Development of a diode-pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:LiSAF laser

Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:LiSrAlF/sub 6/ lasers are demonstrated with various prism pairs based on a recalculation of the condition for compensating the intracavity dispersion. The minimum pulse duration is 9.9 fs, which is the limit for ordinary nonchirped dielectric mirrors. To develop an efficient diode-pumped Kerr-lens mode-locked Cr:LiSAF laser, diode-pumping geometry is also discussed.     

Solvent extraction of metal ions using a new extractant,biuret(C8)

A new extractant biuret(C8) is synthesized and tested for solvent extraction of hard acid metals, for example, actinides, and soft acid metals. This compound has a central frame similar to that of malonamide but with an additional amino functional group introduced into the central framework; in this case, both the amidic oxygen atoms and the amino nitrogen atom may bond with metals. We found that both hard and soft acid metals can be extracted from nitric or perchloric acids to n-dodecane using biuret(C8). It is clear that D(Pd, Pu, U) values of approximately 100 can be obtained using 0.1 M biuret(C8)/n-dodecane.     

A new twin-screw press design for oil extraction of dehulled sunflower seeds

Transport of material in a single-screw press depends mainly on friction between the material and the barrel’s inner surface and the screw surface during screw rotation. Thus, a solid core component, like seed hulls, is often necessary to produce the fraction. This sometimes causes excess frictional heat, large energy consumption and oil deterioration. Furthermore, if single-screw presses are not configured with breaker bars or other special equipment, they provide inadequate crushing and mixing. A twin-screw oil press can be expected to solve these problems because of the higher transportation force, similar to a gear pump, and better mixing and crushing at the twin-screw interface. A twin-screw press (screw diameter=136 mm, length/diameter=6.5, screw speed 15–100 rpm, feed rate=50–150 kg/h) was designed with partially intermeshing and counter-rotating screws and was tested on dehulled sunflower seed. The results were compared to a single-screw lab-scale press. Dehulled sun-flower seed (wt, 6.0%; oil, 58.6%) without pretreatments (crushing or cooking) gave 93.6% oil recovery with the twin-screw press, in contrast to 20% oil recovery with the single-screw press. The oil expressed with a twin-screw press had less foreign material than the oil from the single-screw press. Other properties of the oil were also good. Energy consumption of the twin-screw press was more efficient. All results suggested that oil production from dehulled sunflower seed with a twin-screw press is highly efficient.     

The interrelation between structure and mechanical properties of CNx (0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5) coatings obtained by graphite arc sputtering

Hardness, elastic modulus, internal stresses and friction coefficients were measured in CN_{0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5} coatings (1–3 μm). The dependence of these parameters on nitrogen concentration can be applied in the practical coatings. The structure investigations show that the domain amorphous matrix mixture consists of CN_{x ≤ 0.1} and CN_0.5. Such structure allows understanding the dependence of the CN_{0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5} coatings properties on nitrogen concentration. Through the structure, the coating properties of CN_{0 ≤ x ≤ 0.5}, depend on the nitrogen concentration.     

EFFECT OF DISTRIBUTOR ON BUBBLE SIZE AND BUBBLE RISE VELOCITY IN THE SLUGGING REGIME OF A SEMI-CYLINDRICAL GAS-SOLID FLUIDIZED BED†

A semi-cylindrical fluidized bed of 15 cm internal diameter, equipped with a transparent flat glass plate for the front wall, was employed to visually observe bubbles in the bubbling to slugging transition regime and in the slugging regime. Five kinds of perforated distributors were used to investigate the effect of distributor type on the bubble size and the bubble rise velocity. The average bubble size was not affected by distributor type in these flow regimes, and could be predicted by Darton et al's correlation (1974)of hole number 22. In other words, this comes from the inapplicability of the correlation to the slugging regime. The bubble rise velocity agreed well with Allahwala et al's correlation (1979) and was not affected by the type of distributor.     

Influence of ion source configuration and its operation parameters on the target sputtering and implantation process

In the work, investigation of the features and operation regimes of sputter enhanced ion-plasma source are presented. The source is based on the target sputtering with the dense plasma formed in the crossed electric and magnetic fields. It allows operation with noble or reactive gases at low pressure discharge regimes, and, the resulting ion beam is the mixture of ions from the working gas and sputtering target. Any conductive material, such as metals, alloys, or compounds, can be used as the sputtering target. Effectiveness of target sputtering process with the plasma was investigated dependently on the gun geometry, plasma parameters, and the target bias voltage. With the applied accelerating voltage from 0 to 20 kV, the source can be operated in regimes of thin film deposition, ion-beam mixing, and ion implantation. Multi-component ion beam implantation was applied to α-Fe, which leads to the surface hardness increasing from 2 GPa in the initial condition up to 3.5 GPa in case of combined N(2)-C implantation. Projected range of the implanted elements is up to 20 nm with the implantation energy 20 keV that was obtained with XPS depth profiling.     

Quench protection tests of a cryocooler cooled 6 T NbTi superconducting magnet by an active power method

When a quench occurs in a superconducting magnet, excessive joule heating may damage the magnet. We have presented the quench protection system based on an active power method. Our previous quench protection tests have been carried out for small superconducting magnets whose self inductances are less than several hundred mH to verify principles of our proposed system. In this paper, we present experimental results of quench protection tests of a cryocooler cooled 6 T NbTi superconducting magnet (self inductance 15.5 H), which is a commercial size magnet made by Tamakawa Co., Ltd. We confirmed that our proposed system could inhibit the maximum temperature of the superconducting magnet (initial temperature 4.3 K) after the quench to less than about 44 K at operation magnetic field 5.5 T. Experimental results suggest that our proposed system is useful for practical used superconducting magnets.     

Purification and Characterization of Extremely Thermostable Exo-oligo-1,6-glucosidase from a Caldoactive Bacillus sp. KP 1228

A p-nitrophenyl-α-D -glycopyranoside-hydrolyzing oligo-1,6-glucosidase (dextrin 6-α-glucanohydrolase, EC 3.2.1.10) of a caldoactive Bacillus sp. KP 1228 capable of growing at 51–82°C was purified to homogeneity. The molecular weight was estimated as 140,000. The enzyme consisted of two identical subunits each comprising a threonine residue at the NH₂-terminus. The enzyme was most active at 85°C and pH 5.1, and stable for 10 min up to 85°C at pH 6.8. The enzyme had no antigenic determinant common to oligo-1,6-glucosidases from Bacillus cereus ATCC 7064 (mesophile), Bacillus coagulans ATCC 7050 (facultative thermophile) and Bacillus thermoglucosidasius KP 1006 (DSM 2542) (obligate thermophile). A strong correlation between the increase in proline content and the rise in thermostability of these 4 proteins was observed.     

Aspects of voltage responses of induction motor loads

In this paper, the voltage dynamics of induction motor loads up to some ten seconds are discussed in terms of a linearized model. It is generally recognized that the dynamics of a power system load mainly originate from the induction motor dynamics constituting the load. Aspects of the voltage dynamics of induction motors are analyzed with respect to machine constants. The results show that small and medium-sized induction motors have dynamics that can be well approximated at the first order, thus partly accounting for the fact that most feeders indicate first-order dynamics