Effect of Cu Content on the Structure,and Performance of Substoichiometric Cr–N Coatings

Cu–Cr–N coatings with Cu contents between 3 and 65 at.%, Cu/Cr ratios in the 0.04–4.5 range and 21–27 at.% N, synthesized by twin electron-beam Physical Vapor Deposition at 450 °C, were investigated and compared against substoichiometric Cr–N reference samples. The main objective of this study is to study the influence of Cu on the structure, and the subsequent effects on the mechanical properties, room (22 °C) and high temperature (500 and 840 °C) tribological performance of Cu–Cr–N coatings. Using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, glancing angle X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy, in combination with nanoindentation mechanical property measurements and laboratory-controlled ball-on-disc sliding experiments, it is shown that Cu–Cr–N coatings with low Cu content (3 at.%) possess sufficient wear resistance for high-temperature demanding tribological applications. The lubricious effect of oxide formation at high temperatures is also evaluated.     

Tribological investigation of cast iron air-conditioning compressor surfaces in CO2 refrigerant

Tribological investigations of air-conditioning compressors have been a topic of great interest in recent years and gray cast iron has been a commonly used material by various compressor manufacturers. The scope of this paper is to determine the role of oxygen and in particular carbon dioxide refrigerant (R744) in cast iron samples tribologically tested using an Ultra High Pressure Tribometer that is suitable for tribological testing of compressor contact interfaces that operate with carbon dioxide refrigerant. A series of experiments was performed in environments of air, nitrogen (N₂), oxygen (O₂) and carbon dioxide (CO₂). While it was found that the presence of oxygen is beneficial, CO₂ has a more positive effect on the surfaces than in the case of pure O₂ suggesting that the use of CO₂ promotes a different wear mechanism. Also, it was found that CO₂ has better tribological performance over a range of pressures between 100 psi (0.69 MPa) to 600 psi (4.1 MPa), compared to lower pressures. Furthermore, CO₂ was compared with tetrafluorethane (R134a), a common hydrofluorocarbon refrigerant and found to have superior tribological performance. Two surface chemical analysis techniques were utilized to examine the surfaces after tribological testing. Auger electron spectroscopy (AES) was used to track changes in the elemental composition while X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) was utilized to detect the different chemical states resulting from compound formation on the tribologically tested surfaces. It was found that CO₂ leads to better tribological performance of the interface due to the formation of carbonates on the surface, which reduce friction and prevent wear.     

Stable adaptive neural control scheme for nonlinear systems

Based on the Lyapunov synthesis approach, several adaptive neural control schemes have been developed during the last few years. So far, these schemes have been applied only to simple classes of nonlinear systems. This paper develops a design methodology that expands the class of nonlinear systems that adaptive neural control schemes can be applied to and relaxes some of the restrictive assumptions that are usually made. One such assumption is the requirement of a known bound on the network reconstruction error. The overall adaptive scheme is shown to guarantee semiglobal uniform ultimate boundedness. The proposed feedback control law is a smooth function of the state     

High-order neural network structures for identification ofdynamical systems

Several continuous-time and discrete-time recurrent neural network models have been developed and applied to various engineering problems. One of the difficulties encountered in the application of recurrent networks is the derivation of efficient learning algorithms that also guarantee the stability of the overall system. This paper studies the approximation and learning properties of one class of recurrent networks, known as high-order neural networks; and applies these architectures to the identification of dynamical systems. In recurrent high-order neural networks, the dynamic components are distributed throughout the network in the form of dynamic neurons. It is shown that if enough high-order connections are allowed then this network is capable of approximating arbitrary dynamical systems. Identification schemes based on high-order network architectures are designed and analyzed.     

Radar cross section of trihedral corner reflectors using PO and MEC

Physical optics (po) and the method of equivalent currents (mec) are used for the formulation and calculation of the backscatter cross section of both the triangular and square trihedral corner reflectors. Scattering from a trihedral corner reflector is dominated by single, double, and triple reflections by the interior walls. A physical optics integration is performed on the entire surface of each plate for the evaluation of the singly reflected fields. Doubly and triply reflected fields are evaluated by first using geometrical optics (go) at initial reflections to calculate the incident plane wave on the plate where the last reflection occurs. Physical optics is then applied on the illuminated area of that plate. First-order diffractions, which are based on the fringe current expressions for the exterior edges of the trihedral, are also included in the analysis. Predictions compare very well with both experimental and fdtd data.     

Robust fault isolation for a class of non-linear input?output systems

The design and analysis of fault diagnosis methodologies for non-linear systems has received significant attention recently. This paper presents a robust fault isolation scheme for a class of non-linear systems with unstructured modelling uncertainty and partial state measurement. The proposed fault diagnosis architecture consists of a fault detection and approximation estimator and a bank of isolation estimators. Each isolation estimator corresponds to a particular type of fault in the fault class. A fault isolation decision scheme is presented with guaranteed performance. If at least one component of the output estimation error of a particular fault isolation estimator exceeds the corresponding adaptive threshold at some finite time, then the occurrence of that type of fault can be excluded. Fault isolation is achieved if this is valid for all but one isolation estimator. Based on the class of non-linear systems under consideration, fault isolability conditions are rigorously investigated, characterizing the class of non-linear faults that are isolable by the proposed scheme. Moreover, the non-conservativeness of the fault isolability conditions is illustrated by deriving a subclass of nonlinear systems and faults for which this condition is also necessary for fault isolability. A simulation example of a simple robotic system is used to show the effectiveness of the robust fault isolation methodology.     

Ground effects for VHF/HF antennas on helicopter airframes

In this paper, the finite element method (FEM) is used to predict the space and surface wave radiation patterns of VHF/HF antennas mounted on a helicopter in the presence of a lossy ground. The equivalent sources of the radiation system are obtained by solving an FEM problem in conjunction with an absorbing boundary condition (ABC) or an impedance boundary condition (IBC). From the equivalent sources, the total radiated field is calculated using the equivalence principle and superposition; the original problem is converted into a set of properly combined Hertzian dipoles referred to as the Sommerfeld problem. Instead of evaluating the Sommerfeld integral rigorously, Norton's approximation is used to improve the overall computational efficiency. The validation of this method is accomplished in two steps: first, the FEM is compared with the finite-difference time-domain method (FDTD) in the absence of a lossy ground; second, the Hertzian dipole problem is solved in the presence of a lossy ground and the results are compared with analytic solutions. Finally, this technique is extended to analyze an antenna on a helicopter above a lossy ground     

Helicopter rotor-blade modulation of antenna radiationcharacteristics

This paper investigates rotor modulation on the gain and input impedance of an antenna mounted on a helicopter's fuselage. The rotor blades, which are rotating about an axis with a given angular velocity, continuously modulate the signal transmitted by the antenna and adversely affect the established communication links. In this study, particular emphasis is placed on wire antennas operating within the HF and VHF bands. Specifically, the Doppler spectrum of the magnitude and phase of the radiated field from a vertical and a horizontal short dipole underneath the rotors is computed and analyzed. The variation of the corresponding antenna gain as a function of rotor angle and frequency is also investigated. The same type of analysis is then extended to a 14-ft towel-bar antenna mounted on the tail boom of a 10:1 scaled helicopter model. In addition to gain, the variation of input impedance versus angle and frequency is computed within the HF band. Finally, the bit error rate (BER) assuming a quadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) modulation is evaluated assuming linearly and circularly polarized receiving antennas     

Tribological studies of unpolished laser surface textures under starved lubrication conditions for use in air-conditioning and refrigeration compressors

An experimental study was carried out to investigate the tribological performance of different laser surface texture patterns, with unpolished material bulges around the dimples, under realistic operating conditions of starved lubrication, for use in air-conditioning and refrigeration compressors. Compared to untextured gray cast iron surfaces, the texture patterns showed significant tribological improvements. Long durability tests also highlighted the long term usefulness of surface texturing. The dominant wear mode of the texture patterns was found to be mechanical polishing and the tribological behavior was found to be largely independent of the type of lubricant or refrigerant.     

Ferrite-loaded cavity-backed antennas including nonuniform and nonlinear magnetization effects

A method of analyzing both the electromagnetic and the magnetostatic phenomena involved in ferrite-loaded cavity-backed antennas is presented. The high-frequency modeling of the antenna is based on a hybrid of the finite element method (FEM) with the method of moments (MoM). The (magnetostatic) demagnetizing process of the finite ferrite loadings is modeled with the use of a nonlinear static FEM. The results of the magnetostatic analysis are used to compute the internal field of the ferrite samples. Through the use of an appropriate ferrite permeability tensor, the nonuniform internal bias field is incorporated into the high-frequency FEM/MoM analysis. The input impedance characteristics of two different ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) antennas are presented using different ferrite models. Results for the tuning range and sensitivity are presented for different bias directions. The numerical results are also compared with experimental data.