The Mid Niigata Prefecture Earthquake of 2004 was an inland earthquake characterized by damage focused in local and mountainous areas. The damage of road infrastructures is also marked by the characteristics of the local area In order to prevent or reduce earthquake damage in the future, it is important to clarify the characteristics of the damage level and the road traffic performance in the local and mountainous area, and reflect them in future earthquake prevention measures.This paper highlights the damage of road embankments and discusses the effects of road closures on local societies, based on related documents and field investigations. The study also quantitatively estimates the damage levels of road infrastructures, road traffic performances in the local and mountainous areas and the relationships between the seismic intensity scale and both damage level and road traffic performance. From these evaluations, new lessons for future earthquake prevention measures have been obtained.
Three different types of high power Hall thrusters-anode layer type, magnetic layer type with high specific impulse, and magnetic layer type with dual mode operation (high thrust mode and high specific impulse mode)-have been developed, and the thrust performance of each thruster has been evaluated. The thrust of the anode layer type thruster is in the range of 19-219 mN, with power in the range of 325-4500 W. The thrust of the high specific impulse magnetic layer type thruster was 102 mN, with specific impulse of 3300 s. The thrust of the bimodal operation magnetic layer thruster was 385 mN with specific impulse of 1200 s, and 300 mN with specific impulse of 2330 s. The performance of these thrusters demonstrates that the Japanese electric propulsion community has the capability to develop a thruster for commercial use.
Benzene is a harmful material that must be to be removed from flue gases. In this study, the performance of a surface discharge plasma-catalysis combined reactor for benzene decomposition was studied. Benzene conversion and CO2 selectivity increased upon loading a CeO2 catalyst onto the plasma reactor. The conversion and selectivity depended on the surface area of the CeO2. FTIR studies revealed that byproduct organic compounds are formed on the CeO2, confirming that benzene oxidation occurs on the CeO2 catalysts.
A high-sensitivity sensor to measure titanium atom density based on time-resolved cavity ring-down spectroscopy (CRDS) was developed to monitor the wall erosion and predict the lifetime of Hall thrusters. The minimum detection limit for the sensor was dependent on the discharge current oscillation in the Hall thruster. A Volterra engine management system was employed for time-resolved measurements to develop the time-resolved CRDS system, which was synchronized to the discharge current oscillation. The results confirmed that the path-integrated number density of sputtered titanium atoms was synchronized with the discharge current oscillation. The minimum detection limit was decreased by ∼30% from 2 × 1012 to 6 × 1011 m−2.
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