91,493 research outputs found

    Assessment of Factors Contributing to Refrigerator Cycling Losses

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    Thermal mass effects, refrigerant dynamics, and interchanger transients are three factors affecting the transient and cycling performance of all refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. The effects of refrigerant dynamics, including refrigerant/oil solubility, off-cycle migration, and charge redistribution, were found to be the most important. These effects are quantified for a refrigerator instrumented with immersion thermocouples, pressure transducers, and microphones. The analytical methods, however, are applicable to other types of refrigeration and air conditioning systems, including those with capillary tube/suction line heat exchangers.Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center Project 3

    Performance characterisation of a new photo-microsensor based sensing head for displacement measurement

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    This paper presents a robust displacement sensor with nanometre-scale resolution over a micrometre range. It is composed of low cost commercially available slotted photo-microsensors (SPMs). The displacement sensor is designed with a particular arrangement of a compact array of SPMs with specially designed shutter assembly and signal processing to significantly reduce sensitivity to ambient light, input voltage variation, circuit electronics drift, etc. The sensor principle and the characterisation results are described in this paper. The proposed prototype sensor has a linear measurement range of 20 μm and resolution of 21 nm. This kind of sensor has several potential applications, including mechanical structural deformation monitoring system

    Cloud condensation nuclei activity, closure, and droplet growth kinetics of Houston aerosol during the Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study (GoMACCS)

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    In situ cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) measurements were obtained in the boundary layer over Houston, Texas, during the 2006 Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study (GoMACCS) campaign onboard the CIRPAS Twin Otter. Polluted air masses in and out of cloudy regions were sampled for a total of 22 flights, with CCN measurements obtained for 17 of these flights. In this paper, we focus on CCN closure during two flights, within and downwind of the Houston regional plume and over the Houston Ship Channel. During both flights, air was sampled with particle concentrations exceeding 25,000 cm^(−3) and CCN concentrations exceeding 10,000 cm^(−3). CCN closure is evaluated by comparing measured concentrations with those predicted on the basis of measured aerosol size distributions and aerosol mass spectrometer particle composition. Different assumptions concerning the internally mixed chemical composition result in average CCN overprediction ranging from 3% to 36% (based on a linear fit). It is hypothesized that the externally mixed fraction of the aerosol contributes much of the CCN closure scatter, while the internally mixed fraction largely controls the overprediction bias. On the basis of the droplet sizes of activated CCN, organics do not seem to impact, on average, the CCN activation kinetics

    Optical power meter using radiation pressure measurement

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    This paper describes a radiation pressure meter based on a diamagnetic spring. We take advantage of the diamagnetic property of pyrolytic carbon to make an elementary levitated system. It is equivalent to a torsional spring-mass-damper system consisting of a small pyrolytic carbon disc levitated above a permanent magnet array. There are several possible measurement modes. In this paper, only the angular response to an optical power single-step is described. An optical detection composed of a laser diode, a mirror and a position sensitive detector (PSD) allow measurement of the angular deflection proportional to the voltage delivered by the PSD. Once the parameters of the levitated system depending on its geometrical and physical characteristics have been determined regardless of any optical power, by applying a simple physical law, one can deduce the value of the optical power to be measured from the measurement of the first maximum of the output voltage amplitude

    Stable isotopic analysis of atmospheric methane by infrared spectroscopy by use of diode laser difference-frequency generation

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    An infrared absorption spectrometer has been constructed to measure the stable isotopic composition of atmospheric methane samples. The spectrometer employs periodically poled lithium niobate to generate 15 μW of tunable difference-frequency radiation from two near-infrared diode lasers that probe the ν3 rotational-vibrational band of methane at 3.4 μm. To enhance the signal, methane is extracted from 25 l of air by use of a cryogenic chromatographic column and is expanded into the multipass cell for analysis. A measurement precision of 12‰ is demonstrated for both δ13C and δD

    Testing Lorentz and CPT symmetry with hydrogen masers

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    We present details from a recent test of Lorentz and CPT symmetry using hydrogen masers. We have placed a new limit on Lorentz and CPT violation of the proton in terms of a recent standard model extension by placing a bound on sidereal variation of the F = 1 Zeeman frequency in hydrogen. Here, the theoretical standard model extension is reviewed. The operating principles of the maser and the double resonance technique used to measure the Zeeman frequency are discussed. The characterization of systematic effects is described, and the method of data analysis is presented. We compare our result to other recent experiments, and discuss potential steps to improve our measurement.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figure
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