Calculations of Explosion and Detonation Parameters of Explosives

Comparative results of explosive decomposition equation and explosion parameter calculations of several high explosives are described. Calculations were carried out by two different algorithms. Results of calculations are compared with literature data. Some corrections of simple Kamlet's formulae for detonation parameter calculations are proposed adjusting the formulae to calculated explosion parameters.     

Structural and electrical properties of Cr-doped SrTiO3 porous materials

Series of single-phase materials with assumed formula SrTi_1?xCr_xO₃ (where x = 0, 1, 4, 6 mol.%) were obtained by sol-gel method. The structure and microstructure of materials were characterised by X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy methods. Moreover, the study of electrical properties and evaluation of chemical stability in CO₂/H₂O atmosphere was performed by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and thermogravimery methods, respectively. The possibility of participation of Cr-doped strontium titanate in oxidation–reduction processes was analysed by temperature-programed reduction (TPR) and temperature-programed oxidation (TPOx) measurements. The changes of lattice parameters together with XPS analysis, the Seebeck coefficient measurements results and TPR profiles obtained for SrTi_1?xCr_xO₃ materials prove the presence of chromium on +3 and +6 oxidation stages. Thus, chromium can be treated as both acceptor- and donor-type dopant in the SrTiO₃ structure. The Cr³⁺/Cr⁶⁺ ratio strongly affects the electrical properties, as the change of conduction mechanism was observed. The results of performed stability test clearly indicate that incorporation of chromium into SrTiO₃ structure results with decrease of chemical stability in CO₂ atmosphere.     

Thermal Image Approximation Using B-Spline Surfaces

This article presents a method of filtering thermal images by means of approximation using cubic B-spline patch surfaces. Approximation uses chord length parameterization with non-uniform distribution of knots, depending on the change rate of pixel values in rows and columns of the image. Advantages of approximation with such parameterization are compared with popular uniform parameterization. Presented method is very versatile and can be used for example in 3D surface topography of objects tested with stereoscopic microscopes, in resolution change of arbitrary images or modeling processes depending on two parameters. Filtering results are presented using plugin for the Soft4Image program, which was designed to unify different digital signal processing algorithms.     

Optimal sensor placement for joint parameter and state estimation problems in large-scale dynamical systems with applications to thermo-mechanics

We consider large-scale dynamical systems in which both the initial state and some parameters are unknown. These unknown quantities must be estimated from partial state observations over a time window. A data assimilation framework is applied for this purpose. Specifically, we focus on large-scale linear systems with multiplicative parameter-state coupling as they arise in the discretization of parametric linear time-dependent partial differential equations. Another feature of our work is the presence of a quantity of interest different from the unknown parameters, which is to be estimated based on the available data. In this setting, we employ a simplicial decomposition algorithm for an optimal sensor placement and set forth formulae for the efficient evaluation of all required quantities. As a guiding example, we consider a thermo-mechanical PDE system with the temperature constituting the system state and the induced displacement at a certain reference point as the quantity of interest.     

Creep life assessment method for online monitoring of steam turbine rotors

The principal objective of work was to develop fast and accurate method for online creep life monitoring of steam turbine rotors. For this purpose, a characteristic strain model of creep was investigated and validated using test data of 2%CrMoV rotor steel. The model was then used to determine creep damage functions which are introduced to compute creep damage at a constant temperature based on the Robinson time fraction rule. Finite element (FE) creep calculations of a turbine rotor were performed using the same creep model to obtain reference damage results for validating the proposed method. Comparisons of the results obtained using both methods showed a very good accuracy of the online creep damage predictions.     

The participation of the serotoninergic system in regulating the activity of the central glutamatergic/aspartatergic and GABA-ergic synapses

Selective lesion of the serotoninergic system diminished the synaptic uptake of 3H-L-glutamic acid and 3H-DL-aspartic acid, as well as the Na+(-dependent) binding of 3H-L-glutamic acid in the cortex and the brain stem. The data obtained suggest an ability of the serotoninergic system to modify presynaptic processes in amino-acidergic neurons of the CNS.     

Clinical characteristics of patients with hypertension resistant to antihypertensive drug therapy

Two groups of hypertensive patients: 137 responsive (on one or two drugs) and 162 resistant on antihypertensive treatment in the similar age were compared. Resistant patients (on three or more drugs) characterize by significantly higher body weight and BMI, longer history of hypertension, more frequent hypertension prevalance in family members and lower education. Level of triglycerides in resistant on antihypertensive treatment patients was significantly higher than in responsive patients. Insulin level in blood in 31 patients with essential hypertension was significantly higher than in 36 healthy persons and 20 patients with renovascular hypertension and resistant on antihypertensive therapy. In 14 patients with essential hypertension resistant to treatment insulin level one hour after oral glucose load was significantly (p < 0.01) higher than in 16 patients with essential hypertension responsive to antihypertensive treatment.