Integrated Front-End Radar Receivers at Ka-Band

This paper describes the Integrated Finline Front-end Radar Receivers at Ka-Band. The Front-receivers developed for Radar applications include combining of finline components on a single MIC substrate with various planar transmission lines. The integrated systems so developed have better noise figure and control over phase and gain imbalances as compared to discrete component systems. Two types of Integrated Front-ends Radar receivers are described here. The developed systems are highly compact and reliable.     

Photocatalytic reduction of carbonates and formation of some energy rich systems in the presence of Toluidine Blue

Aqueous sodium and potassium carbonates have been photoreduced in the presence of Toluidine Blue solution (which is also the photocatalyst). The photocatalytic formation of formic acid and formaldehyde was measured spectrophotometrically using Nash reagent. The effect of variation of various parameters like pH, amount of photocatalyst (Toluidine Blue concentration), concentration of Na₂CO₃ and K₂CO₃, light intensity, etc., on the yield of photoproducts was also investigated. A tentative mechanism for this reduction has been proposed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A cubic B-spline quasi-interpolation algorithm to capture the pattern formation of coupled reaction-diffusion models

Diffusion plays a significant role in complex pattern formulations occurred in biological and chemical reactions. In this work, the authors study the effect of diffusion in coupled reaction-diffusion systems named the Gray-Scott model for complex pattern formation with the help of cubic B-spline quasi-interpolation (CBSQI) method and capture various formates of these patterns. The idea of Kronecker product is used first time with CBSQI method for 2D problems. Linear stability analysis of the reaction-diffusion system as well as stability of the proposed method is studied. Four test problems are considered to check the accuracy and efficiency of the method and found the stable patterns.

     

The strength of the fibre-polymer interface in short glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene

A method for the determination of the interfacial bond strength in well-aligned short glass fibre-reinforced polypropylene samples is discussed. The method takes into account the variation of the interfacial shear stress during the deformation process; consequently, it yields very consistent results at all values of the composite strain. The influence of the fibre orientation with respect to the load axis is appropriately considered using macro-mechanical analyses for stiffness and strength of the composite. The method is compared with two other methods reported in the literature.     

Photoconduction investigations in 75 MeV oxygen ion irradiated kapton-H polyimide

Photoconduction behaviour of 75 MeV oxygen ion irradiated (Fluences: 1.8 × 10¹¹, 1.8 × 10¹² and 1.8 × 10¹³ ions/cm²) kapton-H polyimide film in the visible region has been investigated at different temperatures ranging 400-2500 °C and at various electric fields ranging 40-600 kV/cm. A photoinduced exciton formation is the major source for providing charge carriers through thermolization and field-assisted dissociation processes. An attempt has been made to fit the field dependence of the steady state photocurrent to one of the several possible conduction mechanisms. In the high and low fluence (1.8 × 10¹³ and 1.8 × 10¹¹ ions/cm²) irradiated samples there exists a possibility of Poole-Frankel type of photoconduction mechanism, whereas at intermediate fluence (1.8 × 10¹² ions/cm²) a Schottky type photoconduction mechanism may be operative. The log I_ps versus 1/T plots consist of two straight lines with a knee point around 800-1000 °C. The activation energy estimated from the slope of these lines is field dependent varying from 0.40 to 0.73 eV and 0.18 to 0.23 eV above and below the knee point, respectively. This indicates the presence of more than one type of trapping levels in irradiated kapton-H polyimide.     

Artificial neural network for the prediction of temperature, moisture and fat contents in meatballs during deep-fat frying

An artificial neural network (ANN) was developed to predict heat and mass transfer during deep-fat frying of meatballs. Frying time, radius of meatball, fat diffusivity, moisture diffusivity, heat transfer coefficient, fat conductivity, initial moisture content, thermal diffusivity, initial meatball temperature and oil temperature were all input variables. Temperature at meatball geometrical centre ( T ₀), average temperature of meatball ( T _ave), average fat content of meatball ( m _f,ave), and average moisture content of meatball ( m _ave) were outputs. The data used to train and verify the ANN were obtained from validated mathematical models. Trained ANN predicted T ₀, T _ave, m _f,ave and m _ave with 0.54, 0.14, 0.03 and 0.10% mean relative errors, respectively.     

Role of transformed martensite in the cracking of stainless steel plumbing lines

Austenitic stainless steel AISI 321 is used to fabricate plumbing lines to transfer cryogens from storage to output collector of propulsion system. Cracks were found in some of such tubes during one of the qualification tests of pipelines. The crack occurred at the bent region of the fuel feed pipeline along its neutral axis. Detailed metallographic investigations revealed presence of numerous longitudinal fine cracks on the inner surface of the tube that resulted from improper extrusion of the tube. Further, deformation induced martensitic transformation occurred, as the tube was bent at liquid nitrogen temperature. The transformed martensite, in presence of fine cracks on inner surface of the tube, due to improper extrusion, resulted in crack opening. This paper highlights the details of investigations carried out.