Heat Transfer in Energy Conversion Systems

In recent years, the scientific community’s interest towards efficient energy conversion systems has significantly increased. One of the reasons is certainly related to the change in the temperature of the planet, which appears to have increased by 0.76 °C with respect to pre-industrial levels, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and this trend has not yet been stopped. The European Union considers it vital to prevent global warming from exceeding 2 °C with respect to pre-industrial levels, since this phenomenon has been proven to result in irreversible and potentially catastrophic changes. These climate changes are mainly caused by the emissions of greenhouse gasses related to human activities, and can be drastically reduced by employing energy systems, for both heating and cooling of buildings and for power production, characterized by high efficiency levels and/or based on renewable energy sources. This Special Issue, published in the journal Energies, includes 12 contributions from across the world, including a wide range of applications, such as HT-PEMFC, district heating systems, a thermoelectric generator for industrial waste, artificial ground freezing, nanofluids, and others

Automated liquid handling systems for microfluidic applications

Advances in microfluidic research have improved the quality of assays performed in micro-scale environments. Improvement of liquid handling techniques has enabled efficient reagent and drug use while minimising waste. The requirements for the applied techniques vary with applications and a custom integrated liquid handling solution was developed to accomplish some of these applications with minimal changes to the system. It is desirable to employ this technology to neuroscience research that requires a fluidic system that can test theories of reinforcement learning in neuronal cultures. An integrated system is therefore required to implement transport and manipulation of media and drugs loaded in a microfluidic device. One requirement for such an integrated system for liquid handling is a transport mechanism to deliver reagents and nutrients to cultures. A liquid flow control system is required to allow precise and timely control of flow rates through a microfluidic device. This can be extended to enable more sophisticated drug delivery approaches like gradient generation, spatial drug distribution and high temporal resolution of the drugs delivered. Another requirement for an integrated system is a liquid loading system that is capable of inserting specified drugs into the flow line. Such a loading system would allow any number of drugs to be loaded during an experimental process to the microfluidic device containing cells as part of an assay. The integration of these systems will allow researchers take advantage of the combined systems. Software development process should also be undertaken to improve the modularity of the integrated system so that hardware changes have marginal effects on the system operation. The project scope was the development of these liquid handling systems as well as their integration in hardware and software to enable their spatio-temporal drug delivery to neuronal cultures in microfluidic devices. The approach was to optimise performance of custom liquid handling system which was developed to realise fast flow rate changes within 1 second interval. Macro- and micro-scale solutions have been investigated in order to realise effective off-chip liquid loading capabilities. Emphasis has been placed on ease of use, modularity, rapid prototyping and precision. A commercial autoloader was identified as a starting point for sequential drug delivery. This was characterised for suitability and the constraints with this setup was used to identify additional requirements for the development of a novel sequential liquid injection system. The design process of the novel liquid injection system was unable to realise a working system due to mechanical and operational challenges encountered. A modular on-chip liquid manipulation system has been investigated and proposed to realise the sequential injection requirements. Rapid prototyping techniques that can promote ubiquitous microfluidic applications have been identified and verified. An integrated liquid manipulation system has been developed using the commercial autosampler that enables sequential loading of agonists into the microfluidic device as well as reliable chemical signalling of the loaded drugs by switching flow rates of the inputs to the device. This system will be beneficial towards research of other cell types within other research fields requiring similar functionality

MICROELECTRONICS PACKAGING TECHNOLOGY ROADMAPS, ASSEMBLY RELIABILITY, AND PROGNOSTICS

This paper reviews the industry roadmaps on commercial-off-the shelf (COTS) microelectronics packaging technologies covering the current trends toward further reducing size and increasing functionality. Due tothe breadth of work being performed in this field, this paper presents only a number of key packaging technologies. The topics for each category were down-selected by reviewing reports of industry roadmaps including the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductor (ITRS) and by surveying publications of the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI) and the roadmap of association connecting electronics industry (IPC). The paper also summarizes the findings of numerous articles and websites that allotted to the emerging and trends in microelectronics packaging technologies. A brief discussion was presented on packaging hierarchy from die to package and to system levels. Key elements of reliability for packaging assemblies were presented followed by reliabilty definition from a probablistic failure perspective. An example was present for showing conventional reliability approach using Monte Carlo simulation results for a number of plastic ball grid array (PBGA). The simulation results were compared to experimental thermal cycle test data. Prognostic health monitoring (PHM) methods, a growing field for microelectronics packaging technologies, were briefly discussed. The artificial neural network (ANN), a data-driven PHM, was discussed in details. Finally, it presented inter- and extra-polations using ANN simulation for thermal cycle test data of PBGA and ceramic BGA (CBGA) assemblies

Reliability Analysis of Electrotechnical Devices

This is a book on the practical approaches of reliability to electrotechnical devices and systems. It includes the electromagnetic effect, radiation effect, environmental effect, and the impact of the manufacturing process on electronic materials, devices, and boards

Advances in Microfluidic Technologies for Energy and Environmental Applications

Microfluidics have aroused a new surge of interest in recent years in environmental and energy areas, and inspired novel applications to tackle the worldwide challenges for sustainable development. This book aims to present readers with a valuable compendium of significant advances in applying the multidisciplinary microfluidic technologies to address energy and environmental problems in a plethora of areas such as environmental monitoring and detection, new nanofluid application in traditional mechanical manufacturing processes, development of novel biosensors, and thermal management. This book will provide a new perspective to the understanding of the ever-growing importance of microfluidics