Evolution of Ni-based superalloys for single crystal gas turbine blade applications

The chemistry of the Ni-based superalloys designed for single crystal gas turbine blades has significantly evolved since the development of the first generation of alloys derived from columnar grained materials. The overall performance of the second and third generations has been significantly improved by the addition of increasing amounts of rhenium. However, the problems of increased density, grain defects and microstructural stability have also become more and more acute and render necessary to carefully control the level of the various alloying elements in order to effectively benefit from the high potential of the most recently developed third generation alloys.     

Anomalous phosphenes in ocular protontherapy

We have undertaken a clinical ground study of proton-induced light flashes (phosphenes). Patients treated at the Institut Curie – Centre de Protonthérapie in Orsay, France, received radiation therapy to cure ocular and skull-base cancers. Sixty percent of the patients treated for choroidal melanomas using 73 MeV protons report anomalous phosphenes. Delivering a radiation dose on the retina only is not sufficient to trigger the light flash. The present study may be the first indication of phosphenes triggered by protons of few tens of MeV.     

Further studies on efficient AFEC schemes for Ka-bandsatellite systems

Adaptive fade margin is required to counter the severe but varying rain attenuation in Ka satellite communications. In searching for a suitable rain countermeasure, the effectiveness of the adaptive forward error control (AFEC) scheme is studied. Two AFEC schemes using convolutional codes and concatenated codes are proposed and their performance analyzed. The schemes can provide a progressively adaptive fade margin of 10.1 and 10.4 dB, respectively, in excess of the systems fixed fade margin. To improve the efficient use of shared resources of the system, an AFEC scheme using double coding is introduced, and its performance is analyzed. In this scheme a single codec is used repeatedly, and as a result the hardware cost is reduced and the utilization increased. The effective usable capacity of a conceptual AFEC resource sharing scheme using Golay double coding is also analyzed     

Further results on LMSS experiment in Kyoto City

In February of 1990, land mobile satellite experiments were conducted in Kyoto City, Japan, using the Engineering Test Satellite V (ETS-V). The received signal strength was recorded, as was the speed of the mobile as it traversed various downtown streets. The setting was that of a built-up urban area with medium and high rise buildings, electric utility poles, and trees lining the streets. These caused obstruction to the satellite line of sight (LOS). The signal level fluctuation due to diffraction of radio waves by the urban structures is analyzed. The results obtained from the measurements and theoretical calculation agree. The spatial frequencies due to diffraction are found to vary between 1.8 Hz to 5.3 Hz. It is concluded that this variation of received signal level will not adversely affect the receiver performance. Based on recorded signal strength, the performance of a digital land mobile satellite system (LMSS), under the above mentioned environment, is analyzed and the results presented