In situ deposition behavior of silica-based layers and its effect on thermal degradation of IN713 turbine blades during operation of a micro-gas turbine

This study examined the in situ deposition behavior of silica-based layers on IN713 turbine blades during the operation of a 13 kgf-class gas turbine at a rotation speed of 20,000/min as well as its effect on the degradation of the metallic substrate. Tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) was mixed with the fuel (liquid petroleum gas, LPG) and burned to generate silica-based coating precursors for deposition from the flame. Two deposition conditions were adopted. For condition 1 (C1), the silicon-to-carbon ratio in the mixed fuel was set at 0.1 mol% for the first 5 min and at zero mol% for the final 95 min in a 100-min operation. For condition 2 (C2), the ratio was set at 0.005 mol% during the entire 100 min operation. The total TEOS feed was the same under both conditions. C1 resulted in a rather uniform and thicker (5-10 μm on the pressure side) porous silica-based coating on the blade than C2. The in situ deposited layer of C1 was well preserved on the blade and protected the underlying metallic substrate from oxidation during the entire 100 min operation. The layer on the C2 blades was ∼5 μm thick at the region near to root, but was too thin in the other areas on the blade to be protective. The early build-up of a porous layer to an effective thickness on the blades produced a thermal barrier toward the substrate as well as a diffusion barrier toward the oxidizing elements during operation.     

Novel crystalline supramolecular assemblies of amorphous polypyrrole nanoparticles through surfactant templating

A lamellar-structured crystalline polypyrrole (PPy) supramolecular assembly was prepared by surfactant templating, and the regularly linked amorphous PPy nanoparticles with tunable window sizes could play the role of crystalline lattices in the supramolecular assembly.     

Atomic scale imaging and spectroscopy of a CuO(2) plane at the surface of Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta)

We have used a scanning tunneling microscope to demonstrate that a single CuO2 plane can form a stable and atomically ordered layer at the surface of Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+delta). In contrast to previous studies on high-T(c) surfaces, the CuO2-terminated surface exhibits a strongly suppressed tunneling conductance at low voltages. We consider a number of different explanations for this phenomena and propose that it may be caused by how the orbital symmetry of the CuO2 plane's electronic states affects the tunneling process.     

Non-nearest-neighbor jumps in 2D diffusion: Pd on W(110)

A variety of jumps has in the past been identified in diffusion of atoms on 1D channeled surfaces. To establish the jump processes important in diffusion on a 2D surface, the movement of individual Pd atoms has been examined on W(110). From the distribution of displacements of Pd at high temperatures, double jumps are found along the close-packed <111>. For the first time, sizable differences are also observed between the mean-square displacements along x and y, which demonstrate unexpected contributions from jumps along <110>, but not along <001>. These jumps proceed over activation barriers higher than for single jumps, under conditions predicted from previous work with Pd on the channeled W(211).     

Blood analysis by Raman spectroscopy

Concentrations of multiple analytes were simultaneously measured in whole blood with clinical accuracy, without sample processing, using near-infrared Raman spectroscopy. Spectra were acquired with an instrument employing nonimaging optics, designed using Monte Carlo simulations of the influence of light-scattering-absorbing blood cells on the excitation and emission of Raman light in turbid medium. Raman spectra were collected from whole blood drawn from 31 individuals. Quantitative predictions of glucose, urea, total protein, albumin, triglycerides, hematocrit, and hemoglobin were made by means of partial least-squares (PLS) analysis with clinically relevant precision (r(2) values >0.93). The similarity of the features of the PLS calibration spectra to those of the respective analyte spectra illustrates that the predictions are based on molecular information carried by the Raman light. This demonstrates the feasibility of using Raman spectroscopy for quantitative measurements of biomolecular contents in highly light-scattering and absorbing media.     

Neutral Higgs bosons in the MNMSSM with explicit CP violation

Within the framework of the minimal non-minimal supersymmetric standard model (MNMSSM) with tadpole terms, CP violation effects in the Higgs sector are investigated at the one-loop level, where the radiative corrections from the loops of the quark and squarks of the third generation are taken into account. Assuming that the squark masses are not degenerate, the radiative corrections due to the stop and sbottom quarks give rise to CP phases which trigger the CP violation explicitly in the Higgs sector of the MNMSSM. The masses, the branching ratios for dominant decay channels, and the total decay widths of the five neutral Higgs bosons in the MNMSSM are calculated in the presence of explicit CP violation. The dependence of these quantities on the CP phases is quite recognizable, for given parameter values.