Barriers to Increased Engineering Graduate Enrollments: Counterforces and Their Implementation

This paper highlights the role of the faculty member in recruiting students currently enrolled in B.S. programs in engineering and the sciences into full-time pursuit of a graduate-level engineering degree. The faculty member is demonstrated to be in a unique position to influence such students, providing strong counterforces to a confluence of attitudes and pressures experienced during the B.S. experience which effectively create a barrier to full-time engineering graduate study. We analyze this barrier via the method of force field analysis, and demonstrate that effective recruitment into full-time graduate study must be based on a four-fold strategy of education, expectations, improved B.S. experience and better control of the B.S. environment. Approaches to implement these strategies are discussed.     

利用计算机进行油气资源评价和勘探决策

本文着重介绍了构成《现代勘探决策理论系统》的5个主要计算机模块,即:生油岩热演化处理、求任意曲边形面积、数学模拟预测资源量、勘探经济评价分析及决策、辅助处理等模块。该系统曾在塔里木盆地和准噶尔盆地的油气资源评价和勘探决策中发挥了作用,受到了专家和用户的好评。     

Influence of Two Salicylate Components on the Particle Size of an Oil-in-Water Emulsion with Nonionic Surfactants

This paper reports a study undertaken using techniques of static and dynamic light scattering to investigate the influence of sodium salicylate and methyl salicylate on droplet size of oil-in-water emulsions. The rates of changes were measured by determining the size and distribution of the oil droplet in the material. All emulsions showed a bimodal size distribution; the mean diameters and polydispersity were calculated from intensity. These data were analyzed with nonlinear regressions and bootstrap methodology. An amount of methyl salicylate component induced a decrease of mean diameter and standard deviation. On the contrary, sodium salicylate entailed the growth of all droplet populations and coalescence for the highest concentration.     

Theoretical and experimental evaluation of the limit state of transit gas pipelines having corrosion defects

The limit carrying capacity of gas pipelines having corrosion defects were evaluated by means of an improved FEM analysis, together with the ANSI/ASME defect judgement and an experimental verification. When compared with our past presentation at the proceedings of the CAPE'93 Colloquium (dealing with reproduced defects), this paper evaluates the remaining lifetime of a pipeline having natural faults. The new improved analysis includes geometrical nonlinearities leading to a modification of limit state parameters and thus matching better with actuality. This presented work was initiated by the firm of Trans-Gas in Prague after having had a pipeline inspected proving some parts of it as being heavily corroded. The task in hand was to determine the remaining pipeline lifetime with the view to at least a two-year period.     

Series resonant ZCS‐PFM DC‐DC power converter with high‐frequency high‐voltage transformer link for high‐power magnetron drive

This paper presents a single lossless inductive snubber‐assisted ZCS‐PFM series resonant DC‐DC power converter with a high‐frequency high‐voltage transformer link for industrial‐use high‐power magnetron drive. The current flowing through the active power switches rises gradually at a turned‐on transient state with the aid of a single lossless snubber inductor, and ZCS turn‐on commutation based on overlapping current can be achieved via the wide range pulse frequency modulation control scheme. The high‐frequency high‐voltage transformer primary side resonant current always becomes continuous operation mode, by electromagnetic loose coupling design of the high‐frequency high‐voltage transformer and the magnetizing inductance of the high‐frequency high‐voltage transformer. As a result, this high‐voltage power converter circuit for the magnetron can achieve a complete zero current soft switching under the condition of broad width gate voltage signals. Furthermore, this high‐voltage DC‐DC power converter circuit can regulate the output power from zero to full over audible frequency range via the two resonant frequency circuit design. Its operating performances are evaluated and discussed on the basis of the power loss analysis simulation and the experimental results from a practical point of view. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(3): 79–87, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.20126     

Stability of large-scale coal-fired MHD channels

Stability of large-scale coal-fired MHD channels is studied by (1) linearized stability analysis, and (2) time-dependent 1-D analysis. The channel length is 15 m with 600 electrode pairs, and the output power ranges from 220.6 MW through 258.7 MW. Linearized stability analyses show that the Faraday channels operated with fixed loading resistance are stable, whereas the two waves of u and u–a (u, a: gas and sound velocity) become unstable in the Faraday channel with fixed loading factor. Two waves of u and u–a are unstable in the diagonal channel with fixed loading current and the u + a wave becomes unstable in the diagonal channel with fixed electrode current. Time-dependent one-dimensional analyses indicate that the Faraday channels with fixed load resistance are smooth without growth of fluctuation. The diagonal channels with fixed electrode current are smooth with no fluctuation, though the linear theory indicates that the u + a wave is unstable. The diagonal channel with fixed load current suffers large disturbance along the latter half of the channel, being consistent with the linearized analysis which indicates that the u - a and u waves are unstable.     

A Survey on the Numerics and Computations for the Landau-Lifshitz Equation of Micromagnetism

The Landau-Lifshitz (LL)equation of micromagnetism governs rich variety of the evolution of magnetization patterns in ferromagnetic media. This is due to the complexity of physical quantities appearing in the LL equation. This complexity causes also an interesting mathematical properties of the LL equation: nonlocal character for some quantities,nonconvex side-constraints, strongly nonlinear terms. These effects influence also the numerical approximations. In this work, recent developments on the approximation of weak solutions, together with the overview of well-known methods for strong solutions,are addressed. Author is supported by the Fund for Scientific Research - Flanders FWO (Belgium).     

Prediction of fatigue behaviour in stress-concentrators of arbitrary geometry

A new method is outlined which aims to predict high-cycle fatigue behavior of components which fail from stress-concentrators. This involves examination of the stress field in the vicinity of the stress-concentrator, and comparison with stress fields for cracks at known stress intensities. Methods which are currently used for simple notch geometries can thus be generalised, making the approach applicable to stress concentrators of any geometry. The method of prediction is shown to be stable, providing a solution of good accuracy when compared to analytical methods for standard specimen geometries. Favourable comparisons with experimental data have been achieved both for standard notches and for a corner geometry which represents a typical component case.     

Drying of Chestnuts (Castanea sativa Mill.) after Osmotic Dehydration with Sucrose and Glucose Solutions

Chestnuts were dehydrated by using a combined method of osmotic dehydration followed by air drying. Samples were osmotically pretreated with sucrose (60% w/w) and glucose (56% w/w) for 8 h, air-dried at temperatures of 45, 55, and 65°C, at a relative humidity of 30% and at a velocity of 2.7 m·s^-1 and the experimental data of the drying kinetics were obtained. Whole samples were dried with different peelings: (a) removal of endocarp and pericarp (peeled) and (b) additionally the internal rough surface (cut). In all cases, cut chestnuts show greater drying rates than peeled samples, indicating that a significant mass transfer resistance in the layer nearest to the surface takes place. Peeled samples pretreated with sucrose solutions behave in a similar way to untreated samples. For the rest of the samples, the cut samples osmotically treated with sucrose solutions and all the samples treated with the glucose solution, the drying rates decrease during drying. Drying kinetics are successfully modeled by employing a diffusional model that takes the shrinkage into account. The effective coefficient of water diffusion was evaluated and correlated with temperature. The quality of the final product was monitored by color change. In spite of the fact that the total color difference is not modified by the osmotic treatment, the L*, a*, and b* color coordinates of cut samples treated with sucrose and glucose solutions do undergo changes; the L* and a* coordinates change less than the b*.     

Fault diagnosis as an aid to process machine reliability

Identification of the reasons for failures of process plant machines is the first step in obtaining increased reliability. Weibull analysis of the service life obtained from maintenance records requires a minimum of only five incidents and provides an insight into the failure mechanism. Two examples are given where Weibull analysis of maintenance records helped identify the cause of failure and was instrumental in achieving enhanced reliability of process plant machines.