Performance with and without inlet radial distortion of a transonic fan stage designed for reduced loading in the tip region

A transonic compressor stage designed for a reduced loading in the tip region of the rotor blades was tested with and without inlet radial distortion. The rotor was 50 cm in diameter and designed for an operating tip speed of 420 m/sec. Although the rotor blade loading in the tip region was reduced to provide additional operating range, analysis of the data indicates that the flow around the damper appears to be critical and limited the stable operating range of this stage. For all levels of tip and hub radial distortion, there was a large reduction in the rotor stall margin

A Sufficient Condition for Power Flow Insolvability with Applications to Voltage Stability Margins

For the nonlinear power flow problem specified with standard PQ, PV, and slack bus equality constraints, we present a sufficient condition under which the specified set of nonlinear algebraic equations has no solution. This sufficient condition is constructed in a framework of an associated feasible, convex optimization problem. The objective employed in this optimization problem yields a measure of distance (in a parameter set) to the power flow solution boundary. In practical terms, this distance is closely related to quantities that previous authors have proposed as voltage stability margins. A typical margin is expressed in terms of the parameters of system loading (injected powers); here we additionally introduce a new margin in terms of the parameters of regulated bus voltages.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figure

Evidence for Anthropogenic Surface Loading as Trigger Mechanism of the 2008 Wenchuan Earthquake

Two and a half years prior to China's M7.9 Wenchuan earthquake of May 2008, at least 300 million metric tons of water accumulated with additional seasonal water level changes in the Minjiang River Valley at the eastern margin of the Longmen Shan. This article shows that static surface loading in the Zipingpu water reservoir induced Coulomb failure stresses on the nearby Beichuan thrust fault system at <17km depth. Triggering stresses exceeded levels of daily lunar and solar tides and perturbed a fault area measuring 416+/-96km^2. These stress perturbations, in turn, likely advanced the clock of the mainshock and directed the initial rupture propagation upward towards the reservoir on the "Coulomb-like" Beichuan fault with rate-and-state dependent frictional behavior. Static triggering perturbations produced up to 60 years (0.6%) of equivalent tectonic loading, and show strong correlations to the coseismic slip. Moreover, correlations between clock advancement and coseismic slip, observed during the mainshock beneath the reservoir, are strongest for a longer seismic cycle (10kyr) of M>7 earthquakes. Finally, the daily event rate of the micro-seismicity (M>0.5) correlates well with the static stress perturbations, indicating destabilization.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figures, 3 table

Robustness maximization of parallel multichannel systems

Bit error rate (BER) minimization and SNR-gap maximization, two robustness optimization problems, are solved, under average power and bit-rate constraints, according to the waterfilling policy. Under peak-power constraint the solutions differ and this paper gives bit-loading solutions of both robustness optimization problems over independent parallel channels. The study is based on analytical approach with generalized Lagrangian relaxation tool and on greedy-type algorithm approach. Tight BER expressions are used for square and rectangular quadrature amplitude modulations. Integer bit solution of analytical continuous bit-rates is performed with a new generalized secant method. The asymptotic convergence of both robustness optimizations is proved for both analytical and algorithmic approaches. We also prove that, in conventional margin maximization problem, the equivalence between SNR-gap maximization and power minimization does not hold with peak-power limitation. Based on a defined dissimilarity measure, bit-loading solutions are compared over power line communication channel for multicarrier systems. Simulation results confirm the asymptotic convergence of both allocation policies. In non asymptotic regime the allocation policies can be interchanged depending on the robustness measure and the operating point of the communication system. The low computational effort of the suboptimal solution based on analytical approach leads to a good trade-off between performance and complexity.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figures, submitted to IEEE Trans. Inform. Theor

Long-Term Voltage Stability Assessment of an Integrated Transmission Distribution System

Long-term voltage stability assessment (VSA) of independent transmission (T-VSA) and distribution (D-VSA)systems have been studied since long to estimate load margins. However, their impacts on each other have been neglected due to simplified assumptions i.e. in transmission systems, loads are assumed to be aggregated, and in distribution systems, substation bus voltage is assumed to be constant. This work investigates the VSA of integrated transmission-distribution (TD-VSA) using PV curve superimposition approach and reveals the possibility that the overall system loadability may be limited by the distribution system rather than the transmission system. In this paper, we analyze why T-VSA and D-VSA are not reliable enough to estimate true load margin of the overall system. The analysis has been verified on an integrated test system in different scenarios with and without DER penetration. Overall, the paper points out the need for integrated analysis and further builds a case why it is essential to develop a realistic co-simulation framework for a reliable long-term VSA of large-scale coupled T-D systems.Comment: accepted in IEEE NAPS conference 201

Mercury anomalies associated with three extinction events (Capitanian Crisis, Latest Permian Extinction and the Smithian/Spathian Extinction) in NW Pangea

Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015. Strata of Permian - Early Triassic age that include a record of three major extinction events (Capitanian Crisis, Latest Permian Extinction and the Smithian/Spathian Extinction) were examined at the Festningen section, Spitsbergen. Over the c. 12 Ma record examined, mercury in the sediments shows relatively constant background values of 0.005-0.010 μg g -1 . However, there are notable spikes in Hg concentration over an order of magnitude above background associated with the three extinctions. The Hg/total organic carbon (TOC) ratio shows similar large spikes, indicating that they represent a true increase in Hg loading to the environment. We argue that these represent Hg loading events associated with enhanced Hg emissions from large igneous province (LIP) events that are synchronous with the extinctions. The Hg anomalies are consistent across the NW margin of Pangea, indicating that widespread mercury loading occurred. While this provides utility as a chemostratigraphic marker the Hg spikes may also indicate loading of toxic metals to the environment, a contributing cause to the mass extinction events

Technology requirements of exploration beyond Neptune by solar sail propulsion

This paper provides a set of requirements for the technology development of a solar sail propelled Interstellar Heliopause Probe mission. The mission is placed in the context of other outer solar systems missions, ranging from a Kuiper Belt mission through to an Oort cloud mission. Mission requirements are defined and a detailed parametric trajectory analysis and launch date scan performed. Through analysis of the complete mission trade space a set of critical technology development requirements are identified which include an advanced lightweight composite High-Gain Antenna, a high-efficiency Ka-band travelling-wave tube amplifier and a radioisotope thermoelectric generator with power density of approximately 12 W/kg. It is also shown that the Interstellar Heliopause Probe mission necessitates the use of a spinning sail, limiting the direct application of current hardware development activities. A Kuiper Belt mission is then considered as a pre-curser to the Interstellar Heliopause Probe, while it is also shown through study of an Oort cloud mission that the Interstellar Heliopause Probe mission is the likely end-goal of any future solar sail technology development program. As such, the technology requirements identified to enable the Interstellar Heliopause Probe must be enabled through all prior missions, with each mission acting as an enabling facilitator towards the next

Applied constant gain amplification in circulating loop experiments

The reconfiguration of channel or wavelength routes in optically transparent mesh networks can lead to deviations in channel power that may impact transmission performance. A new experimental approach, applied constant gain, is used to maintain constant gain in a circulating loop enabling the study of gain error effects on long-haul transmission under reconfigured channel loading. Using this technique we examine a number of channel configurations and system tuning operations for both full-span dispersion-compensated and optimized dispersion-managed systems. For each system design, large power divergence was observed with a maximum of 15 dB at 2240 km, when switching was implemented without additional system tuning. For a bit error rate of 10-3, the maximum number of loop circulations was reduced by up to 33%