Application of pressure sensitive paint measurement to a low-solidity cascade diffuser of a transonic centrifugal compressor

A pressure sensitive paint (PSP) measurement has been known as a pressure field measurement technique based on the oxygen quenching phenomenon of luminescence of specific luminophores. A PSP measurement was applied for pressure field measurement in a low-solidity circular cascade diffuser of a single-stage transonic centrifugal compressor with 5 in pressure ratio for HFC134a gas. The oxygen concentration was about 500 ppm. Ru (bath-phen) was adsorbed on a silica-gel thinlayer chromatography sheet, and the sheet was pasted onto the side-wall between the cascade vanes. A drastic change in luminescent intensity was recognized during a surge condition. Also the pressure variations based on luminescent intensity agreed well with the pressure fluctuations measured using a semiconductor pressure sensor with high-frequency-response. It was shown that a PSP measurement worked well to investigate the unsteady pressure fields in a circular cascade diffuser of a transonic centrifugal compressor. Moreover, the time response of PSP becomes clear as a problem to be overcome for the present.     

Free stream turbulence effect on the flow structure over the finite span straight wing

Flow visualization tests have been performed to examine the structure of the near-wall flow over a low-aspect ratio straight wing installed at various angles of attack a and chord Reynolds numberRe _c=U_∞c/ν=1.76×10⁵. The experiments were carried out at two free-stream turbulence levels, ε=0.1% and ε=1%, the latter one having been achieved using a baffling grid. To visualize the flow, termochromic cholesteric liquid crystals and digital processing of video images were used. At the low turbulence level and α=27°, a flow stall on the lee side of the wing was observed, with a pair of largescale vortices rotating in the wing plane. Simultaneously, no vortex structures were observed on the windward wing surface. It was found the flow patterns on either side of the wing significantly changed with increasing free-stream turbulence level. A separation bubble appeared near the leading edge on the lee side of the airfoil at ε=1%, and large-scale stationary longitudinal vortices originated over the wing windward surface. The number and sizes of the longitudinal structures were found to be dependent on the angle of attack.     

Magnetic resonance imaging of rigid polymers at elevated temperatures with SPRITE

Magnetic resonance imaging has rarely been applied to rigid polymeric materials, due primarily to the strong dipolar coupling and short signal lifetimes inherent in these materials. SPRITE (single point ramped imaging withT ₁ enhancement) (B. J. Balcom, R. P. MacGregor, S. D. Beyea, D. P. Green, R. L. Armstrong, T. W. Bremner: J. Magn. Reson. A123, 131–134, 1996) is particularly well suited to imaging solid materials. With SPRITE, the only requirement is thatT ₂^* be long enough so that the signal can be phase-encoded. The minimum phase encoding time is limited by the maximum gradient strength available and by the instrument deadtime. At present this is usually tens of microseconds and will only improve with refinements in technology. We have used the SPRITE sequence in conjunction with raising the sample temperature to obtain images of rigid polymers that have largely frustrated conventional imaging methods. This approach provides a straightforward and reliable method for imaging a class of samples that, up until now, have been very difficult to image.     

Renormalization Group Method Applied to Kinetic Equations: Roles of Initial Values and Time

The so-called renormalization group (RG) method is applied to derive kinetic and transport equations from the respective microscopic equations. The derived equations include the Boltzmann equation in classical mechanics, the Fokker-Planck equation, and a rate equation in a quantum field theoretical model. Utilizing the formulation of the RG method which elucidates the important role played by the choice of the initial conditions, the general structure and the underlying assumptions in the derivation of kinetic equations in the RG method are clarified. It is shown that the present formulation naturally leads to the choice for the initial value of the microscopic distribution function at arbitrary time t₀ to be on the averaged distribution function to be determined. The averaged distribution function may be thought of as an integral constant of the solution of the microscopic evolution equation; the RG equation gives the slow dynamics of the would-be initial constant, which is actually the kinetic equation governing the averaged distribution function. It is further shown that the averaging as given above gives rise to a coarse-graining of the time-derivative which is expressed with the initial time t₀, and thereby leads to time-irreversible equations even from a time-reversible equation. It is shown that a further reduction of the Boltzmann equation to fluid dynamical equations and the adiabatic elimination of fast variables in the Fokker-Planck equation are also performed in a unified way in the present method.     

Structural-acoustic coupling effect on the nonlinear natural frequency of a rectangular box with one flexible plate

The nonlinear natural frequency of a rectangular box, which consists of one flexible plate and five rigid plates, is studied in this paper. The flexible plate is assumed to vibrate like a simple piston. The behavior of the structural-acoustic coupling between the flexible plate and the air cavity is analyzed by using the proposed finite element modal method. The system finite element equation is reduced and expressed in terms of the modal coordinates with small degrees of freedom by using the proposed reduction method. The system nonlinear stiffness matrix representing the large amplitude vibration can be transformed to be a constant modal matrix. The natural frequencies are determined by using the harmonic balance method to solve the eigenvalue equations of the structural-acoustic system. The effect of the cavity depth on the natural frequencies and convergence studies are discussed in detail.     

Temperature dependence of excitonic luminescence from nanocrystalline ZnO films

The properties of the excitonic luminescence for nanocrystalline ZnO thin films are investigated by using the dependence of excitonic photoluminescence (PL) spectra on temperature. The ZnO thin films are prepared by thermal oxidation of ZnS films prepared by low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD) technique. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) indicates that ZnO thin films have a polycrystalline hexagonal wurtzite structure with a preferred (0 0 2) orientation. A strong ultraviolet (UV) emission peak at 3.26 eV is observed, while the deep-level emission band is barely observable at room temperature. The strength of the exciton-longitudinal-optical (LO) phonon coupling is deduced from the temperature dependence of the full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of the fundamental excitonic peak, decrease in exciton-longitudinal-optical (LO) phonon coupling strength is due to the quantum confinement effect.     

Relationship between chemical bond parameters and superconducting temperature in HgBa2Can−1CunO2n+2+δ (n=1, 2, 3, 4)

Bond covalency and valence of elements in HgBa₂Ca_n−1Cu_nO_2n+2+δ (n=1, 2, 3, 4) were calculated and their relationship with T_c was discussed. For both oxygen and argon annealed samples, the results indicated that with the increase of n, the trend of bond covalency of Hg-O and Cu-O was the same or opposite compared with that of superconducting temperature. This may suggest that the magnitudes of Cu-O and Hg-O bond covalency are important in governing the superconducting temperature. For the highest T_c sample, Hg had the lowest valence, implying that lower valence of Hg was preferred in order to produce higher T_c. For fixed n, the valence of Cu in oxygen annealed samples was larger than that in argon annealed samples, indicating that oxygen annealed samples produced more carriers than argon annealed samples.     

An efficient lasing action from pyrromethene 556 dye-doped organically modified silicates

Organically modified solid-state silicates (ORMOSILS) doped with a new laser dye 1,3,5,7,8-pentamethylpyrromethene-2,6-disulfonate-BF₂ complex (pyrromethene 556) have been synthesized by a sol-gel method and the compositional effects on pore characteristics, fluorescence and lasing properties have been investigated. It is found that the use of dimethylsulfoxide and γ-glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane could greatly change the structure properties of sol-gel derived ORMOSILS cage, and thus the fluorescence and lasing properties of the materials could improve significantly. A successful laser oscillation from this dye-doped ORMOSILS sample has been achieved upon pumping with a Q-switched frequency-doubled Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm. A slope efficiency of 54% with a useful lifetime greater than 10,000 shots has been demonstrated at a pump repetition rate of 1 Hz and a pump intensity of 1 J/cm² by using the new ORMOSILS cage on our newly designed laser system. Our results have shown that it is possible to obtain a high-efficiency with a long-lifetime for a compact new laser device by low cost dye-doped solid-state ORMOSILS.     

A fast calculation of excitation autoionization cross-sections of Na-like ions

In this work, based on the calculation in detail, two new fitting formulae of total excitation and excitation autoionization cross-sections for Na-like ions (18?Z?39) are given. For discussing the variation of the total excitation autoionization cross-section, a systematic study of the dependence of the overall branching ratio on incident electron energy and nuclear charge is also carried out.