In the drives of high-speed devices, such as a blood centrifuge, dynamic states also play an important role in terms of the time and quality of the tests performed. The article presents the application of modified equations resulting from the mathematical model of an induction motor to model dynamic phenomena during motor start-up, both with mains supply and with frequency start-up. The applied solution considers the phenomenon of current displacement in the rotor bar and the phenomenon of saturation. The comparison of the obtained results with the experiment shows that the method is sufficiently accurate. The obtained results can also be extended to higher power machines and to modeling other dynamic states.

A new study investigating the cooling efficacy of air flow inside open-cell metal foam embedded in aluminum models of fuel-cell stacks is described. A model based on a commercial stack was simulated and tested experimentally. This stack has three proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, each having an active area of 100 cm2, with a total output power of 500 W. The state-of-the-art cooling of this stack employs water in serpentine flow channels. The new design of the current investigation replaces these channels with metal foam and replaces the actual fuel cells with aluminum plates. The constant heat flux on these plates is equivalent to the maximum heat dissipation of the stack. Forced air is employed as the coolant. The aluminum foam used had an open-pore size of 0.65 mm and an after-compression porosity of 60%. Local temperatures in the stack and pumping power were calculated for various air-flow velocities in the range of 0.2−1.5 m/s by numerical simulation and were determined by... [more]

This paper is focused on the guide vane cascade as one of the most crucial stationary sub-systems of the hydraulic turbine, which needs to provide efficient inflow hydraulic conditions to the runner. The guide vanes direct the flow from the spiral casing and the stay vanes towards the runner, regulating the desired discharge. A parametric design tool with normalized geometrical constraints was created in MATLAB, suitable for generating guide vane cascade geometries for Francis turbines. The goal is to determine the limits of these constraints, which will lead to future faster prediction of initial guide vane configurations in the turbine optimal operating region. Several geometries are developed using preliminary design data of the turbine and are investigated using CFD simulations close to the best efficiency point (BEP) of the turbine. This research is part of the Horizon-2020—HydroFlex project led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), focusing on the developm... [more]

Low-salinity water flooding (LSWF) is environment-friendly and operates similarly to conventional waterflooding without the need for synthetic chemical materials. The application of LSWF makes sense in Vietnam as HC production has steadily declined since 2002, and the majority of main oil fields have become near mature and mature fields. In the next years, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) should be a top priority for Petro Vietnam to boost its oil production, for which the key issue is how to select a suitable EOR technology. In this study, LSWF of the Lower Miocene sand using low salinity water from Lower Oligocene sand was investigated. Previously at the Ruby field in the Cuu Long Basin, an LSWF feasibility study was carried out based on a conventional core flooding experiment, which is time-consuming and costly. This study targets the Chim Sao field in the Nam Con Son Basin, for which a cheaper and faster assessing method is required. As a result, a numerical code written in Matlab was d... [more]

Accurate estimation of crude oil Bubble Point Pressure (Pb) plays a vital rule in the development cycle of an oil field. Bubble point pressure is required in many petroleum engineering calculations such as reserves estimation, material balance, reservoir simulation, production equipment design, and optimization of well performance. Additionally, bubble point pressure is a key input parameter in most oil property correlations. Thus, an error in a bubble point pressure estimate will definitely propagate additional error in the prediction of other oil properties. Accordingly, many bubble point pressure correlations have been developed in the literature. However, they often lack accuracy, especially when applied for global crude oil data, due to the fact that they are either developed using a limited range of independent variables or developed for a specific geographic location (i.e., specific crude oil composition). This research presents a utilization of the state-of-the-art Bayesian opt... [more]

The reference literature contains data on the ideal gas-phase heat capacities and enthalpies of substances obtained experimentally. In this brief report, the highly accurate and simple unified analytical dependences of the heat capacity and enthalpy of normal alkanes larger than propane in the ideal gas state on temperature and the number of carbon atoms in a molecule are derived based on the analysis of the structure of chemical groups in the molecules and on the reference values of heat capacity and enthalpy for any two selected normal alkanes at one temperature. The dependences include a single set of coefficients for all normal alkanes and can be applied even to normal alkanes with the number of carbon atoms larger than 20, for which there is no data available. The dependences are thoroughly checked against two different sets of experimental data and two different sets of computational data obtained by low- and high-level theoretical methods: PM6 and G4. The error in calculating th... [more]

This paper presents the effect of cavity-based injection in an axisymmetric supersonic combustor using numerical investigation. An axisymmetric cavity-based angled and transverse injections in a circular scramjet combustor are studied. A three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier−Stokes (RANS) equation along with the k-ω shear-stress transport (SST) turbulence model and species transport equations are considered for the reacting flow studies. The numerical results of the non-reacting flow studies are validated with the available experimental data and are in good agreement with it. The performance of the injection system is analyzed based on the parameters like wall pressures, combustion efficiency, and total pressure loss of the scramjet combustor. The transverse injection upstream of the cavity and at the bottom wall of the cavity in a supersonic flow field creates a strong shock train in the cavity region that enhances complete combustion of hydrogen-air in the cavity region compared... [more]

The global spread of the COVID-19 virus has led to difficulties in many branches of the economy, including significant effects on the urban transport industry. Thus, countries around the world have introduced different mobility policies during the pandemic. Due to government restrictions and the changed behaviors of transport users, companies providing modern urban mobility solutions were forced to introduce new business practices to their services. These practices are also apparent in the context of the electric shared mobility industry. Although many aspects and problems of electric shared mobility have been addressed in scientific research, pandemic scenarios have not been taken into account. Noticing this research gap, we aimed to update a previously developed model of factors that influence the operation of electric shared mobility by incorporating aspects related to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on this industry. This article aims to identify the main factors influencing t... [more]

This paper demonstrates the procedure of blade adjustment in a Kaplan-type water turbine, based on calculations of the flow system. The geometrical adjustment of a twisted blade with varying chord length is described in the study. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was used to characterise aerofoil and turbine performance. Furthermore, two turbines, with a different number of blades, were designed, manufactured, and tested experimentally. The numerical model results were then compared with the experimental data. The studies were carried out with different rotational velocities and different stator blade incidence angles. The paper shows a comparison of the turbine efficiencies that were assessed, using numerical and experimental methods, of a flow system with four- and five-bladed rotors. The numerical model results matched up well with those of the experimental study. The efficiency of the proposed turbines reached up to 72% and 84% for four-bladed and five-bladed designs, re... [more]

Nowadays designing of selected areas of mines underground workings can be effectively improved by the application of computer techniques: 3D scanning, computer simulations and Virtual Reality. This, in fact, would result in the more reliable design process, significantly reduced designing costs and efforts, and improvement of the mines staff’s safety. This scientific paper presents a method developed for redesigning of selected areas of mines underground workings in which auxiliary transport is carried out. The method combines 3D laser scanning technique with computer simulations carried out in a CAD/MBS system, in order to determine the location of potential collisions of the transported loads with the arch yielding support and the equipment. The obtained results, visualized using Virtual Reality, will form input data in the process of designing the selected area of the mines underground workings. Finally, an example of the application of the described method during transportation of... [more]

Ethiopia has huge wind energy potential. In order to be able to simulate the power system operation, hourly time series of wind power is needed. These can be obtained from ERA5 data but first a realistic model is needed. Therefore, in this paper ERA5 reanalysis data were used to model wind power production at two topographically different and distant regions of Ethiopian wind farms—Adama II and Ashegoda. Wind speed was extracted from the ERA5 nearest grid point, bi-linearly interpolated to farms location and statistically down-scaled to increase its resolution at the site. Finally, the speed is extrapolated to hub-height of turbine and converted to power through farm specific power curve to compare with actual data for validation. The results from the model and historical data of wind farms are compared using performance error metrics like hourly mean absolute error (MAE) and hourly root mean square error (RMSE). When comparing with data from Ethiopian Electric Power (EEP), we found ho... [more]

For critical infrastructures, technological developments regarding real-time data transmission and processing improve the system’s operability and reliability. However, vulnerabilities are introduced in the case of implementing new remote access methods or where redundancy is low. At the national level, most critical infrastructures are connected, and, therefore, achieving a level of security and resilience is based on identifying a multitude of risks. In this respect, the reduction of risk to acceptable levels directly affects the quality of citizens’ lives and decreases losses in the industry. This study starts from the threats to power systems, namely cyberattacks, which are much more dangerous, although less visible, to operators, and almost invisible to the public or the media. From this point of view, it was proved that the most vulnerable parts of the power system were human−machine interfaces, electrical equipment, Surveillance, Control, and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems. Th... [more]

The behaviour of partial discharge as consequences of an alternating current (AC) is already well defined. AC partial discharges have completely different behaviour, background physics and parameters than partial discharges (PD) under direct current (DC) stress. This paper focuses on the most used and promising evaluation method of the PD DC stress—pulse sequence analysis (PSA). The first step is understanding and verifying the mechanisms and principles of this method. It is provided by well-known fundamentals of AC PD and by comparison with the other diagnostic and fault-locating methods such as phase-resolved partial discharge (PRPD) and pulse diagrams. The paper shows the PSA simulations and PD analyses performed at AC and partly at DC test conditions on typical PD test arrangements such as corona, surface and internal discharges. It is shown that the simulations performed, compared and validated with data obtained from measurements on different PD arrangements are a good match. Thi... [more]

A modelling approach based on the Substitutive Coefficients Network (SCN) is developed to predict the thermal behavior of a system in the dynamic state-space, without requiring knowledge of the thermal mass. The method can apply either to large- (building, combined solar systems, geothermal energy, and thermodynamic installations) or to small-scale systems (heat exchangers, electronic devices cooling systems, and Li-ion batteries). This current method is based on a dimensionless formulation of the simplified dynamic thermal balance model, using relaxation time as a key parameter to establish the model. The introduction of relaxation time reduces the parameters set as guidance coefficients. The parameters are finally expressed by a combination of global heat transfer coefficients related to each layer and/or sub-layer of the system. Advantages of the method are reliability, “non-destructibility”, i.e., it allows a reliable prediction of the thermal behavior which experimentally is inacc... [more]

A detailed study of lithium-related topics in the IFMIF-DONES facility is currently being promoted and supported within the EUROfusion action, paying attention to different pivotal aspects including lithium flow stability and the monitoring and extraction of impurities. The resistivity meter is a device able to monitor online non-metallic impurities (mainly nitrogen) in flowing lithium. It relies on the variation of the electric resistivity produced by dissolved anions: the higher the concentration of impurities in lithium, the higher the resistivity measured. The current configuration of the resistivity meter has shown different measuring issues during its operation. All these issues reduce the accuracy of the measurements performed with this instrument and introduce relevant noise affecting the resistance value. This paper proposes different upgrades, supported by CFD simulations, to optimize lithium flow conditions and to reduce measurement problems. Owing to these upgrades, a new d... [more]

Vegetable fibers have inspired studies in academia and industry, because of their good characteristics appropriated for many technological applications. Sisal fibers (Agave sisalana variety), when extracted from the leaf, are wet and must be dried to reduce moisture content, minimizing deterioration and degradation for long time. The control of the drying process plays an important role to guarantee maximum quality of the fibers related to mechanical strength and color. In this sense, this research aims to evaluate the drying of sisal fibers in an oven with mechanical air circulation. For this purpose, a transient and 3D mathematical model has been developed to predict moisture removal and heating of a fiber porous bed, and drying experiments were carried out at different drying conditions. The advanced model considers bed porosity, fiber and bed moisture, simultaneous heat and mass transfer, and heat transport due to conduction, convection and evaporation. Simulated drying and heating... [more]

This research presents a validation methodology for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) assessments of rooftop wind regime in urban environments. A case study is carried out at the Donadeo Innovation Centre for Engineering building at the University of Alberta campus. A numerical assessment of rooftop wind regime around buildings of the University of Alberta North campus has been performed by using 3D steady Reynolds-averaged Navier−Stokes equations, on a large-scale high-resolution grid using the ANSYS CFX code. Two methods of standard deviation (SDM) and average (AM) were introduced to compare the numerical results with the corresponding measurements. The standard deviation method showed slightly better agreements between the numerical results and measurements compared to the average method, by showing the average wind speed errors of 10.8% and 17.7%, and wind direction deviation of 8.4° and 12.3°, for incident winds from East and South, respectively. However, the average error betwee... [more]

Reticulate porous ceramic reactors use foam-type absorbers in their operation which must fulfill two essential functions: favoring the volumetric effect and increasing the mass and heat transfer by acting as a support for the reactive materials. Heating these absorbers with highly inhomogeneous concentrate irradiation induces high thermal gradients that affect their thermal performance. Owing to the critical function of these component in the reactor, it is necessary to define a selection criterion for the foam-type absorbers. In this work, we performed an experimental and numerical thermal analysis of three partially stabilized zirconia (PSZ) foam-type absorbers with pore density of 10, 20, and 30 PPI (pores per inch) used as a volumetric absorber. A numerical model and an analytical approximation were developed to reproduce experimental results, and calculate the thermal conductivity, as well as volumetric heat transfer coefficient. The results show that an increase in pore density l... [more]

The efficiency requirements for hydraulic pumps applied in automatic transmissions in future generations of automobiles will increase continuously. In addition, the pumps must be able to cope with multiphase flows to a certain extent. Given this background, a balanced vane pump (BVP), an internal gear pump (IGP) and a three-dimensional geared tumbling multi chamber (TMC) pump are analyzed and compared by a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach with ANSYS CFX and TwinMesh. Furthermore, test bench measurements are conducted to obtain experimental data to validate the numerical results. The obtained numerical results show a reasonable agreement with the experimental data. In the first CFD setup, the conveying characteristics of the pumps with pure oil regarding volumetric efficiencies, cavitation onset and pressure ripple are compared. Both the IGP and the BVP show high volumetric efficiencies and low pressure ripples whereas the TMC shows a weaker performance regarding these object... [more]

Industrial circulating cooling water contains a large amount of low-quality energy, which is lost to the environment through cooling towers. It is of great significance and potential to recover the waste heat to improve energy-saving effects and economic efficiency. However, the effect of common water harvesting and energy saving devices is not significant. Heat pumps have been shown to be effective in improving low-quality heat energy in energy conversion systems, although there are not many applications of heat pump scenarios in engineering practice. Based on this, a recovery solution of circulating cooling water waste heat and water resource using lithium bromide absorption heat pump has been put forward. The energy-saving performance of the recovery system was simulated and analyzed using Aspen Plus V10.0 (Bedford, MA, USA) to explore the effects of the parameters of the working medium in evaporators, condensers, absorbers, generators, heat exchangers, etc., and the modelling resul... [more]

So far, the torrefaction process has been merely discussed based on the physical and chemical characteristics of the final product, but the mechanism has not been yet pondered and investigated. Thus far, microwave torrefaction has been predominately used for thermal pre-treatment; therefore, a paradigm shift in the methodology has been introduced by using a Joule heating system. The article mainly focuses on the thermal engineering aspect of the torrefaction process. The densified black pine underwent thermal pre-treatment at a temperature of 523 K. The furnace used for torrefaction was initially improvised to carry out thermal degradation at quasi-static/dynamic conditions. A 3D PDE thermal model was developed to determine the numerical solution and temperature distribution across a black pine pellet. To compare the effect of the linear ramping profile, time-dependent as well as fixed Dirichlet conditions were applied to the proposed model. The mass distribution, duration of the torre... [more]

The paper analyses the research problem of conducting diagnostic reasoning for dynamic objects to eliminate the possibility of formulating false diagnoses resulting from different delays of the symptoms related to a particular fault while simultaneously striving to obtain high distinguishability. The research aimed to develop a new diagnostic inference method robust to symptom delays and characterised by high accuracy of generated diagnosis. Known methods ensuring the correctness of inference in the case of symptom delays but at the cost of reducing distinguishability of faults have been characterised. A new inference method was developed, which uses the three-valued residual evaluation and knowledge regarding elementary symptom sequences. A formal description of the diagnosing system and the proposed method are given. The method of obtaining the knowledge about the order of symptoms based on a cause-and-effect graph and was characterised. The method’s effectiveness was presented in si... [more]

Nowadays, based upon human needs and preferring perpetual types of energy, photovoltaic system (PV) is a suitable alternative and more frequently used in northern countries, which are recently more attracted by solar power. The new floating type of the structure is installed in the water bodies instead of land. One of the main elements in floating photovoltaic structures is the forces imposed on the panels. In the northern regions, the dominant load is considered to be ice interaction with the structure. This study aims at identifying the loads imposed on a floating PV structure located in the Łapino Reservoir on the Radunia River, which are produced by the wind action on the ice cover. The wind velocity varying between 10 and 26 m/s is implemented, and also the reduction of the pool level was studied. Wind direction plays an important role in the inclination and expansion of ice accumulation. Moreover, the magnitude of wind velocity is a determinative factor in the maximum thickness e... [more]

This paper develops a predictive modeling algorithm, denoted as Real-Time Vector Fitting (RTVF), which is capable of approximating the real-time linearized dynamics of multi-input multi-output (MIMO) dynamical systems via rational transfer function matrices. Based on a generalization of the well-known Time-Domain Vector Fitting (TDVF) algorithm, RTVF is suitable for online modeling of dynamical systems which experience both initial-state decay contributions in the measured output signals and concurrently active input signals. These adaptations were specifically contrived to meet the needs currently present in the electrical power systems community, where real-time modeling of low frequency power system dynamics is becoming an increasingly coveted tool by power system operators. After introducing and validating the RTVF scheme on synthetic test cases, this paper presents a series of numerical tests on high-order closed-loop generator systems in the IEEE 39-bus test system.

A two-dimensional perovskite photonic crystal structure of Methylamine lead iodide (CH3NH3PbI3, MAPbI3) is rationally designed as the absorption layer for solar cells. The photonic crystal (PC) structure possesses the distinct “slow light” and band gap effect, leading to the increased absorption efficiency of the absorption layer, and thus the increased photoelectric conversion efficiency of the battery. Simulation results indicate that the best absorption efficiency can be achieved when the scattering element of indium arsenide (InAs) cylinder is arranged in the absorption layer in the form of tetragonal lattice with the height of 0.6 μm, the diameter of 0.24 μm, and the lattice constant of 0.4 μm. In the wide wavelength range of 400−1200 nm, the absorption efficiency can be reached up to 82.5%, which is 70.1% higher than that of the absorption layer without the photonic crystal structure. In addition, the absorption layer with photonic crystal structure has good adaptability to the i... [more]