Three-dimensional simulation of a new cooling strategy for proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack using a non-isothermal multiphase model

In this study, a new cooling strategy for a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack is investigated using a three-dimensional (3D) multiphase non-isothermal model. The new cooling strategy follows that of the Honda's Clarity design and further extends to a cooling unit every five cells in stacks. The stack consists of 5 fuel cells sharing the inlet and outlet manifolds for reactant gas flows. Each cell has 7-path serpentine flow fields with a counter-flow configuration arranged for hydrogen and air streams. The coolant flow fields are set at the two sides of the stack and are simplified as the convective heat transfer thermal boundary conditions. This study also compares two thermal boundary conditions, namely limited and infinite coolant flow rates, and their impacts on the distributions of oxygen, liquid water, current density and membrane hydration. The difference of local temperature between these two cooling conditions is as much as 6.9 K in the 5-cell stack, while it is only 1.7 K in a single cell. In addition, the increased vapor concentration at high temperature (and hence water saturation pressure) dilutes the oxygen content in the air flow, reducing local oxygen concentration. The higher temperature in the stack also causes low membrane hydration, and consequently poor cell performance and non-uniform current density distribution, as disclosed by the simulation. The work indicates the new cooling strategy can be optimized by increasing the heat transfer coefficient between the stack and coolant to mitigate local overheating and cell performance reduction

Accurate Location of Evolving Faults on Transmission Lines Using Sparse Wide Area Measurements

In electric power systems, not all fault conditions remain unchanged during faults. An evolving fault has one characteristic initially and changes to a different condition subsequently. Locating evolving faults is challenging due to the change in fault type shortly after the fault initiation. This paper presents a new approach for estimating the locations of evolving faults on transmission lines. By using sparse wide area voltage measurements, this method is able to accurately locate evolving faults without requiring measurements from either end of the faulted line. There is no need to detect whether a fault is an evolving fault or not. Fault type information is not a necessity either, and the change of fault phases does not affect the estimation accuracy. In addition, the algorithm is applicable to both single-circuit and double-circuit lines, and the transmission lines can be either transposed or untransposed. Distributed parameter line model is adopted to fully consider the shunt capacitances of the transmission lines. Electromagnetic Transient Program (EMTP) is employed to simulate transmission system, and quite accurate results have been achieved

Progress on the treatment of neovascular glaucoma

Neovascular glaucoma(NVG)is a kind of intractable eye disease with complex etiology, strong destruction and poor effect on treatment. Extensive retinal ischemia and hypoxia is the main etiology, and the key of treatment is early diagnosis, active prevention and taking effective measures to prevent the production of vascular endothelial growth factor. According to the related literature over recent years, the authors will discuss pros and cons for medical, surgical and combined treatment in this review

Novel method for photovoltaic energy conversion using surface acoustic waves in piezoelectric semiconductors

This paper presents a novel principle for photovoltaic (PV) energy conversion using surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in piezoelectric semiconductors. A SAW produces a periodically modulated electric potential, which spatially segregates photoexcited electrons and holes to the maxima and minima of the SAW potential. The moving SAW collectively transports the carriers with the speed of sound to the electrodes made of different materials, which extract electrons and holes separately and generate dc output. The proposed active design is expected to have higher efficiency than passive designs of the existing PV devices and to produce enough energy to sustain the SAW.Comment: v.3 4 pages, 3 figures, submitted to proceedings of ECRYS-2011 to be published in Physica