Tensor virial equation of evolving surfaces in sintering of aggregates of particles by diffusion

The moment of inertia tensor is a quantity that characterizes the morphology of aggregates of particles. The deviatoric components indicate the anisotropy of the aggregate, and its compactness is described by the isotropic component, i.e. the second moment of inertia, which is related to the radius of gyration. The equation of motion of the moment of inertia tensor is proposed for the sintering and coalescence of crystalline particles by bulk diffusion and surface diffusion. Simulations of the evolution of aggregates of particles (linear chains, rings and branched chains) show that the aggregates become more compact and more isotropic structures, driven by the surface energy tensor or the surface force density. The tensor virial equation for diffusion is applicable also to evolution of pores, precipitates and inclusions embedded in a surrounding matrix

The design and thermo-structural analysis of target assembly for high intensity neutron source

The engineering design of an integrated target assembly of IFMIF lithium target was performed in IFMIF/EVEDA project for a high intensity neutron source. In the evaluation of the design, a thermos-structural analysis of was evaluated by ABAQUS code, and the modeling region was a part of the target assembly which was from the inlet nozzle to the outlet pipe. The material of the target assembly including the back plate was F82H steel. In the thermal-structural analysis, the normal operations and start/stop or abnormal operations were evaluated at 250 or 300 °C operation of Li flow in inlet pipe. The result showed that the temperature of the target assembly was evaluated to be still lower than the Li boiling point of 344 °C under a vacuum pressure of 10−3 Pa. In a temperature constant operation, the calculated stresses and displacements were small enough for thermal soundness of the target assembly in steady states. In a transient cooling process from 300 °C to 20 °C through 250 °C, the maximum Mises stress was found to be 372 MPa, which was lower than the yield stress at 300 °C. Keywords: High intensity neutron source, Target assembly, Thermo-structural analysis, Li target, IFMIF, F82

Anomalous rotational-alignment in N=Z nuclei and residual neutron-proton interaction

Recent experiments have demonstrated that the rotational-alignment for the $N=Z$ nuclei in the mass-80 region is considerably delayed as compared to the neighboring $N \ne Z$ nuclei. We investigate whether this observation can be understood by a known component of nuclear residual interactions. It is shown that the quadrupole-pairing interaction, which explains many of the delays known in rare-earth nuclei, does not produce the substantial delay observed for these $N=Z$ nuclei. However, the residual neutron-proton interaction which is conjectured to be relevant for $N=Z$ nuclei is shown to be quite important in explaining the new experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, final version accepted by Phys. Rev. C as a Rapid Communicatio