Modelling and simulation of drone’s airfoil

This paper proposes a different innovative design of airfoils used in drones. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model is built to model and simulate velocity and pressure profiles of the airfoil. Simulation is carried out by COMSOL Multiphysics. Airfoil design no. A is simulated at different normal inflow velocity. Resulted lift and drag forces are 12.04 N and 2.27 N at a normal inflow velocity of 7 m/s. For the simulation of different airfoil design thickness, airfoil no. B achieved a total lift force of 22.83 N and a total drag force of 1.29 N

Modelling of turbulent flames with transported probability density function and rate-controlled constrained equilibrium methods

In this study, turbulent diffusion flames have been modelled using the Transported Probability Density Function (PDF) method and chemistry reduction with the Rate-Controlled Constrained Equilibrium (RCCE). RCCE is a systematic method of chemistry reduction which is employed to simulate the evolution of the chemical composition with a reduced number of species. It is based on the principle of chemical time-scale separation and is formulated in a generalised and systematic manner that allows a reduced mechanism to be derived given a set of constraint species. The transported scalar PDF method was coupled with RANS turbulence modelling and this PDF-RANS methodology was exploited to simulate several turbulent diffusion flames with detailed and RCCE-reduced chemistry. The phenomena of extinction and reignition, soot formation and thermal radiation in these flames are explored. Sandia Flames D, E and F have been simulated with both the detailed GRI-3.0 mechanism and RCCE reduced mechanisms. Scatter plots show that PDF methods with simple mixing models are able to reproduce different degrees of local extinction in Sandia piloted flames. The PDF-RCCE results are compared with PDF simulations with the detailed mechanism and with measurements of Sandia flames. The RCCE method predicted the three flames with the same level of accuracy of the detailed mechanism. The methodology has also been applied to sooting flames with radiative heat transfer. Semi-empirical soot model and Optically-thin radiation model have been combined with the PDF-RCCE method to compute these flames. Methane flames measured by Brooks and Moss [26] have been predicted using several RCCE mechanisms with good agreement with measurements. The propane flame with preheated air [162] has also been simulated with the PDF-RCCE methodology. Gaseous species profiles of the propane flame compare reasonably with measurements but soot and temperature predictions in this flame were weak and improvements are still needed.Open Acces

Modelling and simulation of drone’s airfoil

This paper proposes a different innovative design of airfoils used in drones. A computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model is built to model and simulate velocity and pressure profiles of the airfoil. Simulation is carried out by COMSOL Multiphysics. Airfoil design no. A is simulated at different normal inflow velocity. Resulted lift and drag forces are 12.04 N and 2.27 N at a normal inflow velocity of 7 m/s. For the simulation of different airfoil design thickness, airfoil no. B achieved a total lift force of 22.83 N and a total drag force of 1.29 N

Phenological and pomological characterization of Argania spinosa (L.) to select promising trees for breeding program

The agro-morphological characterization is crucial in order to provide information for plant breeding programs. The goal of the present study was to determine phenotypic diversity and to detect superior trees. Six hundred and eightieth genotypes of argan tree (Argania spinosa (L,) Skeels) were characterized by using qualitative and quantitative agro-morphological traits. Majority studied characteristics were showing a high degree of variability, but it was highly pronounced for fruit-spine, branches number, trunk diameter and first leaf height. A significant correlation was found among some evaluated variables. The principal component analysis for quantitative traits showed that four components explained 65% of the total variation and revealed that traits related to fruits, leaves, tree display and trunk diameter contribute for a large proportion of the ob­served variability. The results indicated that most of genotypes can be considered a good gene pool for breeding programs and rootstock development programs. More, they could be useful as a parent to be crossed to generating appropriate populations or improve cultivars

Assessment of technological options and economical feasibility for cyanophycin biopolymer and high-value amino acid production

Major transitions can be expected within the next few decades aiming at the reduction of pollution and global warming and at energy saving measures. For these purposes, new sustainable biorefinery concepts will be needed that will replace the traditional mineral oil-based synthesis of specialty and bulk chemicals. An important group of these chemicals are those that comprise N-functionalities. Many plant components contained in biomass rest or waste stream fractions contain these N-functionalities in proteins and free amino acids that can be used as starting materials for the synthesis of biopolymers and chemicals. This paper describes the economic and technological feasibility for cyanophycin production by fermentation of the potato waste stream Protamylasse™ or directly in plants and its subsequent conversion to a number of N-containing bulk chemicals

Functional expression and characterization of five wax ester synthases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae and their utility for biodiesel production

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Wax ester synthases (WSs) can synthesize wax esters from alcohols and fatty acyl coenzyme A thioesters. The knowledge of the preferred substrates for each WS allows the use of yeast cells for the production of wax esters that are high-value materials and can be used in a variety of industrial applications. The products of WSs include fatty acid ethyl esters, which can be directly used as biodiesel.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, heterologous WSs derived from five different organisms were successfully expressed and evaluated for their substrate preference in <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae</it>. We investigated the potential of the different WSs for biodiesel (that is, fatty acid ethyl esters) production in <it>S. cerevisiae</it>. All investigated WSs, from <it>Acinetobacter baylyi </it>ADP1, <it>Marinobacter hydrocarbonoclasticus </it>DSM 8798, <it>Rhodococcus opacus </it>PD630, <it>Mus musculus </it>C57BL/6 and <it>Psychrobacter arcticus </it>273-4, have different substrate specificities, but they can all lead to the formation of biodiesel. The best biodiesel producing strain was found to be the one expressing WS from <it>M. hydrocarbonoclasticus </it>DSM 8798 that resulted in a biodiesel titer of 6.3 mg/L. To further enhance biodiesel production, acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase was up-regulated, which resulted in a 30% increase in biodiesel production.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Five WSs from different species were functionally expressed and their substrate preference characterized in <it>S. cerevisiae</it>, thus constructing cell factories for the production of specific kinds of wax ester. WS from <it>M. hydrocarbonoclasticus </it>showed the highest preference for ethanol compared to the other WSs, and could permit the engineered <it>S. cerevisiae </it>to produce biodiesel.</p

Biomass in the manufacture of industrial products—the use of proteins and amino acids

The depletion in fossil feedstocks, increasing oil prices, and the ecological problems associated with CO2 emissions are forcing the development of alternative resources for energy, transport fuels, and chemicals: the replacement of fossil resources with CO2 neutral biomass. Allied with this, the conversion of crude oil products utilizes primary products (ethylene, etc.) and their conversion to either materials or (functional) chemicals with the aid of co-reagents such as ammonia and various process steps to introduce functionalities such as -NH2 into the simple structures of the primary products. Conversely, many products found in biomass often contain functionalities. Therefore, it is attractive to exploit this to bypass the use, and preparation of, co-reagents as well as eliminating various process steps by utilizing suitable biomass-based precursors for the production of chemicals. It is the aim of this mini-review to describe the scope of the possibilities to generate current functionalized chemical materials using amino acids from biomass instead of fossil resources, thereby taking advantage of the biomass structure in a more efficient way than solely utilizing biomass for the production of fuels or electricity

Identification of emulsifier potato peptides by bioinformatics: application to omega-3 delivery emulsions and release from potato industry side streams

We are grateful for the financial support from Innovation Fund Denmark (Grant nr: 7045-00021B, PROVIDE project). We also acknowledge K.M.C. amba (Brande, Denmark) and A.K.V. amba (Langholt, Denmark) for providing the potato samples used in this study.In this work, we developed a novel approach combining bioinformatics, testing of functionality and bottom-up proteomics to obtain peptide emulsifiers from potato side-streams. This is a significant advancement in the process to obtain emulsifier peptides and it is applicable to any type of protein. Our results indicated that structure at the interface is the major determining factor of the emulsifying activity of peptide emulsifiers. Fish oil-in-water emulsions with high physical stability were stabilized with peptides to be predicted to have facial amphiphilicity: (i) peptides with predominantly α-helix conformation at the interface and having 18–29 amino acids, and (ii) peptides with predominantly β-strand conformation at the interface and having 13–15 amino acids. In addition, high physically stable emulsions were obtained with peptides that were predicted to have axial hydrophobic/hydrophilic regions. Peptides containing the sequence FCLKVGV showed high in vitro antioxidant activity and led to emulsions with high oxidative stability. Peptide-level proteomics data and sequence analysis revealed the feasibility to obtain the potent emulsifier peptides found in this study (e.g. γ-1) by trypsin-based hydrolysis of different side streams in the potato industry.Innovation Fund Denmark 7045-00021

Rate-Controlled Constrained Equilibrium (RCCE) simulations of turbulent partially premixed flames (Sandia D/E/F) and comparison with detailed chemistry

AbstractThis paper investigates the potential of the RCCE mechanism reduction approach for modelling turbulent flames within the framework of transported PDF methods. For this purpose, PDF simulations are performed with an RCCE-reduced mechanism via direct integration of the RCCE ODEs, without any tabulation, and comparison is made with both the experimental results and those from a PDF simulation with direct integration of the detailed mechanism. The flames simulated are the Sandia flames D/E/F and the simulations are carried out with a RANS approach and a Lagrangian particle method for solving the transported joint-scalar PDF equation. The detailed mechanism is the well known GRI 3.0 CH4 combustion mechanism. The turbulence closure employed is the k–ε model, while the micromixing closure in the PDF transport equation is the Interaction with the Mean (IEM) model. The RCCE-reduced mechanism incorporates 18 constraints, selected from the original 53 species based on laminar flamelet simulations. Excellent agreement was observed between the RCCE simulations and direct integration, indicating that the reduced mechanism can reproduce very well the features of the full mechanism. Agreement with experimental results is also very good, given the turbulence and mixing models employed