[en] Conclusions: High performance concrete constructions will allow innovative design solutions for critical infrastructures. Validation of engineering methods can reside on large and model scale experiments conducted on conventional concrete structures. New consistent impact experiments show extreme protection potential for UHPC. Modern FEM with concrete models and explicit rebar can model HPC and UHPC penetration resistance. SDOF and TDOF approaches are valuable design tools on local and global level. Combination of at least 2 out of 3 design methods FEM – XDOF- EXP allow reliable prediction and efficient innovative designs

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[en] An important part of the recent upgrade of the NSCL facility is the replacement of the A1200 fragment separator with a new high acceptance device called the A1900. The design of the A1900 device represents a third generation projectile fragment separator (relative to the early work at LBL) as it is situated immediately after the primary accelerator, has a very large acceptance, a bending power significantly larger than that of the cyclotron and is constructed from large superconducting magnets (quadrupoles with 20 and 40 cm diameter warm bores). The A1900 can accept over 90% of a large range of projectile fragmentation products produced at the NSCL, leading to large gains in the intensity of the secondary beams. The results of initial tests of the system with a restricted momentum acceptance (±0.5%) indicate that the A1900 is performing up to specifications. Further large gains in the intensities of primary beams, typically two or three orders of magnitude, will be possible as the many facets of high current extraction from the ion sources, acceleration of intense, low charge-state ions in the K500 cyclotron, transfer and stripping injection in K1200 cyclotron are optimized. A liquid-lithium cooled beryllium target system is being constructed to use with the high power beams (up to ∼5 kW) that will be available from the coupled-cyclotron facility. An overview of the design, construction and commissioning studies of the A1900 device will be presented along with some of the results from the initial exotic isotope production studies

[en] The binding of at least six additional neutrons of fluorine compared to oxygen is linked to the emergence of the N = 16 shell close to the dripline. Single proton knock-out reactions from neutron-rich fluorine isotopes on a ¹²C target were measured at energies of ∼50 MeV/nucleon. Oxygen isotopes of A = 19 - 24 were observed. The particle instability of ²⁵O was confirmed

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[en] Highlights: • Different nanostructure morphologies were generated on non-stoichiometric titanium oxide thin films. • The free-surface energy minimization mechanism is proposed to explain the nanostructures formation. • Micro-nanostructuring of a large homogeneous surface was performed at relatively low fluences. - Abstract: Surface structuring of titanium oxide thin films by a UV femtosecond laser beam (266 nm, 100 fs) is presented in this paper. Without using laser scanning, the results show the formation of regular dots and laser induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) with a period close to that of the beam wavelength. These nanostructures seem to be due to free-surface energy minimization. Furthermore, laser irradiation of large homogeneous surfaces by laser scan (5 × 5 mm²) showed more exotic surface morphologies, ranging from regular dots and low spatial frequency LIPSS to microstructures that are completely controlled by the laser fluence and the number of shots. Typically 2D circular dots of 100 nm diameter with two distinct periods (260 and 130 nm) are achieved under a very low fluence of 15 mJ/cm² after 13000 shots.

[en] Full text: In the field of geo-science applications there is an increasing demand for small and ultra-small ¹⁴C measurements, e.g. for compound specific or in-situ investigations. For this purpose it is an attractive option to measure the sample material directly as CO₂ without performing the usual graphitization. At CologneAMS we are operating a dedicated Cs sputter source, HVE SO-110 B, which has been tuned for an efficient C^- extraction when CO₂ is used as sample material. In routine operation a negative ion yield of 6% is obtained. For the CO₂ injection we use an Ionplus AG gas system for which the control of the automated measurements was modified. With this setup gaseous samples of 1-300 μg carbon can be measured. The blank level for samples with masses >50 ^μg is 3^x10^-15 while the detection limit of smaller samples is limited due to a contamination of typically 0.3–0.4 μg modern carbon which is mostly introduced during sample preparation work. In order to further improve the system towards the operation of ultra-small samples, special effort was spent to lower the blank level. Additionally, first test measurements of in-situ samples, prepared from 1-3 g of ¹⁴C saturated CoQtz-N material and SynQtz blanks, have successfully been performed which yielded ¹⁴C contents of 50k-750k atoms, with 50k atoms being the blank value. A new spectrometer for stable isotope measurements, isoprime precisION from elementar, was acquired and will be connected to the existing gas system. This allows to measure the same sample material simultaneously with two different spectrometers and fractionation effects can be investigated more detailed. In this contribution we report on the actual performance of the measurements and the status of the set-up. (author)

[en] the Coupled Cyclotron Facility at Michigan State University was completed in July 2001. It has produced dozens of secondary beam species for the users performing experiments, from about 14 primary beams (O to Bi) with energy in the range 80 to 160 MeV/u. To enhance the yield of rare isotopes, the primary beam is generally a separated isotope with either the largest or the smallest neutron excess available. The facility has two ECR ion sources, feeding two superconducting cyclotrons in tandem, followed by the secondary beam production target and the A1900 fragment separator. The ongoing effort to understand the beam formation process with space charge effects and improve the matching of the ion source output to the first cyclotron is expected to increase the beam output of the facility. (author)

[en] In this work we report and discuss the characterization of the secondary scintillation light emitted by low-pressure tetrafluoromethane (CF_4) during avalanche gas processes. The experimental setup consists of a Parallel Plate Avalanche Counter (PPAC) irradiated by 5.5 MeV alpha particles from a collimated 241-Am source. The PPAC is operated in CF_4 at pressures ranging from 5 to 50 torr. The electroluminescence light is readout by a VUV-sensitive Multi-Pixel Photon Counter (MPPC, Hamamatsu), placed along the PPAC axial direction. The secondary scintillation yield at different operational pressures was computed from the correlation between avalanche charge and electroluminesce light, recorded on an event-by-event basis; it was found to be in the range of 0.01–0.15 photons/electron depending on the reduced field applied between the PPAC electrodes. The role of the quencher impurities is also briefly discussed. In addition, the coincidence resolving times (CRT) for 5.5 MeV α -particles crossing the PPAC has been measured; time resolutions of 600 picosecond were achieved at different pressures