The heater test at the Grimsel Rock Laboratory: The thermo-mechanical response of the rock mass to a heat flux

The Grimsel Test Site (Felslabor Grimsel — FLG) is situated at a depth of 450 m in the Juchlistock massif of the Bernese Oberland. It is managed by the National Cooperative for the Storage of Radioactive Waste (NAGRA-Switzerland).By means of a heater test, the power output of canisters filled with high-level waste is simulated. This heater test is performed by the German Gesellschaft für Strahlen- und Umweltforschung — GSF. Two electrical heaters, with a heatable length of 6 m, a diameter of 0.3 m and an available power of 4 kW/m, are installed in two vertical boreholes. One of them is located in the granite adjacent to a strongly fractured lamprophyre vein, the other one directly within this disturbed zone. They are operating since August 1986.The thermo-mechanical reaction of the rock mass is registered by a large number of measurement devices which are installed in an array of instrument boreholes around the heaters. They record the deformation and the alteration of rock stresses, the pore water pressure and the water conductivity caused by heating.     

Operation of an experimental facility for fabrication of fuel elements and fuel assemblies of the bor-60 containing vibrocompacted fuel

Translated from Atomnaya Énergiya, Vol. 67, No. 5, pp. 320–323, November, 1989.     

Can heat pipes solve the problems of drift and vibration of cryoholders?

Drift and vibration are the main factors limiting the resolution that can be attained with liquid-nitrogen (LN₂)-cooled cryoholders. Tests with a Gatan holder show that resolution is usually anisotropic. We propose that the metallic heat-conducting element could be replaced by a heat pipe, because such a device can, in principle, minimize drift. The vibration problem could be combatted by using supercooled cryogens.     

Si/SiGe n-MODFETs on thin SiGe virtual substrates prepared by means of He implantation

Si/SiGe n-type modulation-doped field-effect transistors grown on a very thin strain-relieved Si/sub 0.69/Ge/sub 0.31/ buffer on top of a Si(100) substrate were fabricated and characterized. This novel type of virtual substrate has been created by means of a high dose He ion implantation localized beneath a 95-nm-thick pseudomorphic SiGe layer on Si followed by a strain relaxing annealing step at 850/spl deg/C. The layers were grown by molecular beam epitaxy. Electron mobilities of 1415 cm/sup 2//Vs and 5270 cm/sup 2//Vs were measured at room temperature and 77 K, respectively, at a sheet carrier density of about 3/spl times/10/sup 12//cm/sup 2/. The fabricated transistors with Pt-Schottky gates showed good dc characteristics with a drain current of 330 mA/mm and a transconductance of 200 mS/mm. Cutoff frequencies of f/sub t/=49 GHz and f/sub max/=95 GHz at 100 nm gate length were obtained which are quite close to the figures of merit of a control sample grown on a conventional, thick Si/sub 0.7/Ge/sub 0.3/ buffer.     

Automated fluorimetry in quality control of pasteurized and ultra-high temperature-treated starch soup

Automated monitoring of the microbiological quality of heat-processed foods by the resazurin reduction test was applied to microtitration plate incubator-fluorimeter technology. The appearance and disappearance of the fluorescing peak of resorufin was monitored on microtitration trays. Pasteurized or ultra-high temperature-treated starch-based soup was used as the model food system. Bacillus subtilis spores (ultra-high temperature treatment) and vegetative cells of Enterococcus faecalis (pasteurization) were inoculated into the soup before the heat treatment at levels which resulted in some survival. The timing of appearance of maximum fluorescence correlated with the number of bacteria in pre-incubated samples. Automated resazurin-reduction fluorimetry was compared with conventional plating, turbidometry and microcolony count by the direct epifluorescent filter technique. The results of the resazurin test correlated well with those of all the other methods tested. Fluorimetry had the advantage that the results could be read within 1–5h and the reproducibility was superior to the other methods.     

The femur-tibia control system of stick insects--a model system for the study of the neural basis of joint control

In a form of top-down analysis, the femur-tibia control system of stick insects is investigated. Open-loop experiments show that it is mainly velocity-sensitive with an extremely low velocity-threshold, that it possesses a very high gain and that it has only a very small phase reserve and thus works close to instability. The closed-loop system generates catalepsy. The system consists of a single sense organ with approximately 80 sense cells with known characteristics, a small number of interneurones (mainly non-spiking ones) and a small number of motor neurones. The characteristics of the whole system can quantitatively be attributed to the characteristics of its elements. The gain of the loop is state-dependent and the system is 'switched off' during active movements and replaced by a control system with different attributes. It is discussed that most of the characteristics of this system are, at least qualitatively, similar to joint control systems in other animals. Because the described system can be more easily investigated than other systems (especially in vertebrates) it can serve as a model against which more complicated joint control loops may be compared.     

Nontuberculous mycobacteriosis as a complication of the Swyer-James syndrome

The chest radiograph of a 35-year-old man with fatigue, exertional dyspnoea and haemoptyses revealed a cavity in the left upper lobe and a shrunken left lung with radiolucency greater than that on the right. Acid-fast rods in sputum were identified as Mycobacterium kansasii on culture. Scintigraphy showed a 9% residual perfusion on the left and abnormal ventilation, compatible with Swyer-James syndrome. This had favoured the development of a mycobacterial infection. There was also a decrease in ciliary function (rate of 4-7 Hz, normal: 10-11). Treatment, begun when tuberculosis had been suspected, was after sensitivity tests changed to a combination of rifampicin (600 mg), ethambutol (1600 mg) and protionamide (500 mg) daily. There was marked regression of the findings within 4 weeks, but treatment was prematurely stopped after 11 months. Two years later there was a recurrence which again responded well to the same drug regimen with additional sulphamethoxazole (1600 mg/d).     

Characterisation of sub-100 nm-MOS-transistors processed by optical lithography and a sidewall-etchback technique

This paper describes the fabrication of NMOS-transistors with a geometric gate length of down to 50 nm using conventional optical lithography and a modified sidewall-etchback process. Based on measurements the transistors are characterised and their device parameters are compared to simulations. Finally the procedures for further optimisation of the process will be explained.