High repetition rate temperature and velocity Imaging in turbulent flows using thermographic phosphors

Turbulent flows involving heat transfer and chemical reactions are prevalent in a huge range of applications such as combustors and engines, boilers, and heating and cooling devices. Directly measuring important variables using laser-based techniques has significantly contributed to our understanding of the underlying flow physics. However, many flows of interest exhibit infrequent or oscillatory behaviour, such as flame extinction or instabilities in thermal boundary layers. Capturing the flow dynamics requires simultaneous, two-dimensional temperature and velocity measurements at sampling rates commensurate with turbulent timescales. Typically this means measuring many thousands of temperature and velocity fields per second, yet there are no high repetition rate diagnostics for temperature imaging in practical, oxygen-containing systems, with the essential capability of simultaneous velocity measurements. This thesis presents a novel laser-based imaging technique based on thermographic phosphor particles. There are a huge variety of thermographic phosphors, which are solid materials with luminescence properties that can be exploited for remote thermometry. Here, phosphor particles are seeded into the flow as a tracer. An appropriate phosphor must be selected, and the particle size chosen so that the particle temperature and velocity rapidly assume that of the surrounding fluid. The particles are probed using high-speed lasers and their luminescence and scattering signals are detected using high-speed cameras to measure the flow temperature and velocity at kHz repetition rates. The development of this method is described in detail. Using the thermographic phosphor BAM:Eu, examples of simultaneous time-resolved measurements are presented in turbulent air flows between 300 and 500 K, consisting of a heated jet (Re = 10,000) and also a flow behind a heated cylinder (Re = 700). The technique permits kHz-rate temperature imaging in oxygen-containing environments. These combined diagnostics currently provide a unique capability for the investigation of transient, coupled heat and mass transfer phenomena in turbulent flows of practical engineering importance. A second objective of this work is to improve the precision of the temperature measurement. The characterisation of a different thermographic phosphor with a high temperature sensitivity, zinc oxide (ZnO), is also reported. Temperature imaging using these tracer particles is demonstrated in a jet (Re = 2,000) heated to 363 K, with a temperature precision of 1%. This extends the capabilities of this versatile technique toward the study of flows with small temperature variations. Also, unlike the majority of phosphors previously investigated for thermometry, this phosphor is a semiconductor. Exploiting the temperature-dependent luminescence of this class of materials presents interesting new opportunities for remote temperature sensing.Open Acces

Cambernon – 745e Bataillon de chars

Une équipe d’enquête de la Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) a visité un carrefour à l’est de Cambernon du 4 au 5 septembre 2016, pour évaluer les pertes de trois chars du 745e Bataillon de chars près de cet endroit en août 1944. L’équipe a découvert en surface une grande quantité de débris d’acier fondu et d’articles assortis de la Seconde Guerre mondiale (douilles vides, boutons et boucles, boîtier de montre délivré par l’armée). Les rapports du 745e Bataillon de chars après la batai..

Precise surface temperature measurements at kHz-rates using phosphor thermometry to study flame-wall interactions in narrow passages

The thermographic phosphor ScVO4:Bi3+ is used to obtain time-resolved surface temperature measurements with sub-oC precision at 5 kHz. Measurements are used to study transient heat loss and flame-wall interactions (FWI) within a dedicated narrow two-wall passage (crevice) in an optically accessible fixed volume chamber. This passage emulates a crevice relevant in many technical environments, where FWI is less understood due to lack of detailed measurements. Chemiluminescence (CH*) imaging is performed simultaneously with phosphor thermometry to resolve how the spatiotemporal flame features influence the local surface temperature. ScVO4:Bi3+ is benchmarked against Gd3Ga5O12:Cr,Ce, a common phosphor used at low-kHz rates in FWI environments. ScVO4:Bi3+ is shown to offer higher luminescence signal levels and temperature sensitivity as well as negligible cross dependence on the excitation laser fluence, improving the precision and repeatability of the wall temperature measurement. ScVO4:Bi3+ is further used to resolve transient heat loss for variations in crevice spacing and uniquely capture temperature transients associated with flame dynamics. Taking advantage of these precise surface temperature measurements the wall heat flux is calculated with crevice spacing of 1.2 mm, where flame extinction is prevalent. Wall heat flux and estimated quenching distance are reported for flames that actively burn or extinguish at the measurement location.Comment: This manuscript was recently accepted to Combustion and Flame. The article does not yet have the associated volume and page numbers, as it is still in the proofing stage

Ammonium Pertechnetate in Mixtures of Trifluoromethanesulfonic Acid and Trifluoromethanesulfonic Anhydride

Ammonium pertechnetate reacts in mixtures of trifluoromethanesulfonic anhydride and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid under final formation of ammonium pentakis(trifluoromethanesulfonato)oxidotechnetate(V), (NH4)2[TcO(OTf)5]. The reaction proceeds only at exact concentrations and under the exclusion of air and moisture via pertechnetyl trifluoromethanesulfonate, [TcO3(OTf)], and intermediate TcVI species. 99Tc nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) has been used to study the TcVII compound and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), 99Tc NMR and X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) experiments indicate the presence of the reduced technetium species. In moist air, (NH4)2[TcO(OTf)5] slowly hydrolyses under formation of the tetrameric oxidotechnetate(V) (NH4)4[{TcO(TcO4)4}4] ⋅10 H2O. Single-crystal X-ray crystallography was used to determine the solid-state structures. Additionally, UV/Vis absorption and IR spectra as well as quantum chemical calculations confirm the identity of the species

Linking microbial community structure and function during the acidified anaerobic digestion of grass

This research was funded by the Irish Higher Education Authority Program for Research in Third Level Institutions Cycle 5: – PRTLI-5 ESI Ph.D. ENS Program. This work was also supported by the Wellcome Trust (grant number 094476/Z/10/Z for the TripleTOF 5600 mass spectrometer at the University of St Andrews), NERC (grant number NE/L011956/1), and a Royal Irish Academy Mobility Grant.Harvesting valuable bioproducts from various renewable feedstocks is necessary for the critical development of a sustainable bioeconomy. Anaerobic digestion is a well-established technology for the conversion of wastewater and solid feedstocks to energy with the additional potential for production of process intermediates of high market values (e.g. carboxylates). In recent years, first-generation biofuels typically derived from food crops have been widely utilised as a renewable source of energy. The environmental and socioeconomic limitations of such strategy, however, have led to the development of second-generation biofuels utilising, amongst other feedstocks, lignocellulosic biomass. In this context, the anaerobic digestion of perennial grass holds great promise for the conversion of sustainable renewable feedstock to energy and other process intermediates. The advancement of this technology however, and its implementation for industrial applications, relies on a greater understanding of the microbiome underpinning the process. To this end, microbial communities recovered from replicated anaerobic bioreactors digesting grass were analysed. The bioreactors leachates were not buffered and acidic pH (between 5.5 and 6.3) prevailed at the time of sampling as a result of microbial activities. Community composition and transcriptionally active taxa were examined using 16S rRNA sequencing and microbial functions were investigated using metaproteomics. Bioreactor fraction, i.e. grass or leachate, was found to be the main discriminator of community analysis across the three molecular level of investigation (DNA, RNA and proteins). Six taxa, namely Bacteroidia, Betaproteobacteria, Clostridia, Gammaproteobacteria, Methanomicrobia and Negativicutes accounted for the large majority of the three datasets. The initial stages of grass hydrolysis were carried out by Bacteroidia, Gammaproteobacteria and Negativicutes in the grass biofilms, in addition to Clostridia in the bioreactor leachates. Numerous glycolytic enzymes and carbohydrate transporters were detected throughout the bioreactors in addition to proteins involved in butanol and lactate production. Finally, evidence of the prevalence of stressful conditions within the bioreactors and particularly impacting Clostridia was observed in the metaproteomes. Taken together, this study highlights the functional importance of Clostridia during the anaerobic digestion of grass and thus research avenues allowing members of this taxon to thrive should be explored.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe