Acoustic coupling between the loudspeaker and the resonator in a standing-wave thermoacoustic device

Thermoacoustic refrigerators work with high amplitude sound waves, which are often created using an acoustic source coupled to a resonator. This coupling can be calculated analytically using linear acoustic equations and a linear model of the loudspeaker. This paper makes a comparison between such a coupling and measurements obtained in a large-scale thermoacoustic resonator constructed at the University of Manchester. The resonator was driven from low to large pressure amplitudes, with drive ratios up to 10%. It is shown that a good agreement is obtained for small amplitudes and this progressively worsens as the amplitude is increased. In the absence of wave harmonics and loudspeaker nonlinearities, the increasing discrepancy is attributed to the presence of minor losses.     

Simultaneous determination of the ultrasound velocity and the thickness of solid plates from the analysis of thickness resonances using air-coupled ultrasound

A method that combines transmission of air-coupled ultrasound pulses through solid plates and amplitude and phase spectral analysis is presented. In particular, the method analyzes the first thickness resonance of the plates. The purpose is to determine, simultaneously, velocity and attenuation coefficient of the ultrasounds in the material and the thickness of the plate. This is especially useful when thickness can not be measured independently. The method is successfully applied to soft membranes, biological samples and FRP composites.     

Anticipative control of switched queueing systems

The relevant dynamics of a queueing process can be anticipated by taking future arrivals into account. If the transport from one queue to another is associated with transportation delays, as it is typical for traffic or productions networks, future arrivals to a queue are known over some time horizon and, thus, can be used for an anticipative control of the corresponding flows. A queue is controlled by switching its outflow between “on” and “off” similar to green and red traffic lights, where switching to “on” requires a non-zero setup time. Due to the presence of both continuous and discrete state variables, the queueing process is described as a hybrid dynamical system. From this formulation, we derive one observable of fundamental importance: the green time required to clear the queue. This quantity allows to detect switching time points for serving platoons without delay, i.e., in a “green wave” manner. Moreover, we quantify the cost of delaying the start of a service period or its termination in terms of additional waiting time. Our findings may serve as a basis for strategic control decisions.     

Characteristics of Si-doped Sb2Te3 thin films for phase-change random access memory

The characteristics of Si-doped Sb₂Te₃ thin films were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), four-point probe technique, X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). It is found that the as-deposited Sb₂Te₃ film in our study is partly crystallized. Silicon doping increases the crystallization temperature and resistivity of Sb₂Te₃ film significantly. XRD and HRTEM analyses indicated that some of the doped Si atoms substitute for Sb or Te in the lattice, while others exists at the grain boundaries in the form of amorphous phase, which may be responsible for grain size reduction and high crystalline resistivity of Si-doped specimens. Compared with the conventional Ge₂Sb₂Te₅ film, Si-doped Sb₂Te₃ films exhibit lower melting temperature and higher crystalline resistivity, which is beneficial to RESET current reduction of phase-change random access memory (PRAM). These results show the feasibility of Si-doped Sb₂Te₃ films in PRAM application.     

High-Pressure Phase Transition in Cyclo-octane

Structural behaviour of cyclo-octane under high pressure is studied by using a synchrotron x-ray source in a diamond anvil cell （DAC） up to 40.2 GPa at room temperature. The cyclo-octane firstly solidifies to the triclinic phase at 0.87 GPa. With the increasing pressure, the phase of cyclo-octane changes to the tetragonal phase at about 6.0 GPa and then transforms to amorphous phase above 18.2 GPa, which is kept till to 40.2 GPa. All the phase transitions of cyclo-octane are irreversible.     

Delayed feedback control of time-delayed chaotic systems: Analytical approach at Hopf bifurcation

This Letter is concerned with bifurcation and chaos control in scalar delayed differential equations with delay parameter τ. By linear stability analysis, the conditions under which a sequence of Hopf bifurcation occurs at the equilibrium points are obtained. The delayed feedback controller is used to stabilize unstable periodic orbits. To find the controller delay, it is chosen such that the Hopf bifurcation remains unchanged. Also, the controller feedback gain is determined such that the corresponding unstable periodic orbit becomes stable. Numerical simulations are used to verify the analytical results.     

A delay fractioning approach to global synchronization of delayed complex networks with stochastic disturbances

In this Letter, the synchronization problem is investigated for a class of stochastic complex networks with time delays. By utilizing a new Lyapunov functional form based on the idea of ‘delay fractioning’, we employ the stochastic analysis techniques and the properties of Kronecker product to establish delay-dependent synchronization criteria that guarantee the globally asymptotically mean-square synchronization of the addressed delayed networks with stochastic disturbances. These sufficient conditions, which are formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), can be solved efficiently by the LMI toolbox in Matlab. The main results are proved to be much less conservative and the conservatism could be reduced further as the number of delay fractioning gets bigger. A simulation example is exploited to demonstrate the advantage and applicability of the proposed result.     

The effect of time-delay on anomalous phase synchronization

Anomalous phase synchronization in nonidentical interacting oscillators is manifest as the increase of frequency disorder prior to synchronization. We show that this effect can be enhanced when a time-delay is included in the coupling. In systems of limit-cycle and chaotic oscillators we find that the regions of phase disorder and phase synchronization can be interwoven in the parameter space such that as a function of coupling or time-delay the system shows transitions from phase ordering to disorder and back.     

Optical properties of the alkaline-earth fluorohalides matlockite-type structure SrFX (X=Cl, Br, I) compounds

The optical properties of the SrFX (X=Cl, Br, I) compound have been reported using the full potential linearized augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) method as implemented in the WIEN2K code. We employed the generalized gradient approximation (GGA), which is based on exchange-correlation energy optimization to calculate the total energy. Also we have used the Engel-Vosko GGA formalism, which optimizes the corresponding potential for band structure calculations. Our calculations show that the valence band maximum (VBM) and conduction band minimum (CBM) are located at Γ resulting in a direct energy gap. We present calculations of the frequency-dependent complex dielectric function ε(ω) and its zero-frequency limit ε₁(0). We find that the value of ε₁(0) increases on decreasing the energy gap. The reflectivity spectra and absorption coefficient have been calculated and compared with the available experimental data.