A High-Speed Optical Data Highway for Industrial Control Systems

Recent application of distributed control systems to large-and medium-scale industrial plants requires effective and high-speed communication among the control devices each other to ensure high-performance operation.     

Administration of docosahexaenoic acid influences behavior and plasma catecholamine levels at times of psychological stress

The purpose of the present research was to clarify the effect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) intake on behavior and plasma catecholamines (CA). In Study 1, 42 students took either DHA-rich oil capsules containing 1.5–1.8 g DHA/d or control oil capsules containing 97% soybean oil plus 3% of another fish oil for 3 mon in a double-blind fashion. They took a psychological test (PF Study) at the start and end of the study. This study started at the end of summer vacation and ended just before the final exams. In the control group, external aggression (aggression against others) in PF Study was significantly increased at the end of the study as compared with that measured at the start (+8.9%), whereas it was not significantly changed in the DHA group (?1.0%). In a similar double-blind study (Study 2), we measured external aggression under nonstressful conditions. External aggression slightly decreased in the control group, whereas there were no significant changes in the DHA group. In Study 3 with 14 students, plasma CA were measured at the start and end of capsule administration period of 2 mon. Subjects were under continuous stress of the final exams that lasted throughout the whole study period. The ratio of plasma epinephrine to norepinephrine concentrations was significantly increased in the DHA group (78%), whereas it stayed at the same level in the control group. In Study 4, mice were fed either DHA-deficient diet or -sufficient diet for 4 wk, and their rearing frequency (an anxiety index) was measured. In the DHA-sufficient group, the rearing frequency was significantly less than in the other group. These effects of DHA intake may be applied to people in an attempt to ameliorate stress-related diseases.     

The development of simplified ultrasonic CT system and its application to the evaluation of weld metal

In this paper, as a new measurement method to estimate the change of material condition, the simplified ultrasonic CT system, which uses the information of three directions, that is, 90°, + 45° and −45° about inspection plane is proposed. Use of simplified CT system has two merits: Firstly, the measurement time is very short compared with general CT. Secondly, it can detect sensitively small defect in vertical or slant direction about inspection plane because the obtained image is CT image calculated from three directions. From these merits, this method can be considered as an effective method to evaluate material conditions. The basic performance of the proposed method was confirmed through several specimens with several simple defects. In order to confirm the applicability of actual NDT, several kinds of welded specimens are investigated. The result showed that the CT image obtained had good agreement with actual defect of specimens.     

Selective sorption of heavy metal thiocyanate complexes on crown ether resin

The sorption behavior of heavy metal thiocyanate complexes was investigated for dibenzo-18-crown-6 (DB18C6) resin and bis[2-(o-methoxyphenoxy)ethyl]ether (BMPE) resin. The DB18C6 resin showed a high sorption ability and the degree of zinc sorption increased significantly with thiocyanate concentration. This behavior was not observed for BMPE resin. The sorption behavior was influenced by the countercation species, and the degree of sorption of zinc ions showed the maximum when the potassium thiocyanate was used as a complexing salt. The sorbed species appear to be KZn(SCN)₃, K₂Zn(SCN)₄ in the potassium thiocyanate system, and Zn(SCN)₂ in the lithium thiocyanate system, respectively, according to analysis of the sorption equilibrium. Sodium and ammonium thiocyanate systems show an intermediate behavior of the two. The sorption selectivity for DB18C6 resin depended not only on the hydrophobic nature of heavy metal thiocyanate complexes but also on the stabilization of counter cation species with crown ether matrix, and the sorption selectively was found to be effectively controlled by countercation species according to the cation-chelation mechanism.     

Preparation of Tubular Silica-Glass Membranes with Thin Silica Layers by Sputtering, Using the Novel Sputtering Apparatus for Tubular Supports

Tubular SiO₂-glass membranes with thin, dense SiO₂layers on porous glass supports were prepared via sputtering, using the novel sputtering apparatus for tubular supports. This apparatus had a holder for tubular supports and a rotation mechanism. The sputtering conditions of the membranes were investigated. A support temperature of 573 K was determined to be the best among the temperatures that were selected in our experiments. Scanning electron microscopy observations showed that the membrane surfaces became smooth as the sputtering time increased and had no cracks. The permeances of helium, nitrogen, and CO₂were measured at a temperature of 373 K. The permeances for the membranes were on the order of 10^-9 molm^-2s^-1Pa^-1 (10^-5 cm³(STP)cm^-2s^-1(cm Hg)^-1). The ratio of the permeances of helium to nitrogen was similar to the theoretical Knudsen value. These values were much lower than the values that were expected from the dense SiO₂glass. This phenomenon was considered to be attributable to the presence of microcracks during the sputtering deposition.     

Multi-fluid multi-phase subchannel analysis of subassembly accidents of LMFRs

Analyses of experiments simulating hypothetical subassembly accidents such as a large-scale inlet blockage in a Liquid Metal Cooled Fast Reactor (LMFR) have been performed with computer program KAMUI. With the use of relatively simple but reasonable constitutive models, the code has been applied to the SCARABEE experiments BE+1 and APL1 to validate the analytical capability against the accident conditions under the multi-pin geometry. The results show that the key events such as sodium boiling, clad melting, molten clad relocation, molten clad freezing were adequately simulated taking into account the effect of heat loss to the coolant flow in the outside channel of the test section.