Experience in developing ultrahigh capacity compressor stages

Translated from Khimicheskoe i Neftyanoe Mashinostroenie, No. 2, pp. 4–7, February, 1992.     

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     

Advanced concepts in electric vehicle design

In 1994, the Eco-Vehicle Project was begun to develop an electric vehicle (EV) using a ground-up design approach that incorporates unique designs specific to an EV. The Eco-Vehicle will be a high-performance, but ultrasmall, battery-powered vehicle. New designs for the Eco-Vehicle include an in-wheel motor drive system, a hollow load floor which will house the batteries, and a new battery management system. The Eco-Vehicle may also utilize other advanced concepts suitable especially for EVs, including solar panels for battery charging and intelligent crash avoidance and guidance systems     

Adding Support for Persistence to CLOS via Its Metaobject Protocol

Language-level support for object persistence frees programmers from having to confront a broad class of database issues from within their applications. By virtue of its metaobject protocol, CLOS is a language whose semantics can be tailored by individual programmers. We used the metaobject protocol to extend CLOS with support for object persistence. Our goal was to obtain a version of CLOS with persistence to which we could easily port a commercial geometric CAD modeling system. We describe the design and implementation of our persistence extension and highlight the strengths and weaknesses exhibited by the CLOS metaobject protocol during our experiment. For many aspects of the implementation we found that the metaobject protocol was ideal. In other cases we had to choose among paying a large performance penalty, extending the protocol, and bypassing the protocol by modifying the language implementation directly.     

Upgrade of Systems Controlling Pneumatic Transport of Glass Batch Materials

An upgraded system for controlling pneumatic transportation of glass batch materials produced by the Stromizmeritel' JSC is considered. Comparative analysis of various schemes of control over the process of filling the pneumatic-cell pump with material is provided.     

Changes in the mineral phases during the processing of a copper sulfide concentrate

Mineralogical, granulometric, and phase compositions of the copper sulfide concentrate of the Erdenet deposit (Mongolia) have been studied. It is shown that the concentrate has a high chemical stability against the interaction with sulfuric solutions after both a preliminary oxidizing roasting and mechanoactivation in a planetary mill (in dry and wet regimes of milling).     

Substrate uptake by Gordonia amarae in activated sludge foams by FISH-MAR.

Gordonia amarae is a right-angled branching filament belonging to the mycolic acid-containing Actinobacteria which is commonly found in many foaming activated sludge wastewater treatment plants. Although studies on different substrates as sole carbon sources by pure cultures of G. amarae have been carried out, none have examined substrate uptake by this organism in situ. Uptake of several hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates by G. amarae was evaluated in situ using a combination of fluorescence in situ hybridization and microautoradiography. G. amarae could assimilate a range of both hydrophilic and hydrophobic substrates. From the data, G. amarae appears to be physiologically active under aerobic, anaerobic and anoxic condition (NO2 and NO3) for some substrates. This might explain why attempts to control foaming caused by G. amarae using anoxic and anaerobic selectors have been unsuccessful. This study emphasizes that bacteria can behave differently in situ to pure cultures and that it is important to evaluate the in situ physiology of these bacteria if we are to better understand their role in the wastewater treatment process.     

Lead-Ion Stability in Soda–Lime Lead Silicate Glasses

Sodium-calcium-lead silicate glass compositions were prepared over a wide compositional range by conventional glass-melting methods. The acid chemical stability of the glass structure was studied by corroding samples of glass in 4% acetic acid solution at 22°C for periods up to 24 h. Lead corrosion stability was evaluated by measuring lead concentrations in the corrosion solution. At short times, parabolic time dependence was observed and the parabolic time coefficients were regressed against composition, yielding a simple additive relationship. A similar model was fitted to 24-h release data, which showed compositional effects similar to the 2-h data. Of the oxides studied, sodium was the most detrimental to durability, and the coefficients of the oxides decreased in the series: Na₂O, PbO, CaO, SiO₂. The effects of the oxides could be partially explained by the number of nonbridging oxygens expected in the glass structure, and the residual effect was attributed to cation characteristics. Small phosphate additions to the glass greatly increased the lead-ion stability under nearly all experimental conditions examined.