An Innovative Thermal Analysis Model for Continuous Operation of a Solar Collector

Heat pipe evacuated tube solar collectors (HPETCs) are a type of solar collectors widely used in solar water heating (SWH) technologies. In order to optimize the design of SWHs, understanding the heat transfer phenomena in HPETCs is of paramount importance. The complexity of the heat transfer processes involved in modelling a collector’s performance render direct numerical simulations (DNS) computationally cumbersome. In this work, a novel hybrid numerical method is employed in order to simulate the thermal behaviour of HPETCs, both during day and night time operation. This method is comprised of a previously developed resistance network based proper orthogonal decomposition (RNPOD) method for simulation during operation hours were solar irradiation values are greater than zero; after which, an in-house code based on Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has been utilized for simulation when irradiance is zero. This hybrid method is able to reduce simulation time and take into account the ambient working conditions of the collector and therefore, provide an accurate assessment of the temperature distribution inside the collector during the entirety of its operation during a full working cycle. The obtained results of this study are cross-validated with the previous experimental work of the authors, illustrating that the model is able to predict the peripheral temperature distribution with an average error of less than 10%.

Wind Harvesting on Mars: Study and Approach

Sustainable energy utilization on Mars is fundamental for the success of habitation on Mars. The two sustainable energy sources for In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) with the highest potential for implementation on Mars are solar and wind. Unfortunately, the former cannot provide a reliable continuous source of energy for multiple reasons. Accordingly, wind energy is presented as a viable solution, or as a strong potential complement to solar energy. The authors investigate different sites on Mars by evaluating the available wind resources to select the most feasible location in terms of energy yield and other critical habitability criteria. This work is conducted by applying the General Circulation Model (GCM) simulation, this particular analysis of wind harvesting feasibility on Mars will be studied by employing the Mars Climate Database (MCD) model. In addition, this novel research provides a systematic approach for future energy harvesting projects on Mars. Moreover, it evaluates different potential wind turbine design concepts applicable for the Martian ISRU. The results of this research lay the foundation for future energy utilization necessary for habitation to thrive, as well as it will be a key for future exploration missions. Ultimately, this will enrich our understanding of wind turbine systems.

Effect of the Environmental Conditions of Tropical Climates on the Performance Parameters of a Gas Turbine Power Generation Plant

It is known that high temperatures adversely affect the performance of gas turbines, but the effect of the combination of atmospheric conditions (temperature and relative humidity -RH-) on the operation of this type of system is unknown. In this work the effects of atmospheric conditions on the energy and exergy indicators of a power plant with gas turbine were studied. The indicators studied were the mass flow, the specific work consumed by the compressor, specific work produced by the turbine, the combustion gas temperature, the NO concentration, the net output power, the thermal efficiency, the heat rate, the specific consumption of fuel, the destruction of exergy and exergy efficiency. Among the results, it is noted that for each degree celsius that reduces the temperature of the air at the compressor inlet at constant relative humidity on average, the mass flow of dry air increases by 0.27 kg/s, the specific work consumed by the compressors decreases by 0.45%, the output power increases by 1.17% and the thermal efficiency increases by 0.8%, the exergy destruction increases by 0.72% and the exergy efficiency increases by 0.81%. In addition, humidity changes relative to high temperatures are detected more significantly than at low temperatures. The power plant studied is installed in Cartagena, Colombia and since it is not operating in the design environmental conditions (15 °C and 60% relative humidity) it experiences a loss of output power of 6140 kW and a drop in thermal efficiency of 5.12 %. These results allow considering the implementation of air cooling technologies at the compressor inlet to compensate for the loss of power at atmospheric air conditions.

Instability Study of Repetitive Nanosecond Pulsed Discharge Plasma in a Plasma Assisted Burner

High velocity flows, as in aerospace applications require special techniques to stabilize and ignite diffusion flames. Some techniques focus on changing parameters like geometry, conditions of the flow, or fuel composition, but these techniques are usually too expensive or impossible due to major changes in the system. On the other hand, some techniques focus on generating a region of charged/excited species and active radicals upstream of the flame. That can substantially enhance the flame stability even under high strain rate or at lean-limit-flammability conditions. Repetitive nanosecond pulsed (RNP) discharge plasma is a nonthermal plasma technique with some remarkable potential to improve stability and ignitability of high velocity diffusion flames. This technique was used in previous papers in a plasma assisted coaxial inverse diffusion burner and showed some promising results by reducing the lift-off height and delaying detachment and blowout conditions. This burner is prepared to employ the discharges at the burner nozzle and simulate a single element of a multi-element methane burner. However, effectiveness of high-voltage high-frequency RNP plasma was limited by the mode of the discharge. During the tests, three different modes were observed at different combinations of plasma and flow conditions. These three modes are low energy corona, uniformly distributed plasma, and high-energy point-to-point discharge. Among these three, only well-distributed plasma significantly improved the flame. In other cases, plasma deployment was either ineffective or in some cases adversely affected the flame by producing undesirable turbulence advancing blow out. As a result, a comprehensive study of these modes is required. In this work, the transition between these three modes in a jet flame was discussed. It has been expressed as a function of plasma conditions, i.e. peak discharge voltage and discharge frequency. It was shown that increasing flow speed delays increases the voltage and frequency at which transition occurs from low-energy corona discharge to well distributed plasma discharge. Subsequently, the effective plasma conditions are thinned. On the other hand, by increasing the frequency of nanosecond discharges, the chance of unstable point-to-point discharges is decreased. In contrast, the discharge peak voltage causes two different consequences. If it is too low, the pulse intensity is too week that the system will experience no visible plasma discharges or the discharges will not pass the low-energy corona, no matter how high the frequency is. If too high, it will enhance the chance of point-to-point discharges and limits the stabilization outcome of the system. Therefore, an optimal region is found for peak discharge voltage.

An Energy Frame of Reference to Assess Vehicle’s Physical Externalities

Externalities of the road transportation are multidimensional in nature and involve the road-vehicle interaction under different environmental conditions. Estimating the pavement and vehicle damage potentials as a function of the conditions under which such interaction takes place, is important to avoid accelerated or catastrophic damages in these systems. Such an assessing is crucial from the perspective of pricing the effects of the vehicle on the infrastructure and vice versa. The existing models for pricing such interaction, critically depends on gross average statistical models. In this paper, it is proposed a deterministic approach to realize such an assessment, based upon validated approaches for the pavement damage. The simulation scheme considers different degrees-of-freedom vehicle models, and a discrete asphalt pavement, that make possible the simulation of massive traffic situations on realistic road lengths.

Maximum Condensable Pressure in a Sealed Container With Arbitrary Temperature Distribution

Pressure vessels and sealed canisters are designed to maintain seal integrity under a maximum internal pressure. When the temperature inside the canister rises, the internal pressure rises accordingly. The presence of condensable liquid-vapor mixtures can create a strong relationship between the pressure and temperature. An isothermal container admits a straightforward thermodynamic pressure calculation; however, large temperature gradients inside the container require complex multiphase conjugate heat transfer calculations to predict accurate pressures. A simplified prediction using the peak internal temperature to find the saturated pressure of the condensable fluid may introduce unrealistic pressures when significant fluid mass exists in a cooler location of the container. This work presents methodology to calculate the pressure of a condensable fluid in a sealed container with large internal temperature differences using a two-temperature approach to predict saturated boiling and superheating of the vapor phase. An arbitrary temperature distribution allows for pressure calculations by considering the expected location of the liquid mass and the peak internal temperature. An enthalpy balance provides the effects of the temperature distribution and the peak pressure condition is easily predicted using the proposed method. This work provides a means to calculate the maximum internal pressure of a sealed container with a condensable fluid without the need for complex multiphase computer modeling.

Chemical Kinetic Study on Reaction Pathway of Anisole Oxidation at Various Operating Condition

Biofuels are considered as an alternative source of energy which can decrease the growing consumption of fossil fuel, hence decreasing pollution. Anisole (methoxybenzene) is a potential source of biofuel produced from cellulose base compounds. It is mostly available as a surrogate of phenolic rich compound. Because of the attractive properties of this fuel in combustion, it is important to do detail kinetic study on oxidation of anisole. In this study a detail chemical mechanism is developed to capture the chemical kinetics of anisole oxidation. The mechanism is developed using an automatic reaction mechanism generator (RMG). To generate the mechanism, RMG uses some known set of species and initial conditions such as temperature, pressure, and mole fractions. Proper thermodynamic and reaction library is used to capture the aromaticity of anisole. The generated mechanism has 340 species and 2532 reactions. Laminar burning speed (LBS) calculated through constant volume combustion chamber (CVCC) at temperature ranges from 460–550 K, pressure of 2–3 atm and equivalence ratio of 0.8–1.4 is used to validate the generated mechanism. Some deviation with experimental result is observed with the newly generated mechanism. Important reaction responsible for LBS calculation, is selected through sensitivity analysis. Rate coefficient of sensitive reactions are collected from literature to modify and improve the mechanism with experimental result. The generated mechanism is further validated with available ignition delay time (IDT) results ranging from 10–20 atm pressure, 0.5–1 equivalence ratio and 870–1600 K temperature. A good agreement of results is observed at different operating ranges. Oxidation of anisole at stoichiometric condition and atmospheric pressure in jet stirred reactor is also used to compare the species concentration of the mechanism. This newly generated mechanism is considered as a good addition for further study of anisole kinetics.

Internal Resistance Based Assessment Model for the Degradation of Li-Ion Battery Pack

As one pioneer means for energy storage, Li-ion battery packs have a complex and critical issue about degradation monitoring and remaining useful life estimation. It induces challenges on condition characterization of Li-ion battery packs such as internal resistance (IR). The IR is an essential parameter of a Li-ion battery pack, relating to the energy efficiency, power performance, degradation, and physical life of the li-ion battery pack. This study aims to obtain reliable IR through applying an evaluation test that acquires data such as voltage, current, and temperature provided by the battery management system (BMS). Additionally, this paper proposes an approach to predict the degradation of Li-ion battery pack using support vector regression (SVR) with RBF kernel. The modeling approach using the relationship between internal resistance, different SOC levels 20%–100%, and cycle at the beginning of life 1 cycle until cycle 500. The data-driven method is used here to achieve battery life prediction.based on internal resistance behavior in every period using supervised machine learning, SVR. Our experiment result shows that the internal resistance was increasing non-linear, approximately 0.24%, and it happened if the cycle rise until 500 cycles. Besides, using SVR algorithm, the quality of the fitting was evaluated using coefficient determination R2, and the score is 0.96. In the proposed modeling process of the battery pack, the value of MSE is 0.000035.

Performance Analysis of a Solar-Assisted Organic Rankine Cycle

The objective of this paper is the thermodynamic analysis of a solar powered Organic Rankine Cycle (O.R.C.) and the investigation of potential working fluids in order to select the optimum one. A dynamic model for a solar O.R.C. with a storage tank, which produces electricity is developed. The mathematical model includes all the equations that describe the operation of the solar collectors, the storage tank, the Rankine Cycle and the feedback between them. The model runs for representative days throughout the year, calculating the net produced energy as a function of the selected evaporation temperature for every suitable working fluid. Above that, the temporal variation of the systems’ temperatures, collectors’ efficiency and net produced power, for the optimum organic fluid and evaporation temperature are presented.

A Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Turbulence and Wakes of Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines During Non-Operational Time Periods

Wind turbines can create turbulence and downstream wakes which can introduce generation losses of downstream impacted turbines. These downstream turbine-induced losses are due to two different conditions. The first is from power-producing rotating blades of upstream wind turbines agitating the subsequent downstream wind in a cork-screw like manner. The second is from non-rotating, non-operational, non-power-generating wind turbines. These non-operating turbines may be under scheduled service shutdown, or rendered non-functional due to longer-term or permanent mechanical problems. In this work CFD was used to study downstream turbulence and wakes of a utility-scale, non-operational three-blade horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT). A flow field was constructed using an unstructured grid around a HAWT (rotor hub elevation of 80 meters and a blade length of 40 meters). Various wind velocities were studied up to 25 meters per second. Incompressible flow was used to assess downstream turbulence using a three-dimensional steady state and unsteady state SST k-ω (two equation) turbulence model. Different blade positions with respect to angle of attack (α) were studied, with a 4 degree angle of attack reported here. Pressures and velocities for distances of 100 meters in front and 500 meters downstream from the wind turbine are reported.