This article describes the design and performance of a magnifying magnetic-lens system designed, built, and commissioned at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) for 800 MeV flash proton radiography. The technique of flash proton radiography has been developed at LANL to study material properties under dynamic loading conditions through the analysis of time sequences of proton radiographs. The requirements of this growing experimental program have resulted in the need for improvements in spatial radiographic resolution. To meet these needs, a new magnetic lens system, consisting of four permanent magnet quadrupoles, has been developed. This new lens system was designed to reduce the second order chromatic aberrations, the dominant source of image blur in 800 MeV proton radiography, as well as magnifying the image to reduce the blur contribution from the detector and camera systems. The recently commissioned lens system performed as designed, providing nearly a factor of three improvement in radiographic resolution.

The properties of hydrophilicity or hydrophobicity of materials are defined mainly, though not exclusively, by their composition, morphology and surface energy. In this work, titanium dioxide (TiO2) and aluminum oxide-alumina (Al2O3) ceramics prepared by uniaxial pressing were studied in terms of surface energy. The surfaces of these ceramics were treated with nitrogen plasma, using a stainless steel reactor excited by a 13,6 MHz radio frequency operating at 50 W input power and 13 Pa nitrogen pressure. The surface morphology was investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis. Surface energy and contact angle measurements were taken using a RAMÉ-HART goniometer. These measurements were taken as function of time, over a 21-day period. The contact angle and surface energy values were found to change by almost 34% in comparison to their initial values immediately following plasma treatment. Nonetheless, the hydrophilic character of the Al2O3 and TiO2 remained constant throughout the test period

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This work is intended to study the possibility of adding an amount of waste from iron mining in the ceramic mass. Clay and coal, from Vale do Paraiba, Sao Paulo, Brazil, were used in this research. These raw materials are used in the ceramic block manufacture. Clay and waste were analyzed by X-ray fluorescence and X-ray diffraction, particle size, differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis. Liquid limit and plasticity index tests were performed in order to determine the amount of waste that which should be used in the ceramic mass. After determining the amount of waste, all samples were uniaxially pressed and sintered at 900oC. Surface roughness measurements, apparent porosity and bulk density technique and three-point flexural tests were also performed to characterize the samples. The results showed that by adding the exact amount of waste, which was determined by the essays, it is possible to manufacture solid bricks.

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