Arc erosion reduction on electrical contacts using transversecurrent injection

Electrical contact lifetime is often directly determined by arc erosion. A method for reducing are erosion was developed consisting of injecting from an external current source an additional electrical current flowing parallel to the contact surface. This method was examined in three are environments using the additional transverse electrical current with a density less than 1 A/mm²: 1) automobile ignition contacts; 2) pulsed air arc; and 3) low pressure (P=100 mTorr) arc in nitrogen, SEM and X-ray examination showed that application of a transverse current in a contact during arcing changed the phase composition and microstructure of the contact surface. Under optimal conditions, the microstructure which is formed is significantly more erosion resistant than without the transverse current injection     

A model for a uniform steady-state vacuum arc with a hot anode

A model is formulated and evaluated for a Uniform electrical discharge sustained in vapor evaporated from an arc-heated anode. The plasma potential is positive with respect to both the cathode and anode. For a Cu anode, the anodic vapor dominates the plasma for current densities exceeding 8 kA/m². The anode heating potential is approximately 6.5 V, and the dominant cooling mechanism is evaporation for current densities exceeding 20 kA/m². Over the range 10 to 10000 kA/m², the electron density increases from 8×10¹⁷ to 5×10²³ m^-3, while the ionization fraction rises from 0.3% to 4%. At the lower end of this current range the electrical resistivity of 4 mΩ-m is determined primarily by electron-neutral collisions, while with increasing current the resistivity decreases to 0.7 mΩ-m, with electron-ion collisions contributing an equal share. This hot-anode vacuum arc may have potential for industrial application as a macroparticle-free high-deposition-rate coating source     

Perforation of steel and polycarbonate plates by tumbling projectiles

An experimental investigation to assess the effect of tumbling by hard-steel, blunt-faced cylindrical projectiles on the impact response of thin 4130 steel and polycarbonate target plates was performed. Deformation and failure phenomena were observed and discussed; comparisons of the results with analytical models and numerical stimulation, described in a previous paper, were also performed for the steel targets. The final velocity of the projectile and the crater length in the target were correlated with the striker impact angle (or yaw angle with a zero oblique angle); reasonable agreement was attained among the experimental, analytical and numerical results. It was found that an increase of the impact angle can increase the velocity drop and the crater length markedly. The increase tends to be stabilized after the impact angle exceeds 50° and the consequences in such a case are almost the same as in side-on impact.     

Discovery and high-throughput screening of heteroleptic iridium complexes for photoinduced hydrogen production

The catalytic process of photoinduced hydrogen generation via the reduction of water has been investigated. The use of parallel synthetic techniques has facilitated the synthesis of a 32 member library of heteroleptic iridium complexes that was screened, using high-throughput photophysical techniques, to identify six potential photosensitizers for use in catalytic photoinduced hydrogen production. A Pd/Ni thin film hydrogen selective sensor allowed for rapid quantification of hydrogen produced via illumination of aqueous systems of the photosensitizer, tris(2,2'-dipyridyl)dichlorocobalt ([Co(bpy)(3)]Cl(2)), and triethanolamine (a sacrificial reductant) with ultra-bright light emitting diodes (LEDs). The use of an 8-well parallel photoreactor expedited the investigation of the hydrogen evolution process and facilitated mechanistic studies. All six compounds investigated produced considerably more hydrogen than commonly utilized photosensitizers and had relative quantum efficiencies of hydrogen production up to 37 times greater than that of Ru(bpy)(3)(2+).     

QUANTUM EFFICIENCY AND PHOTOSENSITIVITY OF THE RHODOPSIN ⇌ METARHODOPSIN CONVERSION IN CRAYFISH PHOTORECEPTORS

Photosensitivity (K_λ) of a visual pigment is the product of the molecular absorption coefficient (α_λ) and the quantum efficiency for photoconversion (γ). Among the invertebrates, many visual pigments are stable not only in the rhodopsin (R) conformation but also as the photoproduct, metarhodopsin (M), We here employ a method for determining the photosensitivities of the two stable pigments of a rhodopsin-metarhodopsin pair, using kinetic analysis of fluorescence from metarhodopsin combined with measurements of spectral absorption made before and after saturation at the isosbestic wavelength of the pigment pair. A curve fitting technique, in which a theoretical function is scaled for best fit to the measured absorption spectrum of the photosteady-state mixture, yields values for the photosensitivity of rhodopsin at λ._max, the ratio of quantum efficiencies for rhodopsin—metarhodopsin interconversion, and the fractional composition of the steady-state mixture. With knowledge of the molecular extinction coefficient, the absolute values of quantum efficiency can be calculated. For crayfish ( Orconectes, Procambarus ) rhodopsin, measured in isolated rhabdoms, K_max= 1.05 x 10^-16 cm² at 535 nm with >7λR→M0.69. These values are similar to the photosensitivity and quantum efficiency of bleaching of vertebrate rhodopsins in digitonin solution (Dartnall, 1972). For the metarhodopsin, K_max= 1.02 x 10^-16 cm² at 510 nm, and λ_M-R= 0.49.     

Indestructive deletions of edges from graphs

If G is a graph on p vertices with connectivity, or edge-connectivity, or minimum valency, at least k, we ask how many edges one can delete from G without reducing the appropriate quantity below k −1. When p and k are large, our answers are about , , and , respectively; we conjecture that the correct (best possible) answer is about in each case.