The understanding the influence of biological processes on the characteristics of the signals backscattered by the sea floor is crucial in the development of the hydroacoustical benthic habitat classification techniques. The impact of the microphytobenthos photosynthesis on the acoustical backscattering properties of the Atlantic sandy sediments was previously demonstrated by Holliday et al. (2004) and Wildman and Huettel (2012). To account for the sensitivity of the hydroacoustical classification techniques to the backscattering properties of local marine sediments, it is important to understand the microphytobenthos photosynthesis impact for the Baltic Sea where the techniques are being actively developed now. This is the main motivation of the paper. In the paper the influence of the microphytobenthos photosynthesis on the characteristics of the echo signals reflected by sandy sediments in the typical Baltic temperature and the salinity conditions is discussed. The interdisciplinary multiday laboratory experiment was conducted to study the impact of benthic microalgal photosynthesis on the characteristics of the echo signal reflected by sandy sediments. Hydroacoustical data were collected under controlled constant light, temperature and salinity conditions. The oxygen content at different levels of the water column was simultaneously monitored.

The two-dimensional distribution of gas-solid flow parameters is a great research significance to reflect the actual situation in industry. The commonly used method is the ultrasonic tomography method, in which multiple probes are arranged at various angles, or the measurement device is rotated as that in medicine, but in most industrial situations, it is impossible to install probes at all angles or rotate the measured pipe. The backscattering method, however, uses only one transducer to both transmit and receive signals, and the twodimensional information is obtained by only rotating the transducer. Ultrasound attenuates greatly in the air, and the attenuation changes with frequency. Therefore, COMSOL is used to study the reflection of particles with different radii in the air to ultrasound with various frequencies. It is found that the backscattering equivalent voltage is the largest when the product of ultrasonic frequency and particle radius is about 27.78 Hz �� m, and the particle concentration of 30% causes the strongest backscattering. The simulated results are in good agreement with the Faran backscattering model, which can provide references for selecting the appropriate frequency and obtaining the concentration when measuring gas-solid two-phase flow with the ultrasonic backscattering method.

This paper elucidated the potential of electron backscatter diffraction analysis for ground granulated blast furnace slag geopolymers at 1000°C heating temperature. The specimen was prepared through the mechanical ground with sandpaper and diamond pad before polished with diamond suspension. By using advanced technique electron backscatter diffraction, the microstructure analysis and elemental distribution were mapped. The details on the crystalline minerals, including gehlenite, mayenite, tobermorite and calcite were easily traced. Moreover, the experimental Kikuchi diffraction patterns were utilized to generate a self-consistent reference for the electron backscatter diffraction pattern matching. From the electron backscatter diffraction, the locally varying crystal orientation in slag geopolymers sample of monoclinic crystal observed in hedenbergite, orthorhombic crystal in tobermorite and hexagonal crystal in calcite at 1000°C heating temperature.

The perovskite type matrix is considered as solidification material for high-level radioactive waste. In this work the perovskite-rutile-type matrix doped by Co, Cs, Nd and Sr which simulate nuclear waste was prepared by sol-gel route. The material was characterized by several methods such as: X-ray diffraction, energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer, and particle induced X-ray emission combined with Rutherford backscattering spectrometry. The analyzes confirmed chemical composition Co-Cs-Nd-Sr- doped perovskite-rutile-type structure. A virtual model of the pellet`s structure was created non-destructively by Roentgen computed micro-tomography. The leaching tests confirmed high chemical resistance of the matrix.

To investigate the solid state weldability on SUS316L alloy, this work was carried out. Friction welding as a solid state welding was introduced and conducted at a rotation speed of 2,000 rpm and a friction pressure of 25 MPa on tube typed specimens. After this work, the grain boundary characteristic distributions such a grain size, shape and misorientation angle of the welds were clarified by electron backscattering diffraction method. The application of friction welding on SUS316L resulted in a significant refinement of the grain size in the weld zone (6.03 μm) compared to that of the base material (57.55 μm). Despite the grain refinement, the mechanical properties of the welds indicate relatively low or similar to the base material. These mechanical properties are due to dislocation density in the initial material and grain refinement in the welds.

A high performance distributed sensor system with multi-intrusions simultaneous detection capability based on phase sensitive OTDR (Φ−OTDR) has been proposed and demonstrated. To improve system performance, three aspects have been investigated. Firstly, a model of one−dimensional impulse response of backscattered light and a Monte Carlo method have been used to study how the laser line width affects the system performance. Theoretical and experimental results show that the performances of the system, especially the signal−noise−ratio (SNR), decrease with the broadening of laser linewidth. Secondly, a temperature−compensated fibre Bragg grating with a 3 dB linewidth of 0.05 nm and a wavelength stability of 0.1 pm has been applied as an optical filter for effective denoising. Thirdly, a novel interrogation method for multi−intrusions simultaneous detection is proposed and applied in data denoising and processing. Consequently, benefiting from the three−in−one improvement, a high performance Φ−OTDR has been realized and four simultaneous applied intrusions have been detected and located at the same time along a 14 km sensing fibre with a spatial resolution of 6 m and a high SNR of 16 dB. To the best of our knowledge, this is the most multifunctional Φ−OTDR up to now and it can be used for perimeter and/or pipeline intrusion real−time monitoring.