A stream splitting device splits a two-phase inlet stream into two or more outlet streams having nearly identical vapor-to-liquid ratios. The inlet stream is directed into a separator vessel containing an impingement plate to decrease the velocity of the stream and direct it toward the inner walls of the vessel, where it impinges, separating the liquid from the vapor. Inside the vessel, each of two vertical suction channels with side wall apertures is in fluid communication with an outlet pipe. The lower ends of the suction channels are submerged in the liquid phase. Vapor flows though the apertures that are above the liquid surface in the vessel, thereby generating a pressure drop across the walls of the suction channels. Consequently, liquid is lifted up into the suction channels, where it is mixed with the vapor. The two-phase mixture then leaves the vessel and stream splitter through the outlet pipes.

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device for splitting a two-phase inlet stream consisting of a light phase fluid and a heavy phase fluid, for instance vapor and liquid, into two or more two-phase outlet streams. The device will ensure that the desired vapor/liquid ratio is obtained for each of the outlet streams. The total flow rates of each outlet stream do not necessarily need to be identical. The invention is suited for but not limited to the application of splitting a two-phase process stream flowing in a pipe or channel to parallel heat exchangers, furnace tubes, air coolers, chemical reactors or piping systems.
2. Related Art
Splitting a two-phase stream is required in many process units, and historically different types of solutions have been applied, ranging from use of simple symmetrical piping splits or tee's to more sophisticated two-phase stream splitters.
The devices for splitting a two-phase process stream can be divided into 6 general types:
Type 1: Symmetrical Piping Splits Using Standard Piping Tee's.
The traditional way of splitting a two-phase stream is to make symmetrical piping splits using standard piping tee's, and to rely on the phases to distribute evenly to each branch pipe. An example of a symmetrical piping split for splitting a two-phase stream into four outlet streams is shown in the isometric drawing in FIG. 1. The two-phase inlet stream flows in the inlet pipe 1. The inlet pipe 1 routes the two-phase stream to the first tee 3, where the stream is divided into two outlet streams that flow in opposite directions in a transverse pipe 7. In the illustrated example, a first or upstream 90° elbow 2 is located upstream from the first tee 3. Due to the centrifugal forces acting on the liquid, the liquid tends to flow near the large radius wall of the elbow, while the vapor tends to flow near the small radius wall. The upstream elbow 2 thus causes phase separation and a non-uniform distribution of vapor and liquid across the cross section of the pipe. To minimize the negative effect on the splitting performance in the first tee 3 caused by the upstream elbow 2, the inlet pipe 1 is preferably perpendicular to the plane defined by the tee 3 as shown. Each of the two outlet streams from the first tee 3 is further divided into two outlet streams in second and third tee's 5a and 5b, respectively. Upstream from the second tee 5a is a second elbow 4a, and upstream from the tee third 5b is a third elbow 4b. Again in order to minimize the negative effect on the splitting performance in the tee's 5a and 5b caused by the phase separation in the elbows 4a and 4b, the pipe 7 is perpendicular to the two planes defined by the tee's 5a and 5b. By use of symmetric piping splits, the inlet stream in pipe 1 has thus been divided into four product streams flowing in outlet pipes 6a, 6b, 6c and 6d.
The symmetric piping split is probably the most widely applied method for dividing a two-phase inlet stream into two or more outlet streams. However, history has shown that this principle has failed to distribute the liquid and vapor evenly to the outlet streams, in many cases resulting in an unequal vapor-to-liquid ratio in the outlet streams. A major problem with the symmetrical piping split in standard piping tee's is that the performance of the stream split depends upon the flow regime in the upstream pipe, and that it is not always possible to stay inside the desired "dispersed flow regime" at all relevant operating conditions. The dispersed flow regime is a flow regime inside a flow channel or pipe with a uniform distribution of small liquid droplets in a continuous vapor phase or of small vapor bubbles in a continuous liquid phase (bubble flow). Also the performance of the symmetrical piping split may depend upon the presence of pipe fittings upstream from the split, as already mentioned. A major limitation of the symmetrical piping split is that the flow rate of the outlet streams needs to be close to identical to avoid significant differences in the vapor-to-liquid ratio of the outlet streams. Another limitation is that a two-phase stream can only be split symmetrically into 2, 4, 8, 16 . . . etc. outlet streams. It is thus not possible to make 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 . . . etc. outlet streams.
The performance of the symmetrical piping split in standard piping tee's has been suggested to be improved by injection of chemicals for reduction of the liquid surface tension upstream from the split. When the liquid surface tension is reduced, the dispersed flow regimes will be achieved at lower flow velocities. Therefore acceptable performance of the symmetrical piping split may be achieved over a wider range of vapor and liquid flow rates. An example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,105, where a surfactant is injected upstream from the split of a two-phase stream of saturated steam and water to a plurality of injection wells to ensure identical quality (vapor fraction) to each injection well for enhanced oil recovery from an oil reservoir.
Type 2: Use of Special Inserts such as Vanes, Baffles or Static Mixers in Piping Tee's.
Several attempts have been made to try to improve the split performance of a standard piping tee by use of pipe inserts such as vanes, baffles and static mixers.
A first example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,396,063, where a static mixer is located just upstream of a tee consisting of a Y-branched conduit. To achieve good splitting performance, where the vapor-to-liquid ratio of each outlet stream is identical, dispersed flow is preferred. In the dispersed flow regime the two-phase mixture will more or less act as a single-phase fluid. The small liquid droplets tend to follow the vapor flow at approximately the same velocity, or vice versa. Therefore, in the dispersed flow regime, a good splitting performance is often achieved in a piping tee. The use of a static mixer upstream from the tee provides surfaces with a certain projected area perpendicular to the flow direction in the inlet pipe. Liquid will impinge on these surfaces and will thus be separated from the vapor phase. Therefore, use of static mixers disturbs the desired dispersed flow regime, if present, and results in separation of liquid and vapor, which is unwanted. The use of static mixers introduces additional pressure drops in the process system, which may result in additional operating cost due to increased power consumption in pumps and/or compressors. Also static mixers are susceptible to fouling caused by contaminants such as scale and corrosion products.
A second example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,824,614. This flow splitter also includes a static mixer 22 located in the inlet pipe upstream from a tee 14 where the inlet stream 30 is divided into two outlet streams 74 and 76. Between the static mixer 22 and the tee 14, a horizontal stratifier 24 is located. The stratifier collects fluids from six different elevations. The fluids collected at the lowest and first elevation are sent to one outlet stream 76, the fluids collected at the second elevation are sent to the other outlet stream 74, the fluids collected at the third elevation are sent to the outlet stream 76, etc. As with the mixer of the first example discussed above, the mixer of the present example will tend to separate the liquid from the vapor, which is unwanted. The static mixer may also increase the operating costs and be susceptible to fouling. The stratifier collecting the fluids will only work if the vapor and liquid are distributed uniformly across the pipe cross section, which will not be the case in real applications. The Mixer/Stratifier assembly was tested in a steam/water field application described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,032. The result of the test was that a better split of the steam and water was obtained in a standard impacting tee than with the Mixer/Stratifier assembly.
A third example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,810,032. Various types of inserts for a standard pipe tee have been tested both in the laboratory with air and water, and in the field for splitting a steam/water mixture to parallel injection wells for enhanced oil recovery in an oil reservoir. Three general types of pipe inserts were investigated: A static mixer upstream from a standard tee, a vertical flow baffle upstream from a standard tee, and use of flow restrictions or nozzles in the two outlet branches of a standard tee. Combinations of these three types of inserts were also investigated. The conclusion was that the static mixer and the vertical baffle only result in marginal improvement of the split performance. The use of flow restrictions or nozzles in the two outlet branches is claimed to result in somewhat better split performance for the flow regimes tested. However it is not clear what the driving force for uniform liquid distribution to the nozzles and outlets branches of the tee is in the case of non-uniform distribution of the liquid and vapor in the cross section of the inlet pipe. None of the laboratory flow tests are carried out in Dispersed or Bubble Flow regimes (liquid droplets in a continuous vapor phase or gas bubbles in a continuous liquid phase); the evaluated flow regimes in the laboratory tests are Stratified Flow, Wavy Stratified Flow, Slug Flow, and Annular Flow, as predicted by use of the two-phase flow map by Mr. Ovid Baker ("How to size process piping for two-phase flow," Hydrocarbon Processing, October, 1969, pp. 105-116). That is probably the reason why it was found that the split performance of a standard tee with or without inserts is better at low flow velocities and low liquid fractions. The preferred high velocity flow regimes, Dispersed and Bubble Flow, were never tested. If tests had been performed in the Dispersed and Bubble Flow regimes, the conclusion would, most likely, have been different.
Instead of using special inserts in standard piping tees, others have suggested using significantly modified tees. Examples of modified piping tees are given in JP Patent 62059397A2, U.S. Pat. No. 4,528,919 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,368.
Type 3: Devices which Rely on a Certain Flow Regime to be Established Upstream from the Split.
The prediction of flow regimes in industrial applications is difficult due to the lack of accuracy of the flow regime maps. Most flow regime maps are mainly based on two-phase flow regime data for air and water in small diameter piping (<2 in. or 5 cm). Therefore, for instance, in a hydrocarbon/hydrogen system at elevated pressures and temperatures, as in a hydroprocessing unit, the flow regime maps may be inaccurate.
In addition to the uncertainty in the flow regime maps comes the uncertainty in the thermodynamic models for prediction of liquid and vapor amounts and properties. This uncertainty may be significant, for instance, for complex hydrocarbon systems where the hydrocarbons are characterized by use of pseudo components and where an equation of state is used to predict the degree of vaporization and the fluid properties.
Also piping systems in process plants are often complex systems with pipe fittings like expansions, contractions, elbows, check valves, etc. Each time a two-phase stream passes such pipe fittings, the general flow regime is disturbed, and it may require long, straight pipe runs to reestablish the general flow regime. For instance, as previously mentioned, an elbow tends to separate the phases, with the dense liquid phase running near the large radius wall of the elbow, and the lighter vapor running near the small radius wall of the elbow.
For these three reasons it is normally not possible to accurately predict the actual flow regime in a pipe or flow channel. Additionally, due to variations in operating conditions such as temperature, pressure, flow rate, and chemical composition of the fluid, it is normally not possible to stay in one flow regime for all relevant operating conditions in the process unit. Nevertheless, many two-phase stream splitters are designed to work for one flow regime only.
A first example of such a two-phase stream splitter is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,516,986. As disclosed therein, the splitter comprises an inner pipe 12 inserted in a main pipe 10. In the annular area between the inner and main pipes a baffle 13 is located. The intended flow regime in the main pipe is the Annular Flow regime where liquid is flowing in an annular ring near the pipe wall and the vapor is flowing at high velocity in the center of the pipe. Part of the liquid flowing near the pipe wall is intended to be collected in the closed end volume 14. From the closed end volume 14 the liquid is routed through an external line 15 through a control valve 23. Vapor is collected from the annular vapor volume 30 downstream from the baffle 13 and sent through a pipe branch 11, where it is combined with the liquid from the control valve. A flow meter 20 in the two-phase stream in pipe branch 11 is used to control the liquid flow. It is not described how the flowmeter can accurately measure the vapor/liquid ratio. In order to measure vapor/liquid ratio, separate flow measurements of the vapor and liquid flow would normally be required. For other flow regimes than Annular Flow (such as, for example, Slug Flow, the split performance of the device may be poor. Even if Annular Flow is the dominating flow regime in the main pipe 10, any pipe fittings such as elbows upstream from the splitter would disturb the flow. Therefore, a certain straight pipe section is needed upstream from the splitter, which may take up additional space in the process unit. Also there may be limitations in flow rate rangeability. When the total flow rate is reduced below the design value, the pressure drop across the baffle 13 is reduced rapidly, and so is the available pressure drop across the control valve 23. At some point the control valve goes fully open and is no longer able to control the liquid flow. By introducing instrumentation and control valves, the system is no longer as simple and robust as other two-phase flow splitters, and the pressure drop across the splitter is increased. A higher pressure drop normally increases the operating cost for pumping and/or compression in the process unit. The patent describes how to generate two outlet streams. If three or more outlet streams are required, then two or more splitters in series would most likely be needed. If many outlet streams are required, then the splitting system would become rather complex, and the required pressure drop would get excessive.
A second example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,800,921, where a horizontal header 16 is provided with outlet branches 14a, 14b, 14c, etc., and where the upstream outlet branch is at a high elevation, and the elevation of each downstream outlet branch is reduced successively. The idea should be that if Annular Flow is the flow regime in the header, then the different elevations of the outlet branches should ensure that the thickness of the annular liquid ring is approximately the same at the point of each outlet branch. Thus, the vapor/liquid ratio in each branch stream is claimed to be close to identical. As already mentioned, it is hard to predict and to stay inside a certain flow regime for all relevant operating conditions. In addition, even if Annular Flow can be maintained in the main line, the vapor/liquid ratio is expected to be a function of total flow rate in each branch line. The higher the flow rate in a branch line, the more vapor will be sucked into the pipe, and thus the higher vapor-to-liquid ratio. If the flow regime during certain operating modes is different than expected, for instance Stratified Flow, then severe maldistribution of the phases to the outlet branches is the result.
A third example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,837, where a certain phase distribution in a horizontal main pipe 10 is assumed to be known. Openings at different elevations are provided in the main pipe to allow fluids to flow first to an annular chamber 12 and then further to a branch pipe 13. The vapor/liquid ratio of the stream in the branch pipe is set by selection of appropriate flow areas of the openings at the top and the bottom of the pipe 10, respectively. The greater the flow area at the top of the pipe relative to the flow area at the bottom, the higher the vapor-to-liquid ratio that is achieved in the branch pipe. The device will only work for the Stratified Flow and Wavy Stratified Flow regimes. Also, the device will only generate a split stream with the desired vapor-to-liquid ratio when the liquid level in the main pipe is as foreseen. Consequently, the device will only work for low flow velocities and for fixed vapor/liquid ratios and properties. Most commercial applications are characterized by high flow velocities and significant variation in vapor/liquid ratio and properties.
Other examples of stream splitters which rely on a certain flow regime to be established upstream from the split are given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,574,827 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,437,299.
Type 4: Devices which Utilize Centrifugal Forces.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,059,226, a centrifugal two-phase flow splitter is described. The centrifugal splitter has a tangential fluid inlet 28 into a swirl chamber 23. In the bottom of the swirl chamber are a central hub 38 and vanes 39 which direct the swirling vapor and liquid toward the outlet apertures 36 and into the outlet channels 37. It is not easily understandable what the driving force for distribution of the liquid phase is. The fluid inlet is not symmetrical, since there is only one inlet 28 at one side of the device. The liquid swirls along the inner wall of the swirl chamber, but, due to the asymmetric design, uniform flow and thickness of the liquid layer/film are not expected. Consequently, some of the vanes 39 are expected to collect more liquid than others, resulting in less than optimal liquid distribution to the outlet channels 37.
Type 5: Devices which Utilize an External Energy Source to Generate Dispersed Flow.
An example of such an apparatus is given in EP Patent 0003202 B1. A motor 32 and a rotating stirring device on a shaft 28 are used to disperse the liquid and vapor mixture upstream from the split where the inlet stream is split into outlet channels 4a, 4b and 4c. The device is likely to work since a Dispersed Flow regime can be generated by addition of shaft work to the shaft 28, no matter the variations in flow rates and fluid properties. The main problem with this type of apparatus is obtaining a good seal between the shaft 28 and the pipe/bend 21, which is not an easy task (not an inexpensive design) in high pressure applications like hydrocracking (up to 300 bar). Also, the initial cost, the maintenance cost of the rotating equipment, and the cost of power consumption for the motor are all high.
Type 6: Devices which First Separate Vapor and Liquid in the Inlet Stream and then Distribute each Phase to the Outlet Streams
A first example of a flow splitter for splitting a two-phase inlet stream into three outlet streams using a conventional vapor/liquid separator and conventional instrumentation is shown in FIG. 2. A two-phase inlet stream flows through a line 11 to a separator 10 where the liquid phase 13 is separated from the vapor phase 12. The vapor phase is routed via a vapor outlet line 14 to a first set of parallel control valves 15a, 15b and 15c. The position or lift of the control valves is controlled by a first set of flow controllers 16a, 16b and 16c to obtain the desired vapor flow rate through each control valve. The flow measurements are obtained by use of any conventional method, such as orifice plates or venturi tubes combined with a ΔP transmitter. The flow controllers are cascaded with a pressure controller 17. The pressure controller changes the flow set points to the flow controllers 16a, 16b, 16c in order to maintain the desired pressure in the separator 10. The liquid phase 13 is routed via a liquid outlet line 18 to a second set of parallel control valves 19a, 19b and 19c. The position or lift of these latter control valves is controlled by a second set of flow controllers 20a, 20b and 20c to obtain the desired liquid flow rate through each control valve. Flow measurements are obtained by use of any conventional method, such, as for instance, an orifice plate combined with a ΔP transmitter. The flow controllers are cascaded with a level controller 21. The level controller changes the flow set points to the flow controllers 19a, 19b and 19c in order to maintain the desired liquid level in the separator 10. Finally, the vapor streams from the valves 15a, 15b and 15c are combined with the liquid streams from the valves 19a, 19b and 19c to generate the three two-phase outlet streams 22, 23 and 24.
The instrumentation for the two-phase stream splitter shown in FIG. 2 is rather complex, and as the complexity and number of components such as transmitters, control valves and controllers are increased, the risk of failure and upsets is also increased. Some downstream systems may be damaged if the vapor-to-liquid ratio is too high or too low during such failure or upset in the control system. Examples are the risk of tube rupture or coke buildup in a furnace tube due to overheating of the tube in case the vapor-to-liquid ratio of the stream flowing inside the tube is suddenly increased. Another example is the risk of rapid coke build-up in parallel catalytic hydroprocessing reactors if the reactor is operated with too low a vapor-to-liquid ratio, resulting in hydrogen deficiency even in a short period of time. Also, the complexity of the control system and the large size of the separator vessel 10 result in a high cost of the splitter.
A second example is given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,025. This two-phase flow splitter includes a separator vessel 10 which has a two-phase inlet nozzle 11. An impingement plate 14 is located below the inlet nozzle to break down the high velocity of the inlet stream. Two or more chimneys 12 are provided in the separator. The upper ends of the chimneys are open to allow vapor to enter the chimney. Apertures 13 are provided in the chimneys for liquid entrance to the chimney. Caps 16 are located above the chimney openings to prevent direct liquid entrance at the chimney top. The flow of liquid to each chimney is determined by the liquid head above the apertures 13 and the flow area of the apertures. For a given liquid level in the vessel, the flow of liquid to each chimney will almost be constant. Therefore, such a two-phase stream splitter where the liquid head is the driving force for liquid distribution to the parallel outlet streams will ensure constant liquid flow to each outlet stream rather than constant vapor-to-liquid ratio. Another problem with stream splitters where the liquid head is the driving force for distribution is the limited liquid flow rangeability. The area of the apertures 13 must be sized to obtain an intermediate liquid level at the design liquid flow rate. If the liquid flow is, for example, 50% higher during some operating modes, then the liquid level will be about 2.25 times higher than the design liquid level, and liquid may thus overflow the chimneys and result in maldistribution of the liquid to the outlet streams. If the liquid flow is, for example, 50% lower than the design liquid flow, then the liquid level will only be about 25% of the foreseen liquid level. At low liquid levels, the liquid distribution performance may be poor due to a large sensitivity towards waves, non-level installation, and other fabrication tolerances. The liquid flow rangeability of the splitter can be broadened by providing apertures at more elevations. However, if apertures at more elevations are provided, then the liquid distribution performance at the design point is reduced relative to the splitter with apertures in one elevation only.
Other examples of splitters where the liquid level is the driving force for even liquid distribution to each outlet stream are given in U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,391; JP Patent 03113251 A2; and JP Patent 02197768 A2.
A third example of stream splitters with separation of the liquid and vapor phases is given in U.S. Pat. No. 5,250,104. The two-phase mixture flowing in a pipe 14 is separated in a separator 12. The vapor phase is divided into two streams in a tee 20. Each of the two vapor streams is passed through an orifice 22 and 24. The liquid is collected in a sump 30 and is passed though two parallel liquid lines 32 and 34. The pressure drop for vapor flow, ΔPV, through the orifice is almost proportional to the squared volumetric vapor velocity. The pressure drop for liquid flow, ΔPL, through the liquid lines 32 and 34, consists of a static term, ΔPSL, due to the difference in elevation of the liquid level in the sump 30 and the liquid tube ends 40 and 42, and a frictional term, ΔPFL. ΔPFL is almost proportional to the squared volumetric liquid flow rate. Since the vapor and liquid paths through the splitter are parallel paths, the pressure drops need to be identical:ΔPV=ΔPSL+ΔPFL  (1)
The flow areas of the vapor orifices and the liquid tubes are sized for a certain vapor flow rate QV and a certain liquid flow rate QL. Now if, for instance, the actual vapor flow is 50% higher during some operating modes, then ΔPV is 125% higher than foreseen. Since the liquid flow is unchanged, ΔPFL is also unchanged. In order to fulfill equation (1), ΔPSL therefore has to be increased by 1.25×ΔPV. The result is that the liquid level in the sump 30 needs to be reduced significantly, and at some point there will be no liquid level in the sump, and both vapor and liquid will enter the liquid lines 32 and 34. In such a case, poor distribution of liquid to the parallel lines 32 and 34 will be the result. On the other hand, if the vapor flow is, for example, 50% lower than the design vapor flow during some operating modes, then ΔPV is 75% lower than foreseen. In that case, the liquid level in the sump 30 will rise significantly and overflow the sump, causing liquid flow to the orifices 22 and 24 and maldistribution. The splitter will only work properly at the vapor flow rate and liquid flow rate for which it was designed. The liquid and vapor flow rangeability of the splitter is insufficient for most industrial applications, which are normally characterized by significant variation in both liquid and vapor flow rate and in liquid and vapor properties like density, viscosity, and surface tension.

Device for splitting a two-phase stream into two or more streams with the desired vapor/liquid ratios


A collapsible lens barrel includes a first holding frame (2) for holding a first lens group (L1), a second holding frame (5) for holding a second lens group (L2) that is disposed on an image plane side with respect to the first lens group (L1), an actuator (6) for moving the second holding frame 5 in an optical axis direction, and a tubular cam frame (17) including a plurality of cam grooves that are formed at substantially equal intervals around a circumferential direction for moving the first holding frame (2) in the optical axis direction. The actuator (6) is attached to a portion in the cam frame (17) where the cam grooves are not formed. The first lens group (L1) is moved using the cam grooves, and the second lens group (L2) is moved using the actuator (6), so that a faster zooming speed and a lower zooming noise can be achieved.

In recent years, the use of a digital still camera (in the following, referred to as DSC) allowing a user to check a captured image immediately has been expanding rapidly. As a lens barrel for this DSC, a so-called collapsible lens barrel, which can be made shorter when not in use, generally is adopted in view of its portability when not in use.
FIG. 35 is an exploded perspective view showing a conventional collapsible lens barrel (see JP 2002-107598 A, for example). This collapsible lens barrel 60 is an optical system in which a single cam barrel 61 moves moving lens frames 62 and 63 back and forth so as to change a focal length. The inner peripheral surface of this cam barrel 61 is provided with cam grooves 64 and 65, which determine moving paths of the moving lens frames 62 and 63, respectively. Three cam pins 62a provided on the outer peripheral surface of the moving lens frame 62 and three cam pins 63a provided on the outer peripheral surface of the moving lens frame 63 mate with the cam grooves 64 and 65, respectively, whereby the moving lens frames 62 and 63 move in an optical axis (Z-axis) direction. The cam barrel 61 is provided outside a fixed barrel 70 and can rotate freely around the optical axis. An outer periphery of the cam barrel 61 is provided with a gear 66, which engages with a driving force transmitting gear 67. The driving force transmitting gear 67 is connected to an output axis of a cam barrel driving actuator 69 via a reduction gear train 68. Thus, when the cam barrel driving actuator 69 is driven, the driving force is transmitted via the reduction gear train 68 to the driving force transmitting gear 67, thereby rotating the cam barrel 61. This moves the moving lens frames 62 and 63 along respective shapes of the cam grooves 64 and 65, so that zooming is carried out from a collapsed state via a wide angle end.
FIG. 36 is a development showing the cam grooves 64 and 65 formed on the inner peripheral surface of the cam barrel 61. As shown in FIG. 36, the cam grooves 64 and 65 are formed in a circumferential direction of the cam barrel 61 so as to extend from a collapsed position through a wide angle end position to a telephoto end position. Accordingly, when the power of DSC is turned on, the moving lens frames 62 and 63 shift from the collapsed position to the wide angle end position, which is the next stop position, and stop there for an image capturing.
Further, with an increase in the optical zooming factor, the influence of camera shake has become conspicuous. In order to reduce this influence, a DSC including an image blurring correcting device is on its way to becoming commercialized. As this image blurring correcting device for DSC, there has been a suggested method of moving a correcting lens group in two directions that are perpendicular to the optical axis so as to correct the camera shake by a user, thereby obtaining a stable image (see JP 2001-117129 A, for example).
However, in the conventional collapsible lens barrel described above, since the reduction gear train 68 and the cam frame (cam barrel 61) are used for zooming, there have been problems in that an increase in a zoom speed and a reduction in a zoom noise are difficult to achieve.

This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.

Collapsible lens barrel and optical instrument using the same


Disclosed is a washing machine, The washing machine includes a tub to contain washing water; a drum rotatably installed in the tub to contain laundry to be washed; a detergent box to contain a detergent supplied to the inside of the tub; and a steam generating device to heat water to generate steam, supply the generated steam to the drum, and supply the heated water selectively to the detergent box.

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a washing machine, and more particularly, to a washing machine, which has an enhanced washing efficiency.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Generally, in case that a washing machine is used, laundry is firstly put to the inside of the washing machine and then a laundry detergent and/or a functional detergent, such as a fabric softener, are put into a detergent box. Thereafter, when the washing machine is operated, water supplied to the inside of the washing machine flows into a drum by way of the detergent box. Specifically, the water supplied to the inside of the washing machine flows, together with the laundry detergent in the detergent box, into the drum. In this case, since a solid detergent is mainly used as the laundry detergent in the detergent box, the solid detergent is dissolved in water and then supplied to the drum.
In case that the washing machine is operated, cold water is supplied to the inside of the washing machine unless hot water is selected. Therefore, in case that cold water is supplied into the detergent box, the solid detergent in the detergent box is not easily dissolved in the cold water and thus remains in the detergent box. Thereby, a desired amount of the detergent is not supplied to the inside of the drum, and thus lowers the washing efficiency of the washing machine and further causes a user to remove the remaining detergent in the detergent box after the washing of the laundry has been completed.


The present invention discloses an LDO (Low DropOut) linear voltage regulator, which is based on an NMC (Nested Miller Compensation) architecture and can be capacitor-free, wherein an active resistor is added to the feedback path of the Miller compensation capacitor to increase the controllability of the damping factor, solve the problem of extensively using the output capacitor with a parasitic resistance, and solve the problem that a compromise must be made between the damping factor control and the system loop gain. Further, the present invention utilizes a capacitor-sharing technique to reduce the Miller capacitance required by the entire system and accelerate the stabilization of output voltage without influencing stability.

Due to the maturity of the communication market, the application of the relevant IC also persistently grows. With the prevalence of portable electronic products, such as mobile phones, battery runtime becomes very important. Thus, how to promote the efficiency and stability of batteries has been a challenge in the related field.
Because of compactness, low noise and high conversion efficiency, the LDO (Low Dropout) linear voltage regulator has been the mainstream of small-power regulators and step-down transformers and has been widely used in portable electronic products and communication-related products.
In the existing products/methods, three stages of amplifiers are usually adopted to increase the gain of an LDO linear voltage regulator and achieve a higher accuracy. However, such an approach is apt to result in the instability of the LDO linear voltage regulator. Therefore, various frequency compensation methods are proposed to stabilize the system. A pole-zero compensation, i.e., adding an external big-size capacitor to lower the dominant pole and increase phase margin, was proposed, wherein a big-size output capacitor is needed to move the dominant pole to low frequency to maintain stability. As the dominant pole is located at the output of LDO linear voltage regulator, the maximum load current will influence the stability. Such a method has the following disadvantages:                1. As the dominant pole is located at the output of LDO linear voltage regulator, such a circuit needs a bigger capacitor to stabilize the system. However, it is hard to integrate on a single chip, which increases difficulty in system-on-chip.        2. Generally speaking, a greater gain, which can promote system accuracy, is expected. However, increasing gain will decrease system stability in such a circuit. Therefore, a compromise must be made between gain and stability.        3. Greater load current means lower load resistance and greater dominant pole. The greater the dominant pole, the poorer the system stability. Thus, system stability limits load current in such a circuit.
Refer to FIG. 1. Someone proposed an LDO linear voltage regulator using nested Miller compensation to solve the abovementioned problems. The LDO linear voltage regulator 10 comprises an input terminal VIN receiving input DC voltage; an output terminal VOUT outputting a stabilized output voltage; a first-stage amplifier 11; a second-stage amplifier 12 cascaded to the first-stage amplifier 11; and a power transistor 13 cascaded to the second-stage amplifier 12. The source of the power transistor 13 is coupled to the input terminal VIN, and the drain is coupled to the output terminal VOUT, and the gate is coupled to the output terminal of the second-stage amplifier 12. The anti-phase input terminal of the first-stage amplifier 11 receives a reference voltage signal input by a reference voltage generator 14, and the in-phase input terminal is coupled to a node 15, and the output terminal is coupled to the input terminal of the second-stage amplifier 12. A first Miller compensation capacitor Cm1 is arranged in the feedback path between the output terminal of the first-stage amplifier 11 and the drain of the power transistor 13. A second Miller compensation capacitor Cm2 is arranged in the feedback path between the output terminal of the second-stage amplifier 12 and the drain of the power transistor 13. A feedback resistor network 20 is arranged between the drain of the power transistor 13 and the in-phase input terminal of the first-stage amplifier 11. The feedback resistor network 20 has two resistors RF1 and RF2, which form a voltage divider. The node 15 is formed in between resistors RF1 and RF2, and the in-phase input terminal of the first-stage amplifier 11 is coupled to the node 15. The output terminal VOUT of the LDO linear voltage regulator 10 is coupled to an external output capacitor CL with a parasitic resistance RESR.
In the LDO linear voltage regulator 10 using nested Miller compensation, the dominant pole is moved to the output of the first-stage amplifier 11 via pole splitting. Such an approach does not need a big-size output capacitor CL. The system can still have superior stability under a zero-capacitance output capacitor CL, which benefits SOC (System-on-Chip) application, reduces circuit board area and decreases external elements.
Refer to FIG. 2 for a small-signal model of the abovementioned system. The small-signal model comprises a gain stage gm1Vs of the first-stage amplifier 11, a gain stage gm2V2 of the second-stage amplifier 12, and an output stage of the power transistor 13, and the resistors RF1 and RF2 form the feedback resistor network 20. gm1, gm2, gmp are respectively the transductions of the first-stage amplifier 11, the second-stage amplifier 12 and the output stage. RO1 and RO2 are respectively the output impedances of the first-stage amplifier 11 and the second-stage amplifier 12. CP1 and CP2 are respectively the parasitic capacitances of the first-stage amplifier 11 and the second-stage amplifier 12. COUT is the output capacitance, and RESR is the parasitic resistance of the output capacitor. Cm1 and Cm2 are respectively the first and second Miller compensation capacitances. ROUT(=RL∥ROp∥(RF1+RF1)) is the equivalent output resistance, wherein RL is the load resistance, and ROp is the output resistance of the power PMOS transistor.
From the small-signal model in FIG. 2, the system transformation equation is obtained:
                              L                                (            s            )                          =                                                            A                0                                                          (                                  1                  -                                      s                                                                                C                                                  m                                                                                2                                                                                g                        mp                                                                              -                                                            s                      2                                                                                C                                                      m                                                                                1                                                                                C                                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                g                                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                g                          mp                                                                                )                                                                (                              1                +                                  s                                                            C                      OUT                                                                                R                      ESR                                                                                )                                                          (                              1                +                                  s                                      p                                                                  -                        3                                                                  dB                                                                                )                                                  [                              1                +                                  s                                                        (                                                                                C                          OUT                                                                                R                          ESR                                                                    +                                                                        C                                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                g                                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                )                                                  +                                                      s                    2                                                                          (                                                                                C                                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                C                          OUT                                                                                g                                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                g                          mp                                                                                )                                                              ]                                                          (        1        )            wherein the DC loop gain is given by
                                          A            0                    =                                    g                              m                                                                                1                                                                g                              m                                                                                2                                                                g              mp                                                  R                              O                                                                                1                                                                R                              O                                                                                2                                                                                R                OUT                                                          (                                                      R                                          F                                                                                2                                                                                R                                              F                                                                                1                                                              +                                          R                                              F                                                                                2                                                                                )                                                    ,                            (        2        )            and the dominant pole
                              p                                    -              3                                                                                dB                          =                  1                                    C                              m                                                                                1                                                                g                              m                                                                                2                                                                g              mp                                                  R                              O                                                                                1                                                                R                              O                                                                                2                                                                R              OUT                                                          (        3        )            The damping factor can thus be worked out:
                    ζ        =                              1            2                                          (                                                            C                  OUT                                                                  R                  ESR                                            +                                                C                                      m                                                                                2                                                                    g                                      m                                                                                2                                                                        )                                                                                g                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                g                  mp                                                                              C                                      m                                                                                2                                                                                C                  OUT                                                                                (        4        )
From the abovementioned equations, it is known: the damping factor ζ varies with the output capacitance COUT and the parasitic resistance RESR of the output capacitor. When the output capacitance COUT and the parasitic resistance RESR are very small, the second-stage transduction gm2 must be reduced so as to obtain a sufficiently high damping factor ζ and use a smaller Miller compensation capacitance Cm2. However, the system feedback gain will become smaller, and the system accuracy is decreased. Thus, a compromise must be made between the damping factor ζ and the system loop gain.

Low dropout linear voltage regulator with an active resistance for frequency compensation to improve stability


A method and apparatus performing blind source separation using frequency-domain normalized multichannel blind deconvolution. Multichannel mixed signals are frames of N samples including r consecutive blocks of M samples. The frames are separated using separating filters in frequency domain in an overlap-save manner by discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The separated signals are then converted back into time domain using inverse DFT applied to a nonlinear function. Cross-power spectra between separated signals and nonlinear-transformed signals are computed and normalized by power spectra of both separated signals and nonlinear-transformed signals to have flat spectra. Time domain constraint is then applied to preserve first L cross-correlations. These alias-free normalized cross-power spectra are further constrained by nonholonomic constraints. Then, natural gradient is computed by convolving alias-free normalized cross-power spectra with separating filters. After the separating filters length is constrained to L, the separating filters are updated using the natural gradient and normalized to have unit norm. Terminating conditions are checked to determine if separating filters converged.

In the art of speech processing, it is necessary to separate mixtures of multiple signals (including speech signals) from multiple sensors in a multipath environment. Such a separation of the mixtures without a priori knowledge of signals is known as blind source separation (BSS). BSS is very useful to separate signals that are from independent sources such as multiple speakers and sonar arrays. BSS techniques may be applied to speaker location tracking, speech recognition, speech coding, 3-D object-based audio signal processing, acoustic echo cancellers, channel equalization, estimation of direction of arrival, and detection of various biological signals such as EEG and MEG.
Most BSS techniques try to recover the original signals by nullifying the effect of multi-path effects. Although filters of infinite length are required for this purpose in general, filters of finite length also provide sufficient separation in most real world environments.
There are two popular approaches to this BSS problem: (i) multiple decorrelation (MD) methods that exploit the second order statistics of signals as independence measure and (ii) multichannel blind deconvolution (MBD) methods that exploit the higher order statistics.
The MD methods decorrelate mixed signals by diagonalizing second order statistics. [See, e.g. E. Weinstein, M. Feder, and A. V. Oppenheim, "Multi-channel signal separation by decorrelation," IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Processing, vol. 1, no. 4, pp. 405-413, April 1993; Lucas Parra and Clay Spence, "Convolutive blind source separation of nonstationary sources", IEEE IEEE Trans. Speech Audio Processing, pp. 320-327, May, 2000; D. W. E. Schobben and P. C. W. Sommen, "A frequency-domain blind signal separation method based on decorrelation," IEEE Trans. Signal Processing, vol. 50, no. 8, pp. 1855-1865, August 2002; N. Murata and S. Ikeda, and A. Ziehe, "An approach to blind source separation based on temporal structure of speech signal," Neurocomputing, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 1-24, 2001] Diagonalization should be performed at multiple time instants for successful separation of signals. For this reason, these methods are only applied to nonstationary signals. These methods are quite fast and stable. The MBD methods, on the other hand, separate signals by minimizing mutual information of nonlinear-transformed separated signals which are transformed by a nonlinear function matched to statistical distributions of signals. [See, e.g. S. Amari, S. C. Douglas, A. Cichocki, H. H. Yang, "Novel on-line adaptive learning algorithm for blind deconvolution using the natural gradient approach", Proc. IEEE 11th IFAC Symposium on System Identification, Japan, 1997, pp. 1057-1062; A. J. Bell and T. J. Sejnowski, "An information maximization approach to blind separation and blind deconvolution," Neural Computation, 7, no. 6, pp. 1129-1159, November 1995; L. Zhang, A. Cichocki, and S. Amari, "Geometrical structures of FIR manifolds and their application to multichannel blind deconvolution," Proc of Int. IEEE Workshop on Neural Networks and Signal Processing, pp. 303-312, Madison, Wis., USA, Aug. 23-25, 1999]

Methods and apparatus for blind separation of multichannel convolutive mixtures in the frequency domain


A method for displaying a thermal image in an infrared (IR) thermal camera, includes, for an embodiment, registering an outdoor temperature value, registering an indoor temperature value, calculating an isotherm level by using the registered temperature values and a temperature color alarm level, imaging a surface area to create an image of the temperature distribution in at least a part of the surface area, comparing the surface area temperature in at least one image point of the thermal image to the isotherm level, adjusting the color of the at least one image point in dependence of the relation between the surface area temperature in said at least one image point and the isotherm level and displaying the colored version of the thermal image. The method may allow a user to determine immediately, on-site, if a building is well insulated and may present an easily interpreted and understandable thermal image.

IR cameras can be used in a number of different situations, for example, when inspecting buildings or walls looking for areas with missing or bad insulation, structural damages, for example missing reinforcements, cracks in concrete walls, moisture, or water damages.
An infrared (IR) camera is used for capturing, displaying and storing thermal images. In addition to the thermal data of the captured objects other types of information, for example text and/or voice comments, visual images and environmental data, can also be digitally attached to the thermal image.
It is of great interest not only to view the thermal images but also to be able to tell the different temperatures of different objects, or parts of objects, in the thermal image, to analyze and draw the right conclusion from the data, and to take appropriate action.
However, a thermal image represents the temperature of an object or objects and may differ significantly from a visual image. This leads to difficulties in interpreting and identifying the location of objects shown in the infrared image. The difficulties and uncertainties in interpreting the infrared images also slow down the inspections since the operator often has to look closer and from different angles to be really sure that he has identified the right target, in which the thermal anomaly is actually found.
Further, it can also lead to an operator completely missing a thermal anomaly since the thermal anomaly is not clearly defined and could be hard to recognize just by looking at the thermal image.
Therefore, there is a need to have thermal images presented in a way easy to understand and interpret.

Method for displaying a thermal image in an IR camera, and an IR camera


The present invention relates to a reaction apparatus for receiving a reaction gas and for heating a substrate so as to form a film such as an insulating film on the substrate or for etching, with reduced power consumption for heating the substrate. The apparatus can change a substrate temperature within a short period of time, and maintains throughput while reducing labor and cost for maintenance. The apparatus includes a substrate holder (12) with a base of an insulating material in which an electrode (22) and a heater (23) for heating the held substrate (20) are contained. The apparatus also includes a processing chamber (7) enclosed by a chamber wall (7a).

1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate holder and to a reaction apparatus for forming a film or etching the same, more specifically, to an apparatus that forms an insulating film or the like by using reaction gas and heating a substrate or performs etching, and a substrate holder for holding a substrate to be processed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A CVD apparatus is a useful apparatus in forming a SiO.sub.2 film, a PSG film, a BSG film, a BPSG film, a Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 film, an amorphous Si film, a polycrystalline Si film, a W film, a Mo film, a WSi.sub.2 film, a MoSi.sub.2 film, an Al film or the like in manufacture of a semiconductor device.
Conventional CVD apparatus is classified by its means for activating reaction gas as follows:
1 thermal CVD apparatus, PA1 2 light-assisted CVD apparatus, and PA1 3 plasma-assisted CVD apparatus.
The thermal CVD apparatus has heating means for supplying heat energy to activate the reaction gas, and is classified either as a low pressure type or a normal pressure type, depending on the pressure employed. Further, the apparatus is classified as a low temperature type or a high temperature type depending on the substrate temperature, and furthermore, is classified as a resistance type, an induction heating type or a lamp heating type, depending on the heating means. Further, it is classified as a hot wall type or a cold wall type, depending on the location of installation of the heating means.
A light-assisted CVD apparatus includes light irradiation means for supplying energy to reaction gas so as to active the reaction gas by irradiating the reaction gas with ultraviolet rays, and is able to form a film under low pressure or high pressure and at a low temperature.
A plasma-assisted CVD apparatus uses plasma generating means for activating reaction gas directly or indirectly using AC power or a magnetic field, and the plasma is generally generated under low pressure and at a low temperature. The plasma-assisted CVD apparatus is classified, depending on the plasma generating means, as a parallel plate type for activating reaction gas directly by radiation of high-frequency power or an ECR type for supplying energy to electrons by high-frequency power and a magnetic field and activating the reaction gas indirectly with these electrons.
An etching apparatus, in particular a dry etching apparatus, is a useful apparatus for manufacturing a semiconductor device in case of precise etching of a SiO.sub.2 film, a PSG film, a BSG film, a BPSG film, a Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 film, an amorphous Si film, a polycrystalline Si film, a W film, a Mo film, a WSi.sub.2 film, a MoSi.sub.2 film, an Al film or the like, and is classified in a manner similar to the CVD apparatus described above.
In the CVD apparatus and the etching apparatus described above, a substrate holder for fixing a substrate to be processed is provided with a mechanical chuck, a vacuum chuck or an electrostatic chuck.
Since only a substrate and its vicinity are heated in a cold wall type apparatus for manufacturing a semiconductor, it provides the advantage that the reaction is localized, thus preventing reaction products from adhering to an inner wall of the reaction chamber. The heating mans is provided below the substrate holder in the form of an RF electrode or the like.
In the case of the cold wall type, the substrate on the substrate holder is heated through an RF electrode or the like. Thus, although there is the advantage that the large thermal capacity of the RF electrode resists fluctuation of the substrate temperature once attained, a large amount of electric power is consumed in heating the substrate. Further, when it is desired to change the substrate temperature, the substrate holder cannot be brought to the new temperature in a short period of time and requires a long time until the substrate temperature is stabilized at the new temperature.
Furthermore, since reaction products are produced within the apparatus for forming a film and the etching apparatus described above, they adhere to the inner wall of the reaction chamber as particles or the like. Accordingly, it is required that these reaction products be periodically removed. As a result, the throughput is decreased and a great amount of labor and cost are required.


The present invention relates to a road finisher comprising a screed plate and/or a tamper bar and also to a screed plate and/or tamper bar comprising a heating layer applied by thermal spraying.

Road finishers or asphalt finishers are construction machines used for producing asphalt surfaces. These construction machines are as well referred to as so-called pavers, especially wheel or track pavers. To this end, the road finisher distributes and smoothes bituminous paving material, and depending on the embodiment, also compacts the same. Such a road finisher is disclosed, for example, in WO 2009/095146 A1, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference. Essential components of a generic road finisher are a bunker for the accommodation of the paving material, a transport unit, by means of which the paving material is transported to the paving site, a distributing device, by means of which the paving material is distributed across the width of the area to be paved, and a so-called paving screed, by means of which the ejected paving material is smoothed to obtain a homogeneous surface. The paving screed may include a number of functional units. Thus, apart from a screed plate that smoothes the paving material, the paving screed also frequently comprises a so-called tamper bar that performs the task, for example, of pre-compacting the paving material before it is smoothed down by the screed plate. The problem to be solved when laying paving materials is that of preventing, or at least reducing, the occurrence of sticking of the bituminous mixture to the respective paving devices as far as possible. To enlarge the paving screed, extendable screed extensions can be applied on both sides.
For this purpose, it is known from the prior art to heat particularly those contact surfaces of the tamper bar and/or the screed plate that are oriented towards the paving material. In addition to gas-powered heating devices, it has also proved to be particularly advantageous to use an electrical heating device for this purpose. Such an electrical heating device is frequently located in appropriate cavities inside the tamper bar and/or the screed plate, for example, in the form of a bar-shaped heating element, as specifically disclosed in WO 2009/095146 A1. The electrical heating device described therein is, however, relatively expensive in terms of production and maintenance. Furthermore, the obtained air gap results in inefficient heat transfer and a relatively long reaction time during the heating process. EP 1 416 090 A2 teaches adhesive bonding of heating elements to the paving screed. However, under the environmental conditions during operation, the organic materials used are apt to disintegrate and to release hazardous decomposition products. In addition, this arrangement requires a complex manual assembling procedure. Finally, the heating arrangement obtained is only of low mechanical resistance, and the heat transfer from the heating element to the screed plate is impaired by the used adhesives, so that, for example, the heating phase of the screed plate is still relatively long.
It is thus an object of the present invention to provide a road finisher, a screed plate, and a tamper bar that comprise an electrical heating device having an optimized construction while at the same time making it possible, in particular, to effect heating faster and more uniformly than heating devices known hitherto in the art.

Road finisher, screed plate, and tamper bar comprising a heating element and method to manufacture the same


A lithographic apparatus comprises a beam modifying apparatus mounted in the path of a beam of radiation. The beam modifying apparatus comprises a conduit configured to allow the flow of a fluid through it, the conduit being arranged such that, in use, the beam of radiation passes through the conduit and the fluid flowing through it. The beam modifying apparatus further comprises a heat exchanger in thermal communication with a portion of the conduit located upstream, having regard to the direction of the fluid flow, of the location at which the beam of radiation passes through the conduit.

A lithographic apparatus is a machine that applies a desired pattern onto a target portion of a substrate. Lithographic apparatus can be used, for example, in the manufacture of integrated circuits (ICs). In that circumstance, a patterning device, which is alternatively referred to as a mask or a reticle, may be used to generate a circuit pattern corresponding to an individual layer of the IC, and this pattern can be imaged onto a target portion (e.g., comprising part of, one or several dies) on a substrate (e.g., a silicon wafer) that has a layer of radiation-sensitive material (resist). In general, a single substrate will contain a network of adjacent target portions that are successively exposed. Known lithographic apparatus include so-called steppers, in which each target portion is irradiated by exposing an entire pattern onto the target portion in one go, and so-called scanners, in which each target portion is irradiated by scanning the pattern through the beam in a given direction (the "scanning"-direction) while synchronously scanning the substrate parallel or anti parallel to this direction. It is also possible to transfer the pattern from the patterning device to the substrate by imprinting the pattern onto the substrate.
It is well-known in the art of lithography that the image of a mask pattern can be improved, and process windows enlarged, by appropriate choice of the angles at which the mask pattern is illuminated. In an apparatus having a Koehler illumination arrangement, the angular distribution of radiation illuminating the mask is determined by the intensity distribution in a pupil plane of the illumination system, which can be regarded as a secondary source. Illumination modes are commonly described by reference to the shape of the intensity distribution in the pupil plane. Conventional illumination, i.e., even illumination from all angles from 0 to a certain maximum angle, requires a uniform disk-shaped intensity distribution in the pupil plane. Other commonly-used intensity distributions are: annular, in which the intensity distribution in the pupil plane is in the shape of an annulus; dipole illumination, in which there are two poles in the pupil plane; and quadrupole illumination, in which there are four poles in the pupil plane. To create these illumination schemes, various methods have been proposed. For example, a zoom-axicon, that is a combination of a zoom lens and an axicon, can be used to create annular illumination with controllable inner and outer radii of the annulus. To create dipole and quadrupole type illumination modes, it has been proposed to use spatial filters, that is opaque plates with apertures where the poles are desired as well as arrangements using moveable bundles of optical fibers. Using spatial filters may be undesirable because the resulting loss of radiation reduces the throughput of the apparatus and hence increases its cost of ownership. Arrangements with bundles of optical fibers may be complex and inflexible. It has therefore been proposed to use a diffractive optical element (DOE) to form the desired intensity distribution in the pupil plane. The diffractive optical elements are made by etching different patterns into different parts of the surface of a quartz or CaF2 substrate.
A known type of radiation which is used within lithographic apparatus is deep ultraviolet (DUV) radiation. DUV radiation may have a wavelength of between about 100 nm and 300 nm, e.g., about 248 nm, about 193 nm, about 157 nm or about 126 nm. The choice of materials from which lenses useable with DUV radiation can be made is quite limited and even the best materials have significant coefficients of absorption of this radiation. This means that the lenses in the projection system absorb energy during exposures and heat up, leading to changes in their shape, separation and refractive index which introduce aberrations into the projected image. Therefore, many lens systems are provided with one or more actuated lens elements whose shape, position and/or orientation in one or more degrees of freedom can be adjusted during or between exposures to compensate for lens heating effects. Similar problems may occur within lithographic apparatus which has a generally reflective optical system, for example a lithographic apparatus which uses extreme ultra violet (EUV) radiation. Within such systems, the radiation of the lithographic apparatus may be absorbed by reflectors (such a mirrors), which may cause them to heat up and deform, thereby reducing the imaging performance of the lithographic apparatus.
If an illumination mode, such as dipole, in which the energy of the beam is strongly localized in a pupil plane of the illumination system is used, then the energy of the beam will also be strongly localized in and near the pupil plane(s) of the projection system. Lens heating effects are more severe when such localized illumination modes are used because the temperature gradients in the lens elements affected are greater, leading to localized changes in shape and/or refractive index which cause large phase gradients in the beam. These effects are often not correctable by existing actuated lens elements. Similar effects can be caused by the use of a slit-shaped illumination field, as is common in a scanning lithographic apparatus.

Lithographic apparatus and method of modifying a beam of radiation within a lithographic apparatus


A method and system for setting motor torque for a hybrid vehicle that converts charge or discharge limiting power of a battery into maximum charge or discharge torque of a motor to set motor torque and to protect a battery system of the hybrid vehicle may include obtaining maximum discharge power of a battery of the hybrid vehicle, power consumption of a low voltage DC-DC converter (LDC), and power consumption of electrical loads; calculating electrical discharge power that may be output by a motor with electric power based on the maximum discharge power, the power consumption of the LDC, and the power consumption of the electrical loads; calculating mechanical discharge power that may be output from the motor based on the electrical discharge power of the motor and discharge efficiency of the motor; and calculating maximum discharge torque of the motor at a determined speed based on the mechanical discharge power.

Hybrid vehicles are operated using power from an internal combustion engine and from a battery. In particular, hybrid vehicles are designed to efficiently combine and use power of the internal combustion engine and a motor.
For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1, a hybrid vehicle includes an engine 10, a motor 20, an engine clutch 30, a transmission 40, a differential gear 50, a battery 60, an integrated starter-generator (ISG) 70, and wheels 80. The engine clutch 30 controls power transmission between the engine 10 and the motor 20, and the integrated starter-generator (ISG) 70 starts the engine 10 or generates electric power by output torque of the engine 10.
As further shown, the hybrid vehicle includes: a hybrid control unit (HCU) 200 which controls overall operation of the hybrid electric vehicle; an engine control unit (ECU) 110 which controls operation of the engine 10; a motor control unit (MCU) 120 which controls operation of the motor 20; a transmission control unit (TCU) 140 which controls operation of the transmission 40; and a battery control unit (BCU) 160 which manages and controls the battery 60.
The battery control unit 160 may also be referred to as a battery management system (BMS). The integrated starter-generator 70 may also be referred to as a starting/generating motor or a hybrid starter-generator.
The hybrid vehicle may be operated in three different modes: a driving mode such as an electric vehicle (EV) mode solely using power of the motor 20; a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) mode using torque of the engine 10 as main power and torque of the motor 20 as auxiliary power; and a regenerative braking (RB) mode while braking or when the vehicle runs by inertia. In the RB mode, braking and inertial energy are collected through power generation of the motor 20, and the battery 60 is charged with the collected energy.
When the hybrid vehicle runs, torque of the motor is set in order to satisfy driver's demand torque corresponding to the operation degree of an accelerator pedal, and then control to output the torque of the motor is performed.
However, when the output torque of the motor exceeds torque corresponding to charge or discharge limiting power of a battery, the battery may be over-charged or over-discharged, which may damage the battery, as illustrated in FIG. 2.
Accordingly, by considering a state of the battery, a scheme that sets a maximum or minimum torque limiting value not to exceed the charge or discharge limiting power value of the battery is requested.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is solely for enhancement of understanding of the background of the present disclosure and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.

Method and system for setting motor torque for hybrid vehicle


A method and device for unwrapping self-adhering films at reduced noise levels are disclosed. The method and device include means to maintain a sufficiently high unwrapping take-off angle during the unwrapping and dispensing or unwinding of film rollstock. Suitable means provide for substantial acceleration and adjustment of the rollstock rotational speed relative to the speed of the first power driven member of an unwrapping apparatus, or the use of one or more carefully positioned deflector members. The method and device is particularly useful in unwrapping and dispensing operations of high cling stretch wrap films involving the use of turntable-style power driven equipment as well as in unwrapping and unwinding operations of pressure-sensitive adhesive tapes.

Stretch cling films are self-adhering films that are used to wrap, fasten and/or protect a variety of items during shipping including palletized goods and new vehicles. Typical stretch-cling film consists of polyethylene impregnated with a low molecular weight tackifier, such as, for example, polyisobutylene. Unwrapping of self-adhering film is either performed manually with hand-held devices or with the use of powered turntable-type wrapping machines or powered unwinding equipment. Unfortunately, regardless of the use or the form of application, high decibel noise is typically generated when self adhering film is unwrapped. In fact, unwrapping noise generally increases as the cling level of the film increases, and commercial stretch-cling wrapping films are particularly notorious for excessive noise generation. For example, unwrapping of commercially supplied stretch-cling films with powered turntable-type wrapping machines typically generates continuous noise in excess of about 90 decibels which exceeds the OSHA standard 1910.95 for permissible workplace noise levels.
The noise associated with unwrapping stretch cling films correlates with the unwrapping take-off angle of the film. In commercial stretch wrapping machinery, when adhesion or cling performance is relatively high, the unwrapping take-off angle of the film will be relatively low during continuous unwrapping operations. For example, for a stretch wrap film having about 140 grams of cling at 200 percent elongation, the unwrapping take-off angle of such film will typically be in the range of about 30 to about 60 degrees and especially less than about 75 degrees.
There are several known approaches for mitigating the high noise levels associated with unwrapping self-adhering films. Known approaches include employing lower tackifier levels or utilizing a generally less effective tackifier such as, for example, a film having cling layers consisting of an ethylene methacrylate (EMA) copolymer having a relatively low methacrylate content or an amorphous polyolefin (APO). Another known approach for reducing high noise levels involves utilizing one-sided cling films rather than two-sided cling films. Still another known approach involves maintaining lower ambient temperatures (air conditioning) at unwrapping facilities which reduces noise by reducing the effective migration of tackifying material to the surface of the film. Another known approach involves utilizing "inherent" cling films characterized as having reduced n-hexane extractables (or higher polymer densities) or less than optimum surface smoothness rather than utilizing inherent films having higher extractable levels, lower densities and/or smoother film surfaces. However, regardless of which film variation is pursued to control unwrapping noise generation, invariably, significant noise reductions are only achieved when the cling performance level of the resultant film is substantially compromised, even to the point of rendering the film only marginally effective as a cling film. Thus, in the prior art, undesirable unwrapping noise has been generally regarded as a necessary trade-off for high effective cling performance.
Whereas attempts to abate unwrapping noise have focused on film modifications, little attention has been given to unwrapping machinery modifications as an approach to abate excessive unwrapping noise. Known unwrapping machinery modifications include rollstock speed control, take-off angle variations and the use of deflectors. However, such machinery modifications pertain to pre-stretching or tensioning of films and generally do not pertain to noise reduction. See, as examples, the disclosures by Redfearn in GB publication 2109722A and Lancaster et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 4,336,679. Known and commercially practiced deflector use and positions, rollstock speed control and take-off angle variations that are allegedly sufficient to achieve desired tensioning levels, are insufficient to effectuate substantial noise reduction during unwrapping operations. For example, commercially available pre-stretch unwrapping machinery must be specifically modified to allow the unwrapping of stretch cling films at noise levels at less than about 95 decibels, especially less than about 90 decibels.
The object of the present invention is to solve the long standing problem of self-adhering films generating excessive noise during unwrapping operations. Another object of the present invention is to achieve substantial noise reduction while maintaining high adhesion or cling performance. Still another object of the present invention is to achieve substantial noise reduction when stretch-cling film is unwrapped and dispensed as either pre-stretched or non-stretched wraps. Unlike prior art approaches that compromise adhesion or cling performance, the present objectives are met by a new method and device that do not require alteration of the cling performance of the film.


A laundry machine configured to supply a first amount of water to the wash tub wherein a wash plate can be oscillated such that clothes items directly above and in contact with the impeller are frictionally dragged in a oscillatory manner with the wash chamber while continuing to oscillate said wash plate, an additional supply of water is added to said wash tub such that as cloth items lost frictional engagement with the wash plate, the cloth items continue to move along an inverse toroidal rollover path at higher water levels.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,212,722 proposes an improved laundry washing machine for domestic use. This machine is of the top loading type having an outer bowl, a wash basket within the outer bowl and access to the wash basket through a top opening. A motor is provided to drive rotation of the wash basket within the outer bowl. A wash plate is provided in the lower portion of the wash basket to be rotated by the motor with the wash basket or independently of the wash basket. The patent proposes a combination of water level control, wash plate design, wash basket design and movement pattern for the wash plate which leads to an inverse toroidal movement of the laundry load during a wash phase. The sodden wash load is dragged by friction radially inward on the upper surface of the wash plate and progresses upward in the region of the centre. The sodden wash load then progresses radially outward to the wall of the wash basket and downward to the base of the wash basket. This has been found to provide an effective wash action with low water consumption.
The patent indicates that this is only achieved at water levels within a determinable band. With too much water the inverse toroidal rollover motion is not achieved because the clothes lose frictional contact with the wash plate.
The present inventors have ascertained a desire to include an effective wash mode that sacrifices a degree of water efficiency in favour of dilution of the wash solution. The inventors consider this to be particularly desirable in the case of heavily soiled laundry items or laundry items having insoluble soiling, such as muddy, sandy or grass covered sports clothes, and in the case of laundry subject to dye leakage.
The inventors consider that the laundry machine described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,212,722 is only partially effective in this regard. At higher water levels in which the machine cannot perform the inverse toroidal rollover pattern the inventors consider the machine is likely to provide a less effective wash action. The effect of inverse toroidal wash action by dragging is only available at low water levels, and there is a middle water level at which no rollover occurs. Where the laundry load does not rollover wash action of clothing against the wash plate is limited to a small fraction of the load and wash performance suffers.


An assembly for abrasive agent recovery in water jet cutting units including a separator (4) for separating usable abrasive agent from sludge and water and a drying oven (9). A conveyor (6) follows the separator (4) for transporting the overwhelmingly usable abrasive agent separated in portions by the separator (4) and compression rollers (30) adjacent the conveyors press remaining water out of the portions located on the conveyor. The portions on the conveyor are blown by a compressed air unit (8) and a spraying nozzle into the drying oven (9), through which warmed exhaust air, further heated in the drying oven (9), flows. The drying oven (9) consists of a climbing shaft (12), closed via a heater (10) with a screen (11), an eddy chamber (16) connected to a funnel (17) to the lower end the eddy chamber (16), a line (18) from the eddy chamber (16) to a catching tank (19), and a suction connection (20). A fan 22 for removing the exhaust air, is connected to the suction connection (20) via an exhaust section (21) and filtering the exhaust air.

The invention concerns an arrangement for recovery of usable abrasive agents in water jet cutting units from the water used by a water jet trapping device, loaded with cut material residues and used abrasive material.
A system for separating abrasive material from a fluid is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,872,975 granted to Benson . . . , in the case of which the fluid collected in a catching tank, which contains the abrasive agent, is fed to a separator. In the separator the sludge is separated from the water. The sludge is fed to a settling basin, from which the precipitated abrasive agent is removed. This system serves for water recovery by separating the sludge from the water. A unit for recovery of the abrasive material in the case of water jet cutting is known from the specification of German Patent DE 41 06 832 B 26 F 3/00, in the case of which the abrasive material mixed with cut material residues is conveyed to a drying unit from the catching basin for the residue jet by means of a scraper and a conveyor belt. The abrasive material is conveyed through the drying unit, dried by heat radiation, and then blown into a wind sifter in a sorting channel. The particles of the abrasive material are carried in the air stream to a distance depending on their size and fall into the slits of the sorting channel associated with the different size fractions. The abrasive material now can be reused corresponding to the fractions. In this case, dust should occur as a separate fraction. However, a certain amount of dust cannot be avoided in any other fraction.
A device for cutting agent recovery in the case of abrasive water jet cutting is known from the specification of German Patent DE 43 34 673 B26F 3/00, in the case of which the cutting agent is flushed into a sedimentation tank under outlet openings of funnel elements in a ring line with conveying water. The further treatment of the abrasive agent is not described here.
In addition, a unit for separating and recovery of abrasive agents in the case of water abrasive jet application is known from German Offenlegungsschrift 43 03 868.
From the suspension of usable abrasive agent, sludge, cut material residues, and water removed from the catching system, the abrasive agent fraction is discharged to a first hydrocyclone and delivered for further processing. The abrasive agent is removed from the remaining water with a revolving belt filter. The abrasive agent is dried in a connected rotating pipe oven and delivered to a collecting tank. The remaining sludge, which is delivered to a disposal station, is separated from the water in a further hydrocyclone. In this case there is no separation of the dust contained in the usable abrasive agent and delivered from the first hydrocyclone.
The purpose and task of the invention is to create a novel arrangement for recovery of used abrasive agent in water jet cutting units, in which the abrasive agent is dry and largely dustless.
The solution of this task is the subject of the first claim. Further advantageous configurations of the invention are the subject of the subclaims.

Device for recovering abrasives in water jet cutting systems

Sachsische Werkzeug und Sondermaschinene GmbH


A microprocessor comprising an instruction pipeline (36) comprising a plurality of successive instruction stages. An instruction passes from a beginning stage (38), through a plurality of intermediary stages (40 through 52), and to an ending stage (54) of the plurality of successive instruction stages. The microprocessor also comprises a storage circuit (58) coupled to receive program thread information output from a first stage (48) of the intermediary stages. Still further, the microprocessor comprises selection circuitry (56) comprising a first input, a second input, and an output for outputting output information from its first and second inputs. The first input of the selection circuitry is coupled to receive output information output from the first stage. The second input of the selection circuitry is coupled to receive program thread information output from the storage circuit. The output of the multiplexer is coupled to an input of a second stage (50) of the intermediary stages, wherein the second stage follows the first stage. Other circuits, systems, and methods are also disclosed and claimed.

The embodiments described below involve the developing and ever-expanding field of computer systems and microprocessors. Modern microprocessors now include one or more pipelines with numerous stages so that different instructions may be at different stages at the same time of operation. Moreover, some microprocessors include more than one pipeline in this manner and, therefore, can perform more than one instruction execution at a time. Naturally, the ability to execute more than one instruction at a time provides vast increases in processor speed and, therefore, is highly desirable. Nevertheless, these advanced techniques give rise to countless design complexities.
Certain design complexities arise from considerations of branch instructions, that is, those instructions which direct program control away from the otherwise sequential operation established by sequentially oriented software. Various techniques are now in the art to handle certain branch complexities, such as those which predict the likelihood that the condition of a branch will or will not be satisfied (sometimes referred to as "taken" or "not taken", respectively). These processes are particularly useful in a superscalar microprocessor. For example, consider the instance where a branch instruction arranged first in a sequence is followed at some point thereafter by some later-occurring instruction which, if executed, would cause some result. If a prediction technique accurately states that the branch will be satisfied (i.e., branch taken), then it may well be worthwhile not to concurrently execute the later-occurring instruction. On the other hand, if the prediction technique accurately states that the branch condition will not be satisfied (i.e., branch not taken), then it may well be appropriate and advantageous to concurrently execute the later-occurring instruction.
While branch prediction techniques are, in general, beneficial in certain instances, mis-predictions of branch execution can be very costly in terms of microprocessor efficiency. For example, as the pipelines of modern superscalar machines get deeper (i.e., hold more instructions at varying stages at once), and as such machines also become superpipelined (i.e., capable of more concurrent executions), a mispredicted branch may heavily penalize performance by requiring a pipeline or pipelines to be emptied and subsequently re-filled with instructions from the correct target address. In this instance, numerous cycles are required to reset the pipeline(s) to an operational state and, thus, valuable processor cycle time is lost. While modern branch target buffer technology reduces the flush/refill penalty rate by often correctly predicting program flow past branches, the branch misprediction penalty that remains is one of the more serious impediments to realizing even higher processor performance.
In view of the above, there arises a need to address the drawbacks of the effects of mispredicted branches in a pipelined microprocessor.

Pipelined microprocessor with branch misprediction cache circuits, systems and methods


Front shake preventing ribs (37) are provided at positions spread over the entire inner periphery of a front end of an inner housing (23) and contact a receptacle (14) of a male housing (10) to prevent shaking between an inner housing (23) and a receptacle (14). A wall (31) faces an opening edge portion of the receptacle (14) at a rear end of the inner housing (23) with respect to the connecting direction with the male connector (10). The receptacle (14) is formed with an annular rib (18) projecting in a connecting direction the connectors (10, 20) at a position to surround the inner housing (23) over the entire periphery. The wall (31) has an annular groove (32) that engages the annular rib (18) to prevent shaking between the connectors (10, 20).

1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a pair of connectors connectable with each other.
2. Description of the Related Art
U.S. Pat. No. 7,311,546 discloses male and female connectors that are connectable with each other. The male connector has a receptacle that opens forward, and male terminals project into the receptacle.
The female connector has a female housing that can fit into the receptacle. Female terminals are mounted in the female housing and connect with the male terminals when the female housing is fit into the receptacle. A tube surrounds the outer peripheral surface of the female housing and can fit on the receptacle of the male connector. The tube is formed with a lock arm that can be engaged with a lock of the male connector to lock the two connectors in a properly connected state.
A retaining cap is mounted on the front of the female housing, and first shake preventing portions project from the outer peripheral surface of the retaining cap. Further, second shake preventing portions are provided at the back end of the inner peripheral surface of the tube.
The first shake preventing portions closely contact the inner peripheral surface of the receptacle and the second shake preventing portions closely contact the outer peripheral surface of the receptacle when the connectors reach the properly connected state to prevent shaking of the two connectors. The prevention of shaking of the connectors before and after contact parts of the male and female terminals is intended to prevent the terminals from abrading against each other. Such abrasion could cause gold plating to be peeled off the contact parts and could increase electrical resistance or cause other damage to the terminals.
The above-described construction cannot provide shake prevention on the cut part of the tube where the lock arm is provided. Thus, the second shake preventing portions necessarily are arranged in a nonuniform manner, thereby limiting efforts to improve shake prevention between the connectors.
The invention was developed in view of the above situation and an object thereof is to provide a connector device capable of improving a function of restricting shaking between connectors.


This application is directed to recognizing unstructured information based on hints provided by structured information. A computer system obtains unstructured information collected from a handwritten or audio source, and identifies one or more terms from the unstructured information. The one or more terms includes a first term that is ambiguous. The computer system performs a recognition operation on the first term to derive a first plurality of candidate terms for the first term, and obtains first contextual information from an information template associated with the unstructured information. In accordance with the first contextual information, the computer system selects a first answer term from the first plurality of candidate terms, such that the first term is recognized as the first answer term.

Personal and corporate content are dominated by unstructured data. According to various estimates, from 70-90 percent of all usable data in organizations is represented by unstructured information. Flexible capturing of unstructured data in a variety of formats has been greatly facilitated by the development of universal content management systems, such as the Evernote software and cloud service developed by the Evernote Corporation of Redwood City, Calif. In parallel with typed text entry, documents and web clips, contemporary content collections can include handwritten notes taken on a variety of electronic devices, such as tablets running various operating systems, on regular or special paper via intelligent pen & paper solutions, on conventional whiteboards and smart walls, and interactive displays, as well as scanned from traditional paper notes taken on legacy pads, bound notebooks, etc. Similarly, audio notes, including voice transcripts, are increasingly recorded on smartphones, tablets, specialized conferencing systems, home audio systems, wearable devices such as intelligent watches, and other recording hardware. Some models of intelligent pens are also capable of capturing and synchronizing handwritten and voice recordings.
A significant prevalence of unstructured data over the organized information (represented by a majority of database content, by forms, tables, spreadsheets and many kinds of template-driven information) poses a major productivity challenge and an impediment to efficient productivity workflow. Mainstream productivity systems used in sales, CRM (Customer Relationship Management), project management, financial, medical, industrial, civil services and in many other areas are based on structured data represented by forms and other well-organized data formats. Manual conversion of freeform, unstructured information obtained in the field, in the office, at meetings and through other sources into valid data for productivity systems (for example, entering sales leads data into CRM software) takes a significant time for many categories of workers and negatively affects job efficiency.
In response to this challenge, a sizable amount of research and R&D work has been dedicated to creating methods and systems for automatic and semi-automatic conversion of unstructured data into structured information. NLP (Natural Language Processing) and various flavors of data mining, NER (Named Entity Recognition for detecting personal, geographic and business names, date & time patterns, financial, medical and other "vertical" data) and NERD (NER+Disambiguation), together with other A1 and data analysis technologies have resulted in general purpose and specialized, commercial and free systems for automatic analysis and conversion of unstructured data.
Notwithstanding advances in facilitating unstructured data analysis and conversion into structured information, many challenges remain. For example, automatic recognition (conversion to text, transcription) of handwritten and voice data results in multi-variant answers where each word may be interpreted in different ways (e.g. 'dock' and 'clock' may be indistinguishable in handwriting and it may be difficult to tell 'seventy' from 'seventeen' in a voice note); even word segmentation may be uncertain (e.g., a particular sound chunk might represent one word or multiple different two word arrangements), which may prevent or complicate instant application of known data analysis methods.
Accordingly, it is desirable to develop methods and systems for automatic conversion of unstructured handwritten and audio data into structured information.

Extracting structured data from handwritten and audio notes