Experiments and Modelling of Automotive Turbochargers under Unsteady Conditions

The current global scenario, in which an ever increasing population with an ever growing transportation needs is coupled with a reduction in the fossil fuel production and increasing human-made pollution derived problems, leads automotive engine manufacturers to constant struggles for fuel consumption and emission reductions while keeping engine performance. One-dimensional simulation codes have become a key tool towards these objectives, but require continued accuracy refinements. Phenomena that were previously thought of a limited importance and could be extremely easily modelled now require the development of new methods to be accounted for. Among these phenomena are the turbocharger mechanical losses and the turbine behaviour under highly pulsating boundary conditions. This work is focused on the improvement of current one-dimensional models, for both mechanical losses prediction and high frequency pulsating flow turbine performance. After reviewing the state-of-the-art in experimental measurement and fast simulation of automotive turbochargers, this work presents first a experimental study of several turbochargers working under both steady-state and unsteady operating conditions, focusing on the general performance of the turbine and the losses in the power transmission between it and the compressor, even including internal pressure measurements in one of the tested units. All the measurements are corrected due to heat transfer, getting the purely adiabatic behaviour. Furthermore, a CFD simulation campaign of a radial turbine has been performed, thus obtaining a detailed description of its internal behaviour under highly pulsating flow. In the light of both the experimental and CFD-simulated results, a quasi-steady mechanical losses and a quasi-bidimensional turbine model have been developed. Both models have been validated using all the experimental and simulated data, proving a prediction accuracy improvements from the results of previous methods. The mechanical losses model offers a clear advantage over the usual practice of using a constant mechanical efficiency value for correcting the manufacturer’s turbocharger map, whereas the turbine model has demonstrated potential for turbine map extrapolation and has improved the instantaneous results over classic onedimensional turbine volute models for frequencies higher than 1000 Hz. Both models have been developed trying to keep a reduced computational cost, ensuring to exploit the specific characteristics of the processors where they are going to be run.García-Cuevas González, LM. (2014). Experiments and Modelling of Automotive Turbochargers under Unsteady Conditions [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/48458TESI

The Americans and Realist Spy Television: The Contemporary Relevance of an Apparently Outdated Genre.

El cine de espías, sobre todo en su rama más realista, es un género que tuvo su auge en los años cercanos a la llamada guerra fría y que a primera vista parecería no tener ninguna conexión con la sociedad actual. El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar y señalar como las características de este género específico, aparecen actualizadas y adaptadas en la serie The Americans. El análisis apunta a que la suma de sus características clásicas más la renovación del género, lo convierten en el vehículo adecuado para transmitir las inquietudes que el individuo contemporáneo tiene en relación a los conflictos que se presentan al intentar compaginar su vida privada y familiar con las exigencias de una sociedad que cada vez demanda más a sus ciudadanos

Hypercube algorithms on mesh connected multicomputers

A new methodology named CALMANT (CC-cube Algorithms on Meshes and Tori) for mapping a type of algorithm that we call CC-cube algorithm onto multicomputers with hypercube, mesh, or torus interconnection topology is proposed. This methodology is suitable when the initial problem can be expressed as a set of processes that communicate through a hypercube topology (a CC-cube algorithm). There are many important algorithms that fit into the CC-cube type. CALMANT is based on three different techniques: (a) the standard embedding to assign the processes of the algorithm to the nodes of the mesh multicomputer; (b) the communication pipelining technique to increase the level of communication parallelism inherent in the CC-cube algorithms; and (c) optimal message-scheduling algorithms proposed in this work in order to avoid conflicts and minimizing in this way the communication time. Although CALMANT is proposed for multicomputers with different interconnection network topologies, the paper only focuses on the particular case of meshes.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

A study of the communication cost of the FFT on torus multicomputers

The computation of a one-dimensional FFT on a c-dimensional torus multicomputer is analyzed. Different approaches are proposed which differ in the way they use the interconnection network. The first approach is based on the multidimensional index mapping technique for the FFT computation. The second approach starts from a hypercube algorithm and then embeds the hypercube onto the torus. The third approach reduces the communication cost of the hypercube algorithm by pipelining the communication operations. A novel methodology to pipeline the communication operations on a torus is proposed. Analytical models are presented to compare the different approaches. This comparison study shows that the best approach depends on the number of dimensions of the torus and the communication start-up and transfer times. The analytical models allow us to select the most efficient approach for the available machine.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Programa de refuerzo de Educación Física para una alumna Síndrome Asperger mediante la aplicación de una Unidad Didáctica de Acrosport y Voleibol

La vida cotidiana de las personas con SA y sus familias está lejos de ser similar a la de las personas sin discapacidad, condicionando de forma notable la calidad de vida de ellos y los que les rodean. El auge de las tecnologías, las nuevas formas de comunicación y el comienzo de una nueva etapa de cambios afectivos, cognitivos y físicos/motrices, hace necesarias adaptaciones significativas desde la Educación Física (EF) que modifiquen, estructuren e individualicen, el entorno próximo del alumno para mejorar los objetivos de su aprendizaje. En el siguiente TFM, vamos a realizar un abordaje teórico-práctico, que va a proporcionar a los profesionales de la EF, estrategias de intervención, herramientas de valoración y modelos que van a condicionar el éxito de una clase de EF en alumnos con SA. La intervención ha consistido en un trabajo individualizado con una alumna con SA mediante la adaptación curricular significativa durante el tercer trimestre de 1 de bachillerato de las UD de acrosport y de voleibol. Modificando contenidos, objetivos, criterios de evaluación, instrumentos y metodología hemos logrado mejorar su motricidad, relaciones sociales, autonomía y romper estereotipos repetitivos. Además se hace un análisis, reflexión y vinculación del caso práctico con los distintos elementos del Máster de Profesorado de Educación Física

Uncovering the adult morphology of the forearm bones from the Sima de los Huesos Site in Atapuerca (Spain), with comments on biomechanical features

[EN] The forearm skeleton is composed of two bones: the radius and the ulna. This is closely related to manipulative movements. The ulna is part of the elbow joint, whereas the radius and ulna together with the scaphoid and lunate bones, form the wrist joints. Thus, morphofunctional analysis of the adult Sima de los Huesos (SH) forearm bones, provides clues about manipulative activities in one Pleistocene population. From 1976 to the present, over 7000 human fossils have been recovered from the SH site. The radial sample comprised 98 labeled fragments, of which 49 belonged to adult individuals, representing at least 7 individuals. The ulnar sample included 31 labeled adult fossils representing at least nine individuals. In this study, we describe the SH radii and ulnae and analyze their functional implications for manipulative and forearm movements. We confirmed that the SH radii are long and curved, with variations in robusticity and radial tuberosity orientation. The SH ulnae are characterized by an anteriorly oriented trochlear notch, a massive olecranon process, an obliquely oriented radial notch, a blunt and short supinator crest, a gracile and curved diaphysis, and a round and anteriorly oriented pronator crests. In general, they exhibit Neanderthal morphology. The SH collection provides a unique opportunity to conduct morphological analyses of these bones in the Middle Pleistocene population.SIPublicación en abierto financiada por el Consorcio de Bibliotecas Universitarias de Castilla y León (BUCLE), con cargo al Programa Operativo 2014ES16RFOP009 FEDER 2014-2020 DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN, Actuación:20007-CL - Apoyo Consorcio BUCL

How coaches’ need-supportive and controlling behaviors are related to different (mal)adaptive outcomes in water polo players: a person-centered approach

The relationship between both coaches’ need-supportive and controlling behaviors and different athletes’ motivational outcomes has been previously examined. However, little is known about the coexistence of coaches’ need-supportive and controlling behaviors in the sports context and even less, about what coach’s motivating style configuration may yield the most and the least adaptive pattern of outcomes in relation to athletes’ motivating experiences. Grounded in self-determination theory (SDT), this study aimed to identify coach motivating style groups based on athletes’ perceptions of need-supportive and four controlling behaviors (i.e., controlling use of rewards, negative conditional regard, intimidation, and personal control), and to examine their differences in terms of athletes’ motivational outcomes and sport commitment. Using a sample of 658 young water polo players (Mage = 14.76, SD = 1.36), results revealed five distinct coach motivating style groups. A coexistence of need-supportive and controlling use of rewards was identified among athletes in two groups. The “very low support-high control” group yielded the most maladaptive outcomes, while the “high support-low control” group was the most optimal style, even when compared to coaches that combined high need-supportive and controlling practices. This study provides deeper insights on how athletes may perceive simultaneously coach’s need-supportive and controlling behaviors, and how some controlling practices imply a higher motivational cost among athletes

Content Delivery and Sharing in Federated Cloud Storage

Cloud-based storage is becoming a cost-effective solution for agencies, hospitals, government instances and scientific centers to deliver and share contents to/with a set of end-users. However, reliability, privacy and lack of control are the main problems that arise when contracting content delivery services with a single cloud storage provider. This paper presents the implementation of a storage system for content delivery and sharing in federated cloud storage networks. This system virtualizes the storage resources of a set of organizations as a single federated system, which is in charge of the content storage. The architecture includes a metadata management layer to keep the content delivery control in-house and a storage synchronization worker/monitor to keep the state of storage resources in the federation as well as to send contents near to the end-users. It also includes a redundancy layer based on a multi-threaded engine that enables the system to withstand failures in the federated network. We developed a prototype based on this scheme as a proof of concept. The experimental evaluation shows the benefits of building content delivery systems in federated cloud environments, in terms of performance, reliability and profitability of the storage space.The work presented in this paper has been partially supported by EU under the COST programme Action IC1305, Network for Sustainable Ultrascale Computing (NESUS)