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Abstract Thermal energy storage systems based on Phase change materials (PCM) are an attractive option to bridge the temporal and spatial gap between the energy demand and supply. But, these systems possess poor thermal conductivity causing reduced rate of heat transfer. The objective of the present study is to numerically analyze the melting process in an optimized finned latent heat storage system dispersed with varying volume fraction of Graphene nano plates (GNP). The individual effect of incorporating fins, GNP and a combination of both at different volume fraction has been studied. Effective thermal conductivity of nano-composite PCM has been theoretically evaluated including the effect of aspect ratio, interfacial thermal resistance, anisotropy, non-linear effects as well as concentration for the dispersed GNP. In this work, Dynamic differential scanning calorimetry tests are performed to evaluate the phase change temperature, latent heat and specific heat of the sugar alcohol (d- mannitol). Transient variation of liquid fraction, average temperature and radial/longitudinal temperature differentials are presented which would be useful for designing medium temperature (160–200 °C) storage systems for various applications. Fin height is varied to obtain an optimum fin size such that natural convection currents are not impeded. Various heat transfer models (including natural convection) are analysed using the actual plant data of a double effect solar absorption system at different arrangements of fins and GNP. Effect of Reynolds number and inlet temperature of HTF on the system performance have also been studied. A reduction of 68% in total melting time is observed in finned LHSS with 5% GNP as compared to a conventional system.

Several methods were known to observe the cloud height. Since the meteorological administration mainly has been using human eye method, an automatic cloud height observer is proposed to reduce human errors.The proposed cloud observer system is for the cloud automatic observation system which has been operating at weathers stations in Korea since 1993. The high hand camera is adapted to get high resolution images without a capture board that has the low resolution. And the man-made passive filter for extracting sky reign is replaced by the active filter using image processing. The famous BRISK matching is selected instead of the block mating to get more precise disparity form a pair of stereo image.The Cloud cover announced by the Korean Meteorological Agency is the eye observation result nowadays, even though an intelligent cloud observation system was supplied. The reason is the impermissible error in the observed data of the automatic observation system. The current system is applied a man-made passive filter has to be changed periodically due to the boundary transition, but the proposed system is maintenance-free, since the active filter using edge detection algorithm automatically adjusts itself. The measuring of disparity which is important to analyze spatial information, has improved up to the resolution of observing height is 100m by getting image data directly form the high resolution camera, the old resolution from the capture board. Also, the disparity analyzing method is changed to the BRISK matching algorithm instead of the block mating algorism to get more deliberate disparity analysis since the dimension of the block is too big relatively compare to the cloud in the stereo all sky image. The test results are acceptable range which is human observation value ± 10% since the resolution of observing height is 100m at lower cloud in the sky. The proposed system is conducting the comparison research to compare with the result of reading satellite images and ceilometer. 

The combustion possibility of Indonesia KBB coal as a pulverized fuel for a thermal power plant was studied with a thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), drop tube furnace (DTF) and ignition temperature (IT) tester. TGA results showed that combustion patterns of coal samples were divided into devolatilization and oxidation reactions, and the fixed carbon contained with minor content in high moisture KBB coal (HM KBB) was quickly burned at a lower temperature than that of bituminous C&A coal (Design C&A). The linear regression for the Arrhenius plot to the experimental data is very good, and activation energies for overall combustion of Design C&A and HM KBB are 63.19 and 81.89 kJ/mol, respectively. It was derived that activation energies of dry KBB coal (Dry KBB) produced through drying of HM KBB and its mixture (Dry KBB Mixture) are 79.82 and 61.66 kJ/mol in reciprocal proportion to specific surface area. Test results show that the volatile content contained in coal samples except for HM KBB with the lowest surface area significantly improved the combustion reactivity. The conversion behavior of the coals observed in DTF was similar to that reflected in TGA. DTF studies showed that the combustion of Dry KBB Mixture was also completed at a residence time of around 1 s and set temperature range of 1,200°C similar to commercial coal fired plant. Although Dry KBB has the highest conversion of the four coals, it was not appropriate as a single pulverized fuel of coal fired plant because its initial deformation (IDT) and ignition temperatures of about 1,088 and 198°C, respectively, were too low to cause slagging in boiler, and firing at the pulverizer. The high IDT of Dry KBB Mixture ash with minimum of 1,250°C is not expected to be associated with slagging and fouling in pulverized coal fired systems. The liability of spontaneous combustion of coal samples was increased with increasing the moisture and volatile contents whereas that of Dry KBB was the highest due to the high surface area. It was, therefore, proposed that the combustion of mixtures of Dry KBB with Design C&A was the most appropriate for the prevention of slagging and spontaneous combustion in pulverized coal fired boilers and has excellent combustion efficiency.

This paper presents a model predictive control (MPC)-based algorithm for rollover prevention of an autonomous electric road sweeper (AERS). For AERS, the basic function of autonomous driving is a path- and velocity-tracking control needed to make a vehicle follow given path and velocity profiles. On the other, the AERS adopts an articulated frame steering (AFS) mechanism which can make cornering behavior agile. Moreover, the tread of the AERS is narrow, and the height of the mass center is high. As a result, it is prone to roll over. For this reason, it is necessary to design a controller for path and velocity tracking and rollover prevention in order to improve maneuverability and roll safety of the AERS. A kinematic model was adopted as a vehicle one for the AERS. With the vehicle model, reference states of position and velocity were determined that are needed to make the AERS track the reference path and prevent rollover. With the vehicle model and reference states, an MPC-based motion controller was designed to optimize articulation angle and velocity commands. The load-transfer ratio (LTR) was used to measure a rollover propensity. To evaluate the proposed algorithm, a simulation was conducted for the U-turn scenario. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm improves path tracking and prevents the rollover of the AERS.

Torrefaction is a thermal treatment process to pre-treat biomass at temperature of under an inert atmosphere. It was known that torrefaction process strongly depended on the decomposition temperature of the lignocellulosic constituents in biomass. In this work, the torrefaction characteristics of baggase has been studied. This study focuses on the relation between the energy yields, heating values, gas emission, volatile and ash constituents with torrefaction temperatures and times. The activation energies of baggase torrefaction has been studied by using TGA (Thermogravimetric Analyzer). From this work, it was seen that ash constituents and heating values were increased with torrefaction temperature, while volatile constituents and energy yields decreased. It was also found that carbon monoxide containing oxygen were decomposed at a lower temperature than those of hydrocarbon compounds, .

This paper presents a CFD analysis of three types of axial-flow magnesium-based automotive cooling fans. The numerical modeling was conducted for geometrically modified fan designs: one with no-beads, the second one with beads at the suction-side of the fan namely reverse-beads fan, and the third one with beads installed at the pressure-side of the fan namely forward-beads fan. The effect of geometric modifications of the fan blades on the volumetric flow rate, fan efficiency, and energy efficiency was investigated using Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations following the multiple reference frame methodology. The fan with no-beads was fabricated using 3D printing technology and tested to measure the flow velocity. Subsequently, the fans with beads along with the no-beads fan designs were numerically analyzed. The volumetric flow rate, fan efficiency, and energy efficiency were quantified as a function of fan rotating speed. The results show that the reverse-beads fan produced a relatively more volumetric flow rate and energy-efficient compared to the forward-beads fan. Moreover, to further improve the performance of the reverse-beads fan, the location and size of the bead structure were varied along the radial direction of the fan blade. The optimized reverse-beads fan significantly improves the fan performance.

Abstract Hybrid nanofluids are a novel class of colloidal fluids which have drawn significant attention due to potential tailoring of their thermo-physical properties for heat transfer enhancement by a combination of more than one nano-additive to meet specific requirements of an application. In the present work, ceramic copper oxide/carbon (SiO2-CuO/C) nanoparticles in 80:20 (wt%) composition were prepared by ultrasonic-assisted wet mixing technique. The hybrid nanofluid was formulated by dispersing the nanoparticles into a base fluid mixture of 60:40 (% by mass) glycerol and ethylene glycol (G/EG) using the two-steps method. The influence of nanoparticles on the augmentation of specific heat, thermal conductivity and viscosity was examined in the volume concentration range of 0.5–2.0% in the temperature range of 303.15–353.15 K. The results demonstrate that the synthesized SiO2-CuO/C hybrid nanoparticles enhanced the thermo-physical properties of the base fluid mixture which is higher than using SiO2 alone. In the case of SiO2–G/EG nanofluid, the specific heat capacity decremented by a maximum value of 5.7% whereas the thermal conductivity and viscosity incremented by 6.9% and 1.33-times as compared with G/EG at maximum volume concentration of 2.0% at a temperature of 353.15 K. Comparatively, a reinforcement of 80% SiO2 with 20% CuO/C in G/EG mixture led to thermal conductivity and viscosity enhancement by 26.9% and 1.15-times, respectively with a significant reduction of specific heat by 21.1%. New empirical correlations were proposed based on the experimental data for evaluation of thermophysical properties.

ABSTRACTThe design of annular fin array with variable thickness fin profiles defined by B-spline curves is studied as a multi-objective optimization problem for simultaneously maximizing heat transfer rate and minimizing thermal stress. Maximization of surface efficiency and augmentation factor as well as minimization of fin volume are considered as additional objective functions for further assessment of fin array performance. Evaluating the objective values through hybrid spline difference method, different cases are investigated by solving the optimization model by non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm II. The proposed scheme should aid designers in selecting compromise optimal solutions for practical problems.

Abstract It is well known that Espinosa-parades et al. (Espinosa-Paredes et al., 2011) proposed a fractional neutron point kinetic (FNPK) model with multi-group of delayed neutrons to describe dynamic behavior in a nuclear reactor. In (Aboanber and Nahla, 2016b), Aboanber and Nahla presented an extension of Espinosa-parades et al. FNPK model. This new model is called as the corrected fractional neutron point kinetic (CFNPK) model. The present study is concerned with the numerical solution of the CFNPK model (Aboanber and Nahla, 2016b) with six groups of delayed neutron precursors. The fractional derivative is described in the sense of Grunwald-Letnikov. An implicit finite difference method (FDM) is constructed for the solution of CFNPK model. The stability analysis of the method is carried out. We analyze the results of neutron density for different values of anomalous diffusion order, reactivity function, relaxation time and time step size. In addition, we compare the results corresponding to CFNPK model (Aboanber and Nahla, 2016b) with the results corresponding to the FNPK model proposed by Espinosa-parades et al. (Espinosa-Paredes et al., 2011). It is shown that as anomalous diffusion order decreases or simulation time increases the difference between the values of neutron density increases. We have investigated the effects of each term of the CFNPK.