Influence of Se and Te substitutions at Tl-site of Tl(Ba,Sr)CaCu2O7 superconductor on the AC susceptibility and electrical properties

The Sr and Ba bearing Tl-1212 phase, Tl(Ba,Sr)CaCu₂O₇ is an interesting superconductor. The Sr only bearing TlSr₂CaCu₂O₇ is not easily prepared in the superconducting form. The Ba only bearing TlBa₂CaCu₂O₇ on the other hand does not show improvement in the transition temperature with elemental substitution. In this work the influence of multivalent Se (non-metal) and Te (metalloid) substitutions at the Tl-site of Tl_1-xM_x(Ba,Sr)CaCu₂O₇ (M = Se or Te) superconductors for x = 0–0.6 was studied. The samples were prepared via the conventional solid-state reaction method. XRD patterns showed a single Tl-1212 phase for x = 0 and 0.1 Se substituted samples. The critical current density at the peak temperature, T_p of the imaginary (χ”) part of the AC susceptibility (χ = χ’ +χ”), J_c-inter(T_p) for all samples was between 15 and 21 A cm⁻². The highest superconducting transition temperature was shown by the x = 0.3 Se-substituted sample (T_c-onset = 104 K, T_c-zero = 89 K, T_cχ’ = 104 K and T_p = 80 K). Te suppressed the superconductivity of Tl-1212 phase. The order of highest transition temperatures are as follows: Tl_1-xTe_x(Ba,Sr)CaCu₂O₇<Tl(Ba,Sr)CaCu₂O₇<Tl_1-xSe_x(Ba,Sr)CaCu₂O₇. This work showed that Se was better than Te in improving the transition temperature and flux pinning of the Tl-1212 phase. The roles of ionic radius of Se and Te on the superconductivity of Tl(Ba,Sr)CaCu₂O₇ are discussed in this paper.     

Temperature dependent negative permittivity in solid solutions Sr2Mn1-xSnxO4 (x = 0, 0.3, 0.5)

A few compositions of the system Sr₂Mn_1-xSn_xO₄ (x = 0.0, 0.3, 0.5) were synthesized in the air by the solid-state ceramic route. A change in the sign (positive to negative) of the permittivity above a particular temperature (T_C) is observed at all the measured frequencies. The negative permittivity was analyzed by the Drude-Lorentz model. It was found that negative permittivity is caused by the plasma oscillations of thermally excited free charge carriers. Analysis of XPS spectra confirmed the presence of mixed-valence states of both Mn (Mn⁴⁺ and Mn³⁺) and Sn (Sn⁴⁺ and Sn²⁺) ions. The UV–vis.-IR spectroscopy results indicated generation of a large number of defect states in the forbidden bandgap region of Sr₂MnO₄ on the substitution of Sn at Mn site. Synthesized samples are promising metamaterials for radio frequency (10 Hz -2 MHz) region applications due to the high-temperature plasmonic behavior.     

Full AC analysis of value of DER to the grid and optimal DER scheduling

This paper presents part of the work ComEd and Quanta Technology have performed to quantify the locational and temporal value of DER to avoid distribution grid upgrade investments. It focuses on the formulation of a robust and efficient algorithm for DER optimal dispatch on a distribution feeder to mitigate the violation of current and voltage limits using the allocated cost of capacity and locational marginal value of real and reactive DER injection/withdrawal.     

Thermodynamic modeling of gas solubility in aqueous sodium chloride solution

An electrolyte Equation of State is presented by combining the Cubic Plus Association Equation of State,Mean Spherical Approximation and the Born equation.This new model uses experimental relative static permittivity,intend to predict well the activity coefficients of individual ions (ACI) and liquid densities of aqueous solutions.This new model is applied to model water + NaCl binary system and water + gas +NaCl ternary systems.The cation/anion-water interaction parameters of are obtained by fitting the exper-imental data of ACI,mean ionic activity coefficients (MIAC) and liquid densities of water + NaCl binary system.The cation/anion-gas interaction parameters are obtained by fitting the experimental data of gas solubilities in aqueous NaCl solutions.The modeling results show that this new model can correlate well with the phase equilibrium and volumetric properties.Without gas,predictions for ACI,MIAC,and liquid densities present relative average deviations of 1.3％,3.6％ and 1.4％ compared to experimental ref-erence values.For most gas-containing systems,predictions for gas solubilities present relative average deviations lower than 7.0％.Further,the contributions of ACI,and salting effects of NaCl on gases are ana-lyzed and discussed.     

Couple-based particle swarm optimization for short-term hydrothermal scheduling

A novel couple-based particle swarm optimization (CPSO) is presented in this paper, and applied to solve the short-term hydrothermal scheduling (STHS) problem. In CPSO, three improvements are proposed compared to the canonical particle swarm optimization, aimed at overcoming the premature convergence problem. Dynamic particle couples, a unique sub-group structure in maintaining population diversity, is adopted as the population topology, in which every two particles compose a particle couple randomly in each iteration. Based on this topology, an intersectional learning strategy using the partner learning information of last iteration is employed in every particle couple, which can automatically reveal useful history information and reduce the overly rapid evolution speed. Meanwhile, the coefficients of each particle in a particle couple are set as distinct so that the particle movement patterns can be described and controlled more precisely. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed CPSO, the algorithm is firstly tested with four multimodal benchmark functions, and then applied to solve an engineering multimodal problem known as STHS, in which two typical test systems with four different cases are tested, and the results are compared with those of other evolutionary methods published in the literature.     

A CCD-ADI method for two-dimensional linear and nonlinear hyperbolic telegraph equations with variable coefficients

In this paper, a combined compact finite difference method (CCD) together with alternating direction implicit (ADI) scheme is developed for two-dimensional linear and nonlinear hyperbolic telegraph equations with variable coefficients. The proposed CCD-ADI method is second-order accurate in time variable and sixth-order accurate in space variable. For the linear hyperbolic equation, the CCD-ADI method is shown to be unconditionally stable by using the Von Neumann stability analysis. Numerical results for both linear and nonlinear hyperbolic equations are presented to illustrate the high accuracy of the proposed method.     

热压烧结制备Cu/FeCoCr复合材料的显微组织及热物理性能

利用相图计算的CALPHAD方法和超音雾化制粉技术,在CuFeCoCr体系中设计并制备了一系列微米级复合粉体。通过热压烧结方法在烧结温度为950℃,烧结压力为45 MPa的工艺条件下成功获得块体复合材料。研究了块体复合材料中Cu含量对显微组织,热导率,热膨胀系数以及显微硬度的影响。结果表明:CuFeCoCr块体复合材料均由fcc富铜相和fcc富铁钴铬相组成。该系列复合材料经600℃时效处理8 h后,其热膨胀系数变化范围为5.83×10-6~10.61×10-6 K-1,热导率变化范围为42.17~107.53 W·m-1·K-1。其中Cu55(Fe0.37Cr0.09Co0.54)45复合材料表现出良好的综合性能,即其热膨胀系数和热导率分别为9.08×10-6K-1和91.09 W·m-1·K-1,与电子封装半导体材料的热膨胀系数相匹配。     

Assessment of spray quality from an external mix nozzle and its impact on SQL grinding performance

Spray quality is the critical factor which decides the efficacy of Small Quantity Lubrication (SQL) technology in a high specific energy involved machining process like grinding. Yet, the understanding about spray quality, the actual process mechanics and its effect on machining performance is inadequate. The present work is an attempt to establish a correlation between the spray input variables, quality of the spray and machining performance of SQL grinding through modelling and experiments. Using computational fluid dynamic techniques, the variation of droplet size, droplet velocity, number of droplets and heat transfer coefficient have been analysed at different input parameters and the computed trends have been verified and validated. CFD modelling of spray indicates that it is possible to produce aerosol medium with high heat dissipation ability at moderately high air pressure and low flow rate. It also shows that any increase in atomising air pressure favourably leads to notable increase in wetting area and also results in substantial enhancement in heat dissipation ability. Reduction of residual stress is thus remarkably good. On the other hand, grinding fluid flow rate, if increased, offers significantly better lubricity and reduces the grinding force which also reduces tensile residual stress. Short spell grinding test results are found to be in good agreement with CFD results.