Continuous preferential crystallization is an innovative approach to the separation of chiral substances. The process considered in this work takes place in a gently agitated fluidized bed located in a tubular crystallizer. The feasibility of the process has been shown in previous work, but it also turned out that choosing suitable operation conditions is quite delicate. Hence, a model based process design is desirable. Existing models of the process are rather complicated and require long computational times. In this work, a simple linear dynamic model is suggested, which captures the main properties of the process. The model is distributed in space and in a property coordinate. Using the method of characteristics, a semi-analytical solution of the linear model is derived. As a challenge to the solution, there is a recycle loop in the process that causes a feedback and couples the boundary conditions at different boundaries of the computational domain. In order to deal with this, a nu... [more]

The dynamic vibration of the gear coupling-rotor system (GCRS) caused by misalignment is an important factor of low frequency vibration and noise radiation of the naval marine. The axial misalignment of gear coupling is inevitable owing to mass eccentricity, and is unconstrained in axial direction at high-speed operation. Therefore, the dynamic model of GCRS is proposed, considering gear-coupling misalignment and contact force in this paper. The whole motion differential equation of GCRS is established based on the finite element method. Moreover, the numerical calculation method of meshing force, considering the uniform distribution load on contact surface, is presented, and the mathematical predictive time−frequency characteristics are analyzed by the Newmark stepwise integral approach. Finally, a reduced-scale application of the propulsion shaft system is utilized to validate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic model. For the sensibility to low-frequency vibration, the natural... [more]

The blast furnace campaign length is today usually restricted by the hearth life, which is strongly related to the drainage and behavior of the coke bed in the hearth, usually referred to as the dead man. Because the hearth is inaccessible and the conditions are complex, knowledge and understanding of the state of the dead man are still limited compared to other parts of the blast furnace process. Since a number of publications have studied different aspects of the dead man in the literature, the purpose of the current review is to compile the findings and knowledge in a comprehensive document. We mainly focus on contributions with respect to the dead man state, and those assessing its influence on the hearth performance in terms of liquid flow patterns, lining wear and drainage behavior. A set of common modeling approaches in this specific furnace area is also briefly presented. The aim of the review is also to deepen the understanding and stimulate further research on open questions... [more]

The purpose of this study was the coupling simulation of the vacuum block of the ethanolamine mixture separation unit to determine the optimal layout of the vacuum creation system. For this, a computational model of the vacuum unit, which was identified by comparing the computational data with the data of an industrial study of vacuum rectification columns, was synthesized in the Unisim Design R461 software package. To determine the required load on the vacuum system, a numerical experiment was carried out, during which it was discovered that the load on the system would be 9600 m3/h. It was proposed to replace individual column vacuum pumps with a single vacuum-generating system (VGS) based on a liquid ring vacuum pump (LRVP). When defining the layout, two possible schemes were considered, the models of which were created in Unisim Design R461. The system layout was determined by matching the characteristics of the system elements with the characteristics of the vacuum columns. A tech... [more]

Cannabinoids have gained significant interest as they may have pharmaceutical and nutritional applications to treat various diseases (sclerosis, glaucoma, and epilepsy, among others). Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has been studied recently as a source of cannabinoids, given the low concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol and comparatively high concentration of cannabidiol. Most of the plant’s fractions are used (blossoms, stem, and seeds), but the processing of the blossom leaves a residue, threshing residues, which could still be used to extract cannabinoids, aiming for an integral usage of the plant. Different technologies have been applied for cannabinoid extraction. Among these, pressurized liquid extraction (PLE) stands out due to the ease of application and efficiency. This work evaluates the influence of temperature, pressure, extraction time, and the number of cycles for the PLE of cannabinoids from hemp threshing residues using ethanol. Results show that low pressures, 100 °C, and 6... [more]

A large number of methodologies for fabrication of 1D carbon nanomaterials have been developed in the past few years and are extensively described in the literature. However, for many applications, and in particular in catalysis, a translation of the materials to a macro-structured form is often required towards their use in practical operation conditions. This review intends to describe the available methods currently used for fabrication of such macro-structures, either already applied or with potential for application in the fabrication of macro-structured catalysts containing 1D carbon nanomaterials. A review of the processing methods used in the fabrication of macrostructures containing 1D sp2 hybridized carbon nanomaterials is presented. The carbon nanomaterials here discussed include single- and multi-walled carbon nanotubes, and several types of carbon nanofibers (fishbone, platelet, stacked cup, etc.). As the processing methods used in the fabrication of the macrostructures ar... [more]

For the simulation of a trickle-bed reactor (TBR) in coal and oil refining, modeling the liquid maldistribution of the gas-liquid distributor incurs enormous pre-processing work and bears a huge computational cost. A closed-loop optimized system with computational fluid dynamic (CFD) data is therefore proposed for the first time in this paper. A fast prediction model based on support vector regression (SVR) is developed to simplify the modeling of the liquid flow rate in TBRs. The model uses CFD simulation results to determine an optimized set of structural parameters for the gas-liquid distributor in TBRs. In order to obtain an accurate SVR model quickly, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is employed to optimize the SVR parameters. Then, the structural parameters corresponding to the minimum liquid maldistribution factor are calculated using the response surface methodology (RSM) based on the hybrid PSO-SVR model. The CFD validation results show a good agreement with the... [more]

In recent years, polymeric hydrogels (PolyHy) have been extensively explored for their applications in biomedicine as biosensors, in tissue engineering, diagnostic processes, and drug release. The physical and chemical properties of PolyHy indicate their potential use in regulating drug delivery. Calcineurin inhibitors, particularly cyclosporine (CsA) and tacrolimus (TAC), are two important immunosuppressor drugs prescribed upon solid organ transplants. Although these drugs have been used since the 1970s to significantly increase the survival of transplanted organs, there are concerns regarding their undesirable side effects, primarily due to their highly variable concentrations. In fact, calcineurin inhibitors lead to acute and chronic toxicities that primarily cause adverse effects such as hypertension and nephrotoxicity. It is suggested from the evidence that the encapsulation of calcineurin inhibitors into PolyHy based on polysaccharides, specifically alginate (Alg), offers effecti... [more]

Capacitor discharge welding (CDW) for projection welding provides very high current pulses in extremely short welding times. This requires a quick follow up behaviour of the electrodes during the softening of the projection. The possibilities of experimental process investigations are strongly limited because of the covered contact zone and short process times. The Finite Element Method (FEM) allows highly resoluted analyses in time and space and is therefore a suitable tool for process characterization and optimization. To utilize this mean of optimization, an indirect multiphysical numerical model has been developed in Ansys Mechanical APDL. This model couples the physical environments of thermal−electric with structural analysis. It can master the complexity of large deformations, short current rise times and high temperature gradients. A typical ring projection has been chosen as the joining task. The selected aluminium alloys are EN-AW-6082 (ring projection) and EN-AW-5083 (sheet... [more]

Compression ignition (CI) engines that run on high-viscosity fuels (HVF) like emulsified biofuels generally demonstrate poor engine performance. An engine with a consistently low performance, in the long run, will have a negative effect on its lifespan. Poor combustion in engines occurs mainly due to the production of less volatile, less flammable, denser, and heavier molecules of HVF during injection. This paper proposes a guide vane design (GVD) to be installed at the intake manifold, which is incorporated with a shallow depth re-entrance combustion chamber (SCC) piston. This minor modification will be advantageous in improving the evaporation, diffusion, and combustion processes in the engine to further enhance its performance. The CAD models of the GVD and SCC piston were designed using SolidWorks 2018 while the flow run analysis of the cold flow CI engine was conducted using ANSYS Fluent Version 15. In this study, five designs of the GVD with varying lengths of the vanes from 0.6D... [more]