Cavitation flow instability of subcooled liquid nitrogen in converging–diverging nozzles

The cavitation flow instability of subcooled liquid nitrogen in two types of converging–diverging (C–D) circular nozzles with throat diameters of 1.5 and 2.0 mm was experimentally investigated. Flow observations were also performed to clarify the instability phenomenon and the differences in cavitation behavior between the two nozzles. The cavitation mode changed from continuous mode to intermittent mode as the temperature of the subcooled liquid nitrogen decreased. This change occurred in both C–D nozzles when the temperature of the liquid reached approximately 76 K. Occurrence of the intermittent mode accompanying very large pressure-oscillations was considered to be caused by a drastic reduction of the speed of sound in the single-component, vapor–liquid flow because the speed of sound restricted the throat velocity in the C–D nozzle during cavitation. Oscillation pressure values in intermittent mode were much larger than those in continuous mode, peaking between 74 and 76 K. The magnitude of the oscillation pressure in intermittent mode could be evaluated from the difference between the throat static-pressure immediately prior to the occurrence of cavitation and that during cavitation.     

Use of fluorine-doped silicon oxide for temperature compensation of radio frequency surface acoustic wave devices

This paper investigates acoustic properties, including the temperature coefficient of elasticity (TCE), of fluorine-doped silicon oxide (SiOF) films and proposes the application of the films to the temperature compensation of RF SAW devices. From Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), SiOF films were expected to possess good TCE properties. We fabricated a series of SAW devices using the SiOF-overlay/Cu-grating/LiNbO(3)-substrate structure, and evaluated their performance. The experiments showed that the temperature coefficient of frequency (TCF) increases with the fluorine content r, as we expected from the FT-IR measurement. This means that the Si-O-Si atomic structure measurable by the FT-IR governs the TCE behavior of SiO(2)-based films even when the dopant is added. In comparison with pure SiO(2) with the film thickness h of 0.3 wavelengths (λ), TCF was improved by 7.7 ppm/°C without deterioration of the effective electromechanical coupling factor K2 when r = 3.8 atomic % and h = 0.28λ. Fluorine inclusion did not obviously influence the resonators' Q factors when r < 8.8 atomic %.     

Boundary-representable partition of unity for image magnification

This paper proposes a simple yet effective algorithm to magnify 2D/3D images with preserving discontinuities of intensity. Our algorithm is based on the partition of unity （PU） approximation, which offers many advantages such as smooth representation, noise-robustness, and precise representation. Unfortunately, PU encounters difficulties when scaling images and maintaining boundaries within images owing to the nature of its approximation. To overcome this problem, we propose an approximation that preserves discontinuities. This is realized by dividing the local spherical support of PU into two parts along a locally detected discontinuity and by individually approximating intensities on each side of the discontinuity. This algorithm is suitable for magnifying a variety of images, including scanned documents, pictures, and CT-scanned images. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we show some experimental results for 2D/3D images.     

Buckybowls: Corannulene and Its Derivatives

Corannulene, a kind of bowl like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH), whose molecule is composed of a central pentagon and five closely adjacent hexagons on the pentagon's five sides, has received great scientific interest among research groups. In this review, the syntheses, characteristic molecule structure and properties of corannulene are clarified, as well as its derivatives with different substituted groups, fused derivatives, metal complex, and derivatives for host guest chemistry. On the basis of reviewing the applications and properties of corannulene together with its derivatives, the potential applications in hydrogen storage and lithium storage were highlighted and prospected.     

Correlation between interlamellar amorphous structure and gas permeability in poly(lactic acid) films

We have investigated the relationship between amorphous structure and its gas permeability of poly(lactic acid) (PLA) using differential scanning calorimetry, wide‐angle X‐ray scattering, and small‐angle X‐ray scattering measurements. We focused on the hierarchical interlamellar amorphous structure of various gas‐permeable PLA films. The films crystallized just above T_g did not have any long‐spacing period peaks at the room temperature even with the existence of crystals; conversely, peaks could be observed from long spacing periods with heating. Therefore, the interlamellar amorphous density became as high as crystalline region one at the room temperature. These high‐density amorphous regions, the so‐called rigid‐amorphous phase, reduced the gas diffusion and permeation. In the case of samples crystallized above 90°C, the long spacing period peaks could be observed even at the room temperature. The amorphous region did not develop the rigid‐amorphous phase, and the gas permeability depended only on crystallinity. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40626.