HFRR test method with stainless steel specimens for gasoline fuels

Reducing CO2 emission is a major challenge for the automotive industry. The different fuels (E10, E100, M15 etc.) that are used for gasoline systems not only influence the CO2 emission but also significantly influence the friction and wear behavior and subsequently the lifetime of powertrain components. The effect is much higher when biofuels are used. The characterization of tribological properties of gasoline fuels is necessary for a robust design which allows for permanent control of performance. The High Frequency Reciprocating Rig (HFRR) test concept according to ISO 12156 is the standard test method for evaluating the lubricity of diesel fuels. Up to now, no standard for gasoline fuels is known. The standardized HFRR test method uses 100Cr6 test specimens which are stable in contact with diesel fuel, but, unlike the stainless steel components used in gasoline fuel injection systems, is prone to corrosion in a gasoline environment typically containing a certain amount of water. This paper aims to develop a lubricity test method with stainless steel for gasoline fuels and reports first results for various fuel compositions

The Quadrupole Magnets for the LHC Injection Transfer Lines

Two injection transfer lines, each about 2.8 km long, are being built to transfer protons at 450 GeV from the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A total of 180 quadrupole magnets are required; they are produced in the framework of the contribution of the Russian Federation to the construction of the LHC. The classical quadrupoles, built from laminated steel cores and copper coils, have a core length of 1.4 m, an inscribed diameter of 32 mm and a strength of 53.5 T/m at a current of 530 A. The total weight of one magnet is 1.1 ton. For obtaining the required field quality at the small inscribed diameter, great care in the stamping of the laminations and the assembly of quadrants is necessary. Special instruments have been developed to measure, with a precision of some mm, the variations of the pole gaps over the full length of the magnet and correlate them to the obtained field distribution. The design has been developed in a collaboration between BINP and CERN. Fabrication and the magnetic measurements are done at BINP and should be finished at the end of the year 2000

The CERN Neutrino beam to Gran Sasso (NGS)

The conceptual technical design of the NGS (CERN neutrino beam to Gran Sasso) facility has been presented in the report CERN 98-02 / INFN-AE/98-05. Additional information, in particular an update on various neutrino beam options for the NGS facility, has been provided in a memorandum to the CERN-SPSC Committee (CERN-SPSC/98-35). In the present report, further improvements on the NGS design and performance, in particular new scenarios for SPS proton cycles for NGS operation and a new version of the NGS "high energy" neutrino beam for nt appearance experiments, are described. This new NGS reference beam is estimated to provide three times more nt events per year than the beam presented in the 1998 report. The radiological aspects of the NGS facility have been re-examined with the new beam design. An updated version of the construction schedule is also presented

Cryptophyta as major bacterivores in freshwater summer plankton

Small bacterivorous eukaryotes play a cardinal role in aquatic food webs and their taxonomic classification is currently a hot topic in aquatic microbial ecology. Despite increasing interest in their diversity, core questions regarding predator–prey specificity remain largely unanswered, e.g., which heterotrophic nanoflagellates (HNFs) are the main bacterivores in freshwaters and which prokaryotes support the growth of small HNFs. To answer these questions, we fed natural communities of HNFs from Římov reservoir (Czech Republic) with five different bacterial strains of the ubiquitous betaproteobacterial genera Polynucleobacter and Limnohabitans. We combined amplicon sequencing and catalyzed reporter deposition fluorescence in situ hybridization (CARD-FISH) targeting eukaryotic 18 S rRNA genes to track specific responses of the natural HNF community to prey amendments. While amplicon sequencing provided valuable qualitative data and a basis for designing specific probes, the number of reads was insufficient to accurately quantify certain eukaryotic groups. We also applied a double-hybridization technique that allows simultaneous phylogenetic identification of both predator and prey. Our results show that community composition of HNFs is strongly dependent upon prey type. Surprisingly, Cryptophyta were the most abundant bacterivores, although this phylum has been so far assumed to be mainly autotrophic. Moreover, the growth of a small lineage of Cryptophyta (CRY1 clade) was strongly stimulated by one Limnohabitans strain in our experiment. Thus, our study is the first report that colorless Cryptophyta are major bacterivores in summer plankton samples and can play a key role in the carbon transfer from prokaryotes to higher trophic levels