Design optimisation of air-fed full pressurised suits

This article is a post-print version of the published article which may be accessed at the link below.The JET machine and associated facilities require significant maintenance and enhancement installation activities in support of the experimental exploitation programme. A proportion of these activities are within radiological and respiratory hazardous environments. As such, breathing air-fed one-piece pressurised suits provide workers with protection from the inhalation of both airborne tritium and beryllium dust. The design of these suits has essentially developed empirically. There is a practical necessity to improve the design to optimise worker performance, protection and thermal comfort. This paper details the complexity of modeling the three-dimensional thermofluid domain between the inner surface of the suit and under garments that includes mass as well as heat transfer, suiting geometry, human metabolism and respiration and effects of limb movements. The methods used include computational fluid dynamics (CFD), theoretical adaptations of mixed-phase turbulent flow, profile scanning of a suit and actuating life size mannequin and data processing of the images and experimental validation trials. The achievements of the current programme and collaborations are presented in the paper and future endeavors are discussed.The author gratefully acknowledges the loan of the articulated mannequin from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratories. This work was funded jointly by EPSRC and by the European Communities under the contract of Association between EURATOM and UKAEA. The views and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect those of the European Commission. This work was carried out within the framework of EFDA

Partial CFD models of cardiovascular stents

Copyright @ 2002 Wiley BlackwellThis paper outlines the use of a partial CFD stent model in order to improve discretisation of important small features. The effects of mesh size on the performance measure are investigated. The results are compared with those from full models and also comparisons with clinical trials are made. It is shown that partial models provide a better approximation to reality than full models when using modest PC workstation resources. The general conclusion is that computer-based design of medical devices must take into account the variations in geometry between patients by means of, for example, a flat performance curve against noise

Detection of the first X-ray selected large AGN group

We have examined the spatial distribution of 856 AGN detected by the ROSAT All-Sky Survey (RASS) using a direct search for structures with the minimal spanning tree. The AGNs were compiled from an area of 7000 deg^2, in which optical identifications of RASS sources were made with the help of the digitized objective prism plates of the Hamburg Quasar Survey (HQS). Redshifts were taken from the literature or from own follow-up observations. The sample probes the spatial distribution at low redshifts, since the redshift distribution peaks at z=0.1. The application of the minimal spanning tree led to a 1.8 sigma discovery of an AGN group with 7 members in a volume V=140*75*75 h^-3Mpc^3 in the Pisces constellation. With a mean redshift z=0.27 this group is only the third discovered group at redshifts z<0.5. The RASS offers excellent possibilities to study large scale structure with AGNs at low redshifts, once these redshifts are determined.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

Genetic algorithm search for stent design improvements

Copyright @ 2002 SpringerThis paper presents an optimisation process for finding improved stent design using Genetic Algorithms. An optimisation criterion based on dissipated power is used which fits with the accepted principle that arterial flows follow a minimum energy loss. The GA shows good convergence and the solution found exhibits improved performance over proprietary designs used for comparison purposes

Growth and electronic structure of graphene on semiconducting Ge(110)

The direct growth of graphene on semiconducting or insulating substrates might help to overcome main drawbacks of metal-based synthesis, like metal-atom contaminations of graphene, transfer issues, etc. Here we present the growth of graphene on n-doped semiconducting Ge(110) by using an atomic carbon source and the study of the structural and electronic properties of the obtained interface. We found that graphene interacts weakly with the underlying Ge(110) substrate that keeps graphene's electronic structure almost intact promoting this interface for future graphene-semiconductor applications. The effect of dopants in Ge on the electronic properties of graphene is also discussed.Comment: submitted on 06.04.201

Blade row dynamic digital compressor program. Volume 1: J85 clean inlet flow and parallel compressor models

The results are presented of a one-dimensional dynamic digital blade row compressor model study of a J85-13 engine operating with uniform and with circumferentially distorted inlet flow. Details of the geometry and the derived blade row characteristics used to simulate the clean inlet performance are given. A stability criterion based upon the self developing unsteady internal flows near surge provided an accurate determination of the clean inlet surge line. The basic model was modified to include an arbitrary extent multi-sector parallel compressor configuration for investigating 180 deg 1/rev total pressure, total temperature, and combined total pressure and total temperature distortions. The combined distortions included opposed, coincident, and 90 deg overlapped patterns. The predicted losses in surge pressure ratio matched the measured data trends at all speeds and gave accurate predictions at high corrected speeds where the slope of the speed lines approached the vertical

A thermo-fluid model for protective suiting used in fusion reactor shutdown operations

In this paper we report a method of modelling the overall thermo-fluid processes which occur in protective suiting as used in the Joint European Torus (JET) fusion reactor at Culham, UK. It had three main objectives: to be as basic and comprehensive as possible, to have an ability to model real situations and suiting, and hence to provide a tool for improvements in design. Basic thermo-fluids equations for multi-component and multi-phase flow have been developed within commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software to address the heat and mass (moisture) transfer processes. This is combined with a human metabolic heat load model to simulate working operations. Finally, a particular feature is the definition of the 3-D human body/suit microclimate, via the use of an unsuited and suited mannequin. This involved a geometrical reconstruction method developed from the point cloud data given by photogrammetry. Examples of predicted temperature distributions are compared with experimental data to show the potential of the model we have used