Measurement of topcoat thickness of thermal barrier coating for gas turbines using terahertz waves

The topcoat thickness of thermal barrier coating (TBC) samples was measured using terahertz (THz) waves. The index of refraction of yttria‐stabilized zirconia (YSZ), which is the topcoat material, is necessary to obtain the topcoat thickness from time domain re?ectometry. Time domain THz spectroscopy was applied to YSZ samples, and the index of refraction was measured to be 4.8 in the frequency region 0.1 to 1.2 THz. The topcoat thickness of six di?erent TBC samples, which varied from 300 to 600 µm, was measured using THz waves. The results were in agreement with microscope observation results to within measurement error. In addition, the topcoat thickness pro?le of a turbine blade sample was measured with a resolution of 2.4 µm. The pro?le showed a standard deviation of 4 µm, which re?ects the actual variation in the topcoat thickness. The results showed that THz waves are e?ective for high‐resolution measurement of the topcoat thickness. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 183(4): 1–9, 2013; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.22385     

Nondestructive inspection of thermal barrier coating of gas turbine high temperature components

A thermal barrier coating (TBC) is applied to high‐temperature components in gas turbines, and consists of a ceramic topcoat and a metallic bondcoat. Various kinds of TBC degradation and damage occur in high‐temperature components during service, such as topcoat thinning, topcoat delamination, and formation of a thermally grown oxide (TGO) layer below the topcoat, each of which can be examined using a suitable nondestructive inspection technique. Topcoat thinning can be detected by topcoat thickness measurement using terahertz waves, which are electromagnetic waves in the frequency region between optical and radio waves. The measurement resolution is about 10 μm, which is comparable to microscopic observation of the cross section in destructive inspection. Topcoat delamination can be detected by active thermography, in which the topcoat surface is scanned by a heating laser and the surface temperature distribution is measured by a thermal infrared camera. The combination of temperature peak and residual thermal image detection is effective in eliminating false detection. The TGO layer can be detected using photoluminescence, in which the Cr³⁺ ions included as an impurity in Al₂O₃ are detected. Since delamination tends to occur at locations at which the TGO layer has grown, TGO layer detection provides an effective method to select regions where delamination has occurred or is likely to occur. An inspection flow based on these techniques is proposed, which is expected to aid the establishment of condition‐based maintenance strategies of high‐temperature components. © 2016 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Development of biobased microwave absorbing composites with various magnetic metals and carbons

The preparation and characterization of a biobased electromagnetic absorbing composites derived from natural lacquer as a renewable resource with microwave‐absorption fillers, including Ni–Zn ferrite and carbonyl iron (CI) as magnetic metals and soot and carbon nanotube (CNT) as carbon materials, were investigated in terms of the gel content, hardness, drying properties, and electromagnetic absorption properties. Interestingly, composites with ferrite and CI contained up to 320 and 550 wt %, respectively, of these compounds. This quite high loading capacity of the metal fillers in a natural‐lacquer base could have been due to the high compatibility between the filler and the natural lacquer; this indicated that the natural lacquer worked as a binder for these metals. The morphology of the biobased composite was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The electromagnetic absorption properties of composites were characterized in the frequency range from 0.05 and 20 GHz by the reflection loss (RL) measurement method in terms of the kind of fillers and filler loading. The natural lacquer did not affect the absorption properties of the fillers. Biobased composites showed over 99% electromagnetic absorption in the frequency range 3.0–4.0 GHz for 280 wt % ferrite and 8.9–9.7 GHz for 200 wt % CI. Conversely, 10 and 20 wt % soot exhibited good performance (RL < ?20 dB) between 16.5 and 17.3 and between 8.8 and 9.2 GHz, respectively. The areas with RL values of less than ?20 dB of the CNT composites were 10.4–11.0 GHz for 5 wt % and 14.6–15.2 GHz for 10 wt %. Hence, natural lacquer can be used as a binder material for electromagnetic absorption composites. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 44131.     

TARGET YIELDS AND HYDROGEN CONSUMPTION IN BROWN COAL LIQUEFACTION

A simple mechanistic model for brown coal liquefaction has been developed and used in conjunction with data from PDU operation to examine the factors which contribute to hydrogen consumption. It is found that after allowing for hydrogen generation requirements, the maximum achievable refined product yield from Morwell brown coal ((ssuming a naphtha/middle distillate ratio of 5:6 together with refined product H/C ratios of 1.8 for naphtha and 1.5 for middle distillate) is 46 - 48%, corresponding to a hydrogen consumption of 6.6 - 7.6%. Alternatively, if consideration of hydrogen generation is excluded (as in pilot plant operation), the maximum yield would be around 54%, corresponding to 6.6% net hydrogen consumption. These results suggest that an aim of maximizing product yield by decreasing Cl-C4 gas formation may not be as desirable as at first thought.     

Transient and steady state crack growth kinetics for stress corrosion cracking of a cold worked 316L stainless steel in oxygenated pure water at different temperatures

The stress corrosion cracking (SCC) growth kinetics for a cold worked 316L stainless steel was continuously monitored in high purity water at different temperatures and dissolved oxygen (DO) levels under a K (or K_max) of 30 MPa m^0.5. The total SCC test time was more than 8000 h to make sure the steady state crack growth rate under each test condition could be reached. Crack growth rate (CGR) increases with increasing temperature in the range 110-288 °C. A typical intergranular-cracking mode is identified. Depending on the previous test condition, especially the temperature, three kinds of crack growth kinetics, i.e., increasing with testing time then becoming steady, being constant during the whole period, or decreasing with test time then becoming steady, are identified and discussed. Time-dependent and testing history-dependent crack growth modes were confirmed in two series of tests in 2 ppm DO and 7.5 ppm DO pure water. The apparent activation energies are calculated and compared with other data in different environments under different applied loading levels for understanding the cracking mechanism.     

Evaluation for distance learning scheme on distributed multiple server system

A distributed multiple server system is designed and implemented with Web-DB based services for distance learning as well as emergency communication. The system has employed multiple servers located in a distributed campus network environment. Each server of the system has multi-core processors. With so-called “server virtualization” technology, some programs are executed in parallel (on the virtual servers) so that such a system can efficiently perform several functions. For example, two or more application services can be performed simultaneously as “cloud services” on the whole system. The system can provide distance learning scheme for educational tool, at the same time it can also support Web-based surveillance facilities for emergency contact. With qualitative and quantitative approach, trial evaluation of system has been performed in some classrooms of distributed campus. And users can obtain some good results from the above evaluation.     

Temperature dependence of luminescence from a silica glass under in-reactor irradiation

We have investigated in-reactor luminescence (IRL) from a silica glass at temperatures ranging from 100 K to 250 K. The IRL consists mainly of a broad emission band peaked at 2.7 eV assigned to oxygen deficient centers produced in the silica glass under the in-reactor irradiation. The 2.7 eV emission intensity linearly increased with the irradiation time and its increasing rate was larger for higher irradiation temperatures. However, this temperature dependence is inconsistent with that for the defect production rate and the cause is not clear at present. The initial intensity of the 2.7 eV IRL band increases with temperature, showing an activation energy of ca 21 meV. This value is much lower than those observed in the temperature dependence of the 2.7 eV photoluminescence (PL) and the cathodeluminescence (CL) induced by 8 keV electron irradiation. These results suggest that in IRL, some electrons excited to higher energy levels than the luminescence level are likely transferred to the luminescence state without thermal activation, resulting in a lower activation energy in their temperature dependence.     

Colored Fluorescent Silk Made by Transgenic Silkworms

Silk is a protein fiber used to weave fabrics and as a biomaterial in medical applications. Recently, genetically modified silks have been produced from transgenic silkworms. In the present study, transgenic silkworms for the mass production of three colors of fluorescent silks, (green, red, and orange) are generated using a vector originating from the fibroin H chain gene and a classical breeding method. The suitability of the recombinant silks for making fabrics is investigated by harvesting large amounts of the cocoons, obtained from rearing over 20 thousand silkworms. The application of low temperature and a weakly alkaline solution for cooking and reeling enables the production of silk fiber without loss of color. The maximum strain tolerated and Young's modulus of the fluorescent silks are similar to those of ordinary silk, although the maximum stress value of the recombinant silk is slightly lower than that of the control. Fabrics with fluorescent color are demonstrated using the recombinant silk, with the color persisting for over two years. The results indicate that large amounts of genetically modified silk can be made by transgenic silkworms, and the silk is applicable as functional silk fiber for making fabrics and for use in medical applications.     

Improvement of the Nelder-Mead method using Direct Inversion in Iterative Subspace

Optimization and Engineering - The Nelder-Mead (NM) method is a popular derivative-free optimization algorithm owing to its fast convergence and robustness. However, it is known that the method...