An Indian test facility to characterise diagnostic neutral beam for ITER

The diagnostic neutral beam (DNB) line shall be used to diagnose the He ash content in the D–T phase of the ITER machine using the charge exchange recombination spectroscopy (CXRS). Implementation of a successful DNB at ITER requires several challenges related to the production, neutralization and transport of the neutral beam over path lengths of 20.665 m, to be overcome. The delivery is aided if the above effects are tested prior to onsite commissioning. As DNB is a procurement package for INDIA, an ITER approved Indian test facility, INTF, is under construction at Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), India and is envisaged to be operational in 2015. The timeline for this facility is synchronized with the RADI, ELISE (IPP, Garching), SPIDER (RFX, Padova) in a manner that best utilization of configurational inputs available from them are incorporated in the design. This paper describes the facility in detail and discusses the experiments planned to optimise the beam transmission and testing of the beam line components using various diagnostics.     

Synthesis and characterization of polymeric plasticizer from PET waste and its applications in nitrile rubber and nitrile–PVC blend

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste is not biodegradable; thus, it will create environmental hazards if disposed in landfills. Therefore, the only way of addressing the problem of disposal of post-industrial and post-consumer PET wastes is through recycling. The polyester plasticizer for polyacrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) and polyacrylonitrile butadiene–polyvinylchloride rubber blend (NBR–PVC) was obtained by the depolymerization of PET waste with 2-ethyl-1-hexanol. The PET waste was depolymerized until a polymeric plasticizer with the average molecular weight in the range of 450–900 g/mol was obtained. The polymeric plasticizer was characterized for acid and hydroxyl numbers, viscosity, density, FTIR, NMR and TGA/DTA thermogram. The prepared polymeric plasticizer was used in the preparation of nitrile rubber and nitrile–PVC rubber blend rubber sheets, where these sheets were tested for compatibility, tensile strength, elongation-at-break, hardness and ageing properties. Nitrile rubber and nitrile–PVC blend sheets were also prepared using DOP as a plasticizer and a comparative study with the synthesized polymeric plasticizer was made. It was observed that synthesized polymeric plasticizer provides excellent tensile properties and ageing resistance for high-performance applications as compared to that obtained from DOP. The end uses for nitrile rubber and nitrile–PVC rubber blend compounds are quite diverse, but they can be loosely categorized as being either general performances or higher performance applications. Each of these performance categories requires a different set of considerations in terms of compounding with plasticizers.     

Ranking of software engineering metrics by fuzzy‐based matrix methodology

This research paper presents a framework for ranking of software engineering metrics based on expert opinion elicitation and fuzzy‐based matrix methodology. The proposed methodology is able to accommodate the imprecise and inexact data involved in the problem of ranking of software engineering metrics, vagueness and ambiguity occurring during expert (human) decision making and to depart from the complexity of formulation of the objective and the constraint function. The matrices lend themselves to mechanical manipulations and are useful for analyzing and deriving systems functions expeditiously to meet the objectives. The current research is based on software engineering metrics identified in an earlier study conducted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. A set of ranking criteria were identified. Software engineering metrics are then ranked in ascending order using experts' opinion in accordance with the value of Permanent function on their criteria matrix. The proposed methodology has also been compared with other known methodologies. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wavelength Dependence of the Aerosol Angstrom Exponent and Its Implications Over Delhi,India

The aerosol optical depth (AOD), Angstrom coefficients (α and β), and the second-order Angstrom exponent (α′) obtained by Microtops-II sun photometer have been analyzed in the spectral range 0.34–0.87 μm over the urban polluted city of Delhi, India for the period 2007–2008, aiming at investigating the physical and optical properties of aerosols. The average values of AOD at 500 nm, α and β (in the range 340–870 nm) are found to be 0.78 ± 0.32, 0.78 ± 0.28, and 0.45 ± 0.21, respectively, for the entire period of observations. The AOD data show significant curvature in the lnτ versus lnλ relationship suggesting different dominant aerosol types depending on season. In order to analyze further the curvature effect and the relative dominance of aerosol size, α has been calculated in three wavelength bands, i.e., shorter (0.34–0.50 μm), longer (0.675–0.87 μm), and broad (0.34–0.87 μm) during four seasons, summer (April–June), monsoon (July–September), winter (October–January), and spring (February–March) accompanied with calculations of α′, which quantifies the deviation of logarithmic behavior of AOD with lnλ. The α′ values are found to be positive and higher in the months of October–December and mostly negative in February and March, while close to zero values of α′ are found in April–August. These results indicate that winter season exhibits dominance of fine-mode aerosols while summer relatively higher concentration of coarse-mode particles. On the other hand, monsoon and spring seasons revealed the presence of mixed type, both fine- and coarse-mode aerosols over Delhi.     

The influence of subzero temperatures on fatigue behavior of composite sandwich structures

The fatigue lives and failure modes of foam core carbon/epoxy and glass/epoxy composite sandwich beams in 4-point bending were characterized from room temperature (22 °C) down to −60 °C. Similar previous investigations had focused on elevated temperatures only, but the low temperature fatigue behavior must be understood so that these materials may be evaluated for possible use in the hull structures of ships, which operate in cold regions. Core shear was found to be the dominant fatigue failure mode for the test specimens over the entire temperature range from 22 °C down to −60 °C. Significant increases in the useful fatigue life with brittle type core shear failure were observed at low temperatures by comparison with the corresponding room temperature behavior. Fatigue failure at the low temperatures was catastrophic and without any significant early warning, but the corresponding failures at room temperature were preceded by relatively slow but steadily increasing losses of stiffness. Two different approaches were used to investigate stiffness reductions during fatigue tests, and both approaches led to the same conclusions. Experimental observations regarding the location of fatigue crack initiation were confirmed by static finite element analyses for both materials.     

Local Dynamics of Adhesives in Aggressive Environment in the Pre-Damage Stage

Molecular aspects of chemical and physical changes in adhesive joints caused by absorbed moisture were investigated. The focus was on the pre-damage stage that precedes the formation of voids and microcracks. A model and a commercial epoxy-amine formulation were studied. Local dynamics were monitored by broad-band dielectric relaxation spectroscopy (DRS). One portion of the absorbed water does not form hydrogen bonds with the network and gives rise to a fast relaxation process (termed γ) with activation energy of 28 kJ/mol. The local β dynamics are slowed down by the interactions between water and various sites on the network that include the ether oxygen, the hydroxyl group and the tertiary amine nitrogen. One particularly significant finding is that the average relaxation time for the β process above 20°C is of the order of nanoseconds or less and, hence, the detection and monitoring of this process hinges upon the ability to perform high-precision DRS at frequencies above 1 MHz. This is an important consideration in the ongoing efforts aimed at the implementation of DRS as nondestructive inspection (NDI) tool for adhesive joints.     

Tracking model of an adaptive lattice filter for a linear chirp FMsignal in noise

The paper studies the behavior of the partial correlation (PARCOR) coefficients and the output misadjustment of the stochastic gradient adaptive lattice filter in response to a complex linear chirp FM signal in white Gaussian noise. Analytic expressions for the optimal PARCOR coefficients of the filter are derived. Analytic as well as iterative models for a three-stage filter are also derived. The analytic expressions show that the tracking and convergence properties of the filter are separate phenomena. Simulation results also show that the spectral contents of the PARCOR coefficients for the stochastic gradient update algorithm consist of a stationary and a linearly swept component. A single-stage model is developed to explain this behavior. Finally, output misadjustment plots for the filter show that an optimum value for the forgetting factor can be obtained to minimize the misadjustment, but the value required to achieve local minimum misadjustment varies with each stage of the filter. It is shown that in applications where the input has a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the misadjustment decreases rapidly at each successive stage, thus implying that relatively short filter lengths are sufficient to provide effective tracking