5,042 research outputs found
Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Thermal Performance of a Crossed Compound Parabolic Concentrator with PV Cell
Crossed compound parabolic concentrator (CCPC) is a solar energy device used to increase the photovoltaic (PV) cell electrical power output. CCPCâs thermal and optical performance issues are equally important for a PV cell or module to work under a favourable operating condition. However, most work to-date is emphasised on its optical performance paying a little attention to the thermal characteristics. In this contribution, we investigate the thermal performance of a CCPC with PV cell at four different beam incidences (0o, 10o, 20o, 30o and 40o). Initially, experiment is performed in the indoor PV laboratory at the University of Exeter with 1kW/m2 radiation intensity. 3D simulations are carried out to first validate the predicted data and then to characterise the overall performance. Results show that the temperature in the PV silicon layer is the highest at 0o and 30o, with the top glass cover of CCPC having the lowest temperature at all the incidences. The temperature and optical efficiency profiles at the various incidences predicted by simulation show very good agreement with the measurements, especially at 0o incidence. This study provides useful information for understanding the coupled optical-thermal performance of the CCPC with PV cell working at various conditions
Natural convective heat transfer in a walled CCPC with PV cell
The free convective heat transfer phenomenon in an isolated, walled CCPC with PV cell is studied experimentally at 1000 W/m2 irradiance and 28.5 °C ambient temperature as well as 0°, 10°, 20°, 30° and 40° incidences in indoor laboratory by using solar simulator. Then a series of numerical simulations are launched to estimate the CCPC natural heat transfer behaviour and optical performance based on steady heat transfer and laminar flow models with grey optical option. It is identified that the heat transfer and optical performances of CCPC are dependent on the incidence. Especially, the PV cell is subject to the highest temperature at an incidence less than 20°, and otherwise the top glass cover is with the highest temperature. The predicted temperatures, Nusselt numbers and heat loss ratios are consistent with the experimental observations basically, especially at the incidence less than 20° with (â10.1~+3) % error in temperature, (â35.6~+12.6) % in Nusselt number, and (â1.2~+20.5) % in CCPC wall heat loss ratio. The optical parameters predicted agree very well with the measurements. The heat loss from the CCPC walls accounts for nearly 60% of the total incoming solar irradiance and should be paid significant attention in the design of CCPC
Quantitying the Effects of Traffic Calming on Emissions Using on-road Measurement
The objective of this work was to determine the effect of
one form of traffic calming on emissions. Traffic calming
is aimed at reducing average vehicle speeds, especially
in residential neighborhoods, often using physical road
obstructions such as speed bumps, but it also results in
a higher number of acceleration/deceleration events
which in turn yield higher emissions. Testing was
undertaken by driving a warmed-up Euro-1 spark ignition
passenger car over a set of speed bumps on a level
road, and then comparing the emissions output to a noncalmed
level road negotiated smoothly at a similar
average speed. For the emissions measurements, a
novel method was utilized, whereby the vehicle was
fitted with a portable Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR)
spectrometer, capable of measuring up to 51 different
components in real-time on the road. The results
showed that increases in emissions were much greater
than was previously reported by other researchers using
different techniques. When traffic-calmed results were
compared to a smooth non-calmed road, there were
substantial increases in CO2 (90%), CO (117%), NOx
(195%) and THC (148%). These results form the basis
for a good argument against traffic calming using speed
bumps, especially for aggressive drivers. Slowing traffic
down with speed restrictions enforced by speed
cameras is a more environmentally friendly option
Evaluation of a FTIR Emission Measurement System for Legislated Emissions Using a SI Car
A series of chassis dynamometer test trials were
conducted to assess the performance of a Fourier
Transform Infra Red (FTIR) system developed for
on-road vehicle exhaust emissions measurements.
Trials used a EURO 1 emission compliant SI passenger
car which, alongside the FTIR, was instrumented to
allow the routine logging of engine speed, road speed,
throttle position, air-fuel ratio, air flow and fuel flow in
addition to engine, exhaust and catalyst temperatures.
The chassis dynamometer facility incorporated an
âindustry standardâ measurement system comprising
MEXA7400 gas analyzer and CVS bag sampling which
was the âbenchmarkâ for the evaluation of FTIR
legislated gas-phase emissions (CO, NOx, THC and
CO2) measurements.
Initial steady state measurements demonstrated strong
correlations for CO, NOx and THC (R2 of 0.99, 0.97
0.99, respectively) and a good correlation for CO2 (R2 =
0.92). Subsequent transient and total mass emissions
measurements from replicate samplings of four different
driving cycles (two standard cycles, FTP75 and NEDC,
and two novel cycles based on real-world data collected
in Leeds) also show good response of FTIR and
satisfied agreement between the FTIR and CVS bag
sampling measurements.
In general, the trial results demonstrate that the
on-board FTIR emission measurement system provides
reliable in-journey emissions data
Anemia Prevalence among Pregnant Women and Birth Weight in Five Areas in China
Objectives: To investigate the current prevalence of anemia among pregnant women in different areas of China and the association with birth weight and educational level. Methods: A total of 6,413 women aged 24-37 in the third trimester of pregnancy from five areas were randomly selected from all gravidas who gave birth in the hospitals from 1999 to 2003. Blood hemoglobin concentration (Hb) was measured by the cyanomethemoglobin method; Hb <110 g/l was considered as anemia. Results: The overall prevalence of anemia was 58.6%, ranging from 48.1 to 70.5% in the five areas. There was a significant difference in the prevalence of anemia between women who have mental jobs and those who have physical jobs (52.3 vs. 61.1%, p <0.01). The prevalence of anemia depended on the level of education: with 52.9, 62.4 and 66.5%, for college, secondary school and primary education, respectively, and the difference was statistically significant (p = 0.005). Results showed that higher birth weight was associated with Hb concentrations ranging from 90 to 140 g/l, whereas lower birth weight occurred below 80 g/l and above 140 g/l Hb. Conclusions: The prevalence of anemia in Chinese pregnant women was high both in rural areas and towns. Area of residence, education level and type of job influenced the prevalence of anemia. Low maternal Hb concentrations influenced birth weight
Scaling of Island Growth in Pb Overlayers on Cu(001)
The growth and ordering of a Pb layer deposited on Cu(001) at 150 K has been
studied using atom beam scattering. At low coverage, ordered Pb islands with a
large square unit cell and nearly hexagonal internal structure are formed. This
is a high order commensurate phase with 30 atoms in the unit cell. From the
measurement of the island diffraction peak profiles we find a power law for the
mean island - size versus coverage with an exponent . A
scaling behavior of growth is confirmed and a simple model describing island
growth is presented. Due to the high degeneracy of the monolayer phase,
different islands do not diffract coherently. Therefore, when islands merge
they still diffract as separate islands and coalescence effects are thus
negligible. From the result for we conclude that the island density is
approximately a constant in the coverage range where the
ordered islands are observed. We thus conclude that most islands nucleate at
and then grow in an approximately self similar fashion as
increases.Comment: 23 pages, 10 Figures (available upon request). SU-PHYS-93-443-375
Mean flow and spiral defect chaos in Rayleigh-Benard convection
We describe a numerical procedure to construct a modified velocity field that
does not have any mean flow. Using this procedure, we present two results.
Firstly, we show that, in the absence of mean flow, spiral defect chaos
collapses to a stationary pattern comprising textures of stripes with angular
bends. The quenched patterns are characterized by mean wavenumbers that
approach those uniquely selected by focus-type singularities, which, in the
absence of mean flow, lie at the zig-zag instability boundary. The quenched
patterns also have larger correlation lengths and are comprised of rolls with
less curvature. Secondly, we describe how mean flow can contribute to the
commonly observed phenomenon of rolls terminating perpendicularly into lateral
walls. We show that, in the absence of mean flow, rolls begin to terminate into
lateral walls at an oblique angle. This obliqueness increases with Rayleigh
number.Comment: 14 pages, 19 figure
Modelling a real rockslide as a static-dynamic transition using a material instability criterion
747-757Failures at geological discontinuities often play a dominant role in the prediction of rockslides. In this study, a second order work criterion was used to analyze this type of problem by its constitutive instabilities, as it can expound all physical instabilities by divergence, except flutter instabilities. Derived from vanishing of the second order work, a matrix analysis focusing on the instability of geological discontinuities in two dimensions was performed. A real rockslide was simulated in a 2-D framework, and the second order work criterion was used to predict the occurrence of the rockslide. The numerical results were compared to monitoring data. Rockslides could be considered as processes involving a transition from a static loading to a dynamic response including a sudden burst of kinetic energy. Furthermore, a relationship existed between the second order work and second order kinetic energy. Hence, kinetic energy estimation was performed using two numerical approaches derived from this relationship and compared
corrections to polarized top decay into a charged Higgs
We calculate the radiative corrections to polarized top quark
decay into a charged Higgs boson and a massive bottom quark in two variants of
the two-Higgs-doublet model. The radiative corrections to the polarization
asymmetry of the decay may become as large as . We provide analytical
formulae for the unpolarized and polarized rates for and for . For our closed-form expressions for the unpolarized and
polarized rates become rather compact.Comment: 24 pages, 5 figures in the text, content modified, comments added,
appendices added, references updated, replaced with published versio
A novel robust disturbance rejection anti-windup framework
This is an Author's Original Manuscript of an article submitted for consideration in the International Journal of Control [copyright Taylor & Francis] and is available online at http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00207179.2010.542774In this article, we propose a novel anti-windup (AW) framework for coping with input saturation in the disturbance rejection problem of stable plant systems. This framework is based on the one developed by Weston and Postlethwaite (W&P) (Weston, P.F., and Postlethwaite, I. (2000), âLinear Conditioning for Systems Containing Saturating Actuatorsâ, Automatica, 36, 1347â1354). The new AW-design improves the disturbance rejection performance over the design framework usually suggested for the coprime-factorisation based W&P-approach. Performance improvement is achieved by explicitly incorporating a transfer function, which represents the effect of the disturbance on the nonlinear loop, into the AW compensator synthesis. An extra degree of freedom is exploited for the coprime factorisation, resulting in an implicitly computed multivariable algebraic loop for the AW-implementation. Suggestions are made to overcome the algebraic loop problem via explicit computation. Furthermore, paralleling the results of former work (Turner, M.C., Herrmann, G., and Postlethwaite, I. (2007), âIncorporating Robustness Requirements into Antiwindup Designâ, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 52, 1842â1855), the additive plant uncertainty is incorporated into the AW compensator synthesis, by using a novel augmentation for the disturbance rejection problem. In this new framework, it is shown that the internal model control (IMC) scheme is optimally robust, as was the case in Turner, Herrmann, and Postlethwaite (2007) and Zheng and Morari (Zheng, A., and Morari, M. (1994), âAnti-windup using Internal Model Controlâ, International Journal of Control, 60, 1015â1024). The new AW approach is applied to the control of dynamically substructured systems (DSS) subject to external excitation signals and actuator limits. The benefit of this approach is demonstrated in the simulations for a small-scale building mass damper DSS and a quasi-motorcycle DSS
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