Improved micro-contact resistance model that considers material deformation, electron transport and thin film characteristics

This paper reports on an improved analytic model forpredicting micro-contact resistance needed for designing microelectro-mechanical systems (MEMS) switches. The originalmodel had two primary considerations: 1) contact materialdeformation (i.e. elastic, plastic, or elastic-plastic) and 2) effectivecontact area radius. The model also assumed that individual aspotswere close together and that their interactions weredependent on each other which led to using the single effective aspotcontact area model. This single effective area model wasused to determine specific electron transport regions (i.e. ballistic,quasi-ballistic, or diffusive) by comparing the effective radius andthe mean free path of an electron. Using this model required thatmicro-switch contact materials be deposited, during devicefabrication, with processes ensuring low surface roughness values(i.e. sputtered films). Sputtered thin film electric contacts,however, do not behave like bulk materials and the effects of thinfilm contacts and spreading resistance must be considered. Theimproved micro-contact resistance model accounts for the twoprimary considerations above, as well as, using thin film,sputtered, electric contact

Determination of efficiencies, loss mechanisms, and performance degradation factors in chopper controlled dc vehical motors. Section 2: The time dependent finite element modeling of the electromagnetic field in electrical machines: Methods and applications

The time dependent solution of the magnetic field is introduced as a method for accounting for the variation, in time, of the machine parameters in predicting and analyzing the performance of the electrical machines. The method of time dependent finite element was used in combination with an also time dependent construction of a grid for the air gap region. The Maxwell stress tensor was used to calculate the airgap torque from the magnetic vector potential distribution. Incremental inductances were defined and calculated as functions of time, depending on eddy currents and saturation. The currents in all the machine circuits were calculated in the time domain based on these inductances, which were continuously updated. The method was applied to a chopper controlled DC series motor used for electric vehicle drive, and to a salient pole sychronous motor with damper bars. Simulation results were compared to experimentally obtained ones

Molecular transport and flow past hard and soft surfaces: Computer simulation of model systems

The properties of polymer liquids on hard and soft substrates are investigated by molecular dynamics simulation of a coarse-grained bead-spring model and dynamic single-chain-in-mean-field (SCMF) simulations of a soft, coarse-grained polymer model. Hard, corrugated substrates are modelled by an FCC Lennard-Jones solid while polymer brushes are investigated as a prototypical example of a soft, deformable surface. From the molecular simulation we extract the coarse-grained parameters that characterise the equilibrium and flow properties of the liquid in contact with the substrate: the surface and interface tensions, and the parameters of the hydrodynamic boundary condition. The so-determined parameters enter a continuum description like the Stokes equation or the lubrication approximation.Comment: 41 pages, 13 figure

Space plasma contractor research, 1988

Results of experiments conducted on hollow cathode-based plasma contractors are reported. Specific tests in which attempts were made to vary plasma conditions in the simulated ionospheric plasma are described. Experimental results showing the effects of contractor flowrate and ion collecting surface size on contactor performance and contactor plasma plume geometry are presented. In addition to this work, one-dimensional solutions to spherical and cylindircal space-charge limited double-sheath problems are developed. A technique is proposed that can be used to apply these solutions to the problem of current flow through elongated double-sheaths that separate two cold plasmas. Two conference papers which describe the essential features of the plasma contacting process and present data that should facilitate calibration of comprehensive numerical models of the plasma contacting process are also included

A new facility to study three dimensional viscous flow and rotor-stator interaction in turbines

A description of the Axial Flow Turbine Research Facility (AFTRF) being built at the Turbomachinery Laboratory of the Pennsylvania State University is presented. The purpose of the research to be performed in this facility is to obtain a better understanding of the rotor/stator interaction, three dimensional viscous flow field in nozzle and rotor blade passages, spanwise mixing and losses in these blade rows, transport of wake through rotor passage, and unsteady aerodynamics and heat transfer of rotor blade row. The experimental results will directly feed and support the analytical and the computational tool development. This large scale low speed facility is heavily instrumented with pressure and temperature probes and has provision for flow visualization and laser Doppler anemometer measurement. The facility design permits extensive use of the high frequency response instrumentation on the stationary vanes and more importantly on the rotating blades. Furthermore it facilitates detailed nozzle wake, rotor wake, and boundary layer surveys. The large size of the rig also has the advantage of operating at Reynolds numbers representative of the engine environment

Query Resolution for Conversational Search with Limited Supervision

In this work we focus on multi-turn passage retrieval as a crucial component of conversational search. One of the key challenges in multi-turn passage retrieval comes from the fact that the current turn query is often underspecified due to zero anaphora, topic change, or topic return. Context from the conversational history can be used to arrive at a better expression of the current turn query, defined as the task of query resolution. In this paper, we model the query resolution task as a binary term classification problem: for each term appearing in the previous turns of the conversation decide whether to add it to the current turn query or not. We propose QuReTeC (Query Resolution by Term Classification), a neural query resolution model based on bidirectional transformers. We propose a distant supervision method to automatically generate training data by using query-passage relevance labels. Such labels are often readily available in a collection either as human annotations or inferred from user interactions. We show that QuReTeC outperforms state-of-the-art models, and furthermore, that our distant supervision method can be used to substantially reduce the amount of human-curated data required to train QuReTeC. We incorporate QuReTeC in a multi-turn, multi-stage passage retrieval architecture and demonstrate its effectiveness on the TREC CAsT dataset.Comment: SIGIR 2020 full conference pape

Microstructural Characterization of Shrouded Plasma Sprayed Titanium Coatings

Titanium and its alloys are often used for corrosion protection because they are able to offer a high chemical resistance against various corrosive media. In this paper, shrouded plasma spray technology was applied to produce titanium coatings. A solid shroud with an external shrouding gas was used to plasma spray titanium powder feedstock with aim to reduce the oxide content in the as-sprayed coatings. The titanium coatings were assessed by optical microscope, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, LECO combustion method and Vickers microhardness testing. The results showed that the presence of the shroud and the external shrouding gas led to a dense microstructure with a low porosity in the as-prayed titanium coatings. The oxygen and nitrogen contents in the titanium coating were kept at a low level due to the shielding effect of the shroud attachment and the external shrouding gas. The dominant phase in the shrouded titanium coatings was mainly composed of α-Ti phase, which was very similar to the titanium feedstock powders. The shrouded plasma sprayed titanium coatings had a Vickers microhardness of 404.2 ±103.2 H

The musealisation of the artist's house as architectural project

Artist’s houses that are opened to the public as museums shift from a private and everyday to a semi-public and institutional functioning. This transformation of an artist’s house into a house-museum might appear as a mere legal issue or as a matter of making previously secluded rooms and collections accessible to the public. But this musealisation of an artist’s house always involves a set of museological and architectural interventions as well. Not only need the house and its content to be displayed as historical documents through a careful mise-en-scène and through the addition of a sub-text of labels or explanatory panels that disclose the meaning of these historical documents; there is also a need for a logic and clear visitor’s route in a house that was not intended for this. Often this already demands architectural design decisions, but it is mainly in the introduction of the supporting museum functions like the necessary office spaces and an entrance hall with reception desk, cloakroom and bathrooms that the musealisation comes down to an architectural design challenge. The proposed paper wants to discuss the artist’s house museum from an architect’s point of view, on the basis of a selection of artist’s houses that were recently transformed into museums, such as the Atelier-Museum Luc Peire in Knokke (B) or the renovations of the Permeke and Rubens house museums. I want to propose the artist’s house museum as an architectural typology by mapping its various typical architectural and spatial characteristics. The first crucial point of interest here is how the spatial division is articulated between the historic interiors, the exhibition spaces and the museum’s service spaces outside of the visitor’s circuit. A second architectural question is how the museum as an active institution can be given an architectural ‘face’ while respecting and presenting the house and its collections as historical documents; how can both the ‘authentic’ private atmosphere and the contemporary public museum be given shape, and is there a place for authorial design in this mediating exercise