Investigation of wall stress development and packing ratio distribution in the metal hydride reactor

The strains generated in a reaction vessel of hydrogen storage alloys and the packing ratio distribution inside the vessel were measured in order to analyze the effects of packing on stress. More specifically strains generated on the vessel’s surface were measured when hydrogen is repeatedly absorbed and desorbed by the packed bed in the reaction vessel. The amount of deformation, local packing ratios and relative particle volumes in the vessel were also measured after repeated hydrogen absorption–desorption. As absorption–desorption was performed repeatedly, agglomeration regions where the value of the local packing ratio was around 0.6 were formed, and particularly strong stress was generated in these regions, causing deformation. More hydrogen packing causes agglomeration regions to form over a wider area. Since alloys are pulverized by repeated absorption–desorption, and concentrate in the lower parts of the vessel, agglomeration regions are also formed in the lower parts. Our experiments also revealed that the resulting agglomeration regions have a packing ratio of about 0.6.     

Capacity Fading Mechanism in All Solid‐State Lithium Polymer Secondary Batteries Using PEG‐Borate/Aluminate Ester as Plasticizer for Polymer Electrolytes

Solid‐state lithium polymer secondary batteries (LPB) are fabricated with a two‐electrode‐type cell construction of Li|solid‐state polymer electrolyte (SPE)|LiFePO₄. Plasticizers of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)‐borate ester (B‐PEG) or PEG‐aluminate ester (Al‐PEG) are added into lithium‐conducting SPEs in order to enhance their ionic conductivity, and lithium bis‐trifluoromethansulfonimide (LiTFSI) is used as the lithium salt. An improvement of the electrochemical properties is observed upon addition of the plasticizers at an operation temperature of 60 °C. However, a decrease of discharge capacities abruptly follows after tens of stable cycles. To understand the origin of the capacity fading, electrochemical impedance techniques, ex‐situ NMR and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)/energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopy (EDS) techniques are adopted. Alternating current (AC) impedance measurements indicate that the decrease of capacity retention in the LPB is related to a severe increase of the interfacial resistance between the SPE and cathode. In addition, the bulk resistance of the SPE film is observed to accompany the capacity decay. Ex situ NMR studies combined with AC impedance measurements reveal a decrease of Li salt concentration in the SPE film after cycling. Ex situ SEM/EDS observations show an increase of concentration of anions on the electrode surface after cycling. Accordingly, the anions may decompose on the cathode surface, which leads to a reduction of the cycle life of the LPB. The present study suggests that a choice of Li salt and an increase of transference number is crucial for the realization of lithium polymer batteries.     

Domain-Swapping Design by Polyproline Rod Insertion

During domain swapping, proteins mutually interconvert structural elements to form a di-/oligomer. Engineering this process by design is important for creating a higher order protein assembly with minimal modification. Herein, a simple design strategy is shown for domain-swapping formation by loop deletion and insertion of a polyproline rod. Crystal structures revealed the formation of the domain-swapped dimers and polyproline portion formed a polyproline II (PPII) structure. Small-angle X-ray scattering demonstrated that an extended orientation of domain-swapped dimer was retained in solution. It is found that a multiple of three of inserting proline residue is favored for domain swapping because of the helical nature of PPII. The rigid nature of the polyproline rod enables precise control of the interdomain distance and orientation.     

Kiss1R Identification and Biodistribution Analysis Employing a Western Ligand Blot and Ligand-Derivative Stain with a FITC-Kisspeptin Derivative

It is not always easy to establish specific antibodies against receptors. Most receptors are hydrophobic and have complicated three-dimensional structures, making them difficult to use as immunogens. Thus, we developed receptor detection methods with a fluorescein-labeled ligand as an antibody alternative, which we referred to as a western ligand blot (WLB) and ligand derivative stain (LDS). Kisspeptin receptor (Kiss1R) was detected by its ligand. Kiss1R expression was confirmed in eight human cell lines by the WLB and in four pathological tissues by the LDS. Next, Kiss1R was stained by LDS in organs, revealing Kiss1R expression by [⁶⁷Ga]Ga-DOTA-kisspeptin 10 accumulation. As a result, Kiss1R-expressing cells in each organ could be stained with fluorescein-labeled kisspeptin 14 instead of an antibody and observed by light microscopy. The combination of the WLB and LDS allows identification of receptors in tissues, which can be readily applied to target receptor detection by a synthetic ligand derivative.     

Investigation of meshing phenomenon of hypoid gears with different offsets via high response infrared video thermography

Forschung im Ingenieurwesen - Hypoid gears are widely used in automobile differentials. Furthermore, it is well known that the efficiency of hypoid gears is lower than that of other gears due to...     

Carbothermic Reduction Kinetics of Phosphorous Vaporization from Tri-calcium Phosphate (TCP) Under Microwave Rapid Heating With/Without the Presence of Fe<Subscript>3</Subscript>O<Subscript>4</Subscript>

The kinetics of vapor phase dephosphorization from tri-calcium phosphate (TCP) by carbothermic reduction was studied with and without the presence of Fe₃O₄. Microwave heating was utilized to obtain large variations in the heating rate (HR). In the reduction of TCP alone, the phosphorous removal fraction (RF; equal to ?P₂O₅/P₂O ₅ ⁰ , where ?P₂O₅ is the weight change and P₂O ₅ ⁰ is the P₂O₅ weight before heating) decreased as the HR increased. In other words, a shorter residence time at a high temperature resulted in a smaller reduction fraction of TCP. An apparently third-order reaction was postulated to account for the kinetics using a fitting simulation based on the additive law of the reaction progress. On the other hand, the phosphorous removal (dephosphorization) rate (RR; equal to ?P₂O₃/t_MW, where t_MW is the microwave heating time period) increased as the HR increased above 1200 °C. The reduction ratio of Fe₃O₄ above 1100 °C is higher than 97 pct regardless of the heating rate. The reduction of TCP in the presence of Fe₃O₄ showed that RF increased slightly with increasing HR despite a shorter residence time at a high temperature. The RR also increased with the HR even though RF decreased to half of the values observed in the cases without Fe₃O₄ for temperatures above 1200 °C. The practicality and optimal operation conditions of phosphorus vapor removal were discussed.     

Differential theory of gratings made of anisotropic materials

Arbitrary profiled gratings made with anisotropic materials are discussed; the anisotropic character concerns electric and/or magnetic properties. Our aim is to avoid the use of the staircase approximation of the profile, whose convergence is questionable. A coupled first-order differential-equation set is derived by taking into account Li's remarks about Fourier factorization [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 13, 1870 (1996)], but the present formulation shows that, in return for a convenient form of the differential system, it is possible to use only the intuitive Laurent rule. Our method, when applied to the simpler case of isotropic gratings, is shown to be consistent with that of previous studies. Moreover, from the numerical point of view, the convergence of our formulation for an anisotropic grating is faster than that of the conventional differential method.     

Experimental study of collaborater in human–machine system

A human intervention is essential for human–machine system and human operator’s skill affects deeply achievement of the control purpose. By keeping the human operation easy, an operator can concentrate on more advanced decision so that the operation performance is improved. In this paper, a new concept of human-oriented compensator is proposed for improving the human–machine system, which is named “collaborater”. The design approach exists in human dynamics, and 2DOF structure is introduced. The simulation results confirm that the time and frequency responses are improved. Moreover the experimental results also confirm the similar effect of proposed method.