Grundlegende Untersuchungen zum Verhalten ausgewählter Seltenerdelemente bei Explosionen und zur Anwendbarkeit spezieller Methoden zu deren Analyse

Bisher ist bei forensischen Untersuchungen von Explosionen die Rückverfolgung der verwendeten Sprengstoffe begrenzt, da das Material in aller Regel bei der Explosion zerstört wird. Die Rückverfolgung von Sprengstoffen soll mit Hilfe von Identifikations-Markierungssubstanzen erleichtert werden. Diese stellen einen einzigartigen Code dar, der auch nach einer Sprengung wiedergefunden und identifiziert werden kann. Die dem Code zugeordneten, eindeutigen Informationen können somit ausgelesen werden und liefern der Polizei bei der Aufklärung weitere Ansätze.rnZiel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, das Verhalten von ausgewählten Seltenerdelementen (SEE) bei Explosion zu untersuchen. Ein auf Lanthanoidphosphaten basierender Identifikations-Markierungsstoff bietet die Möglichkeit, verschiedene Lanthanoide innerhalb eines einzelnen Partikels zu kombinieren, wodurch eine Vielzahl von Codes generiert werden kann. Somit kann eine Veränderung der Ausgangszusammensetzung des Codes auch nach einer Explosion durch die Analyse eines einzelnen Partikels sehr gut nachvollzogen und somit die Eignung des Markierungsstoffes untersucht werden. Eine weitere Zielsetzung ist die Überprüfung der Anwendbarkeit der Massenspektrometrie mit induktiv gekoppeltem Plasma (ICP-MS) und Partikelanalyse mittels Rasterelektronenmikroskopie (REM) für die Analyse der versprengten Identifikations-Markierungssubstanzen. rnDie Ergebnisbetrachtungen der ICP-MS-Analyse und REM-Partikelanalyse deuten zusammenfassend auf eine Fraktionierung der untersuchten Lanthanoide oder deren Umsetzungsprodukte nach Explosion in Abhängigkeit ihrer thermischen Belastbarkeit. Die Befunde zeigen eine Anreicherung der Lanthanoide mit höherer Temperaturbeständigkeit in größeren Partikeln, was eine Anreicherung von Lanthanoiden mit niedrigerer Temperaturbeständigkeit in kleineren Partikeln impliziert. Dies lässt sich in Ansätzen durch einen Fraktionierungsprozess in Abhängigkeit der Temperaturstabilität der Lanthanoide oder deren Umsetzungsprodukten erklären. Die der Fraktionierung zugrunde liegenden Mechanismen und deren gegenseitige Beeinflussung bei einer Explosion konnten im Rahmen dieser Arbeit nicht abschließend geklärt werden.rnDie generelle Anwendbarkeit und unter Umständen notwendige, komplementäre Verwendung der zwei Methoden ICP-MS und REM-Partikelanalyse wird in dieser Arbeit gezeigt. Die ICP-MS stellt mit großer untersuchter Probenfläche und hoher Genauigkeit eine gute Methode zur Charakterisierung der Konzentrationsverhältnisse der untersuchten Lanthanoide dar. Die REM-Partikelanalyse hingegen ermöglicht im Falle von Kontamination der Proben mit anderen Lanthanoid-haltigen Partikeln eine eindeutige Differenzierung der Elementvergesellschaftung pro Partikel. Sie kann somit im Gegensatz zur ICP-MS Aufschluss über die Art und Zusammensetzung der Kontamination geben. rnInnerhalb der vorgenommenen Untersuchungen stellte die bei der ICP-MS angewandte Probennahmetechnik eine ideale Art der Probennahme dar. Bei anderen Oberflächen könnte diese jedoch in Folge der in verschiedenen Partikelgrößen resultierenden Fraktionierung zu systematisch verfälschten Ergebnissen führen. Um die generelle Anwendbarkeit der ICP-MS im Hinblick auf die Analyse versprengter Lanthanoide zu gewährleisten, sollte eine Durchführung weiterer Sprengungen auf unterschiedlichen Probenoberflächen erfolgen und gegebenenfalls weitere Probennahme-, Aufschluss- und Anreicherungsverfahren evaluiert werden.rn

Digital processing and data compilation approach for using remotely sensed imagery to identify geological lineaments in hard-rock terrains : an application for groundwater explorations in Nicaragua

Sustainable yields from water wells in hard-rock aquifers are achieved when the well bore intersects fracture networks. Fracture networks are often not readily discernable at the surface. Lineament analysis using remotely sensed satellite imagery has been employed to identify surface expressions of fracturing, and a variety of image-analysis techniques have been successfully applied in “ideal” settings. An ideal setting for lineament detection is where the influences of human development, vegetation, and climatic situations are minimal and hydrogeological conditions and geologic structure are known. There is not yet a well-accepted protocol for mapping lineaments nor have different approaches been compared in non-ideal settings. A new approach for image-processing/synthesis was developed to identify successful satellite imagery types for lineament analysis in non-ideal terrain. Four satellite sensors (ASTER, Landsat7 ETM+, QuickBird, RADARSAT-1) and a digital elevation model were evaluated for lineament analysis in Boaco, Nicaragua, where the landscape is subject to varied vegetative cover, a plethora of anthropogenic features, and frequent cloud cover that limit the availability of optical satellite data. A variety of digital image processing techniques were employed and lineament interpretations were performed to obtain 12 complementary image products that were evaluated subjectively to identify lineaments. The 12 lineament interpretations were synthesized to create a raster image of lineament zone coincidence that shows the level of agreement among the 12 interpretations. A composite lineament interpretation was made using the coincidence raster to restrict lineament observations to areas where multiple interpretations (at least 4) agree. Nine of the 11 previously mapped faults were identified from the coincidence raster. An additional 26 lineaments were identified from the coincidence raster, and the locations of 10 were confirmed by field observation. Four manual pumping tests suggest that well productivity is higher for wells proximal to lineament features. Interpretations from RADARSAT-1 products were superior to interpretations from other sensor products, suggesting that quality lineament interpretation in this region requires anthropogenic features to be minimized and topographic expressions to be maximized. The approach developed in this study has the potential to improve siting wells in non-ideal regions.

Integration of room temperature single electron transistor with CMOS subsystem

The single electron transistor (SET) is a charge-based device that may complement the dominant metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) technology. As the cost of scaling MOSFET to smaller dimensions are rising and the the basic functionality of MOSFET is encountering numerous challenges at dimensions smaller than 10nm, the SET has shown the potential to become the next generation device which operates based on the tunneling of electrons. Since the electron transfer mechanism of a SET device is based on the non-dissipative electron tunneling effect, the power consumption of a SET device is extremely low, estimated to be on the order of 10^-18J. The objectives of this research are to demonstrate technologies that would enable the mass produce of SET devices that are operational at room temperature and to integrate these devices on top of an active complementary-MOSFET (CMOS) substrate. To achieve these goals, two fabrication techniques are considered in this work. The Focus Ion Beam (FIB) technique is used to fabricate the islands and the tunnel junctions of the SET device. A Ultra-Violet (UV) light based Nano-Imprint Lithography (NIL) call Step-and-Flash- Imprint Lithography (SFIL) is used to fabricate the interconnections of the SET devices. Combining these two techniques, a full array of SET devices are fabricated on a planar substrate. Test and characterization of the SET devices has shown consistent Coulomb blockade effect, an important single electron characteristic. To realize a room temperature operational SET device that function as a logic device to work along CMOS, it is important to know the device behavior at different temperatures. Based on the theory developed for a single island SET device, a thermal analysis is carried out on the multi-island SET device and the observation of changes in Coulomb blockade effect is presented. The results show that the multi-island SET device operation highly depends on temperature. The important parameters that determine the SET operation is the effective capacitance Ceff and tunneling resistance Rt . These two parameters lead to the tunneling rate of an electron in the SET device, Γ. To obtain an accurate model for SET operation, the effects of the deviation in dimensions, the trap states in the insulation, and the background charge effect have to be taken into consideration. The theoretical and experimental evidence for these non-ideal effects are presented in this work.

Properties of seawater (partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2)) from a ProOceanus CO2-Pro sensor mounted on the continuous surface water sampling system during the Tara Oceans expedition 2009-2013

The Tara Oceans Expedition (2009-2013) sampled the world oceans on board a 36 m long schooner, collecting environmental data and organisms from viruses to planktonic metazoans for later analyses using modern sequencing and state-of-the-art imaging technologies. Tara Oceans Data are particularly suited to study the genetic, morphological and functional diversity of plankton. The present data set provides continuous measurements of partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2), using a ProOceanus CO2-Pro instrument mounted on the flowthrough system. This automatic sensor is fitted with an equilibrator made of gas permeable silicone membrane and an internal detection loop with a non-dispersive infrared detector of PPSystems SBA-4 CO2 analyzer. A zero-CO2 baseline is provided for the subsequent measurements circulating the internal gas through a CO2 absorption chamber containing soda lime or Ascarite. The frequency of this automatic zero point calibration was set to be 24 hours. All data recorded during zeroing processes were discarded with the 15-minute data after each calibration. The output of CO2-Pro is the mole fraction of CO2 in the measured water and the pCO2 is obtained using the measured total pressure of the internal wet gas. The fugacity of CO2 (fCO2) in the surface seawater, whose difference with the atmospheric CO2 fugacity is proportional to the air-sea CO2 fluxes, is obtained by correcting the pCO2 for non-ideal CO2 gas concentration according to Weiss (1974). The fCO2 computed using CO2-Pro measurements was corrected to the sea surface condition by considering the temperature effect on fCO2 (Takahashi et al., 1993). The surface seawater observations that were initially estimated with a 15 seconds frequency were averaged every 5-min cycle. The performance of CO2-Pro was adjusted by comparing the sensor outputs against the thermodynamic carbonate calculation of pCO2 using the carbonic system constants of Millero et al. (2006) from the determinations of total inorganic carbon (CT ) and total alkalinity (AT ) in discrete samples collected at sea surface. AT was determined using an automated open cell potentiometric titration (Haraldsson et al. 1997). CT was determined with an automated coulometric titration (Johnson et al. 1985; 1987), using the MIDSOMMA system (Mintrop, 2005). fCO2 data are flagged according to the WOCE guidelines following Pierrot et al. (2009) identifying recommended values and questionable measurements giving additional information about the reasons of the questionability.

Magneto-optic current sensor with Faraday mirror for linear birefringence compensation

Fiber optic sensors have some advantages in subjects related with electrical current and magnetic field measurement. In spite of the optical fiber utilization advantages we have to take into account undesirable effects, which are present in real non-ideal optical fibers. In telecommunication and sensor application fields the presence of inherent and induced birefringence is crucial. The presence of birefringence may cause an undesirable change in the polarization state. In order to compensate the linear birefringence a promising method has been chosen. This method employs orthogonal polarization conjugation in the back propagation direction of the light wave in the fiber. A study and a simulation of an experimental setup are realized with the advantage of a significant sensitivity improvement.

Sensor magneto-óptico de corriente con supresión de birrefringencia lineal mediante espejo de Faraday

Fiber optic sensors have some advantages in subjects related with electrical current and magnetic field measurement. In spite of the optical fiber utilization advantages we have to take into account undesirable effects, which are present in real non-ideal optical fibers. In telecommunication and sensor application fields the presence of inherent and induced birefringence is crucial. The presence of birefringence may cause an undesirable change in the polarization state. In order to compensate the linear birefringence a promising method has been chosen. This method employs orthogonal polarization conjugation in the back propagation direction of the light wave in the fiber. A study and a simulation of an experimental setup are realized with the advantage of a significant sensitivity improvement.

Search strategies and the automated control of plant diseases

We propose the use of the "infotaxis" search strategy as the navigation system of a robotic platform, able to search and localize infectious foci by detecting the changes in the profile of volatile organic compounds emitted by and infected plant. We builded a simple and cost effective robot platform that substitutes odour sensors in favour of light sensors and study their robustness and performance under non ideal conditions such as the exitence of obstacles due to land topology or weeds.

Improved heuristic drift elimination with magnetically-aided dominant directions (MiHDE) for pedestrian navigation in complex buildings

The main problem of pedestrian dead-reckoning (PDR) using only a body-attached inertial measurement unit is the accumulation of heading errors. The heading provided by magnetometers in indoor buildings is in general not reliable and therefore it is commonly not used. Recently, a new method was proposed called heuristic drift elimination (HDE) that minimises the heading error when navigating in buildings. It assumes that the majority of buildings have their corridors parallel to each other, or they intersect at right angles, and consequently most of the time the person walks along a straight path with a heading constrained to one of the four possible directions. In this article we study the performance of HDE-based methods in complex buildings, i.e. with pathways also oriented at 45°, long curved corridors, and wide areas where non-oriented motion is possible. We explain how the performance of the original HDE method can be deteriorated in complex buildings, and also, how severe errors can appear in the case of false matches with the building's dominant directions. Although magnetic compassing indoors has a chaotic behaviour, in this article we analyse large data-sets in order to study the potential use that magnetic compassing has to estimate the absolute yaw angle of a walking person. Apart from these analysis, this article also proposes an improved HDE method called Magnetically-aided Improved Heuristic Drift Elimination (MiHDE), that is implemented over a PDR framework that uses foot-mounted inertial navigation with an extended Kalman filter (EKF). The EKF is fed with the MiHDE-estimated orientation error, gyro bias corrections, as well as the confidence over that corrections. We experimentally evaluated the performance of the proposed MiHDE-based PDR method, comparing it with the original HDE implementation. Results show that both methods perform very well in ideal orthogonal narrow-corridor buildings, and MiHDE outperforms HDE for non-ideal trajectories (e.g. curved paths) and also makes it robust against potential false dominant direction matchings.

Design and optimization of optical, fiber based PSK demodulators for high-bit-rate optical networks

El objetivo principal de esta tesis ha sido el diseño y la optimización de receptores implementados con fibra óptica, para ser usados en redes ópticas de alta velocidad que empleen formatos de modulación de fase. En los últimos años, los formatos de modulación de fase (Phase Shift keying, PSK) han captado gran atención debido a la mejora de sus prestaciones respecto a los formatos de modulación convencionales. Principalmente, presentan una mejora de la eficiencia espectral y una mayor tolerancia a la degradación de la señal causada por la dispersión cromática, la dispersión por modo de polarización y los efectos no-lineales en la fibra óptica. En este trabajo, se analizan en detalle los formatos PSK, incluyendo sus variantes de modulación de fase diferencial (Differential Phase Shift Keying, DPSK), en cuadratura (Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying, DQPSK) y multiplexación en polarización (Polarization Multiplexing Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying, PM-DQPSK), con la finalidad de diseñar y optimizar los receptores que permita su demodulación. Para ello, se han analizado y desarrollado nuevas estructuras que ofrecen una mejora en las prestaciones del receptor y una reducción de coste comparadas con las actualmente disponibles. Para la demodulación de señales DPSK, en esta tesis, se proponen dos nuevos receptores basados en un interferómetro en línea Mach-Zehnder (MZI) implementado con tecnología todo-fibra. El principio de funcionamiento de los MZI todo-fibra propuestos se asienta en la interferencia modal que se produce en una fibra multimodo (MMF) cuando se situada entre dos monomodo (SMF). Este tipo de configuración (monomodo-multimodo-monomodo, SMS) presenta un buen ratio de extinción interferente si la potencia acoplada en la fibra multimodo se reparte, principal y equitativamente, entre dos modos dominantes. Con este objetivo, se han estudiado y demostrado tanto teórica como experimentalmente dos nuevas estructuras SMS que mejoran el ratio de extinción. Una de las propuestas se basa en emplear una fibra multimodo de índice gradual cuyo perfil del índice de refracción presenta un hundimiento en su zona central. La otra consiste en una estructura SMS con las fibras desalineadas y donde la fibra multimodo es una fibra de índice gradual convencional. Para las dos estructuras, mediante el análisis teórico desarrollado, se ha demostrado que el 80 – 90% de la potencia de entrada se acopla a los dos modos dominantes de la fibra multimodo y se consigue una diferencia inferior al 10% entre ellos. También se ha demostrado experimentalmente que se puede obtener un ratio de extinción de al menos 12 dB. Con el objeto de demostrar la capacidad de estas estructuras para ser empleadas como demoduladores de señales DPSK, se han realizado numerosas simulaciones de un sistema de transmisión óptico completo y se ha analizado la calidad del receptor bajo diferentes perspectivas, tales como la sensibilidad, la tolerancia a un filtrado óptico severo o la tolerancia a las dispersiones cromática y por modo de polarización. En todos los casos se ha concluido que los receptores propuestos presentan rendimientos comparables a los obtenidos con receptores convencionales. En esta tesis, también se presenta un diseño alternativo para la implementación de un receptor DQPSK, basado en el uso de una fibra mantenedora de la polarización (PMF). A través del análisi teórico y del desarrollo de simulaciones numéricas, se ha demostrado que el receptor DQPSK propuesto presenta prestaciones similares a los convencionales. Para complementar el trabajo realizado sobre el receptor DQPSK basado en PMF, se ha extendido el estudio de su principio de demodulación con el objeto de demodular señales PM-DQPSK, obteniendo como resultado la propuesta de una nueva estructura de demodulación. El receptor PM-DQPSK propuesto se basa en la estructura conjunta de una única línea de retardo junto con un rotador de polarización. Se ha analizado la calidad de los receptores DQPSK y PM-DQPSK bajo diferentes perspectivas, tales como la sensibilidad, la tolerancia a un filtrado óptico severo, la tolerancia a las dispersiones cromática y por modo de polarización o su comportamiento bajo condiciones no-ideales. En comparación con los receptores convencionales, nuestra propuesta exhibe prestaciones similares y además permite un diseño más simple que redunda en un coste potencialmente menor. En las redes de comunicaciones ópticas actuales se utiliza la tecnología de multimplexación en longitud de onda (WDM) que obliga al uso de filtros ópticos con bandas de paso lo más estrechas posibles y a emplear una serie de dispositivos que incorporan filtros en su arquitectura, tales como los multiplexores, demultiplexores, ROADMs, conmutadores y OXCs. Todos estos dispositivos conectados entre sí son equivalentes a una cadena de filtros cuyo ancho de banda se va haciendo cada vez más estrecho, llegando a distorsionar la forma de onda de las señales. Por esto, además de analizar el impacto del filtrado óptico en las señales de 40 Gbps DQPSK y 100 Gbps PM-DQPSK, este trabajo de tesis se completa estudiando qué tipo de filtro óptico minimiza las degradaciones causadas en la señal y analizando el número máximo de filtros concatenados que permiten mantener la calidad requerida al sistema. Se han estudiado y simulado cuatro tipos de filtros ópticos;Butterworth, Bessel, FBG y F-P. ABSTRACT The objective of this thesis is the design and optimization of optical fiber-based phase shift keying (PSK) demodulators for high-bit-rate optical networks. PSK modulation formats have attracted significant attention in recent years, because of the better performance with respect to conventional modulation formats. Principally, PSK signals can improve spectrum efficiency and tolerate more signal degradation caused by chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion and nonlinearities in the fiber. In this work, many PSK formats were analyzed in detail, including the variants of differential phase modulation (Differential Phase Shift Keying, DPSK), in quadrature (Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying, DQPSK) and polarization multiplexing (Polarization Multiplexing Differential Quadrature Phase Shift Keying, PM-DQPSK), in order to design and optimize receivers enabling demodulations. Therefore, novel structures, which offer good receiver performances and a reduction in cost compared to the current structures, have been analyzed and developed. Two novel receivers based on an all-fiber in-line Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) were proposed for DPSK signal demodulation in this thesis. The operating principle of the all-fiber MZI is based on the modal interference that occurs in a multimode fiber (MMF) when it is located between two single-mode fibers (SMFs). This type of configuration (Single-mode-multimode-single-mode, SMS) can provide a good extinction ratio if the incoming power from the SMF could be coupled equally into two dominant modes excited in the MMF. In order to improve the interference extinction ratio, two novel SMS structures have been studied and demonstrated, theoretically and experimentally. One of the two proposed MZIs is based on a graded-index multimode fiber (MMF) with a central dip in the index profile, located between two single-mode fibers (SMFs). The other one is based on a conventional graded-index MMF mismatch spliced between two SMFs. Theoretical analysis has shown that, in these two schemes, 80 – 90% of the incoming power can be coupled into the two dominant modes exited in the MMF, and the power difference between them is only ~10%. Experimental results show that interference extinction ratio of 12 dB could be obtained. In order to demonstrate the capacity of these two structures for use as DPSK signal demodulators, numerical simulations in a completed optical transmission system have been carried out, and the receiver quality has been analyzed under different perspectives, such as sensitivity, tolerance to severe optical filtering or tolerance to chromatic and polarization mode dispersion. In all cases, from the simulation results we can conclude that the two proposed receivers can provide performances comparable to conventional ones. In this thesis, an alternative design for the implementation of a DQPSK receiver, which is based on a polarization maintaining fiber (PMF), was also presented. To complement the work made for the PMF-based DQPSK receiver, the study of the demodulation principle has been extended to demodulate PM-DQPSK signals, resulting in the proposal of a novel demodulation structure. The proposed PM-DQPSK receiver is based on only one delay line and a polarization rotator. The quality of the proposed DQPSK and PM-DQPSK receivers under different perspectives, such as sensitivity, tolerance to severe optical filtering, tolerance to chromatic dispersion and polarization mode dispersion, or behavior under non-ideal conditions. Compared with the conventional receivers, our proposals exhibit similar performances but allow a simpler design which can potentially reduce the cost. The wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) technology used in current optical communications networks requires the use of optical filters with a passband as narrow as possible, and the use of a series of devices that incorporate filters in their architecture, such as multiplexers, demultiplexers, switches, reconfigurable add-drop multiplexers (ROADMs) and optical cross-connects (OXCs). All these devices connected together are equivalent to a chain of filters whose bandwidth becomes increasingly narrow, resulting in distortion to the waveform of the signals. Therefore, in addition to analyzing the impact of optical filtering on signal of 40 Gbps DQPSK and 100 Gbps PM-DQPSK, we study which kind of optical filter minimizes the signal degradation and analyze the maximum number of concatenated filters for maintaining the required quality of the system. Four types of optical filters, including Butterworth, Bessel, FBG and FP, have studied and simulated.

Direct observation of the enhancement of noncooperative protein self-assembly by macromolecular crowding: Indefinite linear self-association of bacterial cell division protein FtsZ

Recent measurements of sedimentation equilibrium and sedimentation velocity have shown that the bacterial cell division protein FtsZ self-associates to form indefinitely long rod-like linear aggregates in the presence of GDP and Mg2+. In the present study, the newly developed technique of non-ideal tracer sedimentation equilibrium was used to measure the effect of high concentrations—up to 150 g/liter—of each of two inert “crowder” proteins, cyanmethemoglobin or BSA, on the thermodynamic activity and state of association of dilute FtsZ under conditions inhibiting (−Mg2+) and promoting (+Mg2+) FtsZ self-association. Analysis of equilibrium gradients of both FtsZ and crowder proteins indicates that, under the conditions of the present experiment, FtsZ interacts with each of the two crowder proteins essentially entirely via steric repulsion, which may be accounted for quantitatively by a simple model in which hemoglobin, albumin, and monomeric FtsZ are modeled as effective spherical hard particles, and each oligomeric species of FtsZ is modeled as an effective hard spherocylinder. The functional dependence of the sedimentation of FtsZ on the concentrations of FtsZ and either crowder indicates that, in the presence of high concentrations of crowder, both the weight-average degree of FtsZ self-association and the range of FtsZ oligomer sizes present in significant abundance are increased substantially.

Geometrical study of the three-dimensional temperature–composition diagrams. An important aid to understand the behavior of the liquid–vapour equilibrium in ternary systems

In this work the usefulness of qualitatively studying and drawing three-dimensional temperature–composition diagrams for ternary systems is pointed out to understand and interpret the particular behavior of the liquid–vapour equilibrium of non-ideal ternary systems. Several examples have been used in order to highlight the interest and the possibilities of this tool, which should be an interesting support not only for lecturers, but also for researchers interested in experimental equilibrium data determination.

Gibbs Energy of Mixing Function: Topological Analysis in Azeotropic Systems

ESAT 2014. 27th European Symposium on Applied Thermodynamics, Eindhoven University of Technology, July 6-9, 2014.

A statistical approach to predict the effect of confinement on the detonation velocity of commercial explosives

Commercial explosives behave non-ideally in rock blasting. A direct and convenient measure of non-ideality is the detonation velocity. In this study, an alternative model fitted to experimental unconfined detonation velocity data is proposed and the effect of confinement on the detonation velocity is modelled. Unconfined data of several explosives showing various levels of nonideality were successfully modelled. The effect of confinement on detonation velocity was modelled empirically based on field detonation velocity measurements. Confined detonation velocity is a function of the ideal detonation velocity, unconfined detonation velocity at a given blasthole diameter and rock stiffness. For a given explosive and charge diameter, as confinement increases detonation velocity increases. The confinement model is implemented in a simple engineering based non-ideal detonation model. A number of simulations are carried out and analysed to predict the explosive performance parameters for the adopted blasting conditions.

Adsorption of N-2, Ar, acetone, chloroform and acetone-chloroform mixture on carbon black in the framework of molecular layer structure theory (MLST)

Adsorption of pure nitrogen, argon, acetone, chloroform and acetone-chloroform mixture on graphitized thermal carbon black is considered at sub-critical conditions by means of molecular layer structure theory (MLST). In the present version of the MLST an adsorbed fluid is considered as a sequence of 2D molecular layers, whose Helmholtz free energies are obtained directly from the analysis of experimental adsorption isotherm of pure components. The interaction of the nearest layers is accounted for in the framework of mean field approximation. This approach allows quantitative correlating of experimental nitrogen and argon adsorption isotherm both in the monolayer region and in the range of multi-layer coverage up to 10 molecular layers. In the case of acetone and chloroform the approach also leads to excellent quantitative correlation of adsorption isotherms, while molecular approaches such as the non-local density functional theory (NLDFT) fail to describe those isotherms. We extend our new method to calculate the Helmholtz free energy of an adsorbed mixture using a simple mixing rule, and this allows us to predict mixture adsorption isotherms from pure component adsorption isotherms. The approach, which accounts for the difference in composition in different molecular layers, is tested against the experimental data of acetone-chloroform mixture (non-ideal mixture) adsorption on graphitized thermal carbon black at 50 degrees C. (C) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Noise in detection of qubit states using a quantum point contact

We present a model for detection of the states of a coupled quantum dots (qubit) by a quantum point contact. Most proposals for measurements of states of quantum systems are idealized. However in a real laboratory the measurements cannot be perfect due to practical devices and circuits. The models using ideal devices are not sufficient for describing the detection information of the states of the quantum systems. Our model therefore includes the extension to a non-ideal measurement device case using an equivalent circuit. We derive a quantum trajectory that describes the stochastic evolution of the state of the system of the qubit and the measuring device. We calculate the noise power spectrum of tunnelling events in an ideal and a non-ideal quantum point contact measurement respectively. We found that, for the strong coupling case it is difficult to obtain information of the quantum processes in the qubit by measurements using a non-ideal quantum point contact. The noise spectra can also be used to estimate the limits of applicability of the ideal model.