Mechanical and Swelling Properties of Copolyurethanes based on Hydroxy-Terminated Polybutadiene and its hydrogenated analog

Copolyurethane networks based on Hydroxy-Terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB) and Hydrogenated HTPB (HHTPB) have been synthesized using toluene diisocyanate as curing agent. Addition of HHTPB results in enhancement of properties, such as tensile strength and modulus, at nearly the same elongation values. It is possible to generate urethane networks with similar modulus and tensile strength with widely varying elongation values and vice versa by jointly altering the comonomer ratio, and the r (NCO/OH equivalent ratio) value. Dynamic mechanical studies have been made to determine the storage and loss moduli, and their variations with temperature. Solid propellant formulations processed with the copolyurethanes have been characterized for their mechanical strengths and burn rates.     

Stochastic gradient algorithms for design of minimum error-rate linear dispersion codes in MIMO wireless systems

Linear dispersion (LD) codes are a good candidate for high-data-rate multiple-input multiple-ouput (MIMO) signaling. Traditionally LD codes were designed by maximizing the average mutual information, which cannot guarantee good error performance. This paper presents a new design scheme for LD codes that directly minimizes the block error rate (BLER) in MIMO channels with arbitrary fading statistics and various detection algorithms. For MIMO systems employing LD codes, the error rate does not admit an explicit form. Therefore, we cannot use deterministic optimization methods to design the minimum-error-rate LD codes. In this paper, we propose a simulation-based optimization methodology for the design of LD codes through stochastic approximation and simulation-based gradient estimation. The gradient estimation is done using the score function method originally developed in the discrete-event-system community. The proposed method can be applied to design the minimum-error-rate LD codes for a variety of detector structures including the maximum-likelihood (ML) detector and several suboptimal detectors. It can also design optimal codes under arbitrary fading channel statistics; in particular, it can take into account the knowledge of spatial fading correlation at the transmitter and receiver ends. Simulation results show that codes generated by the proposed new design paradigm generally outperform the codes designed based on algebraic number theory.     

Deep packet inspection using parallel bloom filters

There is a class of packet processing applications that inspect packets deeper than the protocol headers to analyze content. For instance, network security applications must drop packets containing certain malicious Internet worms or computer viruses carried in a packet payload. Content forwarding applications look at the hypertext transport protocol headers and distribute the requests among the servers for load balancing. Packet inspection applications, when deployed at router ports, must operate at wire speeds. With networking speeds doubling every year, it is becoming increasingly difficult for software-based packet monitors to keep up with the line rates. We describe a hardware-based technique using Bloom filters, which can detect strings in streaming data without degrading network throughput. A Bloom filter is a data structure that stores a set of signatures compactly by computing multiple hash functions on each member of the set. This technique queries a database of strings to check for the membership of a particular string. The answer to this query can be false positive but never a false negative. An important property of this data structure is that the computation time involved in performing the query is independent of the number of strings in the database provided the memory used by the data structure scales linearly with the number of strings stored in it. Furthermore, the amount of storage required by the Bloom filter for each string is independent of its length.     

Enhanced mass transport in nanofluids

Thermal conductivity enhancement in nanofluids, which are liquids containing suspended nanoparticles, has been attributed to localized convection arising from the nanoparticles' Brownian motion. Because convection and mass transfer are similar processes, the objective here is to visualize dye diffusion in nanofluids. It is observed that dye diffuses faster in nanofluids compared to that in water, with a peak enhancement at a nanoparticle volume fraction, phi, of 0.5%. A possible change in the slope of thermal conductivity enhancement at that same phi signifies that convection becomes less important at higher phi. The enhanced mass transfer in nanofluids can be utilized to improve diffusion in microfluidic devices.     

Defect Sizing Simulation Studies for the Tone-Burst Eddy Current Thermography Using Genetic Algorithm Based Inversion

In this paper, the results of the simulation study to reconstruct the size of the defects from the data obtained using the active thermography technique based on transient induction heating will be presented. Simulations were performed using the finite element model to obtain the temperature data which are then used to reconstruct the radius (r _d ) and depth (d _d ) of the wall thinning defects in aluminum plate using inversion method. Two cases, coil inner radius less than the defect radius (r _c <r _d ) and coil inner radius greater than the defect radius (r _c >r _d ), were considered. The analysis of the sensitivity of coil dimensions to the calculated peak temperature at the observation point was carried out.     

Evolution of an N-level system via automated vectorization of the Liouville equations and application to optically controlled polarization rotation

The Liouville equation governing the evolution of the density matrix for an atomic/molecular system is expressed in terms of a commutator between the density matrix and the Hamiltonian, along with terms that account for decay and redistribution. To find solutions of this equation, it is convenient first to reformulate the Liouville equation by defining a vector corresponding to the elements of the density operator, and determining the corresponding time-evolution matrix. For a system of N energy levels, the size of the evolution matrix is N^2?×^?N². When N is very large, evaluating the elements of these matrices becomes very cumbersome. We describe a novel algorithm that can produce the evolution matrix in an automated fashion for an arbitrary value of N. As a non-trivial example, we apply this algorithm to a 15-level atomic system used for producing optically controlled polarization rotation. We also point out how such a code can be extended for use in an atomic system with arbitrary number of energy levels.     

n-Hexadecane hydroisomerization over Pt/ZSM-12: role of Si/Al ratio on product distribution

The crystallization of pure ZSM-12 phase was accomplished at Si/Al ratios ranging from 45 to 120 using tetraethylammonium bromide as the structure directing agent. The obtained samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, temperature programmed desorption of ammonia, and nitrogen adsorption–desorption measurements at 77 K, respectively. The well characterized samples were used to prepare Pt (0.5 wt%)/ZSM-12 hydroisomerization catalysts which were employed to perform n-hexadecane isomerization reaction. The catalysts were compared in terms of their activity, selectivity and product distribution at different conversion levels obtained through variation in temperature and residence times. Thus, obtained trend for product distribution over Pt/ZSM-12 system has been discussed in terms of framework Si/Al ratio to understand its role in determining the product selectivity. ZSM-12 with Si/Al ratio of 120 depicted the highest overall selectivity and favored mono-branching while those having Si/Al ratio of 45, 60 and 90 were found to favor mutlti-branching.     

UVOC-MAC: a MAC protocol for outdoor ultraviolet networks

As an alternative to radio-frequency (RF) communications, optical wireless communications can support high data rates and low power operations while providing good jamming resistance. Our focus in this paper is on deep ultraviolet (UV) outdoor communications (UVOC) where solar blind and non-line-of-sight operations are attractive. Light beams from UV light-emitting diode (LED) arrays serve as information carriers. In an abstract sense, this is similar to directional transmissions in RF; however, the physical (PHY) layer characteristics significantly differ due to atmospheric scattering. First, we perform extensive experiments on a UV testbed towards understanding signal propagation and the impact of the PHY on medium access. We find that UV propagation supports (a) fully duplex communications and (b) multiple data rate transmissions. Next, we propose a novel contention-based media access control (UVOC-MAC) protocol that inherently accounts for the UV PHY layer and fully exploits multi-fold spatial reuse opportunities. Evaluations via both simulations and analysis show that UVOC-MAC effectively mitigates collisions and achieves high throughput. In particular, up to a 4-fold increase in throughput and 50 % reduction in collision are possible compared to a MAC protocol agnostic to the UV PHY properties.     

Effect of Flowing Lead–Bismuth Eutectic on the Mechanical and Structural Properties of Stainless Steel 304L

Stainless steel 304L is being considered as a structural material for a component in a critical facility in an environment of molten lead–bismuth eutectic (LBE) at a temperature between 250 and 350 °C. This paper gives results on the effect, of 10,000 h exposure to non-isothermal liquid LBE at temperatures of 250 and 350 °C, on the mechanical and structural properties of SS 304L. The dissolved oxygen concentration in the molten eutectic was 4 × 10^?10 wt% and flow velocity was 16 cm/s. In order to assess the changes in mechanical properties tensile tests were carried out in air at 25 °C and fractography of fractured surface was observed by scanning electron microscopy. The results showed no change in the mechanical properties of SS 304L after 10,000 h exposure to LBE at 250 and 350 °C. Electron probe microanalysis of the interface of SS 304L with LBE showed that there was no penetration of LBE into the grain boundaries nor preferential dissolution of any of the components of steel in LBE after 10,000 h exposure at either temperature. No oxide layer was observed on the surface of SS 304L.