The ALTO project at IPN-Orsay

The availability of both a tandem deuteron beam and a linac electron beam, the latter converted into Bremsstrahlung, at the new ALTO facility at IPN-Orsay offers a unique opportunity to compare the performance of a laser ion guide under different regimes. The ALTO accelerator has delivered its first electron beam at the end of 2005 and a design for a gas-cell prototype is being studied.     

Application of phased array techniques to coarse grain components inspection

Ultrasonic inspection of cast stainless steel components from primary and auxiliary cooling circuits of French Nuclear Power Plant has to face with major difficulties due to the coarse grained structure of these materials. Attenuation losses and structural noise are encountered, which limits the performances of defect detection ability, mostly in terms of degraded signal-to-noise ratio and poor sensitivity. To overcome such problems, theoretical and experimental studies have been achieved at the French Atomic Energy Commission, with support from the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety. Experimental studies have been performed over stainless steel specimen of known coarse structure (equiaxial grains and/or elongated grains), containing artificial reflectors (cylindrical holes and electro-eroded surface breaking notches). Those mock-ups have been inspected using contact probes of different array designs (linear or matrix splitting), and using pulse echo or dual-element techniques. Such arrays allow to control the ultrasonic beam so as to investigate different inspection angles and focusing depths. Experiments were carried out using oblique longitudinal waves, using delay laws computed by a specific model, taking account of acoustical and geometrical properties of the probes and the inspected component. In addition, specific reconstruction techniques have been investigated to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio as well as spatial resolution. These techniques are based on beam-forming summation and multi-angle inspections. Experimental results show that such techniques allow to reduce the speckle noise and to optimise the beam resolution. Those increased performances allow to detect and to size small planar defects located at the inner wall of a thick specimen, using corner and tip diffraction echoes.     

Structure and growth kinetics of the oxidation process of Fe(001) whisker surfaces over a 10-decade pressure range

Fe(001) surfaces of whiskers of good crystalline quality were oxidized in a pressure range from 10^? 7 mbar to 1 bar at different temperatures. Epitaxial Fe₃O₄ and FeO thin films with negligible strain were grown depending on the oxidation temperatures. The kinetics of the oxide thickness growth was measured and compared with the predictions of the Fromhold–Cook theory for oxidation of metals. Some discrepancies were found and a possible explanation is presented.     

Positive value of information in games

We exhibit a general class of interactive decision situations in which all the agents benefit from more information. This class includes as a special case the classical comparison of statistical experiments à la Blackwell. AMS 2000 Subject Classification:Primary 91A35.The work of Bruno Bassan and Marco Scarsini was partially supported by MIUR-COFIN. The authors express their thanks to Sylvain Sorin for enlightening comments.     

Analytical approach for CRLH-based antennas design

This paper presents an analytical model for CRLH (Composite Right-Left Handed) antennas preliminary design. The objective of this work is to develop a tool to estimate quickly the scattering and radiating characteristics of these CRLH-based structures. The analytical model provides thus a set of parameters which roughly fulfill desired requirements. Afterwards, the antenna designer can refine the CRLH-based antenna performances with full 3D electromagnetic simulation software.     

Experimental study of a confined premixed metal combustor: Metal flame stabilization dynamics and nitrogen oxides production

This work presents a study of a magnesium/air combustion process in the context of innovative zero carbon dioxide (CO₂) energy carriers for reducing global warming effects. In order to analyze more deeply the confined combustion of magnesium under fluctuating overpressure conditions (0 to 24 hPa) and the generated gaseous by-products, magnesium/air flames have been realized in a combustion chamber with a conical bluff-body as flame holder and different contraction ratios diaphragms at the exit duct. Sieved magnesium samples with two size-fractions were tested: 20–50?µm and 50–70?µm. The gaseous emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) and dioxygen (O₂) were analyzed with on-line infrared, ultraviolet and paramagnetic analyzers. A flame pulsating behavior was clearly observed from light emission intensity (monitored by a photodiode) and pressure fluctuations (monitored by a pressure sensor); the frequencies obtained ranged between 3 and 10?Hz. The frequency of the pulsation exhibited strong dependence on the geometric configuration of the chamber: a contraction diaphragm divided by two the frequency level of the fluctuations in the studied range of maximum overpressure. Such fluctuations may probably be the consequence of periodic perturbations of the recirculation zone behind the bluff-body. These periodic perturbations are themselves caused by strong periodic overpressure variations due to stiff contraction downstream responding to gas velocity fluctuations. This feed-back-loop mechanism was considered in this study. NO_x emissions produced through the thermal pathway were analyzed for equivalence ratios ranging from 0.29 to 1. The representation of NO_x versus equivalence ratio exhibited a parabolic shape with a maximum for an equivalence ratio of 0.4. Moreover, NO_x emissions of this metal combustor have shown a similar order of magnitude than current internal combustion engines.     

Casimir force in dense confined electrolytes

ABSTRACT

Understanding the force between charged surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution is a classic problem in soft matter and liquid-state theory. Recent experiments showed that the force decays exponentially but the characteristic decay length in a concentrated electrolyte is significantly larger than what liquid-state theories predict based on analysing correlation functions in the bulk electrolyte. Inspired by the classical Casimir effect, we consider an additional mechanism for force generation, namely the confinement of density fluctuations in the electrolyte by the walls. We show analytically within the random phase approximation, which assumes the ions to be point charges, that this fluctuation-induced force is attractive and also decays exponentially, albeit with a decay length that is half of the bulk correlation length. These predictions change dramatically when excluded volume effects are accounted for within the mean spherical approximation. At high ion concentrations the Casimir force is found to be exponentially damped oscillatory as a function of the distance between the confining surfaces. Our analysis does not resolve the riddle of the anomalously long screening length observed in experiments, but suggests that the Casimir force due to mode restriction in density fluctuations could be an hitherto under-appreciated source of surface–surface interaction.