Sequential variation of carbonate cycles in South Atlantic DSDP locations

We report well-dated Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary precessional climatic cycles, recorded by rhythmic carbonate maxima and minima in South Atlantic deep sea sites. Spectral analyses of digitized sediment color, a suitable carbonate proxy, show prominent regularities in the spacing marl-carbonate beds. Magnetostratigraphic dating over a number of magnetic chrons constrains the duration of the cycles, which can be detected over at least 20 Myr of sedimentation at 7 coring locations. Their mean absolute period of 23.5 +/- 4.4kyr agrees closely with the predicted late Cretaceous precessional period of 20.8 kyr. Because they can be matched to a physical forcing mechanism with a known repeat time, the cycles offer a new high-resolution tool to measure rates of climate change before and after the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) boundary. From counts of carbonate cycles, we derive the position of the K/T boundary within C29R at 350 kyr after the base of the reversal. The constancy of cycle thickness (linearly related to sedimentation rate) and amplitude up to the "boundary clay" does not give evidence for climate instability preceding the boundary. Orbital chronometry records a step-function decrease in sediment accumulation rate at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary that is consistent with a geologically instantaneous event.

Bubble growth by injection of gas into viscous liquids in cylindrical and conical tubes.

The laminar low Mach number flow of a gas in a tube is analyzed for very small and very large values of the inlet-to-wall temperature ratio. When this ratio tends to zero, pressure forces confine the cold gas to a thin core around the axis of the tube. This core is neatly bounded by an ablation front that consumes it at a finite distance from the tube inlet. When the temperature ratio tends to infinity, the temperature of the gas increases smoothly from the wall to the axis of the tube and the shear stress and heat flux are positive at the wall despite the fact that the viscosity and thermal conductivity of the gas scaled with their inlet values tend to zero at the wall.

Accident Management Actions In An Upper-Head Small-Break Loss-Of-Coolant Accident With High-Pressure Safety Injection Failed

Since the Three Mile Island accident, an important focus of pressurized water reactor (PWR) transient analyses has been a small-break loss-of-coolant accident (SBLOCA). In 2002, the discovery of thinning of the vessel head wall at the Davis Besse nuclear power plant reactor indicated the possibility of an SBLOCA in the upper head of the reactor vessel as a result of circumferential cracking of a control rod drive mechanism penetration nozzle - which has cast even greater importance on the study of SBLOCAs. Several experimental tests have been performed at the Large Scale Test Facility to simulate the behavior of a PWR during an upper-head SBLOCA. The last of these tests, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Nuclear Energy Agency Rig of Safety Assessment (OECD/NEA ROSA) Test 6.1, was performed in 2005. This test was simulated with the TRACE 5.0 code, and good agreement with the experimental results was obtained. Additionally, a broad analysis of an upper-head SBLOCA with high-pressure safety injection failed in a Westinghouse PWR was performed taking into account different accident management actions and conditions in order to check their suitability. This issue has been analyzed also in the framework of the OECD/NEA ROSA project and the Code Applications and Maintenance Program (CAMP). The main conclusion is that the current emergency operating procedures for Westinghouse reactor design are adequate for these kinds of sequences, and they do not need to be modified.

Low-injection behaviour of a solar cell with a metallic grating back-reflector

Recent studies have dealt with the possibility of increasing light absorption by using the so-called electric field enhancement taking place within the grooves of metallic gratings. In order to evaluate the potential improvements derived from the absorption increase, we employ a simplified model to analyze the low-injection behaviour of a solar cell with a metallic grating back-reflector.