Magazine

A paper presents a study of the production of tar in the pyrolysis of spherical biomass particles, with computational simulations performed by using the macroparticle portion of the model described in "Generalized Mathematical Model of Pyrolysis of Plant Biomass" (NPO-20068) elsewhere in...

A report describes research on selected compounds as additives to perfluoroalkyether (PFPAE) fluids that are used as synthetic lubricants for metal parts. Additives are needed to inhibit both thermo-oxidative degradation of, and corrosion of metals by, the PFPAE fluids in the presence of...

Thermal lens spectrometry is a highly sensitive method for detecting very small quantities of material by the absorption of light from a laser source. It takes advantage of the thermal lens effect to measure the absorption spectrum of a sample. This invention utilizes an optical parametric...

In a developmental technique of real-time adjacent-pair imaging shearography, a thin film of bacteriorhodopsin is used to record shearograms in argon-laser light for immediate readout in helium/neon-laser light. Unlike conventional silver-halide-based photographic film, bacteriorhodopsin...

Designing metal-matrix composites into actual components requires both experimental and analytical characterization of the behavior of these composites. This report describes mathematical modeling and experimental characterization of the elastoplastic behaviors of composite materials made...

A rapid prototyping process enables the incorporation of continuous fiber reinforcement into a cast metal-matrix composite. In one older process, cast metal-matrix composites are made by introducing fibers or particles into molten or partially solidified metals, then casting the resulting slurries...

The Integrated Particulate Composite Analyzer (ICAN/PART) computer program is a modified version of the Integrated Composite Analyzer (ICAN) program (LEW-15592/LEW-15832), which was developed to conduct analyses of the micromechanics of fiber-reinforced polymer-matrix composite materials....

WWWorkflow is a language-driven, data-base-mediated, web-based process mediation system. WWWorkflow leverages on intranet applications and existing information infrastructure services, making it possible to add workflow management features to preexisting information management systems, without the need for...

The paper entitled "Potential Commercial Applications From Combustion and Fire Research in Space" reviews the status of potential commercial applications derived from research on combustion in microgravity environments encountered in orbiting spacecraft. Such research...

Inexpensive, high-performance, optically coupled temperature and strain gauges based on a combination of advanced optoelectronic and microelectromechanical concepts have been proposed. The sensors would contain vibrating beams with submillimeter dimensions, made primarily of silicon by...

The Virtual Reality Mars Atlas User Interface (VR-MAUI) provides an atlaslike interface for access to Mars data. This access is provided via the World Wide Web, using JAVA. Within VR-MAUI, images are organized as maps. These maps provide a natural coordinate system, which...

Chemical surface treatments during fabrication have been proposed to reduce surface leakage currents in focal-plane arrays (FPAs) of quantum-well infrared photodetectors (QWIPs). For reasons explained below, if most or all of the surface leakage currents could be eliminated by such treatments,...

A video imaging and image-data-processing system for use in dermatological examinations acquires and processes images of patients' skins. The system processes a current image of a selected area of a patient's skin along with an image of the same area acquired previously, generating a...

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) designed, constructed, and delivered a prototype passive imaging pyrometer capable of accurately measuring and controlling the temperature distribution across a specified surface. The device was originally designed, under a NASA SBIR contract (solicitation year 1985) monitored by Jet...