Welding high-strength aluminum alloys

Handbook has been published which integrates results of 19 research programs involving welding of high-strength aluminum alloys. Book introduces metallurgy and properties of aluminum alloys by discussing commercial alloys and heat treatments. Several current welding processes are reviewed such as gas tungsten-arc welding and gas metal-arc welding

Neutron clustering as a driver of Monte Carlo burn-up instability

Coupled Monte Carlo neutronics and depletion problems have been noted to produce nonphysical power oscillations for large, spatially-decoupled problems. Previously these oscillations have been attributed to `numerical instability' - this work proposes that a prominent contributor to this phenomenon is neutron clustering during the Monte Carlo simulation, resulting in a poor estimate of the transport solution. This is demonstrated using insights from recent work on clustering and applying it to standard practice for Monte Carlo/depletion problems by performing simulations with the same number of histories - both total histories and only active histories - but different numbers of particles and cycles. The results demonstrate that neutron clustering appears to trigger instabilities in the problems considered and strongly affects Monte Carlo neutronics/depletion simulations

Additional application of the NASCAP code. Volume 1: NASCAP extension

The NASCAP computer program comprehensively analyzes problems of spacecraft charging. Using a fully three dimensional approach, it can accurately predict spacecraft potentials under a variety of conditions. Several changes were made to NASCAP, and a new code, NASCAP/LEO, was developed. In addition, detailed studies of several spacecraft-environmental interactions and of the SCATHA spacecraft were performed. The NASCAP/LEO program handles situations of relatively short Debye length encountered by large space structures or by any satellite in low earth orbit (LEO)

Analysis of the charging of the SCATHA (P78-2) satellite

The charging of a large object in polar Earth orbit was investigated in order to obtain a preliminary indication of the response of the shuttle orbiter to such an environment. Two NASCAP (NASA Charging Analyzer Program) models of SCATHA (Satellite Charging at High Altitudes) were used in simulations of charging events. The properties of the satellite's constituent materials were compiled and representations of the experimentally observed plasma spectra were constructed. Actual charging events, as well as those using test environments, were simulated. Numerical models for the simulation of particle emitters and detectors were used to analyze the operation of these devices onboard SCATHA. The effect of highly charged surface regions on the charging conductivity within a photosheath was used to interpret results from the onboard electric field experiment. Shadowing calculations were carried out for the satellite and a table of effective illuminated areas was compiled

Additional application of the NASCAP code. Volume 2: SEPS, ion thruster neutralization and electrostatic antenna model

The interactions of spacecraft systems with the surrounding plasma environment were studied analytically for three cases of current interest: calculating the impact of spacecraft generated plasmas on the main power system of a baseline solar electric propulsion stage (SEPS), modeling the physics of the neutralization of an ion thruster beam by a plasma bridge, and examining the physical and electrical effects of orbital ambient plasmas on the operation of an electrostatically controlled membrane mirror. In order to perform these studies, the NASA charging analyzer program (NASCAP) was used as well as several other computer models and analytical estimates. The main result of the SEPS study was to show how charge exchange ion expansion can create a conducting channel between the thrusters and the solar arrays. A fluid-like model was able to predict plasma potentials and temperatures measured near the main beam of an ion thruster and in the vicinity of a hollow cathode neutralizer. Power losses due to plasma currents were shown to be substantial for several proposed electrostatic antenna designs

A lower bound for the BCS functional with boundary conditions at infinity

We consider a many-body system of fermionic atoms interacting via a local pair potential and subject to an external potential within the framework of BCS theory. We measure the free energy of the whole sample with respect to the free energy of a reference state which allows us to define a BCS functional with boundary conditions at infinity. Our main result is a lower bound for this energy functional in terms of expressions that typically appear in Ginzburg-Landau functionals.Comment: 32 page

Common humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) sound types for passive acoustic monitoring

Author Posting. © Acoustical Society of America, 2011. This article is posted here by permission of Acoustical Society of America for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 129 (2011): 476-482, doi:10.1121/1.3504708.Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are one of several baleen whale species in the Northwest Atlantic that coexist with vessel traffic and anthropogenic noise. Passive acoustic monitoring strategies can be used in conservation management, but the first step toward understanding the acoustic behavior of a species is a good description of its acoustic repertoire. Digital acoustic tags (DTAGs) were placed on humpback whales in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary to record and describe the non-song sounds being produced in conjunction with foraging activities. Peak frequencies of sounds were generally less than 1 kHz, but ranged as high as 6 kHz, and sounds were generally less than 1 s in duration. Cluster analysis distilled the dataset into eight groups of sounds with similar acoustic properties. The two most stereotyped and distinctive types (“wops” and “grunts”) were also identified aurally as candidates for use in passive acoustic monitoring. This identification of two of the most common sound types will be useful for moving forward conservation efforts on this Northwest Atlantic feeding ground.This paper was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Marine Sanctuaries Program. It was also sponsored in part by the University of Hawaii Sea Grant College Program, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, under Institutional Grant No. NA05OAR4171048 from the NOAA Office of Sea Grant, Department of Commerce

Canine distemper virus neutralization activity is low in human serum and it is sensitive to an amino acid substitution in the hemagglutinin protein

© 2015 Elsevier Inc.Serum was analyzed from 146 healthy adult volunteers in eastern Africa to evaluate measles virus (MV) and canine distemper virus (CDV) neutralizing antibody (nAb) prevalence and potency. MV plaque reduction neutralization test (PRNT) results indicated that all sera were positive for MV nAbs. Furthermore, the 50% neutralizing dose (ND50) for the majority of sera corresponded to antibody titers induced by MV vaccination. CDV nAbs titers were low and generally were detected in sera with high MV nAb titers. A mutant CDV was generated that was less sensitive to neutralization by human serum. The mutant virus genome had 10 nucleotide substitutions, which coded for single amino acid substitutions in the fusion (F) and hemagglutinin (H) glycoproteins and two substitutions in the large polymerase (L) protein. The H substitution occurred in a conserved region involved in receptor interactions among morbilliviruses, implying that this region is a target for cross-reactive neutralizing antibodies

Stability analysis of predictor-corrector schemes for coupling neutronics and depletion

Numerical instability resulting from coupling isotopic depletion and neutronics is widely reported, but little work has been done to interrogate the phenomenon theoretically. This work extends the pioneering analysis developed by Densmore et al., who examined the stability of a monoenergetic neutron diffusion problem coupled with a simple depletion system through the explicit Euler scheme. Their Fourier stability analysis is applied to the predictor-corrector scheme and its iterated and implicit variants. The results reproduce behaviour described in previous reports of numerical instability and its solution, and develop a future avenue for diagnosing the stability of burn-up problems