Experimental Study on the Crushing Properties of Corn Stalks in Square Bales

With the development of straw baling mechanization technology, straw is stored in the form of square baling or round baling. At present, hammer mill or the guilt-cutting and rubbing combined mill is widely used to crush square bales of straw. These two kinds of crushing equipment have disadvantages such as low productivity, large power consumption, and poor crushing effect. This paper aims to study and analyze the crushing characteristics of square baled straw after unbaling, and lay a theoretical foundation for the later research and development of a special square baled straw crusher with high productivity, low power consumption, good crushing effect, and the simulation of the square baled corn straw crushing process. For this purpose, this study carried out a corn bale crushing experiment on the Instron 8801 fatigue test machine, and studied the effects of blade angle, water content and loading speed on corn bale crushing force through the response surface method. Test results showed that the crushing process includes the compression stage and shearing stage; in terms of single factor effect, with the increase in water content and blade angle, the crushing force of the corn bale increased, but the loading speed had no significant effect on the crushing force of the corn bale. In terms of interaction effect, there was interaction effect between moisture content and blade inclination angle, when moisture content was 10%, with the increase in blade inclination angle, the incremental speed of the crushing force also increased gradually. When the blade inclination angle was 10°, with the increase in moisture content, the incremental speed of the crushing force also increased, and the interaction effect of them jointly acted on the crushing force of the corn bales.

Using Transfer Learning to Build Physics-Informed Machine Learning Models for Improved Wind Farm Monitoring

This paper introduces a novel, transfer-learning-based approach to include physics into data-driven normal behavior monitoring models which are used for detecting turbine anomalies. For this purpose, a normal behavior model is pretrained on a large simulation database and is recalibrated on the available SCADA data via transfer learning. For two methods, a feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) and an autoencoder, it is investigated under which conditions it can be helpful to include simulations into SCADA-based monitoring systems. The results show that when only one month of SCADA data is available, both the prediction accuracy as well as the prediction robustness of an ANN are significantly improved by adding physics constraints from a pretrained model. As the autoencoder reconstructs the power from itself, it is already able to accurately model the normal behavior power. Therefore, including simulations into the model does not improve its prediction performance and robustness significantly. The validation of the physics-informed ANN on one month of raw SCADA data shows that it is able to successfully detect a recorded blade angle anomaly with an improved precision due to fewer false positives compared to its purely SCADA data-based counterpart.

Numerical and Experimental Investigation of a Non-Premixed Double Swirl Combustor

This paper focuses on a detailed numerical investigation combined with experimental research for a non-premixed swirl combustor, which aims to analyze the effects of the blade angle of the outer swirler and equivalence ratio on flow and combustion characteristics. In the experiment, the temperature in the furnace was obtained with a thermocouple, while a realizable k-ε turbulence model and two-step reaction mechanism of methane and air are used in the numerical method. The calculation results are in good agreement with the experimental data. The results reveal that the air flow rate through the swirler accounts for a small amount of the total air due to the influence of the draft fan, and there is no central recirculation zone (CRZ) despite the presence of the swirler. It was also found that NO emissions gradually decrease as the blade angle of the outer swirler increases. It was also indicated that the average temperature is 100 K higher than the general combustor with a 58° blade angle in the furnace by increasing the equivalent ratio of the tertiary air area, and the NO emissions reduced by approximately 25%. This study can provide guidance for the operation and structural design of non-premixed swirl combustors.

Simulation Of the Conical Gravitational Water Vortex Turbine (GWVT) Design in Producing Optimum Force for Energy Production

Sustainable electricity power supply is crucial especially for less populated rural area. Micro hydropower generation in rural area is important in providing electricity especially in off-grid electricity area. This study aims to predict and harness power from micro hydropower generation through conical gravitational water vortex turbine (GWVT) via SOLIDWORKS flow simulation. Conical GWVT under study was designed as fully enclosed system with conical turbine basin. Two different turbine orientations were simulated i.e., vertical and horizontal at different blade angle designs i.e., 25°, 45°, 75°, 90°, and 120° and with different number of blades i.e., 8, 12, and 18 while forces were harnessed at tangential (z-axis) direction. The simulation results showed that it was possible to run and produce force from conical GWVT design in a fully enclosed system. It was found that vertical turbine orientation produced a slightly higher force than horizontally orientated turbine, using 12 runner blades at 90° angles where the distributed forces were 15.31N and 14.12N respectively, at tangential (z-axis) direction. The results are useful to predict turbine’s torque for small capacity micro hydropower electricity generation prior to actual conical GWVT set up, in rural area, to minimise cost implication and construction issues.

Influence of the position of recessed outdoor units and louvre blade angle on the performance of split air conditioners

In residential air conditioning systems, outdoor units are often installed in the recesses of building facades and shaded by louvres; however, different unit installation positions and louvre blade angles affect the thermal environment around the outdoor unit and the energy efficiency ratio (EER) of the air conditioner. In this study, the effects of the outdoor unit installation position and louvre blade angle on the EER when a single outdoor unit was installed in a recess were investigated by experiments on a 1.5 hp air conditioner (rated power of the air conditioner is 3.5 kW), and the influence of the spacing and angle between two outdoor units on the air conditioner EER when two outdoor units were installed in the same recess was explored. The results of the research indicate that when a single outdoor unit is installed in the recess, the EER increases with an increase in the distance between the inlet of the outdoor unit and the wall. To meet the three-level standard of air conditioner EERs, the distance between the inlet and wall needs to be greater than 300 mm. The EER first increased and then decreased slowly with the increase in the distance between the outdoor unit outlet and louvre; thus, the distance between the outlet and louvre should not be less than 300 mm. The EER first increased and then decreased with the increase in the blade angle, and thus, the blade angle should not be greater than 20°. When two outdoor units are installed in the same recess, each installation mode, “horizontal installation” (same height and collinear), “perpendicular installation” (same height and perpendicular), “angle installation” (same height and obtuse angle), and “up and down parallel installation” (different heights and parallel), has an optimum installation distance and angle.

Effect of Exit Blade Angle on the Performance of Cross Flow Hydro Turbine: A Numerical Study

Cross-flow hydro turbines (CFHTs) are generally used in micro hydraulic power plants due to their simplicity in design and fabrication, moderate efficiency, ease of maintenance. The CFHT can be used in low flow and low head conditions with an efficiency of around 90% at rated conditions. However, the efficiency of the CFHT can further be improved by changing its geometric parameters Hence, in the present investigation, 3D unsteady simulations are performed in order to locate the exit blade angle (β2) with the intention is to improve the efficiency of the turbine. In the proposed investigation, the multi-physics FVM solver ANSYS Fluent has been used with the help of the SST k-ω turbulence model to carry out the unsteady simulations. The 3D unsteady simulations are performed by varying the exit blade angle (β2) from 60° to 90° to improve its efficiency when the rotational speed is fixed with the number of blades being 20. From the unsteady simulations, the maximum efficiency of the CFHT is at the exit blade angle (β2) = 80°.

Rancang Bangun Grade Monitoring Assist pada D3K Caterpillar Berbasis Mikrokontroler sebagai Akurasi pada Pekerjaan Operator Dozer

In the process of construction work, operators need accuracy in the process of finishing land leveling works such as road highway building, land reclamation, large commercial, landfill installation, so as to increase productivity. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to manufacture and implement a ground leveling finishing tool using Arduino IDE software and Atmega 328 microcontroller on the Dozer D3K Caterpillar heavy equipment unit. The placement of a series of components from the Grade Monitoring Assist includes the ultrasonic sensor on the lift cylinder, gyro and accelerometer at the top center of the blade, as well as a display that displays the results of parameter readings. Connections between components in Grade Monitoring Assist are cables that integrate all installed components. The results of testing the movement of the blade up and down position to get an accuracy value of 97.30% and an error of 2.70%. While the movement of the blade down position has an accuracy value of 96.50% and an error of 2.50%. And Tests by moving the blade according to the implement movement angle at the maximum blade angle position (either side) with an average error value of 1.48o, cutting ditches (angle V) an average error value of 0.676o