High temperature seals between ceramic separation membranes and super-alloy housing

One of the concepts for oxygen production from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide involves the use of tubular electrochemical membranes for oxygen separation. The tubular configuration offers the advantage of being able to separate the oxygen at pressures of up to 500 psi, thereby eliminating the need for a pre-liquefaction oxygen compressor. A key technology that has to be developed in order for the electrochemical separator to combine as a compressor is a high temperature static seal between the ceramic separation cell and the nickel-based super-alloy tube. Equipment was designed and fabricated to test the seals. Efforts are under way to develop a finite element model to study the thermal stresses at the joints and on the seal, and the optimal shape of the seal. The choice of seal materials and the technique to be used to fabricate the seals are also being investigated

Band structure of W and Mo by empirical pseudopotential method

The empirical pseudopotential method (EPM) is used to calculate the band structure of tungsten and molybdenum. Agreement between the calculated reflectivity, density of states, density of states at the Fermi surface and location of the Fermi surface from this study and experimental measurements and previous calculations is good. Also the charge distribution shows the proper topological distribution of charge for a bcc crystal

Physical Metallurgy of Some Important Non-ferrous Metals and Alloys

It is the purpose of this lecture to discuss some of the important non-ferrous metals and alloys from the aspect of physical metallurgy. Particular emphasis is placed on their commercial importance. Portions of tentative equi-librium diagrams are presented for a number of nonferrous alloys. Numerous photomicrographs have been used to illustrate typical structures. For complete understanding, the reader is requested to consult the references given at the end of the notes

Failure analysis of free-cutting grade steels: a case study

Microsegregation, which is unavoidable during solidification, needs to be controlled as it causes a number of failures during hot working for producing semi finishedlfinished products and subsequent cold-working to produce the finished products. The present work is aimed at achieving just the same, in free-cutting grade steels, by gaining a better under-standing of the relative stability of different sulphide inclusions. FeS or Fe-rich (Fe, Mn)S inclusions are undesirable in free-cutting grade steels as their melting points are below 1000 °C. They lead to hot-shortness and grain-boundary cracking during hot rolling and need to be transferred to beneficial MnS or Mn-rich (Mn, Fe)S which have higher melting points. In the present work, microstructural characterization by optical and scanning electron microscopy followed by XRD was carried out to identify the phases present in the as-cast and heat treated billets obtained through continuous casting. Hot rolled wire rods, of 7mm diameter, which exhibited surface imperfections were also examined to understand the cause of failure. Microstructural studies of the as cast billets confirm the presence of deleterious Fe-rich (Fe, Mn)S inclusions on the grain boundaries. In the heat treated billets, however, these deleterious sulphides were found to be present only in the central region. Regions away from the centre of the billet, showed the presence of stable Mn-rich (Mn, Fe)S on the grain boundary instead of the unstable Fe-rich (Fe, Mn)S. Therefore, it was concluded that the transformation of the Fe-rich ternary phase to a more stable Mn-rich ternary phase was not complete in the central region of the billet due to insufficient heat treatment. Also proposed are alternative soaking time and temperature to facilitate the complete transformation and improve the quality of the rolled products

Configuration management and automatic control of an augmentor wing aircraft with vectored thrust

An advanced structure for automatic flight control logic for powered-lift aircraft operating in terminal areas is under investigation at Ames Research Center. This structure is based on acceleration control; acceleration commands are constructed as the sum of acceleration on the reference trajectory and a corrective feedback acceleration to regulate path tracking errors. The central element of the structure, termed a Trimmap, uses a model of the aircraft aerodynamic and engine forces to calculate the control settings required to generate the acceleration commands. This report describes the design criteria for the Trimmap and derives a Trimmap for Ames experimental augmentor wing jet STOL research aircraft

Turbojet engine blade damping

The potentials of various sources of nonaerodynamic damping in engine blading are evaluated through a combination of advanced analysis and testing. The sources studied include material hysteresis, dry friction at shroud and root disk interfaces as well as at platform type external dampers. A limited seris of tests was conducted to evaluate damping capacities of composite materials (B/AL, B/AL/Ti) and thermal barrier coatings. Further, basic experiments were performed on titanium specimens to establish the characteristics of sliding friction and to determine material damping constants J and n. All the tests were conducted on single blades. Mathematical models were develthe several mechanisms of damping. Procedures to apply this data to predict damping levels in an assembly of blades are developed and discussed

Testing orbifold models of Supersymmetric Grand Unification

In a model of supersymmetric SU(5) Grand Unification with a spatial dimension described by the orbifold $S^1/(Z_2 \times Z_2')$, proton decay is naturally suppressed at all orders. This is achieved by a suitable implementation of the discrete symmetries on the brane. But baryon number violating interactions are present in this model. We propose a few possible experimental tests of this model which exploit the effect of the baryon number violating couplings on low-energy observables like neutron-antineutron oscillations, double nucleon decay into two kaons, hadronic decay widths of the $Z$ boson, and $t \bar t$ production cross-section in Run II of the Tevatron

Estimation of the Water Balance Using Observed Soil Water in the Nebraska Sandhills

Analyzing the dynamic hydrologic conditions of the Sandhills is critical for water and range management, sustainability of the Sandhills ecosystem as well as for dune stability. There are complex models available to quantify both surface and subsurface hydrological processes. However, we present in this study an application of a relatively simple model to arrive at best estimates of the water balance components. Using the Thornthwaite-Mather (TM) model, water balance components were estimated for 4 Automated Weather Data Network (AWDN) weather monitoring stations. Estimated averages of the water balance components suggested that mean annual precipitation of these four sites was only about 420 mm but water loss through plant evapotranspiration (ET) was 861 mm, with PET of about 1214 mm. Our investigation shows that there was surplus of water between December and March and a deficit occurs at the start of the growing season in May and extends through senescence in September-October. This study also suggests that the High Plains aquifer possibly met the plant water requirement during this deficit period as well as during the soil water extraction period, from May through September

A Review on Present State-of-the-Art of Self Adaptive Dynamic Software Architecture

Enterprises across the world are increasingly depending on software to drive their businesses. It is more so with distributing computing technologies in place that pave way for realization of seamless business integration. On the other hand those complex software systems are expected to adapt changes dynamically without causing administrative overhead. Moreover software systems should exhibit fault tolerance, location transparency, availability, scalability self-adaptive capabilities to fit into present enterprise business use cases. To cope with such expectations software systems are to be built with a dynamic and self-adaptive software architecture which drives home quality of services perfectly. The point made here is that software systems are facing unprecedented level of complexity and aware of self-adaptation. Therefore it is essential to have technical knowhow pertaining to self adaptive dynamic software architecture. Towards this end, we explore present state-of-the-art of this area in software engineering domain. It throws light into dynamic software architectures, distributed component technologies for realizing such architectures, besides dynamic software composition and metrics to evaluate the quality of dynamic adaptation

Kaempferol Treatment after Traumatic Brain Injury during Early Development Mitigates Brain Parenchymal Microstructure and Neural Functional Connectivity Deterioration at Adolescence.

Targeting mitochondrial ion homeostasis using Kaempferol, a mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter channel activator, improves energy metabolism and behavior soon after a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in developing rats. Because of broad TBI pathophysiology and brain mitochondrial heterogeneity, Kaempferol-mediated early-stage behavioral and brain metabolic benefits may accrue from diverse sources within the brain. We hypothesized that Kaempferol influences TBI outcome by differentially impacting the neural, vascular, and synaptic/axonal compartments. After TBI at early development (P31), functional magnetic resonance imaging and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) were applied to determine imaging outcomes at adolescence (2 months post-injury). Vehicle and Kaempferol treatments were made at 1, 24, and 48 h post-TBI, and their effects were assessed at adolescence. A significant increase in neural connectivity was observed after Kaempferol treatment as assessed by the spatial extent and strength of the somatosensory cortical and hippocampal resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) networks. However, no significant RSFC changes were observed in the thalamus. DTI measures of fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient, representing synaptic/axonal and microstructural integrity, showed significant improvements after Kaempferol treatment, with highest changes in the frontal and parietal cortices and hippocampus. Kaempferol treatment also increased corpus callosal FA, indicating measurable improvement in the interhemispheric structural connectivity. TBI prognosis was significantly altered at adolescence by early Kaempferol treatment, with improved neural connectivity, neurovascular coupling, and parenchymal microstructure in select brain regions. However, Kaempferol failed to improve vasomotive function across the whole brain, as measured by cerebrovascular reactivity. The differential effects of Kaempferol treatment on various brain functional compartments support diverse cellular-level mitochondrial functional outcomes in vivo