Operating Characteristics of Lithium Drift Detectors

A study of the operating characteristics of diffused window lithium drift silicon detector has revealed that the level of compensation is independent of depth. The compensation corresponds to a net impurity concentration of 5 × 1010 impurities per cubic centimeter and is approximately three order of magnitude poorer than that set by current flow through a diode. Using time stability studies it is possible to differentiate between stability of compensation in the bulk or main body of the detector and in the window (diffused type) area of the diode. By appropriate biasing a lithium distribution can be obtained in the window area which has good time stability. The stability of the compensation in the bulk of the diode is sufficiently high that the diffused window detector will provide many years of operation, even when the detector is left largely unbiased.     

Time-dependent response of aramid-epoxy-aluminum sheet,ARALL, laminates

Selected results of an ongoing investigation aimed at characterizing the timedependent response of an aramid-epoxy-aluminum sheet laminate and its constitutents at 121°C are outlined in this paper. This laminate is a recently developed hybrid composite developed by the Aluminum Company of America, marketed under the ARALL-4 tradename. The paper addresses the time-dependent response of the above hybrid composite under creep loading. It is illustrated that ARALL-4 laminates may exhibit substantial creep effects at stress levels below the proportional limit. The creep response is a nonlinear function of time and the applied stress level and is primarily due to the creep characteristics of the aluminum layers. An analytical model based on the assumptions of the classical lamination theory developed to model the time-dependent response of these laminates under creep and thermal loading is shown to yield good correlation with the experimental data. It is also illustrated that the residual state of stress can influence the extent of creep. This offers the possibility of minimizing the creep effects by altering the state of residual stress with mechanical prestraining.     

Supersonic fluid flow in parallel with an unstructured mesh

An algorithm has been implemented for time-accurate solutions of the two-dimensional compressible Euler equations using an irregular triangular mesh. The code runs on distributed or shared memory or sequential machines, and is written using the Distributed Irregular Mesh Environment (DIME). DIME is a programming environment for calculations with such meshes, with adaptive mesh refinement and dynamic load balancing. Results are presented for an example of a Mach 3 flow over a step, computed with a 32-processor NCUBE hypercube.     

Benchmarking advanced architecture computers

Recently, a number of advanced architecture machines have become commercially available. These new machines promise better cost performance than traditional computers, and some of them have the potential of competing with current supercomputers, such as the CRAY X-MP, in terms of maximum performance. This paper describes the methodology and results of a pilot study of the performance of a broad range of advanced architecture computers using a number of complete scientific application programs. The computers evaluated include:

• 1 shared-memory bus architecture machines such as the Alliant FX/8, the Encore Multimax, and the Sequent Balance and Symmetry
• 2 shared-memory network-connected machines such as the Butterfly
• 3 distributed-memory machines such as the NCUBE, Intel and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)/Caltech hypercubes
• 4 very long instruction word machines such as the Cydrome Cydra-5
• 5 SIMD machines such as the Connection Machine
• 6 ‘traditional’ supercomputers such as the CRAY X-MP, CRAY-2 and SCS-40.

Seven application codes from a number of scientific disciplines have been used in the study, although not all the codes were run on every machine. The methodology and guidelines for establishing a standard set of benchmark programs for advanced architecture computers are discussed. The CRAYs offer the best performance on the benchmark suite; the shared memory multiprocessor machines generally permitted some parallelism, and when coupled with substantial floating point capabilities (as in the Alliant FX/8 and Sequent Symmetry), provided an order of magnitude less speed than the CRAYs. Likewise, the early generation hypercubes studied here generally ran slower than the CRAYs, but permitted substantial parallelism from each of the application codes.     

EFFECT OF VARIOUS SIZES OF GROG PARTICLES ON CLAY POTS

The service obtained from refractory clay, glass-drawing pots, 40 inches in diameter, was increased in factory practice by eliminating grog particles finer than 40-mesh.