210 research outputs found
Ground-source heat pumps and underground thermal energy storage: energy for the future
We need energy for space heating—but in most cases not where or when energy sources are available. Energy storage, which helps match energy supply and demand, has been practised for centuries, also in Norway. Energy storage systems will increase the potential of utilising renewable
energy sources such as geothermal energy, solar heat and waste heat. The most frequently-used storage technology for heat and ‘coolth’ is Underground Thermal Energy Storage (UTES). The ground has proved to be an ideal medium for storing heat and cold in large quantities and over several seasons or years. UTES systems in the Nordic countries are mostly used in combination with Ground-Source Heat Pumps (GSHP). Several different UTES systems have been developed
and tested. Two types of system, Aquifer (ATES) and borehole (BTES) storage, have had a general commercial breakthrough in the last decades in the Nordic countries. Today, about 15,000 GSHP systems exist in Norway extracting about 1.5 TWh heat from the ground. About 280 of the Norwegian GSHP installations are medium- to large-scale systems (> 50 kW) for commercial/public buildings and for multi-family dwellings. The two largest closed-loop GSHP systems in Europe, using boreholes as ground heat exchangers, are located in Norway
Cluster evolution in steady-state two-phase flow in porous media
We report numerical studies of the cluster development of two-phase flow in a
steady-state environment of porous media. This is done by including biperiodic
boundary conditions in a two-dimensional flow simulator. Initial transients of
wetting and non-wetting phases that evolve before steady-state has occurred,
undergo a cross-over where every initial patterns are broken up. For flow
dominated by capillary effects with capillary numbers in order of , we
find that around a critical saturation of non-wetting fluid the non-wetting
clusters of size have a power-law distribution with
the exponent for large clusters. This is a lower value
than the result for ordinary percolation. We also present scaling relation and
time evolution of the structure and global pressure.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures. Minor corrections. Accepted for publication in
Phys. Rev.
Dynamical brittle fractures of nanocrystalline silicon using large-scale electronic structure calculations
A hybrid scheme between large-scale electronic structure calculations is
developed and applied to nanocrystalline silicon with more than 10 atoms.
Dynamical fracture processes are simulated under external loads in the [001]
direction. We shows that the fracture propagates anisotropically on the (001)
plane and reconstructed surfaces appear with asymmetric dimers. Step structures
are formed in larger systems, which is understood as the beginning of a
crossover between nanoscale and macroscale samples.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure
Ions Accelerated by Sounder-Plasma Interaction as Observed by Mars Express
The ion sensor of the Analyzer of Space Plasmas and Energetic Atoms (ASPERA-3) experiment detects accelerated ions during pulses of radio emissions from the powerful topside sounder: the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) onboard Mars Express. Accelerated ions (O+2, O+, and lighter ions) are observed in an energy range up to 800Â eV when MARSIS transmits at a frequency close to the plasma frequency. Individual observations consist of almost monoenergetic ion beams aligned with the MARSIS antenna or lying in the plane perpendicular to the antenna. The observed ion beams are often accompanied by a small decrease in the electron flux observed by the electron sensor of Analyzer of Space Plasmas and Energetic Atoms 3. Observations indicate that the voltage applied to the antenna causes charging of the spacecraft to several hundreds of volts by the electrons of the ambient plasma. Positively charged ions are accelerated when the spacecraft discharges
Reconstruction and thermal stability of the cubic SiC(001) surfaces
The (001) surfaces of cubic SiC were investigated with ab-initio molecular
dynamics simulations. We show that C-terminated surfaces can have different
c(2x2) and p(2x1) reconstructions, depending on preparation conditions and
thermal treatment, and we suggest experimental probes to identify the various
reconstructed geometries. Furthermore we show that Si-terminated surfaces
exhibit a p(2x1) reconstruction at T=0, whereas above room temperature they
oscillate between a dimer row and an ideal geometry below 500 K, and sample
several patterns including a c(4x2) above 500 K.Comment: 12 pages, RevTeX, figures 1 and 2 available in gif form at
http://irrmawww.epfl.ch/fg/sic/fig1.gif and
http://irrmawww.epfl.ch/fg/sic/fig2.gi
Krylov Subspace Method for Molecular Dynamics Simulation based on Large-Scale Electronic Structure Theory
For large scale electronic structure calculation, the Krylov subspace method
is introduced to calculate the one-body density matrix instead of the
eigenstates of given Hamiltonian. This method provides an efficient way to
extract the essential character of the Hamiltonian within a limited number of
basis set. Its validation is confirmed by the convergence property of the
density matrix within the subspace. The following quantities are calculated;
energy, force, density of states, and energy spectrum. Molecular dynamics
simulation of Si(001) surface reconstruction is examined as an example, and the
results reproduce the mechanism of asymmetric surface dimer.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures; corrected typos; to be published in Journal of
the Phys. Soc. of Japa
Te covered Si(001): a variable surface reconstruction
At a given temperature, clean and adatom covered silicon surfaces usually
exhibit well-defined reconstruction patterns. Our finite temperature ab-initio
molecular dynamics calculations show that the tellurium covered Si(001) surface
is an exception. Soft longitudinal modes of surface phonons due to the strongly
anharmonic potential of the bridged tellurium atoms prevent the reconstruction
structure from attaining any permanent, two dimensional periodic geometry. This
explains why experiments attempting to find a definite model for the
reconstruction have reached conflicting conclusions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 gif figure
Study of a Nonlocal Density scheme for electronic--structure calculations
An exchange-correlation energy functional beyond the local density
approximation, based on the exchange-correlation kernel of the homogeneous
electron gas and originally introduced by Kohn and Sham, is considered for
electronic structure calculations of semiconductors and atoms. Calculations are
carried out for diamond, silicon, silicon carbide and gallium arsenide. The
lattice constants and gaps show a small improvement with respect to the LDA
results.
However, the corresponding corrections to the total energy of the isolated
atoms are not large enough to yield a substantial improvement for the cohesive
energy of solids, which remains hence overestimated as in the LDA.Comment: 4 postscript figure
Transient Foreshock Structures Upstream of Mars: Implications of the Small Martian Bow Shock
We characterize the nature of magnetic structures in the foreshock region of
Mars associated with discontinuities in the solar wind. The structures form at
the upstream edge of moving foreshocks caused by slow rotations in the
interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). The solar wind plasma density and the IMF
strength noticeably decrease inside the structures' core, and a compressional
shock layer is present at their sunward side, making them consistent with
foreshock bubbles (FBs). Ion populations responsible for these structures
include backstreaming ions that only appear within the moving foreshock, and
accelerated reflected ions from the quasi-perpendicular bow shock. Both ion
populations accumulate near the upstream edge of the moving foreshock which
facilitates FB formation. Reflected ions with hybrid trajectories that straddle
between the quasi-perpendicular and quasi-parallel bow shocks during slow IMF
rotations contribute to formation of foreshock transients.Comment: Submitted to Geophysical Research Letter
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