Improved fiber optic device for in situ determination of electrolyte stratification in lead-acid batteries

A three-channel, highly sensitive, fiber optic device is presented to measure acid concentration in lead-acid batteries during their operation. The refractive index and thereby the concentration of sulfuric acid is measured by a bent, silica glass fiber tip, stripped off its cladding. Sensor heads of the device are small enough to be inserted at different positions in the cell of an ordinary, flooded lead-acid battery. Measuring the concentration of the electrolyte at different depths of the battery cell, acid stratification can be accurately determined. During the test of the instrument, about 0.3 Hz temporal and 0.05 wt % concentration resolutions were achieved while the temperature drift was found to be -0.25 wt %/degrees C.

Adaptive systems in speckle-pattern interferometry

The concept of adaptivity in television holography is discussed, and various realizations of adaptivity are presented. In one possible variation, functions of the components of the optical arrangement may be changed to adapt them to measurement conditions. An additional peculiarity of the technique is that reference waves are produced by holographically reconstructed virtual images. A method, believed to be new, is introduced for synthesizing the phase front of the master object beam that is produced by a simple holographic optical element and is used as a smooth or a speckled reference beam in the electronic speckle-pattern interferometer. An adaptive interferometer is presented as a measuring device for various measuring tasks. Selected applications are shown, demonstrating different aspects of adaptivity.

Search for neutrino oscillations at the palo verde nuclear reactors

We report on the initial results from a measurement of the antineutrino flux and spectrum at a distance of about 800 m from the three reactors of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station using a segmented gadolinium-loaded scintillation detector. We find that the antineutrino flux agrees with that predicted in the absence of oscillations excluding at 90% C.L. nu;(e)-nu;(x) oscillations with Deltam(2)>1.12x10(-3) eV(2) for maximal mixing and sin (2)2straight theta>0.21 for large Deltam(2). Our results support the conclusion that the atmospheric neutrino oscillations observed by Super-Kamiokande do not involve nu(e).