Particle degradation in pneumatic conveyors: Use of data from a pilot-sized test facility to predict degradation in an industrial conveyor

Author(s):  
I Bridle ◽  
S R Woodhead

Degradation of bulk solid product during pneumatic conveying is of concern in a range of process industries. However, prediction of product degradation levels at the conveyor design stage has proved challenging. This paper presents a proposed prediction technique, based on the use of a pilot-sized test facility to provide relevant empirical data. The results of experiments undertaken using malted barley, basmati rice, and granulated sugar are reported. For each bulk solid material, a wide range of conveying conditions have been examined, consistent with common industrial practice. Correlations between predictions and experimental data obtained in an industrial-scale conveyor are presented and discussed.

Author(s):  
Fahad A. Al-Sulaiman ◽  
Amro M. Al-Qutub

Actual performance testing is a key element in the design stage, development and troubleshooting of centrifugal compressors. The present work discusses the procedure for designing the experimental setup and the selection of drive unit for variable centrifugal compressors sizes. It starts with setting criteria of selection. A survey over different types of drive units and facility setup was conducted. It was found that the electric drive unit with the aid of transmission for stepping-up the speeds is the most suitable type. This is due mainly to the excellent control property of electric motors allowing for wide range of operational speed and power. A new methodology was developed for selecting operational power and speeds of the drive unit for different sizes of impellers. The code, used for the analysis, was developed by the authors. It calculates the range of input power, input torque, and rotational speeds, as well as, the mass flow rate, total pressure and temperature ratios for different sizes of impellers. This will aid in selecting the proper instrumentation for the experiments. The code used for design methodology is based on one dimensional through flow formulation and validated with experimental results in the literature. It is expected that the present methodology will enhance selection procedure for designing compressor test facility.


Author(s):  
Michele Righi ◽  
Giacomo Moretti ◽  
David Forehand ◽  
Lorenzo Agostini ◽  
Rocco Vertechy ◽  
...  

AbstractDielectric elastomer generators (DEGs) are a promising option for the implementation of affordable and reliable sea wave energy converters (WECs), as they show considerable promise in replacing expensive and inefficient power take-off systems with cheap direct-drive generators. This paper introduces a concept of a pressure differential wave energy converter, equipped with a DEG power take-off operating in direct contact with sea water. The device consists of a closed submerged air chamber, with a fluid-directing duct and a deformable DEG power take-off mounted on its top surface. The DEG is cyclically deformed by wave-induced pressure, thus acting both as the power take-off and as a deformable interface with the waves. This layout allows the partial balancing of the stiffness due to the DEG’s elasticity with the negative hydrostatic stiffness contribution associated with the displacement of the water column on top of the DEG. This feature makes it possible to design devices in which the DEG exhibits large deformations over a wide range of excitation frequencies, potentially achieving large power capture in a wide range of sea states. We propose a modelling approach for the system that relies on potential-flow theory and electroelasticity theory. This model makes it possible to predict the system dynamic response in different operational conditions and it is computationally efficient to perform iterative and repeated simulations, which are required at the design stage of a new WEC. We performed tests on a small-scale prototype in a wave tank with the aim of investigating the fluid–structure interaction between the DEG membrane and the waves in dynamical conditions and validating the numerical model. The experimental results proved that the device exhibits large deformations of the DEG power take-off over a broad range of monochromatic and panchromatic sea states. The proposed model demonstrates good agreement with the experimental data, hence proving its suitability and effectiveness as a design and prediction tool.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-56
Author(s):  
Francesco Baino ◽  
Elisa Fiume

AbstractPorosity is known to play a pivotal role in dictating the functional properties of biomedical scaffolds, with special reference to mechanical performance. While compressive strength is relatively easy to be experimentally assessed even for brittle ceramic and glass foams, elastic properties are much more difficult to be reliably estimated. Therefore, describing and, hence, predicting the relationship between porosity and elastic properties based only on the constitutive parameters of the solid material is still a challenge. In this work, we quantitatively compare the predictive capability of a set of different models in describing, over a wide range of porosity, the elastic modulus (7 models), shear modulus (3 models) and Poisson’s ratio (7 models) of bioactive silicate glass-derived scaffolds produced by foam replication. For these types of biomedical materials, the porosity dependence of elastic and shear moduli follows a second-order power-law approximation, whereas the relationship between porosity and Poisson’s ratio is well fitted by a linear equation.


Author(s):  
Marios Patinios ◽  
James A. Scobie ◽  
Carl M. Sangan ◽  
J. Michael Owen ◽  
Gary D. Lock

In gas turbines, hot mainstream flow can be ingested into the wheel-space formed between stator and rotor disks as a result of the circumferential pressure asymmetry in the annulus; this ingress can significantly affect the operating life, performance, and integrity of highly stressed, vulnerable engine components. Rim seals, fitted at the periphery of the disks, are used to minimize ingress and therefore reduce the amount of purge flow required to seal the wheel-space and cool the disks. This paper presents experimental results from a new 1.5-stage test facility designed to investigate ingress into the wheel-spaces upstream and downstream of a rotor disk. The fluid-dynamically scaled rig operates at incompressible flow conditions, far removed from the harsh environment of the engine which is not conducive to experimental measurements. The test facility features interchangeable rim-seal components, offering significant flexibility and expediency in terms of data collection over a wide range of sealing flow rates. The rig was specifically designed to enable an efficient method of ranking and quantifying the performance of generic and engine-specific seal geometries. The radial variation of CO2 gas concentration, pressure, and swirl is measured to explore, for the first time, the flow structure in both the upstream and downstream wheel-spaces. The measurements show that the concentration in the core is equal to that on the stator walls and that both distributions are virtually invariant with radius. These measurements confirm that mixing between ingress and egress is essentially complete immediately after the ingested fluid enters the wheel-space and that the fluid from the boundary layer on the stator is the source of that in the core. The swirl in the core is shown to determine the radial distribution of pressure in the wheel-space. The performance of a double radial-clearance seal is evaluated in terms of the variation of effectiveness with sealing flow rate for both the upstream and the downstream wheel-spaces and is found to be independent of rotational Reynolds number. A simple theoretical orifice model was fitted to the experimental data showing good agreement between theory and experiment for all cases. This observation is of great significance as it demonstrates that the theoretical model can accurately predict ingress even when it is driven by the complex unsteady pressure field in the annulus upstream and downstream of the rotor. The combination of the theoretical model and the new test rig with its flexibility and capability for detailed measurements provides a powerful tool for the engine rim-seal designer.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2009 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rolf K. Eckhoff

Right from the early days of the process industries, continuous efforts have been made to develop and improve measures for prevention and mitigation of dust explosions in these industries. Nevertheless this hazard continues to threaten industries that manufacture, use and/or handle powders and dusts of a wide range of combustible materials. To improve methods for predicting explosion development in real industrial plant has been one major challenge. Hence, during the last years comprehensive numerical simulation codes, for addressing this problem, have been developed. Progress has also been made in other areas, for example, ignition source prevention. The importance of adopting inherently safer process design, by building on firm knowledge in powder science and technology, and of systematic education/training of personnel, is also emphasized.


Author(s):  
Marios Patinios ◽  
James A. Scobie ◽  
Carl M. Sangan ◽  
J. Michael Owen ◽  
Gary D. Lock

In gas turbines, hot mainstream flow can be ingested into the wheel-space formed between stator and rotor discs as a result of the circumferential pressure asymmetry in the annulus; this ingress can significantly affect the operating life, performance and integrity of highly-stressed, vulnerable engine components. Rim seals, fitted at the periphery of the discs, are used to minimise ingress and therefore reduce the amount of purge flow required to seal the wheel-space and cool the discs. This paper presents experimental results from a new 1.5-stage test facility designed to investigate ingress into the wheel-spaces upstream and downstream of a rotor disc. The fluid-dynamically-scaled rig operates at incompressible flow conditions, far removed from the harsh environment of the engine which is not conducive to experimental measurements. The test facility features interchangeable rim-seal components, offering significant flexibility and expediency in terms of data collection over a wide range of sealing-flow rates. The rig was specifically designed to enable an efficient method of ranking and quantifying the performance of generic and engine-specific seal geometries. The radial variation of CO2 gas concentration, pressure and swirl is measured to explore, for the first time, the flow structure in both the upstream and downstream wheel-spaces. The measurements show that the concentration in the core is equal to that on the stator walls and that both distributions are virtually invariant with radius. These measurements confirm that mixing between ingress and egress is essentially complete immediately after the ingested fluid enters the wheel-space and that the fluid from the boundary-layer on the stator is the source of that in the core. The swirl in the core is shown to determine the radial distribution of pressure in the wheel-space. The performance of a double radial-clearance seal is evaluated in terms of the variation of effectiveness with sealing flow rate for both the upstream and the downstream wheel-spaces and is found to be independent of rotational Reynolds number. A simple theoretical orifice model was fitted to the experimental data showing good agreement between theory and experiment for all cases. This observation is of great significance as it demonstrates that the theoretical model can accurately predict ingress even when it is driven by the complex unsteady pressure field in the annulus upstream and downstream of the rotor. The combination of the theoretical model and the new test rig with its flexibility and capability for detailed measurements provides a powerful tool for the engine rim-seal designer.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Mounce

In this thesis I attempt to gather together a wide range of cladistic analyses of fossil and extant taxa representing a diverse array of phylogenetic groups. I use this data to quantitatively compare the effect of fossil taxa relative to extant taxa in terms of support for relationships, number of most parsimonious trees (MPTs) and leaf stability. In line with previous studies I find that the effects of fossil taxa are seldom different to extant taxa – although I highlight some interesting exceptions. I also use this data to compare the phylogenetic signal within vertebrate morphological data sets, by choosing to compare cranial data to postcranial data. Comparisons between molecular data and morphological data have been previously well explored, as have signals between different molecular loci. But comparative signal within morphological data sets is much less commonly characterized and certainly not across a wide array of clades. With this analysis I show that there are many studies in which the evidence provided by cranial data appears to be be significantly incongruent with the postcranial data – more than one would expect to see just by the effect of chance and noise alone. I devise and implement a modification to a rarely used measure of homoplasy that will hopefully encourage its wider usage. Previously it had some undesirable bias associated with the distribution of missing data in a dataset, but my modification controls for this. I also take an in-depth and extensive review of the ILD test, noting it is often misused or reported poorly, even in recent studies. Finally, in attempting to collect data and metadata on a large scale, I uncovered inefficiencies in the research publication system that obstruct re-use of data and scientific progress. I highlight the importance of replication and reproducibility – even simple reanalysis of high profile papers can turn up some very different results. Data is highly valuable and thus it must be retained and made available for further re-use to maximize the overall return on research investment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9591
Author(s):  
Sepehr Abrishami ◽  
Rocío Martín-Durán

The main goal of this study is to explore the adoption of a design for manufacturing and assembly (DfMA) and building information management (BIM) approach during the whole lifecycle of assets. This approach aims to tackle issues inherent in the design of traditional construction methods, such as low productivity and quality, poor predictability and building performance, and energy use, through the implementation of a BIM library of off-site components. In recent years, a renewed interest has been directed to the attempt to provide solutions to these urgent problems through the adoption of new advancements in technologies. However, while there are studies focussing on a BIM-DfMA approach, there is a lack of research regarding how this approach should be adopted during the whole lifecycle of the assets. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, defining an efficient way of developing a component-based BIM object library has not yet been included in any of the available studies. A mixed methodology approach has been used in this research. A conceptual framework was developed as the result of an extensive literature review to investigate new advancements in the AEC sector. Following the literature review, the framework was tested and validated through a case study based on the production and adoption of a BIM library of off-site components at the design stage of an asset. The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry has recognised the necessity of a new approach that helps to resolve the well-known issues presented in traditional methods of construction. The conceptual framework and case study proposed presents a valuable new method of construction that support the implementation of a BIM and DfMA approach, highlighting their benefits. This framework has been created using many valuable and reliable sources of information. The result of this research supports the idea of a novel new construction method that focuses on a manufacturing-digital-driven industry, with the use of DfMA in a BIM-integrated approach. This novel method will add significance and be beneficial for a wide range of aspects in the construction sector, contributing to the theoretical and practical domain.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e26539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul J. Morris ◽  
James Hanken ◽  
David Lowery ◽  
Bertram Ludäscher ◽  
James Macklin ◽  
...  

As curators of biodiversity data in natural science collections, we are deeply concerned with data quality, but quality is an elusive concept. An effective way to think about data quality is in terms of fitness for use (Veiga 2016). To use data to manage physical collections, the data must be able to accurately answer questions such as what objects are in the collections, where are they and where are they from. Some research uses aggregate data across collections, which involves exchange of data using standard vocabularies. Some research uses require accurate georeferences, collecting dates, and current identifications. It is well understood that the costs of data capture and data quality improvement increase with increasing time from the original observation. These factors point towards two engineering principles for software that is intended to maintain or enhance data quality: build small modular data quality tests that can be easily assembled in suites to assess the fitness of use of data for some particular need; and produce tools that can be applied by users with a wide range of technical skill levels at different points in the data life cycle. In the Kurator project, we have produced code (e.g. Wieczorek et al. 2017, Morris 2016) which consists of small modules that can be incorporated into data management processes as small libraries that address particular data quality tests. These modules can be combined into customizable data quality scripts, which can be run on single computers or scalable architecture and can be incorporated into other software, run as command line programs, or run as suites of canned workflows through a web interface. Kurator modules can be integrated into early stage data capture applications, run to help prepare data for aggregation by matching it to standard vocabularies, be run for quality control or quality assurance on data sets, and can report on data quality in terms of a fitness-for-use framework (Veiga et al. 2017). One of our goals is simple tests usable by anyone anywhere.


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