Preliminary design study of nuclear Brayton cycle/Heat Exchanger and Duct Assembly /HXDA/, phase 3 Topical report

Nuclear Brayton cycle heat exchanger and duct assembl

Pressure containment tests in support of the nuclear Brayton cycle heat exchanger and duct assembly /HXDA/, phase 2

Plate-fin heat exchangers for nuclear reactor Brayton cycl

Metabolomic profiling and stable isotope labelling of Trichomonas vaginalis and Tritrichomonas foetus reveal major differences in amino acid metabolism including the production of 2-hydroxyisocaproic acid, cystathionine and S-methylcysteine

Trichomonas vaginalis and Tritrichomonas foetus are pathogens that parasitise, respectively, human and bovine urogenital tracts causing disease. Using LC-MS, reference metabolomic profiles were obtained for both species and stable isotope labelling with D-[U-13C6] glucose was used to analyse central carbon metabolism. This facilitated a comparison of the metabolic pathways of T. vaginalis and T. foetus, extending earlier targeted biochemical studies. 43 metabolites, whose identities were confirmed by comparison of their retention times with authentic standards, occurred at more than 3-fold difference in peak intensity between T. vaginalis and T. foetus. 18 metabolites that were removed from or released into the medium during growth also showed more than 3-fold difference between the species. Major differences were observed in cysteine and methionine metabolism in which homocysteine, produced as a bi-product of trans-methylation, is catabolised by methionine γ-lyase in T. vaginalis but converted to cystathionine in T. foetus. Both species synthesise methylthioadenosine by an unusual mechanism, but it is not used as a substrate for methionine recycling. T. vaginalis also produces and exports high levels of S-methylcysteine, whereas only negligible levels were found in T. foetus which maintains significantly higher intracellular levels of cysteine. 13C-labeling confirmed that both cysteine and S-methylcysteine are synthesised by T. vaginalis; S-methylcysteine can be generated by recombinant T. vaginalis cysteine synthase using phosphoserine and methanethiol. T. foetus contained higher levels of ornithine and citrulline than T. vaginalis and exported increased levels of putrescine, suggesting greater flux through the arginine dihydrolase pathway. T. vaginalis produced and exported hydroxy acid derivatives of certain amino acids, particularly 2-hydroxyisocaproic acid derived from leucine, whereas negligible levels of these metabolites occurred in T. foetus

Preliminary results of spectral reflectance studies of tycho crater

The preliminary analysis and interpretation of near infrared spectra obtained for both the interior and exterior deposits associated with the Tycho crater is presented. Specific objectives were: (1) to determine the composition and stratigraphy of the highland crust in the Tycho target site; (2) to determine the likely composition of the primary ejecta which may be present in ray deposits; (3) to investigate the nature of spectral units defined in previous studies; (4) to further investigate the nature and origin of both the bright and dark haloes around the rim crest; and (5) to compare the compositions determined for the Tycho units with those of the Aristarchus crater as well as typical highland deposits. The spectra obtained for the interior areas exhibit similar spectral features. These include relatively strong 1 micron absorption bands whose minima are centered between 0.97 and 0.99 microns and shallow to intermediate continuum slopes. The spectra generally exhibit indications of a 1.3 micron feature consistent with the presence of Fe(2+) bearing plagioclase feldspar. The strong 1 micron absorption features indicate a dominant high Ca clinopyroxene component. Results obtained from the ejecta deposits show that the spectrum of the inner, bright halo is almost identical with those obtained for interior units. The spectrum of the dark halo exhibits a wide, relatively shallow absorption feature centered at 1.01 microns, a 1.3 micron absorption, and a steep continuum slope. This spectrum is interpreted as indicating the presence of pyroxene, Fe-bearing feldspar, and a significant component of Fe-bearing impact melt glass. Finally, the spectra of spots inside Tycho show similarity with certain spectra for Aristarchus. However, the suite of spectra obtained for Tycho exhibits a different trend in terms of band center versus width

The Detection of Unsteady Flow Separation with Bioinspired Hair-Cell Sensors

Biologists hypothesize that thousands of micro-scale hairs found on bat wings function as a network of air-flow sensors as part of a biological feedback flow control loop. In this work, we investigate hair-cell sensors as a means of detecting flow features in an unsteady separating flow over a cylinder. Individual hair-cell sensors were modeled using an Euler-Bernoulli beam equation forced by the fluid flow. When multiple sensor simulations are combined into an array of hair-cells, the response is shown to detect the onset and span of flow reversal, the upstream movement of the point of zero wall shear-stress, and the formation and growth of eddies near the wall of a cylinder. A linear algebraic hair-cell model, written as a function of the flow velocity, is also derived and shown to capture the same features as the hair-cell array simulatio

Remote sensing and geologic studies of the terrain northwest of Humorum basin

A portion of the highlands terrain northwest of the Humorum basin, a large multiringed impact structure on the southwestern portion of the lunar nearside, exhibits anomalous characteristics in several remote sensing data sets. A variety of remote sensing studies of the terrain northwest of Humorum basin were performed in order to determine the composition and origin of the anomalous unit as well as the composition of the highland material exposed by the Humorum impact event. It was found that at least a portion of the mare-bounding ring of Humorum is composed of pure anorthosite. Other details of the study are reported

Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy in MgB2

We present scanning tunneling microscopy measurements of the surface of superconducting MgB2 with a critical temperature of 39K. In zero magnetic field the conductance spectra can be analyzed in terms of the standard BCS theory with a smearing parameter Gamma. The value of the superconducting gap is 5.2 meV at 4.2 K, with no experimentally significant variation across the surface of the sample. The temperature dependence of the gap follows the BCS form, fully consistent with phonon-mediated superconductivity in this novel superconductor. The application of a magnetic field induces strong pair-breaking as seen in the conductance spectra in fields up to 6 T.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Microbiological influences on fracture surfaces of intact mudstone and the implications for geological disposal of radioactive waste

The significance of the potential impacts of microbial activity on the transport properties of host rocks for geological repositories is an area of active research. Most recent work has focused on granitic environments. This paper describes pilot studies investigating changes in transport properties that are produced by microbial activity in sedimentary rock environments in northern Japan. For the first time, these short experiments (39 days maximum) have shown that the denitrifying bacteria, Pseudomonas denitrificans, can survive and thrive when injected into flow-through column experiments containing fractured diatomaceous mudstone and synthetic groundwater under pressurized conditions. Although there were few significant changes in the fluid chemistry, changes in the permeability of the biotic column, which can be explained by the observed biofilm formation, were quantitatively monitored. These same methodologies could also be adapted to obtain information from cores originating from a variety of geological environments including oil reservoirs, aquifers and toxic waste disposal sites to provide an understanding of the impact of microbial activity on the transport of a range of solutes, such as groundwater contaminants and gases (e.g. injected carbon dioxide)

Quasi-Elastic Scattering, Random Fields and phonon-coupling effects in PbMg1/3Nb2/3O3

The low-energy part of the vibration spectrum in PbMg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$O$_3$ (PMN) relaxor ferroelectric has been studied by neutron scattering above and below the Burns temperature, T$_d$. The transverse acoustic and the lowest transverse optic phonons are strongly coupled and we have obtained a model for this coupling. We observe that the lowest optic branch is always underdamped. A resolution-limited central peak and quasi-elastic scattering appear in the vicinity of the Burns temperature. It is shown that it is unlikely that the quasi-elastic scattering originates from the combined effects of coupling between TA and TO phonons with an increase of the damping of the TO phonon below T$_d$. The quasi-elastic scattering has a peak as a function of temperature close to the peak in the dielectric constant while the intensity of the central peak scattering increases strongly below this temperature. These results are discussed in terms of a random field model for relaxors

Interactive Boundary Element Analysis for Engineering Design

Structural design of mechanical components is an iterative process that involves multiple stress analysis runs; this can be time consuming and expensive. Significant improvements in the eciency of this process can be made by increasing the level of interactivity. One approach is through real-time re-analysis of models with continuously updating geometry. Three primary areas need to be considered to accelerate the re-solution of boundary element problems. These are re-meshing the model, updating the boundary element system of equations and re-solution of the system. Once the initial model has been constructed and solved, the user may apply geometric perturbations to parts of the model. The re-meshing algorithm must accommodate these changes in geometry whilst retaining as much of the existing mesh as possible. This allows the majority of the previous boundary element system of equations to be re-used for the new analysis. For this problem, a GMRES solver has been shown to provide the fastest convergence rate. Further time savings can be made by preconditioning the updated system with the LU decomposition of the original system. Using these techniques, near real-time analysis can be achieved for 3D simulations; for 2D models such real-time performance has already been demonstrated