Development of a CST system based on a solid particle receiver, optimised for commercialisation in the Australian market

This thesis explores a recently developed concentrated solar thermal (CST) central receiver technology, known as the solid particle receiver (SPR). Calculations of long and near term thermo-economic competitiveness for promising potential applications were preformed, for the first time within the Australian context. With these results, the most suitable SPR technology configurations and technical developments, required to reach the commercial potential, were identified. An innovative simulation tool which included a variety of different thermodynamic and economic models, was developed to compute the annual performance of solar SPR systems. This simulation tool was then applied to design and to optimise CST SPR tower systems based on hourly simulations utilising meteorological data, the NREL Solar Position Algorithm, solar field efficiency matrices generated by DLR software HFLCAL, as well as a mathematical SPR model for calculating receiver efficiency. The SPR model was calibrated using results from DLR receiver prototype tests. To allow economic assessment of the entire SPR system, a financial model was implemented within the tool and detailed CST component costs were generated. The optimisation process utilised in the CST tower system design is more detailed than typical for a research project, since it adds a new degree of freedom when optimising the receiver and solar field. By decoupling the connection between solar field and receiver, the energy delivered from the solar field relative to the design receiver power becomes an additional optimisation variable. Applications of SPR systems for electricity production and industrial process heat generation have been identified for the Australian market. Promising heat supply uses of SPR technology examined in this thesis were: thermal enhanced oil recovery, preheating scrap metal during steel production, and solar augmentation of coal-fired steam power stations. Before this project, there were no detailed investigations on utilising SPR based CST power plants in Australia. This thesis has identified several potential applications, the required sub-components and system integration methods which should be further developed for commercialisation of this solar technology in the Australian market

The Nonhuman Rights Project: Coming to a Country Near You

The Nonhuman Rights Project is challenging the “thinghood” of all nonhuman animals by demanding that courts declare such nonhuman animals as great apes, elephants, and cetaceans to be “legal persons,” who possess the fundamental right to bodily liberty that is protected by the common law writ of habeas corpus

The HiSCORE concept for gamma-ray and cosmic-ray astrophysics beyond 10\,TeV

Air-shower measurements in the primary energy range beyond 10 TeV can be used to address important questions of astroparticle and particle physics. The most prominent among these questions are the search for the origin of charged Galactic cosmic rays and the so-far little understood transition from Galactic to extra-galactic cosmic rays. A very promising avenue towards answering these fundamental questions is the construction of an air-shower detector with sufficient sensitivity for gamma-rays to identify the accelerators and large exposure to achieve accurate spectroscopy of local cosmic rays. With the new ground-based large-area (up to 100 square-km) wide-angle (Omega ~ 0.6-0.85 sr) air-shower detector concept HiSCORE (Hundred*i Square-km Cosmic ORigin Explorer), we aim at exploring the cosmic ray and gamma-ray sky (accelerator-sky) in the energy range from few 10s of TeV to 1 EeV using the non-imaging air-Cherenkov detection technique. The full detector simulation is presented here. The resulting sensitivity of a HiSCORE-type detector to gamma-rays will extend the energy range so far accessed by other experiments beyond energies of 50 - 100 TeV, thereby opening up the ultra high energy gamma-ray (UHE gamma-rays, E > 10 TeV) observation window.Comment: 31 pages, 15 figures, accepted by Astroparticle Physics, DOI information: 10.1016/j.astropartphys.2014.03.00

Measurement of Cosmic Ray Primary Energy with the Atmospheric Cherenkov Light Technique in Extensive Air Showers

The advantage and problems of the primary energy measurement using the Cherenkov light from extensive air showers are discussed. The problem of absolute energy calibration has been solved during the analysis of the data of complex QUEST experiment at the EAS-TOP array. The results of QUEST experiment has been used for the analysis of the data of pure Cherenkov light array Tunka

On the determination of the depth of EAS development maximum using the lateral distribution of Cerenkov light at distances 150 m from EAS axis

The Samarkand extensive air showers (EAS) array was used to measure the mean and individual lateral distribution functions (LDF) of EAS Cerenkov light. The analysis of the individual parameters b showed that the mean depth of EAS maximum and the variance of the depth distribution of maxima of EAS with energies of approx. 2x10 to the 15th power eV can properly be described in terms of Kaidalov-Martirosyan quark-gluon string model (QGSM)

The experimental cascade curves of EAS at E sub 0 10(17) eV obtained by the method of detection of Cherenkov pulse shape

The individual cascade curves of EAS with E sub 0 10 to the 17th power eV/I to 3/ were studied by detection of EAS Cherenkov light pulses. The scintillators located at the center of the Yakutsk EAS array within a 500-m radius circle were used to select the showers and to determine the main EAS parameters. The individual cascade curves N(t) were obtained using the EAS Cherenkov light pulses satisfying the following requirements: (1) the signal-to-noise ratio fm/delta sub n 15, (2) the EAS axis-detector distance tau sub 350 m, (3) the zenith angle theta 30 deg, (4) the probability for EAS to be detected by scintillators W 0.8. Condition (1) arises from the desire to reduce the amplitude distortion of Cherenkov pulses due to noise and determines the range of EAS sizes, N(t). The resolution times of the Cherenkov pulse shape detectors are tau sub 0 approx. 23 ns which results in distortion of a pulse during the process of the detection. The distortion of pulses due to the finiteness of tau sub 0 value was estimated. It is shown that the rise time of pulse becomes greater as tau sub 0.5/tau sub 0 ratio decreases