At any time of the day, a spherical mirror reflects the rays coming from the sun along a line that points to the sun through the center of the sphere. This makes it possible to build concentrated solar power(CSP) plants with fixed solar fields and mobile receivers; that is, solar fields can be significantly cheaper and simpler, but challenging tracking systems for the mobile receiver need to be implemented. The cost-cutting possibilities for this technology have been under-researched. This article describes the MOSAIC concept, which aims to achieve low-cost solar energy by boosting the benefits of spherical reflectors while addressing their challenges. This new concept proposes to build large modular plants from semi-Fresnel solar bowls. One of these modules has been designed and is under construction in Spain. This article reports the main lessons learned during the design phase, describes the advantages and challenges of the concept, details the proposed routes to overcome them, and... [more]

Slaughterhouse waste management is an important technological, economic, and environmental challenge. Recently, more and more attention has been paid to the possibility of obtaining biogas from waste generated by slaughterhouses. The aim of the paper was to examine the effect of an emulsifier addition in the form of a carboxymethyl cellulose solution to create animal waste fermentation media based on the quantity and quality of the generated biogas. The adopted research goal was achieved based on a laboratory experiment of methane fermenting poultry processing waste. The waste was divided into two fractions: soft (tissue) and hard (bone). A fat emulsifier in a concentration of 1%, 2.5%, 5%, and 10% of fresh weight of the substrate was added to each substrate sample made from the above fractions. The emulsifier used was a 55% carboxymethyl cellulose solution, since this emulsifier is most commonly used in food production. The experiment was conducted in order to determine how the additi... [more]

Changing the connection type of a medium voltage (MV) cable screen is linked to a decrease in power loss, although it may also lead to the generation of overvoltage in a metallic cable screen, which is hazardous for proper cable line work. In this paper, results of simulation and field researches are presented, showing the range of voltages that occurs in cable screens during single-phase ground fault. There are considered to be three scenarios according to the applied type of cable screen connection. Conducted researches allow the comparison of chosen methods of simulation with an actual outcome. Results obtained during simulation and field studies lead to the conclusion that the range of overvoltage occurred in a cable screen could in fact be dangerous for the cable line’s sheath insulation without proper overvoltage protection.

Fire-induced thermal flow is the greatest threat to trapped people and the heat-resistant quality of building structures. This paper presents an experimental investigation of the effects of external wind on the ceiling temperature distribution of fire-induced thermal flow in a one-sixth scale corridor connected to a compartment. In the experiments, the fire source was placed in the compartment with hot thermal flow spilled into the connected corridor. The heat release rate (HRR) was changed from 10 to 20 kW and the external wind velocity was changed from 0 to 2.09 m/s. The ends of the corridor could be adjusted to be fully or partially open to the environment with dam-boards arranged at the ends of the corridor. An effective corridor HRR, Qcorridor, was defined to account for the amount of the spilled plume into the corridor. Results show that the temperature under the ceiling changed in a non-monotonic way with wind velocity: it first increased and then decreased with wind velocity. I... [more]

The operation feasibility of small hydropower plants in mountainous sites is subjected to the run-of-river flow, which is also dependent on a high variability in precipitation and snow cover. Moreover, the management of this kind of system has to be performed with some particular operation conditions of the plant (e.g., turbine minimum and maximum discharge) but also some environmental flow requirements. In this context, a technological climate service is conceived in a tight connection with end users, perfectly answering the needs of the management of small hydropower systems in a pilot area, and providing a forecast of the river streamflow together with other operation data. This paper presents an overview of the service but also a set of lessons learnt related to the features, requirements, and considerations to bear in mind from the point of view of climate service developers. In addition, the outcomes give insight into how this kind of service could change the traditional manageme... [more]

In this study, the effects of the use of improved fusel oil on engine performance and on exhaust emissions in a spark-ignition engine were investigated experimentally in consideration of the water, gum, and moisture content at high compression ratios according to TS EN 228 standards. In the study, a four-stroke, single-cylinder, air-cooled, spark plug ignition engine with an 8/1 compression ratio was used at three different compression ratios (8/1, 8.5/1, 9.12/1). Experiments were performed for six different ratios of fuel blends (F0, F10, F20, F30, F40, and F50) at a constant speed and different loads. The data obtained from the experiments were compared with the original operating parameters of the engine while using gasoline. According to the test results, the optimal engine performance was at a 9.12/1 compression ratio and with a F30 fuel blend. With the increase from an 8/1 to 9.12/1 compression ratio for the F30 fuel blend, the overall efficiency increased by 6.91%, and the speci... [more]

The variability of rail surfaces can result in wheel−rail slippage, which reduces the accuracy of subway braking systems, or even endangers the operation safety. It is necessary to conduct optimal anti-slip control with the estimation of the wheel−rail adhesion state. In this paper, an online super-twisting sliding mode anti-slip control strategy is proposed for subway vehicles. Firstly, real-time wheel−rail adhesion state estimation is performed by utilizing the recursive least squares algorithm under complex and variable rail surface conditions. Then, the differential evolution algorithm is adopted to search the current optimal slip velocity based on the wheel−rail adhesion state. The super-twisting sliding mode controller is designed to implement the optimal sliding velocity tracking. The controller exploits the high-order derivatives of the sliding mode to eliminate chatter vibration and avoid the effect of disturbance, improving the anti-slip control performance. Finally, the effe... [more]

A dynamic Smagorinsky−Lilly model (DSLM) subgrid model on the basis of the Smagorinsky−Lilly subgrid model (SLM) was introduced in the OpenFOAM software. The flow field of the vehicle was simulated, and the pressure coefficient and sound pressure curve of the monitoring points were compared with the wind tunnel test results. The results show that the DSLM subgrid model with a wall function can achieve high simulation accuracy. The investigation of the flow field structure revealed an intermittent detachment of the turbulent vortex after the airflow passed through the rearview mirror, thereby resulting in a violent pressure pulsation on the side window around the rearview mirror. Airflow passed through the A-pillar, separated, and reattached on the upper side window, thereby producing aerodynamic noise. The research results can serve as a good reference for the simulation and test of aerodynamic noises outside the vehicle, and for the reduction of the aerodynamic noises of vehicles.

This paper is concerned with resilient triggered control problem for load frequency control and virtual synchronous generation (LFC-VSG) scheme of discrete-time multi-area power system with parameter uncertainty, governor dead band (GDB), and low inertia under time delay and aperiodic Denial-of-Service (DoS) attacks. To reduce communication load of sleep intervals, event triggered mechanism (ETM) is introduced. A discrete-time switched delay system model is established to describe the dynamic of multi-area power system under resilient static output feedback control law. Combining piecewise Lyapunov−Krasovskii functional (LKF) method with switched system theory, a criterion is derived that the tolerant bound of attack duration and attack frequency can be estimated explicitly. Meanwhile, some sufficient conditions are obtained which can preserve weighted H ∞ performance. By using linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) techniques, a co-design method is proposed to solve the control gai... [more]

In this paper, an interior permanent magnet (IPM) synchronous machine with multiflux barriers is proposed to meet the wide speed regulation application requirements of electric vehicles. Based on the flux barrier characteristic, an electromagnetic−mechanical coupling optimization strategy is employed for the machine design. In order to facilitate the optimization design, the rotor barriers are divided into two optimization zones, the maximum stress zone and the maximum deformation zone. The electromagnetic−mechanical coupling optimization strategy is divided into two stages accordingly. In the first stage, the machine is regarded as a synchronous reluctance machine by ignoring permanent magnets, where the dimensions of the arc-shaped barriers are optimized to achieve a large reluctance torque and small stress. In the second stage, the dimensions of the arc-shaped PMs and the elliptical barrier are optimized with three objectives of minimum torque ripple, minimum flux linkage, and minim... [more]

The converter transformer is a key equipment in high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system. Its oil-paper insulation system in the valve winding and outlet bushing experiences AC, DC, AC/DC, and transient impulse voltages simultaneously. The oil contamination problem is more serious under DC electric field. Therefore, it is significant to investigate the characteristic of particles motion and accumulation under DC electric field. In this paper, first, the movement and accumulation behavior of fiber particles and copper particles in mineral oil and natural ester were recorded and simulated. Then, the influence of fiber and copper particles on the oil conductivity was analyzed. Finally, the DC breakdown strength of mineral oil and natural ester with different particles concentration was compared. Results show that the movement speed of copper particles was larger than that of fiber particles. Fiber impurities were easy to form bridges in mineral oil, while there was no impuri... [more]

The first industrial-scale pyrolysis plant for solid tire wastes has been installed in Jenin, northern of the West Bank in Palestine, to dispose of the enormous solid tire wastes in the north of West Bank. The disposable process is an environmentally friendly process and it converts tires into useful products, which could reduce the fuel crisis in Palestine. The gravimetric analysis of tire waste pyrolysis products from the pyrolysis plant working at the optimum conditions is: tire pyrolysis oil (TPO): 45%, pyrolysis carbon black (PCB): 35%, pyrolysis gas (Pyro-Gas): 10% and steel wire: 10%. These results are depending on the tire type and size. It has been found that the produced pyrolysis oil has a High Heating Value (HHV), with a range of 42 − 43   ( MJ / kg ) , which could make it useful as a replacement for conventional liquid fuels. The main disadvantage of using the TPO as fuel is its strong acrid smell and its low flash point, as compared with the other conventi... [more]

This study makes a novel attempt to analyse the effect of the bypass control and room control modes on ventilation energy saving in an 84 m2 housing unit, which is the most frequently constructed unit-type among newly constructed apartment buildings in Korea. A heat recovery ventilation system was installed. The fan power consumption was measured via field experiments and analyses were made for potential energy savings. Experiments to confirm the power-saving effect owing to the application of the room control mode were performed under the heat recovery and bypass modes, using three air flow rates (0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 ACH). Additionally, the annual energy saving based on the application of the mixed mode (both bypass and room control modes) was calculated. The results obtained showed that when the mixed mode was employed, ventilation energy saving up to 10.76%−16.56%, which is greater than that obtained using only the heat recovery mode, was realized. Additionally, compared with all-room-... [more]

Through the analysis of the recovery inrush current generated by the external fault removal of the converter transformer, it is pointed out that the zero-sequence current caused by the recovery inrush may result in the saturation of the neutral current transformer (CT), whose measurement distortion contributes to the mis-operation of zero-sequence differential current protection. In this paper, a new scheme of zero-sequence differential current protection based on waveform correlation is proposed. By analyzing the characteristics of zero-sequence current under internal fault, external fault and external fault removal, the waveform correlation of the zero-sequence current measured at the terminal of the transformer and the zero-sequence current measured at the neutral point of the transformer is used for identification. The polarity of the CT is selected to guarantee the zero-sequence currents at the terminal and neutral point of the transformer exhibit a "ride through" characteristic u... [more]

In the distribution system, customers have increasingly use renewable energy sources and battery energy storage systems (BESS), transforming traditional loads into active prosumers. Therefore, methodologies are needed to provide prosumers with tools to optimize their investments and increase business opportunities. In this paper, a stochastic mixed integer linear programming (MILP) formulation is proposed to solve for optimal sizes of prosumer assets, considering the use of a BESS and photovoltaic (PV) units. The objective is to minimize the total cost of the system, which is defined as the combination of a solar PV system investment, BESS investment, maintenance costs of assets, and the cost of electricity supplied by the grid. The developed method defines the optimal size of PV units, the power/energy capacities of the BESS, and the optimal value for initial energy stored in the BESS. Both deterministic and stochastic approaches were explored. For each approach, the proposed model wa... [more]

The accessibility of cheap fossil fuels, due to large government subsidies, promotes the accelerated gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth in Southeast Asia. However, the ambient air pollution from fossil fuel combustion has a latent cost, which is the public health issues such as respiratory diseases, lung cancer, labor loss, and economic burden in the long-run. In Southeast Asia, lung cancer is the leading and second leading cause of cancer-related death in men, and women, respectively. This nexus study employs the panel vector error correction model (VECM) and panel generalized method of moments (GMM) using data from ten Southeast Asian countries from the period (2000−2016) to explore the possible association between emissions, lung cancer, and the economy. The results confirm that CO2 and PM2.5 are major risk factors for lung cancer in the region. Additionally, the increasing use of renewable energy and higher healthcare expenditure per capita tend to reduce the lung cance... [more]

We experimentally explored the impact of a wind turbine with truncated blades on the power output and wake recovery, and its effects within 2 × 3 arrays of standard units. The blades of the truncated turbine covered a fraction of the outer region of the rotor span and replaced with a zero-lift structure around the hub, where aerodynamic torque is comparatively low. This way, the incoming flow around the hub may be used as a mixing enhancement mechanism and, consequently, to reduce the flow deficit in the wake. Particle image velocimetry was used to characterize the incoming flow and wake of various truncated turbines with a variety of blade length ratios L / R = 0.6 , 0.7, and 1, where L is the length of the working section of the blade of radius R. Power output was obtained at high frequency in each of the truncated turbines, and also at downwind units within 2 × 3 arrays with streamwise spacing of Δ x / d T = 4 , 5, and 6, with d T being the t... [more]

The state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH) are two crucial indicators needed for a proper and safe operation of the battery. Coulomb counting is one of the most adopted and straightforward methods to calculate the SOC. Although it can be implemented for all kinds of applications, its accuracy is strongly dependent on the operation conditions. In this work, the behavior of the batteries at different current and temperature conditions is analyzed in order to adjust the charge measurement according to the battery efficiency at the specific operating conditions. The open-circuit voltage (OCV) is used to reset the SOC estimation and prevent the error accumulation. Furthermore, the SOH is estimated by evaluating the accumulated charge between two different SOC using a recursive least squares (RLS) method. The SOC and SOH estimations are verified through an extensive test in which the battery is subjected to a dynamic load profile at different temperatures.

For biomass compaction, it is important to determine all aspects of the process that will affect the quality of pellets and briquettes. The low bulk density of biomass leads to many problems in transportation and storage, necessitating the use of a compaction process to ensure a solid density of at least 1000 kg·m−3 and bulk density of at least 600 kg·m−3. These parameters should be achieved at a relatively low compaction pressure that can be achieved through the proper preparation of the raw material. As the compaction process includes a drying stage, the aim of this work is to determine the influence of the drying temperature of pine biomass in the range of 60−140 °C on the compaction process. To determine whether this effect is compensated by the moisture, compaction was carried out on the material in a dry state and on the materials with moisture contents of 5% and 10% and for compacting pressures in the 130.8−457.8 MPa range. It was shown that drying temperature affects the specif... [more]

Compared with the traditional multi-agent models, the hierarchical leader−follower network (HLFN) can describe some real-world multi-agent systems more precisely due to its layered properties. The distributed event-based consensus control problem of HLFNs with layer-to-layer delays, namely, communication delays among agents of different layers, is presented in this essay. In order to solve the aforementioned problem, several innovative hierarchical event-based control (HEC) algorithms are proposed. The sufficient conditions on the control parameters and event-triggered mechanism were derived to undertake the reliability of the closed-loop dynamics. Moreover, it is shown that the zeno-behaviors of the presented HEC algorithms can be excluded. Finally, there are some numerical examples that verify the availability of the results.

To date, atmospheric concentrations of sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) are the most potent among the greenhouse gases identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and are still rising. In the EU-28, SF6 has been banned from several applications, however, an important exception is gas-insulated electrical switchgear (GIS) for which cost-effective and environmentally sound alternatives were unavailable when the F-Gas regulation was last revised in 2014. To date, after some recent innovations, we argue that the phasing out of SF6 could spur the accelerated development of alternatives with a lower carbon footprint. In the EU-28, the SF6 amount in switchgear is unclear. In this paper, we estimated the SF6 amount to be between 10,800 and 24,700 t (with a mode at 12,700 t) in 2017, resulting in 68 to 140 t of annual emissions from operational leakage only, corresponding to 1.6 to 3.3 Mt of CO2-eq. We additionally calculated the potential greenhouse gas savings over the lifecyc... [more]

The world’s aging fleet of nuclear power reactors faces decommissioning. Because decommissioning is implemented through a series of procedures, and this process changes the links between some industries, its economic impact needs to be investigated. This study compared the economic impacts of three nuclear industry sectors—nuclear generation, nuclear power construction, and nuclear decommissioning—using input-output analysis in South Korea, the first Asian country that has declared a nuclear phaseout. The study also traced changes in the structure of the nuclear industry during the Korean nuclear phaseout and the consequent economic impacts. The study found that the implementation of the nuclear phaseout will lead to a decrease in the induced outputs and the value added of nuclear industries in South Korea; however, this would be offset by deploying more renewable energy. In addition, the temporal impacts on individual sectors vary depending on changes in the number of reactors being d... [more]

The circular economy (CE), and its focus on the cycling and regeneration of resources, necessitates both a reconfiguration of existing infrastructures and the creation of new infrastructures to facilitate these flows. In urban settings, CE is being realized at multiple levels, from within individual organizations to across peri-urban landscapes. While most attention in CE research and practice focuses on organizations, the scale and impact of many such efforts are limited because they fail to account for the diversity of resources, needs, and power structures across cities, consequently missing opportunities for adopting a more effective and inclusive CE. Reconfiguring hard infrastructures is necessary for material resource cycling, but intervening in soft infrastructures is also needed to enable more inclusive decision-making processes to activate these flows. Utilizing participatory action research methods at the intersection of industrial ecology and design, we developed a new frame... [more]

In this paper, a novel concept to integrate High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC)-connected offshore wind power plants with the onshore grid is presented. The concept makes use of a holistic wind farm controller along with a fully instrumented conventional synchronous generator at the point of common coupling. In our approach, the wind farm is able to replicate the natural response of the generator to a system, even enabling the wind farm to reproduce, in a scaled up manner, a range of ancillary services without having to rely on indirect frequency measurements which are prone to noise and delays. Simulation results are presented to validate the proposed solution.

A thin silicon oxide (SiOx) layer (thickness: 1.5−2.0 nm) formed at an Al2O3/Si interface can enhance the interface properties. However, it is challenging to control the characteristics of thin SiOx layers because SiOx forms naturally during Al2O3 deposition on Si substrates. In this study, a ~1.5 nm-thick SiOx layer was inserted between Al2O3 and Si substrates by wet chemical oxidation to improve the passivation properties. The acidic solutions used for wet chemical oxidation were HCl:H2O2:H2O, H2SO4:H2O2:H2O, and HNO3. The thicknesses of SiOx layers formed in the acidic solutions were ~1.48, ~1.32, and ~1.50 nm for SiOx-HCl, SiOx-H2SO4, and SiOx-HNO3, respectively. The leakage current characteristics of SiOx-HNO3 were better than those of the oxide layers formed in the other acidic solutions. After depositing a ~10 nm-thick Al2O3 on an SiOx-acidic/Si structure, we measured the effective carrier lifetime using quasi steady-state photoconductance and examined the interfacial properties... [more]