Design Criteria for Fracture Assessment of Pressurized Nuclear Components

This paper presents the design criteria adopted for fracture assessment of pressurized components of nuclear power plants. Although there are wide variety of components in a typical nuclear power plant, the thrust in this paper is on components which are part of the primary heat transport system. The paper presents an overview of design rules, practices adopted and experimental verification needed for ensuring the structural integrity of nuclear pressure vessels and piping

Electrooptical Evaluation Techniques of Image Intensifier 'Ibbes - Part I

Passive night vision devices are used for viewing the military targets at low light levels of illuminations during night. In these passive night vision devices, image intensifier tubes areused to amplify scene imagery. The performance of these tubes depends upon electrooptical parameters. The techniques of evaluating these parameters, eg, luminous gain, automatic rightness control and maximum screen luminance, photocathode sensitivity, radiant gain, equivalent background illumination, magnification and distortion, signal-to-noise ratio, veilingglare, screen brightness variation, etc. have been described

Electrooptical Evaluation Techniques of Image Intensifier Tubes-Part I1

In this paper, electrooptical evaluation techniques of image intensifier tubes for some of the important parameters like resolving power, absolute spectral responses of photocathode,  spectral response of phosphor screen, modulation transfer function, recovery time, gas grade, and fixed-pattern noise have been described

C-band superconductor/semiconductor hybrid field-effect transistor amplifier on a LaAlO3 substrate

A single-stage C-band superconductor/semiconductor hybrid field-effect transistor amplifier was designed, fabricated, and tested at 77 K. The large area (1 inch x 0.5 inches) high temperature superconducting Tl-Ba-Ca-Cu-O (TBCCO) thin film was rf magnetron sputtered onto a LaAlO3 substrate. The film had a transition temperature of about 92 K after it was patterned and etched. The amplifier showed a gain of 6 dB and a 3 dB bandwidth of 100 MHz centered at 7.9 GHz. An identical gold amplifier circuit was tested at 77 K, and these results are compared with those from the hybrid amplifier

High temperature superconducting thin film microwave circuits: Fabrication, characterization, and applications

Epitaxial YBa2Cu3O7 films were grown on several microwave substrates. Surface resistance and penetration depth measurements were performed to determine the quality of these films. Here the properties of these films on key microwave substrates are described. The fabrication and characterization of a microwave ring resonator circuit to determine transmission line losses are presented. Lower losses than those observed in gold resonator circuits were observed at temperatures lower than critical transition temperature. Based on these results, potential applications of microwave superconducting circuits such as filters, resonators, oscillators, phase shifters, and antenna elements in space communication systems are identified

Millimeter wave transmission studies of YBa2Cu3O7-delta thin films in the 26.5 to 40.0 GHz frequency range

Millimeter wave transmission measurements through YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) thin films on MgO, ZrO2 and LaAlO3 substrates, are reported. The films (approx. 1 micron) were deposited by sequential evaporation and laser ablation techniques. Transition temperatures T sub c, ranging from 89.7 K for the Laser Ablated film on LaAlO3 to approximately 72 K for the sequentially evaporated film on MgO, were obtained. The values of the real and imaginary parts of the complex conductivity, sigma 1 and sigma 2, are obtained from the transmission data, assuming a two fluid model. The BCS approach is used to calculate values for an effective energy gap from the obtained values of sigma sub 1. A range of gap values from 2 DELTA o/K sub B T sub c = 4.19 to 4.35 was obtained. The magnetic penetration depth is evaluated from the deduced values of sigma 2. These results are discussed together with the frequency dependence of the normalized transmission amplitude, P/P sub c, below and above T sub c

Performance and modeling of superconducting ring resonators at millimeter-wave frequencies

Microstrip ring resonators operating at 35 GHz were fabricated from laser ablated YBCO thin films deposited on lanthanum aluminate substrates. They were measured over a range of temperatures and their performance compared to identical resonators made of evaporated gold. Below 60 Kelvin the superconducting strip performed better than the gold, reaching an unloaded Q approximately 1.5 times that of gold at 25 K. A shift in the resonant frequency follows the form predicted by the London equations. The Phenomenological Loss Equivalence Method is applied to the ring resonator and the theoretically calculated Q values are compared to the experimental results

Low cycle fatigue and cyclic plasticity bahaviour of Indian PHWR / AHWR primary piping materials

The integrity assessment of the primary piping components needs to be demonstrated under normal operation cyclic loadings as well as under complex cycling loadings of extreme magnitude as may come during a severe earthquake event. In order to understand material's cyclic plasticity and fatigue ratcheting behaviour, systematic experimental and analytical investigations have been carried out on specimens of SA333Gr.6 carbon steel and SS304LN stainless steel. The materials specification of SA333Gr.6 is same as used in Primary Heat transport (PHT) piping of Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) and materials specification of SS304LN steel is same as proposed for Indian Advanced Heavy Water Recactor (AHWRs) Main Heat Transport (MHT) piping. The test program included the properties and cyclic plasticity behaviour. The results of these tests have been investigated in detals using few popular finite element cyclic plasticity models to understand and quantify the materials' cyclic plasticity behaviour. The studies revealed the need to modify the Chaboche model to simulate the LCF/cyclic plasticity and ratcheting under different stress/strain amplitude loading conditions. On accounting for modification, the Chaboche model nicely predicted the LCF and ratcheting response for all the tests. The tests, finite element analyses results and their interpretations have been presented in this paper

Multiaxial fatigue studies on carbon steel piping material of Indian PHWRs

The tests studies and analyses have been carried out in the area of “Multiaxial Fatigue” with an objective to improve the damage assessment methodologies and design rules. Nearly 50 numbers of fatigue tests were conducted on solid and tubular specimens of SA333Gr.6 material under pure axial, pure shear and combined axial-torsion in-phase/ out-of-phase loading combinations. A software has been developed for the evaluation of multiaxial fatigue damage for the analyses of tests data using different invariant fatigue models such as ASME Sec.III code procedures, von-Mises etc. The fatigue crack initiation life was predicted using the best fit axial fatigue life curve (without use of safety factors). These tests and their analyses have helped in understanding the fatigue failure behavior of piping material under complex cyclic loadings where the principal directions rotate during a loading cycle. The crack initiation angles have also been measured by analyzing the image of the tested specimens. The measured crack angles will help in validation of the critical plane based models

Microwave conductivity of laser ablated YBa2Cu3O(7-delta) superconducting films and its relation to microstrip transmission line performance

The discovery of high temperature superconductor oxides has raised the possibility of a new class of millimeter and microwave devices operating at temperatures considerably higher than liquid helium temperatures. Therefore, materials properties such as conductivity, current density, and sheet resistance as a function of temperature and frequency, possible anisotropies, moisture absorption, thermal expansion, and others, have to be well characterized and understood. The millimeter wave response of laser ablated YBa2Cu3O(7-delta)/LaAlO3 thin films was studied as a function of temperature and frequency. In particular, the evaluation of their microwave conductivity was emphasized, since knowledge of this parameter provides a basis for the derivation of other relevant properties of these superconducting oxides, and for using them in the fabrication of actual passive circuits. The microwave conductivity for these films was measured at frequencies from 26.5 to 40.0 GHz, in the temperature range from 20 to 300 K. The values of the conductivity are obtained from the millimeter wave power transmitted through the films, using a two fluid model