Hot Isostatic Pressing elaboration of Norem02, an austenitic-ferritic hypereutectoid stainless steel, leads to the formation of an austenitic matrix with a mixture of acicular M7C3 and globular M23C6 carbides. The sintering tests, carried out by using an AISI 304L container, showed that the final microstructure and the carbides’ distribution of the HIPed Norem02 are strongly influenced by the process parameters (heating and cooling rate, sintering time, holding temperature and pressure) and by the particles’ size, microstructure and phase distribution of the initial powder. The morphological, crystallographic and chemical analysis of the sintered samples were completed by comprehension of the diffusion phenomena at the Norem02/304L interface, enabling the establishment of a correlation between elaboration process and final microstructure.

This paper presents an original method of designing some special reversible circuits. This method is intended for the most popular gate set with three types of gates CNT (Control, NOT and Toffoli). The presented algorithm is based on two types of cascades with these reversible gates. The problem of transformation between two reversible functions is solved. This method allows to find optimal reversible circuits. The paper is organized as follows. Section 1 and 2 recalls basic concepts of reversible logic. Especially the two types of cascades of reversible function are presented. In Section 3 there is introduced a problem of analysis of the cascades. Section 4 describes the method of synthesis of the optimal cascade for transformation of the given reversible function into another one.

The high pressure die casting technology allows the production of complex casts with good mechanical properties, with high production repeatability within narrow tolerance limits. However, the casts are somewhat porous, which may reduce their mechanical properties. There are several recommendations for reducing the porosity of casts, which are aimed at setting the technological parameters of the casting cycle. One of the primary and important ways to reduce the porosity and air entrapment in the melt is a suitable gating system design. Submitted contribution is devoted to assessing the influence of the runner branching geometry on the air entrapment within the cast volume during the filling phase of the casting cycle. Four variants of the gating system for a particular cast are compared with different design of main runner branching. The initial design is based on a real gating system where the secondary runner is connected to the main runner at an angle of 90 °. The modified designs are provided with a continuous transition of the main runner into the secondary ones, with the change in the branching runner radius r1 = 15 mm, r2 = 25 mm and r3 = 35 mm. The air entrapment in the melt is assessed within the cast volume behind the cores, which have been evaluated as a critical points with respect to further mechanical treatment. When designing the structural modification of geometry it was assumed that by branch changing using the radius value r3 = 35 mm, the melt flows fluently, and thus the value of the entrapped air in the volume of the cast will be the lowest. This assumption was disproved. The lowest values of entrapped air in the melt were found in the casts with runner transition designed with radius r1 = 15 mm. The conclusion of the contribution explains the causes of this phenomenon and from a designing point of view it presents proposal for measures to reduce the entrapment of the air in casts.

In this study, lead-free bismuth sodium titanate (BNT; Bi0.5Na0.5TiO3) powder was synthesized using wet precipitation. The sintering behavior and dielectric properties of the BNT ceramics were investigated in terms of the sintering temperature. Titanium isopropoxide, sodium nitrate, and bismuth nitrate were used as starting materials. A titanium peroxo complex (TPC) solution was synthesized using titanium hydroxide, nitric acid, and hydrogen peroxide. A clear Bi-Na-Ti precursor solution was obtained by mixing the TPC, sodium, and bismuth nitrate solutions. The pH of the precursor solution was increased to 9 using NaOH and a white powder was precipitated. A spherical and pyrochlore phase-free BNT powders were obtained by calcining the white precipitate above 600°C for 3 h. Particle size analysis and SEM observations revealed that the BNT powder calcined at 700°C exhibited homogeneous distribution with particle size less than 300 nm. The sinterability of the BNT ceramic prepared through wet precipitation was significantly enhanced compared to that of the BNT powder prepared via the solid-state reaction of sodium carbonate, bismuth oxide, and titanium oxide powders.

In this paper, a theoretical design of a novel passive optical line protection device for fiber to the home networks is presented and discussed. Such a device has been designed to overcome several issues of the conventional optical line protection which is based on a switching mechanism controlled electronically. The proposed design is suitable for multiplexed passive optical networks, especially, the dense wavelength division multiplexing technology. This unit is installed at both ends of the network and is composed of a 1×2 splitter to deliver the transmitted multiplexed signal to 2 optical paths and a 2×1 (99.9/0.1) coupler allowing an automatic control when a problem appears. Two optical line protection units exchange optical data through 2 dual fibers. In the case where the primary link suffers from a transmission problem, it automatically switches without any electronic control whatsoever to the backup link through a passive (99.9/0.1) coupler with an average total loss estimated to be of 3.2 dB.