Approaches to stable operation of shaftless centrifugal pump

The shaft-less impeller of the centrifugal pump, which is driven by the magnetic induction, was developed. The impeller rotates under the floating condition without any control device. The floating condition of the impeller is realized by utilizing the pressure in pump casing. The pump performance and the rotational behavior of the impeller were investigated experimentally. It has found that the floating position of the impeller become quite unstable in a partial flow rate operation. And the pressure distribution at the casing wall affects the rotational posture of the impeller. This paper presents the effect of the casing treatment on the rotational posture of the impeller and the pressure distribution. The reasonable casing treatment is available for the stable rotational posture of the impeller.     

Development of terabit‐class super‐networking technologies

We propose terabit‐class super‐networking technologies, designed to improve the scalability, reliability and performance of optical Internet protocol networks. Our technologies comprise both intra‐ and interlayer traffic engineering technologies. The intralayer technologies include an optical path protection scheme, an electrical load‐balancing scheme and a distributed content‐caching scheme. These provide an effective and economical way of improving performance and reliability. The interlayer technologies include both traffic‐driven and application‐driven optical cut‐through control schemes and a policy control scheme. These provide an effective and economical way of improving scalability and performance. The feasibility of our technologies has been verified by means of experiments using prototype systems. The results showed that the different techniques can be combined to form a single network architecture for dynamic optical path control. Copyright © 2007 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Development of a scheduling algorithm for resource leveling in local time intervals

A scheduling algorithm has been developed for resource leveling in a plant construction schedule. The algorithm facilitates resource profile smoothing as well as resource peak flattening, through a combination of global leveling with a variance-based performance index and local leveling. The local resource leveling, done after the global leveling, further improves minor fluctuations and local peaks in the resource profile that are insensitive to the variance-based performance index. The local resource leveling is based on two steps: definition of a target resource profile for chosen local time intervals; and heuristic optimization which shifts the resource profile towards the target curve. The scheduling algorithm developed has been experimentally applied to a practical problem of simulating a plant construction schedule with about 5000 tasks. It was confirmed from the numerical results that local resource leveling is a promising way to refine the resource profile after global resource leveling. © 1998 Scripta Technica. Electr Eng Jpn, 122(4): 34–44, 1998     

A solution to the unit commitment problem considering LNG fuel constraints

In this paper, an algorithm is proposed for finding a quasi-optimal schedule for the short-term thermal unit commitment problem taking LNG fuel constraints into account. In recent years, LNG fuel has been used increasingly. As a result, LNG fuel constraints should be considered in making a unit commitment schedule. Generally, unit commitment is a nonlinear combinatorial problem including discrete variables. To solve the problem, a two-step algorithm is developed using mathematical programming methods. First a linear programming problem is solved to determine the amount of LNG fuel to be consumed by each LNG unit, then a Lagrangian relaxation approach is used to obtain a unit commitment schedule. This two-step algorithm simplifies the problem and thus has good convergence characteristics. To test the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, a numerical simulation was carried out on a 46-unit thermal system over a 24-hour period. A result with a dual gap of 0.00546 was obtained. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 125(3): 22–30, 1998     

A Metal-Oxide Surge Arrester model with active V-I characteristics

Generally a model of Metal Oxide Surge Arrester (MOSA) for numerical analysis uses a nonlinear resistance. But actual Voltage-Current (V-I) characteristics of MOSA have a hysteresis loop in the time domain like the i-Φ characteristic of a transformer and frequency dependency. The authors have investigated the relation between the actual V-I hysteresis characteristics obtained by some current waveforms and the static V-I characteristics. From the voltage difference between the above two characteristics, an equation was derived and a new model of MOSA was developed. This model consists of a nonlinear resistance representing the fundamental V-I characteristic, a linear inductance, and a voltage source that depends on the absorbed energy. The calculated results by the proposed model are compared with measurement results by using the waveform of standard impulse current, steep front current, and oscillated current. The accuracy of the model has been confirmed to be satisfactory. The model is expected to be useful to investigate insulation coordination of power systems. © 1997 Scripta Technica, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 121 (1): 35–42, 1997     

Swelling equilibria for heterogeneous polyacrylamide gels

To correlate swelling equilibria for heterogeneous polyacrylamide gels in water to the monomer concentration at preparation, it is necessary to modify the classic Flory–Rehner theory. The necessary modification concerns the relation which links the number of segments between juction points to the monomer concentration at preparation; that relation is here adjusted empirically. Modified theory is compared to experimental swelling equilibria for polyacrylamide gels synthesized in water by free-radical copolymerization of acrylamide (AAm) and N,N′-methylenebis(acrylamide) (BIS) at various monomer concentrations. Synthesis conditions studied are (1) different AAm-to-BIS ratios with fixed total monomer concentrations, (2) different total monomer concentrations with fixed AAm-to-BIS ratios, and (3) different AAm-to-BIS ratios with a fixed number of BIS moleculcs. The modified theory and experiment show good agreement. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Annular supersonic swirling flows with heterogeneous condensation

In recent years, separating and extracting technologies of condensate gas have been developed by combining a swirl flow with non-equilibrium condensation phenomena of condensate gas generated in a supersonic flow. The technology can reduce the size of the device and does not use chemicals. However, there are many unresolved problems for performance of the separation, extraction and operating principle. Therefore it is necessary to research further in order to improve the performance of the equipment. In the present study, the numerical study was carried out to clarify the effect of the heterogeneous condensation on the characteristics of the swirling flow field in a supersonic annular nozzle, and the differences between homogeneous condensation and heterogeneous condensation in the flow field. As the results, it is found that the condensation flow with a swirl affects the position of sonic line, the generating position of condensate and the radial distribution ratio of liquid phase.     

Structural changes in non-isothermal crystallization process of melt-cooled polyoxymethylene[II] evolution of lamellar stacking structure derived from SAXS and WAXS data analysis

Structural change occurring in the cooling process of polyoxymethylene from the molten state has been investigated by carrying out the temperature dependent measurements of small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). In the SAXS experiment the generation of lamellar stacking structure with long period of ca. 14 nm was detected at first and then the new lamellae were inserted in between the already-existing lamellae to give the long period of 7 nm below 140 °C. The SAXS data were analyzed on the basis of lamellar insertion model by taking into account the second kind of paracrystalline disorder about the lamellar stacking mode. The thus obtained results were combined with the previously published infrared spectral data, and the structural change was deduced concretely. The generation of taut tie chains passing through the adjacent lamellae was proposed, which could reasonably explain the observation of infrared bands characteristic of extended-chain-crystal-like morphology.     

Effects of AN-contents and shear flow on the miscibility of PC/SAN blends

The miscibility of polycarbonate (PC) with styrene-co-acrylonitrile random copolymer (SAN) has been systematically investigated as functions of acrylonitrile content and shear flow. Various AN-contents ranged from 11 to 74 wt% and different simple shear flow values up to 90 s⁻¹ have been used to explore the effect of both material and proceeding parameters on the miscibility of PC and SAN blends. The finest phase dispersion of the SAN particles was observed at AN=25 wt% for PC/SAN=70/30 blends under the same processing condition using scanning electron microscope (SEM). The obtained morphologies indicated that PC and SAN could form a partial miscibility blend and the maximum miscibility occurred at AN=25 wt%. This observation was supported by considering the shifts in the glass processes of the two rich phases of the blend using the dynamical mechanical analysis (DMA) measurements. The optimum interaction of the two components at AN=25 wt% calculated from ellipsometric technique was found to be the only responsible parameter for the high miscibility of the blend. The viscoelastic properties of the pure polymer components were found to play a minor role in the obtained morphologies. The effect of simple shear flow on the morphology of PC/SAN-25=70/30 blend has been also investigated using a special shear apparatus of parallel plate geometry. It has been found that the dispersed phase of SAN was elongated and broken-up in the direction of flow with weaker contrast at high shear rates. The shear rate was found to enhance the miscibility of SAN (dispersed phase) in the PC matrix to a great extent as seen in the weak contrast of the two phases observed by transmission electron microscope (TEM).