1,752 research outputs found

    Full-size solar dynamic heat receiver thermal-vacuum tests

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    The testing of a full-size, 120 kW, solar dynamic heat receiver utilizing high-temperature thermal energy storage is described. The purpose of the test program was to quantify receiver thermodynamic performance, operating temperatures, and thermal response to changes in environmental and power module interface boundary conditions. The heat receiver was tested in a vacuum chamber with liquid nitrogen cold shrouds and an aperture cold plate to partly simulate a low-Earth-orbit environment. The cavity of the receiver was heated by an infrared quartz lamp heater with 30 independently controllable zones to allow axially and circumferentially varied flux distributions. A closed-Brayton cycle engine simulator conditioned a helium-xenon gas mixture to specific interface conditions to simulate the various operational modes of the solar dynamic power module on the Space Station Freedom. Inlet gas temperature, pressure, and flow rate were independently varied. A total of 58 simulated orbital cycles, each 94 minutes in duration, was completed during the test conduct period

    Ground test program for a full-size solar dynamic heat receiver

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    Test hardware, facilities, and procedures were developed to conduct ground testing of a full size, solar dynamic heat receiver in a partially simulated, low Earth orbit environment. The heat receiver was designed to supply 102 kW of thermal energy to a helium and xenon gas mixture continuously over a 94 minute orbit, including up to 36 minutes of eclipse. The purpose of the test program was to quantify the receiver thermodynamic performance, its operating temperatures, and thermal response to changes in environmental and power module interface boundary conditions. The heat receiver was tested in a vacuum chamber using liquid nitrogen cold shrouds and an aperture cold plate. Special test equipment were designed to provide the required ranges in interface boundary conditions that typify those expected or required for operation as part of the solar dynamic power module on the Space Station Freedom. The support hardware includes an infrared quartz lamp heater with 30 independently controllable zones and a closed Brayton cycle engine simulator to circulate and condition the helium xenon gas mixture. The test article, test support hardware, facilities, and instrumentation developed to conduct the ground test program are all described

    Managing international development: (Re)positioning critique in the post-2008 conjuncture

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    Despite earlier neglect, International Development (ID) has begun to receive some attention from the Critical Management Studies (CMS) community over the last two decades. This paper reviews existing CMS work that engages with ID and outlines directions for future research. Building on extant research and scholarship that has focussed on linkages between managerialism and ID, we identify and discuss in some depth three emerging areas within ID – financialization, evaluation and projectification–that, we argue, merit further critical scrutiny from CMS scholars. We call for a programme of theoretical and grounded empirical research into these three areas in the hope of reinvigorating CMS’ engagement with ID; a programme that would seek to expose the fallacy of the universalizing managerialism that increasingly informs ID projects and organizational practices. In operationalizing this research programme, we draw attention to problems of positionality, drawing on methodological and epistemological debates in Anthropology to inform our argument. We thus highlight the need for grounding CMS research practices in reflective trans-disciplinarity

    Complicit Positioning: Anthropological Knowledge and Problems of ‘Studying Up’ for Ethnographer-Employees of Corporations

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    Contemporary work by ‘corporate ethnographers’, as employees of businesses, offers a refreshing perspective on Anthropology’s ‘crisis of representation’ and its extensions—from neo-colonial concerns and reflexivity, to para-ethnographic and recursive approaches—that are increasingly characterized by complicit relations between ethnographers and their informants/‘collaborators’. This article focusses on the history and politics of ethnographers’ positionality in field research and the analytic products of, and audiences for, their work. It contrasts the often confounded labor of ‘anthropologists of business’ with that of ‘corporate ethnographers’, who work for businesses, while highlighting that, for both, the ‘studying up’ (Nader 1974 [1969]) methodology required for research at business sites disrupts assumptions surrounding the politics of traditional ethnographic fieldwork. Tracing shifts in core interests across general Anthropology, it is argued that close attention to new sitings and circumstances of fieldwork—including studying up in businesses—could productively drive reconsiderations of methodology, ethics and, therefore, epistemology in Anthropology.In this context, corporate ethnographers, who are often formally trained in Anthropology, are specifically encouraged to analytically engage with the problematics of their perhaps-awkward complicities with their employers. It is suggested that, alongside the work of anthropologists of business, corporate ethnographers—should they choose to do so—are well-positioned to assist in exposing the black box of the culture(s) of secrecy through which the work of corporations intimately penetrates modern life

    Theory and simulation of gelation, arrest and yielding in attracting colloids

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    We present some recent theory and simulation results addressing the phenomena of colloidal gelation at both high and low volume fractions, in the presence of short-range attractive interactions. We discuss the ability of mode-coupling theory and its adaptations to address situations with strong heterogeneity in density and/or dynamics. We include a discussion of the effect of attractions on the shear-thinning and yield behaviour under flow.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure
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