Military markets for solar thermal electric power systems

The Department of Defense maintains an inventory of over 1,800 MW of engine-generators 15 KW and larger, with an estimated procurement rate of over 140 MW/year. Nearly the entire requirement could be met by advanced heat engines of the types being developed as point-focussing, distributed receiver power plants. A conceptual system consisting of a heat engine which efficiently burns liquid fossil or synthetic fuels, with a 'solarization kit' for conversion to hybrid solar operation could meet existing DOD requirements for new systems which are quieter, lighter, and multi-fueled. An estimated 24 percent (33 MW/year) or more could operationally benefit from the solar option. Baseline cost projections indicate levelized energy cost goals of 210 to 120 mills/KWh (15 to 1000 KW systems). Fuel cost escalation is the major factor affecting the value of the solar option. A baseline calculation for fuel at $0.59/gal in spring, 1979, escalating at 8 percent above general inflation indicates a value of$2700/KWe for a solarization kit

USAF solar thermal applications overview

Process heat applications were compared to solar thermal technologies. The generic process heat applications were analyzed for solar thermal technology utilization, using SERI's PROSYS/ECONOMAT model in an end use matching analysis and a separate analysis was made for solar ponds. Solar technologies appear attractive in a large number of applications. Low temperature applications at sites with high insolation and high fuel costs were found to be most attractive. No one solar thermal technology emerges as a clearly universal or preferred technology, however,, solar ponds offer a potential high payoff in a few, selected applications. It was shown that troughs and flat plate systems are cost effective in a large number of applications

A Fresnel collector process heat experiment at Capitol Concrete Products

An experiment is planned, conducted and evaluated to determine the feasibility of using a Power Kinetics' Fresnel concentrator to provide process heat in an industrial environment. The plant provides process steam at 50 to 60 psig to two autoclaves for curing masonry blocks. When steam is not required, the plant preheats hot water for later use. A second system is installed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory parabolic dish test site for hardware validation and experiment control. Experiment design allows for the extrapolation of results to varying demands for steam and hot water, and includes a consideration of some socio-technical factors such as the impact on production scheduling of diurnal variations in energy availability

Liquid-Gas Phase Transition in Nuclear Equation of State

A canonical ensemble model is used to describe a caloric curve of nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. Allowing a discontinuity in the freeze out density from one spinodal density to another for a given initial temperature, the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition can be described as first order. Averaging over various freeze out densities of all the possible initial temperatures for a given total reaction energy, the first order characteristics of liquid-gas phase transition is smeared out to a smooth transition. Two experiments, one at low beam energy and one at high beam energy show different caloric behaviors and are discussed.Comment: 12 pages in Revtex including two Postscript figure

Temperature determination from the lattice gas model

Determination of temperature from experimental data has become important in searches for critical phenomena in heavy ion collisions. Widely used methods are ratios of isotopes (which rely on chemical and thermal equilibrium), population ratios of excited states etc. Using the lattice gas model we propose a new observable: $n_{ch}/Z$ where $n_{ch}$ is the charge multiplicity and $Z$ is the charge of the fragmenting system. We show that the reduced multiplicity is a good measure of the average temperature of the fragmenting system.Comment: 11 pages, 2 ps file

An investigation of standard thermodynamic quantities as determined via models of nuclear multifragmentation

Both simple and sophisticated models are frequently used in an attempt to understand how real nuclei breakup when subjected to large excitation energies, a process known as nuclear multifragmentation. Many of these models assume equilibriumthermodynamics and produce results often interpreted as evidence of a phase transition. This work examines one class of models and employs standard thermodynamical procedure to explore the possible existence and nature of a phase transition. The role of various terms, e.g. Coulomb and surface energy, is discussed.Comment: 19 two-column format pages with 24 figure

Effect of Flow on Caloric Curve for Finite Nuclei

In a finite temperature Thomas-Fermi theory, we construct caloric curves for finite nuclei enclosed in a freeze-out volume few times the normal nuclear volume, with and without inclusion of flow. Without flow, the caloric curve indicates a smooth liquid-gas phase transition whereas with flow, the transition may be very sharp. We discuss these results in the context of two recent experiments, one for heavy symmetric system (Au + Au at 600A MeV) and the other for highly asymmetric system (Au + C at 1A GeV) where different behaviours in the caloric curves are seen.Comment: 11 pages revtex; 4 figs; version to appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Isotope thermometery in nuclear multifragmentation

A systematic study of the effect of fragment$-$fragment interaction, quantum statistics, $\gamma$-feeding and collective flow is made in the extraction of the nuclear temperature from the double ratio of the isotopic yields in the statistical model of one-step (Prompt) multifragmentation. Temperature is also extracted from the isotope yield ratios generated in the sequential binary-decay model. Comparison of the thermodynamic temperature with the extracted temperatures for different isotope ratios show some anomaly in both models which is discussed in the context of experimentally measured caloric curves.Comment: uuencoded gzipped file containing 20 pages of text in REVTEX format and 12 figures (Postscript files). Physical Review C (in press

Caloric Curves and Nuclear Expansion

Nuclear caloric curves have been analyzed using an expanding Fermi gas hypothesis to extract average nuclear densities. In this approach the observed flattening of the caloric curves reflects progressively increasing expansion with increasing excitation energy. This expansion results in a corresponding decrease in the density and Fermi energy of the excited system. For nuclei of medium to heavy mass apparent densities ~ 0.4 rho_0 are reached at the higher excitation energies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Microcanonical studies concerning the recent experimental evaluations of the nuclear caloric curve

The microcanonical multifragmentation model from [Al. H. Raduta and Ad. R. Raduta, Phys. Rev. C 55, 1344 (1997); 56, 2059 (1997); 59, 323 (1999)] is refined and improved by taking into account the experimental discrete levels for fragments with $A \le 6$ and by including the stage of sequential decay of the primary excited fragments. The caloric curve is reevaluated and the heat capacity at constant volume curve is represented as a function of excitation energy and temperature. The sequence of equilibrated sources formed in the reactions studied by the ALADIN group ($^{197}$Au+$^{197}$Au at 600, 800 and 1000 MeV/nucleon bombarding energy) is deduced by fitting simultaneously the model predicted mean multiplicity of intermediate mass fragments ($M_{IMF}$) and charge asymmetry of the two largest fragments ($a_{12}$) versus bound charge ($Z_{bound}$) on the corresponding experimental data. Calculated HeLi isotopic temperature curves as a function of the bound charge are compared with the experimentally deduced ones.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure