Pellet Injectors Developed at the Pelin Laboratory for Steady-State Plasma Fuelling

Pneumatic and centrifugal injectors for steady-state plasma refuelling by solid hydrogen, deuterium and tritium pellets have been designed at the PELIN Laboratory to meet requirements of LHD, TORE SUPRA, and ITER. Presented here is a review of these injectors‘ designs and results.     

Potential of the crude glycerol and citric acid mixture as a binder in medium-density fiberboard manufacturing

European Journal of Wood and Wood Products - Urea–formaldehyde (UF) resin is the main commercial adhesive used for medium-density fiberboard (MDF) manufacturing. UF resin is used to produce...     

Glycerol and Citric Acid Treatment of Lodgepole Pine

As part of a research program to expand the potential of wood products in exterior applications, lodgepole pine wood was impregnated with a solution of glycerol and citric acid to improve its dimensional stability and other relevant properties. Two catalysts were studied: one liquid (hydrochloric acid, HCl) and one solid (nanoclay, Cloisite 30B). After impregnation, the specimens were polymerized at two temperatures (160°C and 180°C). The nanoclay dispersion and reticulation analysis were performed by XRD and TEM methods. Other analysis methods such as SEM, DSC, TGA, FT-IR were used to characterize the treatment solutions, polymers and treated specimens. The dimensional stability, hardness, adhesion strength and roughness of the specimens were measured and analyzed. Cloisite 30B proved to be a good catalyst, as it contributed to improving the dimensional stability and hardness of the wood while outperforming the HCl catalyst in counteracting the adhesion strength loss attributed to the wood-polymer composite. The polymerization temperature also affected the results. At 180°C, dimensional stability and adhesion strength were higher than at 160°C and the loss of treatment solution was also higher. Impregnating wood with a glycerol ester could drastically improve its physical properties, including dimensional stability and hardness, particularly when Cloisite 30B nanoclay is used as a catalyst.     

Integration of Mobile-IP and OLSR for a Universal Mobility

Trends in fourth generation (4G) wireless networks are clearly identified by the full-IP concept where all traffic (data, control, voice and video services, etc.) will be transported in IP packets. Many proposals are being made to enhance IP with the functionalities necessary to manage the mobility of nodes, so that networks can provide global seamless roaming between heterogeneous wireless and wired networks. In this paper, we focus on the management of universal mobility, including both large scale macro-mobility and local scale micro-mobility. We propose a hierachical architecture (i) extending micro-mobility management of a wireless access network to an ad-hoc access network, (ii) connecting this ad-hoc network to the Internet and (iii) integrating Mobile IP and OLSR, a routing protocol for ad-hoc networks, to manage universal mobility. This architecture is validated by an implementation based on DynamicsMobile-IP and OLSR version 7. We show how the brodcast of Mobile-IP Agent Advertisement can be optimized using OLSR MPR-flooding.     

Molecular Origins of the Mechanical Behavior of Hybrid Glasses

Hybrid organic‐inorganic glasses exhibit unique electro‐optical properties along with excellent thermal stability. Their inherently mechanically fragile nature, however, which derives from the oxide component of the hybrid glass network together with the presence of terminal groups that reduce network connectivity, remains a fundamental challenge for their integration in nanoscience and energy technologies. We report on a combined synthesis and computational strategy to elucidate the effect of molecular structure on mechanical properties of hybrid glass films. We first demonstrate the importance of rigidity percolation to elastic behavior. Secondly, using a novel application of graph theory, we reveal the complex 3‐D fracture path at the molecular scale and show that fracture energy in brittle hybrid glasses is fundamentally governed by the bond percolation properties of the network. The computational tools and scaling laws presented provide a robust predictive capability for guiding precursor selection and molecular network design of advanced hybrid organic‐inorganic materials.     

Ultra Low‐k Films Derived from Hyperbranched Polycarbosilanes (HBPCS)

Dense and porous hyperbranched carbosiloxane thin films (HBCSO) are obtained by sol–gel processing using methylene‐bridged hyperbranched polycarbosilanes (HBPCSs) with the general compositional formula {(OMe)₂Si(CH₂)}. Introduction of porosity is achieved using a porogen templating approach, allowing the control of the films' dielectric constant from 2.9 to as low as 1.8. Over the entire dielectric range, the HBCSO films exhibit exceptional mechanical properties, 2–3 times superior to those obtained for non‐alkylene bridged organosiloxanes such as methylsilsesquioxanes (MSSQs) of similar densities and k‐values.     

Computer reconstruction of nucleolar architecture by interactive three-dimensional color display

The first complete three dimensional ultrastructural reconstruction of pancreatic cell nucleoli, was done using EM and computer 3D-assisted reconstruction of serial sections with interactive 3D back-to-front and color display methods based on voxel representation. The purpose of the study was to depict the architecture of the nucleolar components. We obtained information about the location of the nucleolus within the nuclear volume and about the shape and polarity of the 3 main nucleolar territories.