29,655 research outputs found
Modeling and simulation of micro direct methanol Fuel Cells
Fuel cells have unique technological attributes: efficiency, absence of moving parts and low emissions. The Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC) has attracted much attention due to its potential applications as a power source for transportation and portable electronic devices. With the advance of micromachining technologies, miniaturization of power sources became one of the trends of evolution of research in this area. Based on the advantages of the scaling laws, miniaturization promises higher efficiency and performance of power generating devices, so, MicroDMFC is an emergent technology. Models play an important role in fuel cell development since they facilitate a better understanding of parameters affecting the performance of fuel cells. In this work, a steady state, one-dimensional model accounting for coupled heat and mass transfer, along with the electrochemical reactions occurring in a fuel cell, already developed and validated for DMFC in [1-3], is used to predict Micro DMFC performance. The model takes in account all relevant phenomena occurring in a DMFC. Polarization curves predicted by the model are compared with experimental data existing in literature and the model shows good agreement, mainly for lower current densities. The model is used to predict some important parameters to analyze fuel cell performance, such as water transport coefficient and leakage current density. This easily to implement simplified model is suitable for use in real-time MicroDMFC simulations
Ising Ferromagnet: Zero-Temperature Dynamic Evolution
The dynamic evolution at zero temperature of a uniform Ising ferromagnet on a
square lattice is followed by Monte Carlo computer simulations. The system
always eventually reaches a final, absorbing state, which sometimes coincides
with a ground state (all spins parallel), and sometimes does not (parallel
stripes of spins up and down). We initiate here the numerical study of
``Chaotic Time Dependence'' (CTD) by seeing how much information about the
final state is predictable from the randomly generated quenched initial state.
CTD was originally proposed to explain how nonequilibrium spin glasses could
manifest equilibrium pure state structure, but in simpler systems such as
homogeneous ferromagnets it is closely related to long-term predictability and
our results suggest that CTD might indeed occur in the infinite volume limit.Comment: 14 pages, Latex with 8 EPS figure
Plasmon polaritons in photonic superlattices containing a left-handed material
We analyze one-dimensional photonic superlattices which alternate layers of
air and a left-handed material. We assume Drude-type dispersive responses for
the dielectric permittivity and magnetic permeability of the left-handed
material. Maxwell's equations and the transfer-matrix technique are used to
derive the dispersion relation for the propagation of obliquely incident
optical fields. The photonic dispersion indicates that the growth-direction
component of the electric (or magnetic) field leads to the propagation of
electric (or magnetic) plasmon polaritons, for either TE or TM configurations.
Furthermore, we show that if the plasma frequency is chosen within the photonic
zeroth-order bandgap, the coupling of light with plasmons
weakens considerably. As light propagation is forbidden in that particular
frequency region, the plasmon-polariton mode reduces to a pure plasmon mode.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Does Good Mutation Help You Live Longer?
We study the dynamics of an age-structured population in which the life
expectancy of an offspring may be mutated with respect to that of its parent.
When advantageous mutation is favored, the average fitness of the population
grows linearly with time , while in the opposite case the average fitness is
constant. For no mutational bias, the average fitness grows as t^{2/3}. The
average age of the population remains finite in all cases and paradoxically is
a decreasing function of the overall population fitness.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, RevTeX revised version, to appear in Phys. Rev.
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Broad histogram relation for the bond number and its applications
We discuss Monte Carlo methods based on the cluster (graph) representation
for spin models. We derive a rigorous broad histogram relation (BHR) for the
bond number; a counterpart for the energy was derived by Oliveira previously. A
Monte Carlo dynamics based on the number of potential moves for the bond number
is proposed. We show the efficiency of the BHR for the bond number in
calculating the density of states and other physical quantities.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figure
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