40,294 research outputs found
Aerodynamic performance of conventional and advanced design labyrinth seals with solid-smooth abradable, and honeycomb lands
Labyrinth air seal static and dynamic performance was evaluated using solid, abradable, and honeycomb lands with standard and advanced seal designs. The effects on leakage of land surface roughness, abradable land porosity, rub grooves in abradable lands, and honeycomb land cell size and depth were studied using a standard labyrinth seal. The effects of rotation on the optimum seal knife pitch were also investigated. Selected geometric and aerodynamic parameters for an advanced seal design were evaluated to derive an optimized performance configuration. The rotational energy requirements were also measured to determine the inherent friction and pumping energy absorbed by the various seal knife and land configurations tested in order to properly assess the net seal system performance level. Results indicate that: (1) seal leakage can be significantly affected with honeycomb or abradable lands; (2) rotational energy absorption does not vary significantly with the use of a solid-smooth, an abradable, or a honeycomb land; and (3) optimization of an advanced lab seal design produced a configuration that had leakage 25% below a conventional stepped seal
ISOCAM spectro-imaging of the H2 rotational lines in the supernova remnant IC443
We report spectro-imaging observations of the bright western ridge of the
supernova remnant IC 443 obtained with the ISOCAM circular variable filter
(CVF) on board the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). This ridge corresponds to
a location where the interaction between the blast wave of the supernova and
ambient molecular gas is amongst the strongest. The CVF data show that the 5 to
14 micron spectrum is dominated by the pure rotational lines of molecular
hydrogen (v = 0--0, S(2) to S(8) transitions). At all positions along the
ridge, the H2 rotational lines are very strong with typical line fluxes of
10^{-4} to 10^{-3} erg/sec/cm2/sr. We compare the data to a new time-dependent
shock model; the rotational line fluxes in IC 443 are reproduced within factors
of 2 for evolutionary times between 1,000 and 2,000 years with a shock velocity
of 30 km/sec and a pre-shock density of 10^4 /cm3.Comment: To appear in Astronomy and Astrophysic
Fractal time random walk and subrecoil laser cooling considered as renewal processes with infinite mean waiting times
There exist important stochastic physical processes involving infinite mean
waiting times. The mean divergence has dramatic consequences on the process
dynamics. Fractal time random walks, a diffusion process, and subrecoil laser
cooling, a concentration process, are two such processes that look
qualitatively dissimilar. Yet, a unifying treatment of these two processes,
which is the topic of this pedagogic paper, can be developed by combining
renewal theory with the generalized central limit theorem. This approach
enables to derive without technical difficulties the key physical properties
and it emphasizes the role of the behaviour of sums with infinite means.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, to appear in the Proceedings of Cargese Summer
School on "Chaotic dynamics and transport in classical and quantum systems
Anomalous aging phenomena caused by drift velocities
We demonstrate via several examples that a uniform drift velocity gives rise
to anomalous aging, characterized by a specific form for the two-time
correlation functions, in a variety of statistical-mechanical systems far from
equilibrium. Our first example concerns the oscillatory phase observed recently
in a model of competitive learning. Further examples, where the proposed theory
is exact, include the voter model and the Ohta-Jasnow-Kawasaki theory for
domain growth in any dimension, and a theory for the smoothing of sandpile
surfaces.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Europhysics Letter
The incidence of mid-infrared excesses in G and K giants
Using photometric data from the 2MASS and GLIMPSE catalogues, I investigate
the incidence of mid-infrared excesses (~10 microns) of G and K stars of
luminosity class III. In order to obtain a large sample size, stars are
selected using a near-IR colour-magnitude diagram. Sources which are candidates
for showing mid-IR excess are carefully examined and modelled to determined
whether they are likely to be G/K giants. It is found that mid-IR excesses are
present at a level of (1.8 +/- 0.4) x 10^-3. While the origin of these excesses
remains uncertain, it is plausible that they arise from debris discs around
these stars. I note that the measured incidence is consistent with a scenario
in which dust lifetimes in debris discs are determined by Poynting-Robertson
drag rather than by collisions.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 13 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables (1
landscape table
Small Energy Scale for Mixed-Valent Uranium Materials
We investigate a two-channel Anderson impurity model with a magnetic
and a quadrupolar ground doublet, and a excited triplet. Using
the numerical renormalization group method, we find a crossover to a non-Fermi
liquid state below a temperature varying as the triplet-doublet
splitting to the 7/2 power. To within numerical accuracy, the non-linear
magnetic susceptibility and the contribution to the linear
susceptibility are given by universal one-parameter scaling functions. These
results may explain UBe as mixed valent with a small crossover scale
.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, REVTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
First-principles study of the energetics of charge and cation mixing in U_{1-x} Ce_x O_2
The formalism of electronic density-functional-theory, with Hubbard-U
corrections (DFT+U), is employed in a computational study of the energetics of
U_{1-x} Ce_x O_2 mixtures. The computational approach makes use of a procedure
which facilitates convergence of the calculations to multiple self-consistent
DFT+U solutions for a given cation arrangement, corresponding to different
charge states for the U and Ce ions in several prototypical cation
arrangements. Results indicate a significant dependence of the structural and
energetic properties on the nature of both charge and cation ordering. With the
effective Hubbard-U parameters that reproduce well the measured
oxidation-reduction energies for urania and ceria, we find that charge transfer
between U(IV) and Ce(IV) ions, leading to the formation of U(V) and Ce(III),
gives rise to an increase in the mixing energy in the range of 4-14 kJ/mol of
formula unit, depending on the nature of the cation ordering. The results
suggest that although charge transfer between uranium and cerium ions is
disfavored energetically, it is likely to be entropically stabilized at the
high temperatures relevant to the processing and service of urania-based solid
solutions.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure
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