Detonation Confinement in a Radial Rotating Detonation Engine

Radial Rotating Detonation Engines (RRDE) have provided an opportunity for use of a pressure-gain combustor in a more compact form compared to an axial RDE. A successfully tested RRDE has operated over a wide range of test conditions and produced detonation modes with one, two, and three waves. The presence of multiple waves located the detonation waves to the outer radius, while one wave modes operated closer to the inner radius. Locating the detonation wave closer to the inner diameter resulted in less time for combustion prior to the radial turbine. Subsequently, this tended to decrease efficiency. To attempt to alleviate this, the detonation chamber area was modified from its constant area design to a decreasing area design as the flow travelled radially inward to confine the detonation wave to a more radially out- ward position. The detonation chamber featured a at channel plate that reduced the flow\u27s effective cross-sectional area by almost 65% from its inlet to the turbine inlet plane. The constant channel height improved total pressure loss as high as 92% over the constant area geometry for similar ow conditions and increased the RRDEs ability to operate at larger channel heights. Guide vanes were introduced downstream of the combustion section by modifying the at channel plate with modular channel plates. This configuration attempted to provide a combustion section with a confined detonation and a transition section to the guide vanes and nozzle. While in this configuration, the RRDE operated at both detonative and acoustic wave modes. Thin-filament pyrometry (TFP) was also performed to measure transient temperature responses during operation. The successful implementation of the filaments provided temperature measurements during detonative modes up to 2194 K at the guide vanes and frequency responses captured through TFP between 1.6-5.9 kHz

Machine learning algorithms for efficient process optimisation of variable geometries at the example of fabric forming

Für einen optimalen Betrieb erfordern moderne Produktionssysteme eine sorgfältige Einstellung der eingesetzten Fertigungsprozesse. Physikbasierte Simulationen können die Prozessoptimierung wirksam unterstützen, jedoch sind deren Rechenzeiten oft eine erhebliche Hürde. Eine Möglichkeit, Rechenzeit einzusparen sind surrogate-gestützte Optimierungsverfahren (SBO1). Surrogates sind recheneffiziente, datengetriebene Ersatzmodelle, die den Optimierer im Suchraum leiten. Sie verbessern in der Regel die Konvergenz, erweisen sich aber bei veränderlichen Optimierungsaufgaben, etwa häufigen Bauteilanpassungen nach Kundenwunsch, als unhandlich. Um auch solche variablen Optimierungsaufgaben effizient zu lösen, untersucht die vorliegende Arbeit, wie jüngste Fortschritte im Maschinenlernen (ML) – im Speziellen bei neuronalen Netzen – bestehende SBO-Techniken ergänzen können. Dabei werden drei Hauptaspekte betrachtet: erstens, ihr Potential als klassisches Surrogate für SBO, zweitens, ihre Eignung zur effiziente Bewertung der Herstellbarkeit neuer Bauteilentwürfe und drittens, ihre Möglichkeiten zur effizienten Prozessoptimierung für variable Bauteilgeometrien. Diese Fragestellungen sind grundsätzlich technologieübergreifend anwendbar und werden in dieser Arbeit am Beispiel der Textilumformung untersucht. Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit (Kapitel 3) diskutiert die Eignung tiefer neuronaler Netze als Surrogates für SBO. Hierzu werden verschiedene Netzarchitekturen untersucht und mehrere Möglichkeiten verglichen, sie in ein SBO-Framework einzubinden. Die Ergebnisse weisen ihre Eignung für SBO nach: Für eine feste Beispielgeometrie minimieren alle Varianten erfolgreich und schneller als ein Referenzalgorithmus (genetischer Algorithmus) die Zielfunktion. Um die Herstellbarkeit variabler Bauteilgeometrien zu bewerten, untersucht Kapitel 4 anschließend, wie Geometrieinformationen in ein Prozess-Surrogate eingebracht werden können. Hierzu werden zwei ML-Ansätze verglichen, ein merkmals- und ein rasterbasierter Ansatz. Der merkmalsbasierte Ansatz scannt ein Bauteil nach einzelnen, prozessrelevanten Geometriemerkmalen, der rasterbasierte Ansatz hingegen interpretiert die Geometrie als Ganzes. Beide Ansätze können das Prozessverhalten grundsätzlich erlernen, allerdings erweist sich der rasterbasierte Ansatz als einfacher übertragbar auf neue Geometrievarianten. Die Ergebnisse zeigen zudem, dass hauptsächlich die Vielfalt und weniger die Menge der Trainingsdaten diese Übertragbarkeit bestimmt. Abschließend verbindet Kapitel 5 die Surrogate-Techniken für flexible Geometrien mit variablen Prozessparametern, um eine effiziente Prozessoptimierung für variable Bauteile zu erreichen. Hierzu interagiert ein ML-Algorithmus in einer Simulationsumgebung mit generischen Geometriebeispielen und lernt, welche Geometrie, welche Umformparameter erfordert. Nach dem Training ist der Algorithmus in der Lage, auch für nicht-generische Bauteilgeometrien brauchbare Empfehlungen auszugeben. Weiter zeigt sich, dass die Empfehlungen mit ähnlicher Geschwindigkeit wie die klassische SBO zum tatsächlichen Prozessoptimum konvergieren, jedoch kein bauteilspezifisches A-priori-Sampling nötig ist. Einmal trainiert, ist der entwickelte Ansatz damit effizienter. Insgesamt zeigt diese Arbeit, wie ML-Techniken gegenwärtige SBOMethoden erweitern und so die Prozess- und Produktoptimierung zu frühen Entwicklungszeitpunkten effizient unterstützen können. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchungen münden in Folgefragen zur Weiterentwicklung der Methoden, etwa die Integration physikalischer Bilanzgleichungen, um die Modellprognosen physikalisch konsistenter zu machen

People, ideas and models in flux in Medieval Europe

UIDB/00749/2020 UIDP/00749/2020This volume is the product of a profound reworking of a substantial number of contributions and, whilst it aims not to be about the “Global Middle Ages”, it does strive to contribute to the debate by suggesting different approaches to the theme through essays that hopefully will spark discussion and a reevaluation of the more traditional studies devoted to circulation, contact and exchange, and those dealing with cultural encounters and differing mental worlds. Here, possibilities may be activated by taking a view through the unsettling lens of global/local analysis and by aspiring to meet those challenges that thereby come into focus.publishersversionpublishe

Admittance and noise detection in mesoscopic systems via GHz impedance matching

Fast measurement of small currents and even smaller fluctuations in devices with large impedance is not trivial. Standard low frequency lock-in measurements suffer from stray capacitance of the order of nF reducing the bandwidth to merely kHz and a time resolution of ms. One approach of increasing the bandwidth is to connect the high-impedance device next to a low input impedance amplifier, though, the signal is decreased by the ratio of the impedances of the device and the amplifier, easily a factor of a thousand. Therefore, long averaging times are required to detect the small signal. Moreover, 1/f noise still affects the measurements. The issues of small bandwidth, impedance mismatch and 1/f noise can be simultaneously addressed using resonant LC circuits. The success of this impedance transformer lies in replacing the slow operation of applying voltages and measuring currents by applying fast radio frequency signals and measuring the reflectance. LC circuits remain appealing because of a rather simple assembly. Nonetheless, the challenge to reproducibly achieve the resonance frequencies in gigahertz (GHz) range while matching to high impedance still remains due to the large parallel stray capacitance of the measurement setup. Resonance frequency in GHz range is desirable for two reasons. Firstly, measurements are faster and 1/f noise smaller. Yet more importantly, one can profit from the wide range of measurement techniques developed in the context of circuit quantum electrodynamics, such as FPGA based hardware and quantum limited Josephson parametric amplifiers. In this thesis, a matching circuit namely stub tuner based on coplanar transmission lines is designed, fabricated and integrated with mesoscopic devices. Owing to the simple design, we could predict the frequency response of a stub tuner in terms of the standard circuit model (Chapter 3). We initiated certain necessary fabrication adaptations to achieve integration of niobium circuits with devices. In particular, a reliable stamping of carbon nanotubes from the growth substrate to the target substrate was accomplished, improving both the device quality and yield (Chapter 4). RF reflectometry is employed to perform admittance measurements on CNT quantum dots. We could reliably deduce all circuit and device properties using the resonance response. The measurement bandwidth is shown to be in MHz range which is three orders of magnitude larger than that for DC measurements. In particular, using the phase response of the circuit, double-dot qubit energy and dephasing rate are studied (Chapter 5). We could even get rid of conventional contacts that could degrade the device properties, and still extract quantum capacitance and dissipation in graphene p-n junctions. The residual doping is shown to affect not only the mean free path but also the Fermi velocity. We further see that at small doping, electron-electron interactions could modify the Fermi velocity and that the dispersion relation could deviate from linearity (Chapter 6). In the second half of the scientific results, real strength of stub tuner is tested in transmission measurements. The large bandwidth and signal to noise ratio is utilized to measure extremely clean noise power densities at high speed and draw comparisons with the corresponding average current. Clear changes in the shot noise spectrum are seen when a transport channel is added or removed from the bias window of the quantum dot. We especially observe noise enhancement outside the Coulomb diamonds due to blocking states (Chapter 7). Finally, we investigate noise properties of quantum dots when leads are superconducting. Distinct charge transfers due to multiple Andreev reflections are visible in the shot noise. The main finding, however, was the thermal noise at zero bias. We observed its periodic suppression and emergence across the quantum dot resonance. In another device, shot noise due to the Kondo effect is found to be enhanced in the superconducting state when the Kondo temperature exceeds the value of the superconducting gap (Chapter 8). Simple design and reliable calibration of the GHz matching circuit in both reflectance and transmission pave a way for fast and non-invasive measurements of mesoscopic conductors

Late Quaternary sedimentation off the Queensland continental margin (northeast Australia) in response to sea level fluctuations

Drilling during ODP Leg 133 offshore Cairns, northeast Queensland, provided a unique opportunity to document carbonate production and facies development on a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic margin. Recent studies have shown that variations in the sedimentology of Late Quaternary and Pliocene periplatform sediments (Schlager and James, 1978), deposited on continental slopes and in deep basins surrounding shallow carbonate platforms, are linked to changes in sea-level (Droxler et al., 1993; Schlager et al., 1994). However, considerable debate has arisen to the timing of the production and export of shallow water carbonate material, with respect to sea level change. Two main hypotheses have been proposed to explain the response of shallow water carbonate platforms to variation in Late Quaternary sea level: I) 'highstand shedding' and 2) 'lowstand shedding'. Proponents of highstand shedding argue that depositional systems shed most of its carbonate sediments onto the platform slopes during highstands of sea level. Conversely, during lowstands of sea level bank top production and export of carbonate material is restricted, and platform slopes are largely starved of bank derived carbonate (Schlager, 1992; Schlager et al., 1994 ). Supporters of lowstand shedding maintain that significant carbonate production and export of shallow water carbonate material occurs during lowstands (and highstands) of sea level (Bosellini, 1989; Goldhammer and Harris. 1989; Grammer and Ginsburg. 1992). In order to investigate the response of mixed carbonate-siliciclastic systems to variations in Late Quaternary sea level and climate change, core material was collected from Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 133, Sites 819 and 823 (northeast Australian margin). These two sites form part of an eastward extending transect of drill localities, offshore Cairns, Queensland, from the outershelf/upper-slope of the Great Barrier Reef (Sites 821 /820/819), into the Queensland Trough (Site 823) and ultimately onto the flanks of the Queensland Plateau (Sites 824 and 811 /825). Pelagic to hemipelagic sediments collected from these two sites were examined for the downcore distribution of grain size, magnetic susceptibility, carbonate content, variations in carbonate mineralogy (XRD), and major and minor element (XRF) geochemistry. Using high resolution foraminiferal stable oxygen isotopes, coupled with biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic datums, well defined age models for Hole 819A and Hole 823A have been constructed, although it was not an easy task as hiatuses occur in these records. Age models for the sequences recovered from Hole 819A and Hole 823A have been further refined using correlation with existing isotopic stratigraphies in the Pacific Ocean (ODP Hole 677, Raymo et al., 1989), and comparison with high resolution sedimentologic records from other ODP Leg 133 marine sequences. Analysis of the mineralogical, sedimentological and geochemical records from Holes 819A and 823A indicate that, over the last 1.1 million years, highstands of sea level (and during the early regression) are characterized by increased shallow water carbonate production, and deposition on the upper slope. This pattern of carbonate deposition is consistent with the highstand carbonate shedding scenario outlined by Schlager et al. (1992), and Schlager et al. ( 1994 ). Lowstands of sea level (and particularly the early transgression) are characterized by increased deposition of non-carbonate (mainly terrigenous) material and/or were not diluted by shallow water carbonate platform material. During the lowstands of sea level the shallow water carbonate factories were switched off. Therefore, the sediments deposited during lowstands of sea level tend to record the greater influence of pelagic driven carbonate. Although the above mentioned scenario of highstand shedding applies to the entire record of 1.1 million years. mineralogical and geochemical data indicate that shallow burial diagenesis, and dissolution of solution sensitive carbonate, occurred in the lower part of the records. The diagenesis and dissolution, however, have played only a minor role in determining the composition of the Queensland margin sediments. Variations in the terrigenous input (Cr/Al and Ti/AI ratios) in Queensland margin sediments indicate that interglacial periods were generally wetter than corresponding glacials or lowstands of sea level, during the Late Quaternary

LLE 1994 annual report, October 1993--September 1994

This is the 1994 annual report for the University of Rochester, Laboratory for Laser Energetics. The report is presented as a series of research type reports. The titles emphasize the breadth of work carried out. They are: stability analysis of unsteady ablation fronts; characterization of laser-produced plasma density profiles using grid image refractometry; transport and sound waves in plasmas with light and heavy ions; three-halves-harmonic radiation from long-scale-length plasmas revisited; OMEGA upgrade status report; target imaging and backlighting diagnosis; effect of electron collisions on ion-acoustic waves and heat flow; particle-in-cell code simulations of the interaction of gaussian ultrashort laser pulses with targets of varying initial scale lengths; characterization of thick cryogenic fuel layers: compensation for the lens effect using convergent beam interferometry; compact, multijoule-output, Nd:Glass, large-aperture ring amplifier; atomic force microscopy observation of water-induced morphological changes in Y{sub 2}O{sub 3} monolayer coatings; observation of longitudinal acceleration of electrons born in a high-intensity laser focus; spatial intensity nonuniformities of an OMEGA beam due to nonlinear beam propagation; calculated X-ray backlighting images of mixed imploded targets; evaluation of cosmic rays for use in the monitoring of the MEDUSA scintillator-photomultiplier diagnostic array; highly efficient second-harmonic generation of ultra-intense Nd:Glass laser pulses multiple cutoff wave numbers of the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability; ultrafast, all-silicon light modulator; angular dependence of the stimulated Brillouin scattering in homogeneous plasma; femtosecond excited-state dynamics of a conjugated ladder polymer