Atomic structure of a CeO2 grain boundary: the role of oxygen vacancies

Determining both cation and oxygen sublattices of grain boundaries is essential to understand the properties of oxides. Here, with scanning transmission electron microscopy, electron energy-loss spectroscopy, and first-principles calculations, both the Ce and oxygen sublattices of a (210)Σ5 CeO(2) grain boundary were determined. Oxygen vacancies are shown to play a crucial role in the stable grain boundary structure. This finding paves the way for a comprehensive understanding of grain boundaries through the atomic scale determination of atom and defect locations.     

Feedback control of the position of the levitated superconducting magnet in the RT-1 device

The Ring Trap-1 (RT-1) device confines a high- plasma in a magnetospheric configuration which is generated by a high-temperature-superconducting coil levitated in a vacuum chamber. The levitated coil is unstable with respect to the vertical motion when it is attracted from above. The vertical motion has been analyzed from the equation of motion and the flux conservation law and the response of the PD (proportional-derivative) feedback system of RT-1 has been formulated by using a transfer function. The result of the model analysis has shown sufficient agreement with experiments. To meet the various requirements in order to conduct the plasma experiments and measurement, the feedback gains are optimized to suppress a feedback noise in parallel with ensuring the stability of the system.     

A laboratory-scale gallery fire test on rubber conveyor belts with fabric skeletons

The authors have conducted a laboratory-scale gallery fire test on nine different rubber conveyor belts with fabric skeletons. The interior of the gallery used in this test was 2.5 m long, 0.35 m wide and 0.35 m high. The fire test on each sample was conducted in the upward airflow of the inclined gallery as well as in the horizontal one, and both 60 mm and 90 mm wide specimens, whose length was about 1.5 m, were provided for each test. The test results were compared with those from some other small-scale flammability tests; i.e. the small-scale flame, the oxygen index and the hot plate ignition tests. In addition, some problems in the laboratory-scale gallery fire test were also discussed. As a result, it has been found empirically that determination of both the time to ignition and the flame-propagation speed could be significant in case the flame propagated over the whole length of the belt specimen in the gallery, so that the fire resistance of the belt samples could be classified in detail.     

Characterisation of radionuclides formed by high-energy neutron irradiation

The physicochemical properties of radionuclides suspended in the air are important parameters in order to evaluate internal doses due to the inhalation of the airborne radionuclides and to develop the air-monitoring system in high-energy proton accelerator facilities. This study focuses on the property of radioactive airborne chlorine (38Cl and 39Cl) and sulphur (38S) produced in Ar gas by irradiation with high-energy neutrons. As a result of the irradiation of a mixture of Ar gas and dry air, 38Cl and 39Cl existed as non-acidic gas and 38S was present as acidic gas. Furthermore, it has been found that in the high-energy neutron irradiation of aerosol containing Ar gas, the higher the amount of radioactive aerosols, the lower will be the amount of radioactive acidic gas.     

A new method for preparing plan-view TEM specimen of multilayered films using focused ion beam

A new method is proposed for preparing plan-view specimens of a CeO(2)/Gd(2)Zr(2)O(7) multilayer on a metal substrate using focused ion beam milling. In the plan-view specimen, a membrane from the surface region of the CeO(2) to the Gd(2)Zr(2)O(7) layer was thinned to electron transparence so that the entire span of the multilayer can be observed in a single sample. The in-plane alignments of the CeO(2) layer and the Gd(2)Zr(2)O(7) layer were analysed using selected-area diffraction patterns (SADPs). The boundaries between the CeO(2) grains were also examined using SADPs.     

System boundary selection in life-cycle inventories using hybrid approaches

Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a method for evaluating the environmental impacts of products holistically, including direct and supply chain impacts. The current LCA methodologies and the standards by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) impose practical difficulties for drawing system boundaries; decisions on inclusion or exclusion of processes in an analysis (the cutoff criteria) are typically not made on a scientific basis. In particular, the requirement of deciding which processes could be excluded from the inventory can be rather difficult to meet because many excluded processes have often never been assessed by the practitioner, and therefore, their negligibility cannot be guaranteed. LCA studies utilizing economic input-output analysis have shown that, in practice, excluded processes can contribute as much to the product system under study as included processes; thus, the subjective determination of the system boundary may lead to invalid results. System boundaries in LCA are discussed herein with particular attention to outlining hybrid approaches as methods for resolving the boundary selection problem in LCA. An input-output model can be used to describe at least a part of a product system, and an ISO-compatible system boundary selection procedure can be designed by applying hybrid input-output-assisted approaches. There are several hybrid input-output analysis-based LCA methods that can be implemented in practice for broadening system boundary and also for ISO compliance.     

Electron transport behaviors across single grain boundaries in <Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis>-type BaTiO<Subscript>3</Subscript>, SrTiO<Subscript>3</Subscript> and ZnO

In some electroceramic materials, their unique electrical properties are due to potential barriers, i.e., double Schottky barriers (DSBs), formed at grain boundaries. So far, some researchers have revealed that the electrical properties of DSB are closely related to grain boundary characters, especially grain boundary coherency. For example, highly coherent boundary does not give PTCR or varistic property, while random types exhibit clear resistivity jump or abrupt current increment. Therefore, a concept of grain boundary design will be required for future device manufacturing, even in bulk materials. But it has not been clarified yet why the electron transport behaviors depend on them. In order to address this question, it is necessary to carry out a systematic experiment focusing on single grain boundaries using well-defined bicrystals.In the present study, we have summarized our studies with a special interest in electron transport behavior across single grain boundaries for n-type BaTiO₃, SrTiO₃ and ZnO.     

Forecasting daily peak load by a deterministic prediction method employing Gram-Schmidt orthonormalization

A technique for forecasting daily peak load in a utility power system is presented. After embedding time series data of daily peak load into a reconstructed state space, a nonlinear mapping is constructed by a local approximation method based on the orthonormal Gram-Schmidt bases. This method utilizes only the past load data for short-term prediction of the daily peak load, while many conventional methods make predictions with various kinds of data such as temperature and weather. The quality of prediction by the proposed method is as good as those with other prediction methods. Moreover, the results of short-term prediction by this method are satisfactory even with data as small as 250 points.     

Three-dimensional eddy current analysis by the boundary elementmethod using vector potential

A boundary-element method using a magnetic vector potential for eddy-current analysis is described. For three-dimensional (3-D) problems, the tangential and normal components of the vector potential, tangential components of the magnetic flux density, and an electric scalar potential on conductor surfaces are chosen as unknown variables. When the approximation is introduced so that the conductivity of the conductor is very large in comparison with the conductivity of air, the number of unknowns can be reduced; also, for axisymmetric models the scalar potential can be eliminated from the unknown variables. The formulation of the boundary-element method using the vector potential, and computation results by the proposed method, are presented