Composite materials for space applications

The objectives of the program were to: generate mechanical, thermal, and physical property test data for as-fabricated advanced materials; design and fabricate an accelerated thermal cycling chamber; and determine the effect of thermal cycling on thermomechanical properties and dimensional stability of composites. In the current program, extensive mechanical and thermophysical property tests of various organic matrix, metal matrix, glass matrix, and carbon-carbon composites were conducted, and a reliable database was constructed for spacecraft material selection. Material property results for the majority of the as-fabricated composites were consistent with the predicted values, providing a measure of consolidation integrity attained during fabrication. To determine the effect of thermal cycling on mechanical properties, microcracking, and thermal expansion behavior, approximately 500 composite specimens were exposed to 10,000 cycles between -150 and +150 F. These specimens were placed in a large (18 cu ft work space) thermal cycling chamber that was specially designed and fabricated to simulate one year low earth orbital (LEO) thermal cycling in 20 days. With this rate of thermal cycling, this is the largest thermal cycling unit in the country. Material property measurements of the thermal cycled organic matrix composite laminate specimens exhibited less than 24 percent decrease in strength, whereas, the remaining materials exhibited less than 8 percent decrease in strength. The thermal expansion response of each of the thermal cycled specimens revealed significant reduction in hysteresis and residual strain, and the average CTE values were close to the predicted values

Effects of three-nucleon forces and two-body currents on Gamow-Teller strengths

We optimize chiral interactions at next-to-next-to leading order to observables in two- and three-nucleon systems, and compute Gamow-Teller transitions in carbon-14, oxygen-22 and oxygen-24 using consistent two-body currents. We compute spectra of the daughter nuclei nitrogen-14, fluorine-22 and fluorine-24 via an isospin-breaking coupled-cluster technique, with several predictions. The two-body currents reduce the Ikeda sum rule, corresponding to a quenching factor q^2 ~ 0.84-0.92 of the axial-vector coupling. The half life of carbon-14 depends on the energy of the first excited 1+ state, the three-nucleon force, and the two-body current

Ein neuartiges Antriebs- und Verstellsystem zur sicheren Plazierung von Biopsienadeln im Mammagewebe

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.In der Diagnostik des Mammakarzinoms werden die Mammographie und Sonographie vor allem durch die hochauflösende Magnetresonanztomographic unterstützt [2|. Ist für die weitere Diagnostik oder Therapieplanung eine Mammabiopsie indiziert, sollte sie durch das bildgebende Verfahren gestützt werden, das die Läsion am besten darstellt [1]. Durch die technische Weiterentwicklung der o.g. bildgebenden Verfahren gelingt es jetzt immer besser auch Tumoren von wenigen Millimetern im Durchmesser darzustellen [3]. Leider hat sich die Treffsicherheit der Biopsiesysteme nicht parallel dazu entwickelt, so dass eine geschlossene MRgeführte Biopsie erst ab einer Tumorgröße von 10mm durchgeführt werden sollte [4]. Gefördert durch die Deutsche Krebshilfe wurde am Institut für Mikrotechnik und Medizintechnik der Technischen Universität Berlin in enger Zusammenarbeit mit Kliniken der Charite Berlin ein neuartiges Biopsiesystem für histologische Untersuchungen von Mammatumoren im Frühstadium (< 5 mm) entwickelt, das eine vollautomatische Mammabiopsie direkt im Isozentrum eines Kernspintomographen ermöglicht, Die Steuerung und Überwachung der automatisierten Biopsie erfolgt durch einen Steuercomputer, der über Lichtwellenleiter mit dem Biopsiesystem verbunden ist. Für dieses Biopsiesystem wird ein Antriebs- und Verstellsystem vorgestellt, das eine stufenlose Einstellung der Eindringtiefe der Biopsienadcl in das Marnmagewebe und den Vorschub des Schussapparates auf einen halben Millimeter genau ermöglicht

Preliminary calibration of a generic scramjet combustor

The results of a preliminary investigation of the combustion of hydrogen fuel at hypersonic flow conditions are provided. The tests were performed in a generic, constant-area combustor model with test gas supplied by a free-piston-driven reflected-shock tunnel. Static pressure measurements along the combustor wall indicated that burning did occur for combustor inlet conditions of P(static) approximately equal to 19kPa, T(static) approximately equal to 1080 K, and U approximately equal to 3630 m/s with a fuel equivalence ratio approximately equal to 0.9. These inlet conditions were obtained by operating the tunnel with stagnation enthalpy approximately equal to 8.1 MJ/kg, stagnation pressure approximately equal to 52 MPa, and a contoured nozzle with a nominal exit Mach number of 5.5

Bootstrap for log Wavelet Leaders Cumulant based Multifractal Analysis.

Multifractal analysis, which mostly consists of estimating scaling exponents related to the power law behaviors of the moments of wavelet coefficients, is becoming a popular tool for empirical data analysis. However, little is known about the statistical performance of such procedures. Notably, despite their being of major practical importance, no confidence intervals are available. Here, we choose to replace wavelet coefficients with wavelet Leaders and to use a log-cumulant based multifractal analysis. We investigate the potential use of bootstrap to derive confidence intervals for wavelet Leaders log-cumulant multifractal estimation procedures. From numerical simulations involving well-known and well-controlled synthetic multifractal processes, we obtain two results of major importance for practical multifractal analysis : we demonstrate that the use of Leaders instead of wavelet coefficients brings significant improvements in log-cumulant based multifractal estimation, we show that accurate bootstrap designed confidence intervals can be obtained for a single finite length time series

GnRH - a Missing Link between Testosterone Concentrations in Yolk and Plasma and Its Intergenerational Effects

Despite the strong interest in hormone-mediated maternal effects two key questions concerning their mechanisms are as yet unanswered: First, whether the deposition of hormones in the egg yolk is coupled with the levels of these hormones in the maternal circulation, and second, whether epigenetic changes as induced by embryonic exposure to maternal yolk hormones impinge on yolk hormone deposition at adulthood. We investigated the responsiveness to gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) in female canaries whose embryonic exposure to yolk testosterone had been manipulated. This enabled us to study to what extent GnRH interlinks testosterone concentrations in female circulation and egg yolk as well as the intergenerational potential of hormone-mediated maternal effects. As expected, canary females responded to GnRH with a rise in plasma testosterone. The GnRH-responsiveness was positively correlated with the yolk testosterone content. Factors stimulating the release of GnRH will, therefore, lead to an increase of testosterone in both plasma and egg, posing a potential constraint on the yolk hormone deposition due to testosterone related trade-offs within the laying female. Exposure to elevated yolk testosterone levels as embryo reduced the GnRH-responsiveness in adulthood, potentially limiting environmental influences on yolk testosterone deposition, but the concentrations of yolk testosterone itself were not affected