Relationship between the Undrained Shear Strength, Water Content, and Mineralogical Properties of Fine-Grained Soils

The relationship between the undrained shear strength of fine-grained soils and the water content can be described with a nonlinear function in which the type of soil is determined by two parameters. It is well known that these parameters depend mainly on the mineral compositions of soils; these relationships, however, have not yet been investigated. The findings described in this paper define those mineralogical properties of soils which determine the values of both parameters. Experimentally obtained results suggest that the parameters primarily depend on the size of the clay minerals, their quantity in soil composition, and the interlayer water quantity in the expanding clay minerals. As this dependence is well defined, the parameters, and thus the undrained shear strength at different water content, can be defined from knowledge of these mineralogical soil properties.     

Identification of linear synchronous reluctance motor parameters

This paper deals with experimental methods for the identification of linear synchronous reluctance motor (LSRM) parameters. A magnetically nonlinear two-axis dynamic LSRM model is derived. This model accounts for the effects of slotting, saturation, cross-saturation, and the end effects. The parameters of the obtained model are not constant. They are given by the characteristics of the flux linkages, thrust, and friction force depending on the mover position and the direct (d) and quadrature (q) axis currents. These characteristics are determined experimentally by a controlled voltage-source inverter employing closed-loop current control in the d-q reference frame. The proposed model, experimental methods, and determined characteristics are confirmed through a comparison between the measured and calculated results. Two tests are performed: a test at the locked mover, and kinematic control at low speed. The effects of cross saturation under dynamic operating conditions and the effects of slotting can be clearly seen in the measured and calculated results.     

Reconfigurable digital controller for a buck converter based on FPGA

This paper presents a complete digitally controlled dc–dc buck converter performed by FPGA circuitry. All tasks, analog to digital conversion, control algorithm and pulse width modulation, were implemented in the FPGA. This approach enables high-speed dynamic response and programmability by the controller, without external passive components. In addition, the controller’s structure can be easily changed without external components. The applied algorithm enables a switching frequency of 100 kHz.     

Decentralized PI/PD position control for active magnetic bearings

This paper discusses a closed-loop decentralized control for active magnetic bearings. A cascade connection of PI and PD position controllers is proposed. The control design is based on a simplified linearized model for one axis using a root locus. An excellent agreement is noticeable between simulation and experimental results. It has been shown, that the presented PI/PD control guarantees satisfactory high damping and stiffness of the overall system.     

Macroscopic Elastic Studies of Orientational Ordering in Single-Crystal Fullerites

Abstract

We give an overview on dynamic mechanic experiments in single-crystal fullerites C₆₀ and C₇₀. Elastic properties and thermal expansion in the vicinity of ordering phase transitions were studied. Landau theory and simple microscopic models are used to describe the experimental results.

     

Iterative turbo decoder analysis based on density evolution

We track the density of extrinsic information in iterative turbo decoders by actual density evolution, and also approximate it by symmetric Gaussian density functions. The approximate model is verified by experimental measurements. We view the evolution of these density functions through an iterative decoder as a nonlinear dynamical system with feedback. Iterative decoding of turbo codes and of serially concatenated codes is analyzed by examining whether a signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for the extrinsic information keeps growing with iterations. We define a “noise figure” for the iterative decoder, such that the turbo decoder will converge to the correct codeword if the noise figure is bounded by a number below zero dB. By decomposing the code's noise figure into individual curves of output SNR versus input SNR corresponding to the individual constituent codes, we gain many new insights into the performance of the iterative decoder for different constituents. Many mysteries of turbo codes are explained based on this analysis. For example, we show why certain codes converge better with iterative decoding than more powerful codes which are only suitable for maximum likelihood decoding. The roles of systematic bits and of recursive convolutional codes as constituents of turbo codes are crystallized. The analysis is generalized to serial concatenations of mixtures of complementary outer and inner constituent codes. Design examples are given to optimize mixture codes to achieve low iterative decoding thresholds on the signal-to-noise ratio of the channel     

Capacity-approaching protograph codes

This paper discusses construction of protographbased low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Emphasis is placed on protograph ensembles whose typical minimum distance grows linearly with block size. Asymptotic performance analysis for both weight enumeration and iterative decoding threshold determination is provided and applied to a series of code constructions. Construction techniques that yield both low thresholds and linear minimum distance growth are introduced by way of example throughout. The paper also examines implementation strategies for high throughput decoding derived from first principles of belief propagation on bipartite graphs.     

Iterative demodulation, demapping, and decoding of coded non-square QAM

It is shown that a non-square (NS) 2/sup 2n+1/-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) can be decomposed into a single parity-check (SPC) block encoder and a memoryless modulator in such a way that the inherent block encoder has a recursive nature. When concatenated with a forward-error-correcting (FEC) code, iterative demodulation, demapping, and decoding of the FEC code and the inherent SPC code of NS-2/sup 2n+1/-QAM is then possible. Simulation results show that coded NS-8QAM performs nearly 2 dB better than standard 8QAM and star-8QAM, and nearly 1 dB better than 8-ary phase-shift keying when the FEC code is a rate-1/2, 16-state convolutional code, while coded NS-32QAM performs 0.75 dB better than standard 32QAM.