Sludge drying reed beds for septage treatment: towards design and operation recommendations

International audienceWith decentralized treatment system development, a new concern emerges: the future of the septage. The aim of this paper is to assess the feasibility of septage treatment by SDRB, and to compare its efficiencies to those of activated sludge treatment in same conditions. The study took place on ten 2m² pilot-scales SDRB. Different designs and operation conditions have been tested on sludge treatment efficiency and will be presented as: (i) the top filtration layer (sand or compost), (ii) the load (from 30 to 50 kgSS/m-2/y). After one year and half commissioning period, we focus on the results obtained at nominal loads presenting: sludge characteristic, filtration efficiency, percolate quality and sludge deposit behaviour. Although results show better filtration efficiency for activated sludge (98.4%) than for septage (87.5%), the feasibility of septage treatment with drying reed bed has been demonstrated. Sludge accumulation is about 7.9 cm/y, when fed at 50 kgSS/m-2/y, and dry matter content of the sludge can reach 70% in summer period. The paper will present sludge characteristics, system efficiency, to finish on design and operation condition recommendations for SDRB treating septage

Transport and cooling of singly-charged noble gas ion beams

The transport and cooling of noble gas singly-charged ion beams by means of a Radio Frequency Quadrupole Cooler Buncher (RFQCB) have been studied at the LIMBE low energy beam line of the GANIL facility. Ions as light as $^{4}He^+$ have been cooled and stored before their extraction in bunches using $H_2$ as buffer gas. Bunches characteristics have been studied as a function of the parameters of the device. Sizeable transmissions of up to 10 $$ have been obtained. A detailed study of the lifetime of ions inside the buncher has been performed giving an estimate of the charge exchange cross-section. Results of a microscopic Monte-Carlo transport code show reasonable agreement with experimental data.Comment: 13 figure

Forces between electric charges in motion: Rutherford scattering, circular Keplerian orbits, action-at-a-distance and Newton's third law in relativistic classical electrodynamics

Standard formulae of classical electromagnetism for the forces between electric charges in motion derived from retarded potentials are compared with those obtained from a recently developed relativistic classical electrodynamic theory with an instantaneous inter-charge force. Problems discussed include small angle Rutherford scattering, Jackson's recent `torque paradox' and circular Keplerian orbits. Results consistent with special relativity are obtained only with an instantaneous interaction. The impossiblity of stable circular motion with retarded fields in either classical electromagnetism or Newtonian gravitation is demonstrated.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures. QED and special relativity forbid retarded electromagnetic forces. See also physics/0501130. V2 has typos corrected, minor text modifications and updated references. V3 has further typos removed and added text and reference

On the nonexistence of Liouvillian first integrals for generalized Liénard polynomial differential systems

International audienceWe consider generalized Liénard polynomial differential systems. In their work, Llibre and Valls have shown that, except in some particular cases, such systems have no Liouvillian first integral. In this letter, we give a direct and shorter proof of this result

Growth modes of Fe(110) revisited: a contribution of self-assembly to magnetic materials

We have revisited the epitaxial growth modes of Fe on W(110) and Mo(110), and propose an overview or our contribution to the field. We show that the Stranski-Krastanov growth mode, recognized for a long time in these systems, is in fact characterized by a bimodal distribution of islands for growth temperature in the range 250-700°C. We observe firstly compact islands whose shape is determined by Wulff-Kaischev's theorem, secondly thin and flat islands that display a preferred height, ie independant from nominal thickness and deposition procedure (1.4nm for Mo, and 5.5nm for W on the average). We used this effect to fabricate self-organized arrays of nanometers-thick stripes by step decoration. Self-assembled nano-ties are also obtained for nucleation of the flat islands on Mo at fairly high temperature, ie 800°C. Finally, using interfacial layers and solid solutions we separate two effects on the preferred height, first that of the interfacial energy, second that of the continuously-varying lattice parameter of the growth surface.Comment: 49 pages. Invited topical review for J. Phys.: Condens. Matte

Collapse of the N=28 shell closure in 42^{42}Si

The energies of the excited states in very neutron-rich $^{42}$Si and $^{41,43}$P have been measured using in-beam $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy from the fragmentation of secondary beams of $^{42,44}$S at 39 A.MeV. The low 2$^+$ energy of $^{42}$Si, 770(19) keV, together with the level schemes of $^{41,43}$P provide evidence for the disappearance of the Z=14 and N=28 spherical shell closures, which is ascribed mainly to the action of proton-neutron tensor forces. New shell model calculations indicate that $^{42}$Si is best described as a well deformed oblate rotor.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. let

LHC Superconducting Dipole Production Follow-up: Results of Audit on QA Aspects in Industry

The manufacturing of the 1232 Superconducting Main Dipoles for LHC is under way at three European Contractors: Alstom-Jeumont (Consortium), Ansaldo Superconduttori Genova and Babcock Noell Nuclear. The manufacturing is proceeding in a very satisfactory way and in March 2005 the mid production was achieved. To intercept eventually âﾜweak pointsâ of the production process still present and in order to make a check of the Quality Assurance and Control in place for the series production, an Audit action was launched by CERN during summer-fall 2004. Aspects like: completion of Production and Quality Assurance documentation, structure of QC Teams, traceability, calibration and maintenance for tooling, incoming components inspections, were checked during a total of seven visits at the five different production sites. The results of the Audit in terms of analysis of âﾜsystematicâ and âﾜrandomâ problems encountered as well as corrective actions requested are presented