Some experiences in the use of ADINA in the Swedish Nuclear Industry

This paper presents a number of engineering analysis problems solved from 1990 to 1996 where ADINA was used in the analysis. The problems are in the following areas: natural frequencies, dynamic loading, fatigue, fracture mechanics and natural convection-driven fluid flow. For most of the problems, a comparison between calculations and measurements is also presented. Our experience is that good numerical results can be achieved for static linear problems even when the geometry is complex, but in dynamic analysis it can be difficult to establish models that accurately contain all frequencies, and, of course, in non-linear analysis, the representation of the non-linear material behaviour provides a limit to the modelling accuracy.     

Open Embedded Control

Embedded control devices today usually allow parameter changes, and possibly activation of different pre-implemented algorithms. Full reprogramming using the complete source code is not allowed for safety, efficiency, and proprietary reasons. For these reasons, embedded regulators are quite rigid and closed concerning the control structure. In several applications, like industrial robots, there is a need to tailor the low level control to meet specific application demands. In order to meet the efficiency and safety demands, a way of building more generic and open regulators has been developed. The key idea is to use pieces of compiled executable code as functional operators, which in the simplest case may appear as ordinary control parameters. In an object oriented framework, this means that new methods can be added to controller objects after implementation of the basic control, even at run-time. The implementation was carried out in industrially well accepted languages such as C and C++. The dynamic binding at run-time differs from ordinary dynamic linking in that only a subset of the symbols can be used. This subset is defined by the fixed part of the system. The safety demands can therefore still be fulfilled. Encouraged by results from fully implemented test cases, we believe that extensive use of this concept will admit more open, still efficient, embedded systems.     

Beam purification by photodetachment (invited)

Ion beam purity is of crucial importance to many basic and applied studies in nuclear science. Selective photodetachment has been proposed to suppress unwanted species in negative ion beams while preserving the intensity of the species of interest. A highly efficient technique based on photodetachment in a gas-filled radio frequency quadrupole ion cooler has been demonstrated. In off-line experiments with stable ions, up to 10(4) times suppression of the isobar contaminants in a number of interesting radioactive negative ion beams has been demonstrated. For selected species, this technique promises new experimental possibilities in studies on exotic nuclei, accelerator mass spectrometry, and fundamental properties of negative atomic and molecular ions.     

Search for Superconductivity in Ultra-dense Deuterium D(?1) at Room Temperature: Depletion of D(?1) at Field Strength >0.05 T

Ultra-dense deuterium D(?1) is expected to be both a superfluid and a superconductor as shown by recent theoretical research. Condensed D(?1) can be deposited on surfaces by a source which produces a stream of clusters. A magnetic field strongly influences the type of material formed. Very little of D(?1) and of the form D(1), which is strongly coupled to D(?1), exists on the magnet surface or within several mm from the magnet surface. Even the formation of D(?1) on the source emitter is strongly influenced by a magnetic field, with a critical field strength in the range 0.03?C0.07 T. Higher excitation levels D(2) and D(3) dominate in a magnetic field. The excitation level D(2) is now observed for the first time. The removal of D(?1) and D(1) in strong magnetic fields is proposed to be due to a Meissner effect in long D(?1) clusters by large-orbit electron motion. The lifting of long D(?1) clusters above the magnet surface is slightly larger than expected, possibly due to the coupling to D(1). The previously reported oscillation between D(?1) and D(1) in an electric field is proposed to be due to destruction of D(?1).     

Conjugated polymers with polar side chains in bulk heterojunction solar cell devices

Two polymers with polar side chains, namely poly[2,7‐(9,9‐dioctylfluorene)‐alt‐5,5‐(5',8'‐di‐2‐thienyl‐(2',3'‐bis(3''‐(2‐(2‐methoxyethoxy)ethoxy)phenyl)quinoxaline))] ( P1 ) and poly[2,7‐(9,9‐bis(2‐(2‐methoxyethoxy)ethyl)fluorene)‐alt‐5,5‐(5',8'‐di‐2‐thienyl‐(2',3'‐bis(3''‐(2‐(2‐methoxyethoxy)‐ethoxy)phenyl)quinoxaline))] ( P2 ), were synthesized for solar cell application. A series of bulk heterojunction solar cells were systematically fabricated and characterized by varying the electron‐acceptor materials, processing solvents and thickness of the active layer. The results show that P1 , with a higher molecular weight and good film‐forming properties, performed better. The best device showed an open circuit voltage of 0.87 V, a short circuit current of 6.81 mA cm^?2 and a power conversion efficiency of 2.74% with 1:4 polymer:[6,6]‐phenyl‐C71‐butyric acid methyl ester (PCBM[70]) mixture using o‐dichlorobenzene (o‐DCB) as processing solvent. P2 on the other hand showed a poorer performance with chlorobenzene as processing solvent, but a much improved performance was obtained using o‐DCB instead. Thus, an open circuit voltage of 0.80 V, short circuit current of 6.21 mA cm^?2 and an overall power conversion efficiency of 2.22% were recorded for a polymer:PCBM[70] mixing ratio of 1:4. This is presumably due to the improvement of the morphology of the active layer using o‐DCB as processing solvent. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry     

Coarsening Investigations of Precipitates in PM Tool Steel Grades: an Effect of Nitrogen

We present experimental and theoretical comparisons of the coarsening rate for the MX (X?=?C, N or C?+?N) precipitate in five different tool steel grades produced by Powder Metallurgy (PM). The alloys contain different amounts of nitrogen and carbon; ranging from high carbon/low nitrogen to high nitrogen/low carbon. Common for the grades is a high amount of precipitate forming alloying elements resulting in a high fraction of hard phase. Experimentally we have found out that the nitrogen rich precipitates coarsen slower, both for higher and lower carbon content, than the carbon rich precipitates. Coarsening simulations are performed utilizing the DICTRA software and an agreement between calculations and measurements can be concluded.     

Maxsim2—Real-time interactive simulations for computer-assisted teaching of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics

We developed a computer program for use in undergraduate and graduate courses in pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. This program can also be used in environmental and toxicological studies and preclinical simulation, to facilitate communication between modeling pharmacokineticists and project leaders or other decision-makers in the pharmaceutical industry. The program simulates the drug delivery and transport by means of (I) a six-compartment physiological pharmacokinetic flow model, (II) a system of traditional compartment models, or (III) a target-mediated drug disposition system. The program also can be used to simulate instantaneous equilibria between concentration and pharmacodynamic response, or as temporal delays between concentration and response. The latter is done by means of turnover models (indirect response models). Drug absorption, distribution, and elimination are represented by differential equations, which are described by organ and tissue volumes or other volumes of distribution, blood flows, clearance terms, and tissue-to-blood partition coefficients. The user can control and adjust these parameters by means of a slider in real time. By interactively changing the parameter values and simultaneously displaying the resulting concentration–time and/or response–time profiles, users can understand the major mechanisms that govern the disposition or the pharmacological response of the drug in the organism in real time. Schedule dependence is typically seen in clinical practice with a non-linear concentration–response relationship, and is difficult to communicate except via simulations. Here, we sought to illustrate the potential advantages of this approach in teaching pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics to undergraduate pharmacy-, veterinary-, and medical students or to project teams in drug discovery/development.     

Pressurised hot water extraction with on-line particle formation by supercritical fluid technology

In this work, an on-line process for pressurised hot water extraction (PHWE) of antioxidants from plants as well as drying of the extract in one step by particle formation based on the use of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO₂) has been developed. This process has been called WEPO®, water extraction and particle formation on-line. With this process, dried extracts from onion with the same composition of quercetin derivatives as non-dried extracts have been obtained as a fine powder with spherical particles from 250 nm to 4 μm in diameter. The major compounds present in the extract were quercetin-3,4′-diglucoside, quercetin-4′-glucoside and quercetin. An auxiliary inert gas (hot N₂) was used to enhance the drying process. Parameters such as temperature (120 °C), SC-CO₂ and N₂ pressures (80 and 12.5 bar, respectively) and flow rate of SC-CO₂ (10 ml/min), have been settled by trial-and-error in order to achieve a fine and constant spray formation. Water content, size and morphology, antioxidant capacity and quercetin content of the particles were studied to evaluate the efficiency of the WEPO process. Results were compared with the ones from extracts obtained by continuous flow PHWE followed by freeze-drying. Results showed that both processes gave similar results in terms of antioxidant capacity, concentration of quercetin derivatives and water content, while only WEPO was able to produce defined spherical particles smaller than 4 μm.     

Distributed dynamic load balancing with applications in radio access networks

Managing and balancing load in distributed systems remains a challenging problem in resource management, especially in networked systems where scalability concerns favour distributed and dynamic approaches. Distributed methods can also integrate well with centralised control paradigms if they provide high‐level usage statistics and control interfaces for supporting and deploying centralised policy decisions. We present a general method to compute target values for an arbitrary metric on the local system state and show that autonomous rebalancing actions based on the target values can be used to reliably and robustly improve the balance for metrics based on probabilistic risk estimates. To balance the trade‐off between balancing efficiency and cost, we introduce 2 methods of deriving rebalancing actuations from the computed targets that depend on parameters that directly affects the trade‐off. This enables policy level control of the distributed mechanism based on collected metric statistics from network elements. Evaluation results based on cellular radio access network simulations indicate that load balancing based on probabilistic overload risk metrics provides more robust balancing solutions with fewer handovers compared to a baseline setting based on average load.