Granular-structure chromium-bearing refractories: Properties and uses

Results are presented on the corrosion resistance of chromium-bearing refractories of granular structure acted on by corrosive molten slags, metals, and glasses. It is possible to recommend these refractories to customers for particular conditions of use. Chromium-bearing refractories increase the working lives of furnaces considerably. __________ Translated from Novye Ogneupory, No. 1, pp. 55–61, January, 2008.     

Refractory objects and materials for continuous steel casting

In the OAO Borovich Refractory Combine production has been assimilated for a complete set of refractories for continuous steel casting, i.e. from a pipe for protecting a stream of metal to a submerged nozzle. In technical and life characteristics the products correspond to that of world analogs, they provide accident free steel pouring, make it possible to reduce the specific consumption of refractories per ton of steel, to increase CBCM productivity, to reduce billet scrap, and to reduce steel cost. Translated from Novye Ogneupory, No. 8, pp. 4–9, August 2008.     

Formation of the complex oxide NaNdTiO<Subscript>4</Subscript>

The processes of phase formation in the Na₂CO₃-TiO₂ and Na₂CO₃-TiO₂-Nd₂O₃ systems are investigated in the temperature range 600–900°C. The high-temperature solid-phase reactions underlying the process of formation of complex oxide NaNdTiO4 are studied. It is established that the synthesis of the NaNdTiO₄ compound occurs through the reaction of the intermediate product Na₈Ti₅O₁₄ with neodymium oxide in the temperature range 720–780°C. The optimum method is proposed for synthesizing NaNdTiO₄, which makes it possible to reduce the temperature of the synthesis, to avoid the formation of impurities, and to obtain the product in a finely dispersed state.     

Aggregate stability of ZrO2 aqueous sols in electrolyte solutions

The aggregate stability of submicron and nanosized ZrO₂ aqueous sols of different origins and different dispersities at pH 3–10 in the KCl concentration range 10^?3–10^?1 M is investigated by flow ultramicroscopy and photometry. The results obtained are analyzed in the framework of the extended Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek theory and the Muller-Martynov theory of reversible aggregation. The extension of boundary layers of water near the surface of the ZrO₂ particles is estimated.     

Tellurium clusters in channels of the porous silica ZSM-11

The distribution and structure of tellurium nanoclusters synthesized in crystal channels of the porous silica ZSM-11 are investigated using the maximum-entropy method and the Rietveld analysis. It is shown that the intercalated tellurium atoms are arranged in channels of the ZSM-11 zeolite not randomly but in the form of scraps of infinite chains similar to those observed in massive tellurium. The distances between the nearest neighbor tellurium atoms vary in the range 2.53(4)–2.70(3) ?. The clusters Te₄ are formed at the intersections of channels in the structure. These clusters have the form of distorted tetrahedra in which the tellurium atoms are separated by distances of 2.53(4) and 2.90(4) ?. Original Russian Text ? A.E. Lapshin, Yu.F. Shepelev, Yu.I. Smolin, E.A. Vasil’eva, 2008, published in Fizika i Khimiya Stekla.     

Study of the microstructure of ceramics from different producers used for protecting precious metal thermocouples

Results are provided for a study of the microstructure of ceramics from four different producers by means of a scanning electron microscope and x-ray microanalysis. Results show that ceramic specimens often do not correspond to claimed parameters. The main disadvantages are ceramic structural inhomogeneity, presence of phases of a different nature, intergranular pores and cracks, and alkali impurities. The ceramics of only one producer correspond to the main parameters for this class, and this is provided by high production technology and starting material quality. Translated from Novye Ogneupory, No. 7, pp. 31–35, July 2008.     

Noise–Power Optimization of Incremental Data Converters

Incremental data converters (IDCs) are useful in instrumentation and measurement applications, where low-frequency analog signals need to be converted into digital form with high accuracy and low power dissipation. They are particularly well suited for applications where a single analog-digital converter is multiplexed between many channels. This paper proposes an exact design methodology for IDCs, which optimizes the signal-to-noise ratio of the converter under practical design constraints. The process also allows the designer to apportion the noise budget in an arbitrary manner between thermal and quantization noise. The design process is illustrated by an example which describes the optimization of a third-order multiplexed IDC.     

Cost-Efficient SHA Hardware Accelerators

This paper presents a new set of techniques for hardware implementations of Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) hash functions. These techniques consist mostly in operation rescheduling and hardware reutilization, therefore, significantly decreasing the critical path and required area. Throughputs from 1.3 Gbit/s to 1.8 Gbit/s were obtained for the SHA implementations on a Xilinx VIRTEX II Pro. Compared to commercial cores and previously published research, these figures correspond to an improvement in throughput/slice in the range of 29% to 59% for SHA-1 and 54% to 100% for SHA-2. Experimental results on hybrid hardware/software implementations of the SHA cores, have shown speedups up to 150 times for the proposed cores, compared to pure software implementations.      

Enhancing Chaotic Communication Performances by Manchester Coding

A numerical analysis of an optical chaotic transmission system, based on the synchronization of two chaotic lasers, in a master-slave closed loop configuration is presented. At the transmitter, the master chaotic wave is superposed on the information message; at the receiver, the message is recovered by subtracting the synchronized slave chaotic wave from the received signal. The performances are analyzed in terms of the Q-factor, considering two different message modulation formats: the nonreturn-to-zero and the Manchester coding. The Manchester coding shows enhanced performances due to the shift of the signal spectrum to higher frequencies.