21,702 research outputs found
Failure Analysis of Nickel-hydrogen Cell Subjected to Simulated Low Earth Orbit Cycling
A nickel-hydrogen cell completed 10,080 simulated low earth orbit charge/discharge cycles at depths-of-discharge ranging from 50 to 80 percent prior to failure. The cell is of the Air Force design, rated at 50 ampere-hours, 8.9 cm (3.5 inches) in diameter. Upon disassembly, the end of the polysulfone core supporting the electrode stack was found to have fractured. This allowed the electrode stack to expand. A massive short was found at the inner diameter of the electrodes centered roughly at plate set 34 to 37 from the positive end of the electrode stack. The damaged area extended through approximately one third of the electrode stack, with the effect becoming progressively less with distance from plate set 34 to 37. Measured thicknesses of the positive plates were significantly greater than the initial specification values. The postulated cause of failure is that positive plate growth caused fracture of the shoulder from the end of the polysulfone core on which the electrodes are mounted. The electrode stack relieved and pressure points were created at the area near the inner diameter of the plates at the tab attachment. A short occurred at a pressure point between opposing plates and propagated to other electrode sets due to thermal and mechanical stresses caused by the short
NASA 50 amp hour nickel cadmium battery waste heat determination
A process for determining the waste heat generated in a 50-ampere-hour, nickel cadmium battery as a function of the discharge rate is described and results are discussed. The technique involved is essentially calibration of the battery as a heat transfer rate calorimeter. The tests are run at three different levels of battery activity, one at 40-watts of waste heat generated, one at 60, and one at 100. Battery inefficiency ranges from 14 to 18 percent at discharge rates of 284 to 588 watts, respectively and top-of-cell temperatures of 20 C
Phase relaxation of Faraday surface waves
Surface waves on a liquid air interface excited by a vertical vibration of a
fluid layer (Faraday waves) are employed to investigate the phase relaxation of
ideally ordered patterns. By means of a combined frequency-amplitude modulation
of the excitation signal a periodic expansion and dilatation of a square wave
pattern is generated, the dynamics of which is well described by a Debye
relaxator. By comparison with the results of a linear theory it is shown that
this practice allows a precise measurement of the phase diffusion constant.Comment: 5 figure
Nickel-hydrogen Cell Test Program Summary
Three prototype 50 ampere-hour (Ah) nickel-hydrogen cells of the Air Force Wright Aeronautical Laboratories (AWFAL) design were cycled to failure. A summary of the life cycling tests and failure analyses of the cells are presented. The cells were cycled in a simulated low earth orbit regime at depths of discharge ranging from 25 to 80 percent. Trend data, such as end of discharge voltage and cell capacity, was recorded during test. Cells 1, 2, and 3 completed 17167, 2473, and 10080 charge/discharge cycles, respectively, prior to failure. All failed due to internal shorts, and were disassembled to determine cause of failure
The Zero-Bin and Mode Factorization in Quantum Field Theory
We study a Lagrangian formalism that avoids double counting in effective
field theories where distinct fields are used to describe different infrared
momentum regions for the same particle. The formalism leads to extra
subtractions in certain diagrams and to a new way of thinking about
factorization of modes in quantum field theory. In non-relativistic field
theories, the subtractions remove unphysical pinch singularities in box type
diagrams, and give a derivation of the known pull-up mechanism between soft and
ultrasoft fields which is required by the renormalization group evolution. In a
field theory for energetic particles, the soft-collinear effective theory
(SCET), the subtractions allow the theory to be defined with different infrared
and ultraviolet regulators, remove double counting between soft, ultrasoft, and
collinear modes, and give results which reproduce the infrared divergences of
the full theory. Our analysis shows that convolution divergences in
factorization formul\ae occur due to an overlap of momentum regions. We propose
a method that avoids this double counting, which helps to resolve a long
standing puzzle with singularities in collinear factorization in QCD. The
analysis gives evidence for a factorization in rapidity space in exclusive
decays.Comment: 92 pages, v4- Journal version. Some improvements to language in
sections I, IIA, VI
Nonadiabatic charged spherical evolution in the postquasistatic approximation
We apply the postquasistatic approximation, an iterative method for the
evolution of self-gravitating spheres of matter, to study the evolution of
dissipative and electrically charged distributions in General Relativity. We
evolve nonadiabatic distributions assuming an equation of state that accounts
for the anisotropy induced by the electric charge. Dissipation is described by
streaming out or diffusion approximations. We match the interior solution, in
noncomoving coordinates, with the Vaidya-Reissner-Nordstr\"om exterior
solution. Two models are considered: i) a Schwarzschild-like shell in the
diffusion limit; ii) a Schwarzschild-like interior in the free streaming limit.
These toy models tell us something about the nature of the dissipative and
electrically charged collapse. Diffusion stabilizes the gravitational collapse
producing a spherical shell whose contraction is halted in a short
characteristic hydrodynamic time. The streaming out radiation provides a more
efficient mechanism for emission of energy, redistributing the electric charge
on the whole sphere, while the distribution collapses indefinitely with a
longer hydrodynamic time scale.Comment: 11 pages, 16 Figures. Accepted for publication in Phys Rev
Test anxiety, working memory, and cognitive performance: Supportive effects of sequential demands
Substantial evidence suggests that test anxiety is associated with poor performance in complex tasks. Based on the differentiation of coordinative and sequential demands on working memory (Mayr & Kliegl, 1993), two studies examined the effects of sequential demands on the relationship between test anxiety and cognitive performance. Both studies found that high sequential demands had beneficial effects on the speed and accuracy of the performance of test-anxious participants. It is suggested that the more frequent memory updates associated with high sequential demands may represent external processing aids that compensate for the restricted memory capacity of individuals with high test anxiet
Electroweak Corrections using Effective Field Theory: Applications to the LHC
Electroweak Sudakov logarithms at high energy, of the form alpha/sin^2
theta_W^n log^m s/M_{Z,W}^2, are summed using effective theory (EFT) methods.
The exponentiation of Sudakov logarithms and factorization is discussed in the
EFT formalism. Radiative corrections are computed to scattering processes in
the standard model involving an arbitrary number of external particles. The
computations include non-zero particle masses such as the t-quark mass,
electroweak mixing effects which lead to unequal W and Z masses and a massless
photon, and Higgs corrections proportional to the top quark Yukawa coupling.
The structure of the radiative corrections, and which terms are summed by the
EFT renormalization group is discussed in detail. The omitted terms are smaller
than 1%. We give numerical results for the corrections to dijet production,
dilepton production, t-\bar t production, and squark pair production. The
purely electroweak corrections are significant -- about 15% at 1 TeV,
increasing to 30% at 5 TeV, and they change both the scattering rate and
angular distribution. The QCD corrections (which are well-known) are also
computed with the EFT. They are much larger -- about a factor of four at 1 TeV,
increasing to a factor of thirty at 5 TeV. Mass effects are also significant;
the q \bar q -> t \bar t rate is enchanced relative to the light-quark
production rate by 40%.Comment: Additional details added on exponentiation, and the form of the
Sudakov series. Figures darkened to print better. 40 pages, 40 figure
Dihadron fragmentation functions and high Pt hadron-hadron correlations
We propose the formulation of a dihadron fragmentation function in terms of
parton matrix elements. Under the collinear factorization approximation and
facilitated by the cut-vertex technique, the two hadron inclusive cross section
at leading order (LO) in e+ e- annihilation is shown to factorize into a short
distance parton cross section and the long distance dihadron fragmentation
function. We also derive the DGLAP evolution equation of this function at
leading log. The evolution equation for the non-singlet quark fragmentation
function is solved numerically with a simple ansatz for the initial condition
and results are presented for cases of physical interest.Comment: Latex, 4 pages, 4 figures, talk given at Quark Matter 2004, To appear
in J. Phys.
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