WILSON PLOT METHOD TO OBTAIN NUSSELT NUMBER FOR A PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER

Plate heat exchangers are devices commonly used in industry due to their high efficiency and ease cleaning. Although its first use was in food sector, nowadays this equipment can be found in most industrial segments, like chemistry and oil industry. Due the facility of fabrication, the corrugated gasket plate heat exchanger is amply utilized in those segments, however, its mathematical analysis present non-agreement between the authors, because of the different plate models and operation settings. Thus, the main objective of this work is to study the application of the Wilson-Plot method to analyze the thermal behavior of an elemental plate heat exchanger, and verify if the operation temperature has significant influence in the thermal behavior of the plate heat exchanger

Determination of the best empiric method to quantify the amplified spontaneous emission threshold in polymeric active waveguides

Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) threshold represents a crucial parameter often used to establish if a material is a good candidate for applications to lasers. Even if the ASE properties of conjugated polymers have been widely investigated, the specific literature is characterized by several methods to determine the ASE threshold, making comparison among the obtained values impossible. We quantitatively compare 9 different methods employed in literature to determine the ASE threshold, in order to find out the best candidate to determine the most accurate estimate of it. The experiment has been performed on thin films of an homopolymer, a copolymer and a host:guest polymer blend, namely poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (PFO), poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene-cobenzothiadiazole) (F8BT) and F8BT:poly(3- hexylthiophene) (F8BT:rrP3HT), applying the Variable Pump Intensity (VPI) and the Variable Stripe Length (VSL) methods. We demonstrate that, among all the spectral features affected by the presence of ASE, the most sensitive is the spectral linewidth and that the best way to estimate the ASE threshold is to determine the excitation density at the beginning of the line narrowing. We also show that the methods most frequently used in literature always overestimate the threshold up to more than one order of magnitude

Energy level decay processes in Ho3+-doped tellurite glass relevant to the 3-µm transition

The primary excited state decay processes relating to the 5I6 --> 5I7 at 2.9 um laser transition in singly Ho3+-doped tellurite (TZBG) glass have been investigated in detail using time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. Selective laser excitation of the 5I6 energy level at 1151 nm and 5I7 energy level at 1958 nm has established that the rate of energy transfer up-conversion between holmium ions excited to the 5I7 level is negligible for Ho3+ concentrations up to 4 mol. %. Excited state absorption was not observed from either the 5I7 or 5I6 levels and the luminescence from the 5I7 and 5I6 energy levels was measured to peak at 2050 nm and 2930 nm, respectively. The 5I6 level has a low luminescence efficiency of 8.9% due to strong nonradiative multiphonon relaxation. In contrast, decay from the 5I7 level is essentially fully radiative. A linear decrease in the decay time of the 5I6 level with Ho3+ concentration augmentation results from energy transfer to OH ions in the glass (with NOH=8.2x10^17 ions cm^-3) and reduces the luminescence efficiency of the 5I6 level to 8% for [Ho3+]=4 mol. %. Numerical simulation of a fiber laser incorporating 4 mol. % Ho3þ showed that a population inversion of 7.8% is reached for square pulses of 100 us duration and a repetition frequency of 20 Hz at a moderate pump intensity of 418 kW cm^-2 if energy transfer to OH- radicals is neglected

Design and manufacturing of a Nd-doped phosphate glass-based jewel

This paper reports the results of the designing, manufacturing and characterization of a jewel obtained by means of coupling the dogmas of industrial design to the analytical engineering approach. The key role in the design of the jewel was played by an in-house synthesized Neodymium (Nd)-doped phosphate glass, selected due to its easy handling and capability to change color according to the incident light wavelength. The glass core was covered by a metal alloy to mitigate its relatively high fragility and sensitivity to thermal shock and, at the same time, to highlight and preserve its beauty. The selection of the proper metal alloy, having thermo-mechanical properties compatible with those exhibited by the glass, was carried out by means of Ashby's maps, a powerful tool commonly adopted in the field of industrial design

New ZnO-based glass ceramic sensor for H2 and NO2 detection

In this study, a glass ceramic with a nominal composition 58ZnO:4Bi2O3:4WO3:33.3B2O3 was synthesized by melt quenching technique. A gas sensor was then manufactured using a ZnO sol-gel phase as a permanent binder of the glass–ceramic to an alumina substrate having interdigitated electrodes. The film sensitivity towards humidity, NH3, H2 and NO2 was studied at different temperatures. X-ray diffraction technique (XRD), field emission- scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and differential thermal analysis (DTA) were used to characterize the prepared material. Though the response in the sub-ppm NO2 concentration range was not explored, the observed results are comparable with the latest found in the literature

UAS FOR ARCHAEOLOGY. NEW PERSPECTIVES ON AERIAL DOCUMENTATION

In this work some Unmanned Aerial Systems applications are discussed and applied to archaeological sites survey and 3D model reconstructions. Interesting results are shown for three important and different aged sites on north Sardinia (Italy). An easy and simplified procedure has proposed permitting the adoption of multi-rotor aircrafts for daily archaeological survey during excavation and documentation, involving state of art in UAS design, flight control systems, high definition sensor cameras and innovative photogrammetric software tools. Very high quality 3D models results are shown and discussed and how they have been simplified the archaeologist work and decisions

Yb-doped phosphate double-cladding optical fiber laser for high-power applications

A Yb-doped phosphate glass double cladding optical fiber was prepared using a custom designed glass composition (P2O5 - Al2O3 - Li2O - B2O3 - BaO - PbO - La2O3) for high-power amplifier and laser applications. The preform drawing method was followed, with the preform being fabricated using the rotational casting technique. This technique, previously developed for tellurite, fluoride or chalcogenide glass preforms is reported for the first time using rare earth doped phosphate glasses. The main challenge was to design an adequate numerical aperture between first and second cladding while maintaining similar thermo-mechanical properties in view of the fiber drawing process. The preform used for the fiber drawing was produced by rod-in-tube technique at a rotation speed of 3000 rpm. The rotational casting technique allowed the manufacturing of an optical fiber featuring high quality interfaces between core and internal cladding and between the internal and external cladding, respectively. Loss attenuation was measured using the cut-back method and lasing was demonstrated at 1022 nm by core pumping with a fiber pigtailed laser diode at the wavelength of 976 n

Solid state hydrogen storage in alanates and alanate-based compounds: A review

The safest way to store hydrogen is in solid form, physically entrapped in molecular form in highly porous materials, or chemically bound in atomic form in hydrides. Among the different families of these compounds, alkaline and alkaline earth metals alumino-hydrides (alanates) have been regarded as promising storing media and have been extensively studied since 1997, when Bogdanovic and Schwickardi reported that Ti-doped sodium alanate could be reversibly dehydrogenated under moderate conditions. In this review, the preparative methods; the crystal structure; the physico-chemical and hydrogen absorption-desorption properties of the alanates of Li, Na, K, Ca, Mg, Y, Eu, and Sr; and of some of the most interesting multi-cation alanates will be summarized and discussed. The most promising alanate-based reactive hydride composite (RHC) systems developed in the last few years will also be described and commented on concerning their hydrogen absorption and desorption performance