Reaction of sodium amide with 1-chloromethylsilatrane

The reaction of 1-chloromethylsilatrane with sodium amide in benzene is accompanied by ring expansion with formation of 1-amino-2-carba-3-oxahomosilatrane.     

Damage and fracture evaluation of granular composite materials by digital image correlation method

This paper presents the applications of digital image correlation technique to the mesoscopic damage and fracture study of some granular based composite materials including steelfiber reinforced concrete, sandstone and crystal-polymer composite. The deformation fields of the composite materials resulted from stress localization were obtained by the correlation computation of the surface images with loading steps and thus the related damage prediction and fracture parameters were evaluated. The correlation searching could be performed either directly based on the gray levels of the digital images or from the wavelet transform (WT) coefficients of the transform spectrum. The latter was developed by the authors and showed higher resolution and sensitivity to the singularity detection. Because the displacement components came from the rough surfaces of the composite materials without any coats of gratings or fringes of optical interferometry, both surface profiles and the deformation fields of the composites were visualized which was helpful to compare each other to analyze the damage of those heterogeneous materials. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10125211 and 10072002), the Scientific Committee of Yunnan Province for the Program of Steel Fiber Reinforced Concrete, and the Institute of Chemical Materials, CAEP at Mianyang     

Dynamics of capture and fusion in heavy ion collisions

The effect of entrance channel on decrease of the complete fusion cross sections and on the yield of reaction products are associated with the quasifission which depends on the mass asymmetry and shell structure of colliding nuclei. In reactions of massive projectile and target nuclei, the competition between complete fusion and quasifission appears at the stage of compound nucleus formation, in addition to the increase of the fission probability. It is shown that the yield of quasifission products may be symmetric or asymmetric in dependence on peculiarities of shell structure of reaction fragments. Marima of mass or charge distributions are connected with the peculiarities of shell structure of reaction fragments.     

Phase Measurement Algorithm in Wavelength Scanned Fizeau Interferometer

Wavelength scanned interferometry allows the simultaneous measurement of top surface shape and optical thickness variation of a transparent object consisting of several parallel surfaces. Interference signals from these surfaces can be separated in frequency space, and their phases are detected by discrete Fourier analysis. However, these signal frequencies are shifted from the detection frequency by the refractive index dispersion of the object and a nonlinearity of the wavelength scanning. The Fourier analysis is sensitive to the detuning of the signal frequency and suffers from the multiple-beam interference noise. Conventional error-compensating algorithms cannot be applied to an object consisting of more than three reflecting surfaces. We derive a new 2N-1 sample error-compensating algorithm, which allows the phase detection of any order of harmonic frequency among the interference signals. The new algorithm suppresses the effect of signal frequency detuning as well as the multiple-beam interference noise and can be applied to the measurement of complex objects consisting of more than three reflecting surfaces.     

The 7th Asian Symposium on Visualization

The 7th Asian Symposium on Visualization (7ASV) was successfully held in Singapore from 3^rd to 7^th November 2003. This event was originally scheduled from 26^th to 30^th May 2003, but had to be postponed because of the outbreak of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in some parts of the world. A total number of 122 participants attended the Symposium of which, 107 were foreign participants from 16 countries (excluding Singapore) worldwide. There were 104 papers covering broad range of topics presented at the Symposium which were delivered in 2×7 long sessions, and 9 keynote papers.     

Basic principles of technological shaping of optical properties and radiation hardness of PWO crystals

Technological conditions ensuring growth of optically homogeneous lead tungstate (PWO) crystals are reported. It is shown that the basic scintillator characteristics of PWO grown from highly purified raw material and properly doped with lanthanides are mainly determined by inclusions of oxides W_1−yL_yO_3−x (L=Y, La, Gd; 0<x<0.3). Moreover, surface-located inclusions with structure close to tungstenite may also be of importance. It is demonstrated that the scintillation properties can be intentionally designed by varying the oxygen content in the inclusions x and the surface structure. The optimal value for x and the most favorable surface structure are achieved by proper thermal regimes and environment content during the crystal annealing. The results enabled low-cost fabrication of PWO scintillators with steady and reproducible characteristics acceptable for the CERN project ALICE and ensured production of PWO on an industrial scale by “North Crystals” company at a rate of 125–135 crystals per year from every growth apparatus.     

Luminescence properties of α-Al2O3 dosimetric crystals exposed to a high-current electron beam

The spectra of pulsed cathodoluminescence (PCL) and thermoluminescence (TL) in TLD-500 detectors, which were exposed to a strong beam from a pulsed electron accelerator, have been studied. Additional bands in the PCL spectrum and new peaks in the TL curves, which are due to impurity ions, have been revealed. Luminescence bands of F- and F⁺-centers cannot be used in the dosimetry of strong electron beams using TLD-500 detectors because of the saturation of dose dependence and the decrease in the TL yield. It is shown that high doses from these beams can be measured by recording TL in the luminescence band of impurity titanium ions.