In large-scale arable farming, multiple sequential operations involving multiple machines must be carried out simultaneously due to restrictions of short time windows. However, the coordination and planning of multiple sequential operations is a nontrivial task for farmers, since each operation may have its own set of operational features, e.g., operating width and turning radius. Taking the two sequential operations—hoeing cultivation and seeding—as an example, the seeder has double the width of the hoeing cultivator, and the seeder must remain idle while waiting for the hoeing cultivator to finish two rows before it can commence its seeding operation. A flow-shop working mode can coordinate multiple machines in multiple operations within a field when different operations have different implement widths. To this end, an auto-steering-based collaborative operating system for fleet management (FMCOS) was developed to realize an in-field flow-shop working mode, which is often adopted by... [more]

Rapid developments in energy storage and conversion technologies have led to the proliferation of low- and medium-power electric vehicles. Their regular operation typically requires an on-board battery charger that features small dimensions, high efficiency and power quality. This paper analyses an interleaved step-down single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) operating in the discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) for charging of battery-powered light electric vehicles such as an electric wheelchair. The required characteristics are achieved thanks to favourable arrangement of the inductors in the circuit: the input inductor is used for power factor correction (PFC) without additional elements, while the other inductor is used to provide galvanic isolation and required voltage conversion ratio. A modular interleaved structure of the converter helps to implement low-profile converter design with standard components, distribute the power losses and improve the performance. An optima... [more]

Scenario analysis combined with system and market modelling is a well-established method to evaluate technological and societal developments and their impacts on future energy pathways. This paper presents a process-oriented method for developing consistent energy scenarios using multiple energy system models. Its added value is that the developed energy scenarios are consistent in a multi-model environment and practicable for a broader target group from scientists to practitioners. The scenarios consist of comprehensive storylines and systematically defined quantitative parameters. Following a step-by-step process, a condensed set of overlapping descriptors is generated and used to define the scenarios in a consistent parameter matrix. The set of descriptors allow consistent and comparable outputs independent of model-specific characteristics. The corresponding quantitative parameters can be used by diverse energy system tools. Using multiple models, a team of researchers can explore... [more]

A horizontal well with hydraulic fractures is key to forming a fracture network in oil shale for the generated hydrocarbon flows. By considering the influence of anisotropic strength, a prediction model is proposed for fracture initiation by studying different fracture initiation modes (FIMs) in oil shale: failure of the intact rock matrix and of the bedding planes. Through a case study on Nong’an oil shale, the influences of wellbore trajectory and bedding planes on the fracture initiation pressure (FIP), location (FIL), and FIM were analyzed and the induced changes in wellbore trajectory design were concluded. The preferred angle between the wellbore axis and the minimum horizontal principal stress was the same of 90° or 270°, when the lowest required FIP corresponded to the failure of the intact rock matrix. However, when the angle corresponded to the failure of the bedding planes, the preferred direction of the wellbore axis was away from the fixed direction and not corresponding t... [more]

Catalytic hydrotreatment is recognized as an efficient method to improve the properties of pyrolysis liquids (PO) to allow co-feeding with fossil fuels in conventional refinery units. The promising catalyst recipes identified so far are catalysts with high nickel contents (38 to 57 wt.%), promoted by Cu, Pd, Mo and/or a combination, and supported by SiO2, SiO2-ZrO2, SiO2-ZrO2-La2O3 or SiO2-Al2O3. To gain insights into the reactivity of the pyrolytic sugar (PS) and pyrolytic lignin (PL) fraction of PO, hydrotreatment studies (350 °C, 120 bar H2 pressure (RT) for 4 h) were performed in a batch autoclave. Catalyst performance was evaluated by considering the product properties (H/C ratio, the charring tendency (TGA) and molecular weight distribution (GPC)) and the results were compared with a benchmark Ru/C catalyst. All Ni based catalysts gave products oils with a higher H/C compared to Ru/C. The Mo promoted catalyst performed best, giving a product with the highest H/C ratio (1.54) and... [more]

Strong tectonic movement brings great risk to exploration of shale gas in southern China, especially in Lower Cambrian shale with complex tectonic backgrounds, which has good hydrocarbon-generation matter but low or no gas content. In this paper, the Lower Cambrian shale from the southeast Chongqing region, located in the Upper Yangtze Platform, and the Xiuwu Basin, located in the Lower Yangtze Platform, were selected as the research objects. First, the gas components in shale gas samples were measured, then analysis of nitrogen isotopic was used to reveal the nitrogen sources. Using regional geological backgrounds, core description, and seismic interpretation, combined with the perpendicular and parallel permeability test and focused ion beam−helium ion microscopy (FIB−HIM) observation, the reasons for high content of nitrogen in the Lower Cambrian shale from the Xiuwu Basin and the Southeast Chongqing region were clarified. The results indicate that the main sources of nitrogen in th... [more]

Variable structure control with sliding mode can provide good control performance and excellent robustness. Unfortunately, the chattering phenomenon investigated due to discontinuous switching gain restricting their applications. In this paper, a chattering free improved variable structure control (IVSC) for a class of mismatched uncertain interconnected systems with an unknown time-varying delay is proposed. A sliding function is first established to eliminate the reaching phase in traditional variable structure control (TVSC). Next, a new reduced-order sliding mode estimator (ROSME) without time-varying delay is constructed to estimate all unmeasurable state variables of plants. Then, based on the Moore-Penrose inverse approach, a decentralized single-phase robustness sliding mode controller (DSPRSMC) is synthesized, which is independent of time delays. A DSPRSMC solves a complex interconnection problem with an unknown time-varying delay term and drives the system’s trajectories onto... [more]

Oscillating water column (OWC) devices, either fixed or floating, are the most common wave energy converter (WEC) devices. In this work, the fluid dynamic interaction between waves and a U-shaped OWC breakwater embedding a Wells turbine has been investigated through unsteady Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) simulations. The full-scale plant installed in the harbor of Civitavecchia (Italy) was numerically modeled. A two-dimensional domain was adopted to simulate the unsteady flow, both outside and inside the U-OWC device, including the air chamber and the oscillating flow inside the conduit hosting the Wells turbine. For the numerical simulation of the damping effect induced by the Wells turbine connected to the air chamber, a porous medium was placed in the computational domain, representing the conduit hosting the turbine. Several simulations were carried out considering periodic waves with different periods and amplitudes, getting a deep insight into the energy conversion process fr... [more]

The quick U-building (QUB) method is used to measure the overall heat loss coefficient of buildings during one to two nights by applying heating power and by measuring the indoor and the outdoor temperatures. In this paper, the numerical model of a real house, previously validated on experimental data, is used to conduct several numerical QUB experiments. The results show that, to some extent, the accuracy of QUB method depends on the boundary conditions (solar radiation), initial conditions (initial power and temperature distribution in the walls) and on the design of QUB experiment (heating power and duration). QUB method shows robustness to variation in the value of the overall heat loss coefficient for which the experiment was designed and in the variation of optimum power for the QUB experiments. The variations in the QUB method results are smaller on cloudy than on sunny days, the error being reduced from about 10% to about 7%. A correction is proposed for the solar radiation abs... [more]

The paper investigates the dynamics of the thermal field of the ACCC (aluminum conductor composite core) line. The system was heated by solar radiation and current flow. Conductor cooling was modeled using the total heat transfer coefficient as the sum of convective and radiative components. The temperature increase generated by the current is described by a system of parabolic differential equations with an appropriate set of boundary, initial and continuity condition. The mentioned boundary-initial problem was solved by a modified Green’s method, adapted to the layered structure of the system. For this purpose, Green’s functions, as the kernels of integral operators inverse to differential ones, were determined. Aluminum resistivity and heat transfer coefficient change significantly with temperature. For this reason, the solution to the problem is presented in the form of a lower and upper estimation of the heating curve and local time constant. A steady-state current rating was also... [more]

In order to solve issues concerning performance induction and in-cylinder heat accumulation of a certain heavy-duty diesel engine in a plateau environment, working state parameters and performance indexes of diesel engine are calculated and optimized using the method of artificial neural network and genetic algorithm cycle multi-objective optimization. First, with an established diesel engine simulation model and an orthogonal experimental method, the influence rule of five performance indexes affected by five working state parameters are calculated and analyzed. Results indicate the first four of five working state parameters have a more prominent influence on those five performance indexes. Subsequently, further calculation generates correspondences among four working state parameters and five performance indexes with the method of radial basis function neural network. The predicted value of the trained neural network matches well with the original one. The approach can fulfill seria... [more]

Electric vehicles (EVs) with wireless power transfer (WPT) systems are convenient, but WPT technology will produce a strong stray electromagnetic field (EMF) in the surrounding space when the system works with high power. Shielding coils can reduce stray EMF efficiently without additional control, and they have advantages of being simple, light, and cheap. In this paper, the series-opposing structure is compared systematically with the inductive structure based on circuit theory and electromagnetic field theory. Simplified circuit models are proposed to give an intuitive and comprehensive analysis of transfer efficiency. Electric field analysis and finite element analysis (FEA) is used to explain the functional principles of shielding coils and to compare the EMF distribution excited by two structures. The simulation results show that both structures decrease the mutual inductance and perform better than the system without shielding coils when they have the same transfer efficiency. Fu... [more]

Current disquisition is presented to excogitate heat and mass transfer features of second grade fluid flow generated by an inclined cylinder under the appliance of diffusion, radiative heat flux, convective and Joule heating effects. Mathematical modelling containing constitutive expressions by obliging fundamental conservation laws are constructed in the form of partial differential equations. Afterwards, transformations are implemented to convert the attained partial differential system into ordinary differential equations. An implicit finite difference method known as the Keller Box was chosen to extract the solution. The impact of the flow-controlling variables on velocity, temperature and concentration profiles are evaluated through graphical visualizations. Variations in skin friction, heat transfer and mass flux coefficients against primitive variables are manipulated through numerical data. It is inferred from the analysis that velocity of fluid increases for incrementing magni... [more]

The economic and environmental performance of a district heating (DH) system is to a great extent affected by the size and dynamic behavior of the DH load. By implementing energy efficiency measures (EEMs) to increase a building’s thermal performance and by performing cost-optimal energy renovation, the operation of the DH system will be altered. This study presents a systematic approach consisting of building categorization, life cycle cost (LCC) optimization, building energy simulation and energy system optimization procedures, investigating the profitability and environmental performance of cost-optimal energy renovation of a historic building district on the DH system. The results show that the proposed approach can successfully be used to predict the economic and environmental effects of cost-optimal energy renovation of a building district on the local DH system. The results revealed that the financial gains of the district are between 186 MSEK (23%) and 218 MSEK (27%) and the fi... [more]

The integration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) introduces a non-conventional two-way power flow which cannot be captured well by traditional model-based techniques. This brings an unprecedented challenge in terms of the accurate localization of faults and proper actions of the protection system. In this paper, we propose a data-driven fault localization strategy based on multi-level system regionalization and the quantification of fault detection results in all subsystems/subregions. This strategy relies on the tree segmentation criterion to divide the entire system under study into several subregions, and then combines Support Vector Data Description (SVDD) and Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) to find the confidence level of fault detection in each subregion in terms of their corresponding p-values. By comparing the p-values, one can accurately localize the faults. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed data-driven fault localization can greatly improve the accuracy of fault... [more]

The deployment of highly efficient cooling equipment is expected to promote energy savings and greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the tropics. A ground source heat pump (GSHP) has high energy-savings potential for use in Bangkok, Thailand. This study aimed to elucidate the operational conditions of a GSHP when used in Bangkok which was expected to achieve a higher efficiency than an air source heat pump (ASHP) over the long term. An operational experiment on a pilot facility in Bangkok and a simulation over a three-year GSHP operation were conducted. As a result of the operational experiment and simulation, the proposed operational condition was that the 90th percentile value of the hourly heat pump (HP) inlet temperature did not exceed 5 °C above that of the hourly annual ambient temperature during the third year of operation. When a GSHP designed based on this condition was utilized for a small government building, the required number of boreholes were 24, 4, and 3 for air-condit... [more]

This paper deals with the implementation of a new technique of stochastic search to find the best set of parameters in a mathematical model, applied to the single cage (SC) model of the induction motor (IM). The technique includes a new strategy to generate variable constraints of the domain, seven error functions, weight for the operating zones of the IM, and multi-objective functions. The results are validated with experimental data of the torque and current in an IM, and show better fitting to the experimental curves compared with the results of two different techniques, one deterministic and the other one stochastic. The results obtained allow us to conclude that the best set of parameters for the model depends on the weights assigned to the objective functions and to the operating zones.

This paper presents a highly efficient three-port converter to integrate energy storage (ES) and wireless power transfer (WPT) systems. The proposed converter consists of a bidirectional DC-DC converter and an AC-DC converter with a resonant capacitor. By sharing an inductor and four switches in the bidirectional DC-DC converter, the bidirectional DC-DC converter operates as a DC-DC converter for ES systems and simultaneously as a DC-AC converter for WPT systems. Here, four switches are turned on under the zero voltage switching conditions. The AC-DC converter for WPT system achieves high voltage gain by using a resonance between the resonant capacitor and the leakage inductance of a receiving coil. A 100-W prototype was built and tested to verify the effectiveness of the converter; it had a maximum power-conversion efficiency of 95.9% for the battery load and of 93.8% for the wireless charging load.

In order to calculate heat transfer capacity and air-side pressure drop of an annular radiator (AR), one performance calculation method was proposed combining heat transfer unit (HTU) simulation and plate-and-fin heat exchanger (PFHX) performance calculation formulas. This method can obtain performance data with no need for meshing AR as a whole, which can be convenient and time-saving, as grid number is reduced in this way. It demonstrates the feasibility of this performance calculation method for engineering applications. In addition, based on the performance calculation method, one configuration optimization method for AR using nondominated sorted genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II) was also proposed. Fin height (FH) and number of fins in circumferential direction (NFCD) were optimized to maximize heat transfer capacity and minimize air-side pressure drop. Three optimal configurations were obtained from the Pareto optimal points. The heat transfer capacity of the optimal configurations i... [more]

Roof collapse and wall spalling in mines commonly occurred. Grouting in the rock mass of a collapsed zone is one of the most effective technologies for solving this problem. Through grouting, the rock mass of a collapsed zone can be cemented into continuous and stable blocks, and the physical and mechanical parameters of the rock mass can be significantly improved. In order to investigate the mechanical properties and damage of rock samples after the injection of a high-polymer material, we conducted uniaxial compression tests in a laboratory on grouted specimens. A high-polymer material is commonly used to address the gangue stacking that is caused by large roof collapse and wall spalling accidents in the mining face and the cracking of coal walls. Research has shown that a high-polymer material effectively solidifies gangues. The results indicate a micromechanics effect of the grouted specimens under uniaxial compression. The compressive strength, fracture propagation, damage mode, a... [more]

In this study, the vertically-oriented pulsating heat pipe (PHP) heat exchangers charged with either water or HFE-7000 in a filling ratio of 35% or 50% were fabricated to exchange the thermal energy between two air streams in a parallel-flow arrangement. Both the effectiveness of the heat exchangers and the thermal resistance of PHP with a size of 132 × 44 × 200 mm, at a specific evaporator temperature ranging from 55 to 100 °C and a specific airflow velocity ranging from 0.5 to 2.0 m/s were estimated. The results show that the heat pipe charged with HFE-7000 in either filling ratio is likely to function as an interconnected array of thermosiphon under all tested conditions because of the unfavorable tube inner diameter, whereas the water-charged PHP possibly creates the pulsating movement of the liquid and vapor slugs once the evaporator temperature is high enough, especially in a filling ratio of 50%. The degradation in the thermal performance of the HFE-7000-charged PHP heat exchang... [more]

Sand production from a poorly consolidated reservoir could give rise to some severe problems during production. Holding the load bearing solids in place is the main goal of any sand control technique. The only sand control techniques that have found applications in steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) are some of the mechanical methods, including wire wrapped screens, slotted liners and more recently, punched screens. Slotted liner is one of the most effective mechanical sand control methods in the unconsolidated reservoir exploitation, which has proven to be the preferred sand control method in the SAGD operations. The main advantage of the slotted liners that makes them suitable for SAGD operations is their superior mechanical integrity for the completion of long horizontal wells. This study is an attempt to increase the existing understanding of the fines migration, sand production, and plugging tendency for slotted liners by using a novel large-scale scaled completion test (SCT)... [more]

This manuscript presents an advanced exergo-economic analysis of a waste heat recovery system based on the organic Rankine cycle from the exhaust gases of an internal combustion engine. Different operating conditions were established in order to find the exergy destroyed values in the components and the desegregation of them, as well as the rate of fuel exergy, product exergy, and loss exergy. The component with the highest exergy destroyed values was heat exchanger 1, which is a shell and tube equipment with the highest mean temperature difference in the thermal cycle. However, the values of the fuel cost rate (47.85 USD/GJ) and the product cost rate (197.65 USD/GJ) revealed the organic fluid pump (pump 2) as the device with the main thermo-economic opportunity of improvement, with an exergo-economic factor greater than 91%. In addition, the component with the highest investment costs was the heat exchanger 1 with a value of 2.769 USD/h, which means advanced exergo-economic analysis i... [more]

Cellulosic insulation paper is usually used in oil-immersed transformer insulation systems. In this study, the molecular dynamics method based on reaction force field (ReaxFF) was used to simulate the pyrolysis process of a cellobiose molecular model. Through a series of ReaxFF- Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations, the generation path of ethanol at the atomic level was studied. Because the molecular system has hydrogen bonding, force-bias Monte Carlo (fbMC) is mixed into ReaxFF to reduce the cost of calculation by reducing the sampled data. In order to ensure the reliability of the simulation, a model composed of 20 cellobioses and a model composed of 40 cellobioses were respectively established for repeated simulation in the range of 500−3000 K. The results show that insulating paper produced ethanol at extreme thermal fault, and the intermediate product of vinyl alcohol is the key to the aging process. It is also basically consistent with others’ previous experiment results. So it ca... [more]

Thermal solar systems are interesting solutions to reduce CO 2 emissions and gradually promote the use of renewable sources. However, sizing such systems and analysing their behavior are still challenging issues, especially for the trade-off between useful solar energy maximization and stagnation risk minimization. The new EPB (Energy Performance of Buildings) standard EN 15316-4-3:2017 offers several methods to evaluate the performance of a forced circulation solar system. One of them is a dynamic hourly method that must be used together with EN 15316-5:2017 for the simulation of the stratified storage tank connected with the solar loop. In this work, such dynamic hourly method is extended to provide more realistic predictions. In particular, modeling of the pump operation due to solar fluid temperature exceeding a set threshold, or due to low temperature differential between solar field and storage tank, is introduced as an on−off control. The implemented code is applied to a... [more]