Creep of web ribbons

Results are reported for work in high-temperature deformatin of dendritic web ribbons, and oxygen measurement in the material

Atmospheric effects on the underground muon intensity

It has previously been reported that the barometric pressure coefficient observed for muons at Poatina (vertical absorber depth 357 hg/sq cm) appears to be appreciably higher than would be expected from atmospheric absorption alone. There is a possibility that the effect is due to an upper atmospheric temperature effect arising from an inverse correlation of surface pressure with stratospheric temperature. A new proportional telescope is discussed which has been operating at Poatina since about the beginning of 83 and which has a long term stability suitable for studying variations of atmospheric origin

Law v. National Security: When Lawyers Make Terrorism Policy

Are lawyers strangling our government’s ability to fight the first war of the twenty-first century? Does judicial adventurism and the fear of litigation undermine the War Against Terrorism? In essence, is our national security apparatus overlawyered? This article analyzes how some lawyers have produced a synthetic “litigation culture” over the war on terror. It argues that litigation concerning electronic surveillance, interrogation and all manners of prisoner treatment has chilled counterintelligence since 9/11

Design and implementation of robust decentralized control laws for the ACES structure at Marshall Space Flight Center

Many large space system concepts will require active vibration control to satisfy critical performance requirements such as line-of-sight accuracy. In order for these concepts to become operational it is imperative that the benefits of active vibration control be practically demonstrated in ground based experiments. The results of the experiment successfully demonstrate active vibration control for a flexible structure. The testbed is the Active Control Technique Evaluation for Spacecraft (ACES) structure at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. The ACES structure is dynamically traceable to future space systems and especially allows the study of line-of-sight control issues

Power system applications of fiber optics

Power system applications of optical systems, primarily using fiber optics, are reviewed. The first section reviews fibers as components of communication systems. The second section deals with fiber sensors for power systems, reviewing the many ways light sources and fibers can be combined to make measurements. Methods of measuring electric field gradient are discussed. Optical data processing is the subject of the third section, which begins by reviewing some widely different examples and concludes by outlining some potential applications in power systems: fault location in transformers, optical switching for light fired thyristors and fault detection based on the inherent symmetry of most power apparatus. The fourth and final section is concerned with using optical fibers to transmit power to electric equipment in a high voltage situation, potentially replacing expensive high voltage low power transformers. JPL has designed small photodiodes specifically for this purpose, and fabricated and tested several samples. This work is described

Cavity Reactor Engineering Mockup Critical Experiment

Critical mass of uranium 235 for stainless steel lined cavities in nuclear research and test reactors with heavy water reflecto

High performance, accelerometer-based control of the Mini-MAST structure at Langley Research Center

Many large space system concepts will require active vibration control to satisfy critical performance requirements such as line of sight pointing accuracy and constraints on rms surface roughness. In order for these concepts to become operational, it is imperative that the benefits of active vibration control be shown to be practical in ground based experiments. The results of an experiment shows the successful application of the Maximum Entropy/Optimal Projection control design methodology to active vibration control for a flexible structure. The testbed is the Mini-Mast structure at NASA-Langley and has features dynamically traceable to future space systems. To maximize traceability to real flight systems, the controllers were designed and implemented using sensors (four accelerometers and one rate gyro) that are actually mounted to the structure. Ground mounted displacement sensors that could greatly ease the control design task were available but were used only for performance evaluation. The use of the accelerometers increased the potential of destabilizing the system due to spillover effects and motivated the use of precompensation strategy to achieve sufficient compensator roll-off

Electrical, structural, and chemical characterization of silicon sheet materials

Progress on the electrical, structural, and chemical characterization of silicon sheet material is reported. In the study on high temperature deformation of dendritic web ribbon, experimental creep tests were performed in four point bending under constant load conditions, and unusual behavior was observed. Also, measurements of oxygen content in web ribbon were made. Two conclusions reached are creep behavior of web which is very different from any seen for single crystal silicon and oxygen level in web silicon which is near the saturation level at the melting point of silicon

Near-UV and optical spectroscopy of comets using the ISIS spectrograph on the <i>WHT</i>

We present an analysis of long-slit cometary spectroscopy using the dual-arm ISIS spectrograph on the 4.2 m WHT. Eleven comets were observed over two nights in 2016 March and we detected the OH (0-0) emission band at 3085 Å in the spectra of five of these comets. Emission bands of the species NH, CN, C3, C2, NH2 and [OI] were also detected. We used Haser modelling to determine molecular production rates and abundance ratios for the observed species. We found that our average abundances relative to OH and CN were generally consistent with those measured in previous studies