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At least 181 records · Page 10

A platform for x-ray absorption fine structure study of dynamically compressed materials above 1 Mbar [A platform for XAFS study of dynamically compressed materials above 1 Mbar]

Here, a platform consisting of a multi-shock drive and an implosion backlighter has been developed for x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) measurements on materials compressed to multi-Mbar pressures. The experimental setup, target design, and backlighter characteristics are presented. Extended XAFS (EXAFS) measurements for various materials have been demonstrated. A quintuple-crystal design is described to enhance the efficiency of the x-ray spectrometer, enabling observation of very weak EXAFS signals in a single shot.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Radiochemical determination of Inertial Confinement Fusion capsule compression at the National Ignition Facility

We describe a radiochemical measurement of the ratio of isotope concentrations produced in a gold hohlraum surrounding an Inertial Confinement Fusion capsule at the National Ignition Facility (NIF). We relate the ratio of the concentrations of (n,γ) and (n,2n) products in the gold hohlraum matrix to the down-scatter of neutrons in the compressed fuel and, consequently, to the fuel's areal density. The observed ratio of the concentrations of {sup 198m+g}Au and {sup 196g}Au is a performance signature of ablator areal density and the fuel assembly confinement time. We identify the measurement of nuclear cross sections of astrophysical importance as a potential application of the neutrons generated at the NIF.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

Results from new multi-megabar shockless compression experiments at the Z machine

Sandia’s Z Machine has been used to magnetically drive shockless compression of materials in a planar configuration to multi-megabar pressure levels, allowing accurate measurements of quasi-isentropic mechanical response at relatively low temperatures in the solid phase. This work details recent improvements to design and analysis of such experiments, including the use of new data on the mechanical and optical response of lithium fluoride windows. Comparison of windowed and free-surface data on copper to 350 GPa lends confidence to the window correction method. Preliminary results are presented on gold to 500 GPa and platinum to 450 GPa; both appear stiffer than existing models.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Accurate Compression of Tabulated Chemistry Models with Partition of Unity Networks

Tabulated chemistry models are widely used to simulate large-scale turbulent fires in applications including energy generation and fire safety. Tabulation via piecewise Cartesian interpolation suffers from the curse-of-dimensionality, leading to a prohibitive exponential growth in parameters and memory usage as more dimensions are considered. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have attracted attention for constructing surrogates for chemistry models due to their ability to perform high-dimensional approximation. However, due to well-known pathologies regarding the realization of suboptimal local minima during training, in practice they do not converge and provide unreliable accuracy. Partition of unity networks (POUnets) are a recently introduced family of ANNs which preserve notions of convergence while performing high-dimensional approximation, discovering a mesh-free partition of space which may be used to perform optimal polynomial approximation. In this work, we assess their performance with respect to accuracy and model complexity in reconstructing unstructured flamelet data representative of nonadiabatic pool fire models. Our results show that POUnets can provide the desirable accuracy of classical spline-based interpolants with the low memory footprint of traditional ANNs while converging faster to significantly lower errors than ANNs. For example, we observe POUnets obtaining target accuracies in two dimensions with 40 to 50 times less memory and roughly double the compression in three dimensions. We also address the practical matter of efficiently training accurate POUnets by studying convergence over key hyperparameters, the impact of partition/basis formulation, and the sensitivity to initialization.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗

Search for pair-produced third-generation squarks decaying via charm quarks or in compressed supersymmetric scenarios in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for supersymmetry via direct production of third-generation squarks are reported, using 20.3 fb -1 of proton-proton collision data at $ \sqrt{s} $=8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in 2012. Two different analysis strategies based on monojetlike and c-tagged event selections are carried out to optimize the sensitivity for direct top squark-pair production in the decay channel to a charm quark and the lightest neutralino ($ \tilde{t} $ -1 →c+ $ \tilde{χ} ^0_1 $) across the top squark-neutralino mass parameter space. No excess above the Standard Model background expectation is observed. The results are interpreted in the context of direct pair production of top squarks and presented in terms of exclusion limits in the (m $ \tilde{t} $ -1 , m $ \tilde{χ} ^0_1 $ ) parameter space. A top squark of mass up to about 240 GeV is excluded at 95% confidence level for arbitrary neutralino masses, within the kinematic boundaries. Top squark masses up to 270 GeV are excluded for a neutralino mass of 200 GeV. In a scenario where the top squark and the lightest neutralino are nearly degenerate in mass, top squark masses up to 260 GeV are excluded. The results from the monojetlike analysis are also interpreted in terms of compressed scenarios for top squark-pair production in the decay channel $ \tilde{t} $ -1 → b + ff' +$ \tilde{χ} ^0_1 $ and sbottom pair production with $ \tilde{b} $ 1 → b +$ \tilde{χ} ^0_1 $, leading to a similar exclusion for nearly mass-degenerate third-generation squarks and the lightest neutralino. The results in this paper significantly extend previous results at colliders.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Direct Observation of Melting in Shock-Compressed Bismuth With Femtosecond X-ray Diffraction

The melting of bismuth in response to shock compression has been studied using in situ femtosecond x-ray diffraction at an x-ray free electron laser. Both solid-solid and solid-liquid phase transitions are documented using changes in discrete diffraction peaks and the emergence of broad, liquid scattering upon release from shock pressures up to 14 GPa. The transformation from the solid state to the liquid is found to occur in less than 3 ns, very much faster than previously believed. These results are the first quantitative measurements of a liquid material obtained on shock release using x-ray diffraction, and provide an upper limit for the time scale of melting of bismuth under shock loading.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗

Compressive strength of the plastic-bonded explosive surrogate idoxuridine under quasistatic and dynamic compression

Inert simulant materials, or “mocks”, are often used as surrogates for plastic-bonded explosives (PBX) in non-detonative tests in order to mitigate hazards. Mocks should reproduce as many non-detonative properties of the explosive as possible, including structural behavior in a variety of thermal and mechanical environments. Recently, the molecular crystal idoxuridine (IDOX) has been identified as an ideal mock for the main component in the explosive polymer-matrix composite PBX 9501, and has performed favorably under quasistatic loading conditions. Here, in order to assess robustness over a range of mechanical environments, plastic-bonded IDOX was compression tested from 0.001/s to 2000/s strain rates and compared to PBX 9501 historical data. Plastic-bonded IDOX showed good agreement to PBX 9501 across these strain rates, justifying continued development and production as a mock.

Burch, Alexandra C.↗

The effects of boost pressure on stratification and burn duration of gasoline homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion

This article investigates the effects of intake pressure (boost) on the pre-ignition stratification and burn duration of homogeneous charge compression ignition combustion. Full cycle computational fluid dynamics simulations are performed with gasoline kinetics. An intake pressure sweep is performed while maintaining the same combustion timing and mean composition. The burn duration reduces with increasing boost, even though intake temperature is reduced to hold combustion timing constant. It is shown that the compositional stratification increases with boost whereas thermal stratification decreases. A quasi-dimensional model is employed to assess the effect of compositional stratification, pressure, mean temperature and isolate the effect of thermal stratification on burn duration. The analysis reveals that reducing charge temperature neutralizes the effect of increased boost on reactivity and the shorter burn durations at higher boost are primarily due to the lower thermal stratification. It is shown that higher pressures do not significantly increase the mixing and the lower thermal stratification is due to lower wall heat losses per unit charge mass. A follow-up set of non-reacting simulations with adiabatic walls corroborate this claim by revealing a constant magnitude of thermal stratification across the boost sweep.

Shingne, Prasad S.↗

Parametric evaluation of ducted fuel injection in an optically accessible mixing-controlled compression-ignition engine with two- and four-duct assemblies

Ducted fuel injection (DFI) is a strategy to improve fuel/charge-gas mixing in direct-injection compression-ignition engines. DFI involves injecting fuel along the axis of a small tube in the combustion chamber, which promotes the formation of locally leaner mixtures in the autoignition zone relative to conventional diesel combustion. Previous work has demonstrated that DFI is effective at curtailing engine-out soot emissions across a wide range of operating conditions. This study extends previous investigations, presenting engine-out emissions and efficiency trends between ducted two-orifice and ducted four-orifice injector tip configurations. For each configuration, parameters investigated include injection pressure, injection duration, intake manifold pressure, intake manifold temperature, start of combustion timing, and intake-oxygen mole fraction. For both configurations and across all parameters, DFI reduced engine-out soot emissions compared to conventional diesel combustion, with little effect on other emissions and engine efficiency. Emissions trends for both configurations were qualitatively the same across the parameters investigated. The four-duct configuration had higher thermal efficiency and indicated-specific engine-out nitrogen oxide emissions but lower indicated-specific engine-out hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emissions than the two-duct assembly. Both configurations achieved indicated-specific engine-out emissions for both soot and nitrogen oxides that comply with current on- and off-road heavy-duty regulations in the United States without exhaust-gas aftertreatment at an intake-oxygen mole fraction of 12%. High-speed in-cylinder imaging of natural soot luminosity shows that some conditions include a second soot-production phase late in the cycle. The probability of these late-cycle events is sensitive to both the number of ducted sprays and the operating conditions.

Yraguen, Boni Frances↗