喷气燃料氧化规律的探索

通过对不同温度下的4种喷气燃料储存过程中理化指标和红外谱图考察，探讨了喷气燃料的氧化规律。试验结果表明：4种喷气燃料在较低储存温度下，短时间内有很好的储存安定性，在较高温度（试验选取温度为95℃）下，燃料氧化速度很快，不同的燃料呈现出差异较大的氧化安定性。芳环化合物（特别是含有不饱和取代基的芳环化合物）和杂环化合物可能是影响喷气燃料储存安定性的主要因素。     

动态矩阵控制在固体氧化物燃料电池中的应用

提出将动态矩阵控制(DMC)算法用于固体氧化物燃料电池(SOFC)的控制。为此,在分析SOFC动态机理模型的基础上,建立了其阶跃响应模型。控制目标是使SOFC的输出电压始终保持在一定范围内,并收敛到恒定的数值。在实际应用中,这样的算法应能提高SOFC输出功率的跟踪性能。仿真结果验证了这种方法的有效性。     

基于参数辨识的电动舵机系统健康仿真和评估

针对目前电动舵机系统故障诊断方法不能有效预测缓变故障,提出基于舵机系统模型的状态变量检测法对飞行器常用的执行机构电动舵机系统进行健康分析与仿真评估。分析电动舵机系统子系统电机本体、控制器、传动机构的常见故障,对其中反映系统性能的关键参数进行数学建模;通过对系统注入不同的健康参数得到相关故障状态下的状态变量特征,进而作为定位故障源的知识库,引入健康因子评估故障参数的变化趋势;仿真算例选择电机本体的主要物理参数电机绕组阻值和反映永磁体性能的电机力矩常数作为健康因子,通过定位知识库建立的健康因子评估算法验证了方法的可行性。     

低功率霍尔推力器阳极供气环工程设计关键参数仿真

为了提高低功率霍尔推力器放电通道内中性原子分布均匀性,采用有限元方法对阳极供气环关键结构参数进行优化研究。针对双腔式阳极供气环结构,重点分析了缓冲腔容积比以及缓冲腔隔板导流小孔数量等关键参数对阳极供气均匀性的影响。研究结果表明:随着缓冲腔容积比的增大,阳极供气环出气孔差异率先快速减小后趋于稳定,其中当容积率k=1.0时,平均差异率和最大差异率分别为1.77%和3.79%;隔板间导流小孔数量从8增加到14时,出气孔差异率呈现浴盆曲线特性,其中导流孔数量为10时,平均差异率和最大差异率分别为1.8%和3.8%。研究结果可为霍尔推力器阳极供气环工程设计提供理论支撑。     

RUSSIAN NAVAL NUCLEAR FUEL AND REACTORS

Russian naval nuclear fuel and reactors pose both proliferation and environmental threats, ranging from the possible theft of highly enriched uranium fuel to the radioactive contamination of the environment, whether due to accident, neglect, or sabotage. Current conditions at Russian naval bases, together with a history of accidents and incidents involving Russia's nuclear fleet, make a convincing case for the large-scale assistance that the G8 is now providing to improve the safety and security of Russian naval reactors and fuel. However, virtually no data has been released to allow accurate, reliable, and independent analysis of reactor and fuel properties, risking misguided international efforts to assist in the areas of nuclear cleanup, nonproliferation, and security. This article identifies and assesses relevant properties and developments related to reactor and fuel design, provides a comprehensive presentation of Russian nuclear naval technologies, and examines technological trends in the context of proliferation and environmental security.     

THE NUCLEAR THRESHOLD STATES

“Nuclear threshold states”—those that have chosen nuclear restraint despite having significant nuclear capabilities—seem like the perfect partners for the reinvigorated drive toward global nuclear disarmament. Having chosen nuclear restraint, threshold states may embrace disarmament as a way to guarantee the viability of their choice (which may be impossible in a proliferating world). Supporting disarmament efforts affirms their restraint, both self-congratulating and self-fulfilling. Additionally, the commitment to their non-nuclear status springs at least in part from a moral stance against nuclear weapons that lends itself to energetic support of global disarmament. However, threshold states also offer significant challenges to the movement for nuclear weapons elimination, in particular in relation to acquisition of enrichment and reprocessing facilities. This article analyzes both the challenges and opportunities posed by threshold states by examining the cases of Brazil and Japan.     

罐底渗漏的罐基油气质量分数探测法识别

油罐是油品储运的重要设备,罐底最易出现穿孔渗漏油现象,致使罐基内部油气质量分数高于正常值。以油库中柴油覆土罐群为例,研究并试验了根据罐基油气质量分数识别罐底渗漏的方法：分析罐基探漏孔位置分布并钻孔;多次探测罐基油气质量分数,根据探测数据识别各罐有无底部渗漏;为了便于以后检测油库时识别各罐有无渗漏,为各罐建立状态监测表,并将无渗漏的罐基油气质量分数最高值暂定为该类罐的安全值,低于该安全值的油罐可直接判定为无渗漏。实践结果证明,这种不开罐检测罐底渗漏油的方法可及时发现故障并采取措施,对储油安全具有重要意义。     

From stopping to preventing atrocities

The Constitutive Act of the African Union (AU) provides for the right of the continental body to intervene in the face of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. According to its formulation, Article 4(h) intervention entails military force, which is triggered when a target state fails to discharge its duty to protect its population from mass atrocities. Although Article 4(h) is an ambitious statutory commitment to intervene in a member state by the AU, the Libyan crisis in 2011 showed the ambivalence of the continental institution to act in a decisive and timely manner. The AU's failure to invoke Article 4(h) exposed the need for building the capacity and political will to intervene and to interpret Article 4(h). Therefore, the primary focus of this article is on how Article 4(h) should be interpreted. Flowing from the Pretoria Principles, which seek to provide clarity on the implementation of the AU's right of intervention, Article 4(h) should be viewed as a duty rather than a right to prevent or stop mass atrocities. The duty dimension of Article 4(h) derives from the international instruments that AU member states have ratified to prevent mass atrocities. Rather than being a paper tiger, Article 4(h) should be used in a proactive and timely manner as a military option available to the AU to persuade member states to prevent or halt atrocities. As a last resort, military force pursuant to Article 4(h) should aim at protecting the population at risk and pursuing the perpetrators in order to avoid contravening Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations (UN). Although military intervention can save lives in the short term, it cannot necessarily address the underlying, structural causes of atrocities, such as ethnic rivalries, economic inequalities and scramble for natural resources, among others. Therefore, the prevention of mass atrocities should not be equated with, or be seen through the prism of, Article 4(h) intervention alone. The focus should instead be on the entire spectrum of preventive strategies at the disposal of the AU in the face of mass atrocities, including the African human rights system and the African Peer Review Mechanism.     

CONTRIBUTORS

Russia holds the largest stocks of civilian highly enriched uranium (HEU) of any country, operating more than fifty research reactors, pulsed reactors, and critical assemblies using HEU, as well as nine HEU-fueled icebreakers. Russia's participation in international efforts to phase out civilian HEU is crucial if international HEU minimization efforts are to succeed. Individual Russian institutes and organizations participate in international programs to replace HEU with low-enriched uranium in Soviet-supplied research reactors, develop alternative fuels, and repatriate fresh and spent HEU fuel from third countries. However, an overarching national policy on HEU phase-out has yet to be adopted. There are many obstacles to obtaining such a commitment from Moscow. At the same time, the ongoing reform of the Russian nuclear industry and plans for expansion of domestic nuclear power generation and for increased nuclear exports create opportunities for securing such a commitment.     

THE ACRS EXPERIENCE AND ITS RELEVANCE TO THE WMDFZ CONFERENCE

This article examines the arms control logic that was applied to the only regional arms control talks that have taken place in the Middle East to date: the Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) working group that was part of the multilateral track of the Madrid peace process in the early 1990s. It highlights both the successes and major constraints of the ACRS talks in an effort to assess what might be relevant to the weapons of mass destruction-free zone conference proposed for later this year. In addition to the basic arms control dilemmas that will continue to challenge this conference—as they did ACRS—the article suggests that current conditions in the Middle East are even less conducive to regional dialogue than they were in the earlier period, due to the internal upheavals in several key Arab states, and the specific challenge of Iran's move to develop a military nuclear capability.