Avalanche control

Constructional timber in freshwater areas Noise barriers, highway safety fencing, earth-retaining structures, avalanche control, livestock fence posts Utility poles (electric power transmission, telecommunications)... 

Schippers, J. 1992. Gaz-Ex avalanche control system. In Proceedings of the International Snow Science Workshop, Breckenridge, Colorado, October 1992, 72-79. 

This pioneering work showed that the sodium pump was not confined to the plasma membrane of excitable cells (the pump is in fact found in virtually all animal cells) it also paved the way for an avalanche of mechanistic studies examining very many aspects of the function of the sodium pump. These included partial reactions, kinetic affinities for the three substrates at both sides of the membrane and their mutual interdependence, ATP utilization and its stoichiometric relationship to cation fluxes. Such experiments were readily performed on the red cell since these are available in large quantities and the development of simple technical procedures such as red cell ghost formation by transient hypotonic shock allowed ready access to, and control of, the intra- as well as extra-cellular face of the pump. 

Figure 1. A - 87Rb levels used in the experiments (Di line Zeeman sublevels are not shown in this simplified scheme the ground-state hyperfine splitting is 6.835 GHz). The write (retrieve) laser and Stokes (anti-Stokes) beam are illustrated in red (blue). B - After the optical pumping pulse (provided by the retrieve laser), the 1.6/us-long write pulse is followed by the retrieve pulse after a controllable delay Td. C - Schematic of the experimental setup. SI, S2 (AS1, AS2) denote the avalanche photodiodes for the Stokes (anti-Stokes) light.

ECDL External Cavity Diode Laser OI Optical Isolator L Lens AOS Acousto-Optic Switch PZT Piezo-Electric actuator Me Cavity mirror APD Avalanche Photodiode PC Pressure Controller P Pump... 

Investigation of the deformation relief occurring on the surface of samples additionally subjected to by 15% strain after different number of compression steps have shown that plateau on the initial portion of strain curves is result of strain localization (Fig. 2a) in macro shear bands (MSB). Its appearance is result of scattering some dislocation boundaries onto individual dislocations (Baushinger effect) and formation of avalanche of mobile dislocations (Fig. 2b). So, in this case yield of titanium is controlled by substructure that, probably, leads to weak dependence of yield stress on strain. Macrobands formed at the beginning of the cycle of loading remain until the end of loading. So, plastic flow of titanium is localized. 

API also offers an automated powder flowability analyzer (Fig. 11.8b) which features real time, low pressure, non intrusive powder flow analysis. It is being used both in the laboratory and for process control. The Aero-Flow utilizes the deterministic chaos theory [B.59] to measure the time intervals of a series of catastrophic avalanches. 

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