[en] The experimental results of drying a thin wood sample by microwave heating in a rectangular waveguide at 2.45 GHz are presented. Wood was impregnated with a 35% aqueous solution of phenol alcohol. Three-dimensional moisture content distribution within the heated area of the sample was studied. The surface temperature of the material within the heated area was determined. The kinetic relationships suggest enhanced heat and mass transfer in wood that considerably reduce the drying time. (author)

[en] The constraints on N=2 Fayet-Sohnius superfield are interpreted as analyticity conditions. This N=2 superfield reduces to two chiral N=1 superfields defined in two different complex (4.2) superspaces, both on and off mass shell. The central charge operator is realized bilinearly in spinor derivatives

[en] Two of the major barriers to the expansion of worldwide adoption of nuclear power are related to proliferation potential of the nuclear fuel cycle and issues associated with the final disposal of spent fuel. The Radkowsky Thorium Fuel (RTF) concept proposed by Professor A. Radkowsky offers a partial solution to these problems. The main idea of the concept is the utilization of the seed-blanket unit (SBU) fuel assembly geometry which is a direct replacement for a 'conventional' assembly in either a Russian pressurized water reactor (VVER-1000) or a Western pressurized water reactor (PWR). The seed-blanket fuel assembly consists of a fissile (U) zone, known as seed, and a fertile (Th) zone known as blanket. The separation of fissile and fertile allows separate fuel management schemes for the thorium part of the fuel (a subcritical 'blanket') and the 'driving' part of the core (a supercritical 'seed'). The design objective for the blanket is an efficient generation and in-situ fissioning of the U233 isotope, while the design objective for the seed is to supply neutrons to the blanket in a most economic way, i.e. with minimal investment of natural uranium. The introduction of thorium as a fertile component in the nuclear fuel cycle significantly reduces the quantity of plutonium production and modifies its isotopic composition, reducing the overall proliferation potential of the fuel cycle. Thorium based spent fuel also contains fewer higher actinides, hence reducing the long-term radioactivity of the spent fuel. The analyses show that the RTF core can satisfy the requirements of fuel cycle length, and the safety margins of conventional pressurized water reactors. The coefficients of reactivity are comparable to currently operating VVER's/PWR's. The major feature of the RTF cycle is related to the total amount of spent fuel discharged for each cycle from the reactor core. The fuel management scheme adopted for RTF core designs allows a significant decrease in the amount of discharged spent fuel, for a given energy production, compared with standard VVER/PWR. The total Pu production rate of RTF cycles is only 30 % of standard reactor. In addition, the isotopic compositions of the RTF's and standard reactor grade Pu are markedly different due to the very high burnup accumulated by the RTF spent fuel.

[en] A flexible version of N=1 supergravity is proposed. It contains 28+28 fields and is an extension of the new minimal supergravity version. Matter couplings in various N=1 supergravity versions are discussed. The chiral densities are constructed for non-minimal and flexible versions. Therefore these versions admit a general R-non-invariant matter coupling as the minimal supergravity does. A modified Fayet-Iliopoulos type mechanism is conjectured which apparently can work in the non-minimal and flexible versions without R-symmetry of the superpotential unlike the minimal and new minimal ones

[en] Summary only

[en] N=2 conformal supersymmetry is realized in harmonic superspace, its peculiarities are analyzed. The coordinate group and analytical prepotentials for N=2 conformal supergravity are found. A new version of the N=2 Einstein supergravity with infinite number of auxiliary fields is suggested. A hypermultiplet without central charges and constraints is used as a compensator

[en] Reactor physics, fuel cycle, thermal-hydraulics and fuel cycle cost studies have been performed for this concept and are reported. The most serious drawback of previous FMSR designs, namely the level of irradiation damage to the stainless steel of the cladding and duct materials, has been greatly reduced by the new design. The peak fuel burnup level is also reduced. Work continued on earlier FMSR designs, and in particular, the centrally-moderated FMSR. Emphasis was placed on defining the first core and then the total sequence of core histories over the 30-year life of the reactor. It was found possible to define a two-year fuel cycle with limited reactivity swing over the cycle. Fuel cycle cost studies were begun. The results indicate a modest fuel cycle cost advantage for the FMSR, but the basic cost assumptions must be improved for metal fuel. Improved thermal-hydraulic analysis capabilities have greatly improved the understanding of heat transfer behavior, particularly where thter catalyst were synthesized, and seven were tested in the gas phase. In Task 3, the distributor plate foen conversion can be controlled by adjusting external variables of the coss two- fatigue stren obtained

[en] Summarized here is an attempt to utilize gadolinium as a burnable poison for total reactivity control of a PWR core equilibrium cycle, i.e., control without a soluble poison system. In the course of the research, a few design guidelines evolved: 1) gadolinium can be utilized well in the form of a lumped poison rod; 2) the optimal gadolinium rod is an annulus of gadolinium immersed in water; 3) BP rods are inserted into vacant thimble guide tubes; and 4) only fresh fuel assemblies are loaded with BP rods, thus avoiding insertion of the BP clusters into irradiated fuel assemblies

[en] A careful study has been made of the effect of depletion of the fissile component of reactor fuel on the resonance component of the Doppler reactivity coefficient (DRC) for a lattice typical of a boiling water reactor (BWR). A parallel investigation has been carried out for both uranium- and thorium-based fuels. This paper presents results of the study. In this investigation, the RABBLE computer code was found to be an indispensable tool, since by its extremely narrow group structure, it permits interferences and overlapping effects between resonances to be taken into account. 8 refs

[en] The possibility of having coinciding harmonic singularities in harmonic supergraphs is investigated. It is shown that various safety mechanisms prevent harmonic divergencies from taking place