INFLUENCE OF A LEVELNESS DEFECT IN A THRUST BEARING ON THE DYNAMIC BEHAVIOUR OF AN ELASTIC SHAFT

This paper examines the non-linear dynamic behaviour of a flexible shaft. The shaft is mounted on two journal bearings and the axial load is supported by a defective hydrodynamic thrust bearing at one end. The defect is a levelness defect of the rotor. The thrust bearing behaviour must be considered to be non-linear because of the effects of the defect. The shaft is modelled with typical beam finite elements including effects such as the gyroscopic effects. A modal technique is used to reduce the number of degrees of freedom. Results show that the thrust bearing defects introduce supplementary critical speeds. The linear approach is unable to show the supplementary critical speeds which are obtained only by using non-linear analysis.     

Global Analysis of the Flows of Fluids with Pressure-Dependent Viscosities

 To describe the flows of fluids over a wide range of pressures, it is necessary to take into account the fact that the viscosity of the fluid depends on the pressure. That the viscosity depends on the pressure has been verified by numerous careful experiments. While the existence of solutions local-in-time to the equations governing the flows of such fluids are available for small, special data and rather unrealistic dependence of the viscosity on the pressure, no global existence results are in place. Our interest here is to establish the existence of weak solutions for spatially periodic three-dimensional flows that are global in time, for a large class of physically meaningful viscosity-pressure relationships. (Accepted May 1, 2002) Published online November 15, 2002 Communicated by S. S. ANTMAN     

Temperature dependence of near-resonant vibration ↔ rotation energy transfer

V ? R,T deactivation of the ν₄ (243 cm^?1) level in BCl₃ by HCl has been measured over the range 220–340 K, with an infrared double resonance technique. The deactivation probabilities show an inverse temperature dependence below room temperature, indicating that long-range attractive forces are important in the resonant transfer process. The results are compared with the theory of Sharma and Brau.     

The anomalous Mössbauer fraction of ferritin and polysaccharide iron complex (PIC)

Mössbauer studies of the ubiquitous protein molecule ferritin and its synthetic biomimic polysaccharide iron complex (PIC) exhibit an anomaly in the Mössbauer spectrum wherein the recoil free fraction orf-factor has a sharp drop with respect to temperature as the temperature rises above 30 K for mammalian ferritin and 60 K for PIC. The anomaly coincides with the disappearance of hyperfine splitting, which is due to superparamagnetic relaxation above the blocking temperature. Different absorbers were used to experimentally investigate the effect of absorber thickness on the Mössbauer spectrum. The anomaly persists for thin absorbers. Also, spectra treated with FFT procedures to eliminate the thickness effect still exhibit this anomaly. Motion of the core with respect to the protein shell was also eliminated as a possible source for this phenomenon, by comparing the Debye temperature obtained from the temperature dependence of thef-factor and the isomer shift. A comparison of the magnetic anisotropy constants from magnetization studies with those obtained by relating the hyperfine fieldH of the Mössbauer spectra to the fluctuations of the magnetization imply that the ferritin and PIC molecules possess magnetic anisotropy energy which may not be strictly uniaxial. This, we believe, may be intimately connected with the mechanism causing thef-factor anomaly.This work was carried out in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the PhD degree at Tufts University.