Low-temperature interface reaction in aluminium-silicon carbide particulate composites produced by mechanical alloying

An experimental investigation has been carried out on the reaction that takes place between 3 and 20 μm SiC particles and the aluminium alloy 1050 matrix of composite materials prepared by a mechanical alloying process. The work is different from that undertaken by other researchers in that the SiC-Al interface reaction has been studied in the temperature range 853–933 K, i.e., with the matrix initially in the solid state. Differential thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy all show that the SiC-Al reaction initiates in the solid state at temperatures as low as 883 K. The reaction produces Al4C3 and Si, the latter entering into solid solution in the aluminium matrix. At temperatures exceeding 903 K, the reaction produces a liquid phase and at this stage the speed of the interface reaction increases significantly. The results are discussed in terms of Al-Si-C metastable equilibrium and the kinetics of the reaction. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Electrochromic properties of tungsten-molybdenum oxide electrodes

Tungsten oxide and molybdenum doped tungsten oxide electrochromic films have been electrochemically prepared from a metal peroxide bath and experimentally tested. They were characterized by electrical and optical methods, using cyclic voltammograms and calculating the charge capacity as a function of the number of deposition cycles.The color of the electrochromic WO₃ film is strongly altered by doping it with molybdenum. Electrochromic W---Mo oxide films were fabricated by adding different percentages of molybdenum to tungsten oxide, ranging from 0.5% to 7% weight of deposition solution. Normal optical transmittance was also measured and evidence is given of different behavior if the switching for oxidation and reduction cycle, so that coloration occurs in a shorter time than the bleaching. The time constant of the process tends to increase as a function of the molybdenum oxide doping concentration.     

A new SPICE model of power P-I-N diode based on asymptotic waveformevaluation

A new SPICE subcircuit model for power p-i-n diodes is proposed in this paper. The model is based on a moment-matching approximation of the ambipolar diffusion equation. It is shown that both the quasistatic model and the lumped charge model can be obtained as ion-order moment-matching approximations while new and more accurate models can be obtained from higher-order solutions. The proposed model takes into account emitter recombination in the highly doped end regions, conductivity modulation in the base and the moving-boundaries effect during reverse-recovery, showing good convergence properties and fast simulation times. Comparisons between the results of the SPICE model and both numerical device simulations and experimental results are presented     

The probability density and autocorrelation of short-term global and beam irradiance

For individual hours, a characteristic bimodal pattern of short-term global and beam irradiance is frequently observed, with modes at high and low irradiances and with low probabilities near the hourly averages. For such hours, averaging over the hour will imply smoothing of quite significant variations within the hour. Models for the probability density distributions of short-term (5 min or less) irradiances are presented in this paper. These distributions are not unique functions of the hourly averages, but depend heavily also on the irradiance variability within the hour. This intrahour variability is found to depend on the averaging time and also on the interhour variability among three hourly averages, namely, the hour in question, the preceding and the deceding hour. The distribution differences between 5 min averages and instantaneous values are, however, negligible for most practical purposes. The lag one autocorrelation is evaluated as a function of averaging time, and a first order autoregressive model is presented. With hourly averages as the only input the probability density and autoregressive model in combination produce time series of short-term intrahour averages having realistic distributions and autocorrelation structure.     

A mathematical model for the prediction of temperature in a dry snow layer

A mathematical model for predicting the temperature in a homogeneous layer of dry snow is presented. The model, which is physically based, is capable of predicting diurnal temperature behaviour at the snow surface and at any depth within a snow layer given the variation in a limited set of meteorological parameters over that period. A sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the important parameters in the prediction of snow surface temperatures. These are found to be consistent with simple physical reasoning.