The fracture stress of chemical vapour deposited diamond

The factors which control the fracture stress of chemical vapour deposited diamond have been studied using the 3-point bend geometry. Fracture stress values of 300–800 MPa for the growth side and 600–1200 MPa for the nucleation side were recorded for samples of thickness 0.4–2.4 mm. A Weibull modulus of 23 was calculated for the growth surface data, showing that the fracture stress variability was low for a brittle material. A theory based on these results demonstrates that the material behaviour is remarkably simple, depending only on the grain size and the sample thickness, regardless of wide variations in other parameters such as optical transmission and stress state. The paper also contains a possible explanation for this well-defined behaviour based on microstress variations resulting from differences in defect density in different growth sectors within a grain.     

Characterization of edible oils,butters and margarines by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy with attenuated total reflectance

The combination of attenuated total reflectance (ATR) and mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) with statistical multidimensional techniques made it possible to extract relevant information from MIR spectra of lipid-rich food products. Wavenumber assignments for typical functional groups in fatty acids were made for standard fatty acids: Absorption bands around 1745 cm⁻¹, 2853 cm⁻¹, 2954 cm⁻¹, 3005 cm⁻¹, 966 cm⁻¹, 3450 cm⁻¹ and 1640 cm⁻¹ are due to absorption of the carbonyl group, C−H stretch, =CH double bonds of lipids and O−H of lipids, respectively. In lipid-rich food products, some bands are modified. Water strongly absorbs in the region of 3600–3000 cm⁻¹ and at 1650 cm⁻¹ in butters and margarines, allowing one to rapidly differentiate the foods as function of their water content. Principal component analysis was used to emphasize the differences between spectra and to rapidly classify 27 commercial samples of oils, butters and margarines. As the MIR spectra contain information about carbonyl groups and double bonds, the foods were classified with ATR-MIR, in agreement with their degree of esterification and their degree of unsaturation as determined from gas-liquid chromatography analysis. However, it was difficult to differentiate the studied food products in terms of their average chainlength.     

Possible tactics to improve the growth of single-walled carbon nanotubes by chemical vapor deposition

The growth time, growth mode and the method of preparing the supported catalysts play an important role in the growth of single-walled nanotubes (SWNTs). Their effects on the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) growth of SWNTs with MgO-supported catalysts were investigated in this study. It is shown that the growth rate of SWNTs was large during the initial few minutes of growth, however the quality of the tubes was low owing to the formation of many defects. Long term growth may favor the formation of tubes with high quality and high yield, but the introduction of other forms of carbon (impurities) is also unavoidable. There was a balance between the increase in yield and quality and sacrifice of the purity during growth of SWNTs. MgO-supported catalysts prepared by the co-precipitation method were found to be more effective for the synthesis of SWNTs than those prepared by the widely used impregnation method. The size and dispersion state of the catalyst were found to be crucial in enhancing the growth of SWNTs. In addition, growth on the surface of SWNTs over nanosized catalyst films was shown to be more favorable for the synthesis of tube products with higher quality, yield and purity.     

Study of the solid-liquid equilibria in the LiPO3-Y(PO3)3 binary system

The LiPO₃-Y(PO₃)₃ system has been studied for the first time. Microdifferential thermal analysis (μ-DTA), infrared spectroscopy (IR) and X-ray diffraction were used to investigate the liquidus and solidus relations. The only new compound observed within this system is LiY(PO₃)₄, melting incongruently at 1104 K. An eutectic appears at 4±1 mol% Y(PO₃)₃ at 933 K. LiY(PO₃)₄ crystallizes in the monoclinic system C_2/c with a unit cell: a=16.201(4) Å, b=7.013(2) Å, c=9.573(2) Å, β=125.589(9)°, Z=4 and V=884.5 Å³, which is isostructural to LiNd(PO₃)₄. The infrared absorption spectrum indicates that this salt is a chain polyphosphate.     

Danckwerts’ law for mean residence time revisited

This paper shows that Danckwerts’ law for mean residence time in a vessel with continuous and steady throughflow holds for a stochastic model based on a Markov chain for the particle spatial position, under a set of three very general conditions on the transfer probabilities. These are natural conditions and represent mass balance conditions on the transfer between spatial regions in the process. It is shown that a stochastic model for particle residence time distribution with these three conditions may describe almost any physical flow configuration, and also covers published mathematical RTD models, independent of their mathematical form or the nature of the associated boundary conditions, models for which Danckwert's law has hitherto been shown to be satisfied on a case-by-case basis. Two examples, namely those birth-death Markov chains and fluidized bed models are discussed.     

Phase Composition of Oxide Scales during Reheating in Hot Rolling of Low Carbon Steel

Low carbon steel was oxidized over the temperature range 1000‐1250°C in O₂‐CO₂‐H₂O‐N₂, O₂‐H₂O‐N₂, and O₂‐CO₂‐N₂ gas mixtures. Oxidation times were 12‐120 min. and the scales were 50‐2000 μm thick. The variations of these parameters were chosen to elucidate the phase composition of oxide scales under conditions similar to those of reheating furnaces in hot strip mills, using either thin slab casting or conventional casting and rolling technology. Two types of scales have been observed which are influenced by the furnace atmosphere, oxidation time, and temperature. The first type is a crystalline scale with an irregular outer surface, composed mostly of wustite (FeO), and a negligible amount of magnetite (Fe₃O₄). The second type is the classical three‐layer scale, composed of wustite (FeO), magnetite (Fe₃O₄), and hematite (Fe₂O₃). In general, the experiments showed that an increase in oxidation time decreased the percentage of wustite while the percentages of magnetite and hematite increased. A rise in oxygen concentration in the gas mixture increased the percentages of magnetite and hematite, confirming earlier experimental findings. In water vapour‐free atmospheres O₂‐CO₂‐N₂, the oxide scales had a low percentage of wustite, and high percentage of magnetite and hematite. Carbon dioxide showed a small influence at 1100°C, and a negligible one at 1250°C.     

The significance of chemical markers in the bioprocessing of fossil fuels

Biochemical conversion of crude oils is a multi-step process proceeding through a series of biochemical reactions. These reactions can be characterized by a set of chemical markers which are associated with the chemical composition of crude oils. Reactions with heavy crude oils indicate that there is an overall decrease in the concentration and chemical speciation of organic sulfur compounds, and a redistribution of hydrocarbons and organometallic species. The contents of trace metals in the crude oils, such as nickel and vanadium, also decrease. Further, heavy ends of crudes, containing the asphaltenes and the polar nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen containing fractions, as well as the organometallic compounds and complexes, are biochemically converted to lower molecular weight chemical species. In the studies reported in this paper, microorganisms used to mediate such reactions were thermophilic ( > 60°C) and pressure tolerant (up to 2500 psi). These organisms are also capable of biochemical conversion of bituminous and lignite coals in an analogous manner to their action on crude oils and follow similar trends characterized by chemical markers. For example, X-ray absorption near-edge structural (XANES) analyses of biotreated crude oils and low grade coals show that biochemical reactions lead to decreases in organic sulfides and thiophenes with a concurrent increase in sulfoxide contents. Chemically related constituents present in heavy crude oil fractions and low grade coals are the asphaltenes. Asphaltenes are complex structures containing heteroatoms and metals involved in inter- and intra-molecular bridges and stereochemical configurations. The chemical markers associated with the biochemical conversion of oils and coals indicate multiple biochemical processes involving chemical reactions at sites containing heteroatoms and metals leading to a breakdown of the structure(s) to smaller molecular weight units. Thus, using chemical markers as diagnostic tools, the extent and the efficiency of fossil fuel bioconversion may be predicted and monitored, allowing for better cost-efficient field trials. Recent results in this area will be presented and discussed in this paper.     

高放废液化学成分分析

概述了高放废液中25种阳离子、5种阴离子以及总蒸残物、总氧化物、密度和游离酸的分析方法。对核燃料后处理高放废液进行取样分析,其主要化学成分采用两种以上不同原理的方法作对比测定,结果相互符合情况良好,为高放废液处理处置研究设计,提供了完整、准确的基础数据。     

Secure Multi-Party Computation without Agreement

It has recently been shown that authenticated Byzantine agreement, in which more than a third of the parties are corrupted, cannot be securely realized under concurrent or parallel (stateless) composition. This result puts into question any usage of authenticated Byzantine agreement in a setting where many executions take place. In particular, this is true for the whole body of work of secure multi-party protocols in the case that a third or more of the parties are corrupted. This is because these protocols strongly rely on the extensive use of a broadcast channel, which is in turn realized using authenticated Byzantine agreement. We remark that it was accepted folklore that the use of a broadcast channel (or authenticated Byzantine agreement) is actually essential for achieving meaningful secure multi-party computation whenever a third or more of the parties are corrupted. In this paper we show that this folklore is false. We present a mild relaxation of the definition of secure computation allowing abort. Our new definition captures all the central security issues of secure computation, including privacy, correctness and independence of inputs. However, the novelty of the definition is in decoupling the issue of agreement from these issues. We then show that this relaxation suffices for achieving secure computation in a point-to-point network. That is, we show that secure multi-party computation for this definition can be achieved for any number of corrupted parties and without a broadcast channel (or trusted pre-processing phase as required for running authenticated Byzantine agreement). Furthermore, this is achieved by just replacing the broadcast channel in known protocols with a very simple and efficient echo-broadcast protocol. An important corollary of our result is the ability to obtain multi-party protocols that remain secure under composition, without assuming a broadcast channel.