A RANS/DES numerical procedure with an extended Lax-Wendroff control-volume scheme and turbulence model is described for the accurate simulation of internal/external axisymmetric flow with and without strong rotation. This new procedure is an extension, from Cartesian to cylindrical coordinates, of (1) a second order accurate multi-grid, control-volume integration scheme, and (2) a k-{omega} turbulence model. This paper outlines both the axisymmetric corrections to the mentioned numerical schemes and the developments of techniques pertaining to numerical dissipation, multi-block connectivity, parallelization, etc. Furthermore, analytical and experimental case studies are presented to demonstrate accuracy and computational efficiency. Notes are also made toward numerical stability of highly rotational flows.

Cerium gadolinium oxide (CGO) has been identified as an acceptable solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) electrolyte at temperatures (500-700 C) where cheap, rigid, stainless steel interconnect substrates can be used. Unfortunately, both the high sintering temperature of pure CGO, >1200 C, and the fact that constraint during sintering often results in cracked, low density ceramic films, have complicated development of metal supported CGO SOFCs. The aim of this work was to find new sintering aids for Ce{sub 0.9}Gd{sub 0.1}O{sub 1.95}, and to evaluate whether they could be used to produce dense, constrained Ce{sub 0.9}Gd{sub 0.1}O{sub 1.95} films at temperatures below 1000 C. To find the optimal sintering aid, Ce{sub 0.9}Gd{sub 0.1}O{sub 1.95} was doped with a variety of elements, of which lithium was found to be the most effective. Dilatometric studies indicated that by doping CGO with 3mol% lithium nitrate, it was possible to sinter pellets to a relative density of 98.5% at 800 C--a full one hundred degrees below the previous low temperature sintering record for CGO. Further, it was also found that a sintering aid's effectiveness could be explained in terms of its size, charge and high temperature mobility. A closer examination of lithium doped Ce0.9Gd0.1O1.95 indicated that …

A measurement of the top quark mass in t{bar t} {yields} l + jets candidate events, obtained from p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.96 TeV at the Fermilab Tevatron using the CDF II detector, is presented. The measurement approach is that of a matrix element method. For each candidate event, a two dimensional likelihood is calculated in the top pole mass and a constant scale factor, 'JES', where JES multiplies the input particle jet momenta and is designed to account for the systematic uncertainty of the jet momentum reconstruction. As with all matrix element techniques, the method involves an integration using the Standard Model matrix element for t{bar t} production and decay. However, the technique presented is unique in that the matrix element is modified to compensate for kinematic assumptions which are made to reduce computation time. Background events are dealt with through use of an event observable which distinguishes signal from background, as well as through a cut on the value of an event's maximum likelihood. Results are based on a 955 pb{sup -1} data sample, using events with a high-p{sub T} lepton and exactly four high-energy jets, at least one of which is tagged as coming from …

One of the major highlights of the technology development for the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is the optics. NIF will be the largest laser ever built, requiring 7500 large optics (over one foot across) and more than 30,000 small optics. The design, manufacture, and assembly of these important pieces have called for innovative ways to make optics of higher quality than ever before, and to do so at unprecedented speeds. The most obvious role of NIF optics is to steer the 192 laser beams through the 700-foot-long building onto a dime-size laser-fusion target. The less obvious optic roles are using NIF laser glass to create laser light out of normal light, and using KDP crystals to convert that laser light to the correct frequency; both of which are technically challenging requirements. The Optics Processing Laboratory and Optics Assembly Building enable the final preparation and mounting of these amazing optics for their use in NIF.

Results are reported on the reaction {gamma}p {yields} p{bar p}p with beam energy in the range 4.8-5.5 GeV. The data were collected at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in CLAS experiment E01-017(G6C). The focus of this study is an understanding of the mechanisms of photoproduction of proton-antiproton pairs, and to search for intermediate resonances, both narrow and broad, which decay to p{bar p}. The total measured cross section in the photon energy range 4.8-5.5 GeV is {sigma} = 33 {+-} 2 nb. Measurement of the cross section as a function of energy is provided. An upper limit on the production of a narrow resonance state previously observed with a mass of 2.02 GeV/c{sup 2} is placed at 0.35 nb. No intermediate resonance states were observed. Meson exchange production appears to dominate the production of the proton-antiproton pairs.

Nucleon form factors allow a sensitive test for models of the nucleon. Recent experiments utilising polarisation observables have resulted, for the first time, in a model-independent determination of the neutron electric form factor GnE. This method employed an 80% longitudinally polarised, high intensity (10 uA) electon beam (883 MeV) that was quasi-elastically scattered off a liquid deuterium target in the reaction D (e, en)p. A neutron polarimeter was designed and installed to measure the ratio of transverse-to-longitudinal polarisation using neutron scattering asymmetries. This ratio allowed a determination of the neutron elastic form factor, GnE, free of the previous large systematic uncertainties associated with the deuterium wave function. The experiment took place in the A1 experimental hall at MAMI taking advantage of a high resolution magnetic spectrometer. A detailed investigation was carried out into the performance of the neutron polarimeter.

The overall purpose of these experiments is to contribute to the development of ion injector technology in order to produce a driver for use in a heavy-ion-fusion (HIF) power generating facility. The overall beam requirements for HIF are quite demanding; a short list of the constraints is the following: (1) Low cost (a large portion of overall cost will come from the beam system); (2) Bright, low emittance beam; (3) Total beam energy 5MJ; (4) Spot size 3mm (radius); (5) Pulse Duration 10ns; (6) Current on target 40kA; (7) Repetition Rate 5Hz; (8) Standoff from target 5m; and (9) Transverse Temp < 1 keV. The reasons for employing ion beams in inertial fusion systems become obvious when the repetition rate required is considered. While laser drivers are useful in producing a proof-of-concept, they will be incapable of application in power generation. Consequently attempts in the U.S. to achieve a power generating system make use of linear ion accelerators. It is apparent that the accelerator system requires the highest quality input as obtainable. Therefore injector design is an essential portion of the entire inertial fusion system. At Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories experiments are being conducted using two injector …

The risk of accidental detonation is present whenever any type of high explosives processing activity is performed. These activities are typically carried out indoors to protect processing equipment from the weather and to hide possibly secret processes from view. Often, highly strengthened reinforced concrete buildings are employed to house these activities. These buildings may incorporate several design features, including the use of lightweight frangible blowout panels, to help mitigate blast effects. These panels are used to construct walls that are durable enough to withstand the weather, but are of minimal weight to provide overpressure relief by quickly moving outwards and creating a vent area during an accidental explosion. In this study the behavior of blowout panels under various blast loading conditions was examined. External loadings from explosions occurring in nearby rooms were of primary interest. Several reinforcement systems were designed to help blowout panels resist failure from external blast loads while still allowing them to function as vents when subjected to internal explosions. The reinforcements were studied using two analytical techniques, yield-line analysis and modal analysis, and the hydrocode AUTODYN. A blowout panel reinforcement design was created that could prevent panels from being blown inward by external explosions. This design …

Alkali metal aluminohydrides have high potential as solid hydrogen storage materials. They have been known for their irreversible dehydrogenation process below 100 atm until Bogdanovic et al [1, 2] succeeded in the re-hydrogenation of NaAlH{sub 4} below 70 atm. They achieved 4 wt.% H{sub 2} reversible capacity by doping NaAlH{sub 4} with Ti and/or Fe organo-metalic compounds as catalysts. This suggests that other alkali and, possibly alkaline earth metal aluminohydrides can be used for reversible hydrogen storage when modified by proper dopants. In this research, Zr{sub 27}Ti{sub 9}Ni{sub 38}V{sub 5}Mn{sub 16}Cr{sub 5}, LaNi{sub 4.85}Sn{sub 0.15}, Al{sub 3}Ti, and PdCl{sub 2} were combined with LiAlH{sub 4} by ball-milling to study whether or not LiAlH{sub 4} is capable to both absorb and desorb hydrogen near ambient conditions. X-ray powder diffraction, differential thermal analysis, and scanning electron microscopy were employed for sample characterizations. All four compounds worked as catalysts in the dehydrogenation reactions of both LiAlH{sub 4} and Li{sub 3}AlH{sub 6} by inducing the decomposition at lower temperature. However, none of them was applicable as catalyst in the reverse hydrogenation reaction at low to moderate hydrogen pressure.

Fe{sub 2}VAl has recently been discovered to have a negative temperature coefficient of resistivity, moderately enhanced specific heat coefficient, and a large DOS at the Fermi level by photoemission. This triggered a round of heated research to understand the ground state of this material, both theoretically and experimentally. here they report a comprehensive characterization of Fe{sub 2}VAl. X-ray diffraction exhibited appreciable antisite disorder in all of our samples. FTIR spectroscopy measurements showed that the carrier density and scattering time had little sample-to-sample variation or temperature dependence for near-stoichiometric samples. FTIR and DC resistivity suggest that the transport properties of Fe{sub 2}VAl are influenced by both localized and delocalized carriers, with the former primarily responsible for the negative temperature coefficient of resistivity. Magnetization measurements reveal that near-stoichiometric samples have superparamagnetic clusters with at least two sizes of moments. X-ray photoemission from Fe core level showed localized magnetic moments on site-exchanged Fe. They conclude that in Fe{sub 2}VAl, antisite disorder causes significant modification to the semi-metallic band structure proposed by LDA calculations. With antisite disorder considered, they are now able to explain most of the physical properties of Fe{sub 2}VAl.

A series of in situ toughened, Al, B and C containing, silicon carbide ceramics (ABC-SiC) has been examined with Al contents varying from 3 to 7 wt%. With increasing Al additions, the grain morphology in the as-processed microstructures varied from elongated to bimodal to equiaxed, with a change in the nature of the grain-boundary film from amorphous to partially crystalline to fully crystalline. Fracture toughness and cyclic fatigue tests on these microstructures revealed that although the 7 wt.% Al containing material (7ABC) was extremely brittle, the 3 and particularly 5 wt.% Al materials (3ABC and 5ABC, respectively) displayed excellent crack-growth resistance at both ambient (25 C) and elevated (1300 C) temperatures. Indeed, no evidence of creep damage, in the form of grain-boundary cavitation, was seen at temperatures at 1300 C or below. The enhanced toughness of the higher Al-containing materials was associated with extensive crack bridging from both interlocking grains (in 3ABC) and uncracked ligaments (in 5ABC); in contrast, the 7ABC SiC showed no such bridging, concomitant with a marked reduction in the volume fraction of elongated grains. Mechanistically, cyclic fatigue-crack growth in 3ABC and 5ABC SiC involved the progressive degradation of such bridging ligaments in the crack wake, with …

Single-molecule methods have the potential to provide information about conformational dynamics and molecular interactions that cannot be obtained by other methods. Removal of ensemble averaging provides several benefits, including the ability to detect heterogeneous populations and the ability to observe asynchronous reactions. Single-molecule diffusion methodologies using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) are developed to monitor conformational dynamics while minimizing perturbations introduced by interactions between molecules and surfaces. These methods are used to perform studies of the folding of Chymotrypsin Inhibitor 2, a small, single-domain protein, and of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) homopolymers. Confocal microscopy is used in combination with sensitive detectors to detect bursts of photons from fluorescently labeled biomolecules as they diffuse through the focal volume. These bursts are analyzed to extract fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) efficiency. Advances in data acquisition and analysis techniques that are providing a more complete picture of the accessible molecular information are discussed. Photon Arrival-time Interval Distribution (PAID) analysis is a new method for monitoring macromolecular interactions by fluorescence detection with simultaneous determination of coincidence, brightness, diffusion time, and occupancy (proportional to concentration) of fluorescently-labeled molecules undergoing diffusion in a confocal detection volume. This method is based on recording the time of arrival of …

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The research described in this dissertation consists of four major areas: (1) sequence analysis of protamine 2 from Muroid rodents to identify potential zinc-binding domain(s) of protamine 2; (2) structural studies of the protamine 2-zinc complex from Syrian Gold hamster sperm and spermatids to elucidate the role of zinc during spermiogenesis; (3) structural studies of an unique protamine 2-zinc complex from chinchilla sperm; and (4) Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) studies of soluble complexes of hairpin oligonucleotides with synthetic arginine-rich peptides or protamine 1 isolated from bull sperm. First, zinc was quantitated in spermatids and sperm by Proton-Induced X-ray Emission (PIXE) to determine whether zinc is present in the early stages of spermiogenesis. The PIXE results revealed the zinc content varies proportionately with the amount of protamine 2 in both spermatid and sperm nuclei. An exception was chinchilla sperm containing twice the amount of protamine 2 than zinc. Further analyses by PIXE and X-ray Absorption Spectroscopy (XAS) of zinc bound to protamines isolated from hamster sperm confirmed the majority of the zinc is bound to protamine and identified the zinc ligands of protamine 2 in hamster spermatids and sperm in vivo. These studies established that zinc is bound to the protamine …

Collagen is a key structural protein in the body; several pathological conditions lead to changes in collagen. Among imaging modalities that can be used in vivo, second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy has a key advantage: it provides {approx}1 {micro}m resolution information about collagen structure as a function of depth. A new technique--polarization-modulated SHG--is presented: it permits simultaneous measurement of collagen orientation, of a lower bound on the magnitude of the second order nonlinear susceptibility tensor, and of the ratio of the two independent elements in this tensor. It is applied to characterizing SHG in collagen and to determining effects of biologically relevant changes in collagen structure. The magnitude of the second harmonic signal in two dimensional images varies with position even in structurally homogeneous tissue; this phenomenon is due to interference between second harmonic light generated by neighboring fibrils, which are randomly oriented parallel or anti-parallel to each other. Studies in which focal spot size was varied indicated that regions where fibrils are co-oriented are less than {approx}1.5 {micro}m in diameter. A quartz reference was used to determine the spot size as well as a lower limit (d{sub xxx} > 0.3 pm/V) for the magnitude of the second order nonlinear …

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We present the results of a search in p{bar p} collisions at {radical}s = 1.8 TeV for anomalous production of events containing a photon with large transverse energy and a lepton (e or {mu}) with large transverse energy, using 86 pb{sup -1} of data collected at the Collider Detector at Fermilab during the 1994-95 collider run at the Fermilab Tevatron. The presence of large missing transverse energy (E{sub T}), additional photons, or additional leptons in these events is also analyzed. The results are consistent with standard model expectations, with the possible exception of photon-lepton events with large E{sub T}, for which the probability of a statistical fluctuation of the standard model expectation up to and above the observed level is 0.7%.