Contact charging of oxidized metal powders

Samples of oxidized metal powders (Ag, Al, Cr, La, Nb, Ni, Ti) were repeatedly contacted with a gold plate under high vacuum conditions. The charge transfer was measured on both the samples and the gold plate. We observed charge saturation after one contact in most cases. Positive and negative polarities were detected. The charge densities were calculated and correlated with work functions of oxidized metals. Contact electrification of aluminum shows exceptional behavior with repeated contacts.     

Anomalous effects in charging of Pd powders with high density hydrogen isotopes

A twin system for hydrogen absorption experiments has been constructed to replicate the phenomenon of heat and ⁴He generation by D₂ gas absorption in nano-sized Pd powders reported by Arata and Zhang, and to investigate the underlying physics. For Pd⋅Zr oxide nano-powders, anomalously large energies of hydrogen isotope absorption, 2.4±0.2 eV/D-atom and 1.8±0.4 eV/H-atom, as well as large loading ratio of D/Pd=1.1±0.0 and H/Pd=1.1±0.3, respectively, were observed in the phase of deuteride/hydride formation. The sample charged with D₂ also showed significantly positive output energy in the second phase after the deuteride formation.     

Mechanism of charging of the pyrite/aqueous interface as deduced from the surface potential measurements

Surface potential of pyrite in an aqueous environment was measured by means of a single crystal pyrite electrode. The effect of the activity of S²⁻ and Fe²⁺ ions as well as of pH, was examined. The results show that S²⁻ and Fe²⁺ ions are the dominant potential determining ions. These ions are bound to surface sites with the extent depending on their activity in the bulk of the solution. Adsorption affinity of S²⁻ ions is significantly higher than that of Fe²⁺ ions so that in most cases the pyrite surface is negatively charged. The results were explained on the basis of the surface complexation model. It was found that the surface potential depends also on pH.     

Influences of different powders on the characteristics of particle charging and deposition in powder coating processes

This experimental study investigated the influences of two different powder systems (coarse and ultrafine) on particle charging and deposition characteristics during electrostatic powder coating processes. Results disclosed that, despite their differences in particle sizes, the two powders behave similarly in deposition process, commonly resulting in a cone-shaped deposited pattern in the inner portion of the substrate and an increase of deposited particles in the fringe region. However, their different properties lead to the discrepancies in their deposition efficiencies, which account for a higher efficiency with the coarse powder. The study further revealed that the coarse powder is superior to the ultrafine powder in charging in-flight particles, which directly contributes to its higher deposition efficiencies. Furthermore, it was disclosed that the two powders exhibit distinct characteristics in charging deposited particles. Compared to the coarse powder, the ultrafine powder is more uniform in charging deposited particles, mainly owing to its greater particle number and higher specific surface area but less mass. In particular, the charging efficiency of overall deposited particles decreases for the ultrafine powder but increases for the coarse powder with increased charging voltage, closely related to their particle properties. However, both powders decrease in charging efficiency of deposited particles with extended spraying duration due to back corona intensifying with spraying.     

A reproducible test to characterise the triboelectric charging of powders during their pneumatic transport

Although several investigations had been carried out to explore the triboelectrification of powders, only few data are available on the experimental procedures and set-ups required to obtain reliable data. The present study deals with the development of a pneumatic test to characterise the tribocharging of fine powders. An experimental device was set up allowing on-line monitoring of the charge of both particles and transport pipes. Experiments were carried out using two types of powder (fine sugar and PVC) coupled with two types of pipe materials (Teflon and nylon). Results showed the extreme importance of the control of the relative humidity, the initial charge of particles and the charge dissipation of the walls to obtain pertinent data. Furthermore, the results showed that solids loadings higher than 1 (kg of solids/kg of air) are not proper to achieve reliable measurements. However, at very dilute solids loading (～0.001) the time evolutions of the electrostatic charge and the mass of the powder follow similar trends so that the tribocharging becomes independent of the solids mass flowrate. This allows accurate assessment of the tribocharging of cohesive powders for which a regular flow cannot be guaranteed.     

Blind extraction and localization of sound sources using point sources based approaches

This paper presents theoretical models for blind sound source localization and separation of the signals emitted by arbitrary point sources in free space. Source localizations are achieved by a model based approach that accounts for the spherical spreading of an acoustic wave and utilizes an iterative triangulation, based on the signals measured by a three-dimensional microphone array. Once source locations are determined, the source signals are separated by using the point source separation (PSS) method, which is valid for all types of signals, including harmonic, continuous, transient, random, narrowband and broadband. General solutions for signals separation are presented. Theoretically, PSS can reconstruct the individual source signals exactly. This is because it employs the free-space Green's function, which defines the exact correlation among individual sources and measurement microphones. To validate PSS, numerical simulations are carried out and results are compared with those obtained by FastICA (Independent Component Analysis) code. The impacts of various parameters such as the microphone configuration, type of source signals, signal to noise ratio, number of microphones and source localization errors on the quality of signals separation by using PSS and FastICA are examined. The advantages and disadvantages of PSS and FastICA are compared and discussed.     

基于平均二次电子发射系数的航天器表面起电特征分析

为了进一步贴近航天器表面起电环境以得到更加可信的分析结果,针对航天器在恶劣充电环境下的表面起电问题,考虑空间等离子体双麦克斯韦分布情况,建立了基于平均二次电子发射系数的航天器表面起电阈值方程,可在入射电子能量连续分布情况下定量分析航天器表面起电特征,其中双麦分布可更好地描述磁层亚爆期间的恶劣充电环境。经过理论分析,归纳出双麦分布下的两种典型等离子体状态。通过仿真计算,得到了在两种典型等离子体状态下航天器表面电位随等离子体浓度和温度变化的特征。结果表明：电子温度越高,表面负带电电位越高,充电越严重,与此同时,双麦分布下等离子体两种电子组分的浓度比值对带电结果有重要影响。     

Comparison of pyrite thin films obtained from Fe and natural pyrite powder

Pyrite thin films have been prepared by two different procedures: by sulphurating thermally evaporated iron films and by flash evaporating natural FeS₂ powder. The structural, morphological, electrical and optical properties of both kinds of films are compared and the influence of the sulphuration conditions studied. The films directly evaporated from pyrite powder show higher absorption coefficients and better photoactive response than those prepared from iron. Sulphuration of the films is always required in order to improve the crystallinity and decrease the density of sulphur vacancies generated by these methods.     

传输线充电技术实现高功率亚纳秒电磁脉冲调制

 分析比较了阻抗匹配和失配情况下传输线充电的原理和波过程。分析结果表明：失配情况下的最大优点是能够实现脉冲功率增益。应用阻抗为27 W、长度为540 mm传输线为充电传输线和长度分别为30,45,60 mm、阻抗均为5 W传输线为被充电传输线进行了对比试验。实验结果表明：在距离辐射天线6 m处，输出辐射场强随低阻抗传输线长度增加而略有增加，最大辐射场强为49 kV/m,考虑气体开关的实际能量损耗，这与理论分析的充电电压和功率增益关系相吻合；长度为45 mm的5 W被充电传输线的输出脉冲前沿约210 ps,幅度约为150 kV。     

传输线充电技术实现高功率亚纳秒电磁脉冲调制

分析比较了阻抗匹配和失配情况下传输线充电的原理和波过程。分析结果表明：失配情况下的最大优点是能够实现脉冲功率增益。应用阻抗为27 W、长度为540 mm传输线为充电传输线和长度分别为30,45,60 mm、阻抗均为5 W传输线为被充电传输线进行了对比试验。实验结果表明：在距离辐射天线6 m处,输出辐射场强随低阻抗传输线长度增加而略有增加,最大辐射场强为49 kV/m,考虑气体开关的实际能量损耗,这与理论分析的充电电压和功率增益关系相吻合;长度为45 mm的5 W被充电传输线的输出脉冲前沿约210 ps,幅度约为150 kV。     

Semiconducting properties of pyrite

It is well known that Pyrite associated with Black Ore induces the severest difficulty among other constituents in the flotation process in mineral dressing. One of the possible reasons for this difficulty is related to its semiconducting properties which may affect surface conditions. We present here a study of the semiconducting properties of pyrite. Our calculations of the energy gap at various temperatures are shown to be in very good agreement with the experimental data. The Penn gap calculated using the Grimes-Cowley modification [1] of the Penn model has been shown to agree very well with the reflectivity data of Horita [2]. Using the Clausius-Mossotti relation, we calculate the electronic polarizability for pyrite. Also evaluated are the pressure and lattice parameter dependence of the energy gap. We predict the temperature of decomposition of natural pyrite in inert atmosphere from Mössbauer studies.     

Measurement of the surface charging of a plasma actuator using surface DBD

In order to quantify the surface charging of a plasma actuator using surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge, we propose a new equivalent circuit for this surface DBD and a new simple method allowing the measurement of the surface charging during the first half cycle and the discharging during the other half cycle. Using this method, we observed the temporal evolution of the total charge on the dielectric surface during an operation of a SDBD starting with positive cycle. We also observed the same phenomenon during an operation starting with a negative cycle. The comparison between these two observations suggests that the high electro-negativity of oxygen plays an important role in these discharges. Finally, we compare the total amount of charge transferred over a cycle under different experimental conditions and we find that the transfer is the lowest in oxygen and the highest in nitrogen.     

蓄冷球堆积床动态充冷性能模拟

根据蓄冷球和载冷剂之间的能量平衡,建立了蓄冷球堆积床充冷过程的数理模型。该模型考虑了载冷剂与蓄冷球之间的换热系数变化、载冷剂的导热、相变蓄冷材料的过冷度以及蓄冷球堆积床热损失的影响。采用数值计算方法模拟了蓄冷球堆积床的充冷过程,讨论了载冷剂入口温度、初始温度和流速对充冷过程蓄冷材料温度、载冷剂温度和蓄冰率的影响。     

High-resolution VUV spectroscopy using pulsed laser sources

The resonance spectroscopic techniques - level-crossing, optical double resonance and quantum-beat spectroscopy - have been employed following pulsed laser excitation. The use of pulsed lasers has enabled spectroscopic studies of atomic structures and radiative lifetimes in the UV/VUV spectral region.     

Replacing tracheoesophageal voicing sources using LPC synthesis

The feasibility of using the linear predictive coding (LPC) technique to replace the voicing sources of tracheoesophageal speech was explored. Four vowels, [i], [a], [e], [u], and one diphthong [ou], produced by two male and two female tracheoesophageal speakers were analyzed by the LPC autocorrelation method. Normalized prediction error functions were used to choose the algorithm and the control parameters of the analysis. Poles of the vocal tract transfer function were selected from frames whose normalized prediction errors were close to minimum with criteria derived from transfer functions of normally produced vowels. Vowels were synthesized with the reconstructed transfer function and a synthesized excitation input. Results of an identification task indicated that the synthesized vowels were highly intelligible, and the gender of the speaker was better identified from the synthesized vowels than from the original tracheoesophageal vowels.     

Quantum key distribution using quantum-correlated photon sources

Quantum key exchanges using weak coherent (Poissonian) single-photon sources are open to attack by a variety of eavesdropping techniques. Quantum-correlated photon sources provide a means of flagging potentially insecure multiple-photon emissions and thus extending the secure quantum key channel capacity and the secure key distribution range. We present indicative photon-counting statistics for a fully correlated Poissonian multibeam photon source in which the transmitted beam is conditioned by photon number measurements on the remaining beams with non-ideal multiphoton counters. We show that significant rejection of insecure photon pulses from a twin-beam source cannot be obtained with a detector having a realistic quantum efficiency. However quantum-correlated (quadruplet or octuplet) multiplet photon sources conditioned by high efficiency multiphoton counters could provide large improvements in the secure channel capacity and the secure distribution range of high loss systems such as those using the low earth orbit satellite links proposed for global quantum key distribution. Received 14 July and Received in final form 20 November 2001     

Equalization of acoustic source using multi-pole sources and source strength estimation using inverse method

Sound measured at various points around the environment can be evaluated by a series of multi-pole sources and their acoustic strength can be acquired. In this numerical study, a method, called the inverse method, was examined to achieve this goal. A variety of arrangements of different sources were considered and the acoustic strength of these sources was acquired. Through the application of the mismatch criterion, good conformity was observed between these sound models and the original sound. Furthermore, with regard to results, sound was generated via different source arrangements which showed acceptable agreement with the original sound. Finally, an arrangement named ‘sources vertical arrangement’ was selected as the best approach.