Crack detection and sizing technique by ultrasonic and electromagnetic methods

Improvements in defect detection and sizing capabilities for non-destructive inspection techniques have been required in order to ensure the reliable operation and life extension of nuclear power plants. For the volumetric inspection, the phased array UT technique has superior capabilities for beam steering and focusing to objective regions, and real-time B-scan imaging without mechanical scanning. In contrast to the conventional UT method, high-speed inspection is realized by the unique feature of the phased array technique. A 256-channel array system has developed for the inspection of weldment of BWR internal components such as core shrouds. The TOFD crack sizing technique also can be applied using this system. For the surface inspection, potential drop techniques and eddy current techniques have been improved, which combined the theoretical analysis. These techniques have the crack sizing capability for surface breaking cracks to which UT method is difficult to apply. This paper provides the recent progress of these phased array and electromagnetic inspection techniques.     

Phase Equilibria in Ni Rich Region of Ni-Al-Fe System

The phase equilibria between γ, α, γ' and β in the Ni-rich region of the Ni-Al-Fe system were investigated by the diffusion couple method and thermodynamic models. The thermodynamic parameters were assessed based on experimental results and thermodynamic data. Moreover, the system's phase equilibria from 900 to 1 300℃ were calculated with regular solution and sublattice models, and it is shown that the theoretic results agree well with experimental phase diagram data.     

Development and evaluation of a certificate validation system in mobile environments

We have developed a public key certificate validation system considering the restrictions peculiar to the mobile environment, such as processing the speed and memory capacity of a cellular‐phone terminal, and the network transmission speed. In this paper we derive a theoretical formula showing the performance of a validity check of the public key certificate of the conventional system and of the proposed system, and compare and examine a theoretical value in a mobile environment. Moreover, we evaluate the actual measurement that uses the server and cellular‐phone terminal that we developed. We show that our proposed system based on the certificate validation server (CVS) system is better than the conventional system from the viewpoint of processing speed and transmission speed. Copyright © 2007 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Thermal management of edge‐lit wide color gamut backlight for LCD using red laser diodes and cyan LEDs

The color gamut is one of the critical parameters that dictate the image quality of displays. The liquid crystal displays using white color light‐emitting diodes (LEDs) as the backlight, though having been widely employed recently, are not very satisfactory in terms of their color gamut because of the broad spectrum inherent to white LEDs. This prompted the authors to develop improved liquid crystal displays using an edge‐lit wide color gamut backlight that used red laser diodes and cyan LEDs. Generating laser beams with high color purity, the laser diodes are light sources with a significant effect on expanding the color gamut. However, laser diodes, red ones in particular, have unfavorable thermal characteristics. To cope with this shortcoming, the authors clearly defined the restrictive criteria for laying out two kinds of light source on the edge‐lit backlight and made a prototype 55‐type laser backlight for performance evaluation.     

A Quasi-ARMAX approach to modelling of non-linear systems

This paper proposes a class of quasi-ARMAX models for non-linear systems. Similar to ordinary non-linear ARMAX models, the quasi-ARMAX models are flexible black-box models, but they have various linearity properties similar to those of linear ARMAX models. A modelling scheme is introduced to construct models consisting of two parts: a macro-part and a kernel-part. By using Taylor expansion and other mathematical transformation techniques, it is first constructed as a class of quasi-ARMAX interfaces (macro-parts) that have various linearity properties but contain some complicated coefficients. MIMO neurofuzzy models (kernel-parts) are then introduced to represent the complicated coefficients. It is shown that the proposed quasi-ARMAX models have both good approximation ability and some easy-to-use properties. The proposed models have been successfully applied to prediction, fault detection and adaptive control of non-linear systems.     

A Study on the Effect of Air on the Dynamic Motion of a MEMS Device and Its Shape Optimization

The authors propose a new design concept for controlling the deflection of a micro-membrane with the aid of its thickness distribution for realizing a prescribed design in the MEMS. As an example, the authors treat a micro air pump that comprises a micro-membrane. The membrane is actuated by an electrostatic force. The membrane deflects and thus the deflection is influenced by the air pressure and the electrostatic field. This is a highly complicated system. To find out a proper thickness distribution, the authors use the genetic algorithm that is appropriate to reduce the searching space of solution.     

Computerised defect sizing using ALOK analysis in shrunk-on wheel of turbine rotor

A computerised defect evaluation system using an advanced ultrasonic technique for shrunk-on wheels of a turbine rotor has been developed. The flaw image was reconstructed by a modified ALOK method with attention to the tip diffraction echoes of stress corrosion cracking (SCC). The results of the application of this system to the mock-up wheel with artificial slits and real SCC cracks show that this system is very useful for crack sizing and locating.     

Bounds of Uncertain Interference Between Closely Located Antennas

The uncertainty in the characteristics of two antennas located close together and operating at different frequencies is considered. The formulations of antenna performance indexes on one antenna by admittance parameters are obtained with respect to the load impedance at the feed point of the other antenna. All the antenna performance indexes obtained here are expressed as the ratio of quadratic functions of the load impedance, and exact formulas are derived for the quick calculation of their bounds with respect to the load impedance which is uncertain and changes with frequency.     

铁路复线施工的控制爆破

我国的爆破工程主要是根据实践经验计算的。施工经验公式不采用量纲分析法，许多经验系数取值范围较宽，失去了物理意义。而且这些公式的适用范围很窄，影响了爆破设计参数使用的精确性。根据Ｕ．ｌａｎｇｅｆｏｒｓ阐述的基本原理，结合我国的实际经验，提出了一套炮孔爆破的设计和计算方法，可供现场使用。     

利用云团实现激光遥测风速

提出利用云团实现激光遥测大气风速，并用研制的一台测量风速的激光雷达，在香港地区的上空测量了不同气象条件下的各种风速数据。