Ocean Engineering in the U. S. Navy

This paper is the complete text of an address given at the IEEE meeting in New York on March 23, 1966, in ?Undersea Technology Session,? covering the U. S. Navy's furtherance of the development of Ocean Engineering and some plans for the future. The items covered include the deep submergence systems project, SEALAB III, salvage work packages circa 1967, and additions to the Marine Engineering Laboratory.     

State-plane analysis of zero-voltage-switching resonant DC/DCconverters

The state-plane analysis technique is established for the zero-voltage-switching resonant DC/DC power converter family of topologies, namely the buck, boost, buck-boost, Cuk, sepic, and dual-sepic converters. The state plane provides a compression of information, which allows the designer to examine the nonlinear dynamics of resonant converter operation. Utilizing the state plane, modes of resonant converter operation are examined. Expressions are derived for the switching frequencies at the boundaries between these modes and at the boundary of energy conversion     

A Carbon Nano Tube electron impact ionisation source for low-power,compact spacecraft mass spectrometers

A novel ionisation source which uses commercially available Carbon Nano Tube devices is demonstrated as a replacement for a filament based ionisation source in an ion trap mass spectrometer. The carbon nanotube ion source electron emission was characterised and exhibited typical emission of 30 ± 1.7 μA with an applied voltage differential of 300 V between the carbon nanotube tips and the extraction grid. The ion source was tested for longevity and operated under a condition of continuous emission for a period of 44 h; there was an observed reduction in emission current of 26.5% during operation. Spectra were generated by installing the ion source into a Finnigan Mat ITD700 ion trap mass spectrometer; the spectra recorded showed all of the characteristic m/z peaks from m/z 69 to m/z 219. Perfluorotributylamine spectra were collected and averaged contiguously for a period of 48 h with no significant signal loss or peak mass allocation shift. The low power requirements and low mass of this novel ionisation source are considered be of great value to future space missions where mass spectrometric technology will be employed.     

Ptolemy – an Instrument to Measure Stable Isotopic Ratios of Key Volatiles on a Cometary Nucleus

A fundamental goal of cometary studies is to determine the exact relationship between these bodies and the Solar System – the question(s) can be summarised as follows: did comets originate during the same events that spawned the Sun and planets, are they more primitive bodies that record a pre-solar history, or are they interstellar materials collected in relatively more recent times? Now, whatever the origin of comets, it is entirely possible that they could, in part, contain interstellar or pre-solar components – indeed, it seems rather likely in light of the fact that primitive meteorites contain such entities. These particular components are likely to be refractory (dust, macromolecular organic complexes, etc.). Of more relevance to the issues above are the volatile constituents, which make up the bulk of a comet's mass. Since these materials, by their very nature, volatilise during perihelion passage of a comet they can, in some instances, be detected and measured spectroscopically. Perhaps the most useful species for isotopic investigations are C₂, HCN and CN. Unfortunately, spectroscopic measurements can only currently be made with accuracies of ±10 to ±20%. As such it is very often not practical to conclude anything further than the fact that isotopic measurements are compatible with ‘`solar’' values, which tends to imply an origin from the margins of the solar accretion disk. But there is another problem with the spectroscopic measurements – since these are made on gaseous species in the coma (and relatively minor species at that) it is impossible to be certain that these represent the true nuclear values. In other words, if the processes of sublimation, active jetting, and photochemistry in the coma impart isotopic fractionation, the spectroscopic measurements could give a false impression of the true isotope ratios. What is required is an experiment capable of measuring isotopic ratios at the very surface of a comet. Herein we describe the Ptolemy instrument, which is included on the Philae lander as part of the Rosetta mission to 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The major objective of Ptolemy is a detailed appraisal of the nature and isotopic compositions of all materials present at the surface of a comet.