A combined study of heat and mass transfer in an infant incubator with an overhead screen

The main objective of this study is to investigate the major physical processes taking place inside an infant incubator, before and after modifications have been made to its interior chamber. The modification involves the addition of an overhead screen to decrease radiation heat losses from the infant placed inside the incubator. The present study investigates the effect of these modifications on the convective heat flux from the infant’s body to the surrounding environment inside the incubator. A combined analysis of airflow and heat transfer due to conduction, convection, radiation and evaporation has been performed, in order to calculate the temperature and velocity fields inside the incubator before and after the design modification. Due to the geometrical complexity of the model, Computer-Aided Design (CAD) applications were used to generate a computer-based model. All numerical calculations have been performed using the commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package FLUENT, together with in-house routines used for managing purposes and User-Defined Functions (UDFs) which extend the basic solver capabilities. Numerical calculations have been performed for three different air inlet temperatures: 32, 34 and 36ºC. The study shows a decrease of the radiative and convective heat losses when the overhead screen is present. The results obtained were numerically verified as well as compared with results available in the literature from investigations of dry heat losses from infant manikins

Structure of 10Be from the 12C 12C,14O 10Be reaction

The 12C 12C,14O two proton pick up reaction has been measured at 211.4 MeV incident energy to study the structure of states of 10Be up to excitation energies of 12 MeV. The measured partial angular distributions show pronounced oscillatory shapes, which were described by coupled reaction channels calculations. Spin parity assignments could be derived from these characteristic shapes and two definite assignments have been made. The state at 11.8 MeV has been identified as the 4 member of the ground state band, and the state at 10.55 MeV is assigned J pi 3 . At 5.96 MeV only the 1 1 member of the known 2 2 1 1 doublet is populated. The angular distribution of the peak at 9.50 MeV, which consists of several unresolved states, has been unfolded using contributions from known states at 9.56 MeV, 2 , and 9.27 MeV, 4 . The inclusion of a state at 9.4 MeV reported by Daito it et al. from the 10B t,3He 10Be reaction and tentatively assigned 3 improved the fit considerably. A K 2 band is formed with the 2 2 state as the band head and the 3 state as the second member. The structures of the K pi 0 1, 2 2, and 1 1 bands are discusse

New Measurement of the Direct 3α Decay from the 12C Hoyle State

Excited states in certain atomic nuclei possess an unusual structure, where the dominant degrees of freedom are those of α clusters rather than individual nucleons. It has been proposed that the diffuse 3α system of the 12C Hoyle state may behave like a Bose-Einstein condensate, where the α clusters maintain their bosonic identities. By measuring the decay of the Hoyle state into three α particles, we obtained an upper limit for the rare direct 3α decay branch of 0.047%. This value is now at a level comparable with theoretical predictions and could be a sensitive probe of the structure of this state

Binary reaction decays from 24Mg+12C

Charged particle and gamma decays in 24Mg* are investigated for excitation energies where quasimolecular resonances appear in 12C+12C collisions. Various theoretical predictions for the occurence of superdeformed and hyperdeformed bands associated with resonance structures with low spin are discussed within the measured 24Mg* excitation energy region. The inverse kinematics reaction 24Mg+12C is studied at E_lab(24Mg) = 130 MeV, an energy which enables the population of 24Mg states decaying into 12C+12C resonant break-up states. Exclusive data were collected with the Binary Reaction Spectrometer in coincidence with EUROBALL IV installed at the VIVITRON Tandem facility at Strasbourg. Specific structures with large deformation were selectively populated in binary reactions and their associated gamma decays studied. Coincident events associated with inelastic and alpha-transfer channels have been selected by choosing the excitation energy or the entry point via the two-body Q-values. The analysis of the binary reaction channels is presented with a particular emphasis on 24Mg-gamma, 20Ne-gamma and 16O-gamma coincidences. New information (spin and branching ratios) is deduced on high-energy states in 24Mg and 16O, respectively.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Reaction mechanisms in 24Mg+12C and 32S+24Mg

The occurence of "exotic" shapes in light N=Z alpha-like nuclei is investigated for 24Mg+12C and 32S+24Mg. Various approaches of superdeformed and hyperdeformed bands associated with quasimolecular resonant structures with low spin are presented. For both reactions, exclusive data were collected with the Binary Reaction Spectrometer in coincidence with EUROBALL IV installed at the VIVITRON Tandem facility of Strasbourg. Specific structures with large deformation were selectively populated in binary reactions and their associated $\gamma$-decays studied. The analysis of the binary and ternary reaction channels is discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, Paper presented at the Fusion08 International Conference on New Aspects of Heavy Ion Collisions Near the Coulomb Barrier, Chicago. Proceedings to be published by AIP Conference Proceedings Illinois, USA, September 22-26, 200

Characterization of the proposed 4-α cluster state candidate in O 16

The O16(α,α′) reaction was studied at θlab=0 at an incident energy of Elab=200 MeV using the K600 magnetic spectrometer at iThemba LABS. Proton decay and α decay from the natural parity states were observed in a large-acceptance silicon strip detector array at backward angles. The coincident charged-particle measurements were used to characterize the decay channels of the 06+ state in O16 located at Ex=15.097(5) MeV. This state is identified by several theoretical cluster calculations to be a good candidate for the 4-α cluster state. The results of this work suggest the presence of a previously unidentified resonance at Ex≈15 MeV that does not exhibit a 0+ character. This unresolved resonance may have contaminated previous observations of the 06+ state

Clusters in Light Nuclei

A great deal of research work has been undertaken in the alpha-clustering study since the pioneering discovery, half a century ago, of 12C+12C molecular resonances. Our knowledge of the field of the physics of nuclear molecules has increased considerably and nuclear clustering remains one of the most fruitful domains of nuclear physics, facing some of the greatest challenges and opportunities in the years ahead. In this work, the occurence of "exotic" shapes in light N=Z alpha-like nuclei is investigated. Various approaches of superdeformed and hyperdeformed bands associated with quasimolecular resonant structures are presented. Results on clustering aspects are also discussed for light neutron-rich Oxygen isotopes.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures. Invited Talk presented by C. Beck at the Zakopane Conference on Nuclear Physics "Extremes of the Nuclear Landscape" XLV in the series of Zakopane Schools of Physics - International Symposium - Zakopane, Poland, August 30 - September 5, 2010.To be publihed in Acta Physica Polonica B42 no 3, March 201