Abstract: A battery charging system capable of equalizing the charge of each individual cell at a selected full charge voltage includes means for regulating charger current to first increase current at a constant rate until a bulk charging level is achieved or until any cell reaches a safe reference voltage. A system controller then begins to decrease the charging rate as long as any cell exceeds the reference voltage until an equalization current level is reached. At this point, the system controller activates a plurality of shunt modules to permit shunting of current around any cell having a voltage exceeding the reference voltage. Leads extending between the battery of cells and shunt modules are time shared to permit alternate shunting of current and voltage monitoring without the voltage drop caused by the shunt current. After each cell has at one time exceeded the reference voltage, the charging current is terminated.

Abstract: Energy is stored in slack demand periods by charging a plurality of underground reservoirs with air to the same peak storage pressure, during peak demand periods throttling the air from one storage reservoir into a gas turbine system at a constant inlet pressure until the air pressure in the reservoir falls to said constant inlet pressure, thereupon permitting air in a second reservoir to flow into said gas turbine system while drawing air from the first reservoir through a variable geometry air ejector and adjusting said variable geometry air ejector, said air flow being essentially at the constant inlet pressure of the gas turbine system.

Abstract: A target for a proton beam which is capable of generating neutrons for absorption in a breeding blanket includes a plurality of solid pins formed of a neutron emissive target material disposed parallel to the path of the beam and which are arranged axially in a plurality of layers so that pins in each layer are offset with respect to pins in all other layers, enough layers being used so that each proton in the beam will strike at least one pin with means being provided to cool the pins. For a 300 mA, 1 GeV beam (300 MW), stainless steel pins, 12 inches long and 0.23 inches in diameter are arranged in triangular array in six layers with one sixth of the pins in each layer, the number of pins being such that the entire cross sectional area of the beam is covered by the pins with minimum overlap of pins.

Abstract: A raidant energy nonimaging light direction device is provided. The device includes an energy transducer and a reflective wall whose contour is particularly determined with respect to the geometrical vector flux of a field associated with the transducer.

Abstract: An automatically sweeping circuit for searching for an evoked response in an output signal in time with respect to a trigger input. Digital counters are used to activate a detector at precise intervals, and monitoring is repeated for statistical accuracy. If the response is not found then a different time window is examined until the signal is found.

Abstract: Radioactive alkali metal is mixed with particulate silica in a rotary drum reactor in which the alkali metal is converted to the monoxide during rotation of the reactor to produce particulate silica coated with the alkali metal monoxide suitable as a feed material to make a glass for storing radioactive material. Silica particles, the majority of which pass through a 95 mesh screen or preferably through a 200 mesh screen, are employed in this process, and the preferred weight ratio of silica to alkali metal is 7 to 1 in order to produce a feed material for the final glass product having a silica to alkali metal monoxide ratio of about 5 to 1.

Abstract: Solid carbonaceous material is hydrocracked to provide aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons for use as gaseous and liquid fuels or chemical feed stock. Particulate carbonaceous material such as coal in slurry with recycled product oil is preheated in liquid state to a temperature of 600.degree.-1200.degree. F. in the presence of hydrogen gas. The product oil acts as a sorbing agent for the agglomerating bitumins to minimize caking within the process. In the hydrocracking reactor, the slurry of oil and carbonaceous particles is heated within a tubular passageway to vaporize the oil and form a gas-solid mixture which is further heated to a hydropyrolysis temperature in excess of 1200.degree. F. The gas-solid mixture is quenched by contact with additional oil to condense normally liquid hydrocarbons for separation from the gases. A fraction of the hydrocarbon liquid product is recycled for quenching and slurrying with the carbonaceous feed.

Abstract: A method of lightening a radiation-darkened optical element in wich visible optical energy or electromagnetic radiation having a wavelength in the range of from about 2000 to about 20,000 angstroms is directed into the radiation-darkened optical element; the method may be used to lighten radiation-darkened optical element in-situ during the use of the optical element to transmit data by electronically separating the optical energy from the optical output by frequency filtering, data cooling, or interlacing the optic energy between data intervals.

Abstract: An oxygen electrode for a fuel cell utilizing an acid electrolyte has a substrate of an alkali metal tungsten bronze of the formula: A.sub.x WO.sub.3 where A is an alkali metal and x is at least 0.2, which is covered with a thin layer of platinum tungsten bronze of the formula: Pt.sub.y WO.sub.3 where y is at least 0.8.

Abstract: A corner seal for an MHD duct includes a compressible portion which contacts the duct walls and an insulating portion which contacts the electrodes, sidewall bars and insulators. The compressible portion may be a pneumatic or hydraulic gasket or an open-cell foam rubber. The insulating portion is segmented into a plurality of pieces of the same thickness as the electrodes, insulators and sidewall bars and aligned therewith, the pieces aligned with the insulator being of a different size from the pieces aligned with the electrodes and sidewall bars to create a stepped configuration along the corners of the MHD channel.

Abstract: A cylindrical or trough-like radiant energy concentration and collection device is provided. The device includes an energy absorber, a glazing enveloping the absorber and a reflective wall. The ideal contour of the reflective wall is determined with reference to a virtual absorber and not the actual absorber cross section.

Abstract: A beam of bunches of charged particles is controlled by generating a signal in response to the passage of a bunch and adding to that signal a phase-flipped reference signal. The sum is amplified, detected, and applied to a synchronous detector to obtain a comparison of the phase of the reference signal with the phase of the signal responsive to the bunch. The comparison provides an error signal to control bunching.

Abstract: A ceramic component suitable for preparing MHD generator electrodes having the compositional formula: Y.sub.x (Mg.sub.y Cr.sub.z).sub.w Al.sub.(1-w) O.sub.3 where x=0.9 to 1.05, y=0.02 to 0.2, z=0.8 to 1.05 and w=1.0 to 0.5. The component is resistant to the formation of hydration products in an MHD environment, has good electrical conductivity and exhibits a lower electrochemical corrosion rate than do comparable compositions of lanthanum chromite.

Abstract: Radioactive iodine, present as alkali metal iodides or iodates in an aqueous solution, is incorporated into an inert solid material for long-term storage by adding to the solution a stoichiometric amount with respect to the formation of a sodalite (3M.sub.2 O.3Al.sub.2 O.sub.3. 6SiO.sub.2.2MX, where M=alkali metal; X=I.sup.- or IO.sub.3.sup.-) of an alkali metal, alumina and silica, stirring the solution to form a homogeneous mixture, drying the mixture to form a powder, compacting and sintering the compacted powder at 1073 to 1373 K (800.degree. to 1100.degree. C.) for a time sufficient to form sodalite.

Abstract: The operation of a reciprocating expansion engine for cryogenic refrigeration is improved by changing the pistons and rings so that the piston can be operated from outside the engine to vary the groove in which the piston ring is located. This causes the ring, which is of a flexible material, to be squeezed so that its contact with the wall is subject to external control. This control may be made manually or it may be made automatically in response to instruments that sense the amount of blow-by of the cryogenic fluid and adjust for an optimum blow-by.

Abstract: A process is disclosed for hydrocracking coal or other carbonaceous material to produce various aromatic hydrocarbons including benzene, toluene, xylene, ethylbenzene, phenol and cresols in variable relative concentrations while maintaining a near constant maximum temperature. Variations in relative aromatic concentrations are achieved by changing the kinetic severity of the hydrocracking reaction by altering the temperature profile up to and quenching from the final hydrocracking temperature. The relative concentration of benzene to the alkyl and hydroxyl aromatics is increased by imposing increased kinetic severity above that corresponding to constant heating rate followed by immediate quenching at about the same rate to below the temperature at which dehydroxylation and dealkylation reactions appreciably occur.

Abstract: A filter for clarifying carbonaceous liquids containing finely divided solid particles of, for instance, unreacted coal, ash and other solids discharged from a coal liquefaction process is presented. The filter includes two passageways separated by a porous filter medium. In one preferred embodiment the filter medium is of tubular shape to form the first passageway and is enclosed within an outer housing to form the second passageway within the annulus. An electrode disposed in the first passageway, for instance along the tube axis, is connected to a source of high voltage for establishing an electric field between the electrode and the filter medium. Slurry feed flows through the first passageway tangentially to the surfaces of the filter medium and the electrode. Particles from the feed slurry are attracted to the electrode within the first passageway to prevent plugging of the porous filter medium while carbonaceous liquid filters into the second passageway for withdrawal.

Abstract: Noxious nitrogen oxides in a waste gas stream such as the stack gas from a fossil-fuel-fired power generation plant or other industrial plant off-gas stream is catalytically reduced to elemental nitrogen and/or innocuous nitrogen oxides employing ammonia as reductant in the presence of a zeolite catalyst in the hydrogen or sodium form having pore openings of about 3 to 10 A.

Abstract: This disclosure describes a device and method for in situ shortening of nuclear reactor zirconium alloy process tubes which have grown as a result of radiation exposure. An upsetting technique is utilized which involves inductively heating a short band of a process tube with simultaneous application of an axial load sufficient to cause upsetting with an attendant decrease in length of the process tube.

Abstract: An electrode system includes a reservoir of liquid-metal reactant, and a wick extending from a submersed location within the reservoir into the molten electrolyte of an electrochemical cell structure. The wick is flooded with the liquid metal and thereby serves as one electrode within the cell. This electrode system has application in high-temperature batteries employing molten alkali metals or their alloys as active material within an electrode submersed within a molten salt electrolyte. It also can be used in electrochemical cells where the purification, separation or electrowinning of liquid metals is accomplished.