Preprint server seeks way to halt plagiarists

CERN Multimedia

Giles, J

2003-01-01

"An unusual case of plagiarism has struck ArXiv, the popular physics preprint server at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, resulting in the withdrawal of 22 papers...The plagiarism case traces its origins to June 2002, when Yasushi Watanabe, a high-energy physicist at the Tokyo Insitute of Technology, was contacted by Ramy Noboulsi, who said he was a mathematical physicist" (1 page)

A Weakest-Link Approach for Fatigue Limit of 30CrNiMo8 Steels (Preprint)

Science.gov (United States)

2011-03-01

34Application of a Weakest-Link Concept to the Fatigue Limit of the Bearing Steel Sae 52100 in a Bainitic Condition," Fatigue and Fracture of...AFRL-RX-WP-TP-2011-4206 A WEAKEST-LINK APPROACH FOR FATIGUE LIMIT OF 30CrNiMo8 STEELS (PREPRINT) S. Ekwaro-Osire and H.V. Kulkarni Texas...2011 4. TITLE AND SUBTITLE A WEAKEST-LINK APPROACH FOR FATIGUE LIMIT OF 30CrNiMo8 STEELS (PREPRINT) 5a. CONTRACT NUMBER In-house 5b. GRANT

Battery Usage and Thermal Performance of the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight for Various Chassis Dynamometer Test Procedures: Preprint

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kelly, K. J.; Mihalic, M.; Zolot, M.

2001-01-01

This study describes the results from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) chassis dynamometer testing of a 2000 model year Honda Insight and 2001 model year Toyota Prius. The tests were conducted for the purpose of evaluating the battery thermal performance, assessing the impact of air conditioning on fuel economy and emissions, and providing information for NREL's Advanced Vehicle Simulator (ADVISOR)

Evaluation of Performance and Opportunities for Improvements in Automotive Power Electronics Systems: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moreno, Gilberto; Bennion, Kevin; King, Charles; Narumanchi, Sreekant

2016-06-14

Thermal management strategies for automotive power electronic systems have evolved over time to reduce system cost and to improve reliability and thermal performance. In this study, we characterized the power electronic thermal management systems of two electric-drive vehicles--the 2012 Nissan LEAF and 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid. Tests were conducted to measure the insulated-gate bipolar transistor-to-coolant thermal resistances for both steady-state and transient conditions at various coolant flow rates. Water-ethylene glycol at a temperature of 65 degrees C was used as the coolant for these experiments. Computational fluid dynamics and finite element analysis models of the vehicle's power electronics thermal management system were then created and validated using experimentally obtained results. Results indicate that the Accord module provides lower steady-state thermal resistance as compared with the LEAF module. However, the LEAF design may provide improved performance in transient conditions and may have cost benefits.

Lessons Learned from Field Evaluation of Six High-Performance Buildings: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Torcellini, P.; Deru, M.; Griffith, B.; Long, N.; Pless, S.; Judkoff, R.; Crawley, D. B.

2004-07-01

The energy performance of six high-performance buildings around the United States was monitored in detail. The six buildings include the Visitor Center at Zion National Park; the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Thermal Test Facility; the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Merrill Center; The BigHorn Home Improvement Center; the Cambria DEP Office Building; and the Oberlin College Lewis Center. This paper discusses the design energy targets and actual performance.

National symposium on commissioning and operating experiences in heavy water plants and associated chemical industries [Preprint volume

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1992-02-01

A symposium on commissioning and operating experiences in heavy water plants and associated chemical industries (SCOPEX-92) was organised to share the experience and exchange the ideas among plant operators, designers, consultants and vendors in the areas of operation, commissioning and equipment performance. This pre-print volume has been brought out as an integrated source of information on commissioning and operation of heavy water plants. The following aspects of heavy water plants are covered: commissioning and operation, instrumentation and control, and safety and environment. (V.R.)

Preprint WebVRGIS Based Traffic Analysis and Visualization System

OpenAIRE

Li, Xiaoming; Lv, Zhihan; Wang, Weixi; Zhang, Baoyun; Hu, Jinxing; Yin, Ling; Feng, Shengzhong

2015-01-01

This is the preprint version of our paper on Advances in Engineering Software. With several characteristics, such as large scale, diverse predictability and timeliness, the city traffic data falls in the range of definition of Big Data. A Virtual Reality GIS based traffic analysis and visualization system is proposed as a promising and inspiring approach to manage and develop traffic big data. In addition to the basic GIS interaction functions, the proposed system also includes some intellige...

Thermal performance monitoring and optimisation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sunde, Svein; Berg; Oeyvind

1998-01-01

Monitoring of the thermal efficiency of nuclear power plants is expected to become increasingly important as energy-market liberalisation exposes plants to increasing availability requirements and fiercer competition. The general goal in thermal performance monitoring is straightforward: to maximise the ratio of profit to cost under the constraints of safe operation. One may perceive this goal to be pursued in two ways, one oriented towards fault detection and cost-optimal predictive maintenance, and another determined at optimising target values of parameters in response to any component degradation detected, changes in ambient conditions, or the like. Annual savings associated with effective thermal-performance monitoring are expected to be in the order of $ 100 000 for power plants of representative size. A literature review shows that a number of computer systems for thermal-performance monitoring exists, either as prototypes or commercially available. The characteristics and needs of power plants may vary widely, however, and decisions concerning the exact scope, content and configuration of a thermal-performance monitor may well follow a heuristic approach. Furthermore, re-use of existing software modules may be desirable. Therefore, we suggest here the design of a flexible workbench for easy assembly of an experimental thermal-performance monitor at the Halden Project. The suggested design draws heavily on our extended experience in implementing control-room systems featured by assets like high levels of customisation, flexibility in configuration and modularity in structure, and on a number of relevant adjoining activities. The design includes a multi-computer communication system and a graphical user's interface, and aims at a system adaptable to any combination of in-house or end user's modules, as well as commercially available software. (author)

Roof Integrated Solar Absorbers: The Measured Performance of ''Invisible'' Solar Collectors: Preprint

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Colon, C. J.; Merrigan, T.

2001-01-01

The Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), with the support of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, has investigated the thermal performance of solar absorbers that are an integral, yet indistinguishable, part of a building's roof. The first roof-integrated solar absorber (RISA) system was retrofitted into FSEC's Flexible Roof Facility in Cocoa, Florida, in September 1998. This ''proof-of-concept'' system uses the asphalt shingle roof surface and the plywood decking under the shingles as an unglazed solar absorber. Data was gathered for a one-year period on the system performance. In Phase 2, two more RISA prototypes were constructed and submitted for testing. The first used the asphalt shingles on the roof surface with the tubing mounted on the underside of the plywood decking. The second prototype used metal roofing panels over a plywood substrate and placed the polymer tubing between the plywood decking and the metal roofing. This paper takes a first look at the thermal performance results for the ''invisible'' solar absorbers that use the actual roof surface of a building for solar heat collection

Using EnergyPlus to Perform Dehumidification Analysis on Building America Homes: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fang, X.; Winkler, J.; Christensen, D.

2011-03-01

A parametric study was conducted using EnergyPlus version 6.0 to investigate humidity issues on a typical mid-1990s reference home, a 2006 International Energy Conservation Code home, and a high-performance home in a hot-humid climate. The impacts of various dehumidification equipment and controls are analyzed on the high performance home. The study examined the combined effects of infiltration and mechanical ventilation with balanced and unbalanced mechanical ventilation systems. Indoor relative humidity excursions were examined; specifically, the number of excursions, average excursion length, and maximum excursion length. Space relative humidity, thermal comfort, and whole-house source energy consumption were analyzed for indoor relative humidity set points of 50%, 55%, and 60%. The study showed and explained why similar trends of high humidity were observed in all three homes regardless of energy efficiency, and why humidity problems are not necessarily unique in high-performance homes. Thermal comfort analysis indicated that occupants are unlikely to notice indoor humidity problems. The study confirmed that supplemental dehumidification should be provided to maintain space relative humidity below 60% in a hot-humid climate.

Thermal performance and heat transport in aquifer thermal energy storage

Science.gov (United States)

Sommer, W. T.; Doornenbal, P. J.; Drijver, B. C.; van Gaans, P. F. M.; Leusbrock, I.; Grotenhuis, J. T. C.; Rijnaarts, H. H. M.

2014-01-01

Aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) is used for seasonal storage of large quantities of thermal energy. Due to the increasing demand for sustainable energy, the number of ATES systems has increased rapidly, which has raised questions on the effect of ATES systems on their surroundings as well as their thermal performance. Furthermore, the increasing density of systems generates concern regarding thermal interference between the wells of one system and between neighboring systems. An assessment is made of (1) the thermal storage performance, and (2) the heat transport around the wells of an existing ATES system in the Netherlands. Reconstruction of flow rates and injection and extraction temperatures from hourly logs of operational data from 2005 to 2012 show that the average thermal recovery is 82 % for cold storage and 68 % for heat storage. Subsurface heat transport is monitored using distributed temperature sensing. Although the measurements reveal unequal distribution of flow rate over different parts of the well screen and preferential flow due to aquifer heterogeneity, sufficient well spacing has avoided thermal interference. However, oversizing of well spacing may limit the number of systems that can be realized in an area and lower the potential of ATES.

Preprint Traffic Management and Forecasting System Based on 3D GIS

OpenAIRE

Li, Xiaoming; Lv, Zhihan; Hu, Jinxing; Zhang, Baoyun; Yin, Ling; Zhong, Chen; Wang, Weixi; Feng, Shengzhong

2015-01-01

This is the preprint version of our paper on 2015 15th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGrid). This paper takes Shenzhen Futian comprehensive transportation junction as the case, and makes use of continuous multiple real-time dynamic traffic information to carry out monitoring and analysis on spatial and temporal distribution of passenger flow under different means of transportation and service capacity of junction from multi-dimensional space-time pers...

Simultaneously Coupled Mechanical-Electrochemical-Thermal Simulation of Lithium-Ion Cells: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Chao; Santhanagopalan, Shriram; Sprague, Michael A.; Pesaran, Ahmad A.

2016-08-01

Understanding the combined electrochemical-thermal and mechanical response of a system has a variety of applications, for example, structural failure from electrochemical fatigue and the potential induced changes of material properties. For lithium-ion batteries, there is an added concern over the safety of the system in the event of mechanical failure of the cell components. In this work, we present a generic multi-scale simultaneously coupled mechanical-electrochemical-thermal model to examine the interaction between mechanical failure and electrochemical-thermal responses. We treat the battery cell as a homogeneous material while locally we explicitly solve for the mechanical response of individual components using a homogenization model and the electrochemical-thermal responses using an electrochemical model for the battery. A benchmark problem is established to demonstrate the proposed modeling framework. The model shows the capability to capture the gradual evolution of cell electrochemical-thermal responses, and predicts the variation of those responses under different short-circuit conditions.

Thermal Performance Benchmarking: Annual Report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Feng, Xuhui [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States). Transportation and Hydrogen Systems Center

2017-10-19

In FY16, the thermal performance of the 2014 Honda Accord Hybrid power electronics thermal management systems were benchmarked. Both experiments and numerical simulation were utilized to thoroughly study the thermal resistances and temperature distribution in the power module. Experimental results obtained from the water-ethylene glycol tests provided the junction-to-liquid thermal resistance. The finite element analysis (FEA) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models were found to yield a good match with experimental results. Both experimental and modeling results demonstrate that the passive stack is the dominant thermal resistance for both the motor and power electronics systems. The 2014 Accord power electronics systems yield steady-state thermal resistance values around 42- 50 mm to the 2nd power K/W, depending on the flow rates. At a typical flow rate of 10 liters per minute, the thermal resistance of the Accord system was found to be about 44 percent lower than that of the 2012 Nissan LEAF system that was benchmarked in FY15. The main reason for the difference is that the Accord power module used a metalized-ceramic substrate and eliminated the thermal interface material layers. FEA models were developed to study the transient performance of 2012 Nissan LEAF, 2014 Accord, and two other systems that feature conventional power module designs. The simulation results indicate that the 2012 LEAF power module has lowest thermal impedance at a time scale less than one second. This is probably due to moving low thermally conductive materials further away from the heat source and enhancing the heat spreading effect from the copper-molybdenum plate close to the insulated gate bipolar transistors. When approaching steady state, the Honda system shows lower thermal impedance. Measurement results of the thermal resistance of the 2015 BMW i3 power electronic system indicate that the i3 insulated gate bipolar transistor module has significantly lower junction

Multi-Node Thermal System Model for Lithium-Ion Battery Packs: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Shi, Ying; Smith, Kandler; Wood, Eric; Pesaran, Ahmad

2015-09-14

Temperature is one of the main factors that controls the degradation in lithium ion batteries. Accurate knowledge and control of cell temperatures in a pack helps the battery management system (BMS) to maximize cell utilization and ensure pack safety and service life. In a pack with arrays of cells, a cells temperature is not only affected by its own thermal characteristics but also by its neighbors, the cooling system and pack configuration, which increase the noise level and the complexity of cell temperatures prediction. This work proposes to model lithium ion packs thermal behavior using a multi-node thermal network model, which predicts the cell temperatures by zones. The model was parametrized and validated using commercial lithium-ion battery packs. neighbors, the cooling system and pack configuration, which increase the noise level and the complexity of cell temperatures prediction. This work proposes to model lithium ion packs thermal behavior using a multi-node thermal network model, which predicts the cell temperatures by zones. The model was parametrized and validated using commercial lithium-ion battery packs.

MHTGR thermal performance envelopes: Reliability by design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Etzel, K.T.; Howard, W.W.; Zgliczynski, J.B.

1992-05-01

This document discusses thermal performance envelopes which are used to specify steady-state design requirements for the systems of the Modular High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor to maximize plant performance reliability with optimized design. The thermal performance envelopes are constructed around the expected operating point accounting for uncertainties in actual plant as-built parameters and plant operation. The components are then designed to perform successfully at all points within the envelope. As a result, plant reliability is maximized by accounting for component thermal performance variation in the design. The design is optimized by providing a means to determine required margins in a disciplined and visible fashion

Thermal performance advisor expert system development

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

McClintock, M.; Hirota, N.; Metzinger, R.

1991-01-01

In recent years the electric industry has developed an increased interest in improving efficiency of nuclear power plants. EPRI has embarked upon a research project RP2407, Nuclear Plant Performance Improvements which is designed to address needs in this area. One product of this project has been the Thermal Performance Diagnostic Manual for Nuclear Power Plants (NP-4990P). The purpose of this manual is to provide engineering personnel at nuclear power plants with a consistent way in which to identify thermal performance problems. General Physics is also involved in the development of another computer system called Fossil Thermal Performance Advisor (FTPA) which helps operators improve performance for fossil power plants. FTPA is a joint venture between General Physics and New York State Electric and Gas Company. This paper describes both of these computer systems and uses the FTPA as an interesting comparison that illustrates the considerations required for the development of a computer system that effectively addresses the needs of the users

Note on: Considering the Case for Biodiversity Cycles: Reexamining the Evidence for Periodicity in the Fossil Record, by Lieberman and Melott, arXiv preprint 0704.2896

OpenAIRE

Omerbashich, M.

2007-01-01

Lieberman and Melott built their recent arXiv preprint 0704.2896 on my published paper and (a preprint of) a subsequent comment by Liebermans associate Cornette. But had this group waited for the Cornette comment to actually appear in print together with the expected Reply, they would have learned that his comment exposes Cornettes confusion that likely was due to journal misprint of my figure. Thus 0704.2896 is baseless. Despite receiving the extended Reply with Errata, these authors still f...

Thermal performance of a PCM thermal storage unit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Liu Ming; Bruno, Frank; Saman, Wasim [Sustainable Energy Centre, Inst. for Sustainable Systems and Technologies, Univ. of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, Adelaide (Australia)

2008-07-01

The thermal performance of a PCM thermal storage unit (TSU) is studied numerically and experimentally. The TSU under analysis consists of several flat slabs of phase change material (PCM) with melting temperature of -26.7 C. Liquid heat transfer fluid (HTF) passes between the slabs to charge and discharge the storage unit. A one dimensional mathematical model was employed to analyze the transient thermal behavior of the storage unit during the melting and freezing processes. The model takes into consideration the temperature variations in the wall along the flow direction of the HTF. The paper compares the experimental and numerical simulation results in terms of HTF outlet temperatures during the melting period. (orig.)

Preprints na comunicação científica da Física de Altas Energias: análise das submissões no repositório arXiv (2010-2015

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gonzalo Rubén Alvarez

Full Text Available RESUMO A circulação de preprints na Física de Altas Energias (FAE remonta a mais de meio século, tendo como objetivos principais acelerar o processo de comunicação científica entre os pares e estimular o acesso livre à literatura especializada da área. O artigo analisa o conjunto de preprints submetidos às diferentes categorias FAE do repositório temático especializado arXiv no período 2010-2015 que foram posteriormente publicados em revistas peer review. Os indicadores bibliométricos demonstram a potencialidade dos preprints como canal precursor de difusão de resultados científicos visto que 70% das submissões foram em seguida absorvidas pelas principais revistas da FAE. Conclui que o êxito alcançado pelas iniciativas Open Access arXiv e INSPIRE-HEP favoreceu o intercâmbio de informações e conhecimentos entre os pesquisadores. O modelo proposto pela FAE pode incentivar cientistas de áreas com características similares a instalarem repositórios e bancos de dados de preprints para suas disciplinas com o intuito de fortalecer a comunicação das descobertas científicas.

High-performance noncontact thermal diode via asymmetric nanostructures

Science.gov (United States)

Shen, Jiadong; Liu, Xianglei; He, Huan; Wu, Weitao; Liu, Baoan

2018-05-01

Electric diodes, though laying the foundation of modern electronics and information processing industries, suffer from ineffectiveness and even failure at high temperatures. Thermal diodes are promising alternatives to relieve above limitations, but usually possess low rectification ratios, and how to obtain a high-performance thermal rectification effect is still an open question. This paper proposes an efficient contactless thermal diode based on the near-field thermal radiation of asymmetric doped silicon nanostructures. The rectification ratio computed via exact scattering theories is demonstrated to be as high as 10 at a nanoscale gap distance and period, outperforming the counterpart flat-plate diode by more than one order of magnitude. This extraordinary performance mainly lies in the higher forward and lower reverse radiative heat flux within the low frequency band compared with the counterpart flat-plate diode, which is caused by a lower loss and smaller cut-off wavevector of nanostructures for the forward and reversed scheme, respectively. This work opens new routes to realize high performance thermal diodes, and may have wide applications in efficient thermal computing, thermal information processing, and thermal management.

The virtual library in action: Collaborative international control of high-energy physics pre-print

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kreitz, P.A.; Addis, L.; Galic, H.; Johnson, T.

1996-02-01

This paper will discuss how control of the grey literature in high-energy physics pre-prints developed through a collaborative effort of librarians and physicists. It will highlight the critical steps in the development process and describe one model of a rapidly evolving virtual library for high-energy physics information. In conclusion, this paper will extend this physics model to other areas of grey literature management

Optical Thermal Characterization Enables High-Performance Electronics Applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

2016-02-01

NREL developed a modeling and experimental strategy to characterize thermal performance of materials. The technique provides critical data on thermal properties with relevance for electronics packaging applications. Thermal contact resistance and bulk thermal conductivity were characterized for new high-performance materials such as thermoplastics, boron-nitride nanosheets, copper nanowires, and atomically bonded layers. The technique is an important tool for developing designs and materials that enable power electronics packaging with small footprint, high power density, and low cost for numerous applications.

Cardboard Based Packaging Materials as Renewable Thermal Insulation of Buildings: Thermal and Life Cycle Performance

OpenAIRE

Čekon, Miroslav; Struhala, Karel; Slávik, Richard

2017-01-01

Cardboard based packaging components represent a material with a significant potential of renewable exploitation in buildings. This study presents the results of thermal and environmental analysis of existing packaging materials compared with standard conventional thermal insulations. Experimental measurements were performed to identify the thermal performance of studied cardboard packaging materials. Real-size samples were experimentally tested in laboratory measurements. The thermal resi...

Natural selection on thermal preference, critical thermal maxima and locomotor performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Gilbert, Anthony L; Miles, Donald B

2017-08-16

Climate change is resulting in a radical transformation of the thermal quality of habitats across the globe. Whereas species have altered their distributions to cope with changing environments, the evidence for adaptation in response to rising temperatures is limited. However, to determine the potential of adaptation in response to thermal variation, we need estimates of the magnitude and direction of natural selection on traits that are assumed to increase persistence in warmer environments. Most inferences regarding physiological adaptation are based on interspecific analyses, and those of selection on thermal traits are scarce. Here, we estimate natural selection on major thermal traits used to assess the vulnerability of ectothermic organisms to altered thermal niches. We detected significant directional selection favouring lizards with higher thermal preferences and faster sprint performance at their optimal temperature. Our analyses also revealed correlational selection between thermal preference and critical thermal maxima, where individuals that preferred warmer body temperatures with cooler critical thermal maxima were favoured by selection. Recent published estimates of heritability for thermal traits suggest that, in concert with the strong selective pressures we demonstrate here, evolutionary adaptation may promote long-term persistence of ectotherms in altered thermal environments. © 2017 The Author(s).

Thermal performance of nanofluid flow in microchannels

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Li Jie [Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of North Carolina, Campus Box 7910, Broungton Hall 4160, Raleigh, NC 27695-7910 (United States); Kleinstreuer, Clement [Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of North Carolina, Campus Box 7910, Broungton Hall 4160, Raleigh, NC 27695-7910 (United States)], E-mail: ck@eos.ncsu.edu

2008-08-15

Two effective thermal conductivity models for nanofluids were compared in detail, where the new KKL (Koo-Kleinstreuer-Li) model, based on Brownian motion induced micro-mixing, achieved good agreements with the currently available experimental data sets. Employing the commercial Navier-Stokes solver CFX-10 (Ansys Inc., Canonsburg, PA) and user-supplied pre- and post-processing software, the thermal performance of nanofluid flow in a trapezoidal microchannel was analyzed using pure water as well as a nanofluid, i.e., CuO-water, with volume fractions of 1% and 4% CuO-particles with d{sub p} = 28.6 nm. The results show that nanofluids do measurably enhance the thermal performance of microchannel mixture flow with a small increase in pumping power. Specifically, the thermal performance increases with volume fraction; but, the extra pressure drop, or pumping power, will somewhat decrease the beneficial effects. Microchannel heat sinks with nanofluids are expected to be good candidates for the next generation of cooling devices.

Temperature Distribution and Thermal Performance of an Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage System

Science.gov (United States)

Ganguly, Sayantan

2017-04-01

Energy conservation and storage has become very crucial to make use of excess energy during times of future demand. Excess thermal energy can be captured and stored in aquifers and this technique is termed as Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES). Storing seasonal thermal energy in water by injecting it into subsurface and extracting in time of demand is the principle of an ATES system. Using ATES systems leads to energy savings, reduces the dependency on fossil fuels and thus leads to reduction in greenhouse gas emission. This study numerically models an ATES system to store seasonal thermal energy and evaluates the performance of it. A 3D thermo-hydrogeological numerical model for a confined ATES system is presented in this study. The model includes heat transport processes of advection, conduction and heat loss to confining rock media. The model also takes into account regional groundwater flow in the aquifer, geothermal gradient and anisotropy in the aquifer. Results show that thermal injection into the aquifer results in the generation of a thermal-front which grows in size with time. Premature thermal-breakthrough causes thermal interference in the system when the thermal-front reaches the production well and consequences in the fall of system performance and hence should be avoided. This study models the transient temperature distribution in the aquifer for different flow and geological conditions. This may be effectively used in designing an efficient ATES project by ensuring safety from thermal-breakthrough while catering to the energy demand. Based on the model results a safe well spacing is proposed. The thermal energy discharged by the system is determined and strategy to avoid the premature thermal-breakthrough in critical cases is discussed. The present numerical model is applied to simulate an experimental field study which is found to approximate the field results quite well.

Center of thermal-physical data for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bobkov, V.P.; Blokhin, A.I.; Ivashkevich, A.A.; Katan, I.B.; Peskov, O.L.; Pan'kov, V.M.; Savanin, N.K.; Sal'nikova, O.V.; Khrushcheva, E.N.; Kirova, T.S.

1982-01-01

The specific features of a specialized Center of thermal-physical data (CTD) are considered. The center has been created for data acquisition, storage and analysis and working out recommendations on the following NPP thermal physics sections: hydrodynamics of channel flows (monophase laminar and turbulent, and two-phase flows, hydrodynamic vibrations) heat exchange in NPP elements, thermohydraulic calculations of nuclear reactor cores, heat exchangers, steam generators and NPP cooling system elements, coolant properties (water and steam, liquid metals and gases). On the CTD data base an automated system ASKhOD, oriented to EC computer, is created. The ASKhoD software ensures data allocation on magnetic tapes or other carriers, automated renewal and data relocation, data search in compliance with a specified set of signs, data processing for the purpose of their estimation or obtaining optimized model constants. Different publications in home and foreign magazines, conference, seminar materials, organization preprints serve as the data sources used for the formation of the ASKhOD data base

Center of thermal-physical data for nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bobkov, V P; Blokhin, A I; Ivashkevich, A A; Katan, I B; Peskov, O L; Pan' kov, V M; Savanin, N K; Sal' nikova, O V; Khrushcheva, E N; Kirova, T S

1982-09-01

The specific features of a specialized Center of thermal-physical data (CTD) are considered. The center has been created for data acquisition, storage and analysis and working out recommendations on the following NPP thermal physics sections: hydrodynamics of channel flows (monophase laminar and turbulent, and two-phase flows, hydrodynamic vibrations) heat exchange in NPP elements, thermohydraulic calculations of nuclear reactor cores, heat exchangers, steam generators and NPP cooling system elements, coolant properties (water and steam, liquid metals and gases). On the CTD data base an automated system ASKhOD, oriented to EC computer, is created. The ASKhoD software ensures data allocation on magnetic tapes or other carriers, automated renewal and data relocation, data search in compliance with a specified set of signs, data processing for the purpose of their estimation or obtaining optimized model constants. Different publications in home and foreign magazines, conference, seminar materials, organization preprints serve as the data sources used for the formation of the ASKhOD data base.

Thermal performance measurements on ATLAS-SCT KB forward modules

CERN Document Server

Donegà, M; D'Onofrio, M; Ferrère, D; Hirt, C; Ikegami, Y; Kohriki, T; Kondo, T; Lindsay, S; Mangin-Brinet, M; Niinikoski, T O; Pernegger, H; Perrin, E; Taylor, G; Terada, S; Unno, Y; Wallny, R; Weber, M

2003-01-01

The thermal design of the KB module is presented. A Finite Elements Analysis (FEA) has been used to finalize the module design. The thermal performance of an outer irradiated KB module has been measured at different cooling conditions. The thermal runaway of the module has been measured. The FEA model has been compared with the measurements and has been used to predict the thermal performance in a realistic SCT scenario.

Effect of thermal state and thermal comfort on cycling performance in the heat.

Science.gov (United States)

Schulze, Emiel; Daanen, Hein A M; Levels, Koen; Casadio, Julia R; Plews, Daniel J; Kilding, Andrew E; Siegel, Rodney; Laursen, Paul B

2015-07-01

To determine the effect of thermal state and thermal comfort on cycling performance in the heat. Seven well-trained male triathletes completed 3 performance trials consisting of 60 min cycling at a fixed rating of perceived exertion (14) followed immediately by a 20-km time trial in hot (30°C) and humid (80% relative humidity) conditions. In a randomized order, cyclists either drank ambient-temperature (30°C) fluid ad libitum during exercise (CON), drank ice slurry (-1°C) ad libitum during exercise (ICE), or precooled with iced towels and ice slurry ingestion (15 g/kg) before drinking ice slurry ad libitum during exercise (PC+ICE). Power output, rectal temperature, and ratings of thermal comfort were measured. Overall mean power output was possibly higher in ICE (+1.4%±1.8% [90% confidence limit]; 0.4> smallest worthwhile change [SWC]) and likely higher PC+ICE (+2.5%±1.9%; 1.5>SWC) than in CON; however, no substantial differences were shown between PC+ICE and ICE (unclear). Time-trial performance was likely enhanced in ICE compared with CON (+2.4%±2.7%; 1.4>SWC) and PC+ICE (+2.9%±3.2%; 1.9>SWC). Differences in mean rectal temperature during exercise were unclear between trials. Ratings of thermal comfort were likely and very likely lower during exercise in ICE and PC+ICE, respectively, than in CON. While PC+ICE had a stronger effect on mean power output compared with CON than ICE did, the ICE strategy enhanced late-stage time-trial performance the most. Findings suggest that thermal comfort may be as important as thermal state for maximizing performance in the heat.

Thermal performance of an innovative roof component

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dimoudi, A. [Department of Environmental Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Vassilisis Sofias 12, 67 100 Xanthi (Greece); Lykoudis, S. [Institute for Environmental Research and Sustainable Development, National Observatory of Athens, I. Metaxa and B. Pavlou, 152 36 Penteli (Greece); Androutsopoulos, A. [Buildings Department, Division of Energy Efficiency, Centre for Renewable Energy Sources (CRES), 19th km Marathonos Aven., 190 09 Pikermi (Greece)

2006-11-15

In this paper, the thermal performance of a ventilated roof component is investigated during the winter period. The ventilated roof component consists of a conventional roof structure - reinforced concrete with a layer of thermal insulation - an air gap that allows the movement of the ambient air and an external layer made of a prefabricated concrete slab. The experimental results of the ventilated roof component during the winter period are presented and its thermal performance is analysed. The effect of key construction parameters like the height of the air gap and the use of a radiant barrier in the air gap is also investigated. Analysis of the results showed that the performance of a ventilated roof component is comparable to a conventional structure during winter. The ventilated component is shown to be in compliance with Greek regulatory requirements in terms of U-value. (author)

Thermal interface pastes nanostructured for high performance

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Chuangang

Thermal interface materials in the form of pastes are needed to improve thermal contacts, such as that between a microprocessor and a heat sink of a computer. High-performance and low-cost thermal pastes have been developed in this dissertation by using polyol esters as the vehicle and various nanoscale solid components. The proportion of a solid component needs to be optimized, as an excessive amount degrades the performance, due to the increase in the bond line thickness. The optimum solid volume fraction tends to be lower when the mating surfaces are smoother, and higher when the thermal conductivity is higher. Both a low bond line thickness and a high thermal conductivity help the performance. When the surfaces are smooth, a low bond line thickness can be even more important than a high thermal conductivity, as shown by the outstanding performance of the nanoclay paste of low thermal conductivity in the smooth case (0.009 mum), with the bond line thickness less than 1 mum, as enabled by low storage modulus G', low loss modulus G" and high tan delta. However, for rough surfaces, the thermal conductivity is important. The rheology affects the bond line thickness, but it does not correlate well with the performance. This study found that the structure of carbon black is an important parameter that governs the effectiveness of a carbon black for use in a thermal paste. By using a carbon black with a lower structure (i.e., a lower DBP value), a thermal paste that is more effective than the previously reported carbon black paste was obtained. Graphite nanoplatelet (GNP) was found to be comparable in effectiveness to carbon black (CB) pastes for rough surfaces, but it is less effective for smooth surfaces. At the same filler volume fraction, GNP gives higher thermal conductivity than carbon black paste. At the same pressure, GNP gives higher bond line thickness than CB (Tokai or Cabot). The effectiveness of GNP is limited, due to the high bond line thickness. A

Transmutation Fuel Performance Code Thermal Model Verification

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gregory K. Miller; Pavel G. Medvedev

2007-09-01

FRAPCON fuel performance code is being modified to be able to model performance of the nuclear fuels of interest to the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP). The present report documents the effort for verification of the FRAPCON thermal model. It was found that, with minor modifications, FRAPCON thermal model temperature calculation agrees with that of the commercial software ABAQUS (Version 6.4-4). This report outlines the methodology of the verification, code input, and calculation results.

A balanced strategy in managing steam generator thermal performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu, M. H.; Nelson, P. R.

2009-01-01

This paper presents a balanced strategy in managing thermal performance of steam generator designed to deliver rated megawatt thermal (MWt) and megawatt electric (MWe) power without loss with some amount of thermal margin. A steam generator (SG) is a boiling heat exchanger whose thermal performance may degrade because of steam pressure loss. In other words, steam pressure loss is an indicator of thermal performance degradation. Steam pressure loss is mainly a result of either 1) tube scale induced poor boiling or 2) tube plugging historically resulting from tubing corrosion, wear due to flow induced tube vibration or loose parts impact. Thermal performance degradation was historically due to tube plugging but more recently it is due to poor boiling caused by more bad than good constituents of feedwater impurities. The whole SG industry still concentrates solely on maintenance programs towards preventing causes for tube plugging and yet almost no programs on maintaining adequate boiling of fouled tubes. There can be an acceptable amount of tube scale that provides excellent boiling capacity without tubing corrosion, as operational experience has repeatedly demonstrated. Therefore, future maintenance has to come up balanced programs for allocating limited resources in both maintaining good boiling capacity and preventing tube plugging. This paper discusses also thermal performance degradation due to feedwater impurity induced blockage of tube support plate and thus subsequent water level oscillations, and how to mitigate them. This paper provides a predictive management of tube scale for maintaining adequate steam pressure and stable water level without loss in MWt/MWe or recovering from steam pressure loss or water level oscillations. This paper offers a balanced strategy in managing SG thermal performance to fulfill its mission. Such a strategy is even more important in view of the industry trend in pursuing extended power uprate as high as 20 percent

Thermal performance envelopes for MHTGRs - Reliability by design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Etzel, K.T.; Howard, W.W.; Zgliczynski, J.

1992-01-01

Thermal performance envelopes are used to specify steady-state design requirements for the systems of the modular high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (MHTGR) to maximize plant performance reliability with optimized design. The thermal performance envelopes are constructed around the expected operating point to account for uncertainties in actual plant as-built parameters and plant operation. The components are then designed to perform successfully at all points within the envelope. As a result, plant reliability is maximized by accounting for component thermal performance variation in the design. The design is optimized by providing a means to determine required margins in a disciplined and visible fashion. This is accomplished by coordinating these requirements with the various system and component designers in the early stages of the design, applying the principles of total quality management. The design is challenged by the more complex requirements associated with a range of operating conditions, but in return, high probability of delivering reliable performance throughout the plant life is ensured

Thermal annealing of gamma irradiated ammonium chloride (Preprint no. RC-37)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kalkar, C.D.; Lala, Neeta

1991-01-01

Ammonium chloride produces N 2 H 4 + and Cl 2 as the main radiolytic products on gamma irradiation. Thermal annealing has a marked effect on the stability of N 2 H 4 + and Cl 2 . During the thermal annealing the chemical yield of nitrite and iodine was studied by dissolving irradiated ammonium chloride in aqueous sodium nitrate and potassium iodide respectively. The yield of iodine in isochronal annealing showed an exponential behaviour with temperature while that of nitrite showed a decrease and then increases at higher temperatures. The results are explained on the basis of dissociation and recombination of N 2 H 4 + with temperature. (author). 3 refs., 2 figs

Convective Heat Transfer Coefficients of Automatic Transmission Fluid Jets with Implications for Electric Machine Thermal Management: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bennion, Kevin; Moreno, Gilberto

2015-09-29

Thermal management for electric machines (motors/ generators) is important as the automotive industry continues to transition to more electrically dominant vehicle propulsion systems. Cooling of the electric machine(s) in some electric vehicle traction drive applications is accomplished by impinging automatic transmission fluid (ATF) jets onto the machine's copper windings. In this study, we provide the results of experiments characterizing the thermal performance of ATF jets on surfaces representative of windings, using Ford's Mercon LV ATF. Experiments were carried out at various ATF temperatures and jet velocities to quantify the influence of these parameters on heat transfer coefficients. Fluid temperatures were varied from 50 degrees C to 90 degrees C to encompass potential operating temperatures within an automotive transaxle environment. The jet nozzle velocities were varied from 0.5 to 10 m/s. The experimental ATF heat transfer coefficient results provided in this report are a useful resource for understanding factors that influence the performance of ATF-based cooling systems for electric machines.

Performance analysis of a lunar based solar thermal power system with regolith thermal storage

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lu, Xiaochen; Ma, Rong; Wang, Chao; Yao, Wei

2016-01-01

The manned deep-space exploration is a hot topic of the current space activities. The continuous supply of thermal and electrical energy for the scientific equipment and human beings is a crucial issue for the lunar outposts. Since the night lasts for periods of about 350 h at most locations on the lunar surface, massive energy storage is required for continuous energy supply during the lengthy lunar night and the in-situ resource utilization is demanded. A lunar based solar thermal power system with regolith thermal storage is presented in this paper. The performance analysis is carried out by the finite-time thermodynamics to take into account major irreversible losses. The influences of some key design parameters are analyzed for system optimization. The analytical results shows that the lunar based solar thermal power system with regolith thermal storage can meet the requirement of the continuous energy supply for lunar outposts. - Highlights: • A lunar based solar thermal power system with regolith thermal storage is presented. • The performance analysis is carried out by the finite-time thermodynamics. • The influences of some key design parameters are analyzed.

Thermal performances of an insulating structure for a reactor vessel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aranovitch, E.; Crutzen, S.; Le Det, M.; Denis, R.

1974-12-01

This report describes the thermal and technological tests performed on a multilayer thermal insulation system for high temperature gas reactors. It includes the description of test facilities, global tests, interpretation of data, and technological tests. Results obtained make it possible to predetermine with a satisfactory precision thermal performances under various nominal conditions

Parametric study of closed wet cooling tower thermal performance

Science.gov (United States)

Qasim, S. M.; Hayder, M. J.

2017-08-01

The present study involves experimental and theoretical analysis to evaluate the thermal performance of modified Closed Wet Cooling Tower (CWCT). The experimental study includes: design, manufacture and testing prototype of a modified counter flow forced draft CWCT. The modification based on addition packing to the conventional CWCT. A series of experiments was carried out at different operational parameters. In view of energy analysis, the thermal performance parameters of the tower are: cooling range, tower approach, cooling capacity, thermal efficiency, heat and mass transfer coefficients. The theoretical study included develops Artificial Neural Network (ANN) models to predicting various thermal performance parameters of the tower. Utilizing experimental data for training and testing, the models simulated by multi-layer back propagation algorithm for varying all operational parameters stated in experimental test.

Ecological Aspects of the Performed Thermal Reclamation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Łucarz M.

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The thermal analysis results of the selected group of binders and the thermal reclamation of one spent moulding sand with organic binder, are presented in the paper. The reclaiming process of the quartz matrix was performed on the basis of the own method of selecting the reclamation temperature. Taking into account thermogravimetric (TG analysis results of the binder, the temperature range - required for performing the efficient reclamation of spent moulding sand containing this binder - was indicated. In order to confirm the assumptions, the thermal reclamation operations were carried out at a temperature similar to the determined on the TG basis and - for comparisons - at lower and higher temperatures. During the reclamation operation the reclaim samples were taken for the loss on ignition testing, aimed at the determination of the process efficiency. Temperature in the reclaimer chamber and gas consumptions were also recorded. On the bases of the thermal analyses, loss on ignition, gas consumption and temperatures of the reclaimed moulding sand bed the recommendations for the realisation of the thermal reclamation were given. These recommendations will allow a better, than currently available, process control in an aspect of decreasing the pyrolysis effect and limiting the emission of substances harmful for the environment.

Thermal performance of Danish solar combi systems in practice and in theory

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Elsa; Shah, Louise Jivan; Furbo, Simon

2004-01-01

An overview of measured thermal performances of Danish solar combi systems in practice is given. The thermal performance varies greatly from system to system. Measured and calculated thermal performances of different solar combi systems are compared and the main reasons for the different thermal ...... as theoretically expected....

Performance analysis of photovoltaic thermal (PVT) water collectors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fudholi, Ahmad; Sopian, Kamaruzzaman; Yazdi, Mohammad H.; Ruslan, Mohd Hafidz; Ibrahim, Adnan; Kazem, Hussein A.

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Performances analysis of PVT collector based on energy efficiencies. • New absorber designs of PVT collectors were presented. • Comparison present study with other absorber collector designs was presented. • High efficiencies were obtained for spiral flow absorber. - Abstract: The electrical and thermal performances of photovoltaic thermal (PVT) water collectors were determined under 500–800 W/m 2 solar radiation levels. At each solar radiation level, mass flow rates ranging from 0.011 kg/s to 0.041 kg/s were introduced. The PVT collectors were tested with respect to PV efficiency, thermal efficiency, and a combination of both (PVT efficiency). The results show that the spiral flow absorber exhibited the highest performance at a solar radiation level of 800 W/m 2 and mass flow rate of 0.041 kg/s. This absorber produced a PVT efficiency of 68.4%, a PV efficiency of 13.8%, and a thermal efficiency of 54.6%. It also produced a primary-energy saving efficiency ranging from 79% to 91% at a mass flow rate of 0.011–0.041 kg/s

Effect of thermal acclimation on thermal preference, resistance and locomotor performance of hatchling soft-shelled turtle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mei-Xian WU,Ling-Jun HU, Wei DANG, Hong-Liang LU, Wei-Guo DU

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The significant influence of thermal acclimation on physiological and behavioral performance has been documented in many ectothermic animals, but such studies are still limited in turtle species. We acclimated hatchling soft-shelled turtles Pelodiscus sinensis under three thermal conditions (10, 20 and 30 °C for 4 weeks, and then measured selected body temperature (Tsel, critical thermal minimum (CTMin and maximum (CTMax, and locomotor performance at different body temperatures. Thermal acclimation significantly affected thermal preference and resistance of P. sinensis hatchlings. Hatchling turtles acclimated to 10 °C selected relatively lower body temperatures and were less resistant to high temperatures than those acclimated to 20 °C and 30 °C. The turtles’ resistance to low temperatures increased with a decreasing acclimation temperature. The thermal resistance range (i.e. the difference between CTMax and CTMin, TRR was widest in turtles acclimated to 20 °C, and narrowest in those acclimated to 10 °C. The locomotor performance of turtles was affected by both body temperature and acclimation temperature. Hatchling turtles acclimated to relatively higher temperatures swam faster than did those acclimated to lower temperatures. Accordingly, hatchling turtles acclimated to a particular temperature may not enhance the performance at that temperature. Instead, hatchlings acclimated to relatively warm temperatures have a better performance, supporting the “hotter is better” hypothesis [Current Zoology 59 (6 : 718–724, 2013 ].

Thermal performance enhancement in nanofluids containing diamond nanoparticles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xie Huaqing; Yu Wei; Li Yang

2009-01-01

Nanofluids, nanoparticle suspensions prepared by dispersing nanoscale particles in a base fluid, have been gaining interest lately due to their potential to greatly outperform traditional thermal transport liquids. Diamond has the highest thermal transport capacity in nature and diamond particles are often used as filler in mixtures for upgrading the performance of a matrix. It is reasonable to expect that the addition of diamond nanoparticles (DNPs) would lead to thermal performance enhancement in a base fluid. In this study, homogeneous and stable nanofluids composed of DNPs as the inclusions and a mixture of ethylene glycol (EG) and water as base fluid have been prepared. Acid mixtures of perchloric acid, nitric acid and hydrochloric acid were employed to purify and tailor the DNPs to eliminate impurities and to enhance their dispersibilty. Ultrasound and the alkalinity of solution are beneficial to the deaggregation of the soft DNP aggregations. The thermal conductivity enhancement of the DNP nanofluids increases with DNP loading and the thermal conductivity enhancement is more than 18.0% for a nanofluid at a DNP volume fraction of 0.02. Viscosity measurements show that the DNP nanofluids demonstrate Newtonian behaviour, and the viscosity significantly decreases with temperature. With increasing volume fraction of DNPs, the convective heat transfer coefficient increases first, and then decreases with a further increase in the volume fraction of DNPs. The nanofluid with a volume fraction of 0.005 has optimal overall thermal performance.

THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF FLAT PLATE SOLAR COLLECTOR

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

TABET I.

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In this paper, a theoretical and experimental studyof flat platesolar water collector with reflectors.A mathematical model based on energy balance equations saw the thermal behavior of the collector is investigated. The experimental test was made at the unit research applies in renewable energy (URAER located in southern Algeria.An increase of 23% for solar radiation incident on the collector surface with the addition of the planers reflectors in the day of May, this increase causes an improvement of the performance of the collector,the fluid temperature increases with an average of 5%. Thetests conducted on the flat plate solar water collector in open circuit enabled the determination of thermal performance of the collector by estimating the daily output The thermal efficiency of the collector ranges from 1% -63% during the day, a mean value of 36%obtained.

Preprint of the Fall 1997 JSAE (Japan Society of Automotive Engineers) Meeting Science Lecture. No. 975; Jidosha gijutsukai 1997 nen shuki taikai gakujutsu koenkai maezurishu. 975

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

1997-10-01

No. 975 preprint of the Fall 1997 JSAE was summarized. As for the engine development, papers were made public on a study of reciprocating engine with Z mechanism, the combustion control system, etc. Attention was paid to internal combustion engine-electricity hybrid systems in terms of global warming prevention, and a study was made of environmental improvement effects by introducing next-generation automobiles. Image analysis and computer utilization in the structural design were also described. As to diesel engines, the combustion system and the exhaust gas problem were much studied. Also made were flow analysis on air conditioning and evaluation on the indoor thermal environment. Concerning the manufacturing process and materials, a lot of improvements were made public on thermal fatique resistance, reinforced materials, adoption of ceramics, corrosion resistance/wear resistance, etc. Operability and human engineering, and dynamics and safety are also important themes. Relating to the fuel, low fuel comsumption and additives were studied. The paper reported transmissions and the control systems, torque-transmitting mechanism, frictional property, etc. Especially, research/development were also much made of friction/wear resistant materials. ed and developed

Experiment Investigation on Electrical and Thermal Performances of a Semitransparent Photovoltaic/Thermal System with Water Cooling

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Guiqiang Li

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Different from the semitransparent building integrated photovoltaic/thermal (BIPV/T system with air cooling, the semitransparent BIPV/T system with water cooling is rare, especially based on the silicon solar cells. In this paper, a semitransparent photovoltaic/thermal system (SPV/T with water cooling was set up, which not only would provide the electrical power and hot water, but also could attain the natural illumination for the building. The PV efficiency, thermal efficiency, and exergy analysis were all adopted to illustrate the performance of SPV/T system. The results showed that the PV efficiency and the thermal efficiency were about 11.5% and 39.5%, respectively, on the typical sunny day. Furthermore, the PV and thermal efficiencies fit curves were made to demonstrate the SPV/T performance more comprehensively. The performance analysis indicated that the SPV/T system has a good application prospect for building.

High Performance Flat Plate Solar Thermal Collector Evaluation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Rockenbaugh, Caleb [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Dean, Jesse [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Lovullo, David [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Lisell, Lars [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Barker, Greg [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Hanckock, Ed [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Norton, Paul [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2016-09-01

This report was prepared for the General Services Administration by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The Honeycomb Solar Thermal Collector (HSTC) is a flat plate solar thermal collector that shows promising high efficiencies over a wide range of climate zones. The technical objectives of this study are to: 1) verify collector performance, 2) compare that performance to other market-available collectors, 3) verify overheat protection, and 4) analyze the economic performance of the HSTC both at the demonstration sites and across a matrix of climate zones and utility markets.

Air-Filled Nanopore Based High-Performance Thermal Insulation Materials

OpenAIRE

Gangåssæter, Haakon Fossen; Jelle, Bjørn Petter; Alex Mofid, Sohrab; Gao, Tao

2017-01-01

State-of-the-art thermal insulation solutions like vacuum insulation panels (VIP) and aerogels have low thermal conductivity, but their drawbacks may make them unable to be the thermal insulation solutions that will revolutionize the building industry regarding energy-efficient building envelopes. Nevertheless, learning from these materials may be crucial to make new and novel high-performance thermal insulation products. This study presents a review on the state-of-the-art air-filled thermal...

Performance reliability prediction for thermal aging based on kalman filtering

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ren Shuhong; Wen Zhenhua; Xue Fei; Zhao Wensheng

2015-01-01

The performance reliability of the nuclear power plant main pipeline that failed due to thermal aging was studied by the performance degradation theory. Firstly, through the data obtained from the accelerated thermal aging experiments, the degradation process of the impact strength and fracture toughness of austenitic stainless steel material of the main pipeline was analyzed. The time-varying performance degradation model based on the state space method was built, and the performance trends were predicted by using Kalman filtering. Then, the multi-parameter and real-time performance reliability prediction model for the main pipeline thermal aging was developed by considering the correlation between the impact properties and fracture toughness, and by using the stochastic process theory. Thus, the thermal aging performance reliability and reliability life of the main pipeline with multi-parameter were obtained, which provides the scientific basis for the optimization management of the aging maintenance decision making for nuclear power plant main pipelines. (authors)

A Facile Approach to Evaluate Thermal Insulation Performance of Paper Cups

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yudi Kuang

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Paper cups are ubiquitous in daily life for serving water, soup, coffee, tea, and milk due to their convenience, biodegradability, recyclability, and sustainability. The thermal insulation performance of paper cups is of significance because they are used to supply hot food or drinks. Using an effective thermal conductivity to accurately evaluate the thermal insulation performance of paper cups is complex due to the inclusion of complicated components and a multilayer structure. Moreover, an effective thermal conductivity is unsuitable for evaluating thermal insulation performance of paper cups in the case of fluctuating temperature. In this work, we propose a facile approach to precisely analyze the thermal insulation performance of paper cups in a particular range of temperature by using an evaluation model based on the MISO (Multiple-Input Single-Output technical theory, which includes a characterization parameter (temperature factor and a measurement apparatus. A series of experiments was conducted according to this evaluation model, and the results show that this evaluation model enables accurate characterization of the thermal insulation performance of paper cups and provides an efficient theoretical basis for selecting paper materials for paper cups.

PRODUCTION TECHNICS AT GRAPHIC DESIGN EDUCATION AND THE NECCESSITY OF PREPARATION KNOWLEDGE OF PRE-PRINTING

OpenAIRE

CEYLAN, İbrahim Gökhan

2015-01-01

It is neccessary to teach the knowledge of production technics and pre-printing preparations besides the knowledge of developing creativity and aesthetic concerns in order to educate the designers to fullfill the needs of the sector totally at graphic design education. The printed materials prepared by the graphic designer should be evaluated in proper criterias ıf the materials are to be printed. Graphic designers should have the knowledge of the required knowledge of the area in order to me...

Study of skin model and geometry effects on thermal performance of thermal protective fabrics

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Fanglong; Ma, Suqin; Zhang, Weiyuan

2008-05-01

Thermal protective clothing has steadily improved over the years as new materials and improved designs have reached the market. A significant method that has brought these improvements to the fire service is the NFPA 1971 standard on structural fire fighters’ protective clothing. However, this testing often neglects the effects of cylindrical geometry on heat transmission in flame resistant fabrics. This paper deals with methods to develop cylindrical geometry testing apparatus incorporating novel skin bioheat transfer model to test flame resistant fabrics used in firefighting. Results show that fabrics which shrink during the test can have reduced thermal protective performance compared with the qualities measured with a planar geometry tester. Results of temperature differences between skin simulant sensors of planar and cylindrical tester are also compared. This test method provides a new technique to accurately and precisely characterize the thermal performance of thermal protective fabrics.

Emission and thermal performance upgrade through advanced control backfit

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Banerjee, A.K. [Stone & Webster Engineering Corporation, Boston, MA (United States)

1994-12-31

Reducing emission and improving thermal performance of currently operating power plants is a high priority. A majority of these power plants are over 20 years old with old control systems. Upgrading the existing control systems with the latest technology has many benefits, the most cost beneficial are the reduction of emission and improving thermal performance. The payback period is usually less than two years. Virginia Power is installing Stone & Webster`s NO{sub x} Emissions Advisor and Advanced Steam Temperature Control systems on Possum Point Units 3 and 4 to achieve near term NO{sub x} reductions while maintaining high thermal performance. Testing has demonstrated NO{sub x} reductions of greater than 20 percent through the application of NO{sub x} Emissions Advisor on these units. The Advanced Steam Temperature Control system which has been operational at Virginia Power`s Mt. Storm Unit 1 has demonstrated a signification improvement in unit thermal performance and controllability. These control systems are being combined at Units 3 and 4 to reduce NO{sub x} emissions and achieve improved unit thermal performance and control response with the existing combustion hardware. Installation has been initiated and is expected to be completed by the spring of 1995. Possum Point Power Station Units 3 and 4 are pulverized coal, tangentially fired boilers producing 107 and 232 MW and have a distributed control system and a PC based performance monitoring system. The installation of the advanced control and automation system will utilize existing control equipment requiring the addition of several PCs and PLC.

Thermal performance of the ATST secondary mirror

Science.gov (United States)

Cho, Myung K.; DeVries, Joe; Hansen, Eric

2007-12-01

The Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) has a 4.24m off-axis primary mirror designed to deliver diffractionlimited images of the sun. Its baseline secondary mirror (M2) design uses a 0.65m diameter Silicon Carbide mirror mounted kinematically by a bi-pod flexure mechanism at three equally spaced locations. Unlike other common telescopes, the ATST M2 is to be exposed to a significant solar heat loading. A thermal management system (TMS) will be developed to accommodate the solar loading and minimize "mirror seeing effect" by controlling the temperature difference between the M2 optical surface and the ambient air at the site. Thermo-elastic analyses for steady state thermal behaviors of the ATST secondary mirror was performed using finite element analysis by I-DEAS TM and PCRINGE TM for the optical analysis. We examined extensive heat transfer simulation cases and their results were discussed. The goal of this study is to establish thermal models by I-DEAS for an adequate thermal environment. These thermal models will be useful for estimating segment thermal responses. Current study assumes a few sample time dependent thermal loadings to synthesize the operational environment.

Thermal performances of ETFE cushion roof integrated amorphous silicon photovoltaic

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hu, Jianhui; Chen, Wujun; Qiu, Zhenyu; Zhao, Bing; Zhou, Jinyu; Qu, Yegao

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal performances of a three layer ETFE cushion integrated a-Si PV is evaluated. • Temperature of a-Si PV obviously affects temperature field and temperature boundary. • The maximum temperature difference of 3.4 K between measured and numerical results. • Main transport mechanisms in upper and lower chambers are convection and conduction. • Heat transfer coefficients of this roof are less than those of other ETFE cushion roofs. - Abstract: Thermal performances of the ETFE cushion roof integrated amorphous silicon photovoltaic (a-Si PV) are essential to estimate building performances, such as temperature distribution and heat transfer coefficient. To investigate these thermal performances, an experimental mock-up composed of a-Si PV and a three-layer ETFE cushion roof was built and the experiment was carried out under summer sunny condition. Meanwhile, numerical model with real boundary conditions was performed in this paper. The experimental results show that the temperature sequence of the three layers was the middle, top and bottom layer and that the PV temperature caused by solar irradiance was 353.8 K. This gives evidence that the PV has a significant effect on the temperature distribution. The experimental temperature was in good agreement with the corresponding location of the numerical temperature since the maximum temperature difference was only 3.4 K. Therefore, the numerical results were justified and then used to analyze the airflow characteristics and calculate the thermal performances. For the airflow characteristics, it is found that the temperature distribution was not uniform and the main transport mechanisms in the upper and lower chambers formed by the three layers were the convection and conduction, respectively. For the thermal performances, the surface convective heat transfer coefficients were obtained, which have validated that thermal performances of the three-layer ETFE cushion integrated a-Si PV are better than

Thermal performances of molten salt steam generator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yuan, Yibo; He, Canming; Lu, Jianfeng; Ding, Jing

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal performances of molten salt steam generator were experimentally studied. • Overall heat transfer coefficient reached maximum with optimal molten salt flow rate. • Energy efficiency first rose and then decreased with salt flow rate and temperature. • Optimal molten salt flow rate and temperature existed for good thermal performance. • High inlet water temperature benefited steam generating rate and energy efficiency. - Abstract: Molten salt steam generator is the key technology for thermal energy conversion from high temperature molten salt to steam, and it is used in solar thermal power station and molten salt reactor. A shell and tube type molten salt steam generator was set up, and its thermal performance and heat transfer mechanism were studied. As a coupling heat transfer process, molten salt steam generation is mainly affected by molten salt convective heat transfer and boiling heat transfer, while its energy efficiency is also affected by the heat loss. As molten salt temperature increased, the energy efficiency first rose with the increase of heat flow absorbed by water/steam, and then slightly decreased for large heat loss as the absorbed heat flow still rising. At very high molten salt temperature, the absorbed heat flow decreased as boiling heat transfer coefficient dropping, and then the energy efficiency quickly dropped. As the inlet water temperature increased, the boiling region in the steam generator remarkably expanded, and then the steam generation rate and energy efficiency both rose with the overall heat transfer coefficient increasing. As the molten salt flow rate increased, the wall temperature rose and the boiling heat transfer coefficient first increased and then decreased according to the boiling curve, so the overall heat transfer coefficient first increased and then decreased, and then the steam generation rate and energy efficiency of steam generator both had maxima.

The Fuel Performance Analysis of LWR Fuel containing High Thermal Conductivity Reinforcements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Seung Su; Ryu, Ho Jin

2015-01-01

The thermal conductivity of fuel affects many performance parameters including the fuel centerline temperature, fission gas release and internal pressure. In addition, enhanced safety margin of fuel might be expected when the thermal conductivity of fuel is improved by the addition of high thermal conductivity reinforcements. Therefore, the effects of thermal conductivity enhancement on the fuel performance of reinforced UO2 fuel with high thermal conductivity compounds should be analyzed. In this study, we analyzed the fuel performance of modified UO2 fuel with high thermal conductivity reinforcements by using the FRAPCON-3.5 code. The fissile density and mechanical properties of the modified fuel are considered the same with the standard UO2 fuel. The fuel performance of modified UO2 with high thermal conductivity reinforcements were analyzed by using the FRAPCON-3.5 code. The thermal conductivity enhancement factors of the modified fuels were obtained from the Maxwell model considering the volume fraction of reinforcements

Thermal performance analysis of a solar heating plant

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fan, Jianhua; Huang, Junpeng; Andersen, Ola Lie

was developed to calculate thermal performances of the plant. In the Trnsys model, three solar collector fields with a total solar collector area of 33,300 m2, a seasonal water pit heat storage of 75,000 m3, a simplified CO2 HP, a simplified ORC unit and a simplified wood chip boiler were included. The energy......Detailed measurements were carried out on a large scale solar heating plant located in southern Denmark in order to evaluate thermal performances of the plant. Based on the measurements, energy flows of the plant were evaluated. A modified Trnsys model of the Marstal solar heating plant...... consumption of the district heating net was modeled by volume flow rate and given forward and return temperatures of the district heating net. Weather data from a weather station at the site of the plant were used in the calculations. The Trnsys calculated yearly thermal performance of the solar heating plant...

Dynamic thermal performance of alveolar brick construction system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gracia, A. de; Castell, A.; Medrano, M.; Cabeza, L.F.

2011-01-01

Highlights: → Even though U-value does not measure thermal inertia, it is the commonly used parameter. → The thermal performance analysis of buildings must include the evaluation of transient parameters. → Transient parameters of alveolar brick constructive system show good agreement with its low energy consumption. -- Abstract: Alveolar bricks are being introduced in building sector due to the simplicity of their construction system and to the elimination of the insulation material. Nevertheless, it is not clear if this new system is energetically efficient and which is its thermal behaviour. This paper presents an experimental and theoretical study to evaluate the thermal behaviour of the alveolar brick construction system, compared with a traditional Mediterranean brick system with insulation. The experimental study consists of measuring the thermal performance of four real house-like cubicles. The thermal transmittance in steady-state, also known as U-value, is calculated theoretically and experimentally for each cubicle, presenting the insulated cubicles as the best construction system, with differences around 45% in comparison to the alveolar one. On the other hand, experimental results show significantly smaller differences on the energy consumption between the alveolar and insulated construction systems during summer period (around 13% higher for the alveolar cubicle). These values demonstrate the high thermal efficiency of the alveolar system. In addition, the lack of agreement between the measured energy consumption and the calculated U-values, guides the authors to analyze the thermal inertia of the different building components. Therefore, several transient parameters, extracted from the heat transfer matrix and from experimental data, are also evaluated. It can be concluded that the alveolar brick construction system presents higher thermal inertia than the insulated one, justifying the low measured energy consumption.

Study of the electrical and thermal performances of photovoltaic thermal collector-compound parabolic concentrated

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ahed Hameed Jaaz

2018-06-01

Full Text Available The importance of utilizing the solar energy as a very suitable source among multi-source approaches to replace the conventional energy is on the rise in the last four decades. The invention of the photovoltaic module (PV could be the corner stone in this process. However, the limited amount of energy obtained from PV was and still the main challenge of full utilization of the solar energy. In this paper, the use of the compound parabolic concentrator (CPC along with the thermal photovoltaic module (PVT where the cooling process of the CPC is conducted using a novel technique of water jet impingement has applied experimentally and physically tested. The test includes the effect of water jet impingement on the total power, electrical efficiency, thermal efficiency, and total efficiency on CPC-PVT system. The cooling process at the maximum irradiation by water jet impingement resulted in improving the electrical efficiency by 7%, total output power by 31% and the thermal efficiency by 81%. These results outperform the recent highest results recorded by the most recent work. Keywords: Photovoltaic thermal collectors, Electrical performance, Thermal performance, Compound parabolic concentrator, Jet impingement

Investigation of Thermal Performance for Atria: a Method Overview

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Moosavi Leila

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The importance of low energy design in large buildings has encouraged researchers to implement different methods for predicting a building’s thermal performance. Atria, as energy efficient features, have been implemented to improve the indoor thermal environment in large modern buildings. Though widely implemented, the thorough study of atrium performance is restricted due to its large size, complex thermodynamic behavior and the inaccuracies and limitations of available prediction tools. This study reviews the most common research tools implemented in previous researches on atria thermal performance, to explore the advantages and limitation of different methods for future studies. The methods reviewed are analytical, experimental, computer modelling and a combination of any or all of these methods. The findings showed that CFD (computational fluid dynamic models are the most popular tools of recent due to their higher accuracy, capabilities and user-friendly modification. Although the experimental methods were reliable for predicting atria thermal and ventilation performance, they have mostly been used to provide data for validation of CFD models. Furthermore, coupling CFD with other experimental models could increase the reliability and accuracy of the models and provide a more comprehensive analysis.

Performance testing of thermal analysis codes for nuclear fuel casks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Sanchez, L.C.

1987-01-01

In 1982 Sandia National Laboratories held the First Industry/Government Joint Thermal and Structural Codes Information Exchange and presented the initial stages of an investigation of thermal analysis computer codes for use in the design of nuclear fuel shipping casks. The objective of the investigation was to (1) document publicly available computer codes, (2) assess code capabilities as determined from their user's manuals, and (3) assess code performance on cask-like model problems. Computer codes are required to handle the thermal phenomena of conduction, convection and radiation. Several of the available thermal computer codes were tested on a set of model problems to assess performance on cask-like problems. Solutions obtained with the computer codes for steady-state thermal analysis were in good agreement and the solutions for transient thermal analysis differed slightly among the computer codes due to modeling differences

Numerical investigation of temperature distribution and thermal performance while charging-discharging thermal energy in aquifer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ganguly, Sayantan; Mohan Kumar, M.S.; Date, Abhijit; Akbarzadeh, Aliakbar

2017-01-01

Highlights: • A 3D coupled thermo-hydrogeological numerical model of an ATES system is presented. • Importance of a few parameters involved in the study is determined. • Thermal energy discharge by the ATES system for two seasons is estimated. • A strategy and a safe well spacing are proposed to avoid thermal interference. • The proposed model is applied to simulate a real life ATES field study. - Abstract: A three-dimensional (3D) coupled thermo-hydrogeological numerical model for a confined aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) system underlain and overlain by rock media has been presented in this paper. The ATES system operates in cyclic mode. The model takes into account heat transport processes of advection, conduction and heat loss to confining rock media. The model also includes regional groundwater flow in the aquifer in the longitudinal and lateral directions, geothermal gradient and anisotropy in the aquifer. Results show that thermal injection into the aquifer results in the generation of a thermal-front which grows in size with time. The thermal interference caused by the premature thermal-breakthrough when the thermal-front reaches the production well results in the fall of system performance and hence should be avoided. This study models the transient temperature distribution in the aquifer for different flow and geological conditions which may be effectively used in designing an efficient ATES project by ensuring safety from thermal-breakthrough while catering to the energy demand. Parameter studies are also performed which reveals that permeability of the confining rocks; well spacing and injection temperature are important parameters which influence transient heat transport in the subsurface porous media. Based on the simulations here a safe well spacing is proposed. The thermal energy produced by the system in two seasons is estimated for four different cases and strategy to avoid the premature thermal-breakthrough in critical cases is

The thermal performance of earth buildings

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heathcote, K.

2011-09-01

Full Text Available This paper examines the theoretical basis for the thermal performance of earth walls and links it to some test results on buildings constructed by the author, and to their predicted performance using a sophisticated computer modelling program. The analysis shows that for all earth walls the steady state thermal resistance is low but that for walls greater than about 450 mm thick the cyclic thermal resistance is high and increases exponentially. Whilst the steady state resistance of all thickness walls is low and results in higher than normal average temperatures in summer and lower than normal in winter the ability of thick earth walls to even out the swings in temperature is thought to be responsible for the materials reputation. The paper notes that good passive design principles (such as providing internal thermal mass and large areas of glazing for winter performance will greatly improve the performance of earth buildings with thin walls, but it is the author’s opinion that external earth walls should be at least 450 mm thick to gain the full benefit of thermal mass.

Este artículo examina la base teórica del comportamiento térmico de las paredes de tierra y la relaciona con varios resultados de test realizados sobre edificios construidos por el autor, y con su comportamiento previsto utilizando un sofisticado programa de modelado por ordenador. El análisis muestra que la resistencia térmica constante es baja para todas las paredes de tierra, pero que para muros con un grosor mayor que 450 mm la resistencia térmica cíclica es alta y se incrementa exponencialmente. Mientras que la resistencia térmica constante de las paredes de cualquier grosor es baja y se traduce en temperaturas más altas que la media en verano y más bajas que la media en invierno, la capacidad de las paredes gruesas de tierra para amortiguar las variaciones de temperatura es la responsable de la reputación de los materiales. El artículo señala que los

Thermal comfort, physiological responses and performance during exposure to a moderate temperature drift

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schellen, Lisje; van Marken Lichtenbelt, Wouter; de Wit, Martin

2008-01-01

The objective of this research was to study the effects of a moderate temperature drift on human thermal comfort, physiological responses, productivity and performance. A dynamic thermophysiological model was used to examine the possibility of simulating human thermal responses and thermal comfort...... temperature corresponding with a neutral thermal sensation (control situation). During the experiments both physiological responses and thermal sensation were measured. Productivity and performance were assessed with a ‘Remote Performance Measurement’ (RPM) method. Physiological and thermal sensation data...

Thermal performance of the Atlas SCT forward modules

CERN Document Server

Clark, A; Nasteva, I; Snow, S W; Wallny, R; Wilmut, I

2003-01-01

We describe the thermal design of the Atlas SCT forward modules and their cooling blocks. We report on the performance of the $C_3 F_8$ evaporative cooling system and the blocks alone, then on the performance of an irradiated inner module mounted on two alternative prototype cooling blocks (baseline and PEEK split). Runs are presented at different cooling conditions, representative of those expected to be used in the final experiment. We have also measured thermal runaway, with the module mounted on the PEEK split block and cooled with liquid cooling.

Thermal performance curves under daily thermal fluctuation: A study in helmeted water toad tadpoles.

Science.gov (United States)

Bartheld, José L; Artacho, Paulina; Bacigalupe, Leonardo

2017-12-01

Most research in physiological ecology has focused on the effects of mean changes in temperature under the classic "hot vs cold" acclimation treatment; however, current evidence suggests that an increment in both the mean and variance of temperature could act synergistically to amplify the negative effects of global temperature increase and how it would affect fitness and performance-related traits in ectothermic organisms. We assessed the effects of acclimation to daily variance of temperature on thermal performance curves of swimming speed in helmeted water toad tadpoles (Calyptocephalella gayi). Acclimation treatments were 20°C ± 0.1 SD (constant) and 20°C ± 1.5 SD (fluctuating). We draw two key findings: first, tadpoles exposed to daily temperature fluctuation had reduced maximal performance (Z max ), and flattened thermal performance curves, thus supporting the "vertical shift or faster-slower" hypothesis, and suggesting that overall swimming performance would be lower through an examination of temperatures under more realistic and ecologically-relevant fluctuating regimens; second, there was significant interindividual variation in performance traits by means of significant repeatability estimates. Our present results suggest that the widespread use of constant acclimation temperatures in laboratory experiments to estimate thermal performance curves (TPCs) may lead to an overestimation of actual organismal performance. We encourage the use of temperature fluctuation acclimation treatments to better understand the variability of physiological traits, which predict ecological and evolutionary responses to global change. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thermal Performance Analyses of Multiborehole Ground Heat Exchangers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wanjing Luo

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Geothermal energy known as a clean, renewable energy resource is widely available and reliable. Ground heat exchangers (GHEs can assist the development of geothermal energy by reducing the capital cost and greenhouse gas emission. In this paper, a novel semianalytical method was developed to study the thermal performance of multiborehole ground heat exchangers (GHEs with arbitrary configurations. By assuming a uniform inlet fluid temperature (UIFT, instead of uniform heat flux (UHF, the effects of thermal interference and the thermal performance difference between different boreholes can be examined. Simulation results indicate that the monthly average outlet fluid temperatures of GHEs will increase gradually while the annual cooling load of the GHEs is greater than the annual heating load. Besides, two mechanisms, the thermal dissipation and the heat storage effect, will determine the heat transfer underground, which can be further divided into four stages. Moreover, some boreholes will be malfunctioned; that is, boreholes can absorb heat from ground when the GHEs are under the cooling mode. However, as indicated by further investigations, this malfunction can be avoided by increasing borehole spacing.

Thermal Model Predictions of Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xiao-Yen J.; Fabanich, William Anthony; Schmitz, Paul C.

2014-01-01

This paper presents recent thermal model results of the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG). The three-dimensional (3D) ASRG thermal power model was built using the Thermal Desktop(trademark) thermal analyzer. The model was correlated with ASRG engineering unit test data and ASRG flight unit predictions from Lockheed Martin's (LM's) I-deas(trademark) TMG thermal model. The auxiliary cooling system (ACS) of the ASRG is also included in the ASRG thermal model. The ACS is designed to remove waste heat from the ASRG so that it can be used to heat spacecraft components. The performance of the ACS is reported under nominal conditions and during a Venus flyby scenario. The results for the nominal case are validated with data from Lockheed Martin. Transient thermal analysis results of ASRG for a Venus flyby with a representative trajectory are also presented. In addition, model results of an ASRG mounted on a Cassini-like spacecraft with a sunshade are presented to show a way to mitigate the high temperatures of a Venus flyby. It was predicted that the sunshade can lower the temperature of the ASRG alternator by 20 C for the representative Venus flyby trajectory. The 3D model also was modified to predict generator performance after a single Advanced Stirling Convertor failure. The geometry of the Microtherm HT insulation block on the outboard side was modified to match deformation and shrinkage observed during testing of a prototypic ASRG test fixture by LM. Test conditions and test data were used to correlate the model by adjusting the thermal conductivity of the deformed insulation to match the post-heat-dump steady state temperatures. Results for these conditions showed that the performance of the still-functioning inboard ACS was unaffected.

Thermal Performance of the Storage Brick Containing Microencapsulated PCM

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, Dong Gyu

1998-02-01

The utilization of microencapsulated phase change materials(PCMs) provides several advantages over conventional PCM application. The heat storage system, as well as heat recovery system, can be built to a smaller size than the normal systems for a given thermal cycling capacity. This microencapsulated PCM technique has not yet been commercialized, however. In this work sodium acetate trihydrate(CH 3 COONa · 3H 2 O) was selected for the PCM and was encapsulated. This microencapsulated PCM was mixed with cement mortar for utilization as a floor heating system. In this experiment performed here the main purpose was to investigate the thermal performance of a storage brick with microencapsulated PCM concentration. The thermal performance of this storage brick is dependent on PCM concentration, flow rate and cooling temperature of the heat transfer fluid, etc. The results showed that cycle time was shortened as the PCM content was increased and as the mass flow rate was increased. The same effect was obtained when the cooling temperature was decreased. For each thermal storage brick the overall heat transfer coefficient(U-value) was constant for a 0% brick, but was increased with time for the bricks containing microencapsulated PCM. For the same mass flow rate, as the cooling temperature decreased, the amount of heat withdrawn increased, and in particular a critical cooling temperature was found for each thermal storage brick. The average effectiveness of each thermal storage brick was found to be approximately 48%, 51% and 58% respectively

Comparative analyses on dynamic performances of photovoltaic–thermal solar collectors integrated with phase change materials

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Su, Di; Jia, Yuting; Alva, Guruprasad; Liu, Lingkun; Fang, Guiyin

2017-01-01

Highlights: • The dynamic model of photovoltaic–thermal collector with phase change material was developed. • The performances of photovoltaic–thermal collector are performed comparative analyses. • The performances of photovoltaic–thermal collector with phase change material were evaluated. • Upper phase change material mode can improve performances of photovoltaic–thermal collector. - Abstract: The operating conditions (especially temperature) of photovoltaic–thermal solar collectors have significant influence on dynamic performance of the hybrid photovoltaic–thermal solar collectors. Only a small percentage of incoming solar radiation can be converted into electricity, and the rest is converted into heat. This heat leads to a decrease in efficiency of the photovoltaic module. In order to improve the performance of the hybrid photovoltaic–thermal solar collector, we performed comparative analyses on a hybrid photovoltaic–thermal solar collector integrated with phase change material. Electrical and thermal parameters like solar cell temperature, outlet temperature of air, electrical power, thermal power, electrical efficiency, thermal efficiency and overall efficiency are simulated and analyzed to evaluate the dynamic performance of the hybrid photovoltaic–thermal collector. It is found that the position of phase change material layer in the photovoltaic–thermal collector has a significant effect on the performance of the photovoltaic–thermal collector. The results indicate that upper phase change material mode in the photovoltaic–thermal collector can significantly improve the thermal and electrical performance of photovoltaic–thermal collector. It is found that overall efficiency of photovoltaic–thermal collector in ‘upper phase change material’ mode is 10.7% higher than that in ‘no phase change material’ mode. Further, for a photovoltaic–thermal collector with upper phase change material, it is verified that 3 cm

Development of a test device to characterize thermal protective performance of fabrics against hot steam and thermal radiation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Su, Yun; Li, Jun

2016-01-01

Steam burns severely threaten the life of firefighters in the course of their fire-ground activities. The aim of this paper was to characterize thermal protective performance of flame-retardant fabrics exposed to hot steam and low-level thermal radiation. An improved testing apparatus based on ASTM F2731-11 was developed in order to simulate the routine fire-ground conditions by controlling steam pressure, flow rate and temperature of steam box. The thermal protective performance of single-layer and multi-layer fabric system with/without an air gap was studied based on the calibrated tester. It was indicated that the new testing apparatus effectively evaluated thermal properties of fabric in hot steam and thermal radiation. Hot steam significantly exacerbated the skin burn injuries while the condensed water on the skin’s surface contributed to cool down the skin tissues during the cooling. Also, the absorbed thermal energy during the exposure and the cooling was mainly determined by the fabric’s configuration, the air gap size, the exposure time and the existence of hot steam. The research provides a effective method to characterize the thermal protection of fabric in complex conditions, which will help in optimization of thermal protection performance of clothing and reduction of steam burn. (paper)

Millisecond photo-thermal process on significant improvement of supercapacitor’s performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Kui; Wang, Jixiao; Wu, Ying; Zhao, Song; Wang, Zhi; Wang, Shichang

2016-01-01

Graphical abstract: A high way for charge transfer is created by a millisecond photo-thermal process which could decrease contact resistance among nanomaterials and improve the electrochemical performances. - Highlights: • Improve conductivity among nanomaterials with a millisecond photo-thermal process. • The specific capacitance can increase about 25% with an photo-thermal process. • The circle stability and rate capability can be improved above 10% with photo-thermal process. • Provide a new way that create electron path to improve electrochemical performance. - Abstract: Supercapacitors fabricated with nanomaterials usually have high specific capacitance and excellent performance. However, the small size of nanomaterials renders a considerable limitation of the contact area among nanomaterials, which is harmful to charge carrier transfer. This fact may hinder the development and application of nanomaterials in electrochemical storage systems. Here, a millisecond photo-thermal process was introduced to create a charge carries transfer path to decrease the contact resistance among nanomaterials, and enhance the electrochemical performance of supercapacitors. Polyaniline (PANI) nanowire, as a model nanomaterial, was used to modify electrodes under different photo-thermal process conditions. The modified electrodes were characterized by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), cyclic voltammetry (CV), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and the results were analysed by equivalent circuit simulation. These results demonstrate that the photo-thermal process can alter the morphology of PANI nanowires, lower the charge transfer resistances and thus improve the performance of electrodes. The specific capacitance increase of the modified electrodes is about 25%. The improvement of the circle stability and rate capability are above 10%. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt on research the effect of photo-thermal process on the conductivity

Feasibility and Performance of the Microwave Thermal Rocket Launcher

OpenAIRE

Parkin, Kevin L. G.; Culick, Fred E. C.

2004-01-01

Beamed-energy launch concepts employing a microwave thermal thruster are feasible in principle, and microwave sources of sufficient power to launch tons into LEO already exist. Microwave thermal thrusters operate on an analogous principle to nuclear thermal thrusters, which have experimentally demonstrated specific impulses exceeding 850 seconds. Assuming such performance, simple application of the rocket equation suggests that payload fractions of 10% are possible for a single stage to orbit...

Thermal preference, thermal tolerance and the thermal de-pendence of digestive performance in two Phrynocephalus lizards (Agamidae), with a review of species studied

OpenAIRE

Yanfu QU, Hong LI, Jianfang GAO, Xuefeng XU, Xiang JI

2011-01-01

We reported data on thermal preference, thermal tolerance and the thermal dependence of digestive performance for two Phrynocephalus lizards (P. frontalis and P. versicolor), and compared data among lizards so far studied worldwide. Mean values for selected body temperature (Tsel) and critical thermal maximum (CTMax) were greater in P. versicolor, whereas mean values for critical thermal minimum (CTMin) did not differ between the two species. The two lizards differed in food intake, but not i...

Thermal Power Plant Performance Analysis

CERN Document Server

2012-01-01

The analysis of the reliability and availability of power plants is frequently based on simple indexes that do not take into account the criticality of some failures used for availability analysis. This criticality should be evaluated based on concepts of reliability which consider the effect of a component failure on the performance of the entire plant. System reliability analysis tools provide a root-cause analysis leading to the improvement of the plant maintenance plan.   Taking in view that the power plant performance can be evaluated not only based on  thermodynamic related indexes, such as heat-rate, Thermal Power Plant Performance Analysis focuses on the presentation of reliability-based tools used to define performance of complex systems and introduces the basic concepts of reliability, maintainability and risk analysis aiming at their application as tools for power plant performance improvement, including: ·         selection of critical equipment and components, ·         defini...

Novel Power Electronics Three-Dimensional Heat Exchanger: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bennion, K.; Cousineau, J.; Lustbader, J.; Narumanchi, S.

2014-08-01

Electric drive systems for vehicle propulsion enable technologies critical to meeting challenges for energy, environmental, and economic security. Enabling cost-effective electric drive systems requires reductions in inverter power semiconductor area. As critical components of the electric drive system are made smaller, heat removal becomes an increasing challenge. In this paper, we demonstrate an integrated approach to the design of thermal management systems for power semiconductors that matches the passive thermal resistance of the packaging with the active convective cooling performance of the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger concept builds on existing semiconductor thermal management improvements described in literature and patents, which include improved bonded interface materials, direct cooling of the semiconductor packages, and double-sided cooling. The key difference in the described concept is the achievement of high heat transfer performance with less aggressive cooling techniques by optimizing the passive and active heat transfer paths. An extruded aluminum design was selected because of its lower tooling cost, higher performance, and scalability in comparison to cast aluminum. Results demonstrated a heat flux improvement of a factor of two, and a package heat density improvement over 30%, which achieved the thermal performance targets.

Thermal performance and efficiency of supercritical nuclear reactors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Romney Duffey; Tracy Zhou; Hussam Khartabil

2009-01-01

The paper reviews the major advances and innovative aspects of the thermal performance of recent concepts for super-critical water-cooled nuclear reactors (SCWR). The concepts are based on the extensive experience in the thermal power industry with super and ultra-supercritical boilers and turbines. The challenges and goals of increased efficiency, reduced cost, enhanced safety and co-generation have been pursued over the last ten years, and have resulted both in viable concepts and a vibrant defined R and D effort. The supercritical concept has wide acceptance among industry, as it reflects standard engineering practices and current thermal plant technology that is being already deployed. The SCWR concept represents a continuous development of water-cooled reactor technology, which utilizes the best and latest advances made in the thermal power industry. (author)

Thermal resistances of air in cavity walls and their effect upon the thermal insulation performance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bekkouche, S.M.A.; Cherier, M.K.; Hamdani, M.; Benamrane, N. [Application of Renewable Energies in Arid and Semi Arid Environments /Applied Research Unit on Renewable Energies/ EPST Development Center of Renewable Energies, URAER and B.P. 88, ZI, Gart Taam Ghardaia (Algeria); Benouaz, T. [University of Tlemcen, BP. 119, Tlemcen R.p. 13000 (Algeria); Yaiche, M.R. [Development Center of Renewable Energies, CDER and B.P 62, 16340, Route de l' Observatoire, Bouzareah, Algiers (Algeria)

2013-07-01

The optimum thickness in cavity walls in buildings is determined under steady conditions; the heat transfer has been calculated according to ISO 15099:2003. Two forms of masonry units are investigated to conclude the advantage of high thermal emissivity. The paper presents also some results from a study of the thermal insulation performance of air cavities bounded by thin reflective material layer 'eta = 0.05'. The results show that the most economical cavity configuration depends on the thermal emissivity and the insulation material used.

Composite Materials for Thermal Energy Storage: Enhancing Performance through Microstructures

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Zhiwei; Ye, Feng; Ding, Yulong

2014-01-01

Chemical incompatibility and low thermal conductivity issues of molten-salt-based thermal energy storage materials can be addressed by using microstructured composites. Using a eutectic mixture of lithium and sodium carbonates as molten salt, magnesium oxide as supporting material, and graphite as thermal conductivity enhancer, the microstructural development, chemical compatibility, thermal stability, thermal conductivity, and thermal energy storage performance of composite materials are investigated. The ceramic supporting material is essential for preventing salt leakage and hence provides a solution to the chemical incompatibility issue. The use of graphite gives a significant enhancement on the thermal conductivity of the composite. Analyses suggest that the experimentally observed microstructural development of the composite is associated with the wettability of the salt on the ceramic substrate and that on the thermal conduction enhancer. PMID:24591286

Estimation and optimization of thermal performance of evacuated tube solar collector system

Science.gov (United States)

Dikmen, Erkan; Ayaz, Mahir; Ezen, H. Hüseyin; Küçüksille, Ecir U.; Şahin, Arzu Şencan

2014-05-01

In this study, artificial neural networks (ANNs) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy (ANFIS) in order to predict the thermal performance of evacuated tube solar collector system have been used. The experimental data for the training and testing of the networks were used. The results of ANN are compared with ANFIS in which the same data sets are used. The R2-value for the thermal performance values of collector is 0.811914 which can be considered as satisfactory. The results obtained when unknown data were presented to the networks are satisfactory and indicate that the proposed method can successfully be used for the prediction of the thermal performance of evacuated tube solar collectors. In addition, new formulations obtained from ANN are presented for the calculation of the thermal performance. The advantages of this approaches compared to the conventional methods are speed, simplicity, and the capacity of the network to learn from examples. In addition, genetic algorithm (GA) was used to maximize the thermal performance of the system. The optimum working conditions of the system were determined by the GA.

Walmart Experimental Store Performance Stories: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Deru, M.; Kozubal, E.; Norton, P.

2010-08-01

Walmart opened two experimental stores--one in Colorado and one in Texas--in 2005 to serve as test beds for several advanced building systems. Each embodied more than 50 experiments covering materials, water systems, energy systems, and renewable energy production. Walmart worked for three years with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for the Colorado Store and Oak Ridge National Laboratory for the Texas store to monitor, analyze, and report on their performance. HVAC experiments included waste oil boilers, a microturbine/absorption chiller combined heat and power system, evaporative cooling, and a transpired solar collector. The refrigeration systems integrated a medium-temperature secondary loop, evaporatively cooled condenser, doors on medium-temperature cases, and light-emitting diodes on cases. Experiments in the lighting systems included a redesigned roof for clerestory daylighting and T-5 fluorescent lamps. Three photovoltaic systems for a total of 135 kW and a 50-kW wind turbine are also included. The energy system performance was compared to the measured performance of a prototypical Walmart store and to other benchmarks.

Thermal performance of evacuated tube heat pipe solar collector

Science.gov (United States)

Putra, Nandy; Kristian, M. R.; David, R.; Haliansyah, K.; Ariantara, Bambang

2016-06-01

The high fossil energy consumption not only causes the scarcity of energy but also raises problems of global warming. Increasing needs of fossil fuel could be reduced through the utilization of solar energy by using solar collectors. Indonesia has the abundant potential for solar energy, but non-renewable energy sources still dominate energy consumption. With heat pipe as passive heat transfer device, evacuated tube solar collector is expected to heat up water for industrial and home usage without external power supply needed to circulate water inside the solar collector. This research was conducted to determine the performance of heat pipe-based evacuated tube solar collector as solar water heater experimentally. The experiments were carried out using stainless steel screen mesh as a wick material, and water and Al2O3-water 0.1% nanofluid as working fluid, and applying inclination angles of 0°, 15°, 30°, and 45°. To analyze the heat absorbed and transferred by the prototype, water at 30°C was circulated through the condenser. A 150 Watt halogen lamp was used as sun simulator, and the prototype was covered by an insulation box to obtain a steady state condition with a minimum affection of ambient changes. Experimental results show that the usage of Al2O3-water 0.1% nanofluid at 30° inclination angle provides the highest thermal performance, which gives efficiency as high as 0.196 and thermal resistance as low as 5.32 °C/W. The use of nanofluid as working fluid enhances thermal performance due to high thermal conductivity of the working fluid. The increase of the inclination angle plays a role in the drainage of the condensate to the evaporator that leads to higher thermal performance until the optimal inclination angle is reached.

Thermal-Hydraulic Performance of Scrubbing Nozzle Used for CFVS

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Hyun Chul; Lee, Doo Yong; Jung, Woo Young; Lee, Jong Chan; Kim, Gyu Tae [FNC TECH, Yongin (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

A Containment Filtered Venting System (CFVS) is the most interested device to mitigate a threat against containment integrity under the severe accident of nuclear power plant by venting with the filtration of the fission products. FNC technology and partners have been developed the self-priming scrubbing nozzle used for the CFVS which is based on the venturi effect. The thermal-hydraulic performances such as passive scrubbing water suction as well as pressure drop across the nozzle have been tested under various thermal-hydraulic conditions. The two types of test section have been built for testing the thermal-hydraulic performance of the self-priming scrubbing nozzle. Through the visualization loop, the liquid suction performance through the slit, pressure drop across the nozzle are measured. The passive water suction flow through the suction slit at the throat is important parameter to define the scrubbing performance of the self-priming scrubbing nozzle. The water suction flow is increased with the increase of the overhead water level at the same inlet gas flow. It is not so much changed with the change of inlet gas flow at the overhead water level.

Thermal performance measurements on ultimate heat sinks--cooling ponds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hadlock, R.K.; Abbey, O.B.

1977-12-01

The primary objective of the studies described is to obtain the requisite data, with respect to modeling requirements, to characterize thermal performance of heat sinks for nuclear facilities existing at elevated water temperatures in result of experiencing a genuinely large heat load and responding to meteorological influence. The data should reflect thermal performance for combinations leading to worst-case meteorological influence. A geothermal water retention basin has been chosen as the site for the first measurement program and data have been obtained in the first of several experiments scheduled to be performed there. These data illustrate the thermal and water budgets during episodes of cooling from an initially high pond water bulk temperature. Monitoring proceeded while the pond experienced only meteorological and seepage influence. The data are discussed and are presented as a data volume which may be used for calculation purposes. Suggestions for future measurement programs are stated with the intent to maintain and improve relevance to nuclear ultimate heat sinks while continuing to examine the performance of the analog geothermal pond. It is further suggested that the geothermal pond, with some modification, may be a suitable site for spray pond measurements

Performance analysis of a hybrid photovoltaic thermal solar air heater

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Othman, Mohd Yusof; Yatim, Baharudin; Abu Bakar, Mohd Nazari; Sopian, Kamaruzzaman

2006-01-01

A photovoltaic (PV/T) air heater is a collector that combines thermal and photovoltaic systems in one single hybrid generating unit. It generators both thermal and electrical energies simultaneously. A new design of a double-pass photovoltaic-thermal solar air collector with CPC and fins was successfully developed and fabricated at Universiti Kebangsaam Malaysia. This collector tested under actual environmental conditions to study its performance over a range of operating conditions. The test set-up, instrumentation and measurement are described further. It was found that the performance of the collector was in agreement with the theoretical prediction. Results of the outdoors test are presented and discussed(Author)

Experimental study on the thermal performance of a new type of thermal energy storage based on flat micro-heat pipe array

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Feng-fei; Diao, Yan-hua; Zhao, Yao-hua; Zhu, Ting-ting; Liu, Jing

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A novel thermal energy storage based on flat micro-heat pipe array is proposed. • The thermal storage shows excellent thermal performance in the working process. • The novel thermal storage has the advantage of low flow resistance. - Abstract: The thermal performance of an air-based phase change storage unit is analyzed and discussed in this study. The thermal energy storage uses flat micro-heat pipe array (FMHPA) as the core heat transfer component and lauric acid as phase change material (PCM). An experimental system is devised to test the heat storage–release property of the storage unit under different inlet temperatures and flow rates of the heat transfer medium. The performance of the storage unit and the melting/solidification curves of the phase change material are obtained based on extensive experimental data. Experimental results indicate that the flat micro-heat pipe array exhibits excellent temperature uniformity in the heat storage–release process, and the performance of the storage unit is efficient and steady.

Thermal Imaging Performance of TIR Onboard the Hayabusa2 Spacecraft

Science.gov (United States)

Arai, Takehiko; Nakamura, Tomoki; Tanaka, Satoshi; Demura, Hirohide; Ogawa, Yoshiko; Sakatani, Naoya; Horikawa, Yamato; Senshu, Hiroki; Fukuhara, Tetsuya; Okada, Tatsuaki

2017-07-01

The thermal infrared imager (TIR) is a thermal infrared camera onboard the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. TIR will perform thermography of a C-type asteroid, 162173 Ryugu (1999 JU3), and estimate its surface physical properties, such as surface thermal emissivity ɛ , surface roughness, and thermal inertia Γ, through remote in-situ observations in 2018 and 2019. In prelaunch tests of TIR, detector calibrations and evaluations, along with imaging demonstrations, were performed. The present paper introduces the experimental results of a prelaunch test conducted using a large-aperture collimator in conjunction with TIR under atmospheric conditions. A blackbody source, controlled at constant temperature, was measured using TIR in order to construct a calibration curve for obtaining temperatures from observed digital data. As a known thermal emissivity target, a sandblasted black almite plate warmed from the back using a flexible heater was measured by TIR in order to evaluate the accuracy of the calibration curve. As an analog target of a C-type asteroid, carbonaceous chondrites (50 mm × 2 mm in thickness) were also warmed from the back and measured using TIR in order to clarify the imaging performance of TIR. The calibration curve, which was fitted by a specific model of the Planck function, allowed for conversion to the target temperature within an error of 1°C (3σ standard deviation) for the temperature range of 30 to 100°C. The observed temperature of the black almite plate was consistent with the temperature measured using K-type thermocouples, within the accuracy of temperature conversion using the calibration curve when the temperature variation exhibited a random error of 0.3 °C (1σ ) for each pixel at a target temperature of 50°C. TIR can resolve the fine surface structure of meteorites, including cracks and pits with the specified field of view of 0.051°C (328 × 248 pixels). There were spatial distributions with a temperature variation of 3°C at the setting

MATLAB Simulation of Photovoltaic and Photovoltaic/Thermal Systems Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Nasir, Farah H. M.; Husaini, Yusnira

2018-03-01

The efficiency of the photovoltaic reduces when the photovoltaic cell temperature increased due to solar irradiance. One solution is come up with the cooling system photovoltaic system. This combination is forming the photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) system. Not only will it generate electricity also heat at the same time. The aim of this research is to focus on the modeling and simulation of photovoltaic (PV) and photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) electrical performance by using single-diode equivalent circuit model. Both PV and PV/T models are developed in Matlab/Simulink. By providing the cooling system in PV/T, the efficiency of the system can be increased by decreasing the PV cell temperature. The maximum thermal, electrical and total efficiency values of PV/T in the present research are 35.18%, 15.56% and 50.74% at solar irradiance of 400 W/m2, mass flow rate of 0.05kgs-1 and inlet temperature of 25 °C respectively has been obtained. The photovoltaic-thermal shows that the higher efficiency performance compared to the photovoltaic system.

Composite materials for thermal energy storage: enhancing performance through microstructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Ge, Zhiwei; Ye, Feng; Ding, Yulong

2014-05-01

Chemical incompatibility and low thermal conductivity issues of molten-salt-based thermal energy storage materials can be addressed by using microstructured composites. Using a eutectic mixture of lithium and sodium carbonates as molten salt, magnesium oxide as supporting material, and graphite as thermal conductivity enhancer, the microstructural development, chemical compatibility, thermal stability, thermal conductivity, and thermal energy storage performance of composite materials are investigated. The ceramic supporting material is essential for preventing salt leakage and hence provides a solution to the chemical incompatibility issue. The use of graphite gives a significant enhancement on the thermal conductivity of the composite. Analyses suggest that the experimentally observed microstructural development of the composite is associated with the wettability of the salt on the ceramic substrate and that on the thermal conduction enhancer. © 2014 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Thermal and Hygric Expansion of High Performance Concrete

OpenAIRE

J. Toman; R. Černý

2001-01-01

The linear thermal expansion coefficient of two types of high performance concrete was measured in the temperature range from 20 °C to 1000 °C, and the linear hygric expansion coefficient was determined in the moisture range from dry material to saturation water content. Comparative methods were applied for measurements of both coefficients. The experimental results show that both the effect of temperature on the values of linear thermal expansion coefficients and the effect of moisture on th...

Optimal thermal-hydraulic performance for helium-cooled divertors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Izenson, M.G.; Martin, J.L.

1996-01-01

Normal flow heat exchanger (NFHX) technology offers the potential for cooling divertor panels with reduced pressure drops (<0.5% Δp/p), reduced pumping power (<0.75% pumping/thermal power), and smaller duct sizes than conventional helium heat exchangers. Furthermore, the NFHX can easily be fabricated in the large sizes required for divertors in large tokamaks. Recent experimental and computational results from a program to develop NFHX technology for divertor coolings using porous metal heat transfer media are described. We have tested the thermal and flow characteristics of porous metals and identified the optimal heat transfer material for the divertor heat exchanger. Methods have been developed to create highly conductive thermal bonds between the porous material and a solid substrate. Computational fluid dynamics calculations of flow and heat transfer in the porous metal layer have shown the capability of high thermal effectiveness. An 18-kW NFHX, designed to meet specifications for the international Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor divertor, has been fabricated and tested for thermal and flow performance. Preliminary results confirm design and fabrication methods. 11 refs., 12 figs., 1 tab

Thermal performance of plate-type loop thermosyphon at sub-atmospheric pressures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tsoi, Vadim; Chang, Shyy Woei; Chiang Kuei Feng; Huang, Chuan Chin

2011-01-01

This experimental study examines the thermal performance of a newly devised plate-type two-phase loop thermosyphon with cooling applications to electronic boards of telecommunication systems. The evaporation section is configured as the inter-connected multi channels to emulate the bridging boiling mechanism in pulsating thermosyphon. Two thermosyphon plates using water as the coolant with filling ratios (FR) of 0.22 and 0.32 are tested at sub-atmospheric pressures. The vapor-liquid flow images as well as the thermal resistances and effective spreading thermal conductivities are individually measured for each thermosyphon test plate at various heating powers. The high-speed digital images of the vapor-liquid flow structures reveal the characteristic boiling phenomena and the vapor-liquid circulation in the vertical thermosyphon plate, which assist to explore the thermal physics for this type of loop thermosyphon. The bubble agglomeration and pumping action in the inter-connected boiling channels take place at metastable non-equilibrium conditions, leading to the intermittent slug flows with a pulsation character. Such hybrid loop-pulsating thermosyphon permits the vapor-liquid circulation in the horizontal plate. Thermal resistances and spreading thermal conductivities detected from the present thermosyphon plates; the vapor chamber flat plate heat pipe and the copper plate at free and forced convective cooling conditions with both vertical and horizontal orientations are cross-examined. In most telecommunication systems and units, the electrical boards are vertical so that the thermal performance data on the vertical thermosyphon are most relevant to this particular application. - Highlights: → We examine thermal performances of plate-type loop thermosyphon. → Thermal resistances and spreading conductivities are examined. → Bubble agglomeration in inter-connected boiling channels generates intermittent slug flows with pulsations. → Boiling instability

The influence of weather on the thermal performance of solar heating systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Elsa; Furbo, Simon; Shah, Louise Jivan

2003-01-01

. The investigation is based on calculations with validated models. Solar heating systems with different solar collector types, heat storage volumes and solar fractions are included in the investigation. The yearly solar radiation varies with approximately 20 % in the period from 1990 until 2002. The calculations......The influence of weather on the thermal performance of solar combi systems, solar domestic hot water systems and solar heating plants is investigated. The investigation is based on weather data from the Danish Design Reference Year, DRY and weather data measured for a period from 1990 until 2002...... show that the thermal performance of the investigated systems varies due to the weather variation. The variation of the yearly thermal performance of a solar heating plant is about 40 % while the variation of the yearly thermal performance of a solar domestic hot water system is about 30...

Comparative performance study of smart structure for thermal microactuators

Science.gov (United States)

Yahya, Zulkarnain; Johar, Muhammad Akmal

2017-04-01

Thermal microactuator is one of earliest types of microactuators. Typical thermal actuators are in the form of Bimorph and Chevron structures. A bimorph thermal actuator has a complex movement direction, in arc motion and thus it is not feasible in the most MEMS designs. While Chevron actuator has a tendency to produce an off-plane movement which lead to low precision in lateral movement. A new thermal actuator design in the form of serpentine structures shows promising feature to have better performances in terms of more predictive lateral movement with smaller off-plane displacement. In MEMS chip design, areas play a critical role as it will impact with the cost of the final product. In this study, four different structures of thermal actuator were simulated using ANSYS v15. Three different set of area sizes which are 240 µm x 1000 µm, 240 µm x 1500 µm and 240 µm x 2000 µm have been analyzed. All four structures were named as Serpentine01, Serpentine02, Bimorph and Chevron. The data with regards to temperature produced by the structure and z-axis directional deformation were collected and analyzed. This paper reported the investigation result of comparison between these three types of thermal actuator structures design with a given area. From all of the result obtained, it is shown that the area 240 µm x 1500 µm showed a well balance performance in term of huge deformations and low power consumption. The Serpentine01 structure produced 16.7 µm deformation at 4mA of current. The results shows the potential of Serpentine01 structure as a new candidate for thermal microactuator for MEMS applications.

Aligned Carbon Nanotube to Enhance Through Thickness Thermal Conductivity in Adhesive Joints (Preprint)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Ganguli, Sabyasachi; Roy, Ajit K; Dai, Liming; Qu, Liangti

2006-01-01

.... Carbon nanotubes theoretically have an extremely high thermal conductivity along the longitudinal axis and according to molecular dynamics simulations the value can be as high as 3500 W/mK at room...

Photovoltaic thermal module concepts and their performance analysis: A review

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hasan, M. Arif; Sumathy, K.

2010-01-01

This paper presents a review of the available literature covering the latest module aspects of different photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors and their performances in terms of electrical as well as thermal output. The review covers detailed description of flat-plate and concentrating PV/T systems, using liquid or air as the working fluid, numerical model analysis, experimental work and qualitative evaluation of thermal and electrical output. Also an in-depth review on the performance parameters such as, optimum mass flow rate, PV/T dimensions, air channel geometry is presented in this study. Based on the thorough review, it is clear that PV/T modules are very promising devices and there exists lot of scope to further improve their performances. Appropriate recommendations are made which will aid PV/T systems to improve their efficiency and reducing their cost, making them more competitive in the present market. (author)

Study on thermal performance and margins of BWR fuel elements

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stosic, Zoran

1999-01-01

This paper contributes to developing a methodology of predicting and analyzing thermal performance and margins of Boiling Water Reactor (BWR) fuel assemblies under conditions of reaching high quality Boiling Crisis and subsequent post-dryout thermal hydraulics causing temperature excursion of fuel cladding. Operational margins against dryout and potential for increasing fuel performance with appropriate benefits are discussed. The philosophy of modeling with its special topics are demonstrated on the HECHAN (HEated CHannel ANalyzer) model as the state-of-art for thermal-hydraulics analysis of BWR fuel assemblies in pre- and post-dryout two-phase flow regimes. The scope of further work either being or has to be performed concerning implementation of new physical aspects, including domain extension of HECHAN model applications to the Pressurized Water Reactors (PWRs), is discussed. Finally, a comprehensive overview of the literature dealing with development of the model is given. (author)

Photovoltaic thermal module concepts and their performance analysis: A review

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hasan, M. Arif; Sumathy, K. [Department of Mechanical Engineering, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND (United States)

2010-09-15

This paper presents a review of the available literature covering the latest module aspects of different photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors and their performances in terms of electrical as well as thermal output. The review covers detailed description of flat-plate and concentrating PV/T systems, using liquid or air as the working fluid, numerical model analysis, experimental work and qualitative evaluation of thermal and electrical output. Also an in-depth review on the performance parameters such as, optimum mass flow rate, PV/T dimensions, air channel geometry is presented in this study. Based on the thorough review, it is clear that PV/T modules are very promising devices and there exists lot of scope to further improve their performances. Appropriate recommendations are made which will aid PV/T systems to improve their efficiency and reducing their cost, making them more competitive in the present market. (author)

Low-stress photosensitive polyimide suspended membrane for improved thermal isolation performance

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, J.; Xing, R. Y.; Wu, W. J.; Liu, H. F.; Liu, J. Q.; Tu, L. C.

2017-11-01

In this paper, we introduce a method of isolating thermal conduction from silicon substrate for accommodating thermal-sensitive micro-devices. This method lies in fabrication of a low-stress photosensitive polyimide (PSPI) suspension structure which has lower thermal conductivity than silicon. First, a PSPI layer was patterned on a silicon wafer and hard baked. Then, a cavity was etched from the backside of the silicon substrate to form a membrane or a bridge-shape PSPI structure. After releasing, a slight deformation of about 20 nm was observed in the suspended structures, suggesting ultralow residual stress which is essential for accommodating micro-devices. In order to investigate the thermal isolation performance of the suspended PSPI structures, micro Pirani vacuum gauges, which are thermal-sensitive, had been fabricated on the PSPI structures. The measurement results illustrated that the Pirani gauges worked as expected in the range from 1- 470 Pa. Moreover, the results of the Pirani gauges based on the membrane and bridge structures were comparable, indicating that the commonly used bridge-shape structure for further reducing thermal conduction was unnecessary. Due to the excellent thermal isolation performance of PSPI, the suspended PSPI membrane is promising to be an outstanding candidate for thermal isolation applications.

Performance Evaluation Facility for Fire Fighting Thermal Imager

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Sung Chan; Amon, Francine; Hamins, Anthony

2007-01-01

The present study investigates the characteristics of obscuring media inside an optical smoke cell, which is a bench-scale testing facility for the evaluation of thermal imaging cameras used by fire fighters. Light extinction coefficient and visibility through the smoke cell is characterized by the measured laser transmittance. The laser transmittance along the axial direction of the smoke cell is relatively uniform at upper and lower part for various air/fuel volume flow rate. Contrast level based image quality of visible CCD camera through the smoke cell is compared with that of thermal imaging camera. The optical smoke cell can be used as well-controlled and effective laboratory-scale test apparatus to evaluate the performance of thermal imaging camera for fire fighting application

Thermal performance analysis of a phase change thermal storage unit for space heating

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Halawa, E.; Saman, W. [Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes SA 5095 (Australia)

2011-01-15

This paper presents the results of a comprehensive numerical study on the thermal performance of an air based phase change thermal storage unit (TSU) for space heating. The unit is designed for integration into space heating and cooling systems. The unit consists of a number of one dimensional phase change material (PCM) slabs contained in a rectangular duct where air passes between the slabs. The numerical analysis was based on an experimentally validated model. A parametric study has been carried out including the study on the effects of charge and discharge temperature differences, air mass flow rate, slab thicknesses, air gaps and slab dimensions on the air outlet temperatures and heat transfer rates of the thermal storage unit. The paper introduces and discusses quantities called charge and discharge temperature differences which play an important role in the melting and freezing processes. (author)

Development of Mitsubishi high thermal performance grid 1 - CFD applicability for thermal hydraulic design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ikeda, K.; Hoshi, M.

2001-01-01

Mitsubishi applied the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) evaluation method for designing of the new lower pressure loss and higher DNB performance grid spacer. Reduction of pressure loss of the grid has been estimated by CFD. Also, CFD has been developed as a design tool to predict the coolant mixing ability of vane structures, that is to compare the relative peak spot temperatures around fuel rods at the same heat flux condition. These evaluations have been reflected to the new grid spacer design. The prototype grid was manufactured and some flow tests were performed to examine the thermal hydraulic performance, which were predicted by CFD. The experimental data of pressure loss was in good agreement with CFD prediction. The CFD prediction of flow behaviors at downstream of the mixing vanes was verified by detail cross-flow measurements at rod gaps by the rod LDV system. It is concluded that the applicability of the CFD evaluation method for the thermal hydraulic design of the grid is confirmed. (authors)

Thermal performance of a multiple PCM thermal storage unit for free cooling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mosaffa, A.H.; Infante Ferreira, C.A.; Talati, F.; Rosen, M.A.

2013-01-01

Highlights: ► Numerical analysis on the performance of a thermal storages as free cooling system. ► Employing multiple PCMs to enhance heat transfer rate in thermal storages. ► Using an effective heat capacity method, the phase change parameters are determined. ► The effect of the slabs size and air channel thickness on COP is investigated. - Abstract: As demand for refrigeration and air conditioning increased during the last decade, the opportunities have expanded for using thermal energy storage (TES) systems in an economically advantageous manner in place of conventional cooling plants. Many cool storage systems use phase change materials (PCMs) and achieve peak load shifting in buildings. This work presents numerical investigations of the performance enhancement of a free cooling system using a TES unit employing multiple PCMs. The TES unit is composed of a number of rectangular channels for the flowing heat transfer fluid, separated by PCM slabs. Using the effective heat capacity method, the melting and solidification of the PCM is solved. The forced convective heat transfer inside the channels is analyzed by solving the energy equation, which is coupled with the heat conduction equation in the container wall. The effect of design parameters such as PCM slab length, thickness and fluid passage gap on the storage performance is also investigated using an energy based optimization. The results show that a system which can guarantee comfort conditions for the climate of Tabriz, Iran has an optimum COP of 7.0. This could be achieved by a combination of CaCl 2 ·6H 2 O with RT25 with the optimum air channel thickness of 3.2 mm, length of 1.3 m and PCM slab thickness of 10 mm

Yearly thermal performances of solar heating plants in Denmark – Measured and calculated

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Furbo, Simon; Dragsted, Janne; Perers, Bengt

2018-01-01

The thermal performance of solar collector fields depends mainly on the mean solar collector fluid temperature of the collector field and on the solar radiation. For Danish solar collector fields for district heating the measured yearly thermal performances per collector area varied in the period...... 2012–2016 between 313 kWh/m2 and 577 kWh/m2, with averages between 411 kWh/m2 and 463 kWh/m2. The percentage difference between the highest and lowest measured yearly thermal performance is about 84%. Calculated yearly thermal performances of typically designed large solar collector fields at six...... different locations in Denmark with measured weather data for the years 2002–2010 vary between 405 kWh/m2 collector and 566 kWh/m2 collector, if a mean solar collector fluid temperature of 60 °C is assumed. This corresponds to a percentage difference between the highest and lowest calculated yearly thermal...

Thermal performance of a phase change material on a nickel-plated surface

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nurmawati, M.H.; Siow, K.S.; Rasiah, I.J.

2004-01-01

Thermal control becomes increasingly vital with IC chips becoming faster and smaller. The need to keep chips within acceptable operating temperatures is a growing challenge. Thermal interface materials (TIM) form the interfaces that improve heat transfer from the heat-generating chip to the heat dissipating thermal solution. One of the most commonly used materials in today's electronics industry is phase change material (PCM). Typically, the heat spreader is a nickel-plated copper surface. The compatibility of the PCM to this surface is crucial to the performance of the TIM. In this paper, we report on the performance of this interface. To that end, an instrument to suitably measure critical parameters, like the apparent and contact thermal resistance of the TIM, is developed according to the ASTM D5470 and calibrated. A brief theory of TIM is described and the properties of the PCM were investigated using the instrument. Thermal resistance measurements were made to investigate the effects of physical parameters like pressure, temperature and supplied power on the thermal performance of the material on nickel-plated surface. Conclusions were drawn on the effectiveness of the interface and their application in IC packages

Performance monitoring pavements with thermal segregation in Texas.

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-01

This project conducted work to investigate the performance of asphalt surface mixtures that exhibited : thermal segregation during construction. From 2004 to 2009, a total of 14 construction projects were : identified for monitoring. Five of these pr...

System performance modeling of extreme ultraviolet lithographic thermal issues

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Spence, P. A.; Gianoulakis, S. E.; Moen, C. D.; Kanouff, M. P.; Fisher, A.; Ray-Chaudhuri, A. K.

1999-01-01

Numerical simulation is used in the development of an extreme ultraviolet lithography Engineering Test Stand. Extensive modeling was applied to predict the impact of thermal loads on key lithographic parameters such as image placement error, focal shift, and loss of CD control. We show that thermal issues can be effectively managed to ensure that their impact on lithographic performance is maintained within design error budgets. (c) 1999 American Vacuum Society

Hydraulic performance of compacted clay liners under simulated daily thermal cycles.

Science.gov (United States)

Aldaeef, A A; Rayhani, M T

2015-10-01

Compacted clay liners (CCLs) are commonly used as hydraulic barriers in several landfill applications to isolate contaminants from the surrounding environment and minimize the escape of leachate from the landfill. Prior to waste placement in landfills, CCLs are often exposed to temperature fluctuations which can affect the hydraulic performance of the liner. Experimental research was carried out to evaluate the effects of daily thermal cycles on the hydraulic performance of CCLs under simulated landfill conditions. Hydraulic conductivity tests were conducted on different soil specimens after being exposed to various thermal and dehydration cycles. An increase in the CCL hydraulic conductivity of up to one order of magnitude was recorded after 30 thermal cycles for soils with low plasticity index (PI = 9.5%). However, medium (PI = 25%) and high (PI = 37.2%) plasticity soils did not show significant hydraulic deviation due to their self-healing potential. Overlaying the CCL with a cover layer minimized the effects of daily thermal cycles, and maintained stable hydraulic performance in the CCLs even after exposure to 60 thermal cycles. Wet-dry cycles had a significant impact on the hydraulic aspect of low plasticity CCLs. However, medium and high plasticity CCLs maintained constant hydraulic performance throughout the test intervals. The study underscores the importance of protecting the CCL from exposure to atmosphere through covering it by a layer of geomembrane or an interim soil layer. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thermal buffering performance of composite phase change materials applied in low-temperature protective garments

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Kai; Jiao, Mingli; Yu, Yuanyuan; Zhu, Xueying; Liu, Rangtong; Cao, Jian

2017-07-01

Phase change material (PCM) is increasingly being applied in the manufacturing of functional thermo-regulated textiles and garments. This paper investigated the thermal buffering performance of different composite PCMs which are suitable for the application in functional low-temperature protective garments. First, according to the criteria selecting PCM for functional textiles/garments, three kinds of pure PCM were selected as samples, which were n-hexadecane, n-octadecane and n-eicosane. To get the adjustable phase change temperature range and higher phase change enthalpy, three kinds of composite PCM were prepared using the above pure PCM. To evaluate the thermal buffering performance of different composite PCM samples, the simulated low-temperature experiments were performed in the climate chamber, and the skin temperature variation curves in three different low temperature conditions were obtained. Finally composite PCM samples’ thermal buffering time, thermal buffering capacity and thermal buffering efficiency were calculated. Results show that the comprehensive thermal buffering performance of n-octadecane and n-eicosane composite PCM is the best.

Heat transfer and thermal storage performance of an open thermosyphon type thermal storage unit with tubular phase change material canisters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Ping-Yang; Hu, Bo-Wen; Liu, Zhen-Hua

2015-01-01

Highlights: • A novel open heat pipe thermal storage unit is design to improve its performance. • Mechanism of its operation is phase-change heat transfer. • Tubular canisters with phase change material were placed in thermal storage unit. • Experiment and analysis are carried out to investigate its operation properties. - Abstract: A novel open thermosyphon-type thermal storage unit is presented to improve design and performance of heat pipe type thermal storage unit. In the present study, tubular canisters filled with a solid–liquid phase change material are vertically placed in the middle of the thermal storage unit. The phase change material melts at 100 °C. Water is presented as the phase-change heat transfer medium of the thermal storage unit. The tubular canister is wrapped tightly with a layer of stainless steel mesh to increase the surface wettability. The heat transfer mechanism of charging/discharging is similar to that of the thermosyphon. Heat transfer between the heat resource or cold resource and the phase change material in this device occurs in the form of a cyclic phase change of the heat-transfer medium, which occurs on the surface of the copper tubes and has an extremely high heat-transfer coefficient. A series of experiments and theoretical analyses are carried out to investigate the properties of the thermal storage unit, including power distribution, start-up performance, and temperature difference between the phase change material and the surrounding vapor. The results show that the whole system has excellent heat-storage/heat-release performance

Entransy analysis on the thermal performance of flat plate solar air collectors

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Jie Deng; Xudong Yang; Yupeng Xu; Ming Yang

2017-01-01

Based on the thermo-electric analogy (the so-called thermal entransy analysis), the unified airside convective heat transfer coefficient for different sorts of flat plate solar air collectors (FPSACs) is identified in terms of colector aperture area. In addition, the colector thermodynamic characteristic matching coefficient is defined to depict the matching property of collector thermal performance between the collector airside heat transfer and the total heat losses. It is found that the airside convective heat transfer coefficient can be experimentally determined by collector thermal performance test method to compare the airside thermal performances of FPSACs with different types of airflow structures. Moreover, the smaler the colector thermodynamic characteristic matching coefficient is, the better the thermodynamic perfect degree of a FPSAC is. The minimum limit value of the collector thermodynamic matching coefficient is close to zero but it can not vanish in practical engineering. Parameter sensitivity analysis on the total entransy dissipation and the entransy increment of a general FPSAC is also undertaken. The results indicate that the effective way of decreasing total entransy dissipation and enhancing the useful entransy increment is improving the efficiency intercept of the FPSAC. This is equivalent to the cognition result of thermal analysis. However, the evaluation indices identified by the thermal entransy analysis can not be extracted by singular thermal analysis.

Performance of a thermal neutron radiographic system using imaging plates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Silvani, Maria Ines; Almeida, Gevaldo L. de; Furieri, Rosanne; Lopes, Ricardo T.

2009-01-01

A performance evaluation of a neutron radiographic system equipped with a thermal neutron sensitive imaging plate has been undertaken. It includes the assessment of spatial resolution, linearity, dynamic range and the response to exposure time, as well as a comparison of these parameters with the equivalent ones for neutron radiography employing conventional films and a gadolinium foil as converter. The evaluation and comparison between the radiographic systems have been performed at the Instituto de Engenharia Nuclear - CNEN, using the Argonauta Reactor as source of thermal neutrons and a commercially available imaging plate reader. (author)

Preliminary tests of a model of cooling-pond thermal performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hicks, B.B.; Wesely, M.L.; Wilczek, J.

1975-01-01

Experiments performed during recent years at the cooling pond complex at the Dresden nuclear power station have been designed to improve our understanding of the fundamental properties of thermal exchange at a warm-water surface. To a considerable extent, the field studies have been successful in that they have shown that modern micrometeorological techniques can be successfully applied to the demanding circumstances of an industrial cooling lake at temperature of at least 40 0 C. The intent of these studies has been to create a set of parameterization schemes good enough to allow simulation of the performance of the Dresden cooling lake without adjustment of numerical constants. An obvious extension of these studies, and one of the goals of the cooling-pond research program as presently stated, is to obtain an accurate numerical simulation of thermal performance of ponds with use of the improved formulations that have resulted from the experimental work at the Dresden lake. The computer model is divided into two sections and can be used to test the sensitivity of predicted performance to variations in procedures for determining the thermal transfer from the surface

Supervision of the thermal performance of heat exchanger trains

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Negrao, C.O.R.; Tonin, P.C.; Madi, M. [Federal University of Technology Parana UTFPR, Post-graduate Program in Mechanical and Materials Engineering PPGEM, Thermal Science Laboratory LACIT, Av. Sete de Setembro, 3165, CEP 80230-901, Curitiba, Parana (Brazil)

2007-02-15

In oil refining, heat exchanger networks are employed to recover heat and therefore save energy of the plant. However, many heat exchangers in crude oil pre-heat trains are under high risk of fouling. Under fouling conditions, the thermal performance of heat exchangers is continuously reduced and its supervision becomes an important task. The large number of heat exchangers in pre-heat trains and the change of operation conditions and feedstock charges make the daily supervision a difficult task. This work applies an approach to follow the performance of heat exchangers [M.A.S. Jeronimo, L.F. Melo, A.S. Braga, P.J.B.F. Ferreira, C. Martins, Monitoring the thermal efficiency of fouled heat exchangers - A simplified method, Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 14 (1997) 455-463] and extends it to monitor the whole train. The approach is based on the comparison of measured and predicted heat exchanger effectiveness. The measured value is computed from the four inlet and outlet temperatures of a heat exchanger unit. The predicted clean and dirty values of effectiveness are calculated from classical literature relations as a function of NTU and of heat capacity ratio (R). NTU and R are continuously adjusted according to mass flow rate changes. An index of fouling is defined for the whole network and the results show the performance degradation of the network with time. The work also suggests that Jeronimo's index of fouling can be used to estimate the fouling thermal resistance of heat exchangers. (author)

Output performance analyses of solar array on stratospheric airship with thermal effect

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Jun; Lv, Mingyun; Tan, Dongjie; Zhu, Weiyu; Sun, Kangwen; Zhang, Yuanyuan

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A model investigating the output power of solar array is proposed. • The output power in the cruise condition with thermal effect is researched. • The effect of some factors on output performance is discussed in detail. • A suitable transmissivity of external layer is crucial in preliminary design step. - Abstract: Output performance analyses of the solar array are very critical for solving the energy problem of a long endurance stratospheric airship, and the solar cell efficiency is very sensitive to temperature of the solar cell. But the research about output performance of solar array with thermal effect is rare. This paper outlines a numerical model including the thermal model of airship and solar cells, the incident solar radiation model on the solar array, and the power output model. Based on this numerical model, a MATLAB computer program is developed. In the course of the investigation, the comparisons of the simulation results with and without considering thermal effect are reported. Furthermore, effects of the transmissivity of external encapsulation layer of solar array and wind speed on the thermal performance and output power of solar array are discussed in detail. The results indicate that this method is helpful for planning energy management.

Stress Intensity of Delamination in a Sintered-Silver Interconnection: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

DeVoto, D. J.; Paret, P. P.; Wereszczak, A. A.

2014-08-01

In automotive power electronics packages, conventional thermal interface materials such as greases, gels, and phase-change materials pose bottlenecks to heat removal and are also associated with reliability concerns. The industry trend is toward high thermal performance bonded interfaces for large-area attachments. However, because of coefficient of thermal expansion mismatches between materials/layers and resultant thermomechanical stresses, adhesive and cohesive fractures could occur, posing a reliability problem. These defects manifest themselves in increased thermal resistance. This research aims to investigate and improve the thermal performance and reliability of sintered-silver for power electronics packaging applications. This has been experimentally accomplished by the synthesis of large-area bonded interfaces between metalized substrates and copper base plates that have subsequently been subjected to thermal cycles. A finite element model of crack initiation and propagation in these bonded interfaces will allow for the interpretation of degradation rates by a crack-velocity (V)-stress intensity factor (K) analysis. A description of the experiment and the modeling approach are discussed.

Long term energy performance analysis of Egbin thermal power ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

This study is aimed at providing an energy performance analysis of Egbin thermal power plant. The plant operates on Regenerative Rankine cycle with steam as its working fluid .The model equations were formulated based on some performance parameters used in power plant analysis. The considered criteria were plant ...

Availability Performance Analysis of Thermal Power Plants

Science.gov (United States)

Bhangu, Navneet Singh; Singh, Rupinder; Pahuja, G. L.

2018-03-01

This case study presents the availability evaluation method of thermal power plants for conducting performance analysis in Indian environment. A generic availability model has been proposed for a maintained system (thermal plants) using reliability block diagrams and fault tree analysis. The availability indices have been evaluated under realistic working environment using inclusion exclusion principle. Four year failure database has been used to compute availability for different combinatory of plant capacity, that is, full working state, reduced capacity or failure state. Availability is found to be very less even at full rated capacity (440 MW) which is not acceptable especially in prevailing energy scenario. One of the probable reason for this may be the difference in the age/health of existing thermal power plants which requires special attention of each unit from case to case basis. The maintenance techniques being used are conventional (50 years old) and improper in context of the modern equipment, which further aggravate the problem of low availability. This study highlights procedure for finding critical plants/units/subsystems and helps in deciding preventive maintenance program.

Thermal and Hygric Expansion of High Performance Concrete

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. Toman

2001-01-01

Full Text Available The linear thermal expansion coefficient of two types of high performance concrete was measured in the temperature range from 20 °C to 1000 °C, and the linear hygric expansion coefficient was determined in the moisture range from dry material to saturation water content. Comparative methods were applied for measurements of both coefficients. The experimental results show that both the effect of temperature on the values of linear thermal expansion coefficients and the effect of moisture on the values of linear hygric expansion coefficients are very significant and cannot be neglected in practical applications.

Preparation and thermal performance of paraffin/Nano-SiO2 nanocomposite for passive thermal protection of electronic devices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Yaqin; Gao, Xuenong; Chen, Peng; Huang, Zhaowen; Xu, Tao; Fang, Yutang; Zhang, Zhengguo

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Three types of paraffin/nano-SiO 2 nanocomposites were prepared and characterized. • Thermo-physical properties of these composites were determined and compared. • One composite with lower thermal conductivity showed better thermal insulation properties. • This composite was identified as thermal insulation material for electronic components. - Abstract: In this paper, three grades of nano silicon dioxide (nano-SiO 2 ), NS1, NS2 and NS3, were mixed into paraffin to prepare nanocomposites as novel insulation materials for electronic passive thermal protection applications. The optimal mass percentages of paraffin for the three composites, NS1P, NS2P and NS3P, were determined to be 75%, 70% and 65%, respectively. Investigations by means of scanning electron micrographs (SEM), differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TG), hot disk analyzer and thermal protection performance tests were devoted to the morphology, thermal properties and thermal protection performance analysis of composites. Experimental results showed that paraffin uniformly distributed into the pores and on the surface of nano-SiO 2 . Melting points of composites declined and experimental latent heat became lower than the calculated values with the decrease of nano-SiO 2 pore size. The NS1P composite had larger thermal storage capacity, better reliability and stability compared with NS2P and NS3P. In addition, compared with 90% wt.% paraffin/EG composite, the incorporation of NS1 (25 wt.%) into paraffin caused not only 63.2% reduction in thermal conductivity, but also 21.8% increase in thermal protection time affected by the ambient temperature. Thus those good properties confirmed that NS1P (75 wt.%) composite was a viable candidate for protecting electronic devices under high temperature environment.

Role of thermal resistance on the performance of superconducting radio frequency cavities

Science.gov (United States)

Dhakal, Pashupati; Ciovati, Gianluigi; Myneni, Ganapati Rao

2017-03-01

Thermal stability is an important parameter for the operation of the superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities used in particle accelerators. The rf power dissipated on the inner surface of the cavities is conducted to the helium bath cooling the outer cavity surface and the equilibrium temperature of the inner surface depends on the thermal resistance. In this manuscript, we present the results of direct measurements of thermal resistance on 1.3 GHz single cell SRF cavities made from high purity large-grain and fine-grain niobium as well as their rf performance for different treatments applied to outer cavity surface in order to investigate the role of the Kapitza resistance to the overall thermal resistance and to the SRF cavity performance. The results show no significant impact of the thermal resistance to the SRF cavity performance after chemical polishing, mechanical polishing or anodization of the outer cavity surface. Temperature maps taken during the rf test show nonuniform heating of the surface at medium rf fields. Calculations of Q0(Bp) curves using the thermal feedback model show good agreement with experimental data at 2 and 1.8 K when a pair-braking term is included in the calculation of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer surface resistance. These results indicate local intrinsic nonlinearities of the surface resistance, rather than purely thermal effects, to be the main cause for the observed field dependence of Q0(Bp) .

Role of thermal resistance on the performance of superconducting radio frequency cavities

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Pashupati Dhakal

2017-03-01

Full Text Available Thermal stability is an important parameter for the operation of the superconducting radio frequency (SRF cavities used in particle accelerators. The rf power dissipated on the inner surface of the cavities is conducted to the helium bath cooling the outer cavity surface and the equilibrium temperature of the inner surface depends on the thermal resistance. In this manuscript, we present the results of direct measurements of thermal resistance on 1.3 GHz single cell SRF cavities made from high purity large-grain and fine-grain niobium as well as their rf performance for different treatments applied to outer cavity surface in order to investigate the role of the Kapitza resistance to the overall thermal resistance and to the SRF cavity performance. The results show no significant impact of the thermal resistance to the SRF cavity performance after chemical polishing, mechanical polishing or anodization of the outer cavity surface. Temperature maps taken during the rf test show nonuniform heating of the surface at medium rf fields. Calculations of Q_{0}(B_{p} curves using the thermal feedback model show good agreement with experimental data at 2 and 1.8 K when a pair-braking term is included in the calculation of the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer surface resistance. These results indicate local intrinsic nonlinearities of the surface resistance, rather than purely thermal effects, to be the main cause for the observed field dependence of Q_{0}(B_{p}.

Volume Fraction Dependent Thermal Performance of UAlx-Al Dispersion Target

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kong, Eui Hyun; Tahk, Young Wook; Kim, Hyun Jung; Oh, Jae Yong; Yim, Jeong Sik [KAERI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

Unlike U-Al alloys, properties of UAl{sub x}-Al dispersion target can be highly sensitive to volume fraction of UAlx in a target meat due to the interface resistance between target particles and matrix. The interface resistance effects on properties of the target meat including thermal conductivity, thermal expansion coefficient, specific heat, elastic modulus and so on. Thermal performances of a dispersion target meat were theoretically evaluated under normal operation condition of KJRR (Kijang Research Reactor) during short effective full power days (EFPD) of 7 days, based on reported measured thermal conductivities of UAl{sub x}-Al dispersion fuels. Effective thermal conductivity determines maximum temperature of dispersion target plate. And for that volume fraction of UAlx in target meat has to be determined considering manufacturing of target plate without degradation of physical and mechanical characteristics.

Utility experience using THERMAC for plant thermal performance analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jain, P.K.; Doran, K.J.

1993-01-01

THERMAC is a state-of-the-art software package designed to assist those responsible for monitoring and evaluating the thermal performance of fossil and nuclear power plants. It is an integrated program, available on PCs and selected workstations, that combines strong analytical capabilities with a graphical user interface and object-oriented database. The software accurately analyses all of the components of a power plant from first principles. The graphical user interface is employed to build plant specific models; it can also be used to create custom screen displays. THERMAC is able to read plant measurements and statistically account for any missing or erroneous plant data; it does not require any additional plant instrumentation. THERMAC can be used to archive historical data, generate customized trending plots and periodic performance reports. open-quotes What-if close-quote studies can be conducted to predict the impact of corrective actions on thermal performance

Fabrication and performance evaluation of flexible heat pipes for potential thermal control of foldable electronics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, Chao; Chang, Chao; Song, Chengyi; Shang, Wen; Wu, Jianbo; Tao, Peng; Deng, Tao

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A flexible and high-performance heat pipe is fabricated. • Bending effect on thermal performance of flexible heat pipes is evaluated. • Theoretical analysis is carried out to reveal the change of thermal resistance with bending. • Thermal control of foldable electronics with flexible heat pipes is demonstrated. - Abstract: In this work, we report the fabrication and thermal performance evaluation of flexible heat pipes prepared by using a fluororubber tube as the connector in the adiabatic section and using strong base treated hydrophilic copper meshes as the wick structure. Deionized water was chosen as working fluid and three different filling ratios (10%, 20%, and 30%) of working fluid were loaded into the heat pipe to investigate its impact on thermal performance. The fabricated heat pipes can be easily bended from 0"o to 180"o in the horizontal operation mode and demonstrated consistently low thermal resistances after repeated bending. It was found that with optimized amount of working fluid, the thermal resistance of flexible heat pipes increased with larger bending angles. Theoretical analysis reveals that bending disturbs the normal vapor flow from evaporator to condenser in the heat pipe, thus leads to increased liquid–vapor interfacial thermal resistance in the evaporator section. The flexible heat pipes have been successfully applied for thermal control of foldable electronic devices showing superior uniform heat-transfer performance.

Thermal performance measurement and application of a multilayer insulator for emergency architecture

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Salvalai, Graziano; Imperadori, Marco; Scaccabarozzi, Diego; Pusceddu, Cristina

2015-01-01

Lightness coupled with a quick assembly method is crucial for emergency architecture in post-disaster area where accessibility and action time play a huge barer to rescue people. In this prospective, the following work analyses the potentiality (technological and thermal performances) of multilayer insulator for a new shelter envelope able to provide superior thermal comfort for the users. The thermal characteristics are derived experimentally by means of a guard ring apparatus under different working temperatures. Tests are performed on the multilayer insulator itself and on a composite structure, made of the multilayer insulator and two air gaps wrapped by a polyester cover, which is the core of a new lightweight emergency architecture. Experimental results show good agreement with literature data, providing a thermal conductivity and transmittance of about 0.04 W/(m °C) and 1.6 W/(m 2  °C) for the tested multilayer. The composite structure called Thermo Reflective Multilayer System (TRMS) shows better insulation performances, providing a thermal transmittance set to 0.85 W/(m 2  °C). A thermal model of an emergency tent based on the new insulating structure (TRMS) has been developed and its thermal performances have been compared with those of a UNHCR traditional emergency shelter. The shelter model was simulated (Trnsys v.17 environment) in the winter season considering the climate of Belgrade and using only the casual gains from occupant and solar radiation through opaque wall. Numerical simulations evidenced that the new insulating composite envelope reduces required heating load of about two and four times with respect to the traditional insulation. The study sets a starting point to develop a lightweight emergency architecture made with a combination between multilayer, air, polyester and vulcanized rubber. - Highlights: • Multilayer insulator tested by means of a guard ring apparatus. • Thermo reflective multilayer system (TRMS) development

ACCESS: Thermal Mechanical Design, Performance, and Status

Science.gov (United States)

Kaiser, Mary Elizabeth; Morris, M. J.; McCandliss, S. R.; Rauscher, B. J.; Kimble, R. A.; Kruk, J. W.; Wright, E. L.; Bohlin, R.; Kurucz, R. L.; Riess, A. G.; Pelton, R.; Deustua, S. E.; Dixon, W. V.; Sahnow, D. J.; Benford, D. J.; Gardner, J. P.; Feldman, P. D.; Moos, H. W.; Lampton, M.; Perlmutter, S.; Woodgate, B. E.

2014-01-01

Systematic errors associated with astrophysical data used to probe fundamental astrophysical questions, such as SNeIa observations used to constrain dark energy theories, are now rivaling and exceeding the statistical errors associated with these measurements. ACCESS: Absolute Color Calibration Experiment for Standard Stars is a series of rocket-borne sub-orbital missions and ground-based experiments designed to enable improvements in the precision of the astrophysical flux scale through the transfer of absolute laboratory detector standards from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to a network of stellar standards with a calibration accuracy of 1% and a spectral resolving power of 500 across the 0.35 - 1.7μm bandpass. Achieving this level of accuracy requires characterization and stability of the instrument and detector including a thermal background that contributes less than 1% to the flux per resolution element in the NIR. We will present the instrument and calibration status with a focus on the thermal mechanical design and associated performance data. The detector control and performance will be presented in a companion poster (Morris, et al). NASA APRA sounding rocket grant NNX08AI65G supports this work.

Feasibility and Performance of the Microwave Thermal Rocket Launcher

Science.gov (United States)

Parkin, Kevin L. G.; Culick, Fred E. C.

2004-03-01

Beamed-energy launch concepts employing a microwave thermal thruster are feasible in principle, and microwave sources of sufficient power to launch tons into LEO already exist. Microwave thermal thrusters operate on an analogous principle to nuclear thermal thrusters, which have experimentally demonstrated specific impulses exceeding 850 seconds. Assuming such performance, simple application of the rocket equation suggests that payload fractions of 10% are possible for a single stage to orbit (SSTO) microwave thermal rocket. We present an SSTO concept employing a scaled X-33 aeroshell. The flat aeroshell underside is covered by a thin-layer microwave absorbent heat-exchanger that forms part of the thruster. During ascent, the heat-exchanger faces the microwave beam. A simple ascent trajectory analysis incorporating X-33 aerodynamic data predicts a 10% payload fraction for a 1 ton craft of this type. In contrast, the Saturn V had 3 non-reusable stages and achieved a payload fraction of 4%.

Thermal transport studies using extreme ultraviolet spectroscopy: Final technical report, 5 March 1986-30 June 1987

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Griem, H.R.

1987-12-01

Thermal transport was investigated in laser-produced plasmas using spectroscopic measurements in the extreme ultraviolet. Theoretical work in collaboration with the University of Rochester allowed comparisons to be made of experimental spectra to a lagrangian hydrodynamic code. Results showed that transport is influenced by thermal flux inhibition in addition to non-uniformities in the laser irradiation. This work is a continuation of last year's project in which the main thermal transport results are reported. Very rich spectra were obtained in these experiments which yielded additional information on the ablating plasmas. A doppler shift was observed for neonlike titanium lines relative to higher ionization states of Ti. This shift is attributed to differences in expansion velocities between different charge states of Ti. A detailed report discussing this effect is attached. New lines were identified for Ti XXI and Ti XIX from these spectra in the wavelength region from 12 to 15 /angstrom/. The new heliumlike lines of Ti can exhibit population inversion and are candidates for x-ray laser experiments. A preprint of this paper is attached. Finally, line ratios of Ti XIX and Ti XX were employed to determine electron densities and temperatures. A report is also attached discussing these results

Evaluation of Strategies to Improve the Thermal Performance of Steel Frames in Curtain Wall Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ji Hyun Oh

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Recently, metal curtain wall systems have been widely used in high-rise buildings due to many advantages, including being lightweight, rapid construction, and aesthetic features. Since the metal frame may lead to lower energy performance, thermal discomfort, and condensation risk due to the high thermal conductivity, its thermal performance can be important for the improvement of the overall thermal performance of the curtain wall system, as well as the energy efficiency of the building envelope. This study aims to evaluate variety of design strategies to improve the thermal performance of steel curtain wall frames. Five base cases and three further steps were selected for two different head profile shapes based on a state-of-the art technology review, and their thermal transmittances were calculated through simulations according to the ISO 12631 standard which is an international standard for calculating thermal transmittance of curtain wall system. Measured results that were obtained from hot-box tests were compared with the calculated results to validate the simulation method of this study. The shape of the head profile did not strongly influence the overall thermal transmittance, and the choice of strategies for the rabbet space was more important. More effective strategies could be decided according to the steps for variation development. This result can serve as a guideline for the design of high-performance curtain wall frames.

Ways to improve physical and thermal performance of refractory lining materials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Khlystov A.I.

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Refractory lining materials, which include ceramic refractories and nonfired heat-resistant concretes, have a very short lifespan during the turnaround time measured in years and sometimes months. Therefore, increasing the service life of thermal generating units by 1.5-2 times will bring significant economic benefits. The main factor that determines the durability of refractory lining materials is the thermal resistance. It is possible to increase the thermal resistance by improving such physical and mechanical properties as strength and density. As for the ceramic refractory performance improvement, such technological methods as their structural and chemical modification by phosphate binder impregnation, as well as introduction of phosphate components into the ceramic batches during the molding process increase, in particular, their thermal stability. The use of aluminous and high-alumina cements contributes to a significant increase of not only strength, but also physical and thermal performance of heat-resistant concretes with different fillers. Switching to the use of chemical binders in the compositions of heat-resistant concretes (liquid glass with effective hardeners; silicate-block and phosphate binders enables to develop high-heat resistant materials which do not soften in a wide range of heating temperatures from 400 °С to 1600 °С. The positive results on increasing the thermal resistance of heat-resistant composites can be obtained by reinforcing them with high temperature fibers.

Thermal ecological physiology of native and invasive frog species: do invaders perform better?

Science.gov (United States)

Cortes, Pablo A; Puschel, Hans; Acuña, Paz; Bartheld, José L; Bozinovic, Francisco

2016-01-01

Biological invasions are recognized as an important biotic component of global change that threatens the composition, structure and functioning of ecosystems, resulting in loss of biodiversity and displacement of native species. Although ecological characteristics facilitating the establishment and spread of non-native species are widely recognized, little is known about organismal attributes underlying invasion success. In this study, we tested the effect of thermal acclimation on thermal tolerance and locomotor performance in the invasive Xenopus laevis and the Chilean native Calyptocephalella gayi . In particular, the maximal righting performance (μ MAX ), optimal temperature ( T O ), lower (CT min ) and upper critical thermal limits (CT max ), thermal breadth ( T br ) and the area under the performance curve (AUC) were studied after 6 weeks acclimation to 10 and 20°C. We observed higher values of μ max and AUC in X. laevis in comparison to C. gayi . On the contrary, the invasive species showed lower values of CT min in comparison to the native one. In contrast, CT max , T O and T br showed no inter-specific differences. Moreover, we found that both species have the ability to acclimate their locomotor performance and lower thermal tolerance limit at low temperatures. Our results demonstrate that X. laevis is a better performer than C. gayi . Although there were differences in CT min , the invasive and native frogs did not differ in their thermal tolerance. Interestingly, in both species the lower and upper critical thermal limits are beyond the minimal and maximal temperatures encountered in nature during the coldest and hottest month, respectively. Overall, our findings suggest that both X. laevis and C. gayi would be resilient to climate warming expectations in Chile.

Thermal performance of various multilayer insulation systems below 80K

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boroski, W.N.; Nicol, T.H.; Schoo, C.J.

1992-04-01

The SSC collider dipole cryostat consists of a vacuum shell operating at room temperature, two thermal shields operating near 80K and 20K respectively, and the superconducting magnet assembly operating near 4K. The cryostat design incorporates multilayer insulation (MLI) blankets to limit radiant heat transfer into the 80K and 20K thermal shields. Also, an MLI blanket is used to impede heat transfer through residual gas conduction into the 4K superconducting magnet assembly. A measurement facility at Fermilab has been used to experimentally optimize the thermal insulation system for the dipole cryostat. Previous thermal measurements have been used to define the 80K MLI system configuration and verify system performance. With the 80K MLI system defined, the current effort has focused on experimentally defining the optimum insulation scheme for the 20K thermal shield. The SSC design specification requires that radiant heat transfer be limited to 0.093 W/m 2 at an insulating vacuum of 10 -6 torr

The performance analysis of the Trough Concentrating Solar Photovoltaic/Thermal system

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Li, M., E-mail: liming@ynnu.edu.c [Solar Energy Research Institute, Yunnan Normal University, 650092 Kunming (China); Li, G.L. [School of Physics and Electronic Information, Yunnan Normal University, Kunming 650092 (China); Ji, X.; Yin, F.; Xu, L. [Solar Energy Research Institute, Yunnan Normal University, 650092 Kunming (China)

2011-06-15

Research highlights: {yields} A 2 m{sup 2} Trough Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal (TCPV/T) system is built, a single crystalline silicon solar cell array, a polycrystalline silicon cell array, a Super cell array and a GaAs cell array are respectively used in the experiments. {yields} Another 10 m{sup 2} TCPV/T system using the GaAs cell array and a concentrating silicon cell array are also constructed and characterized. {yields} The economic performance analysis show the electricity generating cost of the TCPV/T system with the concentrating silicon cell array can catch up with flat-plate PV system. -- Abstract: The electrical and thermal performance of a 2 m{sup 2} Trough Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal (TCPV/T) system with an energy flux ratio 10.27 are characterized by experiments. A single crystalline silicon solar cell array, a polycrystalline silicon cell array, a Super cell array and a GaAs cell array are respectively used in the experiments. The experimental results show that the electrical performance of the system with the GaAs cell array is better than that of crystal silicon solar cell arrays. The superior output performance of the GaAs cell array mainly benefits from its lower series resistance. But the thermal performances of the system using the single crystal silicon solar cell array and the polycrystalline silicon solar cell array are better. It results from the widths of the two types of cells in the system close to that of the focal line. Another 10 m{sup 2} TCPV/T system with an energy flux ratio of 20 using the GaAs cell array and a concentrating silicon cell array are also constructed and characterized. The experimental results indicate that the photoelectric efficiency of the GaAs cell array is 23.83%, and the instantaneous electrical efficiency and thermal efficiency of the system are 9.88% and 49.84% respectively. While the instantaneous electrical efficiency and thermal efficiency of the system using the low-cost concentrating

The performance analysis of the Trough Concentrating Solar Photovoltaic/Thermal system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, M.; Li, G.L.; Ji, X.; Yin, F.; Xu, L.

2011-01-01

Research highlights: → A 2 m 2 Trough Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal (TCPV/T) system is built, a single crystalline silicon solar cell array, a polycrystalline silicon cell array, a Super cell array and a GaAs cell array are respectively used in the experiments. → Another 10 m 2 TCPV/T system using the GaAs cell array and a concentrating silicon cell array are also constructed and characterized. → The economic performance analysis show the electricity generating cost of the TCPV/T system with the concentrating silicon cell array can catch up with flat-plate PV system. -- Abstract: The electrical and thermal performance of a 2 m 2 Trough Concentrating Photovoltaic/Thermal (TCPV/T) system with an energy flux ratio 10.27 are characterized by experiments. A single crystalline silicon solar cell array, a polycrystalline silicon cell array, a Super cell array and a GaAs cell array are respectively used in the experiments. The experimental results show that the electrical performance of the system with the GaAs cell array is better than that of crystal silicon solar cell arrays. The superior output performance of the GaAs cell array mainly benefits from its lower series resistance. But the thermal performances of the system using the single crystal silicon solar cell array and the polycrystalline silicon solar cell array are better. It results from the widths of the two types of cells in the system close to that of the focal line. Another 10 m 2 TCPV/T system with an energy flux ratio of 20 using the GaAs cell array and a concentrating silicon cell array are also constructed and characterized. The experimental results indicate that the photoelectric efficiency of the GaAs cell array is 23.83%, and the instantaneous electrical efficiency and thermal efficiency of the system are 9.88% and 49.84% respectively. While the instantaneous electrical efficiency and thermal efficiency of the system using the low-cost concentrating silicon cell array are 7.51% and 42

The Effect of Internal Leakages on Thermal Performance in NPPs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heo, Gyun Young; Kim, Doo Won; Jang, Seok Bo

2007-01-01

Since the Balance Of Plant (BOP, limited to a turbine cycle in this study) does not contain radioactive material, regulatory authorities did not need to have concerns on it. As the interests on safety and performance is getting more serious and extensive, controlling the level of safety and performance of a BOP have just begun or is about to begin. The performance standards or ageing management programs of the major equipment in a BOP is being developed. The regulatory requirements for tests and/or maintenance are being actively built up. There is also a probabilistic approach quantifying performance of a BOP. The study on quantifying the rate of unanticipated shutdowns caused by careless maintenance and/or tests conducted in a BOP is going on. In this study, the modeling of the entire BOP and the methodologies of thermal performance analysis should be one of the must-have items as well. This study was achieved to ensure fundamental skills related to 1) the detailed steady-state modeling of a BOP and 2) thermal performance analysis under various conditions. Particularly, the paper will focus on the effect of internal leakages inside the valves and FeedWater Heaters (FWHs). The internal leakage is regarded as the flow movement through the isolated path but remaining inside the system boundary of a BOP. For instance, the leakage from one side of a valve seat to the other side, or the leakage through the cracked tubes or tube-sheets in a heat exchanger correspond to internal leakages. We made a BOP model of OPR1000 and investigated thermal performance under the internal leakage in Turbine Bypass Condenser Dump Valves (TBCDV) and FWHs

Shuttle TPS thermal performance and analysis methodology

Science.gov (United States)

Neuenschwander, W. E.; Mcbride, D. U.; Armour, G. A.

1983-01-01

Thermal performance of the thermal protection system was approximately as predicted. The only extensive anomalies were filler bar scorching and over-predictions in the high Delta p gap heating regions of the orbiter. A technique to predict filler bar scorching has been developed that can aid in defining a solution. Improvement in high Delta p gap heating methodology is still under study. Minor anomalies were also examined for improvements in modeling techniques and prediction capabilities. These include improved definition of low Delta p gap heating, an analytical model for inner mode line convection heat transfer, better modeling of structure, and inclusion of sneak heating. The limited number of problems related to penetration items that presented themselves during orbital flight tests were resolved expeditiously, and designs were changed and proved successful within the time frame of that program.

COMMIX analysis of four constant flow thermal upramp experiments performed in a thermal hydraulic model of an advanced LMR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yarlagadda, B.S.

1989-04-01

The three-dimensional thermal hydraulics computer code COMMIX-1AR was used to analyze four constant flow thermal upramp experiments performed in the thermal hydraulic model of an advanced LMR. An objective of these analyses was the validation of COMMIX-1AR for buoyancy affected flows. The COMMIX calculated temperature histories of some thermocouples in the model were compared with the corresponding measured data. The conclusions of this work are presented. 3 refs., 5 figs

Performance of silvered Teflon (trademark) thermal control blankets on spacecraft

Science.gov (United States)

Pippin, Gary; Stuckey, Wayne; Hemminger, Carol

1993-01-01

Silverized Teflon (Ag/FEP) is a widely used passive thermal control material for space applications. The material has a very low alpha/e ratio (less than 0.1) for low operating temperatures and is fabricated with various FEP thicknesses (as the Teflon thickness increases, the emittance increases). It is low outgassing and, because of its flexibility, can be applied around complex, curved shapes. Ag/FEP has achieved multiyear lifetimes under a variety of exposure conditions. This has been demonstrated by the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF), Solar Max, Spacecraft Charging at High Altitudes (SCATHA), and other flight experiments. Ag/FEP material has been held in place on spacecraft by a variety of methods: mechanical clamping, direct adhesive bonding of tapes and sheets, and by Velcro(TM) tape adhesively bonded to back surfaces. On LDEF, for example, 5-mil blankets held by Velcro(TM) and clamping were used for thermal control over 3- by 4-ft areas on each of 17 trays. Adhesively bonded 2- and 5-mil sheets were used on other LDEF experiments, both for thermal control and as tape to hold other thermal control blankets in place. Performance data over extended time periods are available from a number of flights. The observed effects on optical properties, mechanical properties, and surface chemistry will be summarized in this paper. This leads to a discussion of performance life estimates and other design lessons for Ag/FEP thermal control material.

Numerical analysis on thermal performance of roof contained PCM of a single residential building

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Dong; Zheng, Yumeng; Liu, Changyu; Wu, Guozhong

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal performance of different roofs in cold area of China are investigated. • Effects of five different conditions on thermal performance of roofs are analyzed. • Delay time of temperatures peak in PCM roofs are beyond 3 h than common roof. - Abstract: The phase change material (PCM) applied in the roof can decrease the building energy consumption and improve the thermal comfort by enhancing the thermal energy storage capacity of building envelope. In the present work, the thermal performance of different kinds of roofs with and without PCM in Northeast and cold area of China, i.e. common roof and PCM roofs, have been investigated numerically. This study also explored the influencing factors of thermal behavior of the roofs, such as solar radiation intensity, transition temperature and latent heat of PCM, roof slope, PCM layer thickness, and absorption coefficients of external roof surface. The results show that the PCM roofs effect on the temperature delay in the room is very strong and the delay time of temperatures peak of base layer in PCM roofs are beyond 3 h than common roof. The effect of transition temperature and latent heat of PCM on the thermal performance of roofs is relatively weak, compared with the roof slope, PCM layer thickness and absorption coefficients of external roof surface

Density dependence of reactor performance with thermal confinement scalings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stotler, D.P.

1992-03-01

Energy confinement scalings for the thermal component of the plasma published thus far have a different dependence on plasma density and input power than do scalings for the total plasma energy. With such thermal scalings, reactor performance (measured by Q, the ratio of the fusion power to the sum of the ohmic and auxiliary input powers) worsens with increasing density. This dependence is the opposite of that found using scalings based on the total plasma energy, indicating that reactor operation concepts may need to be altered if this density dependence is confirmed in future research

Thermal performance of a radiatively cooled system for quantum optomechanical experiments in space

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pilan Zanoni, André; Burkhardt, Johannes; Johann, Ulrich; Aspelmeyer, Markus; Kaltenbaek, Rainer; Hechenblaikner, Gerald

2016-01-01

Highlights: • We improved performance and design aspects of a radiatively cooled instrument. • A heat-flow analysis showed near optimal performance of the shield design. • A simple modification to imaging optics allowed further improvements. • We studied the thermal behavior for different orbital cases. • A transfer-function analysis showed strong attenuation of thermal variations. - Abstract: Passive cooling of scientific instruments via thermal radiation to deep space offers many advantages over active cooling in terms of mission cost, lifetime and the achievable quality of vacuum and microgravity. Motivated by the mission proposal MAQRO to test the foundations of quantum physics harnessing a deep-space environment, we investigate the performance of a radiatively cooled instrument, where the environment of a test particle in a quantum superposition has to be cooled to less than 20 K. We perform a heat-transfer analysis between the instrument components and a transfer-function analysis on thermal oscillations induced by the spacecraft interior and dissipative sources. The thermal behavior of the instrument is discussed for an orbit around a Lagrangian point and for a highly elliptical Earth orbit. Finally, we investigate possible design improvements. These include a mirror-based design of the imaging system on the optical bench (OB) and an extension of the heat shields.

High-performance ferroelectric and magnetoresistive materials for next-generation thermal detector arrays

Science.gov (United States)

Todd, Michael A.; Donohue, Paul P.; Watton, Rex; Williams, Dennis J.; Anthony, Carl J.; Blamire, Mark G.

2002-12-01

This paper discusses the potential thermal imaging performance achievable from thermal detector arrays and concludes that the current generation of thin-film ferroelectric and resistance bolometer based detector arrays are limited by the detector materials used. It is proposed that the next generation of large uncooled focal plane arrays will need to look towards higher performance detector materials - particularly if they aim to approach the fundamental performance limits and compete with cooled photon detector arrays. Two examples of bolometer thin-film materials are described that achieve high performance from operating around phase transitions. The material Lead Scandium Tantalate (PST) has a paraelectric-to-ferroelectric phase transition around room temperature and is used with an applied field in the dielectric bolometer mode for thermal imaging. PST films grown by sputtering and liquid-source CVD have shown merit figures for thermal imaging a factor of 2 to 3 times higher than PZT-based pyroelectric thin films. The material Lanthanum Calcium Manganite (LCMO) has a paramagnetic to ferromagnetic phase transition around -20oC. This paper describes recent measurements of TCR and 1/f noise in pulsed laser-deposited LCMO films on Neodymium Gallate substrates. These results show that LCMO not only has high TCR's - up to 30%/K - but also low 1/f excess noise, with bolometer merit figures at least an order of magnitude higher than Vanadium Oxide, making it ideal for the next generation of microbolometer arrays. These high performance properties come at the expense of processing complexities and novel device designs will need to be introduced to realize the potential of these materials in the next generation of thermal detectors.

High-Performance Molybdenum Coating by Wire–HVOF Thermal Spray Process

Science.gov (United States)

Tailor, Satish; Modi, Ankur; Modi, S. C.

2018-04-01

Coating deposition on many industrial components with good microstructural, mechanical properties, and better wear resistance is always a challenge for the thermal spray community. A number of thermal spray methods are used to develop such promising coatings for many industrial applications, viz. arc spray, flame spray, plasma, and HVOF. All these processes have their own limitations to achieve porous free, very dense, high-performance wear-resistant coatings. In this work, an attempt has been made to overcome this limitation. Molybdenum coatings were deposited on low-carbon steel substrates using wire-high-velocity oxy-fuel (W-HVOF; WH) thermal spray system (trade name HIJET 9610®). For a comparison, Mo coatings were also fabricated by arc spray, flame spray, plasma spray, and powder-HVOF processes. As-sprayed coatings were analyzed using x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy for phase, and microstructural analysis, respectively. Coating microhardness, surface roughness, and porosity were also measured. Adhesion strength and wear tests were conducted to determine the mechanical and wear properties of the as-sprayed coatings. Results show that the coatings deposited by W-HVOF have better performance in terms of microstructural, mechanical, and wear resistance properties, in comparison with available thermal spray process (flame spray and plasma spray).

A global fouling factor methodology for analyzing steam generator thermal performance degradation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kreider, M.A.; White, G.A.; Varrin, R.D. Jr.

1998-06-01

Over the past few years, steam generator (SG) thermal performance degradation has led to decreased plant efficiency and power output at numerous PWR nuclear power plants with recirculating-type SGs. The authors have developed and implemented methodologies for quantitatively evaluating the various sources of SG performance degradation, both internal and external to the SG pressure boundary. These methodologies include computation of the global fouling factor history, evaluation of secondary deposit thermal resistance using deposit characterization data, and consideration of pressure loss causes unrelated to the tube bundle, such as hot-leg temperature streaming and SG moisture separator fouling. In order to evaluate the utility of the global fouling factor methodology, the authors performed case studies for a number of PWR SG designs. Key results from two of these studies are presented here. In tandem with the fouling-factor analyses, a study evaluated for each plant the potential causes of pressure loss. The combined results of the global fouling factor calculations and the pressure-loss evaluations demonstrated two key points: (1) that the available thermal margin against fouling, which can vary substantially from plant to plant, has an important bearing on whether a given plant exhibits losses in electrical generating capacity, and (2) that a wide variety of causes can result in SG thermal performance degradation

Comparative exergetic performance analysis for certain thermal power plants in Serbia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mitrović Dejan M.

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Traditional methods of analysis and calculation of complex thermal systems are based on the first law of thermodynamics. These methods use energy balance for a system. In general, energy balances do not provide any information about internal losses. In contrast, the second law of thermodynamics introduces the concept of exergy, which is useful in the analysis of thermal systems. Exergy is a measure for assessing the quality of energy, and allows one to determine the location, cause, and real size of losses incurred as well as residues in a thermal process. The purpose of this study is to comparatively analyze the performance of four thermal power plants from the energetic and exergetic viewpoint. Thermodynamic models of the plants are developed based on the first and second law of thermodynamics. The primary objectives of this paper are to analyze the system components separately and to identify and quantify the sites having largest energy and exergy losses. Finally, by means of these analyses, the main sources of thermodynamic inefficiencies as well as a reasonable comparison of each plant to others are identified and discussed. As a result, the outcomes of this study can provide a basis for the improvement of plant performance for the considered thermal power plants.

Thermal Model Predictions of Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xiao-Yen J.; Fabanich, William Anthony; Schmitz, Paul C.

2014-01-01

This presentation describes the capabilities of three-dimensional thermal power model of advanced stirling radioisotope generator (ASRG). The performance of the ASRG is presented for different scenario, such as Venus flyby with or without the auxiliary cooling system.

Additive Manufacturing Thermal Performance Testing of Single Channel GRCop-84 SLM Components

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, Chance P.; Cross, Matthew

2014-01-01

The surface finish found on components manufactured by sinter laser manufacturing (SLM) is rougher (0.013 - 0.0006 inches) than parts made using traditional fabrication methods. Internal features and passages built into SLM components do not readily allow for roughness reduction processes. Alternatively, engineering literature suggests that the roughness of a surface can enhance thermal performance within a pressure drop regime. To further investigate the thermal performance of SLM fabricated pieces, several GRCop-84 SLM single channel components were tested using a thermal conduction rig at MSFC. A 20 kW power source running at 25% duty cycle and 25% power level applied heat to each component while varying water flow rates between 2.1 - 6.2 gallons/min (GPM) at a supply pressure of 550 to 700 psi. Each test was allowed to reach quasi-steady state conditions where pressure, temperature, and thermal imaging data were recorded. Presented in this work are the heat transfer responses compared to a traditional machined OHFC Copper test section. An analytical thermal model was constructed to anchor theoretical models with the empirical data.

Performance Feedback & Control of Solar Concentrators Using Wave Front Sensing Techniques (Preprint)

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

Beasley, Jason N

2007-01-01

The major requirement for using concentrating Solar Thermal devices is the proper placement of the focal spot on the absorber to provide heating of the working fluid to produce thrust or to generate electricity...

Hydrocarbon Fuel Thermal Performance Modeling based on Systematic Measurement and Comprehensive Chromatographic Analysis

Science.gov (United States)

2016-07-31

distribution unlimited Hydrocarbon Fuel Thermal Performance Modeling based on Systematic Measurement and Comprehensive Chromatographic Analysis Matthew...vital importance for hydrocarbon -fueled propulsion systems: fuel thermal performance as indicated by physical and chemical effects of cooling passage... analysis . The selection and acquisition of a set of chemically diverse fuels is pivotal for a successful outcome since test method validation and

Performance results of a solar greenhouse combining electrical and thermal energy production

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sonneveld, P.J.; Swinkels, G.L.A.M.; Campen, J.B.; Tuijl, van B.A.J.; Janssen, H.J.J.; Bot, G.P.A.

2010-01-01

Performance results are given of a new type of greenhouse, which combines reflection of near infrared radiation (NIR) with electrical power generation using hybrid photovoltaic cell/thermal collector modules. Besides the generation of electrical and thermal energy, the reflection of the NIR will

Effect of aluminum anodizing in phosphoric acid electrolyte on adhesion strength and thermal performance

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Sulki; Kim, Donghyun; Kim, Yonghwan; Jung, Uoochang; Chung, Wonsub

2016-01-01

This study examined the adhesive bond strength and thermal performance of the anodized aluminum 6061 in phosphoric acid electrolyte to improve the adhesive bond strength and thermal performance for use in metal core printed circuit boards (MCPCB). The electrolyte temperature and applied voltage were altered to generate varied pore structures. The thickness, porosity and pore diameter of the anodized layer were measured. The pore morphologies were affected most by temperature, which was the driving force for ion transportation. The mechanism of adhesive bond was penetration of the epoxy into the pores. The optimal anodization conditions for maximum adhesive bond strength, 27 MPa, were 293 K and 100V. The maximum thermal conductivity of the epoxy-treated anodized layer was 1.6 W/m·K at 273 K. Compared with the epoxy-treated Al layer used for conventional MCPCBs, the epoxy-treated anodized layer showed advanced thermal performance due to a low difference of thermal resistance and high heat dissipation.

Thermal performance of a micro-combustor for micro-gas turbine system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Cao, H.L.; Xu, J.L.

2007-01-01

Premixed combustion of hydrogen gas and air was performed in a stainless steel based micro-annular combustor for a micro-gas turbine system. Micro-scale combustion has proved to be stable in the micro-combustor with a gap of 2 mm. The operating range of the micro-combustor was measured, and the maximum excess air ratio is up to 4.5. The distribution of the outer wall temperature and the temperature of exhaust gas of the micro-combustor with excess air ratio were obtained, and the wall temperature of the micro-combustor reaches its maximum value at the excess air ratio of 0.9 instead of 1 (stoichiometric ratio). The heat loss of the micro-combustor to the environment was calculated and even exceeds 70% of the total thermal power computed from the consumed hydrogen mass flow rate. Moreover, radiant heat transfer covers a large fraction of the total heat loss. Measures used to reduce the heat loss were proposed to improve the thermal performance of the micro-combustor. The optimal operating status of the micro-combustor and micro-gas turbine is analyzed and proposed by analyzing the relationship of the temperature of the exhaust gas of the micro-combustor with thermal power and excess air ratio. The investigation of the thermal performance of the micro-combustor is helpful to design an improved micro-combustor

Numerical research on the thermal performance of high altitude scientific balloons

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dai, Qiumin; Xing, Daoming; Fang, Xiande; Zhao, Yingjie

2017-01-01

Highlights: • A model is presented to evaluate the IR radiation between translucent surfaces. • Comprehensive ascent and thermal models of balloons are established. • The effect of IR transmissivity on film temperature distribution is unneglectable. • Atmospheric IR radiation is the primary thermal factor of balloons at night. • Solar radiation is the primary thermal factor of balloons during the day. - Abstract: Internal infrared (IR) radiation is an important factor that affects the thermal performance of high altitude balloons. The internal IR radiation is commonly neglected or treated as the IR radiation between opaque gray bodies. In this paper, a mathematical model which considers the IR transmissivity of the film is proposed to estimate the internal IR radiation. Comprehensive ascent and thermal models for high altitude scientific balloons are established. Based on the models, thermal characteristics of a NASA super pressure balloon are simulated. The effects of film IR property on the thermal behaviors of the balloon are discussed in detail. The results are helpful for the design and operation of high altitude scientific balloons.

Transient thermal performance analysis of micro heat pipes

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Xiangdong; Chen, Yongping

2013-01-01

A theoretical analysis of transient fluid flow and heat transfer in a triangular micro heat pipes (MHP) has been conducted to study the thermal response characteristics. By introducing the system identification theory, the quantitative evaluation of the MHP's transient thermal performance is realized. The results indicate that the evaporation and condensation processes are both extended into the adiabatic section. During the start-up process, the capillary radius along axial direction of MHP decreases drastically while the liquid velocity increases quickly at the early transient stage and an approximately linear decrease in wall temperature arises along the axial direction. The MHP behaves as a first-order LTI control system with the constant input power as the 'step input' and the evaporator wall temperature as the 'output'. Two corresponding evaluation criteria derived from the control theory, time constant and temperature constant, are able to quantitatively evaluate the thermal response speed and temperature level of MHP under start-up, which show that a larger triangular groove's hydraulic diameter within 0.18–0.42 mm is able to accelerate the start-up and decrease the start-up temperature level of MHP. Additionally, the MHP starts up fastest using the fluid of ethanol and most slowly using the working fluid of methanol, and the start-up temperature reaches maximum level for acetone and minimum level for the methanol. -- Highlights: • Transient thermal response of micro heat pipe is simulated by an improved model. • Control theory is introduced to quantify the thermal response of micro heat pipe. • Evaluation criteria are proposed to represent thermal response of micro heat pipe. • Effects of groove dimensions and working fluids on start-up of micro heat pipe are evaluated

PID temperature controller in pig nursery: improvements in performance, thermal comfort, and electricity use.

Science.gov (United States)

de Souza Granja Barros, Juliana; Rossi, Luiz Antonio; Sartor, Karina

2016-08-01

The use of smarter temperature control technologies in heating systems can optimize the use of electric power and performance of piglets. Two control technologies of a resistive heating system were assessed in a pig nursery: a PID (proportional, integral, and derivative) controller and a thermostat. The systems were evaluated regarding thermal environment, piglet performance, and use of electric power for 99 days. The heating system with PID controller improved the thermal environment conditions and was significantly (P PID-controlled heating system is more efficient in electricity use and provides better conditions for thermal comfort and animal performance than heating with thermostat.

High thermal performance lithium-ion battery pack including hybrid active–passive thermal management system for using in hybrid/electric vehicles

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fathabadi, Hassan

2014-01-01

In this study, a novel Li-ion battery pack design including hybrid active–passive thermal management system is presented. The battery pack is suitable for using in hybrid/electric vehicles. Active part of the hybrid thermal management system uses distributed thin ducts, air flow and natural convection as cooling media while the passive part utilizes phase change material/expanded graphite composite (PCM/EG) as cooling/heating component to optimize the thermal performance of the proposed battery pack. High melting enthalpy of PCM/EG composite together with melting of PCM/EG composite at the temperature of 58.9 °C remains the temperature distribution of the battery units in the desired temperature range (below 60 °C). The temperature and voltage distributions in the proposed battery pack design consisting of battery units, distributed thin ducts and PCM/EG composite are calculated by numerical solving of the related partial differential equations. Simulation results obtained by writing M-files code in Matlab environment and plotting the numerical data are presented to validate the theoretical results. A comparison between the thermal and physical characteristics of the proposed battery pack and other latest works is presented that explicitly proves the battery pack performance. - Highlights: • Novel Li-ion battery pack including active and passive thermal management systems. • The battery pack has high thermal performance for ambient temperatures until 55 °C. • Uniform temperature and voltage distributions. • The maximum observed temperature in each battery unit is less than other works. • The maximum temperature dispersion in each battery is less than other works

Computational Analysis on Performance of Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Diffuser

Science.gov (United States)

Adib, M. A. H. M.; Adnan, F.; Ismail, A. R.; Kardigama, K.; Salaam, H. A.; Ahmad, Z.; Johari, N. H.; Anuar, Z.; Azmi, N. S. N.

2012-09-01

Application of thermal energy storage (TES) system reduces cost and energy consumption. The performance of the overall operation is affected by diffuser design. In this study, computational analysis is used to determine the thermocline thickness. Three dimensional simulations with different tank height-to-diameter ratio (HD), diffuser opening and the effect of difference number of diffuser holes are investigated. Medium HD tanks simulations with double ring octagonal diffuser show good thermocline behavior and clear distinction between warm and cold water. The result show, the best performance of thermocline thickness during 50% time charging occur in medium tank with height-to-diameter ratio of 4.0 and double ring octagonal diffuser with 48 holes (9mm opening ~ 60%) acceptable compared to diffuser with 6mm ~ 40% and 12mm ~ 80% opening. The conclusion is computational analysis method are very useful in the study on performance of thermal energy storage (TES).

Thermal Performance of Precast Concrete Sandwich Panel (PCSP) Design for Sustainable Built Environment

Science.gov (United States)

Ern, Peniel Ang Soon; Ling, Lim Mei; Kasim, Narimah; Hamid, Zuhairi Abd; Masrom, Md Asrul Nasid Bin

2017-10-01

Malaysia’s awareness of performance criteria in construction industry towards a sustainable built environment with the use of precast concrete sandwich panel (PCSP) system is applied in the building’s wall to study the structural behaviour. However, very limited studies are conducted on the thermal insulation of exterior and interior panels in PCSP design. In hot countries such as Malaysia, proper designs of panel are important to obtain better thermal insulation for building. This study is based on thermal performance of precast concrete sandwich panel design for sustainable built environment in Malaysia. In this research, three full specimens, which are control specimen (C), foamed concrete (FC) panels and concrete panels with added palm oil fuel ash (FC+ POFA), where FC and FC+POFA sandwiched with gypsum board (G) were produced to investigate their thermal performance. Temperature difference of exterior and interior surface of specimen was used as indicators of thermal-insulating performance of PCSP design. Heat transfer test by halogen lamp was carried out on three specimens where the exterior surface of specimens was exposed to the halogen lamp. The temperature reading of exterior and interior surface for three specimens were recorded with the help of thermocouple. Other factors also studied the workability, compressive strength and axial compressive strength of the specimens. This study has shown that FC + POFA specimen has the strength nearer to normal specimen (C + FC specimen). Meanwhile, the heat transfer results show that the FC+POFA has better thermal insulation performance compared to C and FC specimens with the highest temperature difference, 3.4°C compared to other specimens. The results from this research are useful to be implemented in construction due to its benefits such as reduction of energy consumption in air-conditioning, reduction of construction periods and eco-friendly materials.

Measure the effects of thermal discomfort on the performance of office work

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lan, L.; Wargocki, P.; Lian, Z.W.

2011-01-01

Accuracy and speed are the two distinct aspects of human performance. A method was proposed by which the speed and accuracy were integrated into one measure by designing the tasks in such a way that the participants can only proceed to the next test when the task was performed without errors....... The method was examined through a subjective experiment with thermal environment as the prototypical example. The experimental results indicate that the negative effects of thermal discomfort on human performance were evaluated well by the tasks designed with the proposed method. It provides a useful tool...... for better measurement of human performance and helps to facilitate the development of quantitative relationship between IEQ and productivity....

Evaluating the interior thermal performance of mosques in the tropical environment

Science.gov (United States)

Nordin, N. I.; Misni, A.

2018-02-01

This study introduces the methodology applied in conducting data collection and data analysis. Data collection is the process of gathering and measuring information on targeted variables in an established systematic method. Qualitative and quantitative methods are combined in collecting data from government departments, site experiments and observation. Furthermore, analysing the indoor thermal performance data in the heritage and new mosques were used thermal monitoring tests, while validation will be made by meteorology data. Origin 8 version of the software is used to analyse all the data. Comparison techniques were applied to analyse several factors that influence the indoor thermal performance of mosques, namely building envelope include floor area, opening, and material used. Building orientation, location, surrounding vegetation and water elements are also recorded as supported building primary data. The comparison of primary data using these variables for four mosques include heritage and new buildings were revealed.

Thermal performance of a linear Fresnel reflector solar concentrator PV/T energy systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gomaa, Mohamed R. [State Engineering University of Armenia (Armenia)], E-Mail: Dmoh_elbehary@yahoo.com

2011-07-01

This is a report on an investigation of photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) collectors. Solar energy conversion efficiency was increased by taking advantage of PV/T collectors and low solar concentration technologies, combined into a PV/T system operated at elevated temperature. The main novelty is the coupling of a linear Fresnel mirror reflecting concentrator with a channel PV/T collector. Concentrator PV/T collectors can function at temperatures over 100 degrees celsius, and thus thermal energy can be made to drive processes such as refrigeration, desalination and steam production. Solar system analytical thermal performance gives efficiency values over 60%. Combined electric and thermal (CET) efficiency is high. A combined electric and heat power for the linear fresnel reflector approach that employs high performance CPV technology to produce both electricity and thermal energy at low to medium temperatures is presented. A well-functioning PV/T system can be designed and constructed with low concentration and a total efficiency of nearly 80% can be attained.

Performance Testing of Thermal Cutting Systems for Sweet Pepper Harvesting Robot in Greenhouse Horticulture

Science.gov (United States)

Bachche, Shivaji; Oka, Koichi

2013-03-01

This paper proposes design of end-effector and prototype of thermal cutting system for harvesting sweet peppers. The design consists of two parallel gripper bars mounted on a frame connected by specially designed notch plate and operated by servo motor. Based on voltage and current, two different types of thermal cutting system prototypes; electric arc and temperature arc respectively were developed and tested for performance. In electric arc, a special electric device was developed to obtain high voltage to perform cutting operation. At higher voltage, electrodes generate thermal arc which helps to cut stem of sweet pepper. In temperature arc, nichrome wire was mounted between two electrodes and current was provided directly to electrodes which results in generation of high temperature arc between two electrodes that help to perform cutting operation. In both prototypes, diameters of basic elements were varied and the effect of this variation on cutting operation was investigated. The temperature arc thermal system was found significantly suitable for cutting operation than electric arc thermal system. In temperature arc thermal cutting system, 0.5 mm nichrome wire shows significant results by accomplishing harvesting operation in 1.5 seconds. Also, thermal cutting system found suitable to increase shelf life of fruits by avoiding virus and fungal transformation during cutting process and sealing the fruit stem. The harvested sweet peppers by thermal cutting system can be preserved at normal room temperature for more than 15 days without any contamination.

A global fouling factor methodology for analyzing steam generator thermal performance degradation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kreider, M.A.; White, G.A.; Varrin, R.D.

1998-01-01

Over the past few years, steam generator (SG) thermal performance degradation has led to decreased plant efficiency and power output at numerous PWR nuclear power plants with recirculating-type SGs. The authors have developed and implemented methodologies for quantitatively evaluating the various sources of SG performance degradation, both internal and external to the SG pressure boundary. These methodologies include computation of the global fouling factor history, evaluation of secondary deposit thermal resistance using deposit characterization data, and consideration of pressure loss causes unrelated to the tube bundle, such as hot-leg temperature streaming and SG moisture separator performance. In order to evaluate the utility of the global fouling factor methodology, the authors performed case studies for a number of PWR SG designs. Key results from two of these studies are presented here. Uncertainty analyses were performed to determine whether the calculated fouling factor for each plant represented significant fouling or whether uncertainty in key variables (e.g., steam pressure or feedwater flow rate) could be responsible for calculated fouling. The methodology was validated using two methods: by predicting the SG pressure following chemical cleaning at San Onofre 2 and also by performing a sensitivity study with the industry-standard thermal-hydraulics code ATHOS to investigate the effects of spatially varying tube scale distributions. This study indicated that the average scale thickness has a greater impact on fouling than the spatial distribution, showing that the assumption of uniform resistance inherent to the global fouling factor is reasonable. In tandem with the fouling-factor analyses, a study evaluated for each plant the potential causes of pressure loss. The combined results of the global fouling factor calculations and the pressure loss evaluations demonstrated two key points: 1) that the available thermal margin against fouling, which can

Thermal Performance Analysis of Staging Effect of Solar Thermal Absorber with Cross Design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Amir Abdul Razak; Zafri Azran Abdul Majid; Mohd Hafidz Ruslan; Kamaruzzaman Sopian

2015-01-01

The type and shape of solar thermal absorber materials will impact on the operating temperature and thermal energy storage effect of a solar air thermal collector. For a standard flat-plate design, energy gain can be increased by expanding the thermal absorber area along the collector plane, subject to area limitation. This paper focuses on the staging effect of a metal hollow square rod absorber of aluminium, stainless steel, and a combination of the two with a cross design, for the heat gain and temperature characteristics of a solar air collector. Experiments were carried out with three cross design set-ups, with 30 minutes of heating and cooling, phase, respectively, under 485 W/ m 2 solar irradiance value, and at a constant air speed at 0.38 m/ s. One set aluminium set-up delivered the highest output temperature of 41.8 degree Celsius, followed by two-sets aluminium and one aluminium set + one stainless steel set at 39.3 and 38.2 degree Celsius, respectively. The lowest peak temperature is recorded on three sets of the aluminium absorber at 35 degree Celsius. The bi-metallic set-up performed better than the two aluminium set-up where each set-up obtained a temperature drop against heat gain gradient value of -0.4186 degree Celsius/ W and -0.4917 degree Celsius/ W, respectively. Results concluded that by increasing the number of sets, the volume and surface areas of the absorber material are also increased, and lead to a decrease in peak temperature output for each increase of sets. (author)

Computational Analysis on Performance of Thermal Energy Storage (TES) Diffuser

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Adib, M A H M; Ismail, A R; Kardigama, K; Salaam, H A; Ahmad, Z; Johari, N H; Anuar, Z; Azmi, N S N; Adnan, F

2012-01-01

Application of thermal energy storage (TES) system reduces cost and energy consumption. The performance of the overall operation is affected by diffuser design. In this study, computational analysis is used to determine the thermocline thickness. Three dimensional simulations with different tank height-to-diameter ratio (HD), diffuser opening and the effect of difference number of diffuser holes are investigated. Medium HD tanks simulations with double ring octagonal diffuser show good thermocline behavior and clear distinction between warm and cold water. The result show, the best performance of thermocline thickness during 50% time charging occur in medium tank with height-to-diameter ratio of 4.0 and double ring octagonal diffuser with 48 holes (9mm opening ∼ 60%) acceptable compared to diffuser with 6mm ∼ 40% and 12mm ∼ 80% opening. The conclusion is computational analysis method are very useful in the study on performance of thermal energy storage (TES).

Performance of stratified thermal-storage system for Oliver Springs Elementary School. Progress report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reid, R.L.; Bedinger, A.F.G.

1981-01-01

A progress report is given on the performance of a stratified thermal storage system coupled with a heat recovery refrigeration machine designed to provide space heating, cooling and service water heating. Water storage tanks utilizing a flexible membrane to resist temperature blending will be used as the thermal storage element. The two design goals of the heat recovery and thermal energy storage system are (1) to minimize the need to purchase energy for space heating and cooling and water heating and (2) to minimize electrical demand. An automatic data acquisition system will be used for system performance and data gathering. Data collection is expected to begin in September, 1981.

Alternative High Performance Polymers for Ablative Thermal Protection Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Boghozian, Tane; Stackpoole, Mairead; Gonzales, Greg

2015-01-01

Ablative thermal protection systems are commonly used as protection from the intense heat during re-entry of a space vehicle and have been used successfully on many missions including Stardust and Mars Science Laboratory both of which used PICA - a phenolic based ablator. Historically, phenolic resin has served as the ablative polymer for many TPS systems. However, it has limitations in both processing and properties such as char yield, glass transition temperature and char stability. Therefore alternative high performance polymers are being considered including cyanate ester resin, polyimide, and polybenzoxazine. Thermal and mechanical properties of these resin systems were characterized and compared with phenolic resin.

Ballistic Performance of Porous-Ceramic, Thermal-Protection-Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Christiansen, E. L.; Davis, B. A.; Miller, J. E.; Bohl, W. E.; Foreman, C. D.

2009-01-01

Porous-ceramic, thermal protection systems are used heavily in current reentry vehicles like the Space Shuttle and are currently being proposed for the next generation of manned spacecraft, Orion. These materials insulate the structural components of a spacecraft against the intense thermal environments of atmospheric reentry. Furthermore, these materials are also highly exposed to space environmental hazards like meteoroid and orbital debris impacts. This paper discusses recent impact testing up to 9 km/s, and the findings of the influence of material equation-of-state on the simulation of the impact event to characterize the ballistic performance of these materials. These results will be compared with heritage models1 for these materials developed from testing at lower velocities. Assessments of predicted spacecraft risk based upon these tests and simulations will also be discussed.

Thermal performance test for steam turbine of nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bu Yubing; Xu Zongfu; Wang Shiyong

2014-01-01

Through study of steam turbine thermal performance test of CPR1000 nuclear power plant, we solve the enthalpy calculation problems of the steam turbine in wet steam zone using heat balance method which can help to figure out the real overall heat balance diagram for the first time, and we develop a useful software for thermal heat balance calculation. Ling'ao phase II as an example, this paper includes test instrument layout, system isolation, risk control, data acquisition, wetness measurement, heat balance calculation, etc. (authors)

CFD investigations of data centers’ thermal performance for different configurations of CRACs units and aisles separation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

S.A. Nada

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The thermal performance of data centers is numerically studied for different configurations of computer room air conditioning (CRAC units and physical separations of cold and hot aisles. Temperature distribution, air flow characteristics and thermal management of data centers racks array are predicted and evaluated for the different arrangements. Measureable performance indices: supply/return heat index (SHI/RHI, return temperature index (RTI and return cooling index (RCI are used to measure the thermal management effectiveness of data center racks. The results showed that: (i hot air recirculation, cold air bypass and the measurable performance indices of the racks strongly depend on the racks location in the racks array, (ii the CRACs units layout affects the thermal managements of the racks array especially the sides and middle racks in the array, and (iii using cold aisle containments enhances the thermal performance of the data center.

Thermal performance of Egypt's research reactor core (ET-RR-1)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khattab, M.; Mariy, A.

1986-01-01

The steady state thermal performance of the ET-RR-1 core system is theoretically investigated by different models describing the heat flux and the coolant mass flow rate. The magnitude of the heat generated by a fuel element depends upon its position in the core. Normal and uniform distributions for heat flux and coolant mass flow rate are considered. The clad and coolant temperatures at different core positions are evaluated and compared with the experimental measurements at different operating conditions. The results indicated large discrepancy between the predicted and the experimental results. Therefore, the previous models and the experimental results are evaluated in order to develop the best model that describes the thermal performance of the ET-RR-1 core. The adapted model gives 99.5% significant confidence limit. The effect of increasing the heat flux or decreasing the mass flow rate by 20% from its maximum recommended operating condition is tested and discussed. Also, the thermal behaviour towards increasing the reactor power more than its maximum operating condition is discussed. The present work could also be used in extending the investigation to other PWR reactor operating conditions

IMPULSE---an advanced, high performance nuclear thermal propulsion system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Petrosky, L.J.; Disney, R.K.; Mangus, J.D.; Gunn, S.A.; Zweig, H.R.

1993-01-01

IMPULSE is an advanced nuclear propulsion engine for future space missions based on a novel conical fuel. Fuel assemblies are formed by stacking a series of truncated (U, Zr)C cones with non-fueled lips. Hydrogen flows radially inward between the cones to a central plenum connected to a high performance bell nozzle. The reference IMPULSE engine rated at 75,000 lb thrust and 1800 MWt weighs 1360 kg and is 3.65 meters in height and 81 cm in diameter. Specific impulse is estimated to be 1000 for a 15 minute life at full power. If longer life times are required, the operating temperature can be reduced with a concomitant decrease in specific impulse. Advantages of this concept include: well defined coolant paths without outlet flow restrictions; redundant orificing; very low thermal gradients and hence, thermal stresses, across the fuel elements; and reduced thermal stresses because of the truncated conical shape of the fuel elements

Thermal Performance of the LHC Short Straight Section Cryostat

CERN Document Server

Bergot, J B; Nielsen, L; Parma, Vittorio; Rohmig, P; Roy, E

2002-01-01

The LHC Short Straight Section (SSS) cryostat houses and thermally protects in vacuum the cold mass which contains a twin-aperture superconducting quadrupole magnet and superconducting corrector magnets operating at 1.9 K in superfluid helium. In addition to mechanical requirements, the cryostat is designed to minimize the heat in-leak from the ambient temperature to the cold mass. Mechanical components linking the cold mass to the vacuum vessel such as support posts and an insulation vacuum barrier are designed to have minimum heat conductivity with efficient thermalisations for heat interception. Heat in-leak by radiation is reduced by employing multilayer insulation wrapped around the cold mass and an actively cooled aluminium thermal shield. The recent commissioning and operation of two SSS prototypes in the LHC Test String 2 have given a first experimental validation of the thermal performance of the SSS cryostat in nominal operating conditions. Temperature sensors mounted in critical locations provide a...

Thermal performance of the MFTF magnets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

VanSant, J.H.

1983-01-01

A yin-yang pair of liquid-helium (LHe) cooled, superconducting magnets were tested last year at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) as part of a series of tests with the Mirror Fusion Test Facility (MFTF). These tests were performed to determine the success of engineering design used in major systems of the MFTF and to provide a technical base for rescoping from a single-mirror facility to the large tandem-mirror configuration (MFTF-B) now under construction. The magnets were cooled, operated at their design current and magnetic field, and warmed to atmospheric temperature. In this report, we describe their thermal behavior during these tests

Polymer/boron nitride nanocomposite materials for superior thermal transport performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Song, Wei-Li; Wang, Ping; Cao, Li; Anderson, Ankoma; Meziani, Mohammed J; Farr, Andrew J; Sun, Ya-Ping

2012-06-25

Boron nitride nanosheets were dispersed in polymers to give composite films with excellent thermal transport performances approaching the record values found in polymer/graphene nanocomposites. Similarly high performance at lower BN loadings was achieved by aligning the nanosheets in poly(vinyl alcohol) matrix by simple mechanical stretching (see picture). Copyright © 2012 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Effect of thermal stress on the performance of HgCdTe/Si diodes and FPAs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Shan; Hu, Xiao-Ning

2012-01-01

As a typical hetero-epitaxial material, the HgCdTe film which directly grows on the Si substrate possesses great residual stress for the large lattice and thermal expansion mismatch. Thermal stress caused by the thermal expansion mismatch dominates the stress mechanism after growth and seriously affects the device performance. In this paper, the performance of the HgCdTe/Si material, diodes and focal plane arrays under different thermal stress condition was studied. The experimental results indicate that the performance regularly changes with the thermal stress and all the results can be duplicated and recoverable. By analyzing the changes of the energy band under different stress conditions, it was found that the stress in the HgCdTe film impacts the film's characteristics. The HgCdTe film with tensile stress exhibits higher electron mobility, while with the compressive stress, the film exhibits higher hole mobility than that of the bulk HgCdTe crystal. Finally, the theoretical analysis can explain the experimental results well. (paper)

Evaluation of the thermal and structural performance of straw bale construction

Science.gov (United States)

Beaudry, Kyle R.

This thesis is primarily divided into two distinct experimental programs evaluating: 1) the thermal performance and, 2) the structural performance of straw bale construction. The thermal performance chapter describes hot-box testing (based on ASTM C1363-11) of seven straw bale wall panels to obtain their apparent thermal conductivity values. All panels were constructed with stacked bales and cement-lime plaster skins on each side of the bales. Four panels were made with traditional, 2-string field bales of densities ranging from 89.5 kg/m3 - 131 kg/m3 and with the bales on-edge (fibres perpendicular to the heat flow). Three panels were made with manufactured high-density bales (291 kg/m3 - 372 kg/m3). The fibres of the manufactured bales were randomly oriented. The key conclusion of this work is that within the experimental error, there is no difference in the apparent thermal conductivity value for panels using normal density bales and manufactured high-density bales up to a density of 333 kg/m3. The structural performance chapter describes gravity and transverse load testing (based on ASTM E72-15) of non-plastered modular straw bale wall (DBW) panels to evaluate their strength capacity and failure modes. The out-of-plane flexural (OPF) tests exhibited a mean ultimate bending moment of 49.7 kNm. The axial compression (AC) tests exhibited a mean ultimate line load of 161.0 kN/m. The local flexural header beam (HP) tests exhibited an ultimate line load of 31.6 kN/m. The OPF and AC capacities of the DBW exceeded the capacities exhibited by a conventional 38 mm x 140 mm stud wall. However, the DBW's header beam strength and stiffness was inferior to conventional stud wall.

Numerical Investigation of the Thermal Management Performance of MEPCM Modules for PV Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chao-Yang Huang

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The efficiency of photovoltaic modules decreases as the cell temperature increases. It is necessary to have an adequate thermal management mechanism for a photovoltaic module, especially when combined with a building construction system. This study aims to investigate via computational fluid dynamics simulations the heat transfer characteristics and thermal management performance of microencapsulated phase change material modules for photovoltaic applications under temporal variations of daily solar irradiation. The results show that the aspect ratio of the microencapsulated phase change material layer has significant effects on the heat transfer characteristics and the overall thermal performance of the two cases examined with different melting points (26 °C and 34 °C are approximately the same.

Data Mining of the Thermal Performance of Cool-Pipes in Massive Concrete via In Situ Monitoring

OpenAIRE

Zuo, Zheng; Hu, Yu; Li, Qingbin; Zhang, Liyuan

2014-01-01

Embedded cool-pipes are very important for massive concrete because their cooling effect can effectively avoid thermal cracks. In this study, a data mining approach to analyzing the thermal performance of cool-pipes via in situ monitoring is proposed. Delicate monitoring program is applied in a high arch dam project that provides a good and mass data source. The factors and relations related to the thermal performance of cool-pipes are obtained in a built theory thermal model. The supporting ...

Thermal and Energy Performance of Conditioned Building Due To Insulated Sloped Roof

Science.gov (United States)

Irwan, Suhandi Syiful; Ahmed, Azni Zain; Zakaria, Nor Zaini; Ibrahim, Norhati

2010-07-01

For low-rise buildings in equatorial region, the roof is exposed to solar radiation longer than other parts of the envelope. Roofs are to be designed to reject heat and moderate the thermal impact. These are determined by the design and construction of the roofing system. The pitch of roof and the properties of construction affect the heat gain into the attic and subsequently the indoor temperature of the living spaces underneath. This finally influences the thermal comfort conditions of naturally ventilated buildings and cooling load of conditioned buildings. This study investigated the effect of insulated sloping roof on thermal energy performance of the building. A whole-building thermal energy computer simulation tool, Integrated Environmental Solution (IES), was used for the modelling and analyses. A building model with dimension of 4.0 m × 4.0 m × 3.0 m was designed with insulated roof and conventional construction for other parts of the envelope. A 75 mm conductive insulation material with thermal conductivity (k-value) of 0.034 Wm-1K-1 was installed underneath the roof tiles. The building was modelled with roof pitch angles of 0° , 15°, 30°, 45°, 60° and simulated for the month of August in Malaysian climate conditions. The profile for attic temperature, indoor temperature and cooling load were downloaded and evaluated. The optimum roof pitch angle for best thermal performance and energy saving was identified. The results show the pitch angle of 0° is able to mitigate the thermal impact to provide the best thermal condition with optimum energy savings. The maximum temperature difference between insulated and non-insulted roof for attic (AtticA-B) and indoor condition (IndoorA-B) is +7.8 °C and 0.4 °C respectively with an average energy monthly savings of 3.9 %.

Effect of oral dietary supplement for chicks subjected to thermal oscillation on performance and intestinal morphometry

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jovanir Inês Müller Fernandes

2017-09-01

Full Text Available The aim of the study was to evaluate the efficacy of a nutritional formulation based on amino acids and vitamins supplemented in the drinking water for chicks in the first week of life subjected to thermal oscillation on performance, organ development and intestinal morphometry from 1 to 21 days. 640-male broiler chicks were distributed in a 2x2 factorial completely randomized design (with or without dietary supplementation and at comfort temperature or thermal oscillation. Chicks subjected to thermal oscillation presented worse performance (p < 0.05 than those under thermal comfort of 1 to 7, 1 to 14 and 1 to 21 days. Nutritional supplementation did not alter the performance (p < 0.05 of the birds, but resulted in a higher body weight (p < 0.05 regardless of the environmental thermal condition. At 7 days, chicks under thermal comfort had better intestinal morphometric parameters (p < 0.05, in relation to birds under thermal oscillation. In conclusion, the temperature oscillations caused negative consequences to the productive performance and the intestinal morphology of chicks for which dietary supplementation was not enough to mitigate the effects of the environmental challenge during the first week of life of the birds.

Calculated thermal performance of solar collectors based on measured weather data from 2001-2010

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dragsted, Janne; Furbo, Simon; Andersen, Elsa

2015-01-01

This paper presents an investigation of the differences in modeled thermal performance of solar collectors when meteorological reference years are used as input and when mulit-year weather data is used as input. The investigation has shown that using the Danish reference year based on the period ...... with an increase in global radiation. This means that besides increasing the thermal performance with increasing the solar radiation, the utilization of the solar radiation also becomes better.......This paper presents an investigation of the differences in modeled thermal performance of solar collectors when meteorological reference years are used as input and when mulit-year weather data is used as input. The investigation has shown that using the Danish reference year based on the period...

Thermal characteristics and performance of Ag-water nanofluid: Application to natural circulation loops

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koca, Halil Dogacan; Doganay, Serkan; Turgut, Alpaslan

2017-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal conductivity and viscosity of Ag-water nanofluid were measured. • Thermal performance of Ag-water nanofluid was compared with water. • Effectiveness enhanced up to 11% with 1 wt% Ag-water nanofluid. • Effectiveness of Ag-water nanofluid samples increased with inclination angle. • Ag-water nanofluid has potential to be used in flat-plate solar collectors. - Abstract: The goal of this study is to investigate the thermal conductivity, viscosity and thermal performance in a single-phase natural circulation mini loop of Ag-water nanofluid which can be a potential working fluid for natural convective flat-plate solar collectors. The silver-water nanofluid with 5 wt% concentration, which contains also polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) with 1.25 wt%, was purchased. Then, the sample was diluted with de-ionized water to four different concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1 wt%. Thermal conductivity and viscosity were measured by 3ω method and Brookfield rheometer, respectively. An effectiveness factor was used to define the thermal performance of Ag-water nanofluids for different inclination angles and heating powers. The results showed that nanofluid samples are thermally less conductive than the literature, at ambient temperature (23 °C). The viscosity of nanofluid decreases significantly with increasing temperature and increases with increasing concentration. Our measurements appear to be more compatible with PVP solution results available in the literature. Effectiveness is enhanced up to 11% with 1 wt% concentrated nanofluid compared to de-ionized water and the effectiveness of the mini loop indicates an enhancement with increase in inclination angle and particle concentration at whole applied power. According to obtained results, it is concluded that Ag-water nanofluid has a promising potential to be used in natural convective flat-plate solar collector.

Performance of thermally-chargeable supercapacitors in different solvents.

Science.gov (United States)

Lim, Hyuck; Zhao, Cang; Qiao, Yu

2014-07-07

The influence of solvent on the temperature sensitivity of the electrode potential of thermally-chargeable supercapacitors (TCSs) is investigated. For large electrodes, the output voltage is positively correlated with the dielectric constant of solvent. When nanoporous carbon electrodes are used, different characteristics of system performance are observed, suggesting that possible size effects must be taken into consideration when the solvent molecules and solvated ions are confined in a nanoenvironment.

Performance model and thermal comparison of different alternatives for the Fresnel single-tube receiver

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Montes, María J.; Barbero, Rubén; Abbas, Rubén; Rovira, Antonio

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A thermal model for a single-tube Fresnel receiver has been developed. • A comparative analysis based on different design parameters, has been carried out. • A comparative analysis based on different working fluids, has been carried out. • The receiver thermal performance is characterized by energy and exergy efficiencies. - Abstract: Although most of recent commercial Solar Thermal Power Plants (STPP) installed worldwide are parabolic trough plants, it seems that Linear Fresnel Collectors (LFC) are becoming an attractive option to generate electricity from solar radiation. Contrary to parabolic trough collectors, the design of LFC receivers has many degrees of freedom, and two basic designs can be found in the literature: single-tube and multi-tube design. This article studies the single-tube design, for which a thermal model has been developed. This model has been thought to be accurate enough to characterize the heat transfer in a non-elementary geometry and flexible enough to support changes of the characteristic parameters in the receiver design. The thermal model proposed is based on a two-dimensional, steady-state energy balance, in the receiver cross section and along its length. One of the features of the model is the characterization of the convective and radiative heat transfer in the receiver cavity, as it is not an elementary geometry. Another feature is the possibility of studying the receiver performance with different working fluids, both single-phase or two-phase. At last, the receiver performance has been characterized by means of the energy and exergy efficiency. Both variables are important for a complete receiver thermal analysis, as will be shown in the paper. The model has been first applied to the comparative study of the thermal performance of LFC receivers based on the value of some parameters: selective coating emissivity in the tube and inlet fluid thermal properties, for the case of using water/steam. As a second

Thermal performance test of the hot gas ducts of HENDEL

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hishida, M.; Kunitomi, K.; Ioka, I.; Umenishi, K.; Tanaka, T.; Shimomura, H.; Sanokawa, K.

1984-01-01

A hot gas duct provided with internal thermal insulation is to be used for high-temperature gas-cooled reactors (HTGR). This type of hot gas duct has not been used so far in industrial facilities, and only a couple of tests on such a large-scale model of a hot gas duct have been conducted. The present report deals with the results of the thermal performance of the single tube type hot gas ducts which are installed as parts of a helium engineering demonstration loop (HENDEL). Uniform temperature and heat flux distribution at the surface of the duct were observed, the experimental correlations being obtained for the effective thermal conductivity of the internal thermal insulation layer. The measured temperature distribution of the pressure tube was in good agreement with the calculation by a TRUMP heat transfer computer code. The temperature distribution of the inner tube of the co-axial hot gas duct was evaluated and no hot spot was detected. These results would be very valuable for the design and development of HTGR. (orig.)

Experimental investigation of a PCM-HP heat sink on its thermal performance and anti-thermal-shock capacity for high-power LEDs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wu, Yuxuan; Tang, Yong; Li, Zongtao; Ding, Xinrui; Yuan, Wei; Zhao, Xuezhi; Yu, Binhai

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A phase-change material (PCM) base heat pipe heat sink (PCM-HP heat sink) is designed. • The PCM-HP heat sink can significantly lower the LED heating rate and temperature. • The PCM-HP heat sink achieves a best anti-thermal-shock capacity in LED cyclic working modes. - Abstract: High-power LEDs demonstrate a number of benefits compared with conventional incandescent lamps and fluorescent lamps, including a longer lifetime, higher brightness and lower power consumption. However, owing to their severe high heat flux, it is difficult to develop effective thermal management of high-power LEDs, especially under cyclic working modes, which cause serious periodic thermal stress and limit further development. Focusing on the above problem, this paper designed a phase-change material (PCM) base heat pipe heat sink (PCM-HP heat sink) that consists of a PCM base, adapter plate, heat pipe and finned radiator. Different parameters, such as three types of interior materials to fill the heat sink, three LED power inputs and eight LED cyclic working modes, were separately studied to investigate the thermal performance and anti-thermal-shock capacity of the PCM-HP heat sink. The results show that the PCM-HP heat sink possesses remarkable thermal performance owing to the reduction of the LED heating rate and peak temperature. More importantly, an excellent anti-thermal-shock capacity of the PCM-HP heat sink is also demonstrated when applied in LED cyclic working modes, and this capacity demonstrates the best range.

Design, modeling and performance analysis of dual channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal hybrid module in the cold environment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Singh, Sonveer; Agrawal, Sanjay; Avasthi, D.V.

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal modeling of novel dual channel semitransparent PVT hybrid module. • Exergy and carbon credit analysis has been performed. • Annual performance has been evaluated for Srinagar (India). • There are improvements in results for case-I as compared to case-II. - Abstract: In this work, thermal modeling and performance analysis of the dual channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal (DCSPVT) module has been carried out. For extracting heat associated with the lower and upper surface of the solar cell, two channels have been proposed; (i) one is above the solar cell called upper channel and (ii) second is below the solar cell called lower channel. Firstly, thermal modeling of DCSPVT module has been developed. After that, performance analysis of the above system has been carried out for Srinagar, Indian climatic condition. Performance in terms of electrical gain (EG), thermal gain (TG), overall exergy gain (OEG), overall thermal gain (OTG), electrical efficiency (EE) and overall exergy efficiency (OEE) of the DCSPVT module (case-I) have been compared with single channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal (SCSPVT) hybrid module (case-II). The average improvement in EG, TG, OEG, OTG of the case-I have been observed by 71.51%, 34.57%, 5.78% and 35.41% respectively as compared to case-II.

System of automated map design

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ponomarjov, S.Yu.; Rybalko, S.I.; Proskura, N.I.

1992-01-01

Preprint 'System of automated map design' contains information about the program shell for construction of territory map, performing level line drawing of arbitrary two-dimension field (in particular, the radionuclide concentration field). The work schedule and data structures are supplied, as well as data on system performance. The preprint can become useful for experts in radioecology and for all persons involved in territory pollution mapping or multi-purpose geochemical mapping. (author)

Thermal performance monitoring and assessment in Dukovany nuclear power plant

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Madron, F. [Chemplant Technology s.r.o., Hrncirska 4, 400 01 Usti nad Labem (Czech Republic); Papuga, J. [CEZ a.s., JE Dukovany, 675 50 Dukovany (Czech Republic); Pliska, J. [I and C ENERGO a.s., Prazska 684, 674 01 Trebic (Czech Republic)

2006-07-01

Competition in the European electricity market forces generators to achieve - in compliance with safety and environmental standards - efficiency of production as high as possible. This efficiency or heat rate is an important indicator of both the condition of the plant equipment and the quality of plant operation. Similar thermal performance indicators can also be calculated for components of the plant equipment such as heat exchangers. However, it is not easy to quantify these indicators with sufficient precision so that the results can be used for conduct of plant operation in near-real time and for predictive maintenance. This paper describes a present state of the system monitoring and evaluating thermal performance of the reactor units in Dukovany Nuclear Power Plant. The system provides information on actual and desirable (should-be) values of thermal performance indicators for control room operators, performance engineers and maintenance planners. The system is designed to monitor steady states and has two main functions: data validation and process simulation. Data validation is based on data reconciliation methodology and carried out with Recon software by Chemplant Technology. A detailed model of the secondary side for mass and heat balancing has been made up by means of the Recon's graphical editor; now it contains roughly 300 flows and employs data of about 200 measurements. Main advantages of the data reconciliation are: - reconciled data are consistent with the model, - reconciled data are more precise than data directly measured with consequence that the thermal power of steam generators is determined with substantially lower uncertainty than before - data reconciliation represents a solid basis for detection and identification of data corrupted by gross errors. Simulation is performed with a different analytical model of plant components configured into secondary side. The model has been developed by I and C Energo. Main purposes of simulation

High-performance flat-panel solar thermoelectric generators with high thermal concentration

Science.gov (United States)

Kraemer, Daniel; Poudel, Bed; Feng, Hsien-Ping; Caylor, J. Christopher; Yu, Bo; Yan, Xiao; Ma, Yi; Wang, Xiaowei; Wang, Dezhi; Muto, Andrew; McEnaney, Kenneth; Chiesa, Matteo; Ren, Zhifeng; Chen, Gang

2011-07-01

The conversion of sunlight into electricity has been dominated by photovoltaic and solar thermal power generation. Photovoltaic cells are deployed widely, mostly as flat panels, whereas solar thermal electricity generation relying on optical concentrators and mechanical heat engines is only seen in large-scale power plants. Here we demonstrate a promising flat-panel solar thermal to electric power conversion technology based on the Seebeck effect and high thermal concentration, thus enabling wider applications. The developed solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs) achieved a peak efficiency of 4.6% under AM1.5G (1 kW m-2) conditions. The efficiency is 7-8 times higher than the previously reported best value for a flat-panel STEG, and is enabled by the use of high-performance nanostructured thermoelectric materials and spectrally-selective solar absorbers in an innovative design that exploits high thermal concentration in an evacuated environment. Our work opens up a promising new approach which has the potential to achieve cost-effective conversion of solar energy into electricity.

High-performance flat-panel solar thermoelectric generators with high thermal concentration.

Science.gov (United States)

Kraemer, Daniel; Poudel, Bed; Feng, Hsien-Ping; Caylor, J Christopher; Yu, Bo; Yan, Xiao; Ma, Yi; Wang, Xiaowei; Wang, Dezhi; Muto, Andrew; McEnaney, Kenneth; Chiesa, Matteo; Ren, Zhifeng; Chen, Gang

2011-05-01

The conversion of sunlight into electricity has been dominated by photovoltaic and solar thermal power generation. Photovoltaic cells are deployed widely, mostly as flat panels, whereas solar thermal electricity generation relying on optical concentrators and mechanical heat engines is only seen in large-scale power plants. Here we demonstrate a promising flat-panel solar thermal to electric power conversion technology based on the Seebeck effect and high thermal concentration, thus enabling wider applications. The developed solar thermoelectric generators (STEGs) achieved a peak efficiency of 4.6% under AM1.5G (1 kW m(-2)) conditions. The efficiency is 7-8 times higher than the previously reported best value for a flat-panel STEG, and is enabled by the use of high-performance nanostructured thermoelectric materials and spectrally-selective solar absorbers in an innovative design that exploits high thermal concentration in an evacuated environment. Our work opens up a promising new approach which has the potential to achieve cost-effective conversion of solar energy into electricity. © 2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved

Methodology for thermal hydraulic conceptual design and performance analysis of KALIMER core

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Young-Gyun Kim; Won-Seok Kim; Young-Jin Kim; Chang-Kue Park

2000-01-01

This paper summarizes the methodology for thermal hydraulic conceptual design and performance analysis which is used for KALIMER core, especially the preliminary methodology for flow grouping and peak pin temperature calculation in detail. And the major technical results of the conceptual design for the KALIMER 98.03 core was shown and compared with those of KALIMER 97.07 design core. The KALIMER 98.03 design core is proved to be more optimized compared to the 97.07 design core. The number of flow groups are reduced from 16 to 11, and the equalized peak cladding midwall temperature from 654 deg. C to 628 deg. C. It was achieved from the nuclear and thermal hydraulic design optimization study, i.e. core power flattening and increase of radial blanket power fraction. Coolant flow distribution to the assemblies and core coolant/component temperatures should be determined in core thermal hydraulic analysis. Sodium flow is distributed to core assemblies with the overall goal of equalizing the peak cladding midwall temperatures for the peak temperature pin of each bundle, thus pin cladding damage accumulation and pin reliability. The flow grouping and the peak pin temperature calculation for the preliminary conceptual design is performed with the modules ORFCE-F60 and ORFCE-T60 respectively. The basic subchannel analysis will be performed with the SLTHEN code, and the detailed subchannel analysis will be done with the MATRA-LMR code which is under development for the K-Core system. This methodology was proved practical to KALIMER core thermal hydraulic design from the related benchmark calculation studies, and it is used to KALIMER core thermal hydraulic conceptual design. (author)

Calorimetric thermal-vacuum performance characterization of the BAe 80K space cryocooler

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kotsubo, V.Y.; Johnson, D.L.; Ross, R.G. Jr.

1992-01-01

This paper on a comprehensive characterization program which is underway at JPL to generate test data on long-life, miniature Stirling-cycle cryocoolers for space application. The key focus of this paper is on the thermal performance of the British Aerospace (BAe) 80K split-Stirling-cycle cryocooler as measured in a unique calorimetric thermal-vacuum test chamber that accurately simulates the heat-transfer interfaces of space. Two separate cooling fluid loops provide precis individual control of the compressor and displacer heatsink temperatures. In addition, heatflow transducers enable calorimetric measurements of the heat rejected separately by the compressor and displacer. Cooler thermal performance has been mapped for coldtip temperatures ranging from below 45 K to above 150 K, for heat-sink temperatures ranging from 280 K to 320 K, and for a wide variety of operational variables including compressor-displacer phase, compressor-displacer stoke, drive frequency, and piston-displacer dc offset

In-situ long-term thermal performance of impermeably face polyiso foam boards

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mukhopadhyaya, Phalguni; Normandin, Nicole; Van Reenen, David; Lackey, John [National Research Council Canada, Institute for Reserch in Construction, Ottawa, (Canada); Drouin, Michel [Consultant, Dorion, (Canada)

2010-07-01

Closed-cell polyisocyanurate (polyiso) foam insulation products are widely used in building envelope constructions as they have one of the highest R-values per unit thickness among the insulations used in the construction industry. The introduction of impermeable facers on the surface of polyiso rigid board is aimed at enhancing the long-term thermal resistance (LTTR) properties of the foam. This paper evaluated the thermal performance of impermeably faced polyiso boards after more than six years of field exposure. Boards were installed and instrumented at NRC-IRC's field test facility. Field monitoring was performed on a regular basis for six years of exposure until 2008. Then, nine specimens were cut from the boards which were removed from the test hut to evaluate their thermal characteristic using a heat flow meter apparatus. It was found that the impermeably faced polyiso foam insulation boards aged significantly.

Experiment study on thermal mixing performance of HTR-PM reactor outlet

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhou, Yangping, E-mail: zhouyp@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn [Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, the Key Laboratory of Advanced Reactor Engineering and Safety, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China); Hao, Pengfei [School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China); Li, Fu; Shi, Lei [Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, the Key Laboratory of Advanced Reactor Engineering and Safety, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China); He, Feng [School of Aerospace, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China); Dong, Yujie; Zhang, Zuoyi [Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology, the Key Laboratory of Advanced Reactor Engineering and Safety, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084 (China)

2016-09-15

A model experiment is proposed to investigate the thermal mixing performance of HTR-PM reactor outlet. The design of the test facility is introduced, which is set at a scale of 1:2.5 comparing with the design of thermal mixing structure at HTR-PM reactor outlet. The test facility using air as its flow media includes inlet pipe system, electric heaters, main mixing structure, hot gas duct, exhaust pipe system and I&C system. Experiments are conducted on the test facility and the values of thermal-fluid parameters are collected and analyzed, which include the temperature, pressure and velocity of the flow as well as the temperature of the tube wall. The analysis results show the mixing efficiency of the test facility is higher than that required by the steam generator of HTR-PM, which indicates that the thermal mixing structure of HTR-PM fulfills its design requirement.

Design and Performance Optimizations of Advanced Erosion-Resistant Low Conductivity Thermal Barrier Coatings for Rotorcraft Engines

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Dongming; Miller, Robert A.; Kuczmarski, Maria A.

2012-01-01

Thermal barrier coatings will be more aggressively designed to protect gas turbine engine hot-section components in order to meet future rotorcraft engine higher fuel efficiency and lower emission goals. For thermal barrier coatings designed for rotorcraft turbine airfoil applications, further improved erosion and impact resistance are crucial for engine performance and durability, because the rotorcraft are often operated in the most severe sand erosive environments. Advanced low thermal conductivity and erosion-resistant thermal barrier coatings are being developed, with the current emphasis being placed on thermal barrier coating toughness improvements using multicomponent alloying and processing optimization approaches. The performance of the advanced thermal barrier coatings has been evaluated in a high temperature erosion burner rig and a laser heat-flux rig to simulate engine erosion and thermal gradient environments. The results have shown that the coating composition and architecture optimizations can effectively improve the erosion and impact resistance of the coating systems, while maintaining low thermal conductivity and cyclic oxidation durability

Characterization of systems for external insulation and retrofitting with emphasis on the thermal performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rudbeck, Claus; Rose, Jørgen

1999-01-01

During the last decade retrofitting of buildings has received increased attention not only in northern Europe but throughout the world. Retrofitting of buildings is usually performed to solve one or more of the following problems: poor indoor climate, excessive heat losses, insufficient durability...... a building designer with such a choice, key parameters for insulation systems are described in a uniform manner stating their performance with regards to aesthetics, heat transfer, moisture, durability, fire and economy. Parameters given for the total insulation capability enable the building designer...... to include the effect of thermal bridges by performing simple calculations, a task which normally requires the use of numerical models. The results show that thermal bridges in external insulation systems may decrease their thermal resistance by more than 25%.Key parameters was calculated by the use...

Thermal performance of a Stirling engine powered by a solar simulator

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aksoy, Fatih; Karabulut, Halit; Çınar, Can; Solmaz, Hamit; Özgören, Yasar Önder; Uyumaz, Ahmet

2015-01-01

In this study, the performance of a beta type Stirling engine which works at relatively lower temperatures was investigated using 400 W and 1000 W halogen lamps as a heat source and helium as the working fluid. The working fluid was charged into the engine block and the pressure of the working fluid was ranged from 1 to 5 bars with 1 bar increments. The halogen lamps were placed into a cavity adjacent to the hot end of the displacer cylinder, which is made of aluminum alloy. In the experiments conducted with 400 W halogen lamp, the temperature of the cavity was 623 ± 10 K. The power, torque and thermal efficiency of the engine were determined to be 37.08 W, 1.68 Nm and 9.27%, at 5 bar charge pressure. For the 1000 W halogen lamp, the temperature of the cavity was determined to be 873 ± 10 K. The power, torque and thermal efficiency of the engine were determined to be 127.17 W, 3.4 Nm and 12.85%, at the same charge pressure. The experimental thermal efficiencies of the engine were also compared with thermodynamic nodal analysis. - Highlights: • The performance of a beta type Stirling engine was investigated. • 400 and 1000 W halogen lamps were used as a solar simulator in the experiments. • Cavity temperature was measured 623 and 873 K for 400 and 1000 W lamps. • 1000 W halogen lamp provided better engine performance and thermal efficiency. • Experimental results of efficiency were compared with nodal analysis results

Thermal performance and heat transport in aquifer thermal energy storage

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sommer, W.T.; Doornenbal, P.J.; Drijver, B.C.; Gaans, van P.F.M.; Leusbrock, I.; Grotenhuis, J.T.C.; Rijnaarts, H.H.M.

2014-01-01

Aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) is used for seasonal storage of large quantities of thermal energy. Due to the increasing demand for sustainable energy, the number of ATES systems has increased rapidly, which has raised questions on the effect of ATES systems on their surroundings as well as

Data Mining of the Thermal Performance of Cool-Pipes in Massive Concrete via In Situ Monitoring

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zheng Zuo

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Embedded cool-pipes are very important for massive concrete because their cooling effect can effectively avoid thermal cracks. In this study, a data mining approach to analyzing the thermal performance of cool-pipes via in situ monitoring is proposed. Delicate monitoring program is applied in a high arch dam project that provides a good and mass data source. The factors and relations related to the thermal performance of cool-pipes are obtained in a built theory thermal model. The supporting vector machine (SVM technology is applied to mine the data. The thermal performances of iron pipes and high-density polyethylene (HDPE pipes are compared. The data mining result shows that iron pipe has a better heat removal performance when flow rate is lower than 50 L/min. It has revealed that a turning flow rate exists for iron pipe which is 80 L/min. The prediction and classification results obtained from the data mining model agree well with the monitored data, which illustrates the validness of the approach.

A numerical and experimental investigation of the thermal control performance of a spaceborne compressor assembly

Science.gov (United States)

Oh, Hyun-Ung; Lee, Min-Kyu; Shin, Somin; Hong, Joo-Sung

2011-09-01

Spaceborne pulse tube type cryocoolers are widely used for providing cryogenic temperatures for sensitive infrared, gamma-ray and X-ray detectors. Thermal control for the compressor of the cryocooler is one of the important technologies for the cooling performance, mission life time, and jitter stability of the cooler. The thermal design of the compressor assembly proposed in this study is basically composed of a heat pipe, a radiator, and a heater. In the present work, a method for heat pipe implementation is proposed and investigated to ensure the jitter stability of the compressor under the condition that one heat pipe is not working. An optimal design of the radiator that uses ribs for effective use by minimizing the temperature gradient on the radiator and reducing its weight is introduced. The effectiveness of the thermal design of the compressor assembly is demonstrated by on-orbit thermal analysis using the correlated thermal model obtained from the thermal balance test that is performed under a space simulating environment.

Performance maps for the control of thermal energy storage

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Finck, Christian; Li, Rongling; Zeiler, Wim

2017-01-01

Predictive control in building energy systems requires the integration of the building, building system, and component dynamics. The prediction accuracy of these dynamics is crucial for practical applications. This paper introduces performance maps for the control of water tanks, phase change mat...... material tanks, and thermochemical material tanks. The results show that these performance maps can fully account for the dynamics of thermal energy storage tanks.......Predictive control in building energy systems requires the integration of the building, building system, and component dynamics. The prediction accuracy of these dynamics is crucial for practical applications. This paper introduces performance maps for the control of water tanks, phase change...

A New Model for Optimal Mechanical and Thermal Performance of Cement-Based Partition Wall.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Shiping; Hu, Mengyu; Huang, Yonghui; Cui, Nannan; Wang, Weifeng

2018-04-17

The prefabricated cement-based partition wall has been widely used in assembled buildings because of its high manufacturing efficiency, high-quality surface, and simple and convenient construction process. In this paper, a general porous partition wall that is made from cement-based materials was proposed to meet the optimal mechanical and thermal performance during transportation, construction and its service life. The porosity of the proposed partition wall is formed by elliptic-cylinder-type cavities. The finite element method was used to investigate the mechanical and thermal behaviour, which shows that the proposed model has distinct advantages over the current partition wall that is used in the building industry. It is found that, by controlling the eccentricity of the elliptic-cylinder cavities, the proposed wall stiffness can be adjusted to respond to the imposed loads and to improve the thermal performance, which can be used for the optimum design. Finally, design guidance is provided to obtain the optimal mechanical and thermal performance. The proposed model could be used as a promising candidate for partition wall in the building industry.

A New Model for Optimal Mechanical and Thermal Performance of Cement-Based Partition Wall

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shiping Huang

2018-04-01

Full Text Available The prefabricated cement-based partition wall has been widely used in assembled buildings because of its high manufacturing efficiency, high-quality surface, and simple and convenient construction process. In this paper, a general porous partition wall that is made from cement-based materials was proposed to meet the optimal mechanical and thermal performance during transportation, construction and its service life. The porosity of the proposed partition wall is formed by elliptic-cylinder-type cavities. The finite element method was used to investigate the mechanical and thermal behaviour, which shows that the proposed model has distinct advantages over the current partition wall that is used in the building industry. It is found that, by controlling the eccentricity of the elliptic-cylinder cavities, the proposed wall stiffness can be adjusted to respond to the imposed loads and to improve the thermal performance, which can be used for the optimum design. Finally, design guidance is provided to obtain the optimal mechanical and thermal performance. The proposed model could be used as a promising candidate for partition wall in the building industry.

Interpretation of Simultaneous Mechanical-Electrical-Thermal Failure in a Lithium-Ion Battery Module: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Chao; Santhanagopalan, Shriram; Stock, Mark J.; Brunhart-Lupo, Nicholas; Gruchalla, Kenny

2016-12-01

Lithium-ion batteries are currently the state-of- the-art power sources for electric vehicles, and their safety behavior when subjected to abuse, such as a mechanical impact, is of critical concern. A coupled mechanical-electrical-thermal model for simulating the behavior of a lithium-ion battery under a mechanical crush has been developed. We present a series of production-quality visualizations to illustrate the complex mechanical and electrical interactions in this model.

Improvement of energy performances of existing buildings by application of solar thermal systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Krstić-Furundžić Aleksandra

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Improvement of energy performances of the existing buildings in the suburban settlement Konjarnik in Belgrade, by the application of solar thermal systems is the topic presented in this paper. Hypothetical models of building improvements are created to allow the benefits of applying solar thermal collectors to residential buildings in Belgrade climate conditions to be estimated. This case study presents different design variants of solar thermal collectors integrated into a multifamily building envelope. The following aspects of solar thermal systems integration are analyzed in the paper: energy, architectural, ecological and economic. The results show that in Belgrade climatic conditions significant energy savings and reduction of CO2 emissions can be obtained with the application of solar thermal collectors.

Aqueous preparation of polyethylene glycol/sulfonated graphene phase change composite with enhanced thermal performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li, Hairong; Jiang, Ming; Li, Qi; Li, Denian; Chen, Zongyi; Hu, Waping; Huang, Jing; Xu, Xizhe; Dong, Lijie; Xie, Haian; Xiong, Chuanxi

2013-01-01

Highlights: • We report an aqueous preparation technique of PEG/graphene phase change composite. • Hydrophilic sulfonated graphene (SG) nanosheets were synthesized. • Large increase in thermal conductivity is attained at low SG loading. • High latent heat is retained due to the low filler loading. • Affinity between SG and PEG contributes to the enhanced thermal performance. - Abstract: A polyethylene glycol (PEG)/sulfonated graphene (SG) phase change composite with enhanced thermal performance was prepared by solution processing in aqueous medium. It is remarkable that the addition of only 4 wt.% of SG to PEG could lead to a four times higher increase in thermal conductivity and a slight decrease in the phase change enthalpy, which is attributed to the formation of efficient thermal conductive network within the PEG matrix relevant to the excellent thermal property and unique 2-dimensional morphology of graphene as well as strong interface affinity between PEG matrix and SG nanosheets. The aqueous preparation technique is expected to pioneer a new way to prepare environment friendly organic phase change materials, and the production of PEG/SG composites is potentially scalable due to the facile fabricating process

Infrared survey of 50 buildings constructed during 100 years: thermal performances and damage conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Ljungberg, Sven-Ake

1995-03-01

Different building constructions and craftsmanship give rise to different thermal performance and damage conditions. The building stock of most industrial countries consists of buildings of various age, and constructions, from old historic buildings with heavy stone or wooden construction, to new buildings with heavy or light concrete construction, or modern steel or wooden construction. In this paper the result from a detailed infrared survey of 50 buildings from six Swedish military camps is presented. The presentation is limited to a comparison of thermal performance and damage conditions of buildings of various ages, functions, and constructions, of a building period of more than 100 years. The result is expected to be relevant even to civilian buildings. Infrared surveys were performed during 1992-1993, with airborne, and mobile short- and longwave infrared systems, out- and indoor thermography. Interpretation and analysis of infrared data was performed with interactive image and analyzing systems. Field inspections were carried out with fiber optics system, and by ocular inspections. Air-exchange rate was measured in order to quantify air leakages through the building envelope, indicated in thermograms. The objects studied were single-family houses, barracks, office-, service-, school- and exercise buildings, military hotels and restaurants, aircraft hangars, and ship factory buildings. The main conclusions from this study are that most buildings from 1880 - 1940 have a solid construction with a high quality of craftsmanship, relatively good thermal performance, due to extremely thick walls, and adding insulation at the attic floor. From about 1940 - 1960 the quality of construction, thermal performance and craftsmanship seem to vary a lot. Buildings constructed during the period of 1960 - 1990 have in general the best thermal performance due to a better insulation capacity, however, also one finds here the greatest variety of problems. The result from this

Analytical prediction of thermal performance of hypervapotron and its application to ITER

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baxi, C.B.; Falter, H.

1992-09-01

A hypervapotron (HV) is a water cooled device made of high thermal conductivity material such as copper. A surface heat flux of up to 30 MW/m 2 has been achieved in copper hypervapotrans cooled by water at a velocity of 10 m/s and at a pressure of six bar. Hypervapotrons have been used in the past as beam dumps at the Joint European Torus (JET). It is planned to use them for diverter cooling during Mark II upgrade of the JET. Although a large amount of experimental data has been collected on these devices, an analytical performance prediction has not been done before due to the complexity of the heat transfer mechanisms. A method to analytically predict the thermal performance of the hypervapotron is described. The method uses a combination of a number of thermal hydraulic correlations and a finite element analysis. The analytical prediction shows an excellent agreement with experimental results over a wide range of velocities, pressures, subcooling, and geometries. The method was used to predict the performance of hypervapotron made of beryllium. Merits for the use of hypervapotrons for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) and Tokamak Physics Experiment (TPX) are discussed

Test Methodologies for Hydrogen Sensor Performance Assessment: Chamber vs. Flow Through Test Apparatus: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buttner, William J [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Hartmann, Kevin S [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Schmidt, Kara [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Cebolla, Rafeal O [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands; Weidner, Eveline [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands; Bonato, Christian [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands

2017-11-06

hydrogen sensor performance are being developed. Various commercial sensor platforms (e.g., thermal conductivity, catalytic and metal semiconductor) were used to demonstrate the advantages and issues with the flow through methodology.

Performance of Polycrystalline Photovoltaic and Thermal Collector (PVT on Serpentine-Parallel Absor

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mustofa

2015-10-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the performance of an unglazed polycrystalline photovoltaic-thermal PVT on 0.045 kg/s mass flow rate. PVT combine photovoltaic modules and solar thermal collectors, forming a single device that receive solar radiation and produces heat and electricity simultaneously. The collector figures out serpentine-parallel tubes that can prolong fluid heat conductivity from morning till afternoon. During testing, cell PV, inlet and outlet fluid temperatures were recorded by thermocouple digital LM35 Arduino Mega 2560. Panel voltage and electric current were also noted in which they were connected to computer and presented each second data recorded. But, in this performance only shows in the certain significant time data. This because the electric current was only noted by multimeter device not the digital one. Based on these testing data, average cell efficiency was about 19%, while thermal efficiency of above 50% and correspondent cell efficiency of 11%, respectively.

Experimental investigation on charging and discharging performance of absorption thermal energy storage system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Xiaoling; Li, Minzhi; Shi, Wenxing; Wang, Baolong; Li, Xianting

2014-01-01

Highlights: • A prototype of ATES using LiBr/H 2 O was designed and built. • Charging and discharging performances of ATES system were investigated. • ESE and ESD for cooling, domestic hot water and heating were obtained. - Abstract: Because of high thermal storage density and little heat loss, absorption thermal energy storage (ATES) is known as a potential thermal energy storage (TES) technology. To investigate the performance of the ATES system with LiBr–H 2 O, a prototype with 10 kW h cooling storage capacity was designed and built. The experiments demonstrated that charging and discharging processes are successful in producing 7 °C chilled water, 65 °C domestic hot water, or 43 °C heating water to meet the user’s requirements. Characteristics such as temperature, concentration and power variation of the ATES system during charging and discharging processes were investigated. The performance of the ATES system for supplying cooling, heating or domestic hot water was analyzed and compared. The results indicate that the energy storage efficiencies (ESE) for cooling, domestic hot water and heating are 0.51, 0.97, 1.03, respectively, and the energy storage densities (ESD) for cooling, domestic hot water and heating reach 42, 88, 110 kW h/m 3 , respectively. The performance is better than those of previous TES systems, which proves that the ATES system using LiBr–H 2 O may be a good option for thermal energy storage

Thermal performance modeling of cross-flow heat exchangers

CERN Document Server

Cabezas-Gómez, Luben; Saíz-Jabardo, José Maria

2014-01-01

This monograph introduces a numerical computational methodology for thermal performance modeling of cross-flow heat exchangers, with applications in chemical, refrigeration and automobile industries. This methodology allows obtaining effectiveness-number of transfer units (e-NTU) data and has been used for simulating several standard and complex flow arrangements configurations of cross-flow heat exchangers. Simulated results have been validated through comparisons with results from available exact and approximate analytical solutions. Very accurate results have been obtained over wide ranges

Thermal Performance and Operation Limit of Heat Pipe Containing Neutron Absorber

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Kyung Mo; Jeong, Yeong Shin; Kim, In Guk; Bang, In Choel [UNIST, Ulsan (Korea, Republic of)

2015-05-15

Recently, passive safety systems are under development to ensure the core cooling in accidents involving impossible depressurization such as station blackout (SBO). Hydraulic control rod drive mechanisms, passive auxiliary feedwater system (PAFS), Passive autocatalystic recombiner (PAR), and so on are types of passive safety systems to enhance the safety of nuclear power plants. Heat pipe is used in various engineering fields due to its advantages in terms of easy fabrication, high heat transfer rate, and passive heat transfer. Also, the various concepts associated with safety system and heat transfer using the heat pipe were developed in nuclear engineering field.. Thus, our group suggested the hybrid control rod which combines the functions of existing control rod and heat pipe. If there is significant temperature difference between active core and condenser, the hybrid control rod can shutdown the nuclear fission reaction and remove the decay heat from the core to ultimate heat sink. The unique characteristic of the hybrid control rod is the presence of neutron absorber inside the heat pipe. Many previous researchers studied the effect of parameters on the thermal performance of heat pipe. However, the effect of neutron absorber on the thermal performance of heat pipe has not been investigated. Thus, the annular heat pipe which contains B{sub 4}C pellet in the normal heat pipe was prepared and the thermal performance of the annular heat pipe was studied in this study. Hybrid control rod concept was developed as a passive safety system of nuclear power plant to ensure the safety of the reactor at accident condition. The hybrid control rod must contain the neutron absorber for the function as a control rod. So, the effect of neutron absorber on the thermal performance of heat pipe was experimentally investigated in this study. Temperature distributions at evaporator section of annular heat pipe were lower than normal heat pipe due to the larger volume occupied by

Effects of synergetic and antagonistic additive elements on the thermal performance of engine oils at various bulk temperatures

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Abou-Ziyan, H.; Mahmoud, M.; Al-Ajmi, R.; Shedid, M.

2015-01-01

This paper reports effects of additive elements on thermal performance of engine oils during cooling of different engine parts at bulk temperatures from 40 to 150 °C and average wall superheat of 100 °C. The analysis is performed using a back propagation neural network that was trained on experimentally obtained sub-cooled boiling data of engine oils. The results demonstrate that sodium, boron, molybdenum, magnesium and barium additive elements are thermally synergetic while phosphorous, zinc, calcium and silicon elements are thermally antagonistic. Experimental thermal performance of oils could potentially be improved by increasing the concentration of synergetic additive elements or decreasing antagonistic additive elements concentration. - Highlights: • Oil additives enhance lubrication properties but may hinder oil thermal performance. • Sodium, boron, molybdenum, magnesium and barium additives enhance heat transfer. • Additives containing phosphorous, zinc, calcium and silicon hinder the heat transfer. • Oil thermal performance is improved by changing some oil additives concentrations. • Some additives are highly sensitive to interaction with other additives in the oil.

Reliability residual-life prediction method for thermal aging based on performance degradation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ren Shuhong; Xue Fei; Yu Weiwei; Ti Wenxin; Liu Xiaotian

2013-01-01

The paper makes the study of the nuclear power plant main pipeline. The residual-life of the main pipeline that failed due to thermal aging has been studied by the use of performance degradation theory and Bayesian updating methods. Firstly, the thermal aging impact property degradation process of the main pipeline austenitic stainless steel has been analyzed by the accelerated thermal aging test data. Then, the thermal aging residual-life prediction model based on the impact property degradation data is built by Bayesian updating methods. Finally, these models are applied in practical situations. It is shown that the proposed methods are feasible and the prediction accuracy meets the needs of the project. Also, it provides a foundation for the scientific management of aging management of the main pipeline. (authors)

Design and thermal performances of a scalable linear Fresnel reflector solar system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhu, Yanqing; Shi, Jifu; Li, Yujian; Wang, Leilei; Huang, Qizhang; Xu, Gang

2017-01-01

Highlights: • A scalable linear Fresnel reflector which can supply different temperatures is proposed. • Inclination design of the mechanical structure is used to reduce the end losses. • The maximum thermal efficiency of 64% is achieved in Guangzhou. - Abstract: This paper proposes a scalable linear Fresnel reflector (SLFR) solar system. The optical mirror field which contains an array of linear plat mirrors closed to each other is designed to eliminate the inter-low shading and blocking. Scalable mechanical mirror support which can place different number of mirrors is designed to supply different temperatures. The mechanical structure can be inclined to reduce the end losses. Finally, the thermal efficiency of the SLFR with two stage mirrors is tested. After adjustment, the maximum thermal efficiency of 64% is obtained and the mean thermal efficiency is higher than that before adjustment. The results indicate that the end losses have been reduced effectively by the inclination design and excellent thermal performance can be obtained by the SLFR after adjustment.

Comparison of Thermal Performances between Low Porosity Perforate Plate and Flat Plate Solar Air Collector

Science.gov (United States)

Chan, Hoy-Yen; Vinson, A. A.; Baljit, S. S. S.; Ruslan, M. H.

2018-04-01

Flat plate solar air collector is the most common collector design, which is relatively simpler to fabricate and lower cost. In the present study, perforated plate solar collector was developed to improve the system thermal performance. A glazed perforated plate of 6mm holes diameter with square geometry was designed and installed as the absorber of the collector. The influences of solar radiation intensity and mass flow rate on the thermal performance were investigated. The perforated collector was compared with the flat plate solar collector under the same operating conditions. The highest values of thermal efficiency in this study for the perforated plate (PP) and the flat plate (FP) solar collectors were 59% and 36% respectively, at solar radiation intensity of 846 Wm-2 and mass flow rate of 0.02 kgs-1. Furthermore, PP collector gave better thermal performance compared to FP collector; and compared to previous studies, the present perforated design was compatible with the flat plate with double pass designs.

Multijunction Photovoltaic Technologies for High-Performance Concentrators: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McConnell, R.; Symko-Davies, M.

2006-05-01

Multijunction solar cells provide high-performance technology pathways leading to potentially low-cost electricity generated from concentrated sunlight. The National Center for Photovoltaics at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has funded different III-V multijunction solar cell technologies and various solar concentration approaches. Within this group of projects, III-V solar cell efficiencies of 41% are close at hand and will likely be reported in these conference proceedings. Companies with well-developed solar concentrator structures foresee installed system costs of $3/watt--half of today's costs--within the next 2 to 5 years as these high-efficiency photovoltaic technologies are incorporated into their concentrator photovoltaic systems. These technology improvements are timely as new large-scale multi-megawatt markets, appropriate for high performance PV concentrators, open around the world.

Thermal imaging cameras characteristics and performance

CERN Document Server

Williams, Thomas

2009-01-01

The ability to see through smoke and mist and the ability to use the variances in temperature to differentiate between targets and their backgrounds are invaluable in military applications and have become major motivators for the further development of thermal imagers. As the potential of thermal imaging is more clearly understood and the cost decreases, the number of industrial and civil applications being exploited is growing quickly. In order to evaluate the suitability of particular thermal imaging cameras for particular applications, it is important to have the means to specify and measur

PREDICTING THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF ROOFING SYSTEMS IN SURABAYA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

MINTOROGO Danny Santoso

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Traditional roofing systems in the developing country likes Indonesia are still be dominated by the 30o, 45o, and more pitched angle roofs; the roofing cover materials are widely used to traditional clay roof tiles, then modern concrete roof tiles, and ceramic roof tiles. In the 90’s decay, shop houses are prosperous built with flat concrete roofs dominant. Green roofs and roof ponds are almost rarely built to meet the sustainable environmental issues. Some tested various roof systems in Surabaya were carried out to observe the roof thermal performances. Mathematical equation model from three references are also performed in order to compare with the real project tested. Calculated with equation (Kabre et al., the 30o pitched concrete-roof-tile, 30o clay-roof-tile, 45o pitched concrete-roof-tile are the worst thermal heat flux coming to room respectively. In contrast, the bare soil concrete roof and roof pond system are the least heat flux streamed onto room. Based on predicted calculation without insulation and cross-ventilation attic space, the roof pond and bare soil concrete roof (greenery roof are the appropriate roof systems for the Surabaya’s climate; meanwhile the most un-recommended roof is pitched 30o or 45o angle with concrete-roof tiles roofing systems.

High-performance polyamide thin-film composite nanofiltration membrane: Role of thermal treatment

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Baicang; Wang, Shuai; Zhao, Pingju; Liang, Heng; Zhang, Wen; Crittenden, John

2018-03-01

Nanofiltration (NF) membranes have many excellent applications (e.g., removing multivalent ions and pretreating water before reverse osmosis, RO), but their relatively high cost limits their application. Especially in recent years, researchers have paid substantial attention to reducing the cost of NF membranes. In this paper, high-performance NF membranes were fabricated using interfacial polymerization (IP) methods. The polymer concentration, IP solution concentration, and thermal treatment conditions were varied. The synthesized membranes were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), a contact angle goniometer, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), attenuated total reflectance fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, and performance tests. The results show that water flux was significantly improved using a hot-water thermal treatment method. Our fabricated thermal-treated NF membrane had an approximately 15% higher water permeability with a value of 13.6 L/(m2 h bar) than that of the commercially available GE HL membrane with a value of 11.8 L/(m2 h bar). Our membranes had the same MgSO4 rejection as that of the GE HL membrane. We found that the thermal treatment causes the NF membrane surface to be smoother and have a high crosslinking degree.

Thermal Performance of a Cryogenic Fluid Management Cubesat Mission

Science.gov (United States)

Berg, J. J.; Oliveira, J. M.; Congiardo, J. F.; Walls, L. K.; Putman, P. T.; Haberbusch, M. S.

2013-01-01

Development for an in-space demonstration of a CubeS at as a Cryogenic Fluid Management (CFM) test bed is currently underway. The favorable economics of CubeSats make them appealing for technology development activity. While their size limits testing to smaller scales, many of the regimes relevant to CFM can still be achieved. The first demo flight of this concept, CryoCube®-1, will focus on oxygen liquefaction and low-gravity level sensing using Reduced Gravity CryoTracker®. An extensive thermal modeling effort has been underway to both demonstrate concept feasibility and drive the prototype design. The satellite will utilize both a sun- and earth-shield to passively cool its experimental tank below 115 K. An on-board gas generator will create high pressure gaseous oxygen, which will be throttled into a bottle in the experimental node and condensed. The resulting liquid will be used to perform various experiments related to level sensing. Modeling efforts have focused on the spacecraft thermal performance and its effects on condensation in the experimental node. Parametric analyses for both optimal and suboptimal conditions have been considered and are presented herein.

Thermal effects on human performance in office environment measured by integrating task speed and accuracy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lan, Li; Wargocki, Pawel; Lian, Zhiwei

2014-01-01

We have proposed a method in which the speed and accuracy can be integrated into one metric of human performance. This was achieved by designing a performance task in which the subjects receive feedback on their performance by informing them whether they have committed errors, and if did, they can......, 12 subjects performed tasks under two thermal conditions (neutral & warm) repeatedly. The tasks were presented with and without feedback on errors committed, as outlined above. The results indicate that there was a greater decrease in task performance due to thermal discomfort when feedback was given......, compared to the performance of tasks presented without feedback....

Application of monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis in thermal performance analysis for nuclear power plants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Hyeong Min; Heo, Gyun Young [Kyung Hee University, Yongin (Korea, Republic of); Na, Man Gyun [Chosun University, Gwangju (Korea, Republic of)

2014-12-15

As condition-based maintenance (CBM) has risen as a new trend, there has been an active movement to apply information technology for effective implementation of CBM in power plants. This motivation is widespread in operations and maintenance, including monitoring, diagnosis, prognosis, and decision-making on asset management. Thermal efficiency analysis in nuclear power plants (NPPs) is a longstanding concern being updated with new methodologies in an advanced IT environment. It is also a prominent way to differentiate competitiveness in terms of operations and maintenance costs. Although thermal performance tests implemented using industrial codes and standards can provide officially trustworthy results, they are essentially resource-consuming and maybe even a hind-sighted technique rather than a foresighted one, considering their periodicity. Therefore, if more accurate performance monitoring can be achieved using advanced data analysis techniques, we can expect more optimized operations and maintenance. This paper proposes a framework and describes associated methodologies for in-situ thermal performance analysis, which differs from conventional performance monitoring. The methodologies are effective for monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis in pursuit of CBM. Our enabling techniques cover the intelligent removal of random and systematic errors, deviation detection between a best condition and a currently measured condition, degradation diagnosis using a structured knowledge base, and prognosis for decision-making about maintenance tasks. We also discuss how our new methods can be incorporated with existing performance tests. We provide guidance and directions for developers and end-users interested in in-situ thermal performance management, particularly in NPPs with large steam turbines.

Application of monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis in thermal performance analysis for nuclear power plants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Hyeong Min; Heo, Gyun Young; Na, Man Gyun

2014-01-01

As condition-based maintenance (CBM) has risen as a new trend, there has been an active movement to apply information technology for effective implementation of CBM in power plants. This motivation is widespread in operations and maintenance, including monitoring, diagnosis, prognosis, and decision-making on asset management. Thermal efficiency analysis in nuclear power plants (NPPs) is a longstanding concern being updated with new methodologies in an advanced IT environment. It is also a prominent way to differentiate competitiveness in terms of operations and maintenance costs. Although thermal performance tests implemented using industrial codes and standards can provide officially trustworthy results, they are essentially resource-consuming and maybe even a hind-sighted technique rather than a foresighted one, considering their periodicity. Therefore, if more accurate performance monitoring can be achieved using advanced data analysis techniques, we can expect more optimized operations and maintenance. This paper proposes a framework and describes associated methodologies for in-situ thermal performance analysis, which differs from conventional performance monitoring. The methodologies are effective for monitoring, diagnosis, and prognosis in pursuit of CBM. Our enabling techniques cover the intelligent removal of random and systematic errors, deviation detection between a best condition and a currently measured condition, degradation diagnosis using a structured knowledge base, and prognosis for decision-making about maintenance tasks. We also discuss how our new methods can be incorporated with existing performance tests. We provide guidance and directions for developers and end-users interested in in-situ thermal performance management, particularly in NPPs with large steam turbines.

Cost and performance analysis of concentrating solar power systems with integrated latent thermal energy storage

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nithyanandam, K.; Pitchumani, R.

2014-01-01

Integrating TES (thermal energy storage) in a CSP (concentrating solar power) plant allows for continuous operation even during times when solar irradiation is not available, thus providing a reliable output to the grid. In the present study, the cost and performance models of an EPCM-TES (encapsulated phase change material thermal energy storage) system and HP-TES (latent thermal storage system with embedded heat pipes) are integrated with a CSP power tower system model utilizing Rankine and s-CO 2 (supercritical carbon-dioxide) power conversion cycles, to investigate the dynamic TES-integrated plant performance. The influence of design parameters of the storage system on the performance of a 200 MW e capacity power tower CSP plant is studied to establish design envelopes that satisfy the U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative requirements, which include a round-trip annualized exergetic efficiency greater than 95%, storage cost less than $15/kWh t and LCE (levelized cost of electricity) less than 6 ¢/kWh. From the design windows, optimum designs of the storage system based on minimum LCE, maximum exergetic efficiency, and maximum capacity factor are reported and compared with the results of two-tank molten salt storage system. Overall, the study presents the first effort to construct and analyze LTES (latent thermal energy storage) integrated CSP plant performance that can help assess the impact, cost and performance of LTES systems on power generation from molten salt power tower CSP plant. - Highlights: • Presents technoeconomic analysis of thermal energy storage integrated concentrating solar power plants. • Presents a comparison of different storage options. • Presents optimum design of thermal energy storage system for steam Rankine and supercritical carbon dioxide cycles. • Presents designs for maximizing exergetic efficiency while minimizing storage cost and levelized cost of energy

Surface-restrained growth of vertically aligned carbon nanotube arrays with excellent thermal transport performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Ping, Linquan; Hou, Peng-Xiang; Liu, Chang; Li, Jincheng; Zhao, Yang; Zhang, Feng; Ma, Chaoqun; Tai, Kaiping; Cong, Hongtao; Cheng, Hui-Ming

2017-06-22

A vertically aligned carbon nanotube (VACNT) array is a promising candidate for a high-performance thermal interface material in high-power microprocessors due to its excellent thermal transport property. However, its rough and entangled free tips always cause poor interfacial contact, which results in serious contact resistance dominating the total thermal resistance. Here, we employed a thin carbon cover to restrain the disorderly growth of the free tips of a VACNT array. As a result, all the free tips are seamlessly connected by this thin carbon cover and the top surface of the array is smoothed. This unique structure guarantees the participation of all the carbon nanotubes in the array in the heat transport. Consequently the VACNT array grown on a Cu substrate shows a record low thermal resistance of 0.8 mm 2 K W -1 including the two-sided contact resistances, which is 4 times lower than the best result previously reported. Remarkably, the VACNT array can be easily peeled away from the Cu substrate and act as a thermal pad with excellent flexibility, adhesive ability and heat transport capability. As a result the CNT array with a thin carbon cover shows great potential for use as a high-performance flexible thermal interface material.

Thermal performance enhancement of erythritol/carbon foam composites via surface modification of carbon foam

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Junfeng; Lu, Wu; Luo, Zhengping; Zeng, Yibing

2017-03-01

The thermal performance of the erythritol/carbon foam composites, including thermal diffusivity, thermal capacity, thermal conductivity and latent heat, were investigated via surface modification of carbon foam using hydrogen peroxide as oxider. It was found that the surface modification enhanced the wetting ability of carbon foam surface to the liquid erythritol of the carbon foam surface and promoted the increase of erythritol content in the erythritol/carbon foam composites. The dense interfaces were formed between erythritol and carbon foam, which is due to that the formation of oxygen functional groups C=O and C-OH on the carbon surface increased the surface polarity and reduced the interface resistance of carbon foam surface to the liquid erythritol. The latent heat of the erythritol/carbon foam composites increased from 202.0 to 217.2 J/g through surface modification of carbon foam. The thermal conductivity of the erythritol/carbon foam composite before and after surface modification further increased from 40.35 to 51.05 W/(m·K). The supercooling degree of erythritol also had a large decrease from 97 to 54 °C. Additionally, the simple and effective surface modification method of carbon foam provided an extendable way to enhance the thermal performances of the composites composed of carbon foams and PCMs.

Thermal Performance of Cryogenic Multilayer Insulation at Various Layer Spacings

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Wesley Louis

2010-01-01

Multilayer insulation (MLI) has been shown to be the best performing cryogenic insulation system at high vacuum (less that 10 (exp 3) torr), and is widely used on spaceflight vehicles. Over the past 50 years, many investigations into MLI have yielded a general understanding of the many variables that are associated with MLI. MLI has been shown to be a function of variables such as warm boundary temperature, the number of reflector layers, and the spacer material in between reflectors, the interstitial gas pressure and the interstitial gas. Since the conduction between reflectors increases with the thickness of the spacer material, yet the radiation heat transfer is inversely proportional to the number of layers, it stands to reason that the thermal performance of MLI is a function of the number of layers per thickness, or layer density. Empirical equations that were derived based on some of the early tests showed that the conduction term was proportional to the layer density to a power. This power depended on the material combination and was determined by empirical test data. Many authors have graphically shown such optimal layer density, but none have provided any data at such low densities, or any method of determining this density. Keller, Cunnington, and Glassford showed MLI thermal performance as a function of layer density of high layer densities, but they didn't show a minimal layer density or any data below the supposed optimal layer density. However, it was recently discovered that by manipulating the derived empirical equations and taking a derivative with respect to layer density yields a solution for on optimal layer density. Various manufacturers have begun manufacturing MLI at densities below the optimal density. They began this based on the theory that increasing the distance between layers lowered the conductive heat transfer and they had no limitations on volume. By modifying the circumference of these blankets, the layer density can easily be

Performance study of heat-pipe solar photovoltaic/thermal heat pump system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Hongbing; Zhang, Lei; Jie, Pengfei; Xiong, Yaxuan; Xu, Peng; Zhai, Huixing

2017-01-01

Highlights: • The testing device of HPS PV/T heat pump system was established by a finished product of PV panel. • A detailed mathematical model of heat pump was established to investigate the performance of each component. • The dynamic and static method was combined to solve the mathematical model of HPS PV/T heat pump system. • The HPS PV/T heat pump system was optimized by the mathematical model. • The influence of six factors on the performance of HPS PV/T heat pump system was analyzed. - Abstract: A heat-pipe solar (HPS) photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) heat pump system, combining HPS PV/T collector with heat pump, is proposed in this paper. The HPS PV/T collector integrates heat pipes with PV panel, which can simultaneously generate electricity and thermal energy. The extracted heat from HPS PV/T collector can be used by heat pump, and then the photoelectric conversion efficiency is substantially improved because of the low temperature of PV cells. A mathematical model of the system is established in this paper. The model consists of a dynamic distributed parameter model of the HPS PV/T collection system and a quasi-steady state distributed parameter model of the heat pump. The mathematical model is validated by testing data, and the dynamic performance of the HPS PV/T heat pump system is discussed based on the validated model. Using the mathematical model, a reasonable accuracy in predicting the system’s dynamic performance with a relative error within ±15.0% can be obtained. The capacity of heat pump and the number of HPS collectors are optimized to improve the system performance based on the mathematical model. Six working modes are proposed and discussed to investigate the effect of solar radiation, ambient temperature, supply water temperature in condenser, PV packing factor, heat pipe pitch and PV backboard absorptivity on system performance by the validated model. It is found that the increase of solar radiation, ambient temperature and PV

Thermal insulation performance of green roof systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Celik, Serdar; Morgan, Susan; Retzlaff, William; Once, Orcun [southern Illinois University (United States)], e-mail: scelik@siue.edu, e-mail: smorgan@siue.edu, e-mail: wretzla@siue.edu, e-mail: oonce@siue.edu

2011-07-01

With the increasing costs of energy, good building insulation has become increasingly important. Among existing insulation techniques is the green roof system, which consists of covering the roof of a building envelop with plants. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of vegetation type and growth media on the thermal performance of green roof systems. Twelve different green roof samples were made with 4 different growth media and 3 sedum types. Temperature at the sample base was recorded every 15 minutes for 3 years; the insulation behavior was then analysed. Results showed that the insulation characteristics were achieved with a combination of haydite and sedum sexangulare. This study demonstrated that the choice of growth media and vegetation is important to the green roof system's performance; further research is required to better understand the interactions between growth media and plant roots.

Thermal dependence of sprint performance in the lizard Psammodromus algirus along a 2200-meter elevational gradient: Cold-habitat lizards do not perform better at low temperatures.

Science.gov (United States)

Zamora-Camacho, Francisco Javier; Rubiño-Hispán, María Virtudes; Reguera, Senda; Moreno-Rueda, Gregorio

2015-08-01

Sprint speed has a capital relevance in most animals' fitness, mainly for fleeing from predators. Sprint performance is maximal within a certain range of body temperatures in ectotherms, whose thermal upkeep relies on exogenous thermal sources. Ectotherms can respond to diverse thermal environments either by shifting their thermal preferences or maintaining them through different adaptive mechanisms. Here, we tested whether maximum sprint speed of a lizard that shows conservative thermal ecology along a 2200-meter elevational gradient differs with body temperature in lizards from different elevations. Lizards ran faster at optimum than at suboptimum body temperature. Notably, high-elevation lizards were not faster than mid- and low-elevation lizards at suboptimum body temperature, despite their low-quality thermal environment. This result suggests that both preferred body temperature and thermal dependence of speed performance are co-adapted along the elevational gradient. High-elevation lizards display a number of thermoregulatory strategies that allow them to achieve high optimum body temperatures in a low thermal-quality habitat and thus maximize speed performance. As for reproductive condition, we did not find any effect of it on sprint speed, or any significant interaction with elevation or body temperature. However, strikingly, gravid females were significantly slower than males and non-gravid females at suboptimum temperature, but performed similarly well at optimal temperature. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Experimental results pertaining to the performance of thermal igniters

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Carmel, M.K.

1989-10-01

This report summarizes the results of various experimental programs regarding the performance of thermal igniters for the deliberate ignition of hydrogen in light water reactors. Experiments involving both premixed combustion and combustion with continuous hydrogen injection are reviewed. Combustion characteristics examined include flammability limits of hydrogen:air and hydrogen:air:steam mixtures, combustion pressure rises, combustion completeness, flame speeds, and heat transfer aspects. Comparisons of igniter type and igniter reliability under simulated reactor accident conditions are included. The results of the research programs provide a broad data base covering nearly all aspects of hydrogen combustion related to the performance of deliberate ignition systems

Thermal performance analysis of a direct-expansion solar-assisted heat pump water heater

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kong, X.Q.; Zhang, D.; Li, Y.; Yang, Q.M.

2011-01-01

A direct-expansion solar-assisted heat pump water heater (DX-SAHPWH) is described, which can supply hot water for domestic use during the whole year. The system mainly employs a bare flat-plate collector/evaporator with a surface area of 4.2 m 2 , an electrical rotary-type hermetic compressor, a hot water tank with the volume of 150 L and a thermostatic expansion valve. R-22 is used as working fluid in the system. A simulation model based on lumped and distributed parameter approach is developed to predict the thermal performance of the system. Given the structure parameters, meteorological parameters, time step and final water temperature, the numerical model can output operational parameters, such as heat capacity, system COP and collector efficiency. Comparisons between the simulation results and the experimental measurements show that the model is able to give satisfactory predictions. The effect of various parameters, including solar radiation, ambient temperature, wind speed and compressor speed, has been analyzed on the thermal performance of the system. -- Highlights: ► A direct-expansion solar-assisted heat pump water heater (DX-SAHPWH) is described. ► A simulation model based on lumped and distributed parameter approach is developed to predict the thermal performance of the system. ► The numerical model can output operational parameters, such as heat capacity, system COP and collector efficiency. ► Comparisons between the simulation results and the experimental measurements show that the model is able to give satisfactory predictions. ► The effect of various parameters has been analyzed on the thermal performance of the system.

Physiological performance and thermal tolerance of major Red Sea macrophytes

KAUST Repository

Weinzierl, Michael S.

2017-12-01

As anthropogenically-forced ocean temperatures continue to rise, the physiological response of marine macrophytes becomes exceedingly relevant. The Red Sea is a semi-isolated sea- the warmest in the world (SST up to 34°C) - already exhibiting signs of rapid warming rates exceeding those of other tropical oceans. This will have profound effects on the physiology of marine organisms, specifically marine macrophytes, which have direct influence on the dynamic carbonate system of the Red Sea. The aim of this paper is to define the physiological capability and thermal optima and limits of six ecologically important Red Sea macrophytes- ranging from seagrasses to calcifying and non-calcifying algae- and to describe the effects of increasing thermal stress on the performance and limits of each macrophyte in terms of activation energy. Of the species considered, Halophila stipulacae, Halimeda optunia, Halimeda monile and Padina pavonica thrive in thermal extremes and may be more successful in future Red Sea warming scenarios. Specifically, Halimeda opuntia increased productivity and calcification rates up to 38°C, making it the most thermally resilient macrophyte. Halophila stipulacae is the most productive seagrass, and hence has the greatest positive effect on Omega saturation state and offers chemical buffer capacity to future ocean acidification.

Summer Thermal Performance of Ventilated Roofs with Tiled Coverings

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bortoloni, M; Bottarelli, M; Piva, S

2017-01-01

The thermal performance of a ventilated pitched roof with tiled coverings is analysed and compared with unventilated roofs. The analysis is carried out by means of a finite element numerical code, by solving both the fluid and thermal problems in steady-state. A whole one-floor building with a pitched roof is schematized as a 2D computational domain including the air-permeability of tiled covering. Realistic data sets for wind, temperature and solar radiation are used to simulate summer conditions at different times of the day. The results demonstrate that the batten space in pitched roofs is an effective solution for reducing the solar heat gain in summer and thus for achieving better indoor comfort conditions. The efficiency of the ventilation is strictly linked to the external wind conditions and to buoyancy forces occurring due to the heating of the tiles. (paper)

Summer Thermal Performance of Ventilated Roofs with Tiled Coverings

Science.gov (United States)

Bortoloni, M.; Bottarelli, M.; Piva, S.

2017-01-01

The thermal performance of a ventilated pitched roof with tiled coverings is analysed and compared with unventilated roofs. The analysis is carried out by means of a finite element numerical code, by solving both the fluid and thermal problems in steady-state. A whole one-floor building with a pitched roof is schematized as a 2D computational domain including the air-permeability of tiled covering. Realistic data sets for wind, temperature and solar radiation are used to simulate summer conditions at different times of the day. The results demonstrate that the batten space in pitched roofs is an effective solution for reducing the solar heat gain in summer and thus for achieving better indoor comfort conditions. The efficiency of the ventilation is strictly linked to the external wind conditions and to buoyancy forces occurring due to the heating of the tiles.

Performance analysis of different ORC configurations for thermal energy and LNG cold energy hybrid power generation system

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Zhixin; Wang, Feng; Wang, Shujia; Xu, Fuquan; Lin, Kui

2017-01-01

This paper presents a thermal energy and Liquefied natural gas (LNG) cold energy hybrid power generation system. Performances of four different Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) configurations (the basic, the regenerative, the reheat and the regenerative-reheat ORCs) are studied based on the first and the second law of thermodynamics. Dry organic fluid R245fa is selected as the typical working fluid. Parameter analysis is also conducted in this paper. The results show that regeneration could not increase the thermal efficiency of the thermal and cold energy hybrid power generation system. ORC with the reheat process could produce more specific net power output but it may also reduce the system thermal efficiency. The basic and the regenerative ORCs produce higher thermal efficiency while the regenerative-reheat ORC performs best in the exergy efficiency. A preheater is necessary for the thermal and cold energy hybrid power generation system. And due to the presence of the preheater, there will be a step change of the system performance as the turbine inlet pressure rises.

Final Design and Experimental Validation of the Thermal Performance of the LHC Lattice Cryostats

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bourcey, N.; Capatina, O.; Parma, V.; Poncet, A.; Rohmig, P.; Serio, L.; Skoczen, B.; Tock, J.-P.; Williams, L. R.

2004-01-01

The recent commissioning and operation of the LHC String 2 have given a first experimental validation of the global thermal performance of the LHC lattice cryostat at nominal cryogenic conditions. The cryostat designed to minimize the heat inleak from ambient temperature, houses under vacuum and thermally protects the cold mass, which contains the LHC twin-aperture superconducting magnets operating at 1.9 K in superfluid helium. Mechanical components linking the cold mass to the vacuum vessel, such as support posts and insulation vacuum barriers are designed with efficient thermalisations for heat interception to minimise heat conduction. Heat inleak by radiation is reduced by employing multilayer insulation (MLI) wrapped around the cold mass and around an aluminium thermal shield cooled to about 60 K.Measurements of the total helium vaporization rate in String 2 gives, after substraction of supplementary heat loads and end effects, an estimate of the total thermal load to a standard LHC cell (107 m) including two Short Straight Sections and six dipole cryomagnets. Temperature sensors installed at critical locations provide a temperature mapping which allows validation of the calculated and estimated thermal performance of the cryostat components, including efficiency of the heat interceptions

Final Design and Experimental Validation of the Thermal Performance of the LHC Lattice Cryostats

Science.gov (United States)

Bourcey, N.; Capatina, O.; Parma, V.; Poncet, A.; Rohmig, P.; Serio, L.; Skoczen, B.; Tock, J.-P.; Williams, L. R.

2004-06-01

The recent commissioning and operation of the LHC String 2 have given a first experimental validation of the global thermal performance of the LHC lattice cryostat at nominal cryogenic conditions. The cryostat designed to minimize the heat inleak from ambient temperature, houses under vacuum and thermally protects the cold mass, which contains the LHC twin-aperture superconducting magnets operating at 1.9 K in superfluid helium. Mechanical components linking the cold mass to the vacuum vessel, such as support posts and insulation vacuum barriers are designed with efficient thermalisations for heat interception to minimise heat conduction. Heat inleak by radiation is reduced by employing multilayer insulation (MLI) wrapped around the cold mass and around an aluminium thermal shield cooled to about 60 K. Measurements of the total helium vaporization rate in String 2 gives, after substraction of supplementary heat loads and end effects, an estimate of the total thermal load to a standard LHC cell (107 m) including two Short Straight Sections and six dipole cryomagnets. Temperature sensors installed at critical locations provide a temperature mapping which allows validation of the calculated and estimated thermal performance of the cryostat components, including efficiency of the heat interceptions.

Study on key technologies of optimization of big data for thermal power plant performance

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Mingyang; Xiao, Hong

2018-06-01

Thermal power generation accounts for 70% of China's power generation, the pollutants accounted for 40% of the same kind of emissions, thermal power efficiency optimization needs to monitor and understand the whole process of coal combustion and pollutant migration, power system performance data show explosive growth trend, The purpose is to study the integration of numerical simulation of big data technology, the development of thermal power plant efficiency data optimization platform and nitrogen oxide emission reduction system for the thermal power plant to improve efficiency, energy saving and emission reduction to provide reliable technical support. The method is big data technology represented by "multi-source heterogeneous data integration", "large data distributed storage" and "high-performance real-time and off-line computing", can greatly enhance the energy consumption capacity of thermal power plants and the level of intelligent decision-making, and then use the data mining algorithm to establish the boiler combustion mathematical model, mining power plant boiler efficiency data, combined with numerical simulation technology to find the boiler combustion and pollutant generation rules and combustion parameters of boiler combustion and pollutant generation Influence. The result is to optimize the boiler combustion parameters, which can achieve energy saving.

Thermal storage/discharge performances of Cu-Si alloy for solar thermochemical process

Science.gov (United States)

Gokon, Nobuyuki; Yamaguchi, Tomoya; Cho, Hyun-seok; Bellan, Selvan; Hatamachi, Tsuyoshi; Kodama, Tatsuya

2017-06-01

The present authors (Niigata University, Japan) have developed a tubular reactor system using novel "double-walled" reactor/receiver tubes with carbonate molten-salt thermal storage as a phase change material (PCM) for solar reforming of natural gas and with Al-Si alloy thermal storage as a PCM for solar air receiver to produce high-temperature air. For both of the cases, the high heat capacity and large latent heat (heat of solidification) of the PCM phase circumvents the rapid temperature change of the reactor/receiver tubes at high temperatures under variable and uncontinuous characteristics of solar radiation. In this study, we examined cyclic properties of thermal storage/discharge for Cu-Si alloy in air stream in order to evaluate a potentiality of Cu-Si alloy as a PCM thermal storage material. Temperature-increasing performances of Cu-Si alloy are measured during thermal storage (or heat-charge) mode and during cooling (or heat-discharge) mode. A oxidation state of the Cu-Si alloy after the cyclic reaction was evaluated by using electron probe micro analyzer (EPMA).

Experimental investigation on the thermal performance of a closed oscillating heat pipe in thermal management

Science.gov (United States)

Rao, Zhonghao; Wang, Qingchao; Zhao, Jiateng; Huang, Congliang

2017-10-01

To investigate the thermal performance of the closed oscillating heat pipe (OHP) as a passive heat transfer device in thermal management system, the gravitation force, surface tension, cooling section position and inclination angle were discussed with applied heating power ranging from 5 to 65 W. The deionized water was chosen as the working fluid and liquid-filling ratio was 50 ± 5%. The operation of the OHP mainly depends on the phase change of the working fluid. The working fluid within the OHP was constantly evaporated and cooled. The results show that the movement of the working fluid was similar to the forced damped mechanical vibration, it has to overcome the capillary resistance force and the stable oscillation should be that the OHP could successful startup. The oscillation frequency slowed and oscillation amplitude decreased when the inclination angle of the OHP increased. However, the thermal resistance increased. With the increment of the heating power, the average temperature of the evaporation and condensation section would be close. If the heating power was further increased, dry-out phenomenon within the OHP would appeared. With the decrement of the L, the start-up heating power also decreased and stable oscillation would be formed.

Thermal performance comparison of oscillating heat pipes with and without helical micro-grooves

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Jian; Li, Xiaojun; Xu, Qian; Wang, Qian

2017-11-01

This paper presents an experimental investigation to compare the thermal performance of three closed loop oscillating heat pipes (OHPs) with and without internal helical microgrooves at vertical and horizontal orientations. All of these OHPs were made from copper tubes and have three turns with lengths of 70, 230 and 110 mm at the evaporator, adiabatic and condenser sections, respectively. Deionized water was used as the working fluid at a volumetric filling ratio of 50%. The internal diameters (IDs) of two smooth-tube OHPs are 4.0 and 4.8 mm, respectively, and the internal diameter of micro-grooved OHP without groove structures is about 4.5 mm. Experimental results demonstrated that the addition of groove structures make the OHP remarkably outperform smooth-tube OHPs in both effective thermal conductivity and thermal resistance. The thermal resistance of vertically-oriented micro-grooved OHP could be lowered to 0.057 °C/W associated with an effective thermal conductivity of 6.1 × 104 W/ (m·K) at the input heat flux of 3.8 × 104 W/m2. Compared to smooth-tube OHPs, preliminary mechanism analysis reveals that local heat transfer coefficients both at the heating and cooling sections of micro-grooved OHP could be significantly improved. Moreover, enhanced liquid backflow to the evaporator due to microgroove-induced capillarity is also responsible for the OHP performance enhancement.

KUGEL: a thermal, hydraulic, fuel performance, and gaseous fission product release code for pebble bed reactor core analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Shamasundar, B.I.; Fehrenbach, M.E.

1981-05-01

The KUGEL computer code is designed to perform thermal/hydraulic analysis and coated-fuel particle performance calculations for axisymmetric pebble bed reactor (PBR) cores. This computer code was developed as part of a Department of Energy (DOE)-funded study designed to verify the published core performance data on PBRs. The KUGEL code is designed to interface directly with the 2DB code, a two-dimensional neutron diffusion code, to obtain distributions of thermal power, fission rate, fuel burnup, and fast neutron fluence, which are needed for thermal/hydraulic and fuel performance calculations. The code is variably dimensioned so that problem size can be easily varied. An interpolation routine allows variable mesh size to be used between the 2DB output and the two-dimensional thermal/hydraulic calculations

Numerical Simulation of Thermal Performance of Glass-Fibre-Reinforced Polymer

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yuchao; Jiang, Xu; Zhang, Qilin; Wang, Qi

2017-10-01

Glass-Fibre-Reinforced Polymer (GFRP), as a developing construction material, has a rapidly increasing application in civil engineering especially bridge engineering area these years, mainly used as decorating materials and reinforcing bars for now. Compared with traditional construction material, these kinds of composite material have obvious advantages such as high strength, low density, resistance to corrosion and ease of processing. There are different processing methods to form members, such as pultrusion and resin transfer moulding (RTM) methods, which process into desired shape directly through raw material; meanwhile, GFRP, as a polymer composite, possesses several particular physical and mechanical properties, and the thermal property is one of them. The matrix material, polymer, performs special after heated and endue these composite material a potential hot processing property, but also a poor fire resistance. This paper focuses on thermal performance of GFRP as panels and corresponding researches are conducted. First, dynamic thermomechanical analysis (DMA) experiment is conducted to obtain the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the object GFRP, and the curve of bending elastic modulus with temperature is calculated according to the experimental data. Then compute and estimate the values of other various thermal parameters through DMA experiment and other literatures, and conduct numerical simulation under two condition respectively: (1) the heat transfer process of GFRP panel in which the panel would be heated directly on the surface above Tg, and the hot processing under this temperature field; (2) physical and mechanical performance of GFRP panel under fire condition. Condition (1) is mainly used to guide the development of high temperature processing equipment, and condition (2) indicates that GFRP’s performance under fire is unsatisfactory, measures must be taken when being adopted. Since composite materials’ properties differ from each other

Thermal performance analysis of reciprocating compressor with stepless capacity control system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bin, Tang; Yuanyang, Zhao; Liansheng, Li; Guangbin, Liu; Le, Wang; Qichao, Yang; Haiping, Xu; Feng, Zhu; Wenhui, Meng

2013-01-01

On the basic principle of stepless capacity control system for large reciprocating compressor, the thermal cycle was analyzed. The equations for the process of suction, reverse flow, compression, discharge and expansion of clearance gas were established. According to these equations, p–V diagrams at various situations were simulated. An experimental platform was setup and the compressor with designed stepless capacity control system run well. The experimental results show that the capacity of compressor can be regulated steplessly, and the motor power is reduced proportionally with respect to the reduction of capacity. During the suction process, both the flow resistance of valve and the pressure fluctuation in cylinder can be reduced by opening the suction valves with the actuators. The simulated and experimental results showed good coincidence. The clearance volume and valve clearance Mach number had a negative influence on the thermal performance of compressor with stepless capacity control system. -- Highlights: ► Flow resistance of valve can be reduced and pressure fluctuation can be reduced. ► Equivalent Mach number of reverse flow is much higher than that of suction process. ► Response of stepless capacity control system is important for regulation accuracy. ► Clearance and valve clearance Mach number have influence on thermal performance

Thermal Performance Analysis of a Geologic Borehole Repository

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Reagin, Lauren [Savannah River Site (SRS), Aiken, SC (United States). Savannah River National Lab. (SRNL)

2016-08-16

The Brazilian Nuclear Research Institute (IPEN) proposed a design for the disposal of Disused Sealed Radioactive Sources (DSRS) based on the IAEA Borehole Disposal of Sealed Radioactive Sources (BOSS) design that would allow the entirety of Brazil’s inventory of DSRS to be disposed in a single borehole. The proposed IPEN design allows for 170 waste packages (WPs) containing DSRS (such as Co-60 and Cs-137) to be stacked on top of each other inside the borehole. The primary objective of this work was to evaluate the thermal performance of a conservative approach to the IPEN proposal with the equivalent of two WPs and two different inside configurations using Co-60 as the radioactive heat source. The current WP configuration (heterogeneous) for the IPEN proposal has 60% of the WP volume being occupied by a nuclear radioactive heat source and the remaining 40% as vacant space. The second configuration (homogeneous) considered for this project was a homogeneous case where 100% of the WP volume was occupied by a nuclear radioactive heat source. The computational models for the thermal analyses of the WP configurations with the Co-60 heat source considered three different cooling mechanisms (conduction, radiation, and convection) and the effect of mesh size on the results from the thermal analysis. The results of the analyses yielded maximum temperatures inside the WPs for both of the WP configurations and various mesh sizes. The heterogeneous WP considered the cooling mechanisms of conduction, convection, and radiation. The temperature results from the heterogeneous WP analysis suggest that the model is cooled predominantly by conduction with effect of radiation and natural convection on cooling being negligible. From the thermal analysis comparing the two WP configurations, the results suggest that either WP configuration could be used for the design. The mesh sensitivity results verify the meshes used, and results obtained from the thermal analyses were close to

Thermal performance parameters estimation of hot box type solar cooker by using artificial neural network

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kurt, Hueseyin; Atik, Kemal; Oezkaymak, Mehmet; Recebli, Ziyaddin [Zonguldak Karaelmas University, Karabuk Technical Education Faculty, 78200 Karabuk (Turkey)

2008-02-15

Work to date has shown that Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has not been used for predicting thermal performance parameters of a solar cooker. The objective of this study is to predict thermal performance parameters such as absorber plate, enclosure air and pot water temperatures of the experimentally investigated box type solar cooker by using the ANN. Data set is obtained from the box type solar cooker which was tested under various experimental conditions. A feed-forward neural network based on back propagation algorithm was developed to predict the thermal performance of solar cooker with and without reflector. Mathematical formulations derived from the ANN model are presented for each predicting temperatures. The experimental data set consists of 126 values. These were divided into two groups, of which the 96 values were used for training/learning of the network and the rest of the data (30 values) for testing/validation of the network performance. The performance of the ANN predictions was evaluated by comparing the prediction results with the experimental results. The results showed a good regression analysis with the correlation coefficients in the range of 0.9950-0.9987 and mean relative errors (MREs) in the range of 3.925-7.040% for the test data set. The regression coefficients indicated that the ANN model can successfully be used for the prediction of the thermal performance parameters of a box type solar cooker with a high degree of accuracy. (author)

A novel louvered fin design to enhance thermal and drainage performances during periodic frosting/defrosting conditions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kim, Min-Hwan; Kim, Hisuk; Kim, Dong Rip; Lee, Kwan-Soo

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal and drainage performances of a novel design louvered fin were investigated. • The thermal performance of the asymmetric fin was improved in the re-frosting cycle. • The asymmetric louvered fin exhibited better drainage on the leading edge of fins. • Lower surface tension between fin surface and water droplet improved the drainage. - Abstract: The retention water on fin surface can significantly degrade the thermal performance of heat exchangers under periodic frosting/defrosting conditions, which also leads to a decrease in the energy efficiency of air-source heat pumps. A novel louvered fin design was suggested to improve the drainage and the thermal performance of heat exchanger. The novel louvered fin had an asymmetric louver arrangement by flattening two louvers on the leading edge. The retention water formed on fin surface markedly decreased the heat transfer rate of the conventional symmetric louvered fins in re-frosting cycles. On the other hand, the asymmetric louvered fins improved the drainage performance of the retention water, which enhanced the heat transfer rate. To identify the reason of the difference in drainage performance between two fin geometries, additional experiments were carried out with enlargement models. The improvement in drainage performance of the asymmetric fin design originated from the lowered surface tension between the fin surface and water droplet.

Thermal performance of small solar domestic hot water systems in theory, in the laboratory and in practice

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersen, Elsa

1998-01-01

for poor thermal performances of systems tested in practice are given. Based on theoretical calculations the negative impact on the thermal performance, due to a large number of different parameter variations are given. Recommendations for future developments of small solar domestic hot water systems...

The analysis of thermal-hydraulic performances of nuclear ship reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wakabayashi, Shinshichi; Hamada, Masao

1975-01-01

Thermal-hydraulic performances in the core of nuclear ship reactor was analysed by thermal-hydraulic analyser codes, AMRTC and COBRA-11+DNBCAL. This reactor is of a pressurized water type and incorporates the steam generator within the reactor vessel with the rated power of 330 MWt, which is developed by Nuclear Ship Research Panel Seven (NSR-7) in The Shipbuilding Research Association of Japan. Fuel temperature distributions, coolant temperature distributions, void fractions in coolant and minimum burn out ratio etc. were calculated. Results are as follows; a) The maximum temperature of fuel center is 1,472 0 C that corresponds to 53% as small as the melting point (2,800 0 C). b) Subcooled boiling exists in the core and the maximum void fraction is less than 4%. c) The minimum burn out ratio is not less than the minimum allowable limit of 1.25. It was found from the results of analysis that this reactor was able to be operated wide margin with respect to thermal-hydraulic design limits at the rated power. (auth.)

Novel load responsive multilayer insulation with high in-atmosphere and on-orbit thermal performance

Science.gov (United States)

Dye, S.; Kopelove, A.; Mills, G. L.

2012-04-01

Aerospace cryogenic systems require lightweight, high performance thermal insulation to preserve cryopropellants both pre-launch and on-orbit. Current technologies have difficulty meeting all requirements, and advances in insulation would benefit cryogenic upper stage launch vehicles, LH2 fueled aircraft and ground vehicles, and provide capabilities for sub-cooled cryogens for space-borne instruments and orbital fuel depots. This paper reports the further development of load responsive multilayer insulation (LRMLI) that has a lightweight integrated vacuum shell and provides high thermal performance both in-air and on-orbit. LRMLI is being developed by Quest Product Development and Ball Aerospace under NASA contract, with prototypes designed, built, installed and successfully tested. A 3-layer LRMLI blanket (0.63 cm thick, 77 K cold, 295 K hot) had a measured heat leak of 6.6 W/m2 in vacuum and 40.6 W/m2 in air at one atmosphere. In-air LRMLI has an 18× advantage over Spray On Foam Insulation (SOFI) in heat leak per thickness and a 16× advantage over aerogel. On-orbit LRMLI has a 78× lower heat leak than SOFI per thickness and 6× lower heat leak than aerogel. The Phase II development of LRMLI is reported with a modular, flexible, thin vacuum shell and improved on-orbit performance. Structural and thermal analysis and testing results are presented. LRMLI mass and thermal performance is compared to SOFI, aerogel and MLI over SOFI.

Predicting the performance of amorphous and crystalline silicon based photovoltaic solar thermal collectors

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Daghigh, Ronak; Ibrahim, Adnan; Jin, Goh Li; Ruslan, Mohd Hafidz; Sopian, Kamaruzzaman

2011-01-01

BIPVT is an application where solar PV/T modules are integrated into the building structure. System design parameters such as thermal conductivity and fin efficiency, type of cells, type of coolant and operating conditions are factors which influence the performance of BIPVT. Attempts have been made to improve the efficiency of building-integrated photovoltaic thermal (BIPVT). A new design concept of water-based PVT collector for building-integrated applications has been designed and evaluated. The results of simulation study of amorphous silicon (a-Si) PV/T and crystalline silicon (c-Si) module types are based on the metrological condition of Malaysia for a typical day in March. At a flow rate of 0.02 kg/s, solar radiation level between 700 and 900 W/m 2 and ambient temperature between 22 and 32 o C, the electrical, thermal and combined photovoltaic thermal efficiencies for the PV/T (a-Si) were 4.9%, 72% and 77%, respectively. Moreover, the electrical, thermal and combined photovoltaic thermal efficiencies of the PV/T (c-Si) were 11.6%, 51% and 63%.

Performance of Polycrystalline Photovoltaic and Thermal Collector (PVT on Serpentine-Parallel Absorbers Design

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mustofa Mustofa

2017-03-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the performance of an unglazed polycrystalline photovoltaic-thermal PVT on 0.045 kg/s mass flow rate. PVT combine photovoltaic modules and solar thermal collectors, forming a single device that receive solar radiation and produces heat and electricity simultaneously. The collector figures out serpentine-parallel tubes that can prolong fluid heat conductivity from morning till afternoon. During testing, cell PV, inlet and outlet fluid temperaturs were recorded by thermocouple digital LM35 Arduino Mega 2560. Panel voltage and electric current were also noted in which they were connected to computer and presented each second data recorded. But, in this performance only shows in the certain significant time data. This because the electric current was only noted by multimeter device not the digital one. Based on these testing data, average cell efficieny was about 19%, while thermal efficiency of above 50% and correspondeng cell efficiency of 11%, respectively

An analytical model on thermal performance evaluation of counter flow wet cooling tower

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Qian

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes an analytical model for simultaneous heat and mass transfer processes in a counter flow wet cooling tower, with the assumption that the enthalpy of the saturated air is a linear function of the water surface temperature. The performance of the proposed analytical model is validated in some typical cases. The validation reveals that, when cooling range is in a certain interval, the proposed model is not only comparable with the accurate model, but also can reduce computational complexity. In addition, with the proposed analytical model, the thermal performance of the counter flow wet cooling towers in power plants is calculated. The results show that the proposed analytical model can be applied to evaluate and predict the thermal performance of counter flow wet cooling towers.

The Building Fabric Thermal Performance of Passivhaus Dwellings—Does It Do What It Says on the Tin?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David Johnston

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The Passivhaus (or Passive House Standard is one of the world’s most widely known voluntary energy performance standards. For a dwelling to achieve the Standard and be granted Certification, the building fabric requires careful design and detailing, high levels of thermal insulation, building airtightness, close site supervision and careful workmanship. However, achieving Passivhaus Certification is not a guarantee that the thermal performance of the building fabric as designed will actually be achieved in situ. This paper presents the results obtained from measuring the in situ whole building heat loss coefficient (HLC of a small number of Certified Passivhaus case study dwellings. They are located on different sites and constructed using different technologies in the UK. Despite the small and non-random nature of the dwelling sample, the results obtained from the in situ measurements revealed that the thermal performance of the building fabric, for all of the dwellings, performed very close to the design predictions. This suggests that in terms of the thermal performance of the building fabric, Passivhaus does exactly what it says on the tin.

Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis of a Once-Through Steam Generator Considering Performance Degradation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Han, Hun Sik; Kang, Han Ok; Yoon, Ju Hyeon; Kim, Young In; Song, Jae Seung; Kim, Keung Koo

2016-01-01

Several countries have entered into a global race for the commercialization of SMRs, and considerable research and development have been implemented. Among the various reactor designs, many SMRs have adopted an integral type pressurized water reactor (PWR) to enhance the nuclear safety and system reliability. In the integral reactor design, a single reactor pressure vessel contains primary system components such as fuel and core, steam generators, pumps, and a pressurizer. For the component integration into a reactor vessel, it is important to design each component as small as possible. Thus, it is a common practice to employ a once-through steam generator in the integral reactor design due to its advantages in compactness. In general, gradual degradation in thermal-hydraulic performance of the steam generator occurs with time, and it changes slowly the operating point of the steam generator during plant lifetime. Numerical solutions are acquired to evaluate the thermal-hydraulic performance of the steam generator at various AUFs. The design results obtained show that the average tube length of the steam generator is augmented with the increase of design margin to compensate for the design uncertainties and heat transfer area reduction by plugging, fouling, etc. A helically coiled tube once-through steam generator with 30% design margin is considered for comparison of thermal-hydraulic performances according to the degradation rate

Thermal-Hydraulic Analysis of a Once-Through Steam Generator Considering Performance Degradation

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Han, Hun Sik; Kang, Han Ok; Yoon, Ju Hyeon; Kim, Young In; Song, Jae Seung; Kim, Keung Koo [KAERI, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2016-05-15

Several countries have entered into a global race for the commercialization of SMRs, and considerable research and development have been implemented. Among the various reactor designs, many SMRs have adopted an integral type pressurized water reactor (PWR) to enhance the nuclear safety and system reliability. In the integral reactor design, a single reactor pressure vessel contains primary system components such as fuel and core, steam generators, pumps, and a pressurizer. For the component integration into a reactor vessel, it is important to design each component as small as possible. Thus, it is a common practice to employ a once-through steam generator in the integral reactor design due to its advantages in compactness. In general, gradual degradation in thermal-hydraulic performance of the steam generator occurs with time, and it changes slowly the operating point of the steam generator during plant lifetime. Numerical solutions are acquired to evaluate the thermal-hydraulic performance of the steam generator at various AUFs. The design results obtained show that the average tube length of the steam generator is augmented with the increase of design margin to compensate for the design uncertainties and heat transfer area reduction by plugging, fouling, etc. A helically coiled tube once-through steam generator with 30% design margin is considered for comparison of thermal-hydraulic performances according to the degradation rate.

Performance Evaluation of Modern Building Thermal Envelope Designs in the Semi-Arid Continental Climate of Tehran

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shaghayegh Mohammad

2013-10-01

Full Text Available In this paper we evaluate the thermal performance of a range of modern wall constructions used in the residential buildings of Tehran in order to find the most appropriate alternative to the traditional un-fired clay and brick materials, which are increasingly being replaced in favor of more slender wall constructions employing hollow clay, autoclaved aerated concrete or light expanded clay aggregate blocks. The importance of improving the building envelope through estimating the potential for energy saving due to the application of the most energy-efficient wall type is presented and the wall constructions currently erected in Tehran are introduced along with their dynamic and steady-state thermal properties. The application of a dynamic simulation tool is explained and the output of the thermal simulation model is compared with the dynamic thermal properties of the wall constructions to assess their performance in summer and in winter. Finally, the best and worst wall type in terms of their cyclic thermal performance and their ability to moderate outdoor conditions is identified through comparison of the predicted indoor temperature and a target comfort temperature.

Development of Thermal Performance Analysis Computer Program on Turbine Cycle of Yoggwang 3,4 Units

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Hong, S.Y.; Choi, K.H.; Jee, M.H.; Chung, S.I. [Korea Electric Power Research Institute, Taejon (Korea)

2002-07-01

The objective of the study ''Development of Thermal Performance Analysis Computer Program on Turbine Cycle of Yonggwang 3,4 Units'' is to utilize computerized program to the performance test of the turbine cycle or the analysis of the operational status of the thermal plants. In addition, the result can be applicable to the analysis of the thermal output at the abnormal status and be a powerful tool to find out the main problems for such cases. As a results, the output of this study can supply the way to confirm the technical capability to operate the plants efficiently and to obtain the economic gains remarkably. (author). 27 refs., 73 figs., 6 tabs.

Review and evaluation of information on the thermal performance of ultimate heat sinks: spray ponds and cooling ponds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Drake, R.L.

1975-09-01

A report is presented which identifies and evaluates available information and data useful in validating and improving existing models for the thermal performance of ultimate heat sinks. Included are discussions of the thermal elements of cooling ponds and spray ponds, the available information and data pertinent to the problem, and the requirements and needs for further research and performance data. An outline is presented of the necessary elements required for a performance test of an ultimate heat sink before the system is thermally approved. (auth)

Thermal Performance Testing of Cryogenic Multilayer Insulation with Silk Net Spacers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johnson, W L; Frank, D J; Nast, T C; Fesmire, J E

2015-01-01

Early comprehensive testing of cryogenic multilayer insulation focused on the use of silk netting as a spacer material. Silk netting was used for multiple test campaigns that were designed to provide baseline thermal performance estimates for cryogenic insulation systems. As more focus was put on larger systems, the cost of silk netting became a deterrent and most aerospace insulation firms were using Dacron (or polyester) netting spacers by the early 1970s. In the midst of the switch away from silk netting there was no attempt to understand the difference between silk and polyester netting, though it was widely believed that the silk netting provided slightly better performance. Without any better reference for thermal performance data, the silk netting performance correlations continued to be used. In order to attempt to quantify the difference between the silk netting and polyester netting, a brief test program was developed. The silk netting material was obtained from Lockheed Martin and was tested on the Cryostat-100 instrument in three different configurations, 20 layers with both single and double netting and 10 layers with single netting only. The data show agreement within 15 - 30% with the historical silk netting based correlations and show a substantial performance improvement when compared to previous testing performed using polyester netting and aluminum foil/fiberglass paper multilayer insulation. Additionally, the data further reinforce a recently observed trend that the heat flux is not directly proportional to the number of layers installed on a system. (paper)

Effect of nitrogen-doped graphene nanofluid on the thermal performance of the grooved copper heat pipe

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mehrali, Mohammad; Sadeghinezhad, Emad; Azizian, Reza

2016-01-01

Thermal performance of a grooved heat pipe using aqueous nitrogen-doped graphene (NDG) nanofluids was analysed. This study in particular focused on the effect of varying NDG nanosheets concentrations, heat pipe inclination angles and input heating powers. The results indicated that the inclination...... observed for NDG nanofluid with concentration of 0.06wt%, inclination angle of θ=90° and a heating power of 120W in comparison to DI-water under the exact same condition. Additionally, the surface temperature distribution was decreased by employing NDG nanosheets, which can in return increase the thermal...... performance of a grooved heat pipe. The present investigation indicated that the thermal performance of the grooved heat pipe can be improved significantly by using NDG nanofluids....

A Study of Thermal Performance of Contemporary Technology-Rich Educational Spaces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah Elmasry

2013-08-01

Full Text Available One of the most dominant features of a classroom space is its high occupancy, which results in high internal heat gain (approximately 5 KW. Furthermore, installation of educational technologies, such as smart boards, projectors and computers in the spaces increases potential internal heat gain. Previous studies on office buildings indicate that with the introduction of IT equipment in spaces during the last decade, cooling load demands are increasing with an associated increase in summer electrical demand. Due to the fact that educational technologies in specific correspond to pedagogical practices within the space, a lot of variations due to occupancy patterns occur. Also, thermal loads caused by educational technologies are expected to be dependent on spatial configuration, for example, position with respect to the external walls, lighting equipment, mobility of devices. This study explores the thermal impact of educational technologies in 2 typical educational spaces in a facility of higher education; the classroom and the computer lab. The results indicate that a heat gain ranging between 0.06 and 0.095 KWh/m2 is generated in the rooms when educational technologies are in use. The second phase of this study is ongoing, and investigates thermal zones within the rooms due to distribution of educational technologies. Through simulation of thermal performance of the rooms, alternative room configurations are thus recommended in response to the observed thermal zones.

Analyses to demonstrate the thermal performance of the CASTOR KN12

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Diersch, R.; Weiss, M.; Tso, C.F.; Powell, D.; Choy, B.I.; Lee, H.Y.

2004-01-01

The CASTOR registered KN-12 is a new cask design of GNB for dry and wet transportation of up to 12 PWR spent nuclear fuel assemblies in Korea. It complies with the requirements of 10 CFR 71 [1] and IAEA ST-1 [2] for TYPE B(U)F packages. It received its transport license from the Korean Competent Authority KINS in July 2002 and is now in use in South Korea. Demonstration of the cask's compliance with the regulatory requirements in the area of thermal performance has been carried out by a combination of testing carried out by Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute and analyses carried out by Arup. This paper describes the analyses to demonstrate the thermal performance of the cask and compliance with regulatory requirements under normal and hypothetical accident conditions of transport. Other aspects of the design of the CASTOR registered KN12 are presented in other papers at this conference

Structured Innovation of High-Performance Wave Energy Converter Technology: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Weber, Jochem W. [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Laird, Daniel [Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)

2018-01-25

Wave energy converter (WEC) technology development has not yet delivered the desired commercial maturity nor, and more importantly, the techno-economic performance. The reasons for this have been recognized and fundamental requirements for successful WEC technology development have been identified. This paper describes a multi-year project pursued in collaboration by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories to innovate and develop new WEC technology. It specifies the project strategy, shows how this differs from the state-of-the-art approach and presents some early project results. Based on the specification of fundamental functional requirements of WEC technology, structured innovation and systemic problem solving methodologies are applied to invent and identify new WEC technology concepts. Using Technology Performance Levels (TPL) as an assessment metric of the techno-economic performance potential, high performance technology concepts are identified and selected for further development. System performance is numerically modelled and optimized and key performance aspects are empirically validated. The project deliverables are WEC technology specifications of high techno-economic performance technologies of TPL 7 or higher at TRL 3 with some key technology challenges investigated at higher TRL. These wave energy converter technology specifications will be made available to industry for further, full development and commercialisation (TRL 4 - TRL 9).

Investigation of Stratified Thermal Storage Tank Performance for Heating and Cooling Applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Azharul Karim

2018-04-01

Full Text Available A large amount of energy is consumed by heating and cooling systems to provide comfort conditions for commercial building occupants, which generally contribute to peak electricity demands. Thermal storage tanks in HVAC systems, which store heating/cooling energy in the off-peak period for use in the peak period, can be used to offset peak time energy demand. In this study, a theoretical investigation on stratified thermal storage systems is performed to determine the factors that significantly influence the thermal performance of these systems for both heating and cooling applications. Five fully-insulated storage tank geometries, using water as the storage medium, were simulated to determine the effects of water inlet velocity, tank aspect ratio and temperature difference between charging (inlet and the tank water on mixing and thermocline formation. Results indicate that thermal stratification enhances with increased temperature difference, lower inlet velocities and higher aspect ratios. It was also found that mixing increased by 303% when the temperature difference between the tank and inlet water was reduced from 80 °C to 10 °C, while decreasing the aspect ratio from 3.8 to 1.0 increased mixing by 143%. On the other hand, increasing the inlet water velocity significantly increased the storage mixing. A new theoretical relationship between the inlet water velocity and thermocline formation has been developed. It was also found that inlet flow rates can be increased, without increasing the mixing, after the formation of the thermocline.

Enabling Detailed Energy Analyses via the Technology Performance Exchange: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Studer, D.; Fleming, K.; Lee, E.; Livingood, W.

2014-08-01

One of the key tenets to increasing adoption of energy efficiency solutions in the built environment is improving confidence in energy performance. Current industry practices make extensive use of predictive modeling, often via the use of sophisticated hourly or sub-hourly energy simulation programs, to account for site-specific parameters (e.g., climate zone, hours of operation, and space type) and arrive at a performance estimate. While such methods are highly precise, they invariably provide less than ideal accuracy due to a lack of high-quality, foundational energy performance input data. The Technology Performance Exchange was constructed to allow the transparent sharing of foundational, product-specific energy performance data, and leverages significant, external engineering efforts and a modular architecture to efficiently identify and codify the minimum information necessary to accurately predict product energy performance. This strongly-typed database resource represents a novel solution to a difficult and established problem. One of the most exciting benefits is the way in which the Technology Performance Exchange's application programming interface has been leveraged to integrate contributed foundational data into the Building Component Library. Via a series of scripts, data is automatically translated and parsed into the Building Component Library in a format that is immediately usable to the energy modeling community. This paper (1) presents a high-level overview of the project drivers and the structure of the Technology Performance Exchange; (2) offers a detailed examination of how technologies are incorporated and translated into powerful energy modeling code snippets; and (3) examines several benefits of this robust workflow.

Building Energy Storage Panel Based on Paraffin/Expanded Perlite: Preparation and Thermal Performance Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xiangfei Kong

2016-01-01

Full Text Available This study is focused on the preparation and performance of a building energy storage panel (BESP. The BESP was fabricated through a mold pressing method based on phase change material particle (PCMP, which was prepared in two steps: vacuum absorption and surface film coating. Firstly, phase change material (PCM was incorporated into expanded perlite (EP through a vacuum absorption method to obtain composite PCM; secondly, the composite PCM was immersed into the mixture of colloidal silica and organic acrylate, and then it was taken out and dried naturally. A series of experiments, including differential scanning calorimeter (DSC, scanning electron microscope (SEM, best matching test, and durability test, have been conducted to characterize and analyze the thermophysical property and reliability of PCMP. Additionally, the thermal performance of BESP was studied through a dynamic thermal property test. The results have showed that: (1 the surface film coating procedure can effectively solve the leakage problem of composite phase change material prepared by vacuum impregnation; (2 the optimum adsorption ratio for paraffin and EP was 52.5:47.5 in mass fraction, and the PCMP has good thermal properties, stability, and durability; and (3 in the process of dynamic thermal performance test, BESP have low temperature variation, significant temperature lagging, and large heat storage ability, which indicated the potential of BESP in the application of building energy efficiency.

Building Energy Storage Panel Based on Paraffin/Expanded Perlite: Preparation and Thermal Performance Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Kong, Xiangfei; Zhong, Yuliang; Rong, Xian; Min, Chunhua; Qi, Chengying

2016-01-25

This study is focused on the preparation and performance of a building energy storage panel (BESP). The BESP was fabricated through a mold pressing method based on phase change material particle (PCMP), which was prepared in two steps: vacuum absorption and surface film coating. Firstly, phase change material (PCM) was incorporated into expanded perlite (EP) through a vacuum absorption method to obtain composite PCM; secondly, the composite PCM was immersed into the mixture of colloidal silica and organic acrylate, and then it was taken out and dried naturally. A series of experiments, including differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), scanning electron microscope (SEM), best matching test, and durability test, have been conducted to characterize and analyze the thermophysical property and reliability of PCMP. Additionally, the thermal performance of BESP was studied through a dynamic thermal property test. The results have showed that: (1) the surface film coating procedure can effectively solve the leakage problem of composite phase change material prepared by vacuum impregnation; (2) the optimum adsorption ratio for paraffin and EP was 52.5:47.5 in mass fraction, and the PCMP has good thermal properties, stability, and durability; and (3) in the process of dynamic thermal performance test, BESP have low temperature variation, significant temperature lagging, and large heat storage ability, which indicated the potential of BESP in the application of building energy efficiency.

Thermal and optical performance of encapsulation systems for flat-plate photovoltaic modules

Science.gov (United States)

Minning, C. P.; Coakley, J. F.; Perrygo, C. M.; Garcia, A., III; Cuddihy, E. F.

1981-01-01

The electrical power output from a photovoltaic module is strongly influenced by the thermal and optical characteristics of the module encapsulation system. Described are the methodology and computer model for performing fast and accurate thermal and optical evaluations of different encapsulation systems. The computer model is used to evaluate cell temperature, solar energy transmittance through the encapsulation system, and electric power output for operation in a terrestrial environment. Extensive results are presented for both superstrate-module and substrate-module design schemes which include different types of silicon cell materials, pottants, and antireflection coatings.

A performance analysis of solar chimney thermal power systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Al-Dabbas Awwad Mohammed

2011-01-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to evaluate the solar chimney performance theoretically (techno-economic. A mathematical model was developed to estimate the following parameter: Power output, Pressure drop across the turbine, the max chimney height, Airflow temperature, and the overall efficiency of solar chimney. The mathematical model was validated with experimental data from the prototype in Manzanares power. It can be concluded that the differential pressure of collector-chimney transition section in the system, is increase with the increase of solar radiation intensity. The specific system costs are between 2000 Eur/kW and 5000 Eur/kW depending on the system size, system concept and storage size. Hence, a 50 MWe solar thermal power plant will cost 100-250 Eur million. At very good sites, today’s solar thermal power plants can generate electricity in the range of 0.15 Eur/kWh, and series production could soon bring down these costs below 0.10 Eur /kWh.

Numerical Simulation of the Thermal Performance of a Dry Storage Cask for Spent Nuclear Fuel

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Heui-Yung Chang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available In this study, the heat flow characteristics and thermal performance of a dry storage cask were investigated via thermal flow experiments and a computational fluid dynamics (CFD simulation. The results indicate that there are many inner circulations in the flow channel of the cask (the channel width is 10 cm. These circulations affect the channel airflow efficiency, which in turn affects the heat dissipation of the dry storage cask. The daily operating temperatures at the top concrete lid and the upper locations of the concrete cask are higher than those permitted by the design specification. The installation of the salt particle collection device has a limited negative effect on the thermal dissipation performance of the dry storage cask.

A comparison of thermal algorithms of fuel rod performance code systems

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Park, C. J.; Park, J. H.; Kang, K. H.; Ryu, H. J.; Moon, J. S.; Jeong, I. H.; Lee, C. Y.; Song, K. C.

2003-11-01

The goal of the fuel rod performance is to identify the robustness of a fuel rod with cladding material. Computer simulation of the fuel rod performance becomes one of important parts to designed and evaluate new nuclear fuels and claddings. To construct a computing code system for the fuel rod performance, several algorithms of the existing fuel rod performance code systems are compared and are summarized as a preliminary work. Among several code systems, FRAPCON, and FEMAXI for LWR, ELESTRES for CANDU reactor, and LIFE for fast reactor are reviewed. Thermal algorithms of the above codes are investigated including methodologies and subroutines. This work will be utilized to construct a computing code system for dry process fuel rod performance

A comparison of thermal algorithms of fuel rod performance code systems

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Park, C. J.; Park, J. H.; Kang, K. H.; Ryu, H. J.; Moon, J. S.; Jeong, I. H.; Lee, C. Y.; Song, K. C

2003-11-01

The goal of the fuel rod performance is to identify the robustness of a fuel rod with cladding material. Computer simulation of the fuel rod performance becomes one of important parts to designed and evaluate new nuclear fuels and claddings. To construct a computing code system for the fuel rod performance, several algorithms of the existing fuel rod performance code systems are compared and are summarized as a preliminary work. Among several code systems, FRAPCON, and FEMAXI for LWR, ELESTRES for CANDU reactor, and LIFE for fast reactor are reviewed. Thermal algorithms of the above codes are investigated including methodologies and subroutines. This work will be utilized to construct a computing code system for dry process fuel rod performance.

Simple method of calculating the transient thermal performance of composite material and its applicable condition

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

张寅平; 梁新刚; 江忆; 狄洪发; 宁志军

2000-01-01

Degree of mixing of composite material is defined and the condition of using the effective thermal diffusivity for calculating the transient thermal performance of composite material is studied. The analytical result shows that for a prescribed precision of temperature, there is a condition under which the transient temperature distribution in composite material can be calculated by using the effective thermal diffusivity. As illustration, for the composite material whose temperatures of both ends are constant, the condition is presented and the factors affecting the relative error of calculated temperature of composite materials by using effective thermal diffusivity are discussed.

Energy Yield Determination of Concentrator Solar Cells using Laboratory Measurements: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Geisz, John F.; Garcia, Ivan; McMahon, William E.; Steiner, Myles A.; Ochoa, Mario; France, Ryan M.; Habte, Aron; Friedman, Daniel J.

2015-09-14

The annual energy conversion efficiency is calculated for a four junction inverted metamorphic solar cell that has been completely characterized in the laboratory at room temperature using measurements fit to a comprehensive optoelectronic model of the multijunction solar cells. A simple model of the temperature dependence is used to predict the performance of the solar cell under varying temperature and spectra characteristic of Golden, CO for an entire year. The annual energy conversion efficiency is calculated by integrating the predicted cell performance over the entire year. The effects of geometric concentration, CPV system thermal characteristics, and luminescent coupling are highlighted. temperature and spectra characteristic of Golden, CO for an entire year. The annual energy conversion efficiency is calculated by integrating the predicted cell performance over the entire year. The effects of geometric concentration, CPV system thermal characteristics, and luminescent coupling are highlighted.

Enhancement of discharge performance of Li/CF x cell by thermal treatment of CF x cathode material

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Sheng S.; Foster, Donald; Read, Jeffrey

In this work we demonstrate that the thermal treatment of CF x cathode material just below the decomposition temperature can enhance discharge performance of Li/CF x cells. The performance enhancement becomes more effective when heating a mixture of CF x and citric acid (CA) since CA serves as an extra carbon source. Discharge experiments show that the thermal treatment not only reduces initial voltage delay, but also raises discharge voltage. Whereas the measurement of powder impedance indicates the thermal treatment does not increase electronic conductivity of CF x material. Based on these facts, we propose that the thermal treatment results in a limited decomposition of CF x, which yields a subfluorinated carbon (CF x- δ), instead of a highly conductive carbon. In the case of CF x/AC mixture, the AC provides extra carbon that reacts with F 2 and fluorocarbon radicals generated by the thermal decomposition of CF x to form subfluorinated carbon. The process of thermal treatment is studied by thermogravimetric analysis and X-ray diffraction, and the effect of treatment conditions such as heating temperature, heating time and CF x/CA ratio on the discharge performance of CF x cathode is discussed. As an example, a Li/CF x cell using CF x treated with CA at 500 °C under nitrogen for 2 h achieved theretical specific capacity when being discharged at C/5. Impedance analysis indicates that the enhanced performance is attributed to a significant reduction in the cell reaction resistance.

Performance of a thermal imager employing a hybrid pyroelectric detector array with MOSFET readout

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Watton, R.; Mansi, M.V.

1988-01-01

A thermal imager employing a two-dimensional hybrid array of pyroelectric detectors with MOSFET readout has been built. The design and theoretical performance of the detector are discussed, and the results of performance measurements are presented. 8 references

Study of thermal performance of capillary micro tubes integrated into the building sandwich element made of high performance concrete

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mikeska, Tomas; Svendsen, Svend

2013-01-01

The thermal performance of radiant heating and cooling systems (RHCS) composed of capillary micro tubes (CMT) integrated into the inner plate of sandwich elements made of high performance concrete (HPC) was investigated in the article. Temperature distribution in HPC elements around integrated CM...... and cooling purposes of future low energy buildings. The investigations were conceived as a low temperature concept, where the difference between the temperature of circulating fluid and air in the room was kept in range of 1–4 °C.......The thermal performance of radiant heating and cooling systems (RHCS) composed of capillary micro tubes (CMT) integrated into the inner plate of sandwich elements made of high performance concrete (HPC) was investigated in the article. Temperature distribution in HPC elements around integrated CMT...... HPC layer covering the CMT. This paper shows that CMT integrated into the thin plate of sandwich element made of HPC can supply the energy needed for heating (cooling) and at the same time create the comfortable and healthy environment for the occupants. This solution is very suitable for heating...

Performance Testing of Data Delivery Techniques for AJAX Applications

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bozdag, E.; Mesbah, A.; Van Deursen, A.

2008-01-01

Preprint of paper published in: Journal of Web Engineering (Rinton Press), 8 (4), 2009 AJAX applications are designed to have high user interactivity and low user-perceived latency. Real-time dynamic web data such as news headlines, stock tickers, and auction updates need to be propagated to the

Quasi-steady state thermal performances of a solar air heater with ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Quasi-steady state thermal performance of a solar air heater with a combined absorber is studied. The whole energy balance equations related to the system were articulated as a linear system of temperature equations. Solutions to this linear system were assessed from program based on an iterative process. The mean ...

Thermal Performance Characterization using Time Series Data - IEA EBC Annex 58 Guidelines

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Henrik; Bacher, Peder; Bauwens, Geert

-dynamical) steady state models where the parameters are found using classical methods for linear regression. Such steady state techniques provide sub-optimal use of the information embedded in the data and provides information only about the HLC and gA-values. Next the guidelines consider dynamical models. Firstly......, linear input-output models are considered. More specifically we will consider the class of AutoRegressive with eXogenous input (ARX) (p) models. These models provides information about the HLC and gA-values, and information about the dynamics (most frequently described as time-constants for the system......This document presents guidelines for using time series analysis methods, models and tools for estimating the thermal performance of buildings and building components. The thermal performance is measured as estimated parameters of a model, or parameters derived from estimated parameters of a model...

Thermal analysis of the effect of thick thermal barrier coatings on diesel engine performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoag, K.L.; Frisch, S.R.; Yonushonis, T.M.

1986-01-01

The reduction of heat rejection from the diesel engine combustion chamber has been the subject of a great deal of focus in recent years. In the pursuit of this goal, Cummins Engine Company has received a contract from the Department of Energy for the development of thick thermal barrier coatings for combustion chamber surfaces. This contract involves the analysis of the impact of coatings on diesel engine performance, bench test evaluation of various coating designs, and single cylinder engine tests. The efforts reported in this paper center on the analysis of the effects of coatings on engine performance and heat rejection. For this analysis the conventional water cooled engine was compared with an engine having limited oil cooling, and utilizing zirocnia coated cylinder had firedecks and piston crowns. The analysis showed little or no benefits of similarly coating the valves or cylinder liner

Structural-Thermal-Optical-Performance (STOP) Model Development and Analysis of a Field-widened Michelson Interferometer

Science.gov (United States)

Scola, Salvatore J.; Osmundsen, James F.; Murchison, Luke S.; Davis, Warren T.; Fody, Joshua M.; Boyer, Charles M.; Cook, Anthony L.; Hostetler, Chris A.; Seaman, Shane T.; Miller, Ian J.;

Thermally Stable Cellulose Nanocrystals toward High-Performance 2D and 3D Nanostructures.

Science.gov (United States)

Jia, Chao; Bian, Huiyang; Gao, Tingting; Jiang, Feng; Kierzewski, Iain Michael; Wang, Yilin; Yao, Yonggang; Chen, Liheng; Shao, Ziqiang; Zhu, J Y; Hu, Liangbing

2017-08-30

Cellulose nanomaterials have attracted much attention in a broad range of fields such as flexible electronics, tissue engineering, and 3D printing for their excellent mechanical strength and intriguing optical properties. Economic, sustainable, and eco-friendly production of cellulose nanomaterials with high thermal stability, however, remains a tremendous challenge. Here versatile cellulose nanocrystals (DM-OA-CNCs) are prepared through fully recyclable oxalic acid (OA) hydrolysis along with disk-milling (DM) pretreatment of bleached kraft eucalyptus pulp. Compared with the commonly used cellulose nanocrystals from sulfuric acid hydrolysis, DM-OA-CNCs show several advantages including large aspect ratio, carboxylated surface, and excellent thermal stability along with high yield. We also successfully demonstrate the fabrication of high-performance films and 3D-printed patterns using DM-OA-CNCs. The high-performance films with high transparency, ultralow haze, and excellent thermal stability have the great potential for applications in flexible electronic devices. The 3D-printed patterns with porous structures can be potentially applied in the field of tissue engineering as scaffolds.

Influence of fast alpha diffusion and thermal alpha buildup on tokamak reactor performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Uckan, N.A.; Tolliver, J.S.; Houlberg, W.A.; Attenberger, S.E.

1988-01-01

The effect of fast alpha diffusion and thermal alpha accumulation on the confinement capability of a candidate Engineering Test Reactor plasma (Tokamak Ignition/Burn Experimental Reactor) in achieving ignition and steady-state driven operation has been assessed using both global and 1-1/2-dimensional transport models. Estimates are made of the threshold for radial diffusion of fast alphas and thermal alpha buildup. It is shown that a relatively low level of radial transport, when combined with large gradients in the fast alpha density, leads to a significant radial flow with a deleterious effect on plasma performance. Similarly, modest levels of thermal alpha concentration significantly influence the ignition and steady-state burn capability

Development of fuel performance and thermal hydraulic technology

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jung, Youn Ho; Song, K. N.; Kim, H. K. and others

2000-03-01

Space grid in LWR fuel assembly is a key structural component to support fuel rods and to enhance heat transfer from fuel rod to the coolant. Therefore, the original spacer grid has been developed. In addition, new phenomena in fuel behavior occurs at the high burnup, so that models to analyze those new phenomena were developed. Results of this project can be summarized as follows. - Seven different spacer grid candidates have been invented and submitted for domestic and US patents. Spacer grid test specimen(3x3 array and 5x5 array) were fabricated for each candidate and the mechanical tests were performed. - Basic technologies in the mechanical and thermal hydraulic behavior in the spacer grid development are studied and relevant test facilities were established - Fuel performance analysis models and programs were developed for the high burnup pellet and cladding, and fuel performance data base were compiled - Procedures of fuel characterization and in-/out of-pile tests were prepared - Conceptual design of fuel rod for integral PWR was carried out. (author)

Thermal Performance for Wet Cooling Tower with Different Layout Patterns of Fillings under Typical Crosswind Conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ming Gao

2017-01-01

Full Text Available A thermal-state model experimental study was performed in lab to investigate the thermal performance of a wet cooling tower with different kinds of filling layout patterns under windless and 0.4 m/s crosswind conditions. In this paper, the contrast analysis was focused on comparing a uniform layout pattern and one kind of optimal non-uniform layout pattern when the environmental crosswind speed is 0 m/s and 0.4 m/s. The experimental results proved that under windless conditions, the heat transfer coefficient and total heat rejection of circulating water for the optimal non-uniform layout pattern can enhance by approximately 40% and 28%, respectively, compared with the uniform layout pattern. It was also discovered that the optimal non-uniform pattern can dramatically relieve the influence of crosswind on the thermal performance of the tower when the crosswind speed is equal to 0.4 m/s. For the uniform layout pattern, the heat transfer coefficient under 0.4 m/s crosswind conditions decreased by 9.5% compared with the windless conditions, while that value lowered only by 2.0% for the optimal non-uniform layout pattern. It has been demonstrated that the optimal non-uniform layout pattern has the better thermal performance under 0.4 m/s crosswind condition.

Preprints in biomedicine: alternative or complement to the traditional model of publication?

Science.gov (United States)

Aquino-Jarquin, Guillermo; Valencia-Reyes, Josefina de Monserrat; Silva-Carmona, Abraham; Granados-Riverón, Javier Tadeo

2018-01-01

The peer-review system has allowed the quality control of the manuscripts submitted for publication to scientific journals for over three centuries. However, due to its relative slowness and other drawbacks, some researchers, mainly in the areas of Physics and Mathematics, started some decades ago to propagate, by electronic means, manuscripts not yet submitted to a journal for formal publication. The dissemination of this practice led to the establishment of permanent repositories like ArXiv, to which preprints can be sent to be published whitou charge, allowing also the search and download of the works they contain with no payment required from the reader. In biomedical sciences, the adoption of the system has been slower than in the exact sciences and previous attempts like e-biomed, Netprints, and Nature Precedings did not prosper. A new generation of repositories like bioRXiv, inspired by ArXiv, seems to enjoy an increasing acceptance among biomedical researchers. Here, we discuss the potential role of this emerging system to establish discovery priority in biomedicine and to improve manuscripts before they are submitted to scientific journals besides other applications which could be implemented in the extent that the model becomes more popular. Copyright: © 2018 SecretarÍa de Salud.

Thermal performance of a small-scale loop heat pipe for terrestrial application

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chung, Won Bok; Boo, Joon Hong

2004-01-01

A small-scale loop heat pipe with polypropylene wick was fabricated and tested for its thermal performance. The container and tubing of the system was made of stainless steel and several working fluids were used to see the difference in performance including methanol, ethanol, acetone, R134a, and water. The heating area was 35 mm x 35 mm and there were nine axial grooves in the evaporator to provide a vapor passage. The pore size of the polypropylene wick inside the evaporator was varied from 0.5 m to 25 m. The size of condenser was 40 mm (W) x 50 mm (L) in which ten coolant paths were provided. The inner diameter of liquid and vapor transport lines were 2.0 mm and 4.0 mm, respectively and the length of which were 0.5 m. The PP wick LHP was operated with methanol, acetone, and ethanol normally. R134a was not compatible with PP wick and water was unsuitable within operating limit of 100 .deg. C. The minimum thermal load of 10 W (0.8 W/cm 2 ) and maximum thermal load of 80 W (6.5 W/cm 2 ) were achieved using methanol as working fluid with the condenser temperature of 20 .deg. C with horizontal position

THERMAL PERFORMANCE OF CONTEMPORARY HOUSE IN THE CITY OF DHAKA

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rumana Rashid

2008-01-01

Full Text Available A contemporary house located within a dense area of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh was selected to evaluate its thermal performance. The study was based on the field measurements conducted during selected days in the summer period. The field survey was conducted using one set of thermal data logger installed in the selected house to record the air temperature and relative humidity of both indoor and outdoor spaces. The research result concluded that the contemporary house experienced much higher temperature during night and early morning. The indoor air temperature during the daytime was equal to the outdoor or sometime higher illustrating that it was overheating. On the other hand, previous study on traditional house within the same area showed that indoor air temperature was lower than outdoor air temperature, something that the contemporary house failed to achieve.

Numerical investigation of thermal performance of a water-cooled mini-channel heat sink for different chip arrangement

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tikadar, Amitav, E-mail: amitav453@gmail.com; Hossain, Md. Mahamudul; Morshed, A. K. M. M. [Department of Mechanical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, Dhaka, 1000 (Bangladesh)

2016-07-12

Heat transfer from electronic chip is always challenging and very crucial for electronic industry. Electronic chips are assembled in various manners according to the design conditions and limitationsand thus the influence of chip assembly on the overall thermal performance needs to be understand for the efficient design of electronic cooling system. Due to shrinkage of the dimension of channel and continuous increment of thermal load, conventional heat extraction techniques sometimes become inadequate. Due to high surface area to volume ratio, mini-channel have the natural advantage to enhance convective heat transfer and thus to play a vital role in the advanced heat transfer devices with limited surface area and high heat flux. In this paper, a water cooled mini-channel heat sink was considered for electronic chip cooling and five different chip arrangements were designed and studied, namely: the diagonal arrangement, parallel arrangement, stacked arrangement, longitudinal arrangement and sandwiched arrangement. Temperature distribution on the chip surfaces was presented and the thermal performance of the heat sink in terms of overall thermal resistance was also compared. It is found that the sandwiched arrangement of chip provides better thermal performance compared to conventional in line chip arrangement.

A simplified method for evaluating thermal performance of unglazed transpired solar collectors under steady state

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang, Xiaoliang; Lei, Bo; Bi, Haiquan; Yu, Tao

2017-01-01

Highlights: • A simplified method for evaluating thermal performance of UTC is developed. • Experiments, numerical simulations, dimensional analysis and data fitting are used. • The correlation of absorber plate temperature for UTC is established. • The empirical correlation of heat exchange effectiveness for UTC is proposed. - Abstract: Due to the advantages of low investment and high energy efficiency, unglazed transpired solar collectors (UTC) have been widely used for heating in buildings. However, it is difficult for designers to quickly evaluate the thermal performance of UTC based on the conventional methods such as experiments and numerical simulations. Therefore, a simple and fast method to determine the thermal performance of UTC is indispensable. The objective of this work is to provide a simplified calculation method to easily evaluate the thermal performance of UTC under steady state. Different parameters are considered in the simplified method, including pitch, perforation diameter, solar radiation, solar absorptivity, approach velocity, ambient air temperature, absorber plate temperature, and so on. Based on existing design parameters and operating conditions, correlations for the absorber plate temperature and the heat exchange effectiveness are developed using dimensional analysis and data fitting, respectively. Results show that the proposed simplified method has a high accuracy and can be employed to evaluate the collector efficiency, the heat exchange effectiveness and the air temperature rise. The proposed method in this paper is beneficial to directly determine design parameters and operating status for UTC.

How reliable are geometry-based building indices as thermal performance indicators?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rodrigues, Eugénio; Amaral, Ana Rita; Gaspar, Adélio Rodrigues; Gomes, Álvaro

2015-01-01

Highlights: • Geometry-based building indices are tested in different European climate regions. • Building design programs are used to randomly generate sets of simulation models. • Some indices correlate in specific climates and design programs. • Shape-based Relative Compactness presented the best correlation of all indices. • Window-to-Surface Ratio was the window-based index with best correlation. - Abstract: Architects and urban planners have been relying on geometry-based indices to design more energy efficient buildings for years. The advantage of such indices is their ease of use and capability to capture the relation of a few geometric variables with the building’s performance. However, such relation is usually found using only a few simple building models and considering only a few climate regions. This paper presents the analysis of six geometry-based building indices to determine their adequacy in eight different climate regions in Europe. For each location, three residential building design programs were used as building specifications. Two algorithms were employed to randomly generate and assess the thermal performance of three sets of 500 alternative building models. The results show that geometry-based indices only correlate with the buildings’ thermal performance according to specific climate regions and building design programs

Microinverter Thermal Performance in the Real-World: Measurements and Modeling

Science.gov (United States)

Hossain, Mohammad Akram; Xu, Yifan; Peshek, Timothy J.; Ji, Liang; Abramson, Alexis R.; French, Roger H.

2015-01-01

Real-world performance, durability and reliability of microinverters are critical concerns for microinverter-equipped photovoltaic systems. We conducted a data-driven study of the thermal performance of 24 new microinverters (Enphase M215) connected to 8 different brands of PV modules on dual-axis trackers at the Solar Durability and Lifetime Extension (SDLE) SunFarm at Case Western Reserve University, based on minute by minute power and thermal data from the microinverters and PV modules along with insolation and environmental data from July through October 2013. The analysis shows the strengths of the associations of microinverter temperature with ambient temperature, PV module temperature, irradiance and AC power of the PV systems. The importance of the covariates are rank ordered. A multiple regression model was developed and tested based on stable solar noon-time data, which gives both an overall function that predicts the temperature of microinverters under typical local conditions, and coefficients adjustments reecting refined prediction of the microinverter temperature connected to the 8 brands of PV modules in the study. The model allows for prediction of internal temperature for the Enphase M215 given similar climatic condition and can be expanded to predict microinverter temperature in fixed-rack and roof-top PV systems. This study is foundational in that similar models built on later stage data in the life of a device could reveal potential influencing factors in performance degradation. PMID:26147339

Effect of nanofluids on thermal performance of heat pipes

OpenAIRE

Ferizaj, Drilon; Kassem, Mohamad

2014-01-01

A relatively new way for utilizing the thermal performance of heat pipes is to use nanofluids as working fluids in the heat pipes. Heat pipes are effective heat transfer devices in which the nanofluid operates in the two phases, evaporation and condensation. The heat pipe transfers the heat supplied in e.g. a laptop, from the evaporator to condenser part. Nanofluids are mixtures consisting of nanoparticles (e.g. nano-sized silver particles) and a base fluid (e.g. water). The aim of this bache...

Influence of sinusoidal flow on the thermal and hydraulic performance of microchannel heat sink

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Om, N I; Gunnasegaran, P; Rajasegaran, S

2013-01-01

In this paper, the effect of sinusoidal flow on the thermal and hydraulic performance of microchannel heat sink (MCHS) is numerically investigated. This investigation covers Reynolds number in the range of 100 ≤ Re ≤ 1000 and pure water is used as a working fluid. The three-dimensional steady, laminar flow and heat transfer governing equations are solved using finite volume method (FVM). The water flow field and heat transfer performance inside the sinusoidal microchannels is simulated and the results are compared with the straight microchannels. The effect of using sinusoidal microchannels on temperature distribution, Nusselt number, friction factor and thermal resistance is presented in this paper. It is found that with same rectangular cross-section, sinusoidal microchannels have a better heat transfer performance compared to the straight microchannels.

Thermal Performance of Low Layer Density Multilayer Insu1ation Using Liquid Nitrogen

Science.gov (United States)

Johnson, Wesley L.; Fesmire, James E.

2011-01-01

In order to support long duration cryogenic propellant storage, the Cryogenic Fluid Management (CFM) Project of the Exploration Technology Development Program (ETDP) is investigating the long duration storage propertie$ of liquid methane on the lunar surface. The Methane Lunar Surface Thermal Control (MLSTC) testing is using a tank of the approximate dimensions of the Altair ascent tanks inside of a vacuum chamber to simulate the environment in low earth orbit and on the lunar surface. The thermal performance testing of multilayer insulation (MLI) coupons that are fabricated identically to the tank applied insulation is necessary to understand the performance of the blankets and to be able to predict the performance of the insulation prior to testing. This coupon testing was completed in Cryostat-100 at the Cryogenics Test Laboratory. The results showed the properties of the insulation as a function of layer density, number of layers, and warm boundary temperature. These results aid in the understanding of the performance parameters o fMLI and help to complete the body of literature on the topic.

Neutronic and Thermal-hydraulic Modelling of High Performance Light Water Reactor

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Seppaelae, Malla [VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, P.O.Box 1000, FI02044 VTT (Finland)

2008-07-01

High Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR), which is studied in EU project 'HPLWR2', uses water at supercritical pressures as coolant and moderator to achieve higher core outlet temperature and thus higher efficiency compared to present reactors. At VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, functionality of the thermal-hydraulics in the coupled reactor dynamics code TRAB3D/ SMABRE was extended to supercritical pressures for the analyses of HPLWR. Input models for neutronics and thermal-hydraulics were made for TRAB3D/ SMABRE according to the latest HPLWR design. A preliminary analysis was performed in which the capability of SMABRE in the transition from supercritical pressures to subcritical pressures was demonstrated. Parameterized two-group cross sections for TRAB3D neutronics were received from Hungarian Academy of Sciences KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute together with a subroutine for handling them. PSG, a new Monte Carlo transport code developed at VTT, was also used to generate two-group constants for HPLWR and comparisons were made with the KFKI cross sections and MCNP calculations. (author)

Neutronic and Thermal-hydraulic Modelling of High Performance Light Water Reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seppaelae, Malla

2008-01-01

High Performance Light Water Reactor (HPLWR), which is studied in EU project 'HPLWR2', uses water at supercritical pressures as coolant and moderator to achieve higher core outlet temperature and thus higher efficiency compared to present reactors. At VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, functionality of the thermal-hydraulics in the coupled reactor dynamics code TRAB3D/ SMABRE was extended to supercritical pressures for the analyses of HPLWR. Input models for neutronics and thermal-hydraulics were made for TRAB3D/ SMABRE according to the latest HPLWR design. A preliminary analysis was performed in which the capability of SMABRE in the transition from supercritical pressures to subcritical pressures was demonstrated. Parameterized two-group cross sections for TRAB3D neutronics were received from Hungarian Academy of Sciences KFKI Atomic Energy Research Institute together with a subroutine for handling them. PSG, a new Monte Carlo transport code developed at VTT, was also used to generate two-group constants for HPLWR and comparisons were made with the KFKI cross sections and MCNP calculations. (author)

Efficiency maximization and performance evaluation of hybrid dual channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal module using fuzzyfied genetic algorithm

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Singh, Sonveer; Agrawal, Sanjay

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal modeling of novel dual channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal hybrid module. • Efficiency maximization and performance evaluation of dual channel photovoltaic thermal module. • Annual performance has been evaluated for Srinagar, Jodhpur, Bangalore and New Delhi (India). • There are improvements in results for optimized system as compared to un-optimized system. - Abstract: The work has been carried out in two steps; firstly the parameters of hybrid dual channel semitransparent photovoltaic thermal module has been optimized using a fuzzyfied genetic algorithm. During the course of optimization, overall exergy efficiency is considered as an objective function and different design parameters of the proposed module have been optimized. Fuzzy controller is used to improve the performance of genetic algorithms and the approach is called as a fuzzyfied genetic algorithm. In the second step, the performance of the module has been analyzed for four cities of India such as Srinagar, Bangalore, Jodhpur and New Delhi. The performance of the module has been evaluated for daytime 08:00 AM to 05:00 PM and annually from January to December. It is to be noted that, an average improvement occurs in electrical efficiency of the optimized module, simultaneously there is also a reduction in solar cell temperature as compared to un-optimized module.

Passive Two-Phase Cooling of Automotive Power Electronics: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Moreno, G.; Jeffers, J. R.; Narumanchi, S.; Bennion, K.

2014-08-01

Experiments were conducted to evaluate the use of a passive two-phase cooling strategy as a means of cooling automotive power electronics. The proposed cooling approach utilizes an indirect cooling configuration to alleviate some reliability concerns and to allow the use of conventional power modules. An inverter-scale proof-of-concept cooling system was fabricated, and tests were conducted using the refrigerants hydrofluoroolefin HFO-1234yf and hydrofluorocarbon HFC-245fa. Results demonstrated that the system can dissipate at least 3.5 kW of heat with 250 cm3 of HFC-245fa. An advanced evaporator design that incorporates features to improve performance and reduce size was conceived. Simulation results indicate its thermal resistance can be 37% to 48% lower than automotive dual side cooled power modules. Tests were also conducted to measure the thermal performance of two air-cooled condensers--plain and rifled finned tube designs. The results combined with some analysis were then used to estimate the required condenser size per operating conditions and maximum allowable system (i.e., vapor and liquid) temperatures.

Hydrogen Safety Sensor Performance and Use Gap Analysis: Preprint

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buttner, William J [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Burgess, Robert M [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Schmidt, Kara [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Hartmann, Kevin S [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Wright, Hannah [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Weidner, Eveline [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands; Cebolla, Rafael O. [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands; Bonato, Christian [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands; Moretto, Pietro [Joint Research Centre, Petten, the Netherlands

2017-11-15

Hydrogen sensors are recognized as an important technology for facilitating the safe implementation of hydrogen as an alternative fuel, and there are numerous reports of a sensor alarm successfully preventing a potentially serious event. However, gaps in sensor metrological specifications, as well as in their performance for some applications, exist.The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Fuel Cell Technology Office published a short list of critical gaps in the 2007 and 2012 multiyear project plans; more detailed gap analyses were independently performed by the JRC and NREL. There have been, however, some significant advances in sensor technologies since these assessments, including the commercial availability of hydrogen sensors with fast response times (t90 less than 1 s, which had been an elusive DOE target since 2007), improved robustness to chemical poisons, improved selectivity, and improved lifetime and stability. These improvements, however, have not been universal and typically pertain to select platforms or models. Moreover, as hydrogen markets grow and new applications are being explored, more demands will be imposed on sensor performance. The hydrogen sensor laboratories at NREL and JRC are currently updating the hydrogen safety sensor gap analysis through direct interaction with international stakeholders in the hydrogen community, especially end-users. NREL and the JRC are currently organizing a series of workshops (in Europe and the U.S.) with sensor developers, end-users, and other stakeholders in 2017 to identify technology gaps and to develop a path forward to address them. One workshop is scheduled for May 10 in Brussels, Belgium at the Headquarters of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking. A second workshop is planned at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO, USA. This presentation will review improvements in sensor technologies in the past 5 to 10 years, identify gaps in sensor performance and use requirements, and identify

Development of Mitsubishi high thermal performance grid 2 - overview of the development and Dnb test results

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hoshi, M.; Imaizumi, M.; Mori, M.; Hori, K.; Ikeda, K.

2001-01-01

Spacer grid plays fundamental role in thermal performance of PWR fuel assembly. Grid spacer with higher thermal performance gives greater DNB (Departure from Nucleate Boiling) margin for the core. Mitsubishi has developed a prototype Zircaloy grid with higher thermal performance. In this paper, process of the development and DNB test results of the grid is presented. To achieve a goal to design grid with higher DNB performance, CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) and Freon DNB test are employed in the development. It is also concerned that the grid should be hydraulically compatible to existing grid. CFD is used in examining mixing capability and pressure drop for early stage of the development. Freon DNB test is used for preliminary checking of DNB performance for several design of the grids. After the final design is fixed, DNB test has been carried out at a high pressure / high temperature water test loop to verify the DNB performance. Also, hydraulic test has been done in a water test loop. The test results show that the grid has higher DNB performance and lower pressure loss coefficient compared with existing grid. It is also concluded that a combination of CFD and Freon DNB testing is successful tool for designing and development of grid. (authors)

Performance Evaluation of a Thermal Load Reduction System in a Hyundai Sonata PHEV

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kreutzer, Cory J [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Rugh, John P [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Titov, Eugene V [National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Gallagher, James [Gentherm, Inc.; Scott, Matthew [Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc.

2017-11-28

Increased adoption of electric-drive vehicles (EDVs) requires overcoming hurdles including limited vehicle range. Vehicle cabin heating and cooling demand for occupant climate control requires energy from the main battery and has been shown to significantly degrade vehicle range. During peak cooling and heating conditions, climate control can require as much or more energy as propulsion. As part of an ongoing project, NREL and project partners Hyundai America Technical Center, Inc. (HATCI), Gentherm , Pittsburgh Glass Works (PGW), PPG Industries, Sekisui, 3M, and Hanon Systems developed a thermal load reduction system in order to reduce the range penalty associated with electric vehicle climate control. Solar reflective paint, solar control glass, heated and cooled/ventilated seats, heated surfaces, and heated windshield with door demisters were integrated into a Hyundai Sonata plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). Cold weather field-testing was conducted in Fairbanks, Alaska while warm weather testing was conducted in Death Valley, California to assess the system performance in comparison to the baseline production vehicle. In addition, environmental chamber testing at peak heating and cooling conditions was performed to assess the performance of the system in standardized conditions compared to the baseline. Experimental results are presented in this paper providing quantitative data to automobile manufacturers on the impact of climate control thermal load reduction technologies to increase the advanced thermal technology adoption and market penetration of electric drive vehicles.

Thermal performances of vertical hybrid PV/T air collector

Science.gov (United States)

Tabet, I.; Touafek, K.; Bellel, N.; Khelifa, A.

2016-11-01

In this work, numerical analyses and the experimental validation of the thermal behavior of a vertical photovoltaic thermal air collector are investigated. The thermal model is developed using the energy balance equations of the PV/T air collector. Experimental tests are conducted to validate our mathematical model. The tests are performed in the southern Algerian region (Ghardaïa) under clear sky conditions. The prototype of the PV/T air collector is vertically erected and south oriented. The absorber upper plate temperature, glass cover temperature, air temperature in the inlet and outlet of the collector, ambient temperature, wind speed, and solar radiation are measured. The efficiency of the collector increases with increase in mass flow of air, but the increase in mass flow of air reduces the temperature of the system. The increase in efficiency of the PV/T air collector is due to the increase in the number of fins added. In the experiments, the air temperature difference between the inlet and the outlet of the PV/T air collector reaches 10 ° C on November 21, 2014, the interval time is between 10:00 and 14:00, and the temperature of the upper plate reaches 45 ° C at noon. The mathematical model describing the dynamic behavior of the typical PV/T air collector is evaluated by calculating the root mean square error and mean absolute percentage error. A good agreement between the experiment and the simulation results is obtained.

Materials performance in prototype Thermal Cycling Absorption Process (TCAP) columns

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clark, E.A.

1992-01-01

Two prototype Thermal Cycling Absorption Process (TCAP) columns have been metallurgically examined after retirement, to determine the causes of failure and to evaluate the performance of the column container materials in this application. Leaking of the fluid heating and cooling subsystems caused retirement of both TCAP columns, not leaking of the main hydrogen-containing column. The aluminum block design TCAP column (AHL block TCAP) used in the Advanced Hydride Laboratory, Building 773-A, failed in one nitrogen inlet tube that was crimped during fabrication, which lead to fatigue crack growth in the tube and subsequent leaking of nitrogen from this tube. The Third Generation stainless steel design TCAP column (Third generation TCAP), operated in 773-A room C-061, failed in a braze joint between the freon heating and cooling tubes (made of copper) and the main stainless steel column. In both cases, stresses from thermal cycling and local constraint likely caused the nucleation and growth of fatigue cracks. No materials compatibility problems between palladium coated kieselguhr (the material contained in the TCAP column) and either aluminum or stainless steel column materials were observed. The aluminum-stainless steel transition junction appeared to be unaffected by service in the AHL block TCAP. Also, no evidence of cracking was observed in the AHL block TCAP in a location expected to experience the highest thermal shock fatigue in this design. It is important to limit thermal stresses caused by constraint in hydride systems designed to work by temperature variation, such as hydride storage beds and TCAP columns

Three-Dimensional Numerical Evaluation of Thermal Performance of Uninsulated Wall Assemblies

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ridouane, El Hassan [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States); Bianchi, Marcus V.A. [National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

2011-11-01

This study describes a detailed 3D computational fluid dynamics model that evaluates the thermal performance of uninsulated wall assemblies. It accounts for conduction through framing, convection, and radiation and allows for material property variations with temperature. This research was presented at the ASME 2011 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exhibition; Denver, Colorado; November 11-17, 2011

The Impact of Power Switching Devices on the Thermal Performance of a 10 MW Wind Power NPC Converter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ke Ma

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Power semiconductor switching devices play an important role in the performance of high power wind energy generation systems. The state-of-the-art device choices in the wind power application as reported in the industry include IGBT modules, IGBT press-pack and IGCT press-pack. Because of significant deviation in the packaging structure, electrical characteristics, as well as thermal impedance, these available power switching devices may have various thermal cycling behaviors, which will lead to converter solutions with very different cost, size and reliability performance. As a result, this paper aimed to investigate the thermal related characteristics of some important power switching devices. Their impact on the thermal cycling of a 10 MW three-level Neutral-Point-Clamped wind power converter is then evaluated under various operating conditions; the main focus will be on the grid connected inverter. It is concluded that the thermal performances of the 3L-NPC wind power converter can be significantly changed by the power device technology as well as their parallel configurations.

MODIS on-orbit thermal emissive bands lifetime performance

Science.gov (United States)

Madhavan, Sriharsha; Wu, Aisheng; Chen, Na; Xiong, Xiaoxiong

2016-05-01

MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), a leading heritage sensor in the fleet of Earth Observing System for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is in space orbit on two spacecrafts. They are the Terra (T) and Aqua (A) platforms. Both instruments have successfully continued to operate beyond the 6 year design life time, with the T-MODIS currently functional beyond 15 years and the A-MODIS operating beyond 13 years respectively. The MODIS sensor characteristics include a spectral coverage from 0.41 μm - 14.4 μm, of which wavelengths ranging from 3.7 μm - 14. 4 μm cover the thermal infrared region also referred to as the Thermal Emissive Bands (TEBs). The TEBs is calibrated using a v-grooved BlackBody (BB) whose temperature measurements are traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology temperature scales. The TEBs calibration based on the onboard BB is extremely important for its high radiometric fidelity. In this paper, we provide a complete characterization of the lifetime instrument performance of both MODIS instruments in terms of the sensor gain, the Noise Equivalent difference Temperature, key instrument telemetry such as the BB lifetime trends, the instrument temperature trends, the Cold Focal Plane telemetry and finally, the total assessed calibration uncertainty of the TEBs.

Improving the thermal performance of the US residential window stock

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brown, R.E.; Arasteh, D.K.; Eto, J.H.

1992-05-01

Windows have typically been the least efficient thermal component in the residential envelope, but technology advances over the past decade have helped to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of window products. While the thermal performance of these advanced technology windows can be easily characterized for a particular building application, few precise estimates exist of their aggregate impact on national or regional energy use. Policy-makers, utilities, researchers and the fenestration industry must better understand these products` ultimate conservation potential in order to determine the value of developing new products and initiating programs to accelerate their market acceptance. This paper presents a method to estimate the conservation potential of advanced window technologies, combining elements of two well-known modeling paradigms: supply curves of conserved energy and residential end-use forecasting. The unique features include: detailed descriptions of the housing stock by region and vintage, state-of-the-art thermal descriptions of window technologies, and incorporation of market effects to calculate achievable conservation potential and timing. We demonstrate the methodology by comparing, for all new houses built between 1990 and 2010, the conservation potential of very efficient, high R-value ``superwindows`` in the North Central federal region and spectrally-selective low-emissivity (moderate Revalue and solar transmittance) windows in California.

Experimental study on the thermal performance of a mechanical cooling tower with different drift eliminators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lucas, M.; Martinez, P.J.; Viedma, A.

2009-01-01

Cooling towers are equipment devices commonly used to dissipate heat from power generation units, water-cooled refrigeration, air conditioning and industrial processes. Water drift emitted from cooling towers is objectionable for several reasons, mainly due to human health hazards. It is common practice to fit drift eliminators to cooling towers in order to minimize water loss from the system. It is foreseeable that the characteristics of the installed drift eliminators, like their pressure drop, affect the thermal performance of the cooling tower. However, no references regarding this fact have been found in the reviewed bibliography. This paper studies the thermal performance of a forced draft counter-flow wet cooling tower fitted with different drift eliminators for a wide range of air and water mass flow rates. The data registered in the experimental set-up were employed to obtain correlations of the tower characteristic, which defines the cooling tower's thermal performance. The outlet water temperature predicted by these correlations was compared with the experimentally registered values obtaining a maximum difference of ±3%

Dividing wall column: Improving thermal efficiency, energy savings and economic performance

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aurangzeb, Md; Jana, Amiya K.

2016-01-01

Highlights: • A rigorous model is developed for a dividing wall column. • Heat transfer model for metal wall is proposed. • Performance improvement is quantified for a ternary system. • Thermal efficiency, energy savings and cost are three used indices. - Abstract: This work aims at investigating the performance improvement of a dividing wall column (DWC) for the separation of a ternary system. It is true that for fractionating a ternary mixture, at least a sequence of two conventional distillation columns is required. To improve energetic and economic potential, and reduce space requirement, two columns are proposed to merge into one shell with a dividing wall. For developing the mathematical model of a distillation column, we consider the effect of heat transfer through the metal wall placed at an intermediated position inside the cylindrical column. The simulated DWC model is verified using the Aspen Plus flowsheet simulator with a wide variety of phase equilibrium models. The superiority of this proposed heat integrated configuration is shown for a ternary hydrocarbon system over a conventional distillation sequence (CDS) in terms of mainly three performance indexes, namely thermal efficiency, energy savings and total annual cost (TAC). It is investigated that the dividing wall distillation scheme can secure a 37.5% energy efficiency, and a 22.6% savings in energy consumption and 23.23% in TAC. The promising performance can also be quantified in terms of a reasonably low payback period of 2.11 years.

Effects of Conformal Nanoscale Coatings on Thermal Performance of Vertically Aligned Carbon Nanotubes.

Science.gov (United States)

Silvestri, Cinzia; Riccio, Michele; Poelma, René H; Jovic, Aleksandar; Morana, Bruno; Vollebregt, Sten; Irace, Andrea; Zhang, Guo Qi; Sarro, Pasqualina M

2018-04-17

The high aspect ratio and the porous nature of spatially oriented forest-like carbon nanotube (CNT) structures represent a unique opportunity to engineer a novel class of nanoscale assemblies. By combining CNTs and conformal coatings, a 3D lightweight scaffold with tailored behavior can be achieved. The effect of nanoscale coatings, aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ) and nonstoichiometric amorphous silicon carbide (a-SiC), on the thermal transport efficiency of high aspect ratio vertically aligned CNTs, is reported herein. The thermal performance of the CNT-based nanostructure strongly depends on the achieved porosity, the coating material and its infiltration within the nanotube network. An unprecedented enhancement in terms of effective thermal conductivity in a-SiC coated CNTs has been obtained: 181% compared to the as-grown CNTs and Al 2 O 3 coated CNTs. Furthermore, the integration of coated high aspect ratio CNTs in an epoxy molding compound demonstrates that, next to the required thermal conductivity, the mechanical compliance for thermal interface applications can also be achieved through coating infiltration into foam-like CNT forests. © 2018 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Effect of evaporation section and condensation section length on thermal performance of flat plate heat pipe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wang Shuangfeng; Chen Jinjian; Hu Yanxin; Zhang Wei

2011-01-01

Flat plate heat pipes (FPHPs) are one of the available technologies to deal with the high density electronic cooling problem due to their high thermal conductivity, reliability, and low weight penalty. A series of experiments were performed to investigate the effect of evaporation and condensation length on thermal performance of flat plate heat pipes. In the experiments, the FPHP had heat transfer length of 255 mm and width of 25 mm, and pure water was used as the working fluid. The results show that comparing to vapor chamber, the FPHP could realize long-distance heat transfer; comparing to the traditional heat pipe, the FPHP has large area contact with heat sources; the thermal resistance decreased and the heat transfer limit increased with the increase of evaporation section length; the FPHP would dry out at a lower heating power with the increase of condensation section length, which indicated that the heat transfer limit decreased, but the evaporator temperature also decreased; when the condensation section length approached to evaporation section length, the FPHP had a better thermal performance. - Highlights: → A strip sintered FPHP is proposed and tested. → The total heat transfer length reaches 255 mm → The efficiency of heat transport reaches 94.4%. → When the condensation section length approached to evaporation section length, the FPHP has better overall performance.

Advances in thermal control and performance of the MMT M1 mirror

Science.gov (United States)

Gibson, J. D.; Williams, G. G.; Callahan, S.; Comisso, B.; Ortiz, R.; Williams, J. T.

2010-07-01

Strategies for thermal control of the 6.5-meter diameter borosilicate honeycomb primary (M1) mirror at the MMT Observatory have included: 1) direct control of ventilation system chiller setpoints by the telescope operator, 2) semiautomated control of chiller setpoints, using a fixed offset from the ambient temperature, and 3) most recently, an automated temperature controller for conditioned air. Details of this automated controller, including the integration of multiple chillers, heat exchangers, and temperature/dew point sensors, are presented here. Constraints and sanity checks for thermal control are also discussed, including: 1) mirror and hardware safety, 2) aluminum coating preservation, and 3) optimization of M1 thermal conditions for science acquisition by minimizing both air-to-glass temperature differences, which cause mirror seeing, and internal glass temperature gradients, which cause wavefront errors. Consideration is given to special operating conditions, such as high dew and frost points. Precise temperature control of conditioned ventilation air as delivered to the M1 mirror cell is also discussed. The performance of the new automated controller is assessed and compared to previous control strategies. Finally, suggestions are made for further refinement of the M1 mirror thermal control system and related algorithms.

Parametric Analysis to Study the Influence of Aerogel-Based Renders' Components on Thermal and Mechanical Performance.

Science.gov (United States)

Ximenes, Sofia; Silva, Ana; Soares, António; Flores-Colen, Inês; de Brito, Jorge

2016-05-04

Statistical models using multiple linear regression are some of the most widely used methods to study the influence of independent variables in a given phenomenon. This study's objective is to understand the influence of the various components of aerogel-based renders on their thermal and mechanical performance, namely cement (three types), fly ash, aerial lime, silica sand, expanded clay, type of aerogel, expanded cork granules, expanded perlite, air entrainers, resins (two types), and rheological agent. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), based on 85 mortar mixes produced in the laboratory and on their values of thermal conductivity and compressive strength obtained using tests in small-scale samples. The results showed that aerial lime assumes the main role in improving the thermal conductivity of the mortars. Aerogel type, fly ash, expanded perlite and air entrainers are also relevant components for a good thermal conductivity. Expanded clay can improve the mechanical behavior and aerogel has the opposite effect.

Parametric Analysis to Study the Influence of Aerogel-Based Renders’ Components on Thermal and Mechanical Performance

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sofia Ximenes

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Statistical models using multiple linear regression are some of the most widely used methods to study the influence of independent variables in a given phenomenon. This study’s objective is to understand the influence of the various components of aerogel-based renders on their thermal and mechanical performance, namely cement (three types, fly ash, aerial lime, silica sand, expanded clay, type of aerogel, expanded cork granules, expanded perlite, air entrainers, resins (two types, and rheological agent. The statistical analysis was performed using SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences, based on 85 mortar mixes produced in the laboratory and on their values of thermal conductivity and compressive strength obtained using tests in small-scale samples. The results showed that aerial lime assumes the main role in improving the thermal conductivity of the mortars. Aerogel type, fly ash, expanded perlite and air entrainers are also relevant components for a good thermal conductivity. Expanded clay can improve the mechanical behavior and aerogel has the opposite effect.

Effects of thermal discomfort in an office on perceived air quality, SBS symptoms, physiological responses and human performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lan, Li; Wargocki, Pawel; Wyon, David Peter

2011-01-01

The effects of thermal discomfort on health and human performance were investigated in an office, in an attempt to elucidate the physiological mechanisms involved. Twelve subjects (six men and six women) performed neurobehavioral tests and tasks typical of office work while thermally neutral (at 22......, and were less willing to exert effort. Task performance decreased when the subjects felt warm. Their heart rate, respiratory ventilation, and end-tidal partial pressure of carbon dioxide increased significantly, and their arterial oxygen saturation decreased. Tear film quality was found to be significantly...... reduced at the higher temperature when they felt warm. No effects were observed on salivary biomarkers (alpha-amylase and cortisol). The present results imply that the negative effects on health and performance that occur when people feel thermally warm at raised temperatures are caused by physiological...

Ballistic Performance Model of Crater Formation in Monolithic, Porous Thermal Protection Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Miller, J. E.; Christiansen, E. L.; Deighton, K. D.

2014-01-01

Porous monolithic ablative systems insulate atmospheric reentry vehicles from reentry plasmas generated by atmospheric braking from orbital and exo-orbital velocities. Due to the necessity that these materials create a temperature gradient up to several thousand Kelvin over their thickness, it is important that these materials are near their pristine state prior to reentry. These materials may also be on exposed surfaces to space environment threats like orbital debris and meteoroids leaving a probability that these exposed surfaces will be below their prescribed values. Owing to the typical small size of impact craters in these materials, the local flow fields over these craters and the ablative process afford some margin in thermal protection designs for these locally reduced performance values. In this work, tests to develop ballistic performance models for thermal protection materials typical of those being used on Orion are discussed. A density profile as a function of depth of a typical monolithic ablator and substructure system is shown in Figure 1a.

Thermal Performance of the LHC External Auxiliary Bus-Bar Tube Mathematical Modelling

CERN Document Server

Kowalczyk, P; Sacré, P; Skoczen, Blazej

1998-01-01

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) externally routed auxiliary bus-bar tube (EAB) will house the electrical feeders of the LHC short straight section (SSS) correcting magnets. The superconducting wires w ill be contained in a stainless steel tube and immersed in a quasi-static helium bath. The EAB thermal performance during the cooling of the magnets down to the operating temperature of 1.9 K is studi ed. A 3-d finite element thermal model of the EAB during a cooling process from 293 K to 4.5 K is described. The semi-analytical model of the EAB cool-down from 4.5 K to 1.9 K is also presented.

Experimental and Numerical Study of the Effects of Acoustic Sound Absorbers on the Cooling Performance of Thermally Active Building Systems

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Domínguez, L. Marcos; Kazanci, Ongun Berk; Rage, Nils

2017-01-01

Free-hanging horizontal and vertical sound absorbers are commonly used in buildings for room acoustic control; however, when these sound absorbers are used in combination with Thermally Active Building Systems, they will decrease the cooling performance of Thermally Active Building Systems...... and this will affect the thermal indoor environment in that space. Therefore, it is crucial to be able to quantify and model these effects in the design phase. This study quantifies experimentally the effects of horizontal and vertical free-hanging sound absorbers on the cooling performance of Thermally Active......%, respectively. With vertical sound absorbers, the decrease in cooling performance was 8%, 12%, and 14% for the corresponding cases, respectively. The numerical model predicted closely the cooling performance reduction, air temperatures and ceiling surface temperatures in most cases, while there were differences...

Research and Development Data to Define the Thermal Performance of Reflective Materials Used to Conserve Energy in Building Applications

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Eisenberg, J

2001-04-09

A comprehensive experimental laboratory study has been conducted on the thermal performance of reflective insulation systems. The goal of this study was to develop test and evaluation protocols and to obtain thermal performance data on a selected number of idealized and commercial systems containing reflective airspaces for use in analytical models. Steady-state thermal resistance has been measured on 17 different test panels using two guarded hot boxes. Additional instrumentation was installed to measure the temperature of critical locations inside the test panels. The test parameters which have been studied are heat flow direction (horizontal, up, and down), number of airspaces comprising the cavity, airspace effective emittance, airspace aspect ratio, airspace mean temperature and temperature difference, and the thermal resistance of the stud material. Tests have also been performed on similar constructions with mass insulation. Two one-dimensional calculation techniques (ASHRAE and proposed ASTM) have been employed to determine the cavity thermal resistance from the measured test panel results. The measured cavity thermal resistance is compared with literature data which is commonly employed to calculate the thermal resistance of reflective airspace assemblies. A consumer-oriented handbook pertaining to reflective insulation for building and commercial applications has also been prepared as part of this study.

Energetic performance analysis of a commercial water-based photovoltaic thermal system (PV/T) under summer conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Nardi, I.; Ambrosini, D.; de Rubeis, T.; Paoletti, D.; Muttillo, M.; Sfarra, S.

2017-11-01

In the last years, the importance of integrating the production of electricity with the production of sanitary hot water led to the development of new solutions, i.e. PV/T systems. It is well known that hybrid photovoltaic-thermal systems, able to produce electricity and thermal energy at the same time with better energetic performance in comparison with two separate systems, present many advantages for application in a residential building. A PV/T is constituted generally by a common PV panel with a metallic pipe, in which fluid flows. Pipe accomplishes two roles: it absorbs the heat from the PV panel, thus increasing, or at least maintaining its efficiency; furthermore, it stores the heat for sanitary uses. In this work, the thermal and electrical efficiencies of a commercial PV/T panel have been evaluated during the summer season in different days, to assess the effect of environmental conditions on the system total efficiency. Moreover, infrared thermographic diagnosis in real time has been effected during the operating mode in two conditions: with cooling and without cooling; cooling was obtained by natural flowing water. This analysis gave information about the impact of a non-uniform temperature distribution on the thermal and electrical performance. Furthermore, measurements have been performed in two different operating modes: 1) production of solely electrical energy and 2) simultaneous production of thermal and electrical energy. Finally, total efficiency is largely increased by using a simple solar concentrator nearby the panel.

The roles of thermal insulation and heat storage in the energy performance of the wall materials: a simulation study.

Science.gov (United States)

Long, Linshuang; Ye, Hong

2016-04-07

A high-performance envelope is the prerequisite and foundation to a zero energy building. The thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity of a wall are two thermophysical properties that strongly influence the energy performance. Although many case studies have been performed, the results failed to give a big picture of the roles of these properties in the energy performance of an active building. In this work, a traversal study on the energy performance of a standard room with all potential wall materials was performed for the first time. It was revealed that both heat storage materials and insulation materials are suitable for external walls. However, the importances of those materials are distinct in different situations: the heat storage plays a primary role when the thermal conductivity of the material is relatively high, but the effect of the thermal insulation is dominant when the conductivity is relatively low. Regarding internal walls, they are less significant to the energy performance than the external ones, and they need exclusively the heat storage materials with a high thermal conductivity. These requirements for materials are consistent under various climate conditions. This study may provide a roadmap for the material scientists interested in developing high-performance wall materials.

Thermal Performance of Traditional House in the Upland Central Celebes of Indonesia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sri Nastiti N.E Nastiti N.E

2011-11-01

Full Text Available House presents special problems for design in relation to climate as it accommodates variety of uses over 24-hour period. It is widely known in the tropical countries that traditional houses are more sensitive to the prevailing climate and able to provide comfortable internal environment for the occupants. Tambi as one of traditional houses in upland Central Celebes Indonesia is believed to be thermally comfortable, yet there still no empirical evidence to approve it. Present study conducted empirical studies on typical traditional Tambi houses to evaluate their thermal performance. External and internal climatic conditions were measured in each house and were analysed. Results of the study showed that typical traditional Tambi house are not able to maintain the internal temperature within the comfort range for a preiod of 24- hours. Thermal quality of the house, however, were improving as indicated by internal temperatures which were more satisfactory than the external temperatures.

Impact of building forms on thermal performance and thermal comfort conditions in religious buildings in hot climates: a case study in Sharjah city

Science.gov (United States)

Mushtaha, Emad; Helmy, Omar

2017-11-01

The common system used for thermal regulation in mosques of United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. This system increases demands on energy consumption and increases CO2 emission. A passive design approach is one of the measures to reduce these problems. This study involved an analytical examination of building forms, followed by testing the impact of these forms on its thermal performance and indoor thermal comfort. The tests were conducted using energy simulations software packages. Passive parameters such as shading devices, thermal insulation and natural ventilation were applied in six cases, including the baseline case within each form. The obtained results showed a significant effect of mosque forms as well as passive design techniques on the thermal comfort within the structures. The findings confirmed that the use of passive design alone would not help achieve thermal comfort, but reduce the annual energy consumption by10%. By integrating a hybrid air-conditioning system as another supporting approach, the annual energy consumption could be reduced by 67.5%, which allows for the designing of a much smaller HVAC system.

Experimental study of heat transfer and thermal performance with longitudinal fins of solar air heater

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Foued Chabane

2014-03-01

Full Text Available The thermal performance of a single pass solar air heater with five fins attached was investigated experimentally. Longitudinal fins were used inferior the absorber plate to increase the heat exchange and render the flow fluid in the channel uniform. The effect of mass flow rate of air on the outlet temperature, the heat transfer in the thickness of the solar collector, and the thermal efficiency were studied. Experiments were performed for two air mass flow rates of 0.012 and 0.016 kg s−1. Moreover, the maximum efficiency values obtained for the 0.012 and 0.016 kg s−1 with and without fins were 40.02%, 51.50% and 34.92%, 43.94%, respectively. A comparison of the results of the mass flow rates by solar collector with and without fins shows a substantial enhancement in the thermal efficiency.

Experimental study of heat transfer and thermal performance with longitudinal fins of solar air heater.

Science.gov (United States)

Chabane, Foued; Moummi, Noureddine; Benramache, Said

2014-03-01

The thermal performance of a single pass solar air heater with five fins attached was investigated experimentally. Longitudinal fins were used inferior the absorber plate to increase the heat exchange and render the flow fluid in the channel uniform. The effect of mass flow rate of air on the outlet temperature, the heat transfer in the thickness of the solar collector, and the thermal efficiency were studied. Experiments were performed for two air mass flow rates of 0.012 and 0.016 kg s(-1). Moreover, the maximum efficiency values obtained for the 0.012 and 0.016 kg s(-1) with and without fins were 40.02%, 51.50% and 34.92%, 43.94%, respectively. A comparison of the results of the mass flow rates by solar collector with and without fins shows a substantial enhancement in the thermal efficiency.

Thermal design and performance of the REgolith x-ray imaging spectrometer (REXIS) instrument

Science.gov (United States)

Stout, Kevin D.; Masterson, Rebecca A.

2014-08-01

a focus on the driving thermal design challenges for the instrument. It is shown through both analysis and early testing that the REXIS instrument can perform successfully through all phases of its mission.

Computer modeling of electrical and thermal performance during bipolar pulsed radiofrequency for pain relief

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pérez, Juan J.; Pérez-Cajaraville, Juan J.; Muñoz, Víctor; Berjano, Enrique

2014-01-01

Purpose: Pulsed RF (PRF) is a nonablative technique for treating neuropathic pain. Bipolar PRF application is currently aimed at creating a “strip lesion” to connect the electrode tips; however, the electrical and thermal performance during bipolar PRF is currently unknown. The objective of this paper was to study the temperature and electric field distributions during bipolar PRF. Methods: The authors developed computer models to study temperature and electric field distributions during bipolar PRF and to assess the possible ablative thermal effect caused by the accumulated temperature spikes, along with any possible electroporation effects caused by the electrical field. The authors also modeled the bipolar ablative mode, known as bipolar Continuous Radiofrequency (CRF), in order to compare both techniques. Results: There were important differences between CRF and PRF in terms of electrical and thermal performance. In bipolar CRF: (1) the initial temperature of the tissue impacts on temperature progress and hence on the thermal lesion dimension; and (2) at 37 °C, 6-min of bipolar CRF creates a strip thermal lesion between the electrodes when these are separated by a distance of up to 20 mm. In bipolar PRF: (1) an interelectrode distance shorter than 5 mm produces thermal damage (i.e., ablative effect) in the intervening tissue after 6 min of bipolar RF; and (2) the possible electroporation effect (electric fields higher than 150 kV m −1 ) would be exclusively circumscribed to a very small zone of tissue around the electrode tip. Conclusions: The results suggest that (1) the clinical parameters considered to be suitable for bipolar CRF should not necessarily be considered valid for bipolar PRF, and vice versa; and (2) the ablative effect of the CRF mode is mainly due to its much greater level of delivered energy than is the case in PRF, and therefore at same applied energy levels, CRF, and PRF are expected to result in same outcomes in terms of thermal

Computer modeling of electrical and thermal performance during bipolar pulsed radiofrequency for pain relief

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pérez, Juan J. [Instituto de Investigación Interuniversitario en Bioingeniería y Tecnología Orientada al Ser Humano, Universitat Politècnica de València, Valencia 46022 (Spain); Pérez-Cajaraville, Juan J. [Pain Unit and Department of Anesthesia and Critical Care, Clínica Universidad de Navarra, University of Navarra, Pamplona 31008 (Spain); Muñoz, Víctor [Neurotherm Spain, Barcelona 08303 (Spain); Berjano, Enrique, E-mail: eberjano@eln.upv.es [Biomedical Synergy, Electronic Engineering Department, Universitat Politècnica de València 46022 (Spain)

2014-07-15

Purpose: Pulsed RF (PRF) is a nonablative technique for treating neuropathic pain. Bipolar PRF application is currently aimed at creating a “strip lesion” to connect the electrode tips; however, the electrical and thermal performance during bipolar PRF is currently unknown. The objective of this paper was to study the temperature and electric field distributions during bipolar PRF. Methods: The authors developed computer models to study temperature and electric field distributions during bipolar PRF and to assess the possible ablative thermal effect caused by the accumulated temperature spikes, along with any possible electroporation effects caused by the electrical field. The authors also modeled the bipolar ablative mode, known as bipolar Continuous Radiofrequency (CRF), in order to compare both techniques. Results: There were important differences between CRF and PRF in terms of electrical and thermal performance. In bipolar CRF: (1) the initial temperature of the tissue impacts on temperature progress and hence on the thermal lesion dimension; and (2) at 37 °C, 6-min of bipolar CRF creates a strip thermal lesion between the electrodes when these are separated by a distance of up to 20 mm. In bipolar PRF: (1) an interelectrode distance shorter than 5 mm produces thermal damage (i.e., ablative effect) in the intervening tissue after 6 min of bipolar RF; and (2) the possible electroporation effect (electric fields higher than 150 kV m{sup −1}) would be exclusively circumscribed to a very small zone of tissue around the electrode tip. Conclusions: The results suggest that (1) the clinical parameters considered to be suitable for bipolar CRF should not necessarily be considered valid for bipolar PRF, and vice versa; and (2) the ablative effect of the CRF mode is mainly due to its much greater level of delivered energy than is the case in PRF, and therefore at same applied energy levels, CRF, and PRF are expected to result in same outcomes in terms of

Computer modeling of electrical and thermal performance during bipolar pulsed radiofrequency for pain relief.

Science.gov (United States)

Pérez, Juan J; Pérez-Cajaraville, Juan J; Muñoz, Víctor; Berjano, Enrique

2014-07-01

Pulsed RF (PRF) is a nonablative technique for treating neuropathic pain. Bipolar PRF application is currently aimed at creating a "strip lesion" to connect the electrode tips; however, the electrical and thermal performance during bipolar PRF is currently unknown. The objective of this paper was to study the temperature and electric field distributions during bipolar PRF. The authors developed computer models to study temperature and electric field distributions during bipolar PRF and to assess the possible ablative thermal effect caused by the accumulated temperature spikes, along with any possible electroporation effects caused by the electrical field. The authors also modeled the bipolar ablative mode, known as bipolar Continuous Radiofrequency (CRF), in order to compare both techniques. There were important differences between CRF and PRF in terms of electrical and thermal performance. In bipolar CRF: (1) the initial temperature of the tissue impacts on temperature progress and hence on the thermal lesion dimension; and (2) at 37 °C, 6-min of bipolar CRF creates a strip thermal lesion between the electrodes when these are separated by a distance of up to 20 mm. In bipolar PRF: (1) an interelectrode distance shorter than 5 mm produces thermal damage (i.e., ablative effect) in the intervening tissue after 6 min of bipolar RF; and (2) the possible electroporation effect (electric fields higher than 150 kV m(-1)) would be exclusively circumscribed to a very small zone of tissue around the electrode tip. The results suggest that (1) the clinical parameters considered to be suitable for bipolar CRF should not necessarily be considered valid for bipolar PRF, and vice versa; and (2) the ablative effect of the CRF mode is mainly due to its much greater level of delivered energy than is the case in PRF, and therefore at same applied energy levels, CRF, and PRF are expected to result in same outcomes in terms of thermal damage zone dimension.

Conjugate heat transfer investigation on the cooling performance of air cooled turbine blade with thermal barrier coating

Science.gov (United States)

Ji, Yongbin; Ma, Chao; Ge, Bing; Zang, Shusheng

2016-08-01

A hot wind tunnel of annular cascade test rig is established for measuring temperature distribution on a real gas turbine blade surface with infrared camera. Besides, conjugate heat transfer numerical simulation is performed to obtain cooling efficiency distribution on both blade substrate surface and coating surface for comparison. The effect of thermal barrier coating on the overall cooling performance for blades is compared under varied mass flow rate of coolant, and spatial difference is also discussed. Results indicate that the cooling efficiency in the leading edge and trailing edge areas of the blade is the lowest. The cooling performance is not only influenced by the internal cooling structures layout inside the blade but also by the flow condition of the mainstream in the external cascade path. Thermal barrier effects of the coating vary at different regions of the blade surface, where higher internal cooling performance exists, more effective the thermal barrier will be, which means the thermal protection effect of coatings is remarkable in these regions. At the designed mass flow ratio condition, the cooling efficiency on the pressure side varies by 0.13 for the coating surface and substrate surface, while this value is 0.09 on the suction side.

Performance of the Opalinus Clay under thermal loading: experimental results from Mont Terri rock laboratory (Switzerland)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Gens, A. [Universitat Politència de Catalunya, Barcelona (Spain); Wieczorek, K. [Gesellschaft für Anlagen- und Reaktorsicherheit (GRS) GmbH, Braunschweig (Germany); Gaus, I. [National Cooperative for the Disposal of Radioactive Waste (NAGRA), Wettingen (Switzerland); and others

2017-04-15

The paper presents an overview of the behaviour of Opalinus Clay under thermal loading as observed in three in situ heating tests performed in the Mont Terri rock laboratory: HE-B, HE-D and HE-E. The three tests are summarily described; they encompass a broad range of test layouts and experimental conditions. Afterwards, the following topics are examined: determination of thermal conductivity, thermally-induced pore pressure generation and thermally-induced mechanical effects. The mechanisms underlying pore pressure generation and dissipation are discussed in detail and the relationship between rock damage and thermal loading is examined using an additional in situ test: SE-H. The paper concludes with an evaluation of the various thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) interactions identified in the heating tests. (authors)

An Experimental Study on the Thermal Performance of Phase-Change Material and Wood-Plastic Composites for Building Roofs

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Min Hee Chung

2017-02-01

Full Text Available We assessed the usefulness of phase-change material (PCM-based thermal plates fabricated from wood-plastic composites (WPCs in mitigating the urban heat island effect. The thermal performance of plates containing PCMs with two different melting temperatures and with two different albedo levels was evaluated. The results showed that the PCM with a melting temperature of 44 °C maintained lower surface and inner temperatures than the PCM with a melting temperature of 25 °C. Moreover, a higher surface albedo resulted in a lower surface temperature. However, the thermal performance of PCMs with different melting temperatures but the same surface albedo did not differ. Using PCM-based materials in roof finishing materials can reduce surface temperatures and improve thermal comfort.

Thermal performance analysis of Brayton cycle with waste heat recovery boiler for diesel engines of offshore oil production facilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu, Xianglong; Gong, Guangcai; Wu, Yi; Li, Hangxin

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Comparison of Brayton cycle with WHRB adopted in diesel engines with and without fans by thermal performance. • Waste heat recovery technology for FPSO. • The thermoeconomic analysis for the heat recovery for FPSO. - Abstract: This paper presents the theoretical analysis and on-site testing on the thermal performance of the waste heat recovery system for offshore oil production facilities, including the components of diesel engines, thermal boilers and waste heat boilers. We use the ideal air standard Brayton cycle to analyse the thermal performance. In comparison with the traditional design, the fans at the engine outlet of the waste heat recovery boiler is removed due to the limited space of the offshore platform. The cases with fan and without fan are compared in terms of thermal dynamics performance, energy efficiency and thermo-economic index of the system. The results show that the application of the WHRB increases the energy efficiency of the whole system, but increases the flow resistance in the duct. It is proved that as the waste heat recovery boiler takes the place of the thermal boiler, the energy efficiency of whole system without fan is slightly reduced but heat recovery efficiency is improved. This research provides an important guidance to improve the waste heat recovery for offshore oil production facilities.

Vapor-cooled lead and stacks thermal performance and design analysis by finite difference techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peck, S.D.; Christensen, E.H.; O'Loughlin, J.M.

1985-01-01

Investigation of the combined thermal performance of the stacks and vapor cooled leads for the Mirror Fusion Test Facility-''B'' demonstrates considerable interdependency. For instance, the heat transfer to the vapor-cooled lead (VCL) from warm bus heaters, environmental enclosure, and stack is a significant additional heat load to the joule heating in the leads, proportionately higher for the lower current leads that have fewer current-carrying, counter flow coolant copper tubes. Consequently, the specific coolant flow (G/sec-kA-lead pair) increases as the lead current decreases. The definition of this interdependency and the definition of necessary thermal management has required an integrated thermal model for the entire stack/VCL assemblies

Photovoltaic-thermal (PV/T) solar collectors: Features and performance modelling

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Atienza-Márquez, Antonio; Bruno, Joan Carles; Coronas, Alberto; Korolija, Ivan; Greenough, Richard; Wright, Andy

2017-01-01

Currently, the electrical efficiency of photovoltaic (PV) solar cells ranges between 5–25%. One of the most important parameters that affects the electrical efficiency of a PV collector is the temperature of its cells: the higher temperature, the lower is the efficiency. Photovoltaic/thermal (PV/T) technology is a potential solution to ensure an acceptable solar energy conversion. The PV/T technology produces both electrical and thermal energy simultaneously. It is suitable for low temperature applications (25–40 o C) and overall efficiency increases compared to individual collectors. This paper describes an installation in a single-family house where PV/T collectors are coupled with a ground heat exchanger and a heat pump for domestic hot water and space heating purposes. The aim of this work is twofold. First, the features of the PV/T technology are analyzed. Second, a model of a flat-plate PV/T water collector was developed in TRNSYS in order to analyze collectors performance. (author)

Thermal performance measurements of a graphite tube compact cryogenic support for the Superconducting Super Collider

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gonczy, J.D.; Boroski, W.N.; Larson, E.T.; Nicol, T.H.; Niemann, R.C.; Otavka, J.G.; Ruschman, M.K.

1988-12-01

The magnet cryostat development program for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) High Energy Physics Proton-Proton Collider has produced an innovative design for the structural support of the cold mass and thermal radiation shields. This work updates the continuing development of the support known as the Compact Cryogenic Support (CCS). As the structural and thermal requirements of the SSC became better defined, a CCS was developed that employs an innermost tube comprised of a graphite composite material. Presented is the thermal performance to 4.5K of the graphite CCS model. 8 refs., 6 figs., 2 tabs

Design and calibration of a test facility for MLI thermal performance measurements below 80K

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boroski, W.; Kunzelman, R.; Ruschman, M.; Schoo, C.

1992-04-01

The design geometry of the SSC dipole cryostat includes active thermal radiation shields operating at 80K and 20K respectively. Extensive measurements conducted in a Heat Leak Test Facility (HLTF) have been used to evaluate the thermal performance of candidate multilayer insulation (MLI) systems for the 80K thermal shield, with the present system design based upon those measurement results. With the 80K MLI geometry established, efforts have focused on measuring the performance of MLI systems near 20K. A redesign of the HLTF has produced a measurement facility capable of conducting measurements with the warm boundary fixed at 80K and the cold boundary variable from 10K to 50K. Removing the 80K shield permits measurements with a warm boundary at 300K. The 80K boundary consists of a copper shield thermally anchored to a liquid nitrogen reservoir. The cold boundary consists of a copper anchor plate whose temperature is varied through boil-off gas from a 500 liter helium supply dewar. A transfer line heat exchanger supplies the boil-off gas to the anchor plate at a constant and controlled rate. The gas, which serves as cooling gas, is routed through a copper cooling tube soldered into the anchor plate. Varying the cooling gas flow rate varies the amount of refrigeration supplied to the anchor plate, thereby determining the plate temperature. A resistance heater installed on the anchor plate is regulated by a cryogenic temperature controller to provide final temperature control. Heat leak values are measured using a heatmeter which senses heat flow as a temperature gradient across a fixed thermal impedance. Since the thermal conductivity of the thermal impedance changes with temperature, the heatmeter is calibrated at key cold boundary temperatures. Thus, the system is capable of obtaining measurement data under a variety of system conditions. 7 refs

Performance of tungsten-based materials and components under ITER and DEMO relevant steady-state thermal loads

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ritz, Guillaume Henri

2011-07-01

In nuclear fusion devices the surfaces directly facing the plasma are irradiated with high energy fluxes. The most intense loads are deposited on the divertor located at the bottom of the plasma chamber, which has to withstand continuous heat loads with a power density of several MW . m{sup -2} as well as transient events. These are much shorter (in the millisecond and sub-millisecond regime) but deposit a higher power densities of a few GW . m{sup -2}. The search for materials that can survive to those severe loading conditions led to the choice of tungsten which possesses advantageous attributes such as a high melting point, high thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion and an acceptable activation rate. These properties made it an attractive and promising candidate as armor material for divertors of future fusion devices such as ITER and DEMO. For the DEMO divertor, conceptual studies on helium-cooled tungsten plasma-facing components were performed. The concept was realized and tested under DEMO specific cyclic thermal loads. The examination of the plasma-facing components by microstructural analyses before and after thermal loading enabled to determine the mechanisms for components failure. Among others, it clearly showed the impact of the tungsten grade and the thermal stress induced crack formation on the performance of the armor material and in general of the plasma-facing component under high heat loads. A tungsten qualification program was launched to study the behaviour of various tungsten grades, in particular the crack formation, under fusion relevant steady-state thermal loads. In total, seven commercially available materials from two industrial suppliers were investigated. As the material's thermal response is strongly related to its microstructure, this program comprised different material geometries and manufacturing technologies. It also included the utilization of an actively cooled specimen holder which has been designed to perform

Performance of tungsten-based materials and components under ITER and DEMO relevant steady-state thermal loads

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ritz, Guillaume Henri

2011-01-01

In nuclear fusion devices the surfaces directly facing the plasma are irradiated with high energy fluxes. The most intense loads are deposited on the divertor located at the bottom of the plasma chamber, which has to withstand continuous heat loads with a power density of several MW . m -2 as well as transient events. These are much shorter (in the millisecond and sub-millisecond regime) but deposit a higher power densities of a few GW . m -2 . The search for materials that can survive to those severe loading conditions led to the choice of tungsten which possesses advantageous attributes such as a high melting point, high thermal conductivity, low thermal expansion and an acceptable activation rate. These properties made it an attractive and promising candidate as armor material for divertors of future fusion devices such as ITER and DEMO. For the DEMO divertor, conceptual studies on helium-cooled tungsten plasma-facing components were performed. The concept was realized and tested under DEMO specific cyclic thermal loads. The examination of the plasma-facing components by microstructural analyses before and after thermal loading enabled to determine the mechanisms for components failure. Among others, it clearly showed the impact of the tungsten grade and the thermal stress induced crack formation on the performance of the armor material and in general of the plasma-facing component under high heat loads. A tungsten qualification program was launched to study the behaviour of various tungsten grades, in particular the crack formation, under fusion relevant steady-state thermal loads. In total, seven commercially available materials from two industrial suppliers were investigated. As the material's thermal response is strongly related to its microstructure, this program comprised different material geometries and manufacturing technologies. It also included the utilization of an actively cooled specimen holder which has been designed to perform sophisticated

Thermal stress, human performance, and physical employment standards.

Science.gov (United States)

Cheung, Stephen S; Lee, Jason K W; Oksa, Juha

2016-06-01

Many physically demanding occupations in both developed and developing economies involve exposure to extreme thermal environments that can affect work capacity and ultimately health. Thermal extremes may be present in either an outdoor or an indoor work environment, and can be due to a combination of the natural or artificial ambient environment, the rate of metabolic heat generation from physical work, processes specific to the workplace (e.g., steel manufacturing), or through the requirement for protective clothing impairing heat dissipation. Together, thermal exposure can elicit acute impairment of work capacity and also chronic effects on health, greatly contributing to worker health risk and reduced productivity. Surprisingly, in most occupations even in developed economies, there are rarely any standards regarding enforced heat or cold safety for workers. Furthermore, specific physical employment standards or accommodations for thermal stressors are rare, with workers commonly tested under near-perfect conditions. This review surveys the major occupational impact of thermal extremes and existing employment standards, proposing guidelines for improvement and areas for future research.

A Literature Review of Sealed and Insulated Attics—Thermal, Moisture and Energy Performance

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Less, Brennan [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Walker, Iain [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Levinson, Ronnen [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2016-08-01

In this literature review and analysis, we focus on the thermal, moisture and energy performance of sealed and insulated attics in California climates. Thermal. Sealed and insulated attics are expected to maintain attic air temperatures that are similar to those in the house within +/- 10°F. Thermal stress on the assembly, namely high shingle and sheathing temperatures, are of minimal concern. In the past, many sealed and insulated attics were constructed with insufficient insulation levels (~R-20) and with too much air leakage to outside, leading to poor thermal performance. To ensure high performance, sealed and insulated attics in new California homes should be insulated at levels at least equivalent to the flat ceiling requirements in the code, and attic envelopes and ducts should be airtight. We expect that duct systems in well-constructed sealed and insulated attics should have less than 2% HVAC system leakage to outside. Moisture. Moisture risk in sealed and insulated California attics will increase with colder climate regions and more humid outside air in marine zones. Risk is considered low in the hot-dry, highly populated regions of the state, where most new home construction occurs. Indoor humidity levels should be controlled by following code requirements for continuous whole-house ventilation and local exhaust. Pending development of further guidance, we recommend that the air impermeable insulation requirements of the International Residential Code (2012) be used, as they vary with IECC climate region and roof finish. Energy. Sealed and insulated attics provide energy benefits only if HVAC equipment is located in the attic volume, and the benefits depend strongly on the insulation and airtightness of the attic and ducts. Existing homes with leaky, uninsulated ducts in the attic should have major savings. When compared with modern, airtight duct systems in a vented attic, sealed and insulated attics in California may still provide substantial benefit

A thermal engine for underwater glider driven by ocean thermal energy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yang, Yanan; Wang, Yanhui; Ma, Zhesong; Wang, Shuxin

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal engine with a double-tube structure is developed for underwater glider. • Isostatic pressing technology is effective to increase volumetric change rate. • Actual volumetric change rate reaches 89.2% of the theoretical value. • Long term sailing of 677 km and 27 days is achieved by thermal underwater glider. - Graphical Abstract: - Abstract: Underwater glider is one of the most popular platforms for long term ocean observation. Underwater glider driven by ocean thermal energy extends the duration and range of underwater glider powered by battery. Thermal engine is the core device of underwater glider to harvest ocean thermal energy. In this paper, (1) model of thermal engine was raised by thermodynamics method and the performance of thermal engine was investigated, (2) thermal engine with a double-tube structure was developed and isostatic pressing technology was applied to improve the performance for buoyancy driven, referencing powder pressing theory, (3) wall thickness of thermal engine was optimized to reduce the overall weight of thermal engine, (4) material selection and dimension determination were discussed for a faster heat transfer design, by thermal resistance analysis, (5) laboratory test and long term sea trail were carried out to test the performance of thermal engine. The study shows that volumetric change rate is the most important indicator to evaluating buoyancy-driven performance of a thermal engine, isostatic pressing technology is effective to improve volumetric change rate, actual volumetric change rate can reach 89.2% of the theoretical value and the average power is about 124 W in a typical diving profile. Thermal engine developed by Tianjin University is a superior thermal energy conversion device for underwater glider. Additionally, application of thermal engine provides a new solution for miniaturization of ocean thermal energy conversion.

Thermal expansion behaviour of high performance PEEK matrix composites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Goyal, R K; Mulik, U P; Tiwari, A N; Negi, Y S

2008-01-01

The thermal expansion behaviour of high performance poly(ether-ether-ketone) (PEEK) composites reinforced with micro- (8 μm) and nano- (39 nm) sized Al 2 O 3 particles was studied. The distribution of Al 2 O 3 in the PEEK matrix was studied by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) was reduced from 58 x 10 -6 deg. C -1 for pure PEEK to 22 x 10 -6 deg. C -1 at 43 vol% micro-Al 2 O 3 and to 23 x 10 -6 deg. C -1 at 12 vol% nano-Al 2 O 3 composites. For a given volume fraction, nano-Al 2 O 3 particles are more effective in reducing the CTE of composites than that of micro-Al 2 O 3 particles. This may be attributed to the much higher interfacial area or volume of nanocomposites than that of microcomposites. The upper limit and lower limit of the Schapery model separately fit closely the CTE of the micro- and nano-composites, respectively. Other models such as the rule of mixture and Kerner and Turner models were also correlated with the data

Thermal performance of a transpired solar collector updraft tower

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Eryener, Dogan; Hollick, John; Kuscu, Hilmi

2017-01-01

Highlights: • Transpired solar collector updraft tower has been studied experimentally. • Transpired solar collector updraft tower efficiency ranges from 60 to 80%. • A comparison has been made with other SUT prototypes. • Three times higher efficiency compared to the glazed collectors of conventional solar towers. - Abstract: A novel solar updraft tower prototype, which consists of transpired solar collector, is studied, its function principle is described and its experimental thermal performance is presented for the first time. A test unit of transpired solar collector updraft tower was installed at the campus of Trakya University Engineering Faculty in Edirne-Turkey in 2014. Solar radiation, ambient temperature, collector cavity temperatures, and chimney velocities were monitored during summer and winter period. The results showed that transpired solar collector efficiency ranges from 60% to 80%. The maximum temperature rise in the collector area is found to be 16–18 °C on the typical sunny day. Compared to conventional solar tower glazed collectors, three times higher efficiency is obtained. With increased thermal efficiency, large solar collector areas for solar towers can be reduced in half or less.

Acute thermal stressor increases glucocorticoid response but minimizes testosterone and locomotor performance in the cane toad (Rhinella marina.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Edward J Narayan

Full Text Available Climatic warming is a global problem and acute thermal stressor in particular could be considered as a major stressor for wildlife. Cane toads (Rhinella marina have expanded their range into warmer regions of Australia and they provide a suitable model species to study the sub-lethal impacts of thermal stressor on the endocrine physiology of amphibians. Presently, there is no information to show that exposure to an acute thermal stressor could initiate a physiological stress (glucocorticoid response and secondly, the possible effects on reproductive hormones and performance. Answering these questions is important for understanding the impacts of extreme temperature on amphibians. In this study, we experimented on cane toads from Queensland, Australia by acclimating them to mildly warm temperature (25°C and then exposing to acute temperature treatments of 30°, 35° or 40°C (hypothetical acute thermal stressors. We measured acute changes in the stress hormone corticosterone and the reproductive hormone testosterone using standard capture and handling protocol and quantified the metabolites of both hormones non-invasively using urinary enzyme-immunoassays. Furthermore, we measured performance trait (i.e. righting response score in the control acclimated and the three treatment groups. Corticosterone stress responses increased in all toads during exposure to an acute thermal stressor. Furthermore, exposure to a thermal stressor also decreased testosterone levels in all toads. The duration of the righting response (seconds was longer for toads that were exposed to 40°C than to 30°, 35° or 25°C. The increased corticosterone stress response with increased intensity of the acute thermal stressor suggests that the toads perceived this treatment as a stressor. Furthermore, the results also highlight a potential trade-off with performance and reproductive hormones. Ultimately, exposure acute thermal stressors due to climatic variability could impact

Acute thermal stressor increases glucocorticoid response but minimizes testosterone and locomotor performance in the cane toad (Rhinella marina).

Science.gov (United States)

Narayan, Edward J; Hero, Jean-Marc

2014-01-01

Climatic warming is a global problem and acute thermal stressor in particular could be considered as a major stressor for wildlife. Cane toads (Rhinella marina) have expanded their range into warmer regions of Australia and they provide a suitable model species to study the sub-lethal impacts of thermal stressor on the endocrine physiology of amphibians. Presently, there is no information to show that exposure to an acute thermal stressor could initiate a physiological stress (glucocorticoid) response and secondly, the possible effects on reproductive hormones and performance. Answering these questions is important for understanding the impacts of extreme temperature on amphibians. In this study, we experimented on cane toads from Queensland, Australia by acclimating them to mildly warm temperature (25°C) and then exposing to acute temperature treatments of 30°, 35° or 40°C (hypothetical acute thermal stressors). We measured acute changes in the stress hormone corticosterone and the reproductive hormone testosterone using standard capture and handling protocol and quantified the metabolites of both hormones non-invasively using urinary enzyme-immunoassays. Furthermore, we measured performance trait (i.e. righting response score) in the control acclimated and the three treatment groups. Corticosterone stress responses increased in all toads during exposure to an acute thermal stressor. Furthermore, exposure to a thermal stressor also decreased testosterone levels in all toads. The duration of the righting response (seconds) was longer for toads that were exposed to 40°C than to 30°, 35° or 25°C. The increased corticosterone stress response with increased intensity of the acute thermal stressor suggests that the toads perceived this treatment as a stressor. Furthermore, the results also highlight a potential trade-off with performance and reproductive hormones. Ultimately, exposure acute thermal stressors due to climatic variability could impact amphibians at

The ORC method. Effective modelling of thermal performance of multilayer building components

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Akander, Jan

2000-02-01

The ORC Method (Optimised RC-networks) provides a means of modelling one- or multidimensional heat transfer in building components, in this context within building simulation environments. The methodology is shown, primarily applied to heat transfer in multilayer building components. For multilayer building components, the analytical thermal performance is known, given layer thickness and material properties. The aim of the ORC Method is to optimise the values of the thermal resistances and heat capacities of an RC-model such as to give model performance a good agreement with the analytical performance, for a wide range of frequencies. The optimisation procedure is made in the frequency domain, where the over-all deviation between model and analytical frequency response, in terms of admittance and dynamic transmittance, is minimised. It is shown that ORC's are effective in terms of accuracy and computational time in comparison to finite difference models when used in building simulations, in this case with IDA/ICE. An ORC configuration of five mass nodes has been found to model building components in Nordic countries well, within the application of thermal comfort and energy requirement simulations. Simple RC-networks, such as the surface heat capacity and the simple R-C-configuration are not appropriate for detailed building simulation. However, these can be used as basis for defining the effective heat capacity of a building component. An approximate method is suggested on how to determine the effective heat capacity without the use of complex numbers. This entity can be calculated on basis of layer thickness and material properties with the help of two time constants. The approximate method can give inaccuracies corresponding to 20%. In-situ measurements have been carried out in an experimental building with the purpose of establishing the effective heat capacity of external building components that are subjected to normal thermal conditions. The auxiliary

Design of lithium cobalt oxide electrodes with high thermal conductivity and electrochemical performance using carbon nanotubes and diamond particles

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Lee, Eungje; Salgado, Ruben Arash; Lee, Byeongdu; Sumant, Anirudha V.; Rajh, Tijana; Johnson, Christopher; Balandin, Alexander A.; Shevchenko, Elena V.

2018-04-01

Thermal management remains one of the major challenges in the design of safe and reliable Li-ion batteries. We show that composite electrodes assembled from commercially available 100 μm long carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and LiCoO2 (LCO) particles demonstrate the in-plane thermal conductivity of 205.8 W/m*K. This value exceeds the thermal conductivity of dry conventional laminated electrodes by about three orders of magnitude. The cross-plane thermal conductivity of CNT-based electrodes is in the same range as thermal conductivities of conventional laminated electrodes. The CNT-based electrodes demonstrate a similar capacity to conventional laminated design electrodes, but revealed a better rate performance and stability. The introduction of diamond particles into CNT-based electrodes further improves the rate performance. Our lightweight, flexible electrode design can potentially be a general platform for fabricating polymer binder- and aluminum and copper current collector- free electrodes from a broad range of electrochemically active materials with efficient thermal management.

Experimental investigation of inserts configurations and PCM type on the thermal performance of PCM based heat sinks

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mahmoud, Saad; Tang, Aaron; Toh, Chin; AL-Dadah, Raya; Soo, Sein Leung

2013-01-01

Highlights: • Inclusion of PCM can reduce heating rate and peak temperatures of the heat sinks. • Increasing the number of fins can enhance heat transfer to PCM. • Honeycomb inserts can replace machined fin structures in PCM based heat sinks. • PCMs with lower melting points produced lower heat sink operating temperatures. - Abstract: Efficient thermal management in portable electronic devices is necessary to ensure sufficiently low operating temperatures for reliability, increased installed functions, and user comfort. Using Phase Change Materials (PCMs) based heat sinks offers potential in these applications. However, PCMs generally suffer from low thermal conductivities; therefore it is important to enhance their thermal conductivity and improve cooling performance. This study presents experimental investigation of the effects of PCM material, heat sink designs and power levels on PCM based heat sinks performance for cooling electronic devices. Six PCMs were used including paraffin wax (as reference material), two materials based on mixture of inorganic hydrated salts, two materials based on mixture of organic substances and one material based on a mixture of both organic and inorganic materials. Also, six heat sink designs were tested: one with single cavity, two with parallel fin arrangement, two with cross fin arrangement, and one with honeycomb insert inside the single cavity. Heat sinks thermal performance was investigated using paraffin wax type PCM with power inputs ranging from 3 W to 5 W. Results showed that the inclusion of PCM can reduce heating rates and peak temperatures of heat sinks with increasing the number of fins can enhance heat distribution to PCM leading to lower heat sinks peak temperatures. Also, the use of honeycomb inserts to replace machined finned structures has shown comparable thermal performance. Regarding the PCM type, the material with the lowest melting temperature has shown the best performance in terms of lowest

Using GAMM to examine inter-individual heterogeneity in thermal performance curves for Natrix natrix indicates bet hedging strategy by mothers.

Science.gov (United States)

Vickers, Mathew J; Aubret, Fabien; Coulon, Aurélie

2017-01-01

The thermal performance curve (TPC) illustrates the dependence on body- and therefore environmental- temperature of many fitness-related aspects of ectotherm ecology and biology including foraging, growth, predator avoidance, and reproduction. The typical thermal performance curve model is linear in its parameters despite the well-known, strong, non-linearity of the response of performance to temperature. In addition, it is usual to consider a single model based on few individuals as descriptive of a species-level response to temperature. To overcome these issues, we used generalized additive mixed modeling (GAMM) to estimate thermal performance curves for 73 individual hatchling Natrix natrix grass snakes from seven clutches, taking advantage of the structure of GAMM to demonstrate that almost 16% of the deviance in thermal performance curves is attributed to inter-individual variation, while only 1.3% is attributable to variation amongst clutches. GAMM allows precise estimation of curve characteristics, which we used to test hypotheses on tradeoffs thought to constrain the thermal performance curve: hotter is better, the specialist-generalist trade off, and resource allocation/acquisition. We observed a negative relationship between maximum performance and performance breadth, indicating a specialist-generalist tradeoff, and a positive relationship between thermal optimum and maximum performance, suggesting "hotter is better". There was a significant difference among matrilines in the relationship between Area Under the Curve and maximum performance - relationship that is an indicator of evenness in acquisition or allocation of resources. As we used unfed hatchlings, the observed matriline effect indicates divergent breeding strategies among mothers, with some mothers provisioning eggs unequally resulting in some offspring being better than others, while other mothers provisioned the eggs more evenly, resulting in even performance throughout the clutch. This

Outdoor performance analysis of a 1090× point-focus Fresnel high concentrator photovoltaic/thermal system with triple-junction solar cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xu, Ning; Ji, Jie; Sun, Wei; Han, Lisheng; Chen, Haifei; Jin, Zhuling

2015-01-01

Graphical abstract: A high concentrator photovoltaic/thermal (HCPV/T) system based on point-focus Fresnel lens has been set up in this work. The concentrator has a geometric concentration ratio of 1090× and uniform irradiation distribution can be obtained on solar cells. The system produces both electricity and heat. Performance of the system has been investigated based on the outdoor measurement in a clear day. The HCPV/T system presents an instantaneous electrical efficiency of 28% and a highest instantaneous thermal efficiency of 54%, respectively. Experimental results show that direct irradiation affects the electrical performance of the system dominantly. Fitting results of electrical performance offer simple and reliable methods to analyze the system performance. - Highlights: • A point-focus Fresnel lens photovoltaic/thermal system is proposed and studied. • The system presents an instantaneous electrical efficiency of 28%. • The system has a highest instantaneous thermal efficiency of 54%. • Direct irradiation has the dominant effect on the electrical performance. • Fitting results offer simple and reliable methods to analyze system performances. - Abstract: A high concentrator photovoltaic/thermal (HCPV/T) system based on point-focus Fresnel lens has been set up in this work. The concentrator has a geometric concentration ratio of 1090× and uniform irradiation distribution can be obtained on solar cells. The system produces both electricity and heat. Performance of the system has been investigated based on the outdoor measurement in a clear day. The HCPV/T system presents an instantaneous electrical efficiency of 28% and a highest instantaneous thermal efficiency of 54%, which means the overall efficiency of the system can be more than 80%. A mathematical model for calculating cell temperature is proposed to solve difficult measurement of cell temperature in a system. Moreover, characteristics of electrical performance under various direct

Evaluation of the thermal-mechanical performance of fuel rods of a BWR during a power ramp using the FUELSIM code

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pantoja C, R.

2010-01-01

To avoid the risk to environment due to release of radioactive material, because of occurrence of an accident, it is the priority of the design and performance of the diverse systems of safety of a commercial nuclear power plant. The safety of nuclear power plants requires, therefore, monitoring those parameters having some direct or indirect effect on safety. The thermal limits are values set for those parameters considered having most impact on the safe operation of a nuclear power reactor. Some thermal limits monitoring requires the thermal-mechanical analysis of the rods containing the nuclear fuel. The fuel rod thermal-mechanical behavior under irradiation is a complex process in which there exists a great deal of interrelated physical and chemical phenomena, so that the fuel rod performance analysis in the core of a nuclear power reactor is generally accomplished by using computer codes, which integrate several of the phenomena that are expected to occur during the lifetime of the fuel rod in the core. The main application of the thermal-mechanical analysis codes is the prediction of occurrence of conditions and/or phenomena that could lead to the deterioration or even mechanical failure of the fuel rod cladding, as, for example, the pellet-cladding interaction. In the operation of a nuclear power reactor, fuel preconditioning operations refer to the operational procedures employed to reduce the fuel rod failure probability due to fuel-cladding interaction, specially during reactor startup. Preconditioning simulations are therefore necessary to determine in advance limit values for the power that can be generated in a fuel rod, and thus avoiding any rod damage. In this work, a first analysis of the thermal-mechanical performance of typical fuel rods used in nuclear reactors of the type BWR 5/6, as those two nuclear reactors in Laguna Verde, Veracruz, is performed. This study includes two types of fuel rods: one from a fuel assembly design with an array 8 x 8

Standard Guide for Specifying Thermal Performance of Geothermal Power Systems

CERN Document Server

American Society for Testing and Materials. Philadelphia

2000-01-01

1.1 This guide covers power plant performance terms and criteria for use in evaluation and comparison of geothermal energy conversion and power generation systems. The special nature of these geothermal systems makes performance criteria commonly used to evaluate conventional fossil fuel-fired systems of limited value. This guide identifies the limitations of the less useful criteria and defines an equitable basis for measuring the quality of differing thermal cycles and plant equipment for geothermal resources. 1.2 This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.

Experimental Study on the Thermal Start-Up Performance of the Graphene/Water Nanofluid-Enhanced Solar Gravity Heat Pipe.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Shanguo; Xu, Guoying; Wang, Ning; Zhang, Xiaosong

2018-01-28

The solar gravity heat pipe has been widely used for solar thermal water heating because of its high efficient heat transfer and thermal diode characteristics. Operated on fluctuant and low intensity solar radiation conditions, a solar gravity heat pipe may frequently start up. This severely affects its solar collection performance. To enhance the thermal performance of the solar gravity heat pipe, this study proposes using graphene/water nanofluid as the working fluid instead of deionized water. The stability of the prepared graphene/water nanofluid added with PVP was firstly investigated to obtain the optimum mass ratios of the added dispersant. Thermophysical properties-including the thermal conductivity and viscosity-of nanofluid with various graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) concentrations were measured at different temperatures for further analysis. Furthermore, based on the operational evaluation on a single heat pipe's start-up process, the performance of nanofluid-enhanced solar gravity heat pipes using different concentrations of GNPs were compared by using water heating experiments. Results indicated that the use of 0.05 wt % graphene/water nanofluid instead of water could achieve a 15.1% and 10.7% reduction in start-up time under 30 and 60 W input heating conditions, respectively. Consequently, a higher thermal efficiency for solar collection could be expected.

Experimental Study on the Thermal Start-Up Performance of the Graphene/Water Nanofluid-Enhanced Solar Gravity Heat Pipe

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Shanguo; Xu, Guoying; Wang, Ning; Zhang, Xiaosong

2018-01-01

The solar gravity heat pipe has been widely used for solar thermal water heating because of its high efficient heat transfer and thermal diode characteristics. Operated on fluctuant and low intensity solar radiation conditions, a solar gravity heat pipe may frequently start up. This severely affects its solar collection performance. To enhance the thermal performance of the solar gravity heat pipe, this study proposes using graphene/water nanofluid as the working fluid instead of deionized water. The stability of the prepared graphene/water nanofluid added with PVP was firstly investigated to obtain the optimum mass ratios of the added dispersant. Thermophysical properties—including the thermal conductivity and viscosity—of nanofluid with various graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) concentrations were measured at different temperatures for further analysis. Furthermore, based on the operational evaluation on a single heat pipe’s start-up process, the performance of nanofluid-enhanced solar gravity heat pipes using different concentrations of GNPs were compared by using water heating experiments. Results indicated that the use of 0.05 wt % graphene/water nanofluid instead of water could achieve a 15.1% and 10.7% reduction in start-up time under 30 and 60 W input heating conditions, respectively. Consequently, a higher thermal efficiency for solar collection could be expected. PMID:29382094

Thermal diffusivity measurement of erythritol and numerical analysis of heat storage performance on a fin-type heat exchanger

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zamengo, Massimiliano; Funada, Tomohiro; Morikawa, Junko

2017-01-01

Highlights: • Thermal diffusivity of Erythritol was measured by temperature wave method. • Thermal diffusivity was measured in function of temperature and during phase change. • Database of temperature-dependent thermal properties is used for numerical analysis. • Heat transfer and heat storage were analyzed in a fin-type heat exchanger. • Use of temperature-dependent properties in calculations lead to longer melting time. - Abstract: Temperature dependency of thermal diffusivity of erythritol was measured by temperature wave analysis (TWA) method. This modulating technique allowed measuring thermal diffusivity continuously, even during the phase transition solid-liquid. Together with specific heat capacity and specific enthalpy measured by differential scanning calorimetry, the values of measured properties were utilized in a bi-dimensional numerical model for analysis of heat transfer and heat storage performance. The geometry of the model is representative of a cross section of a fin-type heat exchanger, in which erythritol is filling the interspaces between fins. Time-dependent temperature change and heat storage performance were analyzed by considering the variation of thermophysical properties as a function of temperature. The numerical method can be utilized for a fast parametric analysis of heat transfer and heat storage performance into heat storage systems of phase-change materials and composites.

Experimental Study on the Thermal Start-Up Performance of the Graphene/Water Nanofluid-Enhanced Solar Gravity Heat Pipe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shanguo Zhao

2018-01-01

Full Text Available The solar gravity heat pipe has been widely used for solar thermal water heating because of its high efficient heat transfer and thermal diode characteristics. Operated on fluctuant and low intensity solar radiation conditions, a solar gravity heat pipe may frequently start up. This severely affects its solar collection performance. To enhance the thermal performance of the solar gravity heat pipe, this study proposes using graphene/water nanofluid as the working fluid instead of deionized water. The stability of the prepared graphene/water nanofluid added with PVP was firstly investigated to obtain the optimum mass ratios of the added dispersant. Thermophysical properties—including the thermal conductivity and viscosity—of nanofluid with various graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs concentrations were measured at different temperatures for further analysis. Furthermore, based on the operational evaluation on a single heat pipe’s start-up process, the performance of nanofluid-enhanced solar gravity heat pipes using different concentrations of GNPs were compared by using water heating experiments. Results indicated that the use of 0.05 wt % graphene/water nanofluid instead of water could achieve a 15.1% and 10.7% reduction in start-up time under 30 and 60 W input heating conditions, respectively. Consequently, a higher thermal efficiency for solar collection could be expected.

Thermal performance evaluation of a massive brick wall under real weather conditions via the Conduction Transfer function method

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emilio Sassine

2017-12-01

Full Text Available The reliable estimation of buildings energy needs for cooling and heating is essential for any eventual thermal improvement of the envelope or the HVAC equipment. This paper presents an interesting method to evaluate the thermal performance of a massive wall by using the frequency-domain regression (FDR method to calculate CTF coefficients by means of the Fourier transform. The method is based on the EN ISO 13786 (2007 procedure by using the Taylor expansion for the elements of the heat matrix. Numerical results were validated through an experimental heating box with stochastic boundary conditions on one side of the wall representing real weather conditions and constant temperature profile on the other side representing the inside ambiance in real cases. Finally, a frequency analysis was performed in order to assess the validity and accuracy of the method used. The results show that development to the second order is sufficient to predict the thermal behavior of the studied massive wall in the range of frequencies encountered in the building applications (one hour time step. This method is useful for thermal transfer analysis in real weather conditions where the outside temperature is stochastic; it also allows the evaluation of the thermal performance of a wall through a frequency analysis.

The Adaptive Thermal Comfort model may not always predict thermal effects on performance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Wyon, David Peter; Wargocki, Pawel

2014-01-01

A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Progress in thermal comfort research over the last twenty years," by R.J. de Dear and colleagues.......A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "Progress in thermal comfort research over the last twenty years," by R.J. de Dear and colleagues....

Monitoring Thermal Performance of Hollow Bricks with Different Cavity Fillers in Difference Climate Conditions

Science.gov (United States)

Pavlík, Zbyšek; Jerman, Miloš; Fořt, Jan; Černý, Robert

2015-03-01

Hollow brick blocks have found widespread use in the building industry during the last decades. The increasing requirements to the thermal insulation properties of building envelopes given by the national standards in Europe led the brick producers to reduce the production of common solid bricks. Brick blocks with more or less complex systems of internal cavities replaced the traditional bricks and became dominant on the building ceramics market. However, contrary to the solid bricks where the thermal conductivity can easily be measured by standard methods, the complex geometry of hollow brick blocks makes the application of common techniques impossible. In this paper, a steady-state technique utilizing a system of two climatic chambers separated by a connecting tunnel for sample positioning is used for the determination of the thermal conductivity, thermal resistance, and thermal transmittance ( U value) of hollow bricks with the cavities filled by air, two different types of mineral wool, polystyrene balls, and foam polyurethane. The particular brick block is provided with the necessary temperature- and heat-flux sensors and thermally insulated in the tunnel. In the climatic chambers, different temperatures are set. After steady-state conditions are established in the measuring system, the effective thermal properties of the brick block are calculated using the measured data. Experimental results show that the best results are achieved with hydrophilic mineral wool as a cavity filler; the worst performance exhibits the brick block with air-filled cavities.

Thermal performance assessment and improvement of a solar domestic hot water tank with PCM in the mantle

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Deng, Jie; Furbo, Simon; Kong, Weiqiang

2018-01-01

To develop an appropriate solar DHW (Domestic Hot Water) tank for residential dwellings and put it into the European solar thermal market for promotion, thermal performance tests of PCM (Phase Change Material) hot water storage tanks of both a prototype and an improved version with a water volume...

Characterising the Actual Thermal Performance of Buildings: Current Results of Common Exercises Performed in the Framework of the IEA EBC Annex 58-Project

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Roels, Staf; Bacher, Peder; Bauwens, Geert

2015-01-01

Several studies have shown that actual thermal performance of buildings after construction may deviate significantly from that anticipated at design stage. As a result, there is growing interest in full scale testing of components and whole buildings. The IEA EBC Annex 58-project ‘Reliable Building...... Energy Performance Characterisation Based on Full Scale Dynamic Measurements’ is developing the necessary knowledge and tools to achieve reliable in-situ dynamic testing and data analysis methods that can be used to characterise the actual thermal performance and energy efficiency of building components...... and whole buildings. The research within this project is driven by case studies. As a first simple case, an experiment on testing and data analysis is performed on a round robin test box. This test box can be seen as a scale model of a building, built by one of the participants, with fabric properties...

A Thermal Performance Analysis and Comparison of Fiber Coils with the D-CYL Winding and QAD Winding Methods

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuyou Li

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The thermal performance under variable temperature conditions of fiber coils with double-cylinder (D-CYL and quadrupolar (QAD winding methods is comparatively analyzed. Simulation by the finite element method (FEM is done to calculate the temperature distribution and the thermal-induced phase shift errors in the fiber coils. Simulation results reveal that D-CYL fiber coil itself has fragile performance when it experiences an axially asymmetrical temperature gradient. However, the axial fragility performance could be improved when the D-CYL coil meshes with a heat-off spool. Through further simulations we find that once the D-CYL coil is provided with an axially symmetrical temperature environment, the thermal performance of fiber coils with the D-CYL winding method is better than that with the QAD winding method under the same variable temperature conditions. This valuable discovery is verified by two experiments. The D-CYL winding method is thus promising to overcome the temperature fragility of interferometric fiber optic gyroscopes (IFOGs.

Thermal performance of a PCB embedded pulsating heat pipe for power electronics applications

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kearney, Daniel J.; Suleman, Omar; Griffin, Justin; Mavrakis, Georgios

2016-01-01

Highlights: • Planar, compact PCB embedded pulsating heat pipe for heat spreading applications. • Embedded heat pipe operates at sub-ambient pressure with environmentally. • Compatible fluids. • Range of optimum operating conditions, orientations and fill ratios identified. - Abstract: Low voltage power electronics applications (<1.2 kV) are pushing the design envelope towards increased functionality, better reliability, low profile and reduced cost. One packaging method to enable these constraints is the integration of active power electronic devices into the printed circuit board improving electrical and thermal performance. This development requires a reliable passive thermal management solution to mitigate hot spots due to the increased heat flux density. To this end, a 44 channel open looped pulsating heat pipe (OL-PHP) is experimentally investigated for two independent dielectric working fluids – Novec"T"M 649 and Novec"T"M 774 – due to their lower pressure operation and low global warming potential compared to traditional two-phase coolants. The OL-PHP is investigated in vertical (90°) orientation with fill ratios ranging from 0.30 to 0.70. The results highlight the steady state operating conditions for each working fluid with instantaneous plots of pressure, temperature, and thermal resistance; the minimum potential bulk thermal resistance for each fill ratio and the effective thermal conductivity achievable for the OL-PHP.

Thermal performance behavior of a domestic hot water solar storage tank during consumption operation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dehghan, A.A.; Barzegar, A.

2011-01-01

Transient thermal performance behavior of a vertical storage tank of a domestic solar water heating system with a mantle heat exchanger has been investigated numerically in the discharge/consumption mode. It is assumed that the tank is initially stratified during its previous heat storing/charging operation. During the discharging period, the city cold water is fed at the bottom of the tank and hot water is extracted from its top outlet port for consumption. Meanwhile, the collector loop is assumed to be active. The conservation equations in the axis-symmetric cylindrical co-ordinate have been used and discretised by employing the finite volume method. The low Reynolds number (LRN) k - ω model is utilized for treating turbulence in the fluid. The influence of the tank Grashof number, the incoming cold fluid Reynolds number and the size of the inlet port of the heat storage tank on the transient thermal characteristics of the tank is investigated and discussed. It is found that for higher values of Grashof number, the pre-established thermal stratification is well preserved during the discharging operation mode. It is also noticed that in order to have a tank with a proper thermal performance and or have least mixing inside the tank during the consumption period, the tank inflow Reynolds number and or its inflow port diameter should be kept below certain values. In these cases, the storage tank is enabling to provide proper amount of hot water with a proper temperature for consumption purposes.

Optimization of the dynamic and thermal performance of a resonant micro heat engine

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bardaweel, H K; Richards, R F; Richards, C D; Anderson, M J

2008-01-01

The dynamic behavior of a flexing membrane micro heat engine is presented. The micro heat engine consists of a cavity filled with a saturated, two-phase working fluid bounded on the top by a flexible expander membrane and on the bottom by a stiff evaporator membrane. A lumped parameter model is developed to simulate the dynamic behavior of the micro heat engine. First, the model is validated against experimental data. Then, the model is used to investigate the effect of the duration of the heat addition process, the mass of the expander membrane and the thermal storage or thermal inertia associated with the engine cavity on the dynamic behavior of the micro engine. The results show the optimal duration for the heat addition process to be less than 10% of the engine cycle period. Increasing the mass of the flexible expander membrane is shown to reduce the resonant frequency of the engine to 130 Hz. Operating the engine at resonance leads to increased power output. The thermal storage or thermal inertia associated with the engine cavity is shown to have a strong effect on engine performance

Thermal performance test of hot gas ducts of helium engineering demonstration loop (HENDEL)

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hishida, Makoto; Kunitomi, Kazuhiko; Ioka, Ikuo; Umenishi, Koji; Kondo, Yasuo; Tanaka, Toshiyuki; Shimomura, Hiroaki

1984-01-01

A hot gas duct provided with internal thermal insulation is supposed to be used for an experimental very high-temperature gas-cooled reactor (VHTR) which has been developed by the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI). This type of hot gas duct has not been used so far in industrial facilities, and only a couple of tests on such a large-scale model of hot gas duct have been conducted. The present test was to investigate the thermal performance of the hot gas ducts which are installed as parts of a helium engineering demonstration loop (HENDEL) of JAERI. Uniform temperature and heat flux distributions at the surface of the duct were observed, the experimental correlation being obtained for the effective thermal conductivity of the internal thermal insulation layer. The measured temperature distribution of the pressure tube was in good agreement with the calculation by a TRUMP heat transfer computer code. The temperature distribution of the inner tube of VHTR hot gas duct was evaluated, and no hot spot was detected. These results would be very valuable for the design and development of VHTR. (author)

Joining and Performance of Alkali Metal Thermal-to-electric Converter (AMTEC)

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Suh, Min-Soo; Lee, Wook-Hyun; Woo, Sang-Kuk [Korea Institute of Energy Research, Daejeon (Korea, Republic of)

2017-07-15

The alkali-Metal Thermal-to-electric Converter (AMTEC) is one of the promising static energy conversion technologies for the direct conversion of thermal energy to electrical energy. The advantages over a conventional energy converter are its high theoretical conversion efficiency of 40% and power density of 500 W/kg. The working principle of an AMTEC battery is the electrochemical reaction of the sodium through an ion conducting electrolyte. Sodium ion pass through the hot side of the beta”-alumina solid electrolyte (BASE) primarily as a result of the pressure difference. This pressure difference across the BASE has a significant effect on the overall performance of the AMTEC system. In order to build the high pressure difference across the BASE, hermeticity is required for each joined components for high temperature range of 900°C. The AMTEC battery was manufactured by utilizing robust joining technology of BASE/insulator/metal flange interfaces of the system for both structural and electrical stability. The electrical potential difference between the anode and cathode sides, where the electrons emitted from sodium ionization and recombined into sodium, was characterized as the open-circuit voltage. The efforts of technological improvement were concentrated on a high-power output and conversion efficiency. This paper discusses about the joining and performance of the AMTEC systems.

Improving of the photovoltaic / thermal system performance using water cooling technique

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hussien, Hashim A; Numan, Ali H; Abdulmunem, Abdulmunem R

2015-01-01

This work is devoted to improving the electrical efficiency by reducing the rate of thermal energy of a photovoltaic/thermal system (PV/T).This is achieved by design cooling technique which consists of a heat exchanger and water circulating pipes placed at PV module rear surface to solve the problem of the high heat stored inside the PV cells during the operation. An experimental rig is designed to investigate and evaluate PV module performance with the proposed cooling technique. This cooling technique is the first work in Iraq to dissipate the heat from PV module. The experimental results indicated that due to the heat loss by convection between water and the PV panel's upper surface, an increase of output power is achieved. It was found that without active cooling, the temperature of the PV module was high and solar cells could only achieve a conversion efficiency of about 8%. However, when the PV module was operated under active water cooling condition, the temperature was dropped from 76.8°C without cooling to 70.1°C with active cooling. This temperature dropping led to increase in the electrical efficiency of solar panel to 9.8% at optimum mass flow rate (0.2L/s) and thermal efficiency to (12.3%). (paper)

Manufacture and performance of the thermal-bonding Micromegas prototype

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zhang, Z.; Yang, Z.; Kang, L.; Guan, L.; Zhang, Y.; Wang, X.; Xu, Z.; Liu, S.; An, Q.; Wang, F.; Zhao, T.

2014-01-01

The micro-mesh gaseous structure (Micromegas) has been significantly developed since it was proposed in 1995 at Saclay (France). Some new construction methods different from ''bulk'' etching technique are under R and D. Here we report the results of several prototypes manufactured with thermal-bonding method, The details of this method and the performances of the chambers are presented. For a 200 × 200 m 2 prototype, the energy resolution of 16% (FWHM) for 5.9 keV x-rays is achieved at a gain of 2000–4000. In addition, the sparking-resistant chammber with a Gemanium anode is under studying

Comparison of the thermal shock performance of different tungsten grades and the influence of microstructure on the damage behaviour

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wirtz, M; Linke, J; Pintsuk, G; Singheiser, L; Uytdenhouwen, I

2011-01-01

The thermal shock performances of two new tungsten grades with 1 and 5 wt% of tantalum were characterized with the electron beam facility JUDITH 1. As a reference material, ultra-high-purity tungsten (W-UHP) with a purity of 99.9999 wt% was used. The induced thermal shock crack networks and surface modifications were analysed by a scanning electron microscope, light microscopy and laser profilometry. Damage and cracking thresholds were defined for all materials as a function of absorbed power density and base temperature. The materials showed significantly different thermal shock behaviour, which is, among others, expressed by differences in cracking patterns, i.e. crack distance and depth. These results allow us to quantify the influence of the materials' mechanical and thermal properties on the thermal shock performance. Furthermore, the specific grain structure of the materials has a significant influence on crack propagation towards the bulk material.

Thermal treatment effects on charge storage performance of graphene-based materials for supercapacitors

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zhang, Hongxin [ORNL; Bhat, Vinay V [ORNL; Gallego, Nidia C [ORNL; Contescu, Cristian I [ORNL

2012-01-01

Graphene materials were synthesized by reduction of exfoliated graphene oxide sheets by hydrazine hydrate and then thermally treated in nitrogen to improve the surface area and their electrochemical performance as electrical double-layer capacitor electrodes. The structural and surface properties of the prepared reduced graphite oxide (RGO) were investigated using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectra, X-ray diffraction, and nitrogen adsorption / desorption. RGO forms a continuous network of crumpled sheets, which consist of numerous few-layer and single-layer graphenes. Electrochemical studies were conducted by cyclic voltammetry, impedance spectroscopy, and galvanostatic charge-discharge measurements. The modified RGO materials showed enhanced electrochemical performance, with maximum specific capacitance of 96 F/g, energy density of 12.8 Wh/kg, and power density of 160 kW/kg. The results demonstrate that thermal treatment of RGO at selected conditions is a convenient and efficient method for improving specific capacitance, energy, and power density.

Electrochemical performance of Si-multiwall carbon nanotube nanocomposite anode synthesized by thermal plasma

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Na, Ye-Seul; Yoo, Hyeonseok; Kim, Tae-Hee; Choi, Jinsub; Lee, Wan In; Choi, Sooseok, E-mail: sooseok@jejunu.ac.kr; Park, Dong-Wha, E-mail: dwpark@inha.ac.kr

2015-07-31

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are widely used in electric devices and vehicles. Silicon is a promising material for the anode of Li-ion battery due to high theoretical specific capacity. However, it shows large volume changes during charge–discharge cycles leading to the pulverization of electrode. In order to improve such disadvantage, a multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) has been used with silicon as composite material. In this work, Si-MWCNT nanocomposite was prepared in thermal plasma by attaching silicon nanoparticles to MWCNT column. Electrochemical tests for raw materials and synthesized nanocomposites were carried out. The discharge capacities of silicon, MWCNT, synthesized nanocomposites collected from a reaction tube, and a chamber were 4000, 310, 200, and 1447 mAh/g, respectively. - Highlights: • Si-Multiwall carbon nanotube nanocomposite was synthesized by thermal plasma. • The effect on the collection position of product after experiment was examined. • Cycle performance of electrodes was measured. • Product collected from chamber showed good electrochemical performance.

Performance and Simulation of a Stand-alone Parabolic Trough Solar Thermal Power Plant

Science.gov (United States)

Mohammad, S. T.; Al-Kayiem, H. H.; Assadi, M. K.; Gilani, S. I. U. H.; Khlief, A. K.

2018-05-01

In this paper, a Simulink® Thermolib Model has been established for simulation performance evaluation of Stand-alone Parabolic Trough Solar Thermal Power Plant in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia. This paper proposes a design of 1.2 kW parabolic trough power plant. The model is capable to predict temperatures at any system outlet in the plant, as well as the power output produced. The conditions that are taken into account as input to the model are: local solar radiation and ambient temperatures, which have been measured during the year. Other parameters that have been input to the model are the collector’s sizes, location in terms of latitude and altitude. Lastly, the results are presented in graphical manner to describe the analysed variations of various outputs of the solar fields obtained, and help to predict the performance of the plant. The developed model allows an initial evaluation of the viability and technical feasibility of any similar solar thermal power plant.

Thermal treatment effects on charge storage performance of graphene-based materials for supercapacitors.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Hongxin; Bhat, Vinay V; Gallego, Nidia C; Contescu, Cristian I

2012-06-27

Graphene materials were synthesized by reduction of exfoliated graphite oxide and then thermally treated in nitrogen to improve the surface area and their electrochemical performance as electrical double-layer capacitor electrodes. The structural and surface properties of the prepared reduced graphite oxide (RGO) were investigated using atomic force microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Raman spectra, X-ray diffraction pattern analysis, and nitrogen adsorption/desorption studies. RGO forms a continuous network of crumpled sheets, which consist of large amounts of few-layer and single-layer graphenes. Electrochemical studies were conducted by cyclic voltammetry, impedance spectroscopy, and galvanostatic charge-discharge measurements. The modified RGO materials showed enhanced electrochemical performance, with maximum specific capacitance of 96 F/g, energy density of 12.8 Wh/kg, and power density of 160 kW/kg. These results demonstrate that thermal treatment of RGO at selected conditions is a convenient and efficient method for improving its specific capacitance, energy, and power density.

Optimization of thermal performance of a smooth flat-plate solar air heater using teaching–learning-based optimization algorithm