smaller corrosion rate in the thermomechanical-treated specimen than in the base material. A high density of annealing twins were observed in the thermomechanical-treated specimen. The results suggdst that the therrmomechanical treatment can introduce low energy segments in the grain boundary network by annealing twins and can arrest the percolation of intergranular corrosion from the surface. The effects of carbon content and other minor elements on optimization in grain boundary character distribution (GBCD) and thermomechanical parameters were also examined during GBE.     

Design and Efficiency Evaluation of a High‐Efficiency Induction Motor for Railway Traction

In commuter trains, a large portion of the energy consumption is a result of losses from traction motors. Therefore, highly efficient traction motors would be very effective for saving energy. We developed an induction motor with a high efficiency of 95.5%. This paper presents the design and an efficiency evaluation of a prototype machine.     

A Commutation Overlap Period Reduction Method Expanding the Buck Operating Range for a Bidirectional Isolated DC–DC Converter

This paper proposes a bidirectional isolated DC–DC converter with an active clamp circuit and two novel control methods in the buck mode. A circulating current reduction method decreases the conduction loss. A commutation overlap period reduction method maintains the output power by expanding the maximum actual duty cycle even if the input voltage decreases. The experimental results show that the proposed method increased the maximum output 1.5 times, without increasing the voltage applied to the low‐voltage side MOSFETs under the minimum input voltage condition. A 2‐kW class prototype showed a higher than 90% efficiency over a wide operating range for a greater than 20 input–output voltage ratio at 100‐kHz switching frequency.     

Melting Behavior of Gels Prepared from Isolated Subunits of Collagen

Acid-soluble collagen (ASC) was prepared from fresh pigskin corium, and denatured under mild conditions to obtain a mixture of parent gelatins. The mixture was precipitated with ammonium sulfate and preliminarily fractionated into four fractions by step-wise redissolution in ammonium sulfate solutions of decreasing concentration. From these fractions, substantially pure α1, α2, β₁₁, and β₁₂ peptide chains could be obtained by CM-cellulose ion-exchange chromatography. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) of the melting process of these peptide gels demonstrated that the thermal stability of α2-gel was very much lower than that of α1-gel.     

Proteinaceous Surfactants Produced from Gelatin by Enzymatic Modification: Evaluation for Their Functionality

Proteinaceous surfactants were prepared by applying the “one-step process” which permitted covalent incorporation of amino acid esters directly into proteins during treatment with papain. Gelatin was used as a hydrophile and n-alkyl esters of L-leucine as lipophiles. Each of the hydrophile-lipophile mixtures was incubated with papain under the following conditions: medium, 1M carbonate (pH 9) or a 20:80 mixture of acetone-1M carbonate (pH 9) containing 2 mM 2-mercaptoethanol; concentration of gelatin in the medium, 33% (w/w); L-leucine ester vs gelatin ratio, 0.1 mole/100g; papain vs gelatin, 1% (w/w); incubation period, 15 min; and temperature, 37°C. The enzymatic reaction was stopped by adding 1N HCl and the product purified by dialysis followed by washing with hot acetone or dichloromethane to remove low-molecular species. Each product was found to be a mixture of peptides having a wide range of molecular weight, with an average at approximately 7,500 daltons. The amounts of the alkyl moieties covalently incorporated were in a range 1.1–1.2 moles per 7,500g of the products. Their surfactancy varied depending particularly on the carbon number of the alkyl moiety; the products resulting from the incorporation of C₄–C₆ alkyl esters of leucine showed greater whippability, whereas the incorporation of the C₁₀–C₁₂ alkyl esters gave products having a higher ability to stabilize an o/w type emulsions.