Electron-capture delayed fission (ECDF) properties of neutron-deficient einsteinium isotopes were investigated using a combination of chemical separations and on-line radiation detection methods. {sup 242}Es was produced via the {sup 233}U({sup 14}N,5n){sup 242}Es reaction at a beam energy of 87 MeV (on target) in the lab system, and was found to decay with a half-life of 11 {+-} 3 seconds. The ECDF of {sup 242}Es showed a highly asymmetric mass distribution with an average pre-neutron emission total kinetic energy (TKE) of 183 {+-} 18 MeV. The probability of delayed fission (P{sub DF}) was measured to be 0.006 {+-} 0.002. In conjunction with this experiment, the excitation functions of the {sup 233}U({sup 14}N,xn){sup 247{minus}x}Es and {sup 233}U({sup 15}N,xn){sup 248{minus}x}Es reactions were measured for {sup 243}Es, {sup 244}Es and {sup 245}Es at projectile energies between 80 MeV and 100 MeV.

A new type of thermodynamic device combining a thermodynamic cycle with the externally applied steady flow of an open thermodynamic process is discussed and experimentally demonstrated. The gas flowing through this device can be heated or cooled in a series of semi-open cyclic steps. The combination of open and cyclic flows makes possible the elimination of some or all of the heat exchangers (with their associated irreversibility). Heat is directly exchanged with the process fluid as it flows through the device when operating as a refrigerator, producing a staging effect that tends to increase First Law thermodynamic efficiency. An open-flow thermoacoustic refrigerator was built to demonstrate this concept. Several approaches are presented that describe the physical characteristics of this device. Tests have been conducted on this refrigerator with good agreement with a proposed theory.