Experimentation validated a simple moisture conditioning scheme to prepare Gr/Ep composite parts for precision applications by measuring dimensional changes over 90 days. It was shown that an elevated temperature moisture conditioning scheme produced a dimensionally stable part from which precision structures could be built/machined without significant moisture induced dimensional changes after fabrication. Conversely, that unconditioned Gr/Ep composite panels exhibited unacceptably large dimensional changes (i.e., greater than 125 ppM). It was also shown that time required to produce stable parts was shorter, by more than an order of magnitude, employing the conditioning scheme than using no conditioning scheme (46 days versus 1000+ days). Two final use environments were chosen for the experiments: 50% RH/21C and 0% RH/21C. Fiberite 3034K was chosen for its widespread use in aerospace applications. Two typical lay-ups were chosen, one with low sensitivity to hygrothermal distortions and the other high sensitivity: [0, {plus_minus} 45, 90]s, [0, {plus_minus} 15, 0]s. By employing an elevated temperature, constant humidity conditioning scheme, test panels achieved an equilibrium moisture content in less time, by more than an order of magnitude, than panels exposed to the same humidity environment and ambient temperature. Dimensional changes, over 90 days, were up to 4 times lower …

This has application to astronomy and astrophysics. Selenium in Ge has been studied with a doping technique which limits complex formation. Only one ionization level has been found to correspond to selenium, which presumably occupies a substitutional site. This level is extremely unstable and its concentration decreases after annealing at 400C. Future work is planned to anneal the fast neutron damage before much selenium has formed in the {sup 74/76}Ge samples. It is expected that the observed selenium level can be better characterized and the missing selenium level is more likely to be discovered if other defects are removed before {sup 77}Se formation.

The availability of high resolution digital images of borehole walls using the Borehole Scanner System has made it possible to develop new methods of in-situ rock characterization. This thesis addresses particularly new approaches to the characterization of in-situ joint strength arising from surface roughness. An image processing technique is used to extract the roughness profile from joints in the unrolled image of the borehole wall. A method for estimating in-situ Rengers envelopes using this data is presented along with results from using the method on joints in a borehole in porphyritic granite. Next, an analysis of the joint dilation angle anisotropy is described and applied to the porphyritic granite joints. The results indicate that the dilation angle of the joints studied are anisotropic at small scales and tend to reflect joint waviness as scale increases. A procedure to unroll the opposing roughness profiles to obtain a two dimensional sample is presented. The measurement of apertures during this process is shown to produce an error which increases with the dip of the joint. The two dimensional sample of opposing profiles is used in a new kinematic analysis of the joint shear stress-shear deformation behavior. Examples of applying these methods on the …

The research illustrated in this thesis was performed under the guidance of Professor Dennis C. Johnson beginning in March 1987. Chapter 2 concentrates on the development and electrocatalytic properties of iron-doped {beta}-PbO{sub 2} films on noble-metal substrates. Chapter 3 focuses attention on the preparation and characterization of iron-doped {beta}-PbO{sub 2} films on titanium substrates (Fe-PbO{sub 2}/Ti). Chapter 4 discusses anodic evolution of ozone at Fe-PbO{sub 2}/Ti electrodes. Chapter 5 describes electrochemical incineration of p-benzoquinone (BQ) at Fe-PbO{sub 2}/Ti electrodes. In addition, the Appendix includes another published paper which is a detailed study of {alpha}-PbO{sub 2} films deposited on various types of stainless steel substrates.

One of the key engineered barriers in the design of the proposed Yucca Mountain repository is the waste canister that encapsulates the spent fuel elements. Current candidate metals for the canisters to be emplaced at Yucca Mountain include cast iron, carbon steel, Incoloy 825 and titanium code-12. This project was designed to evaluate passive electrochemical noise techniques for measuring pitting and corrosion characteristics of candidate materials under prototypical repository conditions. Experimental techniques were also developed and optimized for measurements in a radiation environment. These techniques provide a new method for understanding material response to environmental effects (i.e., gamma radiation, temperature, solution chemistry) through the measurement of electrochemical noise generated during the corrosion of the metal surface. In addition, because of the passive nature of the measurement the technique could offer a means of in-situ monitoring of barrier performance.

Results of this thesis show that STM measurements can provide information about the surfaces and their adsorbates. Stability of Pt(110) under high pressures of H2, O2, and CO was studied (Chap. 4). In situ UHV and high vacuum experiments were carried out for sulfur on Pt(111) (Chap.5). STM studies of CO/S/Pt(111) in high CO pressures showed that the Pt substrate undergoes a stacking-fault-domain reconstruction involving periodic transitions from fcc to hcp stacking of top-layer atoms (Chap.6). In Chap.7, the stability of propylene on Pt(111) and the decomposition products were studied in situ with the HPSTM. Finally, in Chap.8, results are presented which show how the Pt tip of the HPSTM was used to locally rehydrogenate and oxidize carbonaceous clusters deposited on the Pt(111) surface; the Pt tip acted as a catalyst after activation by short voltage pulses.

In this work, a measurement of the strong coupling constant {alpha}{sub s} in e{sup +}e{sup {minus}} annihilation at a center-of-mass energy of 91.6 GeV is presented. The measurement was performed with the SLD at the Stanford Linear Collider facility located at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California. The procedure used consisted of measuring the rate of hard gluon radiation from the primary quarks in a sample of 9,878 hadronic events. After defining the asymptotic manifestation of partons as `jets`, various phenomenological models were used to correct for the hadronization process. A value for the QCD scale parameter {Lambda}{sub bar MS}, defined in the {sub bar MS} renormalization convention with 5 active quark flavors, was then obtained by a direct fit to O({alpha}{sub s}{sup 2}) calculations. The value of {alpha}{sub s} obtained was {alpha}{sub s}(M{sub z0}) = 0.122 {plus_minus} 0.004 {sub {minus}0.007} {sup +0.008} where the uncertainties are experimental (combined statistical and systematic) and theoretical (systematic) respectively. Equivalently, {Lambda}{sub bar MS} = 0.28 {sub {minus}0.10}{sup +0.16} GeV where the experimental and theoretical uncertainties have been combined.

Focus of the study is C acceptor doping of GaAs, since C diffusion coefficient is at least one order of magnitude lower than that of other common p-type dopants in GaAs. C ion implantation results in a concentration of free holes in the valence band < 10% of that of the implanted C atoms for doses > 10{sup 14}/cm{sup 2}. Rutherford backscattering, electrical measurements, Raman spectroscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy were amonth the techniques used. Ga co-implantation increased the C activation in two steps: first, the additional radiation damage creates vacant As sites that the implanted C can occupy, and second, it maintains the stoichiometry of the implanted layer, reducing the number of compensating native defects. In InP, the behavior of C was different from that in GaAs. C acts as n-type dopant in the In site; however, its incorporation by implantation was difficult to control; experiments using P co-implants were inconsistent. The lattice position of inactive C in GaAs in implanted and epitaxial layers is discussed; evidence for formation of C precipitates in GaAs and InP was found. Correlation of the results with literature on C doping in III-V semiconductors led to a phenomenological description of C in …

Carbon monoxide oxidation was performed over the three different oxidation states of copper -- metallic (Cu), copper (I) oxide (Cu{sub 2}O), and copper (II) oxide (CuO) as a test case for developing a model metal oxide catalyst amenable to study by the methods of modern surface science and catalysis. Copper was deposited and oxidized on oxidized supports of aluminum, silicon, molybdenum, tantalum, stainless steel, and iron as well as on graphite. The catalytic activity was found to decrease with increasing oxidation state (Cu > Cu{sub 2}O > CuO) and the activation energy increased with increasing oxidation state (Cu, 9 kcal/mol < Cu{sub 2}O, 14 kcal/mol < CuO, 17 kcal/mol). Reaction mechanisms were determined for the different oxidation states. Lastly, NO reduction by CO was studied. A Cu and CuO catalyst were exposed to an equal mixture of CO and NO at 300--350 C to observe the production of N{sub 2} and CO{sub 2}. At the end of each reaction, the catalyst was found to be Cu{sub 2}O. There is a need to study the kinetics of this reaction over the different oxidation states of copper.

We have measured and assigned rate constants for energy transfer between chromophores in the light-harvesting protein C-phycocyanin (PC), in the monomeric and trimeric aggregation states, isolated from Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002. In order to compare the measured rate constants with those predicted by Fdrster`s theory of inductive resonance in the weak coupling limit, we have experimentally resolved several properties of the three chromophore types ({beta}{sub 155} {alpha}{sub 84}, {beta}{sub 84}) found in PC monomers, including absorption and fluorescence spectra, extinction coefficients, fluorescence quantum yields, and fluorescence lifetimes. The cpcB/C155S mutant, whose PC is missing the {beta}{sub 155} chromophore, was, useful in effecting the resolution of the chromophore properties and in assigning the experimentally observed rate constants for energy transfer to specific pathways.

Many granular materials, including sedimentary rocks and soils, contain clay particles in the pores, grain contacts, or matrix. The amount and location of the clays and fluids can influence the mechanical and hydraulic properties of the granular material. This research investigated the mechanical effects of clay at grain-to-grain contacts in the presence of different fluids. Laboratory seismic wave propagation tests were conducted at ultrasonic frequencies using spherical glass beads coated with Montmorillonite clay (SWy-1) onto which different fluids were adsorbed. For all bead samples, seismic velocity increased and attenuation decreased as the contact stiffnesses increased with increasing stress demonstrating that grain contacts control seismic transmission in poorly consolidated and unconsolidated granular material. Coating the beads with clay added stiffness and introduced viscosity to the mechanical contact properties that increased the velocity and attenuation of the propagating seismic wave. Clay-fluid interactions were studied by allowing the clay coating to absorb water, ethyl alcohol, and hexadecane. Increasing water amounts initially increased seismic attenuation due to clay swelling at the contacts. Attenuation decreased for higher water amounts where the clay exceeded the plastic limit and was forced from the contact areas into the surrounding open pore space during sample consolidation. This work investigates …

The Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) aboard the COBE satellite has detected anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. A two-point correlation function analysis which helped lead to this discovery is presented in detail. The results of a correlation function analysis of the two year DMR data set is presented. The first and second year data sets are compared and found to be reasonably consistent. The positive correlation for separation angles less than {approximately}20{degree} is robust to Galactic latitude cuts and is very stable from year to year. The Galactic latitude cut independence of the correlation function is strong evidence that the signal is not Galactic in origin. The statistical significance of the structure seen in the correlation function of the first, second and two year maps is respectively > 9{sigma}, > 10{sigma} and > 18{sigma} above the noise. The noise in the DMR sky maps is correlated at a low level. The structure of the pixel temperature covariance matrix is given. The noise covariance matrix of a DMR sky map is diagonal to an accuracy of better than 1%. For a given sky pixel, the dominant noise covariance occurs with the ring of pixels at an angular separation of …

Crosswell electromagnetic measurements are a promising new geophysical technique for mapping subsurface electrical conductivity which can provide information about the subsurface distribution of water, oil or steam. In this work the fields from a low frequency vertical magnetic dipole have been examined from the specific point of view of their application to the determination of the conductivity of a layered medium. The source and the receiver were placed inside two separate boreholes. The range of penetration of such a crosswell system for typical earth resistivities and for currently available transmitter and receiver technologies was found to be up to 1,000 meters so problems in ground water and petroleum reservoir characteristics can be practically examined. An analysis of the behavior of the magnetic fields at the boundary between two half-spaces showed that the horizontal magnetic field component, H{rho}, and the vertical derivative of a vertical component, {delta}H{sub z}/{delta}z, are more sensitive to conductivity variations than H{sub z}. The analysis of derivatives led to the concept of measuring the conductivity directly using a second vertical derivative of H{sub z}. Conductivity profiles interpreted from field data using this technique reproduced accurately the electrical logs for a test site near Devine, Texas. It was …

With the volume of software in production use dramatically increasing, the importance of software maintenance has become strikingly apparent. Techniques now sought and developed for reverse engineering and design extraction and recovery. At present, numerous commercial products and research tools exist which are capable of visualizing a variety of programming languages and software constructs. The list of new tools and services continues to grow rapidly. Although the scope of the existing commercial and academic product set is quite broad, these tools still share a common underlying problem. The ability of each tool to visually organize object representations is increasingly impaired as the number of components and component dependencies within systems increases. Regardless of how objects are defined, complex ``spaghetti`` networks result in nearly all large system cases. While this problem is immediately apparent in modem systems analysis involving large software implementations, it is not new. As will be discussed in Chapter 2, related problems involving the theory of graphs were identified long ago. This important theoretical foundation provides a useful vehicle for representing and analyzing complex system structures. While the utility of directed graph based concepts in software tool design has been demonstrated in literature, these tools still lack the …

A twenty barrel hydrogen pellet injector has been designed, built and tested both in the laboratory and on the Alcator C-Mod Tokamak at MIT. The injector functions by firing pellets of frozen hydrogen or deuterium deep into the plasma discharge for the purpose of fueling the plasma, modifying the density profile and increasing the global energy confinement time. The design goals of the injector are: (1) Operational flexibility, (2) High reliability, (3) Remote operation with minimal maintenance. These requirements have lead to a single stage, pipe gun design with twenty barrels. Pellets are formed by in- situ condensation of the fuel gas, thus avoiding moving parts at cryogenic temperatures. The injector is the first to dispense with the need for cryogenic fluids and instead uses a closed cycle refrigerator to cool the thermal system components. The twenty barrels of the injector produce pellets of four different size groups and allow for a high degree of flexibility in fueling experiments. Operation of the injector is under PLC control allowing for remote operation, interlocked safety features and automated pellet manufacturing. The injector has been extrusively tested and shown to produce pellets reliably with velocities up to 1400 m/sec. During the period from …

Thousands of wildland firefighters are exposed to high levels of toxic materials every year. Carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and acrolein gases, along with high particulate concentrations, are the major toxics encountered. Currently, the only respiratory protection wildland firefighters use is a bandanna over the mouth and nose. In this study, a modem activated carbon cartridge with an electrostatic prefilter was compared to a typical bandanna for its ability to filter wildland smoke toxics such as formaldehyde and particulates. The results of the tests were disappointing; neither filter performed very well. The activated carbon cartridge and prefilter efficiently collected formaldehyde gas for up to 60 minutes; however, it only collected 85 percent of the challenge particulate. ]Me bandanna, as expected, was only partially effective at collecting smoke particulate and filtered no toxic gases.

A discrete variable representation (DVR) suitable for treating the quantum scattering of a low energy electron from a hydrogen atom is presented. The benefits of DVR techniques (e.g. the removal of the requirement of calculating multidimensional potential energy matrix elements and the availability of iterative sparse matrix diagonalization/inversion algorithms) have for many years been applied successfully to studies of quantum molecular scattering. Unfortunately, the presence of a Coulomb singularity at the electrically unshielded center of a hydrogen atom requires high radial grid point densities in this region of the scattering coordinate, while the presence of finite kinetic energy in the asymptotic scattering electron also requires a sufficiently large radial grid point density at moderate distances from the nucleus. The constraints imposed by these two length scales have made application of current DVR methods to this scattering event difficult.

The nature of fast electron generation and transport in the Madison Symmetric Torus (MST) reversed field pinch (RFP) is investigated using two electron energy analyzer (EEA) probes and a thermocouple calorimeter. The parallel velocity distribution of the fast electron population is well fit by a drifted Maxwellian distribution with temperature of about 100 eV and drift velocity of about 2 {times} 10{sup 6} m/s. Cross-calibration of the EEA with the calorimeter provides a measurement of the fast electron perpendicular temperature of 30 eV, much lower than the parallel temperature, and is evidence that the kinetic dynamo mechanism (KDT) is not operative in MST. The fast electron current is found to match to the parallel current at the edge, and the fast electron density is about 4 {times} 10{sup 11} cm{sup {minus}3} independent of the ratio of the applied toroidal electric field to the critical electric field for runaways. First time measurements of magnetic fluctuation induced particle transport are reported. By correlating electron current fluctuations with radial magnetic fluctuations the transported flux of electrons is found to be negligible outside r/a{approximately}0.9, but rises the level of the expected total particle losses inside r/a{approximately}0.85. A comparison of the measured diffusion coefficient is …

Under laboratory conditions selected to maximize root uptake, plant tissue distribution of PAH-derived {sup 14}C was largely limited to root tissue of Malilotus alba. These results suggest that plant uptake of PAHs from contaminated soil via roots, and translocation to aboveground plant tissues (stems and leaves), is a limited mechanism for transport into terrestrial food chains. However, these data also indicate that root surface sorption of PAHs may be important for plants grown in soils containing elevated concentration PAHs. Root surface sorption of PAHs may be an important route of exposure for plants in soils containing elevated concentrations of PAHS. Consequently, the root-soil interface may be the site of plant-microbial interactions in response to a chemical stress. In this study, evidence of a shift in carbon allocation to the root zone of plants exposed to phenanthrene and corresponding increases in soil respiration and heterotrophic plate counts provide evidence of a plant-microbial response to a chemical stress. The results of this study establish the importance of the root-soil interface for plants growing in PAH contaminated soil and indicate the existence of plant-microbial interactions in response to a chemical stress. These results may provide new avenues of inquiry for studies of plant …

We introduce several ways in which approximate flavor symmetries act on fermions and which are consistent with observed fermion masses and mixings. Flavor changing interactions mediated by new scalars appear as a consequence of approximate flavor symmetries. We discuss the experimental limits on masses of the new scalars, and show that the masses can easily be of the order of weak scale. Some implications for neutrino physics are also discussed. Such flavor changing interactions would easily erase any primordial baryon asymmetry. We show that this situation can be saved by simply adding a new charged particle with its own asymmetry. The neutrality of the Universe, together with sphaleron processes, then ensures a survival of baryon asymmetry. Several topics on flavor structure of the supersymmetric grand unified theories are discussed. First, we show that the successful predictions for the Kobayashi-Maskawa mixing matrix elements, V{sub ub}/V{sub cb} = {radical}m{sub u}/m{sub c} and V{sub td}/V{sub ts} = {radical}m{sub d}/m{sub s}, are a consequence of a large class of models, rather than specific properties of a few models. Second, we discuss how the recent observation of the decay {beta} {yields} s{gamma} constrains the parameter space when the ratio of the vacuum expectation values of …

The performance of Japanese products in the marketplace points to the dominant role of quality in product competition. Our focus is motivated by the tremendous pressure to improve conformance quality by reducing defects to previously unimaginable limits in the range of 1 to 10 parts per million. Toward this end, we have developed a new model of conformance quality that addresses each of the three principle defect sources: (1) Variation, (2) Human Error, and (3) Complexity. Although the role of variation in conformance quality is well documented, errors occur so infrequently that their significance is not well known. We have shown that statistical methods are not useful in characterizing and controlling errors, the most common source of defects. Excessive complexity is also a root source of defects, since it increases errors and variation defects. A missing link in the defining a global model has been the lack of a sound correlation between complexity and defects. We have used Design for Assembly (DFA) methods to quantify assembly complexity and have shown that assembly times can be described in terms of the Pareto distribution in a clear exception to the Central Limit Theorem. Within individual companies we have found defects to be …

The analysis of light-cone wavefunctions seems the most promising theoretical approach to a detailed understanding of the structure of relativistic bound states, particularly hadrons. However, there are numerous complications in this approach. Most importantly, the light-cone approach sacrifices manifest rotational invariance in exchange for the elimination of negative-energy states. The requirement of rotational invariance of the full theory places important constraints on proposed light-cone wavefunctions, whether they are modelled or extracted from some numerical procedure. A formulation of the consequences of the hidden rotational symmetry has been sought for some time; it is presented in Chapter 2. In lattice gauge theory or heavy-quark effective theory, much of the focus is on the extraction of numerical values of operators which are related to the hadronic wavefunction. These operators are to some extent interdependent, with relations induced by fundamental constraints on the underlying wavefunction. The consequences of the requirement of unitarity are explored in Chapter 3, and are found to have startling phenomenological relevance. To test model light-cone wavefunctions, experimental predictions must be made. The reliability of perturbative QCD as a tool for making such predictions has been questioned. In Chapter 4, the author presents a computation of the rates for nucleon-antinucleon …

The isotopic production cross sections and momenta of all residues with nuclear charge (Z) greater than 39 from the reaction of 26, 40, and 50 MeV/nucleon {sup 129}Xe + Be, C, and Al were measured. The isotopic cross sections, the momentum distribution for each isotope, and the cross section as a function of nuclear charge and momentum are presented here. The new cross sections are consistent with previous measurements of the cross sections from similar reaction systems. The shape of the cross section distribution, when considered as a function of Z and velocity, was found to be qualitatively consistent with that expected from an incomplete fusion reaction mechanism. An incomplete fusion model coupled to a statistical decay model is able to reproduce many features of these reactions: the shapes of the elemental cross section distributions, the emission velocity distributions for the intermediate mass fragments, and the Z versus velocity distributions. This model gives a less satisfactory prediction of the momentum distribution for each isotope. A very different model based on the Boltzman-Nordheim-Vlasov equation and which was also coupled to a statistical decay model reproduces many features of these reactions: the shapes of the elemental cross section distributions, the intermediate mass …

The process of high order harmonic generation in atomic gases has shown great promise as a method of generating extremely short wavelength radiation, extending far into the extreme ultraviolet (XUV). The process is conceptually simple. A very intense laser pulse (I {approximately}10{sup 13}-10{sup 14} W/cm{sup 2}) is focused into a dense ({approximately}10{sup l7} particles/cm{sup 3}) atomic medium, causing the atoms to become polarized. These atomic dipoles are then coherently driven by the laser field and begin to radiate at odd harmonics of the laser field. This dissertation is a study of both the physical mechanism of harmonic generation as well as its development as a source of coherent XUV radiation. Recently, a semiclassical theory has been proposed which provides a simple, intuitive description of harmonic generation. In this picture the process is treated in two steps. The atom ionizes via tunneling after which its classical motion in the laser field is studied. Electron trajectories which return to the vicinity of the nucleus may recombine and emit a harmonic photon, while those which do not return will ionize. An experiment was performed to test the validity of this model wherein the trajectory of the electron as it orbits the nucleus or …