Transition from a filamentary mode to a diffuse one with varying distance from needle to stream of an argon plasma jet

Plasma jet has extensive application potentials in various fields, which normally operates in a diffuse mode when helium is used as the working gas. However, when less expensive argon is used, the plasma jet often operates in a filamentary mode. Compared to the filamentary mode, the diffuse mode is more desirable for applications. Hence, many efforts have been exerted to accomplish the diffuse mode of the argon plasma jet. In this paper, a novel single-needle argon plasma jet is developed to obtain the diffuse mode. It is found that the plasma jet operates in the filamentary mode when the distance from the needle tip to the central line of the argon stream(d) is short. It transits to the diffuse mode with increasing d. For the diffuse mode, there is always one discharge pulse per voltage cycle, which initiates at the rising edge of the positive voltage. For comparison, the number of discharge pulse increases with an increase in the peak voltage for the filamentary mode. Fast photography reveals that the plasma plume in the filamentary mode results from a guided positive streamer,which propagates in the argon stream. However, the plume in the diffuse mode originates from a branched streamer, which propagates in the interfacial layer between the argon stream and the surrounding air. By optical emission spectroscopy,plasma parameters are investigated for the two discharge modes, which show a similar trend with increasing d. The diffuse mode has lower electron temperature, electron density, vibrational temperature, and gas temperature compared to the filamentary mode.

Study on the Diffusion Performance of Standard E-Government Information Systems

Standard e-government information system(SEIS) including mobile-government applications are playing more and more important roles in the establishing of national e-government framework. It can be beneficial not only for avoiding redundant e-government IS development but also for improving collaboration among government agencies. Two research questions were explored: what are the factors influencing the performance of SEIS? Will mandatory SEIS create a better performance than non-mandatory SEIS? Specifically, the use of five categories of IS aspects--information system quality, online service quality, offline service quality, diffusion modes and standard network size—is proposed to understand the performance of SEIS through applying both survey study and simulation study. The results show that information system quality and online service quality of SEIS have strong effects on users' expectation and users' satisfaction, which thereafter promotes the performance of SEIS. Government agencies' offline service quality shows a significant effect on users' satisfaction while not on users' expectation. Furthermore, the diffusion speed of SEIS in non-mandatory and mandatory modes and the standard network size also have great influence on the utility of SEIS.

Simulation of microstructural evolution in directional solidification of Ti-45at.%Al alloy using cellular automaton method

The microstructural evolution of Ti-45 at.%Al alloy during directional solidification was simulated by applying a solute diffusion controlled solidification model.The obtained results have shown that under high thermal gradients the stable primary spacing can be adjusted via branching or competitive growth.For dendritic structures formed under a high thermal gradient,the secondary dendrite arms are developed not very well in many cases due to the branching mechanism under a constrained dendritic growth condition.Furthermore,it has been observed that,with increasing pulling velocity,there exists a cell/dendrite transition region consisting of cells and dendrites,which varies with the thermal gradient in a contradicting way,i.e.increase of the thermal gradient leading to the decrease of the range of the transition region.The simulations agree reasonably well with experiment results.

Non-isothermal Crystallization and Thermal Transformation Behaviors of Plasma Sprayed Fe_(48)Cr_(15)Mo_(14)C_(15)B_(6)Y_(2)Amorphous Coating

The non-isothermal crystallization dynamic behavior and mechanism of plasma sprayed Fe_(48)Cr_(15)Mo_(14)C_(15)B_(6)Y_(2)coating were thoroughly studied.The phase transition and crystallization kinetics of the coating were elaborately investigated by differential scanning calorimetry(DSC),X-ray diffraction(XRD),scanning electron microscopy(SEM),and transmission electron microscopy(TEM).The findings reveal that the characteristic temperatures of the coating shift to an elevated temperature at a higher heating rate and the crystallization processes are thermally activated.The 3-rd step of crystallization processes is more susceptible to the continuously increased heating rate while the onset crystallization reaction is less sensitive to the continuously enhanced heating rate.Fe_(23)(C,B)_6 phase is inclined to precipitate than other crystal phases due to the substantial pre-generation ofα-Fe.The onset nucleation and growth ofα-Fe crystals is tough due to a higher onset apparent activation energy.Meanwhile,the transformation from Fe_(23)(C,B)_(6)to FeB is harder in comparison with the precipitation of other crystals.The most parts of the three crystallization processes are dominated by three-dimensional diffusion model due to the fact that most values of local Avrami exponent are higher than 2.5.