Study on the efficiency of effective thermal conductivities on melting characteristics of latent heat storage capsules

Improvement of the thermal conductivity of a phase change materials (PCM) is one effective technique to reduce phase change time in latent heat storage technology. Thermal conductivity is improved by saturating porous metals with phase change materials. The influence of effective thermal conductivity on melting time is studied by analyzing melting characteristics of a heat storage circular capsule in which porous metal saturated with PCM is inserted. Numerical and approximate analyses were made under conditions where there are uniform or non-uniform heat transfer coefficients around the cylindrical surface. Four PCMs (H₂O, octadecane, Li₂CO₃, NaCl) and three metals (copper, aluminum and carbon steel) were selected as specific materials. Porosities of the metals were restricted to be larger than 0.9 in order to keep high capacity of latent heat storage. Results show that considerable reduction in melting time was obtained, especially for low conductivity PCMs and for high heat transfer coefficient. Melting time obtained by approximate analysis agrees well with numerical analysis. A trial estimation of optimum porosity is made balancing the desirable conditions of high latent heat capacity and reduction of melting time. Optimum porosity decreases with increase in heat transfer coefficient.     

Isozyme selective alterations of the expression of cytochrome P450 during regeneration of male rat liver following partial hepatectomy

1. During liver regeneration in the male rat, the metabolic activities of imipramine were differentially affected depending on the specific metabolic pathways. Imipramine N-demethylation was markedly reduced whereas 2-hydroxylation showed only a moderate reduction following partial hepatectomy. 2. A slight decline was observed in the hepatic microsomal content of CYP2D apoprotein, whereas a substantial decrease occurred in CYP2C11 content during liver regeneration. Since imipramine 2-hydroxylation and N-demethylation are mediated by CYP2D and 2C11 respectively, metabolic pathway-specific alterations in the activities of imipramine metabolism are explained by the isozyme selective alteration in the levels of CYPs in regenerating liver. 3. No significant effect of regeneration was observed on expression of CYP2B1 and 2E1 apoproteins. CYP3A2 apoprotein, one of the male-specific CYP isoforms, was significantly suppressed in regenerating liver showing a similar pattern of alteration to the levels of CYP2C11. The alteration pattern of the CYP1A1 level was different to the above with a moderate decline at the first day post-operation and a marked rebound thereafter. 4. In the partially hepatectomized male rate, no significant increase in androstenedione 5-alpha reductase activity, an activity predominant in the female rat, was detected. It is concluded that the pattern of alterations of hepatic oxidative metabolism during liver regeneration was not related to the functional feminization of the liver.     

A speed control method for a PM motor using a speed observer and a low‐resolution encoder

This paper proposes a new speed control method for a PM motor using a low‐resolution encoder and a speed observer. The servo system should be economical and simple. For this purpose, this paper realizes the high‐performance speed control system using a low‐resolution encoder, whose performance is nearly equal to the performance of speed servo system using a conventional optical encoder. The speed observer uses the information of motor current and motor voltage. The rotor position is calculated by the estimated value of speed observer. This observer has the influence of electrical parameter variation. This paper proposes the correction algorithm of both the voltage error of PWM inverter and the electrical parameter variation. The experimental results and numerical simulation results point out that the proposed speed control system has the desired speed response with respect to parameter variations and load torque perturbation. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 143(1): 66–75, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10121     

Biological materials: Structure and mechanical properties

Most natural (or biological) materials are complex composites whose mechanical properties are often outstanding, considering the weak constituents from which they are assembled. These complex structures, which have risen from hundreds of million years of evolution, are inspiring Materials Scientists in the design of novel materials.Their defining characteristics, hierarchy, multifunctionality, and self-healing capability, are illustrated. Self-organization is also a fundamental feature of many biological materials and the manner by which the structures are assembled from the molecular level up. The basic building blocks are described, starting with the 20 amino acids and proceeding to polypeptides, polysaccharides, and polypeptides-saccharides. These, on their turn, compose the basic proteins, which are the primary constituents of ‘soft tissues’ and are also present in most biominerals. There are over 1000 proteins, and we describe only the principal ones, with emphasis on collagen, chitin, keratin, and elastin. The ‘hard’ phases are primarily strengthened by minerals, which nucleate and grow in a biomediated environment that determines the size, shape and distribution of individual crystals. The most important mineral phases are discussed: hydroxyapatite, silica, and aragonite.Using the classification of Wegst and Ashby, the principal mechanical characteristics and structures of biological ceramics, polymer composites, elastomers, and cellular materials are presented. Selected systems in each class are described with emphasis on the relationship between their structure and mechanical response. A fifth class is added to this: functional biological materials, which have a structure developed for a specific function: adhesion, optical properties, etc.An outgrowth of this effort is the search for bioinspired materials and structures. Traditional approaches focus on design methodologies of biological materials using conventional synthetic materials. The new frontiers reside in the synthesis of bioinspired materials through processes that are characteristic of biological systems; these involve nanoscale self-assembly of the components and the development of hierarchical structures. Although this approach is still in its infancy, it will eventually lead to a plethora of new materials systems as we elucidate the fundamental mechanisms of growth and the structure of biological systems.     

Study of reactivity control method by the application of gadolinium hydride to accelerator-driven system

A reactivity control method for accelerator-driven system (ADS) is studied for its ability to reduce both the maximum beam current and the load on the beam window. A burnable position (BP) assembly (with gadolinium and zirconium hydride pins) is applied to the ADS core for reactivity control, and various BP assembly optimizations (such as pin arrangement, BP assembly loading position, and BP composition) are performed to minimize the burnup reactivity swing. These optimizations lead to a decreased burnup reactivity swing that is as much as 82.5% less than the swing of non-BP-loaded core; furthermore, the maximum beam current is 12.5 mA. The reactor characteristics of the optimized BP-loaded ADS core are also analyzed to investigate how the introduction of BP assembly influences the system. Safety parameters (such as the Doppler coefficient and the coolant void reactivity) worsen with the introduction of BP assembly, and the total minor actinide transmutation amount decreases 30–40 kg because of the moderated neutrons and changed fuel composition.     

Novel voltage-mode biquad without external passive elements

This paper introduces a voltage-mode biquad filter using only active devices such as operational amplifiers and operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs). The circuit configuration is obtained from Soderstrand's active-R state variable filter as a prototype. The proposed circuit can realize five different biquad transfer functions, and the circuit characteristics can be electronically tuned by adjusting the transconductance gains of the OTAs. An example is given, together with simulated results by PSPICE. The circuit configuration is very suitable for implementation in both bipolar and CMOS technologies.     

High-efficiency bipolar transconductors composed of hyperbolic function circuits with an intermediate voltage terminal and a triple-tail cell

Relatively high transconductance in bipolar devices contributes to the economy of power dissipation on analog integrated circuits. Recently, a high-speed transistor, such as the HBT attracts attention of researchers and developers in electronic communication industries and is expected to be applied to RF circuits. In this paper, high-efficiency bipolar transconductors are presented. The proposed circuits are composed of a hyperbolic function circuit with an intermediate voltage terminal and a triple-tail cell. The parameter values for linearisation are all integers. The values can be realised precisely. The linearity of the proposed transconductors is superior to the triple-tail cell. The linear input range is 1.5 times as wide as that of the conventional triple-tail cell. Nevertheless, the power dissipation is lower than the triple-tail cell. Further, sensitivity analysis shows that the proposed transconductors have lower sensitivity than the triple-tail cell. These properties are confirmed by SPICE simulation.     

A feedforward excess-phase cancellation technique for integrators

Integrators are useful analogue function blocks. A representative application of integrators is a continuous-time filter on an integrated circuit. Excess phase shift of integrators is one of the most severe problems, because excess phase shift at the unity gain frequency degrades the frequency characteristics of the filters. This paper describes a feedforward excess-phase cancellation technique. The proposed technique is applied to integrators which have feedback with an amplifier. The proposed idea is verified by experiment. It is shown that the excess-phase shift due to the gain-bandwidth product of operational amplifiers is cancelled. The proposed technique is useful for realization of integrated continuous-time filters using integrators because extra capacitors are unnecessary. An integrator with the excess-phase cancellation and a third-order leapfrog filter using the integrator are designed and demonstrated by HSPICE simulation. The integrator has a parasitic pole whose frequency is proportional to the unity gain frequency. The simulation results show that the phase characteristics are improved by the proposed technique over the wide range of the unity gain frequency.