Structure and tribological characteristics of steel under melting by plasma flow and simultaneous Mo and W alloying

New findings of studies of the structural, tribological, and physicomechanical characteristics of structural steel 40Kh treated by plasma flow under melting accompanied by either tungsten or molybdenum alloying are presented. Rutherford back-scattering of ions, scanning electron microscopy (with microanalysis), X-ray fluorescent spectral analysis, X-ray phase analysis, wear-resistance tests, measurement of the coefficient of friction, and transmitting electron microscopy with diffraction are the basic research methods. It is found experimentally that a thin layer 5 μm thick saturated with nitrogen and an alloying element (Mo or W) with regularly arranged crystallites arises on the steel 40Kh surface. The crystallites in this layer have a needle- and ribbon-shaped structure. A deeper layer located about 40 μm thick consists of micro- and nanosized grains. Friction and wear studies of the plasma-flow treated (melt) samples show the steel wear resistance to increase 2–2.5 times and the coefficient of friction to decrease from 0.4–0.5 to 0.10–0.15 compared to the untreated samples.     

Influence of the mechanical properties of carbon steel on the hardening of rod blanks in upsetting

The influence of the mechanical properties of carbon steel on the hardening of rod blanks in the course of upsetting is studied experimentally.     

Contact friction in lead and lead-bismuth coolants

Analytical and experimental data are presented for the tribological characteristics of contact pairs in heavy-metal liquid coolant.     

Analysis of antiscoring properties of hydraulic oils

The paper discusses findings of the experimental study of the tribological characteristics of hydraulic oils HVLP-46, MGE-46d, MGE-46l, VO, ZF-46, and HLP-46. A technique is developed for studying the antiscoring properties of hydraulic oils based on measurements of contact resistance for the shaft-partial insert geometry (multiple contact). It is shown that contact resistance is a more sensitive parameter compared to the coefficient of friction.     

A pulse power supply of the linear induction accelerator

A pulse power system of the induction electron accelerator intended for parameters of 2 MeV, 2 kA, and operating in the double-pulse mode is presented. The schematic diagram and main elements of the pulse system are described, and the main technical solutions intended to produce a set of pulses with 21-kV peak voltages, peak currents of up to 8 kA, and 200-ns durations across a resistive-inductive load are indicated. The experimental data, which were obtained when separate units and the whole power system operated on the rated duty, are given.     

Correlation analysis of digital images of flows with subpixel accuracy

New algorithms for processing noisy specklegrams are described which allow quantitative diagnostics of the microstructure of shock-wave flows with subpixel accuracy with the use of statistical analysis of the speckle fields recorded numerically and perturbed by refraction in the studied flows. The developed software makes it possible to recover up to 10,000 vectors of deflection angles of the probing radiation in a two-dimensional region 20 × 30 mm in size in a speckle field image with a magnification M = 1.     

Simple robust autotuning rules for 2-DoF PI controllers

This paper addresses the problem of providing simple tuning rules for a Two-Degree-of-Freedom (2-DoF) PI controller (PI(2)) with robustness considerations. The introduction of robustness as a matter of primary concern is by now well established among the control community. Among the different ways of introducing a robustness constraint into the design stage, the purpose of this paper is to use the maximum sensitivity value as the design parameter. In order to deal with the well known performance/robustness tradeoff, an analysis is conducted first that allows the determination of the lowest closed-loop time constant that guarantees a desired robustness. From that point, an analytical design is conducted for the assignment of the load-disturbance dynamics followed by the tuning of the set-point weight factor in order to match, as much as possible, the set-point-to-output dynamics according to a first-order-plus-dead-time dynamics. Simple tuning rules are generated by considering specific values for the maximum sensitivity value. These tuning rules, provide all the controller parameters parameterized in terms of the open-loop normalized dead-time allowing the user to select a high/medium/low robust closed-loop control system. The proposed autotuning expressions are therefore compared with other well known tuning rules also conceived by using the same robustness measure, showing that the proposed approach is able to guarantee the same robustness level and improve the system time performance.     

High temperature Seebeck coefficient and resistance measurement system for thermoelectric materials in the thin disk geometry

A versatile apparatus to measure the cross-plane Seebeck coefficient and the resistivity of bulk samples shaped as disks or thin plates, over a temperature range of 300 K-620 K with possible extension to higher temperatures, is presented. It is constructed from readily available equipment and instrumentation with parts that are easily manufactured. The Seebeck coefficient is measured over an average region of the sample under steady-state conditions. The sample resistance is measured using a four-point alternating current method and scaled to room temperature measurements with known geometry to calculate resistivity. A variety of sample shapes are supported. Most importantly, the support of the thin disk geometry allows for the very same samples to be used in a laser flash instrument. The design allows for rough vacuum, high vacuum, or purging with inert gases in the sample chamber. Measurements on thermoelectric ZnSb and a Ni reference material are presented.     

The design of an electron gun switchable between immersed and Brillouin flow

An electron gun, which can be switched from immersed flow to Brillouin flow during operation, may have advantages for charge breeders as well as for electron beam ion sources and traps (EBISTs). For EBISTs this allows to change the current density according to the repetition frequency and charge state, for charge breeders and EBISTs a lower current density in immersed flow provides higher acceptance for injected ions, while the higher current density in Brillouin flow results in shorter breeding times and a lower emittance for the extracted beam. Therefore, we have designed such a gun for an EBIS with 5 T central magnetic field and without the use of iron and moving the gun. The gun was placed in the axial fringing field of the 5 T solenoid in such a position that a gate valve can be placed between the gun and the cryostat to allow for simple maintenance. The field at the cathode surface turned out to be only 0.05 T, which is not enough to focus 50 A∕cm(2) at a few kV. However, if a small normal conducting solenoid is placed over the vacuum tube in position of the gun, a field of 0.1 T may be obtained. With this the use of LaB(6) as cathode material results in a magnetic compression of 44 and therewith in a focused current density in the trap region of more than 2000 A∕cm(2). By reversing the current in the gun solenoid the cathode field can easily compensated to zero. By proper design of the electrodes and the compression region, the gun will be able to deliver a beam in Brillouin flow. While this is interesting by itself--remember the "super-compression" reported on CRYEBIS-I--any magnetic field between zero and the value for immersed flow will result in an electron beam with a wide range of adjustable high current densities. The design tools used have been INTMAG(C) for the calculation of magnetic fields, EGN2(C) for the simulation of the gun and ANALYSE(C) for detailed analysis of the results (for more information see www.egun-igun.com).     

Beam purification by photodetachment (invited)

Ion beam purity is of crucial importance to many basic and applied studies in nuclear science. Selective photodetachment has been proposed to suppress unwanted species in negative ion beams while preserving the intensity of the species of interest. A highly efficient technique based on photodetachment in a gas-filled radio frequency quadrupole ion cooler has been demonstrated. In off-line experiments with stable ions, up to 10(4) times suppression of the isobar contaminants in a number of interesting radioactive negative ion beams has been demonstrated. For selected species, this technique promises new experimental possibilities in studies on exotic nuclei, accelerator mass spectrometry, and fundamental properties of negative atomic and molecular ions.