In 1996, Duke Children's Hospital was in serious trouble. Its $11 million annual operating loss had forced administrators to make cutbacks. As a result, some caregivers felt that the quality of care had deteriorated. Parents' complaints were on the rise. Frustrated staff members were quitting. In this article, Jon Meliones, DCH's chief medical director, candidly describes how his debt-ridden ho...

A comprehensive numerical analysis has been conducted to study the combustion of a double-base homogeneous propellant in a rocket motor. Emphasis was placed on the motor internal flow development and its influence on propellant combustion. The formulation is based on the Favre-averaged, filtered equations for the conservation laws and takes into account finite-rate chemical kinetics and variabl...

We read with interest the recent article of Milanowski et al. (1) which reported an apparent equivalent anti-asthmatic e€ect of low (400 mg per day) and high (2000 mg per day) doses of HFA-134a (Norton Healthcare Ltd, London, U.K.) and CFC formulations of beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP). In order to evaluate the relative potency of two inhaled corticosteroid formulations, it is necessary to c...

Abstract Deterred-coating DIANP gun propellant was prepared by the two-step process called “polymer composite materials deterring and energetic coating”. The performance of energy static combustion deterred-coating investigated explosive heat closed-bomb test. results show that compared with propellant, decreased only about 3.2%, but it had better progressivity low temperature sensitivity effec...

An investigation of the conversion from anode electrical energy to jet kinetic energy in a laboratory model Hall thruster yielded an experimentally determined thrust efficiency that was analytically decomposed into the product of propellant, voltage, and current utilization efficiency. This method accounts for loss of propellant utilization from plume divergence, unionized propellant, and multi...

In missile propulsion technology it is conventional to employ solid rocket boosters. These boosters are loaded with solid propellants, which are energetic compositions where raw materials are comprised of solid particulates, such as fuel, and oxidizer particles, in which are dispersed and immobilized throughout a binder (polymeric) matrix. The processability of these compositions is not simple ...

In this work we report on progress in the development of models for a Micro-Pulsed Plasma Thruster (μPPT) and its exhaust plume. As a working example we consider a μPPT developed at the Air Force Research Laboratory. This is a miniaturized design of the axisymmetric PPT with a thrust in the 10 μN range that utilizes Teflon as a propellant. The plasma plume is simulated using a hybrid fluid-PIC-...