Testing Concrete E‐modulus at Very Early Ages Through Several Techniques: An Inter‐laboratory Comparison

The design of concrete structures is based on calculation rules, which often do not take into account the very early age behaviour of the material. However, during this period, structural concrete is subjected to strains due to the hydration process of cement. If these strains are restrained by concrete itself or surrounding boundaries, stresses start to build up that can lead to the formation of cracks. Among the parameters involved in the stress build up, the stiffness evolution is of major importance. This paper reports the use of eight different techniques aimed at stiffness evolution assessment, applied on the same concrete mix, in a round robin experimental test within three laboratories. The observations are compared after having expressed the results at the same equivalent age. Both the loading stress rate and amplitude are observed to have an effect of limited importance on the determination of the quasi‐static elastic modulus, which might be explained by very short term creep. Ultrasonic measurements provide values of E‐modulus that are higher than the values provided by the quasi‐static tests at the time of the concrete setting. Similar mechanisms associated to very short term creep could explain the difference between the quasi‐static and high‐frequency elastic modulus.     

一种岩心样品横波速度的实验室测量方法

准确测量声波在不同类型岩心中的传播速度是岩心声学性质分析的基础。一般实验室利用超声波透射法所测试的岩心样品均为小尺寸岩心样品。在测量小尺寸岩心样品横波波速时,难以消除的纵波余震信号会对横波的识别产生干扰。提出了一个在实验室内测量小尺寸岩心样品中横波波速的"辅助块"超声波透射波测试方案,较好地实现了纵横波的分离,减小了横波波速的测量误差,提高了岩心样品横波波速测试的精度。给出了上述测量方案和测量实例分析,该方法亦可用于一般固体样品中横波波速的测量。     

Improving the SMAC atmospheric correction code by analysis of Meteosat Second Generation NDVI and surface reflectance data

In order to obtain high quality data, the correction of atmospheric perturbations acting upon land surface reflectance measurements recorded by a space-based sensor is an important topic within remote sensing. For many years the Second Simulation of the Satellite Signal in the Solar Spectrum (6S) radiative transfer model and the Simplified Method for Atmospheric Correction (SMAC) codes have been used for this atmospheric correction, but previous studies have shown that in a number of situations the quality of correction provided by the SMAC is low. This paper describes a method designed to improve the quality of the SMAC atmospheric correction algorithm through a slight increase in its computational complexity. Data gathered from the SEVIRI aboard Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) is used to validate the additions to SMAC, both by comparison to simulated data corrected using the highly accurate 6S method and by comparison to in-situ and 6S corrected SEVIRI data gathered for two field sites in Africa. The additions to the SMAC are found to greatly increase the quality of atmospheric correction performed, as well as broaden the range of atmospheric conditions under which the SMAC can be applied. When examining the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the relative difference between SMAC and in-situ values decreases by 1.5% with the improvements in place. Similarly, the mean relative difference between SMAC and 6S reflectance values decreases by a mean of 13, 14.5 and 8.5% for Channels 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Furthermore, the processing speed of the SMAC is found to remain largely unaffected, with only a small increase in the time taken to process a full SEVIRI scene. Whilst the method described within this paper is only applicable to SEVIRI data, a similar approach can be applied to other data sources than SEVIRI, and should result in a similar accuracy improvement no matter which instrument supplies the original data.     

Highly efficient switched‐mode transmitter using a current mode class‐D RF amplifier

This article presents a switched‐mode transmitter architecture using a current mode class‐D (CMCD) amplifier. To achieve high average efficiency for a modulated signal the envelope of the complex baseband signal is transformed into pulses such that the CMCD amplifier is operated either at its peak efficiency or completely switched off. The CMCD amplifier has been designed based on single‐tone active harmonic load‐pull measurements to achieve a power‐added efficiency (PAE) of 61.5% with 25 W output power at 900 MHz using LDMOS FETs. Removing the losses of the demodulation filter and of the amplifier a 10% higher efficiency than in an ideal class‐B amplifier can be obtained for burst‐mode operation with a peak‐to‐average power ratio of 10 dB. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2010.     

Uniting Local and Global Controllers with Robustness to Vanishing Noise

We consider control systems for which we know two stabilizing controllers. One is globally asymptotically stabilizing, the other one is only locally asymptotically stabilizing but for some reason we insist on using it in a neighborhood of the origin. We look for a uniting control law being equal to the local feedback on a neighborhood of the origin, equal to the global one outside of a larger neighborhood and being a globally stabilizing controller. We study several solutions based on continuous, discontinuous, hybrid, time-varying controllers. One criterion of the selection of a controller is the robustness of the stability to vanishing noise. This leads us in particular to consider a kind of generalization of Krasovskii trajectories for hybrid systems. Date received: November 29, 1999. Date revised: August 7, 2000.     

Virtual spectrophotometric measurements for biologically and physically based rendering

Published online: 18 September 2001     

Evaluation of thermal conductivity from temperature profiles

A new dynamic technique for the measurement of thermal conductivity is being developed at IMGC. The experiment consists in bringing the specimen to high temperatures with a current pulse and in measuring the temperature profiles during the free cooling period. Different techniques can be used to extract the information on thermal conductivity from the profiles. The numerical computation of thermal conductivity from the experimental temperature profiles in absolute space is possible, but it is difficult and cumbersome because one must know and take into the account the exact position of the infinitesimal elements of the specimen in different profiles. Computations in tube-space (a fictitious space where no thermal expansion occurs) are simpler and lead to less complex numerical computations. Complementary techniques to evaluate thermal conductivity as a function of temperature or at constant temperature are presented with a discussion of advantages and disadvantages of each method. Computer simulations have tested the precision of the complex software. Numerically generated temperature profiles from known thermophysical properties have been obtained and thermal conductivity has been recomputed from the profiles. The relative difference using different computational approaches and different fitting functions is always less than 0.1%.Paper presented at the Third Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, September 17–18, 1992, Graz, Austria.     

The transient regime of a multiwavelength pyrometer

The transient operation of a new multiwavelength pyrometer based on a dispersing prism and a Si photodiode array is presented. After calibration, transient tests were performed using a tungsten strip lamp, supplied by a current pulse of 0.3-s duration. Measurements were carried out with a data acquisition system consisting of a FET multiplexer, a DVM (14 bit, 100 kHz), and a buffer memory (64 kbytes). Pyrometer signals are processed off-line, and temperature vs time is displayed. With the present arrangement, temperature measurements at 20 wavelengths may be performed with 200s resolution. Faster measurements are possible with a reduced number of channels.Paper presented at the Third Workshop on Subsecond Thermophysics, September 17–18, 1992, Graz, Austria.Deceased