Instantaneous Creep in Face-centered Cubic Metals at Ultra- low Strain Rates by a High-resolution Strain Measurement

Instantaneous creep in face-centered cubic metals, 5N Al（99.999%）, 2N Al （99%） and 4N Cu （99.99%） with different grain sizes, was firstly investigated by sudden stress-change experiments at ultra- low strain rates ε ≤10-10 s-1 and temperature T 〈 0.32 Tn. The experimental results indicate that the observed instantaneous creep is strongly dependent on grain size, the concentration of impurity, and stacking fault energy. Creep in high-purity aluminum, 5N Al, with a very large grain size, d 〉 1600μm, shows non-viscous behavior, and is controlled by the recovery of dislocations in the boundary of dislocation cells. On the other hand, for 5N A1 with a small grain size, d=30μm, and low-purity aluminum, 2N A1, with d8= 25μm, creep shows viscous behavior and may be related to ＇low temperature grain boundary sliding＇. For high-purity copper, 4N Cu, with d= 40 grn and lower stacking fault energy, creep shows a non-viscous behavior, and is controlled by the recovery process of dislocations. For all of the samples, creep shows anelastic behavior.

PULSE SHRINKING TIME-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER FOR UWB APPLICATION

A kind of architecture of Time-to-Digital Converter(TDC) for Ultra-WideBand(UWB) application is presented. The proposed TDC is based on pulse shrinking, and implemented in a Field Programmable Gate Array(FPGA) device. The pulse shrinking is realized in a loop containing two Programmable Delay Lines(PDLs) or a two-channel PDL. One line(channel) delays the rising edge and the other line(channel) delays the falling edge of a circulating pulse. Delay resolution of PDL is converted into a digital output code under known conditions of pulse width. This delay resolution measurement mechanism is different from the conventional time interval measurement mechanism based on pulse shrinking of conversion of unknown pulse width into a digital output code. This mechanism automatically avoids the influence of unwanted pulse shrinking by any circuit element apart from the lines. The achieved relative errors for four PDLs are within 0.80%–1.60%.

Border effect-based precise measurement of any frequency signal

Limited detection resolution leads to fuzzy areas during the measurement, and the discrimination of the border of a fuzzy area helps to use the resolution stability. In this way, measurement precision is greatly improved, hence this phenomenon is named the border effect. The resolution fuzzy area and its application should be studied to realize highresolution measurement. During the measurement of any frequency signal, the fuzzy areas of phase-coincidence detection are always discrete and irregular. In this paper the difficulty in capturing the border information of discrete fuzzy areas is overcome and extra-high resolution measurement is implemented. Measurement precision of any frequency-signal can easily reach better than 1 × 10^-11/s in a wide range of frequencies, showing the great importance of the border effect. An in-depth study of this issue has great significance for frequency standard comparison, signal processing, telecommunication,and fundamental subjects.

A Hybrid State Estimation Approach for Integrated Heat and Electricity Networks Considering Time-scale Characteristics

State estimation(SE)usually serves as the basic function of the energy management system(EMS).In this paper,the time-scale characteristics of the integrated heat and electricity networks are studied and an SE model is established.Then,a two-stage iterative algorithm is proposed to estimate the time delay of heat power transportation in the pipeline.Meanwhile,to accommodate the measuring resolutions of the integrated network,a hybrid SE approach is developed based on the two-stage iterative algorithm.Results show that,in both steady and dynamic processes,the two-stage estimator has good accuracy and convergence.The hybrid estimator has good performance on tracking the variation of the states in the heating network,even when the available measurements are limited.