Combustor flame flashback

A stainless steel, two-dimensional (rectangular), center-dump, premixed-prevaporized combustor with quartz window sidewalls for visual access was designed, built, and used to study flashback. A parametric study revealed that the flashback equivalence ratio decreased slightly as the inlet air temperature increased. It also indicated that the average premixer velocity and premixer wall temperature were not governing parameters of flashback. The steady-state velocity balance concept as the flashback mechanism was not supported. From visual observation several stages of burning were identified. High speed photography verified upstream flame propagation with the leading edge of the flame front near the premixer wall. Combustion instabilities (spontaneous pressure oscillations) were discovered during combustion at the dump plane and during flashback. The pressure oscillation frequency ranged from 40 to 80 Hz. The peak-to-peak amplitude (up to 1.4 psi) increased as the fuel/air equivalence ratio was increased attaining a maximum value just before flashback. The amplitude suddenly decreased when the flame stabilized in the premixer. The pressure oscillations were large enough to cause a local flow reversal. A simple test using ceramic fiber tufts indicated flow reversals existed at the premixer exit during flickering. It is suspected that flashback occurs through the premixer wall boundary layer flow reversal caused by combustion instability. A theoretical analysis of periodic flow in the premixing channel has been made. The theory supports the flow reversal mechanism

Metal-insulator transition in the quarter- filled frustrated checkerboard lattice

We study the electronic structure and correlations in the geometrically frustrated two dimensional checkerboard lattice. In the large U limit considered here we start from an extended Hubbard model of spinless fermions at half-filling. We investigate the model within two distinct Green's function approaches: In the first approach a single-site representation decoupling scheme is used that includes the effect of nearest neighbor charge fluctuations. In the second approach a cluster representation leading to a 'multiorbital' model is investigated which includes intra-cluster correlations exactly and those between clusters on a mean field basis. It is demonstrated that with increasing nearest-neighbor Coulomb interaction V both approaches lead to a metal-insulator transition with an associated 'Mott-Hubbard' like gap caused by V. Within the single site approach we also explore the possibility of charge order. Furthermore we investigate the evolution of the quasiparticle bands as funtion of V

Unsteady momentum fluxes in two-phase flow and the vibration of nuclear reactor components

The steady and unsteady components of the momentum flux in a twophase flow have been measured at the exit of a vertical pipe. Measured momentum flux data has been machine processed by standard random vibration techniques to obtain the power spectral density curves. From these curves, the predominant frequency and the rms value of the unsteady momentum flux have been obtained. The effects of the average flow velocity, volumetric quality, system pressure, flow channel size and geometry on the unsteady momentum fluxes have been observed. It has been found that the fluctuation of momentum fluxes is important only in the low frequency range. The maximum values of unsteady momentum fluxes appeared in either the high void slug flow or the low void annular flow regime. The experimental results have been correlated and suggestions have been made for constructing the power spectral density curve of momentum fluxes under untested conditions. In the sample problems, using the experimental results, the effect of the unsteady momentum fluxes on a steam generator U-tube and a reactor fuel rod has been studied. The amplitudes of the structural vibrations resulting from the two-phase excitation have been found. In addition, it has also been found that there is a possibility of unstable vibrations owing to a nonlinear restoring force on the mechanical system. This nonlinearity is due to the unsteady component of the momentum flux in the flow past the system. In both examples, the major vibrations occurred in a narrow frequency band around the natural frequency of the mechanical system.Sponsored by the U. S. Atomic Energy Commissio

The Measurement, interpretation and use of unsteady momentum fluxes in two-phase flow.

The steady and unsteady components of the momentum flux in a two-phase flow have been measured at the exit of a vertical pipe by means of an impulse technique using a turning tee and beam. Different electrical filters have been tried in the recording circuit for eliminating the signals around the natural frequency of the beam system. A special filter set has been designed to approximate the inverse of the transfer function of the beam system. Thus the signals recorded after passing through the beam-filter combination can be considered as the excitation times a constant. Two different analog methods have been used to analyze the random signals for obtaining some statistical quantities such as the predominant frequency and the rms value of the unsteady momentum flux. These quanities are useful in some applications involving two-phase flow. In the preliminary measurements of the unsteady momentum flux for the adiabatic up flow of an air-water mixture in a 5/8 inch pipe, the greatest unsteadiness of momentum flux appeared in the quality range of one per cent to six per cent. Above ten per cent quality no appreciable fluctuation has been detected. In an example problem, using the preliminary results, the effect of the unsteady momentum flux on a fuel rod has been studied. The amplitude of the vibrations resulting from the two-phase excitation has been found. In addition it has also been found that there is a possibility of unstable vibrations due to a nonlinear restoring force on the fuel element. This nonlinearity is due to the unsteady component of the momentum flux in the flow past the rod

Thin film refractive index and thickness

Integrated optics are a contemporaneous reality in which thin-film technology and methods utilized in the development of integrated circuitry, are applied to both optical circuits and devices. This provides systems that show improved characteristics when compared to their electronic counterparts. Optical systems enable wider bandwidth operation, less power consumption, more immunity to interference and higher cost-efficiency. These features definitely represent a huge improvement in our daily lives when completely embedded in Information and Communications Technologies, replacing a large percentage of contemporaneous electronic based systems. The building blocks of these optical systems consist on waveguides and structures formed by deposited thin films. Two characteristics of utmost importance for these structures are the height and refractive index of the deposited film. In this work and by using a prism coupler, we will be presenting an optical setup and the experimental method that is used to determine both refractive index and thickness of the wave guiding structure.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Algorithms for Rapidly Dispersing Robot Swarms in Unknown Environments

We develop and analyze algorithms for dispersing a swarm of primitive robots in an unknown environment, R. The primary objective is to minimize the makespan, that is, the time to fill the entire region. An environment is composed of pixels that form a connected subset of the integer grid. There is at most one robot per pixel and robots move horizontally or vertically at unit speed. Robots enter R by means of k>=1 door pixels Robots are primitive finite automata, only having local communication, local sensors, and a constant-sized memory. We first give algorithms for the single-door case (i.e., k=1), analyzing the algorithms both theoretically and experimentally. We prove that our algorithms have optimal makespan 2A-1, where A is the area of R. We next give an algorithm for the multi-door case (k>1), based on a wall-following version of the leader-follower strategy. We prove that our strategy is O(log(k+1))-competitive, and that this bound is tight for our strategy and other related strategies.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, Latex, to appear in Workshop on Algorithmic Foundations of Robotics, 200