Fonctions élémentaires sur GPU exploitant la localité de valeurs

National audienceLes processeurs graphiques sont de puissants coprocesseurs SIMD dédiés au traitement du parallélisme de donnée issue d'application multimédia ou du domaine du calcul généraliste sur processeur graphique (GPGPU). Ces processeurs intègrent différentes unités spécialisées dupliquées de nombreuses fois. Parmi ces unités spécialisées, on retrouve les unités d'évaluation de fonctions de base (inverse, inverse de la racine carrée, exponentielle, fonctions trigonométriques. . . ). L'objectif de cet article est de proposer une modification architecturale destinée à réduire la surface totale occupée par ces unités tout en conservant des performances comparables. Cette modification exploite la localité de valeurs dans un contexte d'exécution SIMD pour partager les tables nécessaires. Deux versions sont proposées et testées : Un partage de table limité à chaque bloc SIMD et un partage global d'une table unique avec des caches partagés au niveau des blocs SIMD. Les tests sont menés à la fois sur les benchmarks classiques qui représentent le travail de développeurs experts et sur des simulations dans le domaine du développement durable qui représentent le travail d'utilisateurs d'outils intégrés. Les traces d'exécution de ces derniers codes sont isponibles auprès des auteurs

Improvement of Borehole Thermal Energy Storage Design Based on Experimental and Modelling Results

International audienceUnderground Thermal Energy Storage appears to be an attractive solution for solar thermal energy storage. The SOLARGEOTHERM research project aimed to evaluate the energetic potential of borehole thermal energy storage by means of a full-scale experimental device and heat transfer models. Analysis of the experimental data showed that a single borehole is not efficient for storage. Models showed that the heat transfer fluid in the geothermal probe lost 15 per cent of its energy at a depth of 100 m and 25 per cent at 150 m. A relation was established that enables comparison of the storage characteristic time of any vertical BTES to an optimum one. Finally, guidelines are formulated to optimise the design of vertical borehole fields with an objective of inter-seasonal heat storage

Enhancement of hydrogen sorption in magnesium hydride using expanded graphite

International audienceMagnesium hydrogenation reaction being exothermic and limited by heat removal, the thermal conductivity of ball-milled magnesium hydride (BM MgH2) powders has to be improved. The compression of BM MgH2 associated to Expanded Natural Graphite (ENG) to form compacted disks has been investigated. Using BM MgH2 without ENG, its compression reduces the porosity and increases its volumetric hydrogen storage capacity. Incorporating ENG before compression drastically improves the thermal conductivity in the direction normal to compression axis. Moreover, the thermal conductivity increases linearly with ENG content, and can be adjusted to fulfill the loading time requirements. The thermodynamic properties and intrinsic sorption kinetics remain unchanged. However, both compression and ENG incorporation reduce the hydrogen permeability, especially in the direction parallel to the compression axis, which imposes a limit to the disk thickness. A small-size instrumented tank has been loaded with either pure BM MgH2 powder or with disks having different ENG contents. The results obtained for both cases are compared

Temperature dependence of thermal conductivity of vegetable oils for use in concentrated solar power plants, measured by 3omega hot wire method.

International audienceFollowing the growing need for innovative heat transfer fluids in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants, the thermal conductivities of different vegetable oils (rapeseed, soybean, sunflower, palm, copra, cotton and jatropha) were measured in the temperature range from ambient to 230 °C relative to a reference oil. The small differences in the obtained thermal conductivities are influenced by the fatty acid composition. For balanced saturated/unsaturated fatty acids composition, the average thermal conductivity decreases from 0.167 W m−1 K−1 at 20 °C to 0.137 W m−1 K−1 at 230 °C. The use of a reference synthetic oil makes the calibration of the thermal probe unnecessary. The used method is based on a hot wire thermal probe with ac excitation and 3ω lock-in detection and has a long-term relative error of 1.2% and absolute accuracy of 2%. It allows measuring in real-time, continuously and independently, the thermophysical properties of oils for thermal applications

Temperature dependence of thermophysical and rheological properties of seven vegetable oils in view of their use as heat transfer fluids in concentrated solar plants

International audienceSelecting a heat transfer fluid (HTF) depends on the value of thermophysical parameters. In response to the need for innovative heat transfer fluids in concentrated solar power (CSP) plants, vegetable oil offers a promising solution. The relevant thermophysical properties are density, thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity. Moreover, a rheological property, the dynamic viscosity is also relevant. The objective of this work was to study and compare these properties for seven different vegetable oils (rapeseed, soybean, sunflower, palm, copra, cotton and jatropha) in the temperature range from ambient to 250 °C. For all the properties studied, the values evolved with increasing temperature and were influenced by the fatty acid composition of each vegetable oil. Experimental results are compared with those in the literature and are found to be consistent. The temperature dependencies are correlated to temperature using polynomial equations. The correlations presented here may be useful as a database for the selection of innovative heat transfer fluids