Modernization of Continuous Casters for Casting Rounds at the Volga Pipe Plant

The modern electric steelmaking equipment and technology in use at the Volga Pipe Plant allows that facility to make tubular semifinished products composed of a wide range of steels. Due to an increase in the volume of production and the number of orders being received for 156-mm-diam. semifinished products, the plant found it necessary to increase the productivity of the continuous caster in the casting of small-diameter products. The plant worked with VNIIMETMASh to modernize its existing continuous section caster. The technical and organizational changes that were made in order to cast 156-mm-diam. semifinished products have elevated the performance of caster No. 2 to world-class level. The modernization effort was completed well in advance of the scheduled date.     

Symmetry properties of the reciprocity gap functional in the linear elasticity

The reciprocity gap functional for a linear elastic body with an embedded defect is considered. The functional is a bilinear functional depending on two stress states—in an elastic body with a defect and without it. It is shown that for various types of boundary conditions the functional is a symmetric one in a certain sense. Some corollaries of the symmetry properties of the functional are obtained.     

Generation of uniform magnetic field using a single-layer solenoid with multi-current method

The magnetic field of a single-layer solenoid (length L=1020 mm, average radius R=114.67 mm, pitch p=1.0001 mm and wire diameter d=0.799 mm) with a multi-current method was calculated to improve the uniformity and optimized by using Legendre polynomials. The optimum conditions obtained by the calculations for the uniform magnetic field lead to insensitive magnetic field with respect to the radius variations. Therefore, the uncertainty of the generated magnetic field within ±2 cm from the center of the solenoid amounts to about 1 × 10⁻⁷ normalized by the central magnetic field. The solenoid coil constant was measured to be 1.2548214 mT/A obtained under compensation of the Earth’s magnetic field in 25 °C air.     

Note: lack of influence of adherent Lactobacillus isolates on the attachment of Escherichia coli to the intestinal epithelial cells of chicken in vitro

Two Lactobacillus isolates, Lact. acidophilus I 26 and Lact. fermentum I 25, were selected, based on their poor aggregation with Escherichia coli and strong ability to adhere to ileal epithelial cells (IEC), to study in vitro interactions with E. coli O1:K1, O2:K1 and O78:K80 in an IEC radioactive-assay under the conditions of exclusion (lactobacilli and IEC, followed by the addition of E. coli), competition (lactobacilli, IEC and E. coli together) and displacement (E. coli and IEC, followed by the addition of lactobacilli). The results indicated that Lact. acidophilus I 26 and Lact. fermentum I 25 could not significantly reduce the attachment of E. coli O1:K1, O2:K1 and O78:K80 to IEC under the three conditions tested in vitro, except that the attachment of E. coli O1:K1 was slightly reduced by Lact. fermentum I 25 in the test for competition.