The work presents investigations into the development of a fuel-powered compact SMA actuator system. For the final SMA actuator, the K-alloy SMA strip (0.9 mm x 2.5 mm), actuated by a forced convection heat transfer mechanism, was embedded in a rectangular channel. In this channel, a rectangular piston, with a slot to accommodate the SMA strip, ran along the strip and was utilized to prevent mixing between the hot and the cold fluid in order to increase the energy density of the system. The fuel, such as propane, was utilized as main energy source in order to achieve high energy and power densities of the SMA actuator system. Numerical analysis was carried out to determine optimal channel geometry and to estimate maximum available force, strain and actuation frequency. Multi-channel combustor/heat exchanger and micro-tube heat exchanger were designed and tested to achieve high heat transfer rate and high compactness. The final SMA actuator system was composed of pumps, valves, bellows, multi-channel combustor/heat exchanger, micro-tube heat exchanger and control unit. The experimental tests of the final system resulted in 250 N force with 2 mm displacement and 1.0 Hz actuation frequency in closed-loop operation, in which the hot and the cold fluid were re-circulated by pumps.

The ultimate objective of this research was to develop a low cost, reliable system that would lead to early detection of lung cancer. Tests involved the quantitation of gaseous metabolic emissions from immortalized lung cancer cell lines in order to correlate the chemical markers to be of cancerous origin. The specific aims of the project were the study of gas emissions in selected cancer cell lines and identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in them. Disadvantages of earlier studies were that the measurements were not real time or state specific so that molecular identification was often inconclusive. Furthermore the methods of study used in the past were not quantitative, which limited their practicality for medical applications. We felt the need to prove or disprove these earlier results using a new technique. The method we proposed is different and unique when compared to previous methods because cell lines have not been studied extensively for cancer markers. We have studied cancer cell lines which are adherent, immortalized cultures originating from primary tumors obtained from patients with no prior treatment for lung cancer. We have used an alternative method for the spectrometric analysis and quantitation of the selected chemical markers. The pre-concentration method involved a Purge and Trap unit with a thermal desorber where the vapor concentration was enhanced. The concentrated head space gases were analyzed using a Gas Chromatograph ?? Mass Spectrometer setup. This setup eliminated the bulky apparatus used in earlier studies. It is simpler in design and more comprehensive so that external factors such as patient??s diet, habitat and lifestyle do not contribute to our study of recognition of cancer markers. Based on the results obtained in the above experiments, a more comprehensive, inexpensive study of lung cancer related markers could be made. The first section, after giving an introduction to lung cancer, goes on to explain the background work done by other researchers on cancer. The third section gives a detailed explanation of the experimental setup. This is followed by all the tests conducted with corresponding results. The final section deals with the conclusions drawn from all experiments.

Les hydrocarbures aromatiques polycycliques (HAP) dans l'atmosphère sont largement étudiés depuis de nombreuses années, en raison de l'impact sanitaire de ces composés sur l'homme. Du fait de leurs propriétés physico-chimiques, les HAP se répartissent dans les phases gazeuses et particulaires. Cette partition gaz-particule influe sur leur devenir (transport et réactivité) et sur leur impact sanitaire. Ceci rend nécessaire le prélèvement simultané dans les deux phases. Par ailleurs le parlement européen (directive fille n°2004/107/CE) a récemment décidé qu'ils devaient faire l'objet d'une surveillance et le benzo(a)pyrène (BaP) a été choisi comme étant représentatif de cette classe de composés. Dans les cas d'une étude gaz-particule des HAP ou d'un suivi réglementaire (du B(a)P en phase particulaire) la mesure est généralement effectuée par préleveur conventionnel haut volume. Or, de nombreux auteurs ont montré que ce type de préleveur engendrait de multiples artefacts. <br />Ce travail a pour objectif d'améliorer la mesure biphasique des HAP (et plus généralement des composés organiques semivolatils) en validant un tube dénudeur préalablement calibré en laboratoire. Pour cela nous avons réalisé plusieurs campagnes de terrain afin de comparer le préleveur dénudeur au préleveur conventionnel. Les résultats nous ont permis d'observer des différences parfois très importantes entre les préleveurs notamment pour les HAP les plus réactifs (dont le BaP). Ceci semble indiquer une dégradation des HAP particulaires sur le filtre du préleveur conventionnel tandis que le filtre du préleveur dénudeur est protégé des oxydants gazeux par le tube dénudeur. Néanmoins, l'ampleur de cette dégradation n'est pas une fonction linéaire de la quantité d'oxydants. Elle semble être influencé par d'autres paramètres, tels que l'état de "vieillissement" de la particule. Enfin nous avons conçu et réalisé un dispositif expérimental permettant d'étudier la dégradation potentielle des HAP à l'intérieur du tube durant le prélèvement. Cette étude a été réalisée pour le naphtalène avec l'ozone comme oxydant.

Carbon nano tubes (CNT’s) are promising candidates for several sensor applications such as optical sensors, strain gauges or flow sensors. For certain sensor structures liquid CNT dispersions are required. These are important not only for the realization of CNT-films for sensors like strain gauges but also for technological processes such as dielectrophoresis. CNT-films are realized by deposing the dispersion on a carrier material followed by a drying process. The dispersion properties depend on several parameters like CNT concentration, surfactant concentration, sonication time, centrifugation time, storing time and other parameters. Methods for characterization of dispersions are up to now limited to UV/VIS spectroscopy. This is generally limited to low CNT concentrations. This paper discusses the possibility to use impedance spectroscopy as characterization method for the stability of the dispersions. The impedance of the dispersion was measured using a conductivity measurement cell with platinum electrodes. The behavior of characteristic points of the impedance spectrum was investigated for three identically prepared samples during 7 days of storing time. The systematic trend observed is definitively larger than the variance between different samples. With increasing time after preparation the CNT fallout will increase and the amount of deposable CNT’s will decrease. The decreasing imaginary part indicates an easier diffusion of surfactant molecules because they are not longer attached to CNT’s.

This work is motivated by the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) experiment. This device uses a helicon antenna to generate a plasma inside a dielectric tube, which is radially confined and directed towards the rocket nozzle by an axial magnetic field. An ion cyclotron heating antenna further heats the ions, and a magnetic nozzle accelerates the plasma along the confining magnetic field as it leaves the rocket, ultimately allowing it to detach from the magnetic field and produce thrust. The experimental research presented here provides insight into the physical mechanisms of power flow in a helicon system by providing an overall system power balance in the form of heat flux measurements, and exploring changes in the heat fluxes in different parts of the system in response to varying operational parameters. An infrared (IR) camera measures the total heat flux into the dielectric tube surface, and axially scanned bolometer and UV photodiode probes measure the radial power loss from particles and radiation. Results from IR camera measurements on three different helicon systems are presented: the VASIMR VX-50 experiment, the VASIMR VX-CR experiment, and the University of Texas at Austin (UT) helicon experiment. These results demonstrate the development of the IR camera diagnostic for use on helicon systems of varying scale and geometry, and show reasonable agreement as to the fraction of input power lost to the dielectric tube walls. On the UT experiment, the results presented account for essentially all of the input power, providing a full system power balance. The data from all three experiments indicate that radial transport of ions to the interior wall is the dominant mechanism of power loss, with UV radiation contributing a small percentage. Additional experiments on the UT helicon explore energy and particle transport to the wall due to capacitive coupling of ions near the antenna. These experiments show clear damage to the dielectric tube surface directly under the antenna, due to physical plasma etching of the surface by bombarding ions that are accelerated into the wall by local electric fields from the antenna. / text

Water-flooding in water-wet fractured reservoirs can recover significant amounts of oil through capillary driven imbibition. Unfortunately, many of the fractured reservoirs are mixed-wet/oil-wet and water-flooding leads to poor recovery as the capillary forces hinder imbibition. Surfactant injection and immiscible gas injection are two possible processes to improve recovery from fractured oil-wet reservoirs. In both these EOR methods, the gravity is the main driving force for oil recovery. Surfactant has been recommended and shown a great potential to improve oil recovery from oil-wet cores in the laboratory. To scale the results to field applications, the physics controlling the imbibition of surfactant solution and the scaling rules needs to be understood. The standard experiments for testing imbibition of surfactant solution involves an imbibition cell, where the core is placed in the surfactant solution and the recovery is measured versus time. Although these experiments prove the effectiveness of surfactants, little insight into the physics of the problem is achieved. This dissertation provides new core scale and pore scale information on imbibition of anionic surfactant solution into oil-wet porous media. In core scale, surfactant flooding into oil-wet fractured cores is performed and the imbibition of the surfactant solution into the core is monitored using X-ray computerized tomography(CT). The surfactant solution used is a mixture of several different surfactants and a co-solvent tailored to produce ultra-low interfacial tension (IFT) for the specific oil used in the study. From the CT images during surfactant flooding, the average penetration depth and the water saturation versus height and time is calculated. Cores of various sizes are used to better understand the effect of block dimension on imbibition behavior. The experimental results show that the brine injection into fractured oil-wet core only recovers oil present in the fracture; When the surfactant solution is injected, the CT images show the imbibition of surfactant solution into the matrix and increase in oil recovery. The surfactant solution imbibes as a front. The imbibition takes place both from the bottom and the sides of the core. The highest imbibition is observed close to the bottom of the core. The imbibition from the side decreases with height and lowest imbibition is observed close to the top of the core. Experiments with cores of different sizes show that increase in either the length or the diameter of the core causes decrease in the fractional recovery rate (%OOIP). Numerical simulation is also used to determine the physics that controls the imbibition profiles. %The numerical simulations show that the relative permeability curves strongly affect the imbibition profiles and should be well understood to accurately model the process. Both experimental and numerical simulation results imply that the gravity is the main driving force for the imbibition process. The traditional scaling group for gravity dominated imbibition only includes the length of the core to upscale the recovery for cores of different sizes. However based on the measurements and simulation results from this study, a new scaling group is proposed that includes both the diameter and the length of the core. It is shown that the new scaling group scales the recovery curves from this study better than the traditional scaling group. In field scale, the new scaling group predicts that the recovery from fractured oil-wet reservoirs by surfactant injection scales by both the vertical and horizontal fracture spacing. In addition to core scale experiments, capillary tube experiments are also performed. In these experiments, the displacement of oil by anionic surfactant solutions in oil-wet horizontal capillary tubes is studied. The position of the oil-aqueous phase interface is recorded with time. Several experimental parameters including the capillary tube radius and surfactant solution viscosity are varied to study their effect on the interface speed. Two different models are used to predict the oil-aqueous phase interface position with time. In the first model, it is assumed that the IFT is constant and ultra-low throughout the experiments. The second model involves change of wettability and IFT by adsorption of surfactant molecules to the oil-water interface and the solid surface. Comparing the predictions to the experimental results, it is observed that the second model provides a better match, especially for smaller capillary tubes. The model is then used to predict the imbibition rate for very small capillary tubes, which have equivalent permeability close to oil reservoirs. The results show that the oil displacement rate is limited by the rate of diffusion of surfactant molecules to the interface. In addition to surfactant flooding, immiscible gas injection can also improve recovery from fractured oil-wet reservoirs. In this process, the injected gas drains the oil in the matrix by gravity forces. Gravity drainage of oil with gas is an efficient recovery method in strongly water-wet reservoirs and yields very low residual oil saturations. However, many of the oil-producing fractured reservoirs are not strongly water-wet. Thus, predicting the profiles and ultimate recovery for mixed and oil-wet media is essential to design and optimization of improved recovery methods based on three-phase gravity drainage. In this dissertation, we provide the results from two- and three-phase gravity drainage experiments in sand-packed columns with varying wettability. The results show that the residual oil saturation from three-phase gravity drainage increases with increase in the fraction of oil-wet sand. A simple method is proposed for predicting the three-phase equilibrium saturation profiles as a function of wettability. In each case, the three-phase results were compared to the predictions from two-phase results of the same wettability. It is found that the gas/oil and oil/water transition levels can be predicted from pressure continuity arguments and the two-phase data. The predictions of three-phase saturations work well for the water-wet media, but become progressively worse with increasing oil-wet fraction. / text

Background Nutritional deterioration in patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) has a multifactorial etiology mainly associated with tumor and treatment related factors. The objective of the present thesis was to investigate the impact of the disease and treatment on body weight and eating in patients with HNC treated with radiation therapy (RT) as the single modality treatment or as preoperative RT by analyzing body weight and body mass index (BMI) over time, predictive factors for weight loss and BMI, weight loss and BMI as prognostic factors for survival, and by studying the patients’ own experience of food and eating. Methods ARTSCAN is a randomized prospective multicenter trial conducted between the years of 1998 - 2006. Data were collected during and after RT with a total follow-up time of five years. Nutritional data from the whole study cohort (n = 712), from patients with oropharyngeal cancer (n = 232) and from two of the participating treatment centers (n = 101) were retrospectively analyzed in the present thesis. In addition, interviews (n = 13) were conducted nine months after the termination of RT as part of a care development project. Results On a group level, the patients lost weight during and after RT with a nadir at five months after the termination of RT. Factors related to a higher weight loss were oropharyngeal cancer, a high BMI at the start of RT, post-treatment aspiration, no tube feeding at the start of RT, and larger treated volumes. Furthermore, a high BMI at the start of RT was shown to be significantly related to a better five-year overall survival in patients with oropharyngeal cancer, whereas weight loss was not. The patients’ own narratives showed that all aspects of food, eating and meals were affected by the remaining sequelae, and that the patients found ways to accept and cope with the changes that had to be done to facilitate eating. Conclusions and clinical implications The disease and treatment gave persistent effects on the HNC patients’ weight and BMI which calls for a prolonged nutritional follow-up. The predictive factors found for weight loss can be used during patient history to find patients at risk for nutritional deterioration. In oropharyngeal cancer, patients with a high BMI at the start of RT had the best survival. This finding indicates that patients with a low BMI should be encouraged to gain weight before RT start. All aspects of food, eating and meals were affected during and after RT, and therefore the nutritional treatment should be given with a holistic approach to meet the multifaceted need patients with HNC experience.

Dans le cadre de la fusion par confinement inertiel en attaque directe, l'utilisation de mousses en tant qu'ablateur permet de réduire les instabilités hydrodynamiques créées sur la cible par l'irradiation directe des faisceaux laser. Des études antérieures ont été réalisées en considérant cette mousse comme homogène. Or, étant composée de fibres de CH baignant dans du DT, elle présente un aspect hétérogène. Le but de cette thèse est d'étudier l'effet de cette hétérogénéité sur la vitesse du choc lors de l'irradiation laser de la cible. Une étude expérimentale sur tube à choc et des études numériques avec le code HERA nous ont permis de trouver que le choc se propage plus rapidement dans le milieu hétérogène que dans le milieu homogène de densité moyenne équivalente. Cette écart de vitesse dépend du taux de présence des fibres de CH, du rapport de densité entre les deux matériaux constituant la mousse, de leur coefficient adiabatique et de la géométrie de la mousse. Nous avons modélisé la mousse de diverses manières, en partant du plus simple au plus compliqué, afin de se rapprocher d'une configuration réaliste. La modification de la vitesse du choc étant dûe à la baroclinicité qui, lors de l'interaction du choc avec l'interface entre le CH et le DT, crée un dépôt de vorticité, responsable de l'accélération du choc. Par conséquent, une interface plane et perpendiculaire au front de choc maximise ce dépôt de vorticité et augmente les écarts de vitesse entre milieux hétérogènes et homogènes. Une corrélation entre l'énergie cinétique derrière le choc et la différence relative des vitesses de choc a été trouvée. Nous avons comparé nos résultats à deux modèles analytiques, mais le système n'étant pas fermé, nous ne pouvons pas, pour le moment, élaborer de modèle prédictif.

Deformation and fracture behaviour of the slender diaphragm with cross incisions is simulated by the developed finite element model. The influence of incisions geometry on the critical pressure of diaphragms was examined by applying deformation and fracture criteria. Original experiments of diaphragms with incisions were performed. / Išnagrinėjus ir palyginus įvairius skaičiuojamuosius baigtinių elementų modelius buvo ištirta ir nustatyta įpjovos geometrijos įtaka smūginio dujų vamzdžio liaunos diafragmos su kryžmine įpjova kritiniam slėgiui pagal ribinius deformavimo ir irimo kriterijus. Atlikti originalūs eksperimentiniai diafragmų deformavimo ir irimo tyrimai.

Išnagrinėjus ir palyginus įvairius skaičiuojamuosius baigtinių elementų modelius buvo ištirta ir nustatyta įpjovos geometrijos įtaka smūginio dujų vamzdžio liaunos diafragmos su kryžmine įpjova kritiniam slėgiui pagal ribinius deformavimo ir irimo kriterijus. Atlikti originalūs eksperimentiniai diafragmų deformavimo ir irimo tyrimai. / Deformation and fracture behaviour of the slender diaphragm with cross incisions is simulated by the developed finite element model. The influence of incisions geometry on the critical pressure of diaphragms was examined by applying deformation and fracture criteria. Original experiments of diaphragms with incisions were performed.