Optimisation of multiple encapsulated electrode plasma actuator

The standard dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator, in which an asymmetric arrangement of electrodes leads to momentum coupling into the surrounding air, has already demonstrated its capability for flow control. The new design of such an actuator exploits the multi-encapsulated electrodes to produce higher velocities providing more momentum into the background air. As the number of encapsulated electrodes increases and other variables such as the driving frequency and voltage amplitude are considered, finding the optimum actuator configuration for increasing the induced velocity becomes a challenge. Specially the task is prohibitive if it is implemented on an ad hoc basis. This paper uses D-optimal design to identify a handful of experiments, for which the velocity is obtained by Particle Imaging Velocimetry measurement. Afterwards, the velocity is modelled through a surrogate modelling practice, and the model is validated both experimentally and statistically. To find the optimum actuator configuration, numerical optimisation is conducted and the results are investigated through experiment. The results show that the surrogate modelling approach provides a cheap and yet efficient method for systematically investigating the effect of different parameters on the performance of the plasma actuator. © 2012 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS

Square cyclone separator: performance analysis optimization and operating condition variations using CFD-DPM and Taguchi method

The square cyclone separator is an efficient separation device for high-temperature gas within Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) boilers. Additionally, other operating factors such as particle loading and gas velocity are frequently thought to have considerable influence on fluid flow in gas cyclones, making parameter optimization essential. Finding the most suitable operating configuration can be challenging because of a fundamental understanding of the operating principles, which has yet to be taken into consideration in the literature. The gas flow inside a square cyclone was analyzed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for investigating parameters including particle mass flow rate, inlet velocity, inlet temperature, and turbulent intensity in this research. The Taguchi method was utilized as a Design of Experiment (DoE) methodology to maximize separation efficiency. The Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted to evaluate the relative contribution of each parameter to the performance of the gas cyclone, while the Unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations were solved using the Eulerian-Lagrangian approach to represent particle movement. Also, Discrete Random Walk (DRW) was incorporated to account for velocity fluctuation. According to a Taguchi analysis, particle mass flow rate is the parameter that has the least impact on cyclone performance, whereas inlet velocity has the most contribution. From the different range of factors examined here, it is proved that the optimal levels of factors for inlet velocity, inlet temperature, particle mass flow rate, and turbulent intensity are, respectively, 20 m/s, 300 K, 180 g/min, and 4%

Nanosecond-pulsed DBD plasma treatment on human leukaemia Jurkat cells and monoblastic U937 cells in vitro

Plasma therapy offers an exciting and novel way of cancer treatment. Specifically, it is shown that Jurkat death rates are closely governed by the plasma treatment time. However, apart from time, alterations to different parameters of treatment process may yield better results. Here, Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) reactors excited by a nanosecond-pulse energy source are used to investigate cell viability for longer exposure times as well as the effects of polarity of reactor on treatment. Plasma discharge regimes are discussed and assessed using imaging and thermal imaging methods. We found that by changing the polarity of reactor i.e. changing the direction of plasma discharge, the plasma discharge regime changes influencing directly the effectiveness of treatment. Our results showed that ns-DBD− reactor could induce both apoptosis and necrosis of human Jurkat and U937 cells, and this cytotoxic effect of plasma was not completely antagonized by N-acetyl cysteine. It indicates that plasma could induce ROS-independent cell death. Gene expression analyses revealed that p53, BAD, BID and caspase 9 may play vital roles in plasma caused cell death. In addition, our findings demonstrate how different parameters can influence the effectiveness of our reactors. Our assay reveals the custom ability nature of plasma reactors for hematologic cancer therapy and our findings can be used for further development of such reactors using multi-objective optimisation techniques

Agent based modelling for water resource allocation in the transboundary Nile river

© 2016 by the authors.Water resource allocation is the process of assessing and determining a mechanism on how water should be distributed among different regions, sectors and users. Over the recent decades, the optimal solution for water resource allocation has been explored both in centralised and decentralised mechanisms. Conventional approaches are under central planner suggesting a solution which maximises total welfare to the users. Moving towards the decentralised modelling, the techniques consider individuals as if they act selfishly in their own favour. While central planner provides an efficient solution, it may not be acceptable for some selfish agents. The contrary is true as well in decentralised solution, where the solution lacks efficiency leading to an inefficient usage of provided resources. This paper develops a parallel evolutionary search algorithm to introduce a mechanism in re-distributing the central planner revenue value among the competing agents based on their contribution to the central solution. The result maintains the efficiency and is used as an incentive for calculating a fair revenue for each agent. The framework is demonstrated and discussed to allocate water resources along the Nile river basin, where there exist eleven competing users represented as agents in various sectors with upstream-downstream relationships and different water demands and availability

Influence of shock wave propagation on dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuator performance

Interest in plasma actuators as active flow control devices is growing rapidly due to their lack of mechanical parts, light weight and high response frequency. Although the flow induced by these actuators has received much attention, the effect that the external flow has on the performance of the actuator itself must also be considered, especially the influence of unsteady high-speed flows which are fast becoming a norm in the operating flight envelopes. The primary objective of this study is to examine the characteristics of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma actuator when exposed to an unsteady flow generated by a shock tube. This type of flow, which is often used in different studies, contains a range of flow regimes from sudden pressure and density changes to relatively uniform high-speed flow regions. A small circular shock tube is employed along with the schlieren photography technique to visualize the flow. The voltage and current traces of the plasma actuator are monitored throughout, and using the well-established shock tube theory the change in the actuator characteristics are related to the physical processes which occur inside the shock tube. The results show that not only is the shear layer outside of the shock tube affected by the plasma but the passage of the shock front and high-speed flow behind it also greatly influences the properties of the plasma

An evolutionary approach to solve a system of multiple interrelated agent problems

Deterministic approaches to simultaneously solve different interrelated optimisation problems lead to a general class of nonlinear complementarity problem (NCP). Due to differentiability and convexity requirements of the problems, sophisticated algorithms are introduced in literature. This paper develops an evolutionary algorithm to solve the NCPs. The proposed approach is a parallel search in which multiple populations representing different agents evolve simultaneously whilst in contact with each other. In this context, each agent autonomously solves its optimisation programme while sharing its decisions with the neighbouring agents and, hence, it affects their actions. The framework is applied to an environmental and an aerospace application where the obtained results are compared with those found in literature. The convergence and scalability of the approach is tested and its search algorithm performance is analysed. Results encourage the application of such an evolutionary based algorithm for complementarity problems and future work should investigate its development as well as its performance improvements