Quality Aspects of Special Forgings of Low Alloy Steels

Within the span of last twenty years, the quality requi-rements of steel forgings has changed drastically. In early Seventies, 80-85% steel forgings belonged to mainly plain carbon steel grades and only about 10-15% forgings are of low alloy steel grades containing Ni, Cr, Mb and V. In the past, the customer asked for chemical composition, hardness, tensile and impact properties only. The ultra-sonic test was not stipulated for the general engineering purpose forgings such as sugar mill shafts, roller etc. At present, 70% of steel forgings belong to low alloy steel grades like 40Ni2Cr1Mo28, 40NiCr1Mo15, En 24, 40 x HM, 38 x 2H2MA, En 30B etc. The quality requirements of these forgings specify rigid ultrasonic quality acceptance norm, Dye penetrant test, less gaseous content, low inclusion count and high impact property. The ultrasonic acceptance norm of critical forgings is 2-4 mm E.F.S (Max. allowable defect size) in D.G.S Scale. Growing demand for quality forgings has warranted Foundry Forge Plant, HEC to update technology of steel melting, forging, heat- treatment etc and constantly strive for quality improvement through QC, QAP and R&D efforts. At present HEC is able to manufacture critical forgings for mining, shipping, cleience, railway, power, steel plants etc

Modeling highly pathogenic avian influenza transmission in wild birds and poultry in West Bengal, India.

Wild birds are suspected to have played a role in highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 outbreaks in West Bengal. Cluster analysis showed that H5N1 was introduced in West Bengal at least 3 times between 2008 and 2010. We simulated the introduction of H5N1 by wild birds and their contact with poultry through a stochastic continuous-time mathematical model. Results showed that reducing contact between wild birds and domestic poultry, and increasing the culling rate of infected domestic poultry communities will reduce the probability of outbreaks. Poultry communities that shared habitat with wild birds or those indistricts with previous outbreaks were more likely to suffer an outbreak. These results indicate that wild birds can introduce HPAI to domestic poultry and that limiting their contact at shared habitats together with swift culling of infected domestic poultry can greatly reduce the likelihood of HPAI outbreaks

EFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH IN INDIAN BANKING

This paper attempts to examine technical efficiency and productivity performance of Indian scheduled commercial banks, for the period 1979-2008. We model a multiple output/multiple input technology production frontier using semiparametric estimation methods. The endogenity of multiple outputs is addressed by semi parametric estimates in part by introducing multivariate kernel estimators for the joint distribution of the multiple outputs and correlated random effects. Output is measured as the rupee value of total loans and total investments at the end of the year. The estimates provide robust inferences of the productivity and efficiency gains due to economic reforms.Banking, Frontier efficiency, Productivity

Coherent bremsstrahlung and GDR width from 252Cf cold fission

The energy spectrum of the high energy gamma-rays in coincidence with the prompt gamma rays has been measured for the spontaneous fission of 252Cf. The nucleus-nucleus coherent bremsstrahlung of the accelerating fission fragments is observed and the result has been substantiated with a theoretical calculation based on the coulomb acceleration model. The width of the giant dipole resonance (GDR) decay from the excited fission fragments has been extracted for the first time and compared with the thermal shape fluctuation model (TSFM) in the liquid drop formalism. The extracted GDR width is significantly smaller than the predictions of TSFM.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Lett.