Experimental study of post-dryout with R-134a upward flow in smooth tube and rifled tubes

A study of post-dryout heat transfer was performed with a directed heated smooth tube and rifled tubes using vertical R-134a up-flow to investigate the heat transfer characteristics in the post-dryout region. Three types of rifled tube having different rib height and width were used to examine the effects of rib geometry and compare with the smooth tube, using a mass flux of 70–800 kg/m² s and a pressure of 13–24 bar (corresponding to an approximate water pressure of 80–140 bar). Wall temperature distribution in all tubes was strongly dependent on pressure and mass flux. Wall temperatures of the rifled tubes in the post-dryout region were much lower than for the smooth tube at same conditions. This was attributed to swirl flow caused by the rib. Thus, the thermal non-equilibrium, which is usually present in the post-dryout region, was lowered. The empirical correlation of heat transfer in the smooth tube of the post-dryout region was obtained. The heat transfer correlation for rifled tubes was also obtained as a function of rib height and width with the modification of the smooth tube correlation.     

Development of a method of evaluating an inventory of fission products for a pebble bed reactor

The design of the high temperature gas-cooled reactor (HTGR) has evolved and the relevant safety requirements have been defined; accordingly, the source term to be used as the basis for licensing must also be developed. However, analysis of the source term in the HTGR has not been adequately investigated and there has not been definite improvement in this respect. Because radioactivity in normal operation must be well understood, the purpose of this study is to establish a method for activity evaluation by the code combination MCNP-ORIGEN-MONTEBURNS-MOTEX. The sophisticated method, which constructs the HTR-10 core by using the unit lattice of a hexagonal prism, is developed for core modeling. The MCNP modeling is used to simulate the generation of fission products with an increase of burnup, and ORIGEN is utilized for depletion calculation of each fission product. Continuous fuel management is divided into five discrete periods for the feeding and discharging of fuel pebbles. MONTEBURNS is used for discrete fuel management. In short, this work by aid from MOTEX traces 41 isotope nuclides, the results of which seem highly probable. In addition, the inventory of actinides at the end of each cycle is also investigated. It would be informative when the waste management of spent fuel of HTGRs would be taken into account. This article lays the foundation for future work on the analysis of the source term in HTGRs and will hopefully serve as a platform from which the safety assessment of radioactive material release during accidents can be undertaken in future.     

Synthesis of sub-micron nickel particles coated onto aluminum powders via a modified polyol process

Aluminum is commonly used as a fuel additive for propellants. The main limitations to its use lie in comparatively slow ignition and oxidation/combustion kinetics. Combustion performance of aluminized propellants can be improved through the use of Ni-coated Al particles. Sub-micron to nano-sized particles, with their increased reactivity, also improve combustion performance. Hence, in these contexts, fine Ni particles coated onto commercially available micron-sized Al powders using a modified polyol process were synthesized and evaluated. Ni-coated Al powders of various compositions produced by this method showed significant improvement in oxidation kinetics compared to untreated Al powders. The onset oxidation temperatures for the Ni-coated Al powders were found to be significantly reduced compared to pure untreated Al.     

High-strength superelastic Ti–Ni microtubes fabricated by sputter deposition

Ti–Ni microtubes are attractive materials for biomedical devices, such as micro-catheters and micro-stents, but it is difficult to fabricate them with dimensions of less than 100 μm by conventional tube-drawing. In this study, Ti–Ni microtubes with 50 μm inner diameter and a tube wall thickness of 6 μm was successfully fabricated using a novel method in which Ti–Ni was sputter-deposited on a Cu wire with a diameter of 50 μm. All the microtubes exhibited shape memory behavior after crystallization at 873 K for 3.6 ks. Microtubes fabricated without rotating the Cu wire during deposition have low fracture strength due to the columnar grains and non-uniform tube wall thickness. Microtubes fabricated by depositing Ti–Ni on a rotating wire have a uniform wall thickness and the fracture strength increased with increasing rotation speed. Microtubes made by the rotating-wire method exhibited superelasticity of 3% strain at room temperature with high fracture stress of 950 MPa, suggesting that they are suitable for practical applications.     

Red-phosphorescent OLEDs employing iridium (III) complexes based on 5-benzoyl-2-phenylpyridine derivatives

A series of red-phosphorescent iridium (III) complexes 1-4 based on 5-benzoyl-2-phenylpyridine derivatives was synthesized. Their photophysical and electrophosphorescent properties were investigated. Multilayered OLEDs were fabricated with a device structure ITO/4,4′,4″-tris(N-(naphtalen-2-yl)-N-phenyl-amino)triphenylamine (60 nm)/4,4′-bis(N-naphtylphenylamino)biphenyl (20 nm)/Ir(III) complexes (8%) doped in 4,4′-N,N′-dicarbazolebiphenyl (30 nm)/2,9-Dimethyl-4,7-diphenyl-1,10-phenanthroline (10 nm)/tris(8-hydroxyquinolinyl)aluminum(III) (20 nm)/Liq (2 nm)/Al (100 nm). All devices exhibited efficient red emissions. Among those, in a device containing iridium complex 1 dopant, the maximum luminance was 14200 cd/m² at 14.0 V. Also, its luminous, power, and quantum efficiency were 10.40 cd/A, 3.44 lm/W and 9.21% at 20 mA/cm², respectively. The peak wavelength of the electroluminescence was 607 nm, with CIE coordinates of (0.615, 0.383) at 12.0 V, and the device also showed a stable color chromaticity with various voltages.     

Pyridine substituted spirofluorene derivative as an electron transport material for high efficiency in blue organic light-emitting diodes

The quantum efficiency of blue fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes was enhanced by 20% using a pyridine substituted spirofluorene-benzofluorene derivative as an electron transport material. 2′,7′-Di(pyridin-3-yl)spiro[benzofluorene-7,9′-fluorene] (SPBP) was synthesized and it was used as the electron transport material to block the hole leakage from the emitting layer. The improvement of the quantum efficiency and power efficiency of the blue fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes using the SPBP was investigated.     

An efficient frequency offset estimator for OFDM systems and itsperformance characteristics

In this paper, we propose a new frequency synchronization algorithm for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems requiring only one training symbol, based on a conventional method which requires two training symbols. While the timing synchronization is obtained by using the conventional method, the carrier frequency offset is efficiently estimated by the proposed method. It is shown that the proposed method not only reduces the number of the training symbols but also possesses better performance than the conventional method without increase in complexity     

Novel design concept of waveguide mode adapter for low-loss modeconversion

We proposed a novel design concept of a mode adapter using a new parameter. The overlap integration of two adjacent mode profiles is defined as a single step loss (SSL) parameter for the characterization of optical mode confinement as well as the quantification of mode mismatch. The variation of SSL is described with two parameters. These parameters are V, a normalized frequency, and s, a differential width variation ratio. The contour for constant SSL in the V, s plane provides the optimized s curve as a function of V. The design concept with this constant SSL is shown to provide optimized adapters of minimized conversion loss