Air vent in water chamber and surface coating on liner slides concerning auxiliary cooling system for the high temperature engineering test reactor

Experimental study was made to confirm the validity of new designs of the auxiliary cooling system for the high temperature engineering test reactor (HTTR). First, it is necessary to vent residence air in outlet side of water chamber of the auxiliary heat exchanger for the HTTR. Accordingly, we have proposed to mount a proper bend duct in the outlet side of the water chamber. Air vent is done by difference between pressures at both ends of the bend duct caused by the forced water circulation using the water pumps. From flow tests, it was confirmed that it is capable of venting the air through the bend duct by circulating the water in maximum capacity of the water pumps. Second, it is essential to prevent seizure and excessive wear of the liner slides of the auxiliary concentric hot gas duct for the HTTR at a service temperature of 950°C. Therefore, we have put forward to coat titanium nitride (TiN) on the surface of the liner slides made of nickel-based superalloy Hastelloy XR using the thermochemical vapor deposition method. As a result of seizure and wear tests, it was confirmed that the TiN coating film of 3 μm on the surface of Hastelloy XR is sufficient.     

Permeation of Zidovudine and Probenecid from Oily Bases Containing Alcohols Through Rat Skin

Permeation of zidovudine (3'-azido-3'-deoxythymidine, AZT) and probenecid from oily bases containing an alcohol through rat skin was examined. Isopropyl myristate (IPM), as an oily vehicle, showed a penetration enhancing effect for AZT and probenecid. Ethanol, n-propanol, and n-butanol were used as additives in IPM and were examined for their own permeation and the enhancing effect on the permeation of AZT and probenecid. The skin permeation of AZT and probenecid from IPM was enhanced by addition of the alcohol in IPM. The degree of the enhancement was decreased with increasing lipophilicity of the alcohol used. me permeation rate of the drug from those systems was shown to be governed by penetration-enhancing effects of the oily base and alcohol, and the penetration of the alcohol itself through the skin.     

An investigation of water-gas transport processes in the gas-diffusion-layer of a PEM fuel cell by a multiphase multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann model

In order to study water-gas transport processes in the gas-diffusion-layer (GDL) of a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell system, a multiphase, multiple-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann model is presented in this work. The model is based on the mean-field diffuse interface theory and can handle the multiphase flows with large density ratios and various viscosities. By using the standard bounce back boundary condition and an approximate average scheme for the non-slip and wetting boundary walls, respectively, detailed liquid-gas transportation in the GDL, in which exact boundary condition is difficult to be implemented, can be simulated. Unlike most of lattice Boltzmann methods based on the Bhatnagar–Gross–Krook collision operator, the present model shows a viscosity-independent velocity field, which is very important in simulating multiphase flows where various viscosities coexist. We validate our model by simulating a static droplet on a wetting wall and compare with theoretical predictions. Then, we simulate a water-gas flow in the GDL of a PEM fuel cell and investigate the saturation-dependent transport properties under different conditions. The results are shown to be qualitatively consistent with the previous numerical and theoretical works.     

A wide-bandwidth low-noise InGaAsP-InAlAs superlattice avalanchephotodiode with a flip-chip structure for wavelengths of 1.3 and 1.55μm

The authors reports the fabrication of a flip-chip InGaAsP-InAlAs superlattice avalanche photodiode using gas source molecular beam epitaxy. The incident light reaches the InGaAs photoabsorption layer through the InP substrate and an InGaAsP-InAlAs superlattice multiplication region which are transparent for wavelengths of 1.55 and 1.3 μm. The light reflection by the electrode enables the absorption layer to be as thin as 0.8 μm without significantly reducing the quantum efficiency. A maximum bandwidth of 17 GHz was obtained at a low multiplication factor because the transit time through the absorption layer is reduced     

High-performance carbon counter electrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

Here, we reported that a new carbon electrode prepared with an activated carbon was superior to a Pt sputtered electrode as the counter electrode of dye-sensitized solar cells. The photovoltaic performance was largely influenced by the roughness factor of carbon electrode. The open-circuit voltage increased by about 60 mV using the carbon counter electrode compared to the Pt counter electrode because of positive shift of the formal potential for I₃⁻/I⁻ couple.     

Safety evaluation on the depressurization accident in the gas turbine high temperature reactor (GTHTR300)

Japan Atomic Energy Agency has been developing a gas turbine high temperature reactor (GTHTR300) with electric power of approximately 300 MW. One of the unique safety design concepts of this system is that events with frequency of occurrence of higher than 10⁻⁸/reactor-year are evaluated as design basis events in order to show that the frequency of large amount of FP release is less than 10⁻⁸/reactor-year. According to this concept, a depressurization accident by a large break of helium piping is postulated as a design basis event. This accident is one of the most serious accidents in the high-temperature gas-cooled reactors from the viewpoint of loss of coolability. The safety evaluation on the accident was conducted based on the actual design of the system. The short-term and long-term behaviors of fuel temperature after occurrence of the accident, internal pressure of the reactor building, oxidation behavior of fuels and graphite structures were evaluated and exposure dose of general public was also estimated using the results of evaluation of fuel temperature and fuel failure by oxidation. All of the evaluation results meet the safety criteria and feasibility of the GTHTR300 was shown by this study.     

Thermal Transformation of Ring-Opened [2 2] C60 Dimer into a Wide-Bridged C120 Isomer. A Computational Evaluation of Fulvalene-Naphthalene Rearrangements

As a continuation of the studies on thermal transformation of the [2+2] C₆₀ dimer (1), the consequence of the pyracylene-rearrangement-like valence isomerization of the fulvalene partial structure at the bridge of the ring-opened product from 1, namely 2, was searched by dynamic reaction coordinate /AM1 semiempirical MO calculations. It is predicted that the fulvalene bridge of 2 rearranges into naphthalene partial structure by the concerted 'in-plane' mechanism to give a wide-bridged C₁₂₀ intermediate having twenty five-membered rings and two ten-membered rings (3). The computed energy of activation (145 kcal/mol) is 40 kcal/mol lower than those computed for pyracylene rearrangements. In contrast, the recently reported analogous rearrangement of indigo (13) to dibenzonaphthyridindione (14) is computed to occur by the stepwise 'sp³' mechanism.     

Theory and characteristics of novel variable reluctance 1X resolver

Although brushless resolvers have been used widely as angular position transducers, they are expensive due to their intricate construction, involving a rotary transformer to supply the exciting coils wound on the rotor poles with the current. It is shown theoretically in this paper that the resolver without rotary transformer or brushes can be realized by simple construction, which consists of the stator core with both 4-poles exciting windings and 2-poles output ones and the rotor core carrying no windings. In this resolver the rotor core has minimum gap at one side and a maximum gap at another side of the diameter. It is characterized by an outer surface form that makes the fluctuation part of gap permeance very in proportion to cos θ, where θ represents the angular position of a point in the air gap with respect to the origin on the rotor, the point of minimum air gap. The method determining the rotor form to embody the aforementioned gap permeance variation is also shown. It has been confirmed not only by simulation but also experiment that the 2-phase output voltages of a model designed based on the theory have sinusoidal waveforms with very small harmonic contents. Moreover, the rotor position detected by processing the output voltages through the conventional resolver/digital converter was within acceptable engineering accuracy.