The influence of copper on the properties of ductile iron for producing centrifugally cast rolls

An intentional change in material properties is an important condition for castings production. It is one way how to meet the casting requirements of how to adapt the material properties to the operating conditions. Centrifugally cast rolls are multi-layer rollers, castings. The working layer of the barrel is called the "shell" and the body of the roll and the necks rolls are called "core". The article deals with the influence of the properties of the core iron. Earlier laboratory experiments were primary analysed for metallographic analysis and mechanical properties. These data were compared back to the experiments. The results of these laboratory working were later applied in the operating conditions of the roll foundry Vitkovitcke slevarny, spol. s r.o. The spun cast roll produced with the applied metallurgical processing change was supplied to the hot strip mill. There were monitored the positive effect of the change of the metallurgical process of the production of the core iron on the useful properties of the centrifugally cast roll. The experiment was done in order to increase the mechanical properties of ductile pearlite ductile iron. The copper in these core iron material increases the hardness and strength primarily.Web of Science18310610

Low-cost extra-low voltage LED dimmer for tuneable white lighting

The colour appearance of light sources has a major impact on how people perceive space. With LED illumination lighting, the colour output can be tuned to virtually any perceivable colour, including any hue of white light. It has been established that the right shade of white light during the 24-hour day cycle has a positive effect on the human body's biological system. For this reason, it is very important to focus on the development and application of new lighting systems that have dynamically variable light outputs in order to imitate the sunlight. Circadian regulation is most responsive to short-wavelength light (460 nm = blue colour). This paper describes the development of a low-cost extra-low voltage LED dimmer for tunable white lighting systems aiming to achieve maximum electrical performance and light-output. This dimming module has two independent LED control channels and allows for a variable colour temperature control from warm white to cold white light. Experimental results of the dimming module efficiency measurements, correlated colour temperature (CCT), colour rendering index (CRI), illuminance and power consumption of the luminaire depending on the duty cycle for different control frequencies (200 Hz, 1.5 kHz, 5 kHz, 10 kHz and 20 kHz) are presented. The paper further describes the principle of creating control curves for an independent regulation of correlated colour temperature and illuminance. In the form of a table, the control curve outputs may be uploaded into a microcontroller. The paper details the construction, function and the advantages of this LED dimmer prototype.Web of Science253494

A Note on Limited Pushdown Alphabets in Stateless Deterministic Pushdown Automata

Recently, an infinite hierarchy of languages accepted by stateless deterministic pushdown automata has been established based on the number of pushdown symbols. However, the witness language for the n-th level of the hierarchy is over an input alphabet with 2(n-1) elements. In this paper, we improve this result by showing that a binary alphabet is sufficient to establish this hierarchy. As a consequence of our construction, we solve the open problem formulated by Meduna et al. Then we extend these results to m-state realtime deterministic pushdown automata, for all m at least 1. The existence of such a hierarchy for m-state deterministic pushdown automata is left open

Scientific Instruments and Epistemology Engines

This article outlines the gradually changing attitude towards instruments and materials in the philosophy and historiography of science and confronts contemporary revaluations of the material culture of science with Hans-Jörg Rhein- berger's concept of an experimental system and Don Ihde's notion of an epistemology engine

Numerical Modelling of Grate Combustion

Předkládaná práce je zaměřena na numerické modelování spalování tuhých paliv na roštu metodami výpočtové dynamiky tekutin (CFD). Jelikož výsledky CFD simulací roštového spalování závisí na kvalitě vstupních dat, která zahrnují i údaje o teplotě, hmotnostním toku a chemickém složení spalin vystupujících z lože, pozornost je věnována především procesům, probíhajícím v loži během spalování na roštu. Velká část práce je věnována vývoji spolehlivého modelu spalování v sypaných ložích, jelikož může napomoci zkvalitnit výsledky simulací i rozšířit znalosti principů spalování tuhých paliv v sypaných ložích. V rámci práce byl vyvinut jednorozměrný nestacionární model spalování v experimentálním reaktoru a implementován do počítačového programu GRATECAL 1.3 včetně grafického uživatelského rozhraní. Zvláštní důraz byl kladen na konzervativnost modelu. Proto byla vyvinuta metoda pro kontrolu hmotnostní a energetické bilance systému a následně aplikována v řadě studií, v rámci nichž byly odhaleny některé chyby týkající se definic zdrojových členů, které byly převzaty z literatury a opraveny. Pomocí modelu byla provedena analýza šíření čela sušení a reakce hoření koksu po výšce lože pšeničné slámy. Na základě výsledků těchto analýz bylo doporučeno zahrnout i modelování změny porozity částic paliva, aby šířka reakční zóny byla predikována korektně v případě, že je uvažována změna porozity celého lože. Rovněž vyvinutá bilanční metoda byla použita k analýze vlivu kritérií konvergence na hmotnostní a energetickou nerovnováhu simulovaného systému. Bylo zjištěno, že škálovaná rezidua rovnic všech veličin by měla poklesnout aspoň na hodnotu $10^{-6}$, aby bylo dosaženo nízké hmotnostní a energetické nerovnováhy a tudíž uspokojivě přesných výsledků ze simulací v loži. Druhá část práce je věnována vývoji a implementaci knihovny uživatelem definovaných funkcí pro komerční CFD nástroj ANSYS FLUENT, které slouží k propojení modelu lože s modelem komory reálné spalovací jednotky, aby byla umožněna dynamická změna okrajových podmínek na vstupu do komory v závislosti na výstupech ze simulací v loži. Vytvořené rozhraní pro propojení těchto dvou modelů je dostatečně obecné pro aplikaci na širokou škálu modelů roštových kotlů. Popsané výsledky přispívají k lepšímu porozumění numerickému modelování spalování na roštu, a to zejména ve fázi sestavování numerického modelu a nastavení parametrů řešiče pro kontrolu konvergence.The present work is focused on numerical modelling of grate combustion of solid fuels by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methods. Since CFD results from simulations of grate combustion depend on the quality of input data including information on temperature, mass flux and chemical composition of flue gas leaving a fuel bed, the attention is turned to modelling of processes, that take place within the fuel bed on a grate. A great part of the work is devoted to development of a reliable numerical model of packed-bed combustion as it may help improve both results from simulations and knowledge of principles of solid fuel combustion in fixed or moving beds. A one-dimensional transient numerical model of combustion in an experimental reactor is developed and implemented into a computer program called GRATECAL 1.3 with a grapical user interface. A special emphasis is put on the conservativeness property of the model. Therefore, a method for control of mass and energy balance over the system is developed and applied to a series of case studies, which have revealed certain errors in definitions of mass source terms, so that data adopted from literature have been reconciled. The model is used for analysis of propagation of drying and char combustion reaction fronts in a bed of wheat straw particles. It is suggested to include modelling of particle internal porosity change in order to obtain correct reaction zone thickness, if porosity of the bed is allowed to change during combustion. The balance-based method is also used to analyse effects of convergence criteria on mass and energy imbalance of the modelled system. It is found that all the scaled residuals must drop to as low as $10^{-6}$ or lower in order to obtain sufficiently accurate results from in-bed simulations in terms of mass and energy conservation within the packed bed. The second part of the work is devoted to development of a library of user-defined functions for the commercial CFD software ANSYS FLUENT for coupling the bed model with a freeboard model of a real combustion unit in order to specify the boundary conditions indirectly using results from in-bed simulations. The created interface is general enough to be used for a wide range of models of grate furnaces. The presented results contribute to better understanding of numerical modelling of grate combustion, especially in the setup of a numerical model and parameters of solver for the control of the convergence.