Comparative study of air heating solar collectors

Three types of conventional solar air heater are designed such that their heat absorbing areas and the pressure drops across them are equal for equal air mass flow rates per unit collector area. The results of thermal performance tests conducted simultaneously on these collectors, under the same environmental conditions, are presented.

Numerical estimation of hotspot temperatures in electrodes subjected to pulsed electron beam heating in vacuum

A numerical solution for the transient temperature distribution in a cylindrical disc heated on its top surface by a circular source is presented. A finite difference form of the governing equations is solved by the Alternating Direction Implicit (ADI) time marching scheme. This solution has direct applications in analyzing transient electron beam heating of target materials as encountered in the prebreakdown current enhancement and consequent breakdown in high voltage vacuum gaps stressed by alternating and pulsed voltages. The solution provides an estimate of the temperature for pulsed electron beam heating and the size of thermally activated microparticles originating from anode hot spots. The calculated results for a typical 45kV (a.c.) electron beam of radius 2.5 micron indicate that the temperature of such spots can reach melting point and could give rise to microparticles which could initiate breakdown.

Photoconductivity in β-AgI

Excitation spectra and transient and steady-state photoconductivity have been studied in undoped and 0.8-mole% Cu-doped single-crystal β-AgI between 150 and 260°K. A single peak in the spectral response was found to occur in each case, at 2.88 eV for undoped and at 2.81 eV for copper-doped specimens at 260 K, the difference being due to a decrease in band gap. The anisotropy due to polarization of incident radiation parallel or perpendicular to the c direction, which is a measure of the energy difference between the Γ9 and Γ7 levels in the valence band, was found to be 0.010 eV. Transient-photoconductivity experiments showed that the hole lifetime was 6 μ sec at 300°K, an order of magnitude larger than the electron lifetime. The hole drift mobility was found to be 12±2 cm2/ V sec at 300°K and limited by traps at a depth of 0.51±0.01 eV with concentration (3-5)×109/cm3 and capture cross section 10-11 cm2. The study of photoconductivity decay versus temperature revealed the presence of shallow hole traps at 0.14±0.02 eV with concentration greater than 1016/cm3 and capture cross section 10-19 cm2. The steady-state photoconductivity was determined by the deep hole traps at 0.51 eV, and showed the presence of shallow electron traps at a depth of 0.28 eV. The trap distribution was found to be substantially the same in pure and copper-doped specimens, indicating the monovalent substitutional role of copper. The effects of iodine annealing, cadmium doping, and heating above the transition temperature were also studied. The possible nature of the traps is discussed.

Q-band beam waveguide

A report of the design, development ana periom~ance characteristics of a Q-band (8 nim) confoal. mned, aielectric lens beam waveguide is presented.

A field-consistent and variationally correct representation of transverse shear strains in the nine-noded plate element

We present a biquadratic Lagrangian plate bending element with consistent fields for the constrained transverse shear strain functions. A technique involving expansion of the strain interpolations in terms of Legendre polynomials is used to redistribute the kinematically derived shear strain fields so that the field-consistent forms (i.e. avoiding locking) are also variationally correct (i.e. do not violate the variational norms). Also, a rational method of isoparametric Jacobian transformation is incorporated so that the constrained covariant shear strain fields are always consistent in whatever general quadrilateral form the element may take. Finally the element is compared with another formulation which was recently published. The element is subjected to several robust bench mark tests and is found to pass all the tests efficiently.

Q-Band beam wave-guide

Consideration is given to a 25-foot long Q-band (8 mm) confocal, zoned dielectric lens beam waveguide. Numerical expressions for the axial and radial fields are presented. The experimental set-up consisted of uniformly spaced zoned dielectric lenses, a transmitting horn and a receiving horn. It was found that: (1) the wave beam is reiterated when confocal, zoned dielectric lenses act as phase transformers in place of smooth surfaced transformers in beam waveguides; (2) the axial field is oscillatory near the source and the oscillation persists for about 25 cm from the source; (3) the oscillation disappears after one lens is used; (4) higher order modes with higher attenuation rates die out faster than fundamental modes; (5) phase transformers do not alter beam modes; (6) without any lens the beam cross-section broadens significantly in the Z-direction; (7) with one lens the beam exhibits the reiteration phenomenon; and (8) inserting a second lens on the axial and cross-sectional field distribution shows further the reiteration principle.

Radio wave heating of astrophysical plasmas

The coherent plasma process such as parametric decay instability (PDI) has been applied to a homogeneous and unmagnetized plasma. These instabilities cause anomalous absorption of strong electromagnetic radiation under specific conditions of energy and momentum conservation and thus cause anomalous heating of the plasma. The maximum plasma temperatures reached are functions of luminosity of the radio radiation and plasma parameters. We believe that these processes may be taking place in many astrophysical objects. Here, the conditions in the sources 3C 273, 3C 48 and Crab Nebula are shown to be conducive to the excitation of PDI. These processes also contribute towards the absorption of 21cm radiation

Out-of-equilibrium microrheology using optical tweezers to probe directional viscoelastic properties under shear

Many wormlike micellar systems exhibit appreciable shear thinning due to shear-induced alignment. As the micelles get aligned introducing directionality in the system, the viscoelastic properties are no longer expected to be isotropic. An optical-tweezers-based active microrheology technique enables us to probe the out-of-equilibrium rheological properties of a wormlike micellar system simultaneously along two orthogonal directions-parallel to the applied shear, as well as perpendicular to it. While the displacements of a trapped bead in response to active drag force carry signature of conventional shear thinning, its spontaneous position fluctuations along the perpendicular direction manifest an orthogonal shear thickening, an effect hitherto unobserved. Copyright (C) EPLA, 2010

Band to correlated crossover in alternating Hubbard and Pariser-Parr-Pople chains: Nature of the lowest singlet excitation of conjugated polymers

The evolution with increasing Coulomb correlations of a semiconductor to a magnetic insulator is related to an excited-state crossover in pi-electron models for conjugated polymers. We associate strong fluorescence with a lowest singlet excitation S1 that is dipole allowed, on the band side, while S1 becomes two-photon allowed on the correlated side. S1/S2 crossovers in Hubbard, Pariser-Parr-Pople, or other chains with electron-hole symmetry and alternating transfer integral t(1 +/- delta) are based on exact results at delta=0 and 1, on molecular exciton theory at large delta, and on oligomer calculations up to twelve sites.

Compressive tidal heating of a disk galaxy in a rich cluster

The restricted three-body method is used to model the effect of the mean tidal field of a cluster of galaxies on the internal dynamics of a disk galaxy falling into the cluster for the first time. In the model adopted the galaxy experiences a tidal field that is compressive within the core of the cluster. The planar random velocities of all components in the disk increase after the galaxy passes through the core of the cluster. The low-velocity dispersion gas clouds experience a relatively larger increase in random velocity than the hotter stellar components. The increase in planar velocities results in a strong anisotropy between the planar and vertical velocity dispersions. It is argued that this will make the disk unstable to the 'fire-hose instability' which leads to bending modes in the disk and which will thicken the disk slightly. The mean tidal fields in rich clusters were probably stronger during the epoch of cluster formation and relaxation than they are in present-day relaxed clusters.