Increasing the Flow Capacity of Hoses with Electrical-Heater Coils to Supply Thickened Preservatives for Spraying

Introduction. Anticorrosion protection of agricultural machinery working elements is provided through using pneumatic application of thickened preservatives with heating. For this purpose, a wire coil is inserted inside the preservative-supply hose and connected to a current source. It is known that the wire thickness and the coil pitch affect the hydraulic resistance to fluid flow. However, it has not been established how the diameter of the coil insert and its heating affect the flow capacity of the flexible hose channel. The purpose of the research is to increase the capacity of a flexible hose with an electrical-heater coil. For this purpose, it is necessary to determine its geometric parameters minimizing the hydraulic resistance to the thickened preservative flow and reducing the energy consumption for heating the material in the hose. Materials and Methods. It is proposed to investigate two electrical-heater coils of the same length, but of different diameter, made of steel welding wire pieces of equal length. There was developed a stand to study the influence of the inserted coil parameters on the hose hydraulic resistance. The stand was used to determine pressure losses in hoses with coils and in smooth hoses when used engine oil and thickened preservative flow through them. The flow capacity of the hose with cold and heated coils was estimated. Results. The method of heating the preservative in the hose wall layer is justified. At the same time, its flow capacity increases one and a half times with less energy consumption (2.4 times) than when heating the preservative in the central part of the hose. Under laminar flow mode, the pressure loss in the hose is 2 times lower when the coil is equal to 0.85 of the hose channel diameter than when the coil is equal to 0.67 of the channel diameter. Discussion and Conclusion. The research found the rational way of placing the electrical coil near the heated hose channel wall. At low air temperature, the reduction of the thickened preservative viscosity by heating in the hose helps to decrease the pressure loss up to 50% and increase its flow capacity by 1.4‒2.0 times. The use of a electrical-heater coil in the hose with thickened preservative will minimize energy consumption when preserving equipment on open storage sites.

Nonlinear Thermal Protrusion and Slider Disk Contact Forces

Some of the recently shipped hard disk drives have a new technology to actively control the flying height between slider and disk. The slider to disk spacing is controlled by thermal protrusion actuation using a small heater coil which is located close to the read write element at the trailing end of the slider. By applying an electric current to the heater coil, the slider’s trailing end protrudes towards the disk and can be driven into contact with sufficiently high heating power. The contact force and the thermal protrusion efficiency is mainly controlled by air bearing design. In this paper we want to discuss the trade offs in air bearing design to achieve low contact force and high thermal actuation efficiency. We have done both numerical simulation and experimental measurements to investigate contact force and air bearing stiffness. Typically a softer air bearings will produce less contact force but usually exhibit worse flying height tolerances. We have found a nonlinear clearance change with applied heater power. At closer spacings, the pressure peak increases dramatically leading to reduced actuation efficiency. The actuation efficiency may also vary at different skew angles. For calibration purpose slider to disk touchdown requires contact. Due to different actuation efficiencies at different radii different contact forces are estimated.

New high- and low-temperature apparatus for synchrotron polycrystalline X-ray diffraction

A high-temperature furnace with an induction heater coil and a cryogenic system based on closed-cycle refrigeration have been assembled to enhance the non-ambient powder diffraction facilities at the Synchrotron Radiation Source, Daresbury Laboratory. The commissioning of the high- and low-temperature devices on the high-resolution powder diffractometer of Station 2.3 is described. The combined temperature range provided by the furnace/cryostat is 10–1500 K. Results from Fe and NH4Br powder samples are presented to demonstrate the operation of the apparatus. The developments presented in this paper are applicable to a wide range of other experiments and diffraction geometries.

Studies on the freezing of pure liquids I. Critical supercooling in molten alkali halides

A high-temperature cloud chamber is described in which a bead of alkali halide is supported on a heater coil mounted in the roof. By passing the current through the coil the temperature of the bead may be momentarily raised by several hundred degrees, producing salt vapour at high supersaturation. Condensation ensues in the presence of the inert supporting gas, and clouds of droplets or solid particles appear depending on the chamber temperature. Light scattered from the clouds under strong illumination is examined with a telescope, and the presence of crystalline particles is detected by their capacity to scintillate, or ‘twinkle’. It is found that twinkling in clouds of alkali halides appears sharply as the temperature is lowered below the melting point, defining a critical temperature of solidification for each salt. Reasons are given for regarding this temperature as the freezing threshold of molten salt droplets, for which supercoolings of about 150 °C are indicated. A reduced temperature, given by the ratio of the freezing threshold to the melting point, has the value of approximately 0.8 for all the alkali halides examined.