Mass transfer in polycrystalline ytterbium monosilicate under oxygen potential gradients at high temperatures

Mass transfer in polycrystalline Yb₂SiO₅ wafers with precise composition control was evaluated and analyzed by oxygen permeation experiments at high temperatures using an oxygen tracer. Oxygen permeation proceeded due to mutual grain boundary diffusion of oxide ions and Yb ions without synergistic effects such as acceleration or suppression. The oxygen shielding properties of Yb₂SiO₅ were compared with those of the other line compounds such as Yb₂Si₂O₇ and Al₂O₃ based on the determined mass transfer parameters. It was found that the more preferentially an oxide ion diffuses in the grain boundary compared to the interior of the grain, the greater the effect of suppressing the movement of the oxide ion by applying an oxygen potential gradient becomes.     

Rapid sensing of trace ionic substances with the novel porous monolith type ion exchanger

Biological and chemical sensor with a rapid response in microlevel test is required for health and environmental monitor. A novel sensing due to porous ion exchanger with three-dimensional acceptor has been first attempted to develop a high-performance sensor. This porous monolith type ion exchanger has an open-cellular monolith structure with 5–50-μm diameter pores. The trace amount of inorganic ions dissolved in aqueous solutions can be quantitatively determined with the impedance given by the monolith, which attracts and adsorbs the ions rapidly. We have succeeded in detecting ions with a concentration as low as 10⁻⁷ mol. The porous ion exchanger has a potentiality as a high-performance device for biological and chemical sensing. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 47:1666–1670, 2007. © 2007 Society of Plastics Engineers     

On the development and characterization of a firebrand generator

A unique experimental apparatus has been constructed in order to generate a controlled and repeatable size and mass distribution of glowing firebrands. The present study reports on a series of experiments conducted in order to characterize the performance of this firebrand generator. Firebrand generator characterization experiments were performed at the Fire Research Wind Tunnel Facility (FRWTF) at the Building Research Institute (BRI) in Tsukuba, Japan. The firebrand generator was fed with three different initial firebrand geometries, two different sized cylinders and one size of disks. Cylinders were used to simulate firebrand fluxes from vegetation, such as trees, while disks were used to simulate a firebrand flux from burning structures. Samples of these geometries were constructed from wood dowels, fed into the firebrand generator, ignited, and the glowing firebrands generated were collected using an array of water filled pans. The pans were filled with water in order to quench combustion. The collected firebrands were subsequently dried and the size and mass distribution was measured. These experiments were performed over a range of wind tunnel speeds, with no wind speed present to 9 m/s, to determine the lofting distance of the firebrands generated. Finally, the size and mass distribution produced from the firebrand generator are compared to those produced from burning trees. Results of the study are presented and discussed.     

中、日、欧的被试者对河川景观注视过程的比较研究

在景观认知·评价过程中,如果把眼球运动作为反映大脑所进行的视觉情报处理过程的外部参数,那么眼的运动方式就可能因评价者的生活经验、知识水平甚至价值观和思维方式的不同而产生差异。因此,可以设想被试者的社会文化背景的差异也有可能会从他们对景观的认知方式上得到体现。作为视觉认知中异域文化差异的比较研究之一,运用眼球运动跟踪仪对评价者的景观认知评价过程进行了跟踪测试,并试图通过对认知过程中的注视点分布、注视点数以及注视点的停留时间和注视内容的变化趋势这几个角度的分析比较来探讨社会文化背景的差异如何体现在人类视觉情报信息的收集整理的外部反应中,从而明确在地域特色景观的保留和营造上构成要素的布局方式的意义。     

Rugate filters fabricated by a radio frequency magnetron sputtering system by use of an optical in situ monitoring technique

We propose, for the first time to our knowledge, a new feedback fabrication technique for rugate filters with sinusoidal refractive index distribution. The technique uses an in situ optical monitoring system, in contrast to conventional techniques for rugate filters that are based on time control, which is generally unsuitable for accurate fabrication of a continuous index distribution. We employed a-SiOx:H thin film as the material for the rugate filters because its refractive index can be successively controlled. Using the proposed technique and material, we fabricated near-infrared rugate minus filters having multiple and continuous refractive index distributions. The experimental and calculated spectra were well correlated as a result of applying the proposed feedback fabrication technique.     

Amino acid sensing by impedance of porous monolith-type ion exchanger

A biological and chemical sensor with rapid response at the microlevel is required for health and environmental monitoring. To develop a high-performance sensor, we use a porous monolith-type ion exchanger having three-dimensional acceptors to sense chemical substances. This porous monolith-type ion exchanger has an open-cellular structure with 5-50-μm diameter pores. The concentration of amino acids in the solution can be detected by measuring the impedance of the monolith-type ion exchanger. The novel ion exchanger has a high-exchange rate and high-electrical conductivity compared with that of the conventional ion-exchange resins. It is found that the impedance of the porous ion exchanger varies widely, depending on the amino acids such as glycine, asparatic acid, lysine, and phenylalanine. The impedance of anion exchanger had the highest value for phenylalanine with a benzene ring. OH-ion conduction is suppressed possibly due to the phenylalanine molecules stabilized by the hydrophobic interaction with the anion exchanger. In addition, we succeeded in sensing amino acid ions with concentration as low as 10⁻⁷ mol. The porous ion exchanger has the potential of a high-performance device for biological and chemical sensing.     

High strength and toughness of double physically cross-linked hydrogels composed of polyvinyl alcohol and calcium alginate

The weak mechanical properties of hydrogels, especially physically cross-linked hydrogels are usually a major factor to hinder their application. To solve this problem, in this work, we prepared a high strength and toughness of double physically cross-linked (PDN) hydrogels composed of crystalline domain cross-linked polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and Ca²⁺-cross-linked alginate (Alg). With a further annealing treatment, the noncovalent cross-linked network via the formed crystalline promote the as-prepared PDN PVA/Alg hydrogel to exhibit well mechanical properties with the tensile strength of ~1.94 MPa, elongation at break of ~607% and Young's modulus of ~0.45 MPa (above 70 wt% of water content). By analyzing the mechanism of improving the hydrogel mechanical properties, it is found that annealing can effectively improve the crystallinity of PVA in the hydrogel, and then greatly improve the mechanical properties of the hydrogel. This provides a general method for improving the mechanical properties of PVA PDN hydrogels. In addition, the PDN PVA/Alg hydrogel was also proved to have good ionic conductivity of 1.70 S m⁻¹. These desirable properties make the prepared physically cross-linked hydrogels promising materials for medical and biosensing fields.     

Core-shell microbioreactor microencapsulated denitrifying bacteria for nitrate-nitrogen treatment

Summary Droplets of water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) emulsion were prepared using sodium alginate solution with denitrifying bacteria (Paracoccus denitrificans IFO13301) and dichloromethane (DCM) with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA). By phase-separation and solvent-evaporation these droplets could be formed into core-shell PMMA microencapsulated denitrifying bacteria (PMMA-MC) possessing a large single core and a highly porous wall. The average thickness of the PMMA shell was 30 μm and the denitrifying bacteria were incorporated in the inner core at a high density. The PMMA-MC completely reduced 20 mg/L nitrate-nitrogen (NO₃-N) and the intermediate product, nitrite-nitrogen (NO₂-N), to N₂ in the presence of H₂ using a batchwise method. Thus, incorporated denitrifying bacteria can be used to treat water polluted with NO₃-N. The PMMA-MC can be used repeatedly, and the third denitrification experiment directly denitrified (NO₃-N → N₂) without the intermediate step (NO₃-N → NO₂-N). In addition, the PMMA-MC with decreased activity could be reactivated by incubating in a culture medium.     

Flow range enhancement by secondary flow effect in low solidity circular cascade diffusers

High-pressure ratio and wide operating range are highly required for compressors and blowers. The technical issue of the design is achievement of suppression of flow separation at small flow rate without deteriorating the efficiency at design flow rate. A numerical simulation is very effective in design procedure, however, cost of the numerical simulation is generally high during the practical design process, and it is difficult to confirm the optimal design which is combined with many parameters. A multi-objective optimization technique is the idea that has been proposed for solving the problem in practical design process. In this study, a Low Solidity circular cascade Diffuser (LSD) in a centrifugal blower is successfully designed by means of multi-objective optimization technique. An optimization code with a meta-model assisted evolutionary algorithm is used with a commercial CFD code ANSYS-CFX. The optimization is aiming at improving the static pressure coefficient at design point and at low flow rate condition while constraining the slope of the lift coefficient curve. Moreover, a small tip clearance of the LSD blade was applied in order to activate and to stabilize the secondary flow effect at small flow rate condition. The optimized LSD blade has an extended operating range of 114 % towards smaller flow rate as compared to the baseline design without deteriorating the diffuser pressure recovery at design point. The diffuser pressure rise and operating flow range of the optimized LSD blade are experimentally verified by overall performance test. The detailed flow in the diffuser is also confirmed by means of a Particle Image Velocimeter. Secondary flow is clearly captured by PIV and it spreads to the whole area of LSD blade pitch. It is found that the optimized LSD blade shows good improvement of the blade loading in the whole operating range, while at small flow rate the flow separation on the LSD blade has been successfully suppressed by the secondary flow effect.     

Multi-point optimization of recirculation flow type casing treatment in centrifugal compressors

High-pressure ratio and wide operating range are highly required for a turbocharger in diesel engines.A recirculation flow type casing treatment is effective for flow range enhancement of centrifugal compressors.Two ring grooves on a suction pipe and a shroud casing wall are connected by means of an annular passage and stable recirculation flow is formed at small flow rates from the downstream groove toward the upstream groove through the annular bypass.The shape of baseline recirculation flow type casing is modified and optimized by using a multi-point optimization code with a metamodel assisted evolutionary algorithm embedding a commercial CFD code CFX from ANSYS.The numerical optimization results give the optimized design of casing with improving adiabatic efficiency in wide operating flow rate range.Sensitivity analysis of design parameters as a function of efficiency has been performed.It is found that the optimized casing design provides optimized recirculation flow rate,in which an increment of entropy rise is minimized at grooves and passages of the rotating impeller.