There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality.

Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

I and i

The major increase in discharge duration and plasma energy in a next step DT fusion reactor will give rise to important plasma-material effects that will critically influence its operation, safety and performance. Erosion will increase to a scale of several centimetres from being barely measurable at a micron scale in today's tokamaks. Tritium co-deposited with carbon will strongly affect the operation of machines with carbon plasma facing components. Controlling plasma-wall interactions is critical to achieving high performance in present day tokamaks, and this is likely to continue to be the case in the approach to practical fusion reactors. Recognition of the important consequences of these phenomena stimulated an internationally co-ordinated effort in the field of plasma-surface interactions supporting the Engineering Design Activities of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project (ITER), and significant progress has been made in better understanding these issues. The paper reviews the underlying physical processes and the existing experimental database of plasma-material interactions both in tokamaks and laboratory simulation facilities for conditions of direct relevance to next step fusion reactors. Two main topical groups of interaction are considered: (i) erosion/redeposition from plasma sputtering and disruptions, including dust and flake generation and (ii) tritium retention and removal. The use of modelling tools to interpret the experimental results and make projections for conditions expected in future devices is explained. Outstanding technical issues and specific recommendations on potential R&D avenues for their resolution are presented.

/pdf/plasma-material-interactions-in-current-tokamaks-and-their-1a6iwv89x6.pdf

Plasma{material interactions in current tokamaks and their implications for next step fusion reactors

This review article aims to provide an updated and comprehensive description of the development of the Electric Current Activated/assisted Sintering technique (ECAS) for the obtainment of dense materials including nanostructured ones. The use of ECAS for pure sintering purposes, when starting from already synthesized powders promoters, and to obtain the desired material by simultaneously performing synthesis and consolidation in one-step is reviewed. Specifically, more than a thousand papers published on this subject during the past decades are taken into account. The experimental procedures, formation mechanisms, characteristics, and functionality of a wide spectrum of dense materials fabricated by ECAS are presented. The influence of the most important operating parameters (i.e. current intensity, temperature, processing time, etc.) on product characteristics and process dynamics is reviewed for a large family of materials including ceramics, intermetallics, metal–ceramic and ceramic–ceramic composites. In this review, systems where synthesis and densification stages occur simultaneously, i.e. a fully dense product is formed immediately after reaction completion, as well as those ones for which a satisfactory densification degree is reached only by maintaining the application of the electric current once the full reaction conversion is obtained, are identified. In addition, emphasis is given to the obtainment of nanostructured dense materials due to their rapid progress and wide applications. Specifically, the effect of mechanical activation by ball milling of starting powders on ECAS process dynamics and product characteristics (i.e. density and microstructure) is analysed. The emerging theme from the large majority of the reviewed investigations is the comparison of ECAS over conventional methods including pressureless sintering, hot pressing, and others. Theoretical analysis pertaining to such technique is also proposed following the last results obtained on this topic.

Consolidation/synthesis of materials by electric current activated/assisted sintering

http://liu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:303552/FULLTEXT01

The Mn+1AXn phases: Materials science and thin-film processing

The MAX phases are a group of layered ternary compounds with the general formula Mn+1AXn (M: early transition metal; A: group A element; X: C and/or N; n = 1–3), which combine some properties of metals, such as good electrical and thermal conductivity, machinability, low hardness, thermal shock resistance and damage tolerance, with those of ceramics, such as high elastic moduli, high temperature strength, and oxidation and corrosion resistance. The publication of papers on the MAX phases has shown an almost exponential increase in the past decade. The existence of further MAX phases has been reported or proposed. In addition to surveying this activity, the synthesis of MAX phases in the forms of bulk, films and powders is reviewed, together with their physical, mechanical and corrosion/oxidation properties. Recent research and development has revealed potential for the practical application of the MAX phases (particularly using the pressureless sintering and physical vapour deposition coating rout...

Progress in research and development on MAX phases: a family of layered ternary compounds

The method of Magnetic Adaptive Testing (MAT) was applied for investigation of ductile cast iron samples having matrix and graphite structure. This method is typical by its low required magnetization of samples, because it is based on the measurement of minor magnetic hysteresis loops and calculates magnetic descriptors for characterization of the sample. Results of the non-destructive magnetic tests were compared with the results of destructive mechanical measurements of Brinell hardness and also with the results of non-destructive eddy current measurements. Linear, sensitive correlation with low scatter of values was found between the magnetic and the mechanical characteristics. If the parameters of MAT measurement are properly chosen, then they do not depend on temperature in the T = 20-180°C range, in contrast to the results of eddy current measurements. Based on these results, MAT is suggested as a highly promising non-destructive alternative of destructive tests for monitoring structural changes in cast iron and in other ferromagnetic objects.

Temperature Dependence of Magnetic Descriptors of Magnetic Adaptive Testing

Structural variation in a series of cast iron samples was non-destructively characterized by means of sets of magnetic minor hysteresis loops. The flat samples were magnetized by an attached yoke, and reliable parameters were obtained from the series of minor loops, without magnetic saturation of the samples. It was found, that some magnetic quantities, well known to be closely connected to the samples' structure variation, especially relative coercivity and remanent induction, could be distinguished more sensitively from minor loops, than from the major one.

Minor hysteresis loops measurements for characterization of cast iron

Hot filament CVD diamond coating of TiC sliders

An inversion scheme for sizing of wall thinning defects from pulsed eddy current testing signals

This study proposes a probability of detection (POD) model for the probabilistic analysis of the detectability of electromagnetic acoustic resonance (EMAR) method for the detection and evaluation o...

/pdf/probabilistic-analysis-of-electromagnetic-acoustic-resonance-3qa5n3ebt7.pdf

Tetsuya Uchimoto

Papers

Temperature Dependence of Magnetic Descriptors of Magnetic Adaptive Testing

Minor hysteresis loops measurements for characterization of cast iron

Hot filament CVD diamond coating of TiC sliders

An inversion scheme for sizing of wall thinning defects from pulsed eddy current testing signals

Probabilistic analysis of electromagnetic acoustic resonance signals for the detection of pipe wall thinning