Search

Accurate engine performance models are important for model-based performance evaluation of aero engine. The accuracy of the model often depends on engine component maps, so there is a need for a method that can accurately correct the component maps of the model over a wide range. In this paper, a new method for modifying component maps is proposed, this method combines the correction of the scaling factors with the solution process of the off-design working point, and uses the adjustment of the variable geometric parameters of the engine to change the position of the working line, in order to obtain more correction results and guarantee high accuracy in a wider range. The method is validated by taking the main fan of the Adaptive Cycle Engine (ACE), an ideal power unit for a new generation of multi-purpose and ultra-wide working range aircraft, as an example. The results show that the maximum error between the corrected component maps and the target maps is less than 1%. New possibility for more precise component maps can be realized in this paper.

Three-dimensional time history analysis has become a demand for the majority of updated building codes. A vast literature has addressed the selecting and scaling of horizontal component of earthquake ground motion. Meanwhile, the scaling of vertical component has been less of a concern. This paper investigates the suggestion of using the same scaling factor of horizontal component of ground motion to scale its vertical counterpart. A data set consists of 6409 mainshock records with vertical and orientation independent geometric rotated ( GMRotD 50 ) response spectra with 5 % damping is used. Even though ASCE 7 - 16 among other international codes recommends to use the same scaling factor for horizontal component and its vertical counterpart, this paper shows that scaling factor of vertical component trends an extreme variation from its horizontal counterpart for various soil classes, different magnitudes and over a wide range of Joyner-Boore distances. Results illustrate that the ratio of vertical to horizontal scaling factors has a strong negative relationship with the ratio of vertical to horizontal peak ground acceleration. Earthquake magnitude has no significant role on the ratio of vertical to horizontal scaling factors. A gradual increase is observed in the studied ratio over a wide range of Joyner-Boore distances. The paper ends up with simplified equations to calculate the scaling factor of vertical component in regards with the scaling factor of its GMRotD50 horizontal counterpart based on the ( V / H ) PGA ratio of the recorded components. Robust statistics manifest the goodness of the developed equations.

Determination of 14C, 55Fe, 63Ni and gamma emitters in two different types of activated reactor pressure vessel (RPV) steel samples were carried out. The gamma emitters were analysed using HPGe detectors with ISOCS and standard geometry calibrations. Two radioanalytical procedures for the 14C, 55Fe, 63Ni analysis were developed using inactive samples and activated samples were analysed using modified procedures. A Monte Carlo code was used for the modelling of the activation results. The obtained measured and calculated results were comparable.

Arpa Piemonte has been carrying out, for a long time, controls on clearable materials from nuclear power plants to verify compliance with clearance levels set by ISIN (Ispettorato Nazionale per la Sicurezza Nucleare e la Radioprotezione - National Inspectorate for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection) in the technical prescriptions attached to the Ministerial Decree decommissioning authorization or into category A source authorization (higher level of associated risk, according to the categorization defined in the Italian Legislative Decree No. 230/95). After the experience undertaken at the “FN” (Fabbricazioni Nucleari) Bosco Marengo nuclear installation, some controls have been conducted at the Trino nuclear power plant “E. Fermi,” “LivaNova” nuclear installation based in Saluggia, and “EUREX” (Enriched Uranium Extraction) nuclear installation, also based in Saluggia, according to modalities that envisage, as a final control, the determination of γ-emitting radionuclides through in situ gamma spectrometry measurements. Clearance levels’ compliance verification should be performed for all radionuclides potentially present, including those that are not easily measurable (DTM, Difficult To Measure). It is therefore necessary to carry out upstream, based on a representative number of samples, those radionuclides’ determination in order to estimate scaling factors (SF), defined through the logarithmic average of the ratios between the i-th DTM radionuclide concentration and the related key nuclide. Specific radiochemistry is used for defining DTMs’ concentrations, such as Fe-55, Ni-59, Ni-63, Sr-90, Pu-238, and Pu-239/Pu-240. As a key nuclide, Co-60 was chosen for the activation products (Fe-55, Ni-59, Ni-63) and Cs-137 for fission products (Sr-90) and plutonium (Pu- 238, Pu-239/Pu-240, and Pu-241). The presence of very low radioactivity concentrations, often below the detection limits, can make it difficult to determine the related scaling factors. In this work, the results obtained and measurements’ acceptability criteria are presented, defined with ISIN, that can be used for confirming or excluding a radionuclide presence in the process of verifying clearance levels’ compliance. They are also exposed to evaluations regarding samples’ representativeness chosen for scaling factors’ assessment.

This paper present efficient methods for merging KOMPSAT-3A (Korea Multi-Purpose Satellite) medium wave Infrared (MIR) and panchromatic (PAN) images. Spatial sharpening techniques have been developed to create an image with both high spatial and high spectral resolution by combining the desired qualities of a PAN image with high spatial and low spectral resolution and an MS/MIR image with low spatial and high spectral resolution. The proposed methods can extract an optimal scaling factor, and uses the tactics of appropriately controlling the balance between the spatial and spectral resolutions. KOMPSAT-3A PAN and MIR images were used to test and evaluate the performance of the proposed methods. A qualitative assessment were performed using the image quality index (Q4), the cross correlation index (CC) and the relative global dimensional synthesis error (Spectral/Spatial ERGAS). These tests indicate that the proposed methods preserve the spectral and spatial characteristics of the original MIR and PAN images. Visual analysis reveals that the spectral and spatial information derived from the proposed methods were well retained in the test images. A comparison of the results of the proposed methods with those obtained from applying existing ones such as the Multi Sensor Fusion (MSF) technique or the Guide Filter Based Fusion (GF) show the efficiency of the new fusion process to be superior to the one of the others. The results showed a significant improvement in fusion capability for KOMPSAT-3A MIR imagery.

Nuclear power plants and research facilities commonly employ the so-called scaling factor (SF) method to quantify the activity of difficult-to-measure (DTM) radionuclides within their radioactive waste packages. The method relies on the establishment of a relationship between an easy-to-measure (ETM) radionuclide, called key nuclide (KN), and difficult-to-measure radionuclides, after the collection of a representative sample from the waste population. The distribution of the scaling factors, as well as the parameters defining the distribution, can change over time. Therefore, the accuracy of the calculated activity of the DTM radionuclides depends on the capacity of the scaling factor method to follow the time evolution of the waste population. In practice, waste producers collect periodically new samples from the waste population and check the variation and the validity of the scaling factors. In this article, we present a simple Bayesian framework to update scaling factors when a new data set becomes available. The method is tested and validated for radioactive waste produced at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) and can be easily implemented for waste of different origin.

International audience; Radioactive waste is produced as a consequence of preventive and corrective maintenance during the operation of high-energy particle accelerators or associated dismantling campaigns. Their radiological characterization must be performed to ensure an appropriate disposal in the disposal facilities. The radiological characterization of waste includes the establishment of the list of produced radionuclides, called “radionuclide inventory”, and the estimation of their activity. The present paper describes the process adopted at CERN to characterize very-low-level radioactive waste with a focus on activated metals. The characterization method consists of measuring and estimating the activity of produced radionuclides either by experimental methods or statistical and numerical approaches. We adapted the so-called Scaling Factor (SF) and Correlation Factor (CF) techniques to the needs of hadron accelerators, and applied them to very-low-level metallic waste produced at CERN. For each type of metal we calculated the radionuclide inventory and identified the radionuclides that most contribute to hazard factors. The methodology proposed is of general validity, can be extended to other activated materials and can be used for the characterization of waste produced in particle accelerators and research centres, where the activation mechanisms are comparable to the ones occurring at CERN.

In this paper we investigated the ability of the GIAO-mPW1PW91/6-31G(d)//mPW1PW91/6-31G(d) level of theory to predict the 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shifts of the 2’-hydroxy-3,4,5-trimethoxy-chalcone molecule. Two different approaches were used. First: the absolute shieldings σ for all carbon atoms in each geometrically optimized conformers of the 2’-hydroxy-3,4,5-trimethoxy-chalcone molecule were calculated at the GIAO-mPW1PW91/6-31G(d)//mPW1PW91/6-31G(d) level of theory. This approach is further used to generate weighted average values for each atom considering the previously obtained conformational distribution. Second: only the σ for the lowest energetic conformer will be taken to account. The robustness of the method was evaluated for two other chalcones: (E)-1-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)-3-(3,5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one and (E)-1-(4-aminophenyl)-3-(3,4-dimethoxyphenyl)prop-2-en-1-one, corroborating the ability of the method in chemical shift prevision. Although, both approaches were able to reproduce the chemical shifts of the 2’-hydroxy-3,4,5-trimethoxy-chalcone, significant differences in the calculated values for C-4 and methoxy carbons were observed. The best results were obtained using the second approach (II).

We analyze more than 10 years of Global Positioning System (GPS) height residuals and vertical displacements predicted from surface mass loading observed by the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) for 36 International GNSS Service (IGS) stations over Europe. Seasonal surface displacements, mostly due to atmospheric and hydrological loading, are significant in both GPS and GRACE measurements. With an extended time period, our new analysis based on release 05 GRACE data from Center for Space Research (CSR) shows considerably improved agreement between GPS and GRACE than that from previous studies, for not only annual but also interannual signals. The GPS height residual series at most stations exhibit reduced weighted root-mean-squares (WRMS) after removing GRACE-derived vertical displacements, which is attributed to improved accuracy of both GPS and GRACE data products. Furthermore, we demonstrate the necessity of reducing leakage bias in GRACE estimates for the study of surface loading deformation using GRACE satellite gravity observations.

This is an Open Access article DFT calculations for methyl cation complexed within a constrained cage of water molecules permit the controlled manipulation of the “axial” donor/acceptor distance and the “equatorial” distance to hydrogen-bond acceptors. The kinetic isotope effect k(CH3)/k(CT3) for methyl transfer within a cage with a short axial distance becomes less inverse for shorter equatorial C⋅⋅⋅O distances: a decrease of 0.5 Å results in a 3 % increase at 298 K. Kinetic isotope effects in AdoMet-dependent methyltransferases may be m∧odulated by CH⋅⋅⋅O hydrogen bonding, and factors other than axial compression may contribute, at least partially, to recently reported isotope-effect variations for catechol-O-methyltransferase and its mutant structures.