47,258 research outputs found
Heat and electricity from the Sun using parabolic dish collector systems
Point focus distributed receiver solar thermal technology for the production of electric power and of industrial process heat is addressed. The thermal power systems project which emphasizes the development of cost effective systems which will accelerate the commercialization and industrialization of plants up to 10 MWe, using parabolic dish collectors is described. The projected size of the isolated load market in the 1990-2000 time period is 300 to 1000 MW/year. Although this market is small in comparison to the grid connected utility market, it is indicated that by assuming only a 20 percent market penetration, up to 10,000 power modules per year would be required to meet this need. At a production rate of 25,000 units/year and assuming no energy storage, levelized bus bar energy costs of 75 mills/kWeh are projected. These numbers are based on what is believed to be a conservative estimate regarding engine-generator conversion efficiency (40 percent) for the 1990 time period. With a more optimistic estimate of efficiency (i.e., 45 percent), the bus bar cost decreases to about 67 mills/kWeh. At very large production rates (400,000 modules/years), the costs decrease to 58 mills/kWeh. Finally, the present status of the technology development effort is discussed
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The Earth System Grid Federation: delivering globally accessible petascale data for CMIP5
Magnetocaloric effect in Gd/W thin film heterostructures
In an effort to understand the impact of nanostructuring on the
magnetocaloric effect, we have grown and studied gadolinium in MgO/W(50
)/[Gd(400 )/W(50 )]
heterostructures. The entropy change associated with the second order magnetic
phase transition was determined from the isothermal magnetization for numerous
temperatures and the appropriate Maxwell relation. The entropy change peaks at
a temperature of 284 K with a value of approximately 3.4 J/kg-K for a 0-30 kOe
field change; the full width at half max of the entropy change peak is about 70
K, which is significantly wider than that of bulk Gd under similar conditions.
The relative cooling power of this nanoscale system is about 240 J/kg, somewhat
lower than that of bulk Gd (410 J/kg). An iterative Kovel-Fisher method was
used to determine the critical exponents governing the phase transition to be
, and . Along with a suppressed Curie temperature
relative to the bulk, the fact that the convergent value of is that
predicted by the 2-D Ising model may suggest that finite size effects play an
important role in this system. Together, these observations suggest that
nanostructuring may be a promising route to tailoring the magnetocaloric
response of materials
Vortex Loop Phase Transitions in Liquid Helium, Cosmic Strings, and High-T_c Superconductors
The distribution of thermally excited vortex loops near a superfluid phase
transition is calculated from a renormalized theory. The number density of
loops with a given perimeter is found to change from exponential decay with
increasing perimeter to algebraic decay as T_c is approached, in agreement with
recent simulations of both cosmic strings and high-T_c superconductors.
Predictions of the value of the exponent of the algebraic decay at T_c and of
critical behavior in the vortex density are confirmed by the simulations,
giving strong support to the vortex-folding model proposed by Shenoy.Comment: Version to appear in Phys. Rev. Lett, with a number of corrections
and addition
An annotated bibliography of the genus Glischrochilus Reitter (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae, Cryptarchinae)
Exploring DCO as a tracer of thermal inversion in the disk around the Herbig Ae star HD163296
We aim to reproduce the DCO emission in the disk around HD163296 using a
simple 2D chemical model for the formation of DCO through the cold
deuteration channel and a parametric treatment of the warm deuteration channel.
We use data from ALMA in band 6 to obtain a resolved spectral imaging data cube
of the DCO =3--2 line in HD163296 with a synthesized beam of
0."53 0."42. We adopt a physical structure of the disk from the
literature that reproduces the spectral energy distribution. We then apply a
simplified chemical network for the formation of DCO that uses the physical
structure of the disk as parameters along with a CO abundance profile, a
constant HD abundance and a constant ionization rate. Finally, from the
resulting DCO abundances, we calculate the non-LTE emission using the 3D
radiative transfer code LIME. The observed DCO emission is reproduced by a
model with cold deuteration producing abundances up to .
Warm deuteration, at a constant abundance of , becomes
fully effective below 32 K and tapers off at higher temperatures, reproducing
the lack of DCO inside 90 AU. Throughout the DCO emitting zone a CO
abundance of is found, with 99\% of it frozen out below
19 K. At radii where both cold and warm deuteration are active, warm
deuteration contributes up to 20\% of DCO, consistent with detailed
chemical models. The decrease of DCO at large radii is attributed to a
temperature inversion at 250 AU, which raises temperatures above values where
cold deuteration operates. Increased photodesorption may also limit the radial
extent of DCO. The corresponding return of the DCO layer to the
midplane, together with a radially increasing ionization fraction, reproduces
the local DCO emission maximum at 260 AU.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted 7th July 201
Hydrogen production by sorption-enhanced steam reforming of glycerol
Catalytic steam reforming of glycerol for H(2) production has been evaluated experimentally in a continuous flow fixed-bed reactor. The experiments were carried out under atmospheric pressure within a temperature range of 400-700 degrees C. A commercial Ni-based catalyst and a dolomite sorbent were used for the steam reforming reactions and in situ CO(2) removal. The product gases were measured by on-line gas analysers. The results show that H(2) productivity is greatly increased with increasing temperature and the formation of methane by-product becomes negligible above 500 degrees C. The results suggest an optimal temperature of approximately 500 degrees C for the glycerol steam reforming with in situ CO(2) removal using calcined dolomite as the sorbent, at which the CO(2) breakthrough time is longest and the H(2) purity is highest. The shrinking core model and the 1D-diffusion model describe well the CO(2) removal under the conditions of this work
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