The prospects and problems of utilizing biomass and combustible wastes to produce heat and electricity

Peculiarities of using biomass and combustible wastes as renewable sources of energy are considered. Positive outcomes resulting from involving these types of fuel in the fuel balance and the problems arising from this involvement are noted. Data on the use of biomass abroad are given.     

Internet-Accessible Electronic Materials Database System

The Electronic Materials Database System described in this paper incorporates the Diagramma Database (phase diagrams of semiconductor systems) and the Kristall Database (substances with special acoustooptic, electrooptic, and nonlinear optical properties). The database system is available in the Internet on the Web site http://phase.imet.ac.ru. The technology of integrating dissimilar databases of substances and materials is discussed, and the possibilities of using database systems in the fields of inorganic chemistry and materials research are examined.     

Electrical Discharge Machining by Structural-Steel Electrodes

Russian Engineering Research - An approach is outlined to selecting conditions of electrical discharge machining such that coatings with the required functional properties are formed on the working...     

Thermoelectric Properties of nGeTe · mSb2Te3Layered Compounds

The Hall coefficient, electrical conductivity, and thermoelectric power of Ge₃Sb₂Te₆, Ge₂Sb₂Te₅, GeSb₂Te₄, and GeSb₄Te₇were measured over a wide temperature range (R _Hand from 77 to 800 K and Sfrom 90 to 450 K). The carrier concentration was varied via compositional changes within the homogeneity regions of the compounds. All of the materials studied were found to be p-type. Some of the alloys have a low lattice thermal conductivity and are, therefore, candidate p-type thermoelectric materials. The temperature-dependent hole mobility data suggest that both acoustic phonons and point defects contribute to the scattering of charge carriers at low temperatures.     

Multipurpose electron accelerator driven electronuclear system based on a subcritical cascade reactor

An electronuclear system consisting of an electron accelerator, a neutron-producing target, and dual-zone subcritical blanket with fast and thermal neutron spectra is proposed. Some general mechanisms of cascade multiplication of neutrons in a dual-zone subcritical blanket are examined. The results of calculations of the electron-photon-neutron interactions of an electron beam with the target material and of the neutron-physical and heat-engineering characteristics of the system are presented. It is shown that a cascade neutron amplification factor of 2.5–3 can be obtained with system subcriticality 2%. The power of the system reaches 50 MW with electron beam power 4 MW. __________ Translated from Atomnaya énergiya, Vol. 102, No. 2, pp. 92–98, February, 2007.     

True volumetric vapor content of two-phase freon flows

An analysis is made and generalized data presented on the true volumetric vapor content of boiling two-phase flows of Freon-12.Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 48, No. 2, pp. 190–193, February, 1985.