ANALYSIS OF A COMBINED BRAYTON/RANKINE CYCLE WITH TWO REGENERATORS IN PARALLEL

This work presents a configuration of two regenerators in parallel for a power generation Brayton/Rankine cycle where the output power is 10 MW. The working fluids considered for the Brayton and Rankine cycles are air and water, respectively. The addition of a regenerator with the previous existing cycle of this kind resulted in the addition of a second-stage turbine in the Rankine cycle of reheat. The objective of this modification is to increase the thermal efficiency of the combined cycle. In order to examine the efficiency of the new configuration, it is performed a thermodynamic modelling and numerical simulations for both cases: a regular Brayton/Rankine cycle and the one with the proposed changes. At the end of the simulations, the two cycles are compared, and it is seen that the new configuration reaches a 0.9% higher efficiency. In addition, the vapor quality at the exit of the higher turbine is higher, reducing the required mass flow rate in 14%

DEVELOPMENT OF A NUMERICAL MODEL FOR THE STUDY OF AN OSCILLATING WATER COLUMN DEVICE CONSIDERING AN IMPULSE TURBINE

The present work brings a numerical study of an energy conversion device which takes energy from the waves through an oscillating water column (OWC), considering an impulse turbine with rotation in the chimney region through the implementation of a movable mesh model. More precisely, a turbulent, transient and incompressible air flow is numerically simulated in a two-dimensional domain, which mimics an OWC device chamber. The objectives are the verification of the numerical model with movable mesh of the impulse turbine in the free domain from the comparison with the literature and, later, the study of the impulse turbine inserted in the geometry of the OWC device. In order to perform the numerical simulation on the generated domains, the Finite Volume Method (FVM) is used to solve the mass and momentum conservation equations. For the closure of the turbulence, the URANS (Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes) model k-ω SST is used. To verify the numerical model employed, drag coefficients, lift, torque and power are obtained and compared with studies in the literature. The simulations are performed considering a flow with a Reynolds number of ReD = 867,000, air as the working fluid and a tip speed ratio of λ = 2. For the verification case, coefficients similar to those previously predicted in the literature were obtained. For the case where the OWC device was inserted it was possible to observe an intensification of the field of velocities in the turbine region, which led to an augmentation in the magnitude of all coefficients investigated (drag, lift, torque and power). For the case studied with the tip velocity ratio λ = 2, results indicated that power coefficient was augmented, indicating that the insertion of the turbine in a closed enclosure can benefit the energy conversion in an OWC device

Levantamento de Meloidogyne exigua na cultura da seringueira em São José do Rio Claro, MT, Brasil.

Este trabalho foi realizado com o objetivo de efetuar um levantamento da ocorrência de Meloidogyne e exigua em seringueira em São José do Rio Claro, MT. Foram amostradas 191 propriedades agríccolas, totalizando cerca de 18.000ha. Os nematóides foram identificados no Laboratório de Nematologia do Departamento de Fitossanidade da FCAV/UNESP, em Jaboticabal, SP. Foram encontrados níveis populacionais de M. exigua entre 0 e 61.824 juvenis/5g de raízes

PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF A CONCEPTUAL WATERJET PROPULSOR BASED ON THE COANDA EFFECT

This work is part of a research project conceived at the Federal University of Rio Grande. The project aims to create and develop mechanical devices that use the Coanda effect to enhance their overall efficiency. The focus herein is analyzing the physical phenomenon occurring in a conceptual water-jet propulsor. In the proposed concept, a water-jet propulsor has its impeller replaced by injectors that produce the so-called Coanda effect, increasing thereby the mass flow rate. In order to simulate the flow through the propulsor, a numerical model was developed. In this model the time-averaged conservation equations of mass and momentum were solved numerically by the finite volume method, more precisely with the commercial package ANSYS FLUENT (version 14.0). For the closure of the constitutive equations, the k-ω URANS turbulence model was employed. The simulation was performed for a transient state with a timestep of ∆t = 1×10-3 s and a total physical time of t = 6.0 s. Static pressure fields, streamlines and speed profiles are used to analyze the equipment performance and the phenomenon occurrence. The results show that the Coanda Effect is able to generate thrust in a waterjet propulsion device without impeller. The study suggests that the employment of this principle has promising applicability in marine propulsion and deserves attention on future works

GEOMETRICAL OPTIMIZATION OF MIXED CONVECTIVE FLOWS OVER TRIANGULAR ARRANGEMENT OF CYLINDERS

The present study consists on the numerical evaluation of a triangular arrangement of circular cylinders submitted to transient, two-dimensional, incompressible, laminar and mixed convective flows. The geometrical evaluation is performed by means of Constructal Design. For all simulations it is considered Reynolds and Prandtl numbers of ReD = 100 and Pr = 0.71. Moreover, three different values of Richardson number are investigated: Ri = 0.1 (which represents flows dominated by forced convective), 1.0 (which represents an equilibrium between forced and natural driven forces) and 10.0 (which represents flows with dominance of natural convective). The conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy are solved with the use of Finite Volume Method (FVM). The buoyancy forces are tackled with the Boussinesq approximation. The area occupied by the triangular arrangement of cylinders is a geometric constraint of the problem and the cylinders have the same diameter. The main purpose is to evaluate the effect of Richardson number over the drag coefficient (CD) and Nusselt number (NuD) between the cylinders and the surrounding flow, as well as, over the optimal ratio ST/D (ratio between transversal pitch and the cylinder) for two different values of the ratio SL/D = 1.5 and 2.5 (ratio between longitudinal pitch and the cylinders diameter). Results showed that the effect of ST/D over drag coefficient and Nusselt number is strongly affected by the magnitude of Richardson number. Concerning the Nusselt number, for Ri = 0.1 the optimal geometry which maximizes the NuD is reached for the highest magnitude of ST/D, while for Ri = 10.0 an intermediate optimal ratio of ST/D maximizes the NuD. The Richardson magnitudes also have large influence over the fluid dynamic and thermal behavior of fluid flow for all evaluated geometries. An increase in the ratio SL/D improved the heat exchange of the flow, but decreased the fluid dynamic performance

Genetic analysis of yield component traits in cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.].

We investigated the genetic control of the three yield components in cowpea: number of grains per pod, pod length and grain size, in a biparental cross. Genetic parameters were estimated in generations of a cross between two contrasting genitors, using a randomized complete block design with three replications

COMPUTATIONAL MODELING APPLIED TO THE STUDY OF THERMAL BUCKLING OF COLUMNS

Buckling is an instability phenomenon that can happen in slender structural components when subjected to a compressive axial load. This phenomenon can occur due to an externally applied force, which when exceed a certain limit, called critical load, will promote the mechanical buckling on the structural member. Another buckling possibility happens to statically indeterminate structural elements when submitted to a positive temperature variation. As the axial displacements are restricted, if the temperature gradient is larger than the critical temperature variation, it will be generated a compressive axial load higher than the critical load of the structural component and the thermal buckling will occur. In this context, the present work presents a computational model to solve the thermal buckling problem of columns. A thin shell finite element, called SHELL93, was adopted for the computational domain discretization. It was employed a solution involving homogeneous algebraic equations, where the critical temperature variation is determined by the smallest eigenvalue and the buckled configuration is defined by its associated eigenvector. A case study was performed considering a steel column with three different support conditions at its ends: fixed-fixed, fixed-pinned, and pinned-pinned. The numerical results obtained for the critical temperature variation showed a maximum absolute difference around 2% when compared to the analytical solutions. Moreover, the buckled shape of the column, for each case, was defined in agreement with the configurations found in literature. Therefore, the computational model was verified, i.e., it is able to satisfactorily predict the mechanical behavior of the thermal buckling of columns. So, it is possible to use this numerical model in practical situations that do not have an analytical solution, as is the case of the thermal buckling of columns with cutouts

Análise dialélica de genótipos de feijão-caupi visando seleção para tolerância à seca.

The low use of technologies by farmers and the occurrence of biotic and abiotic stresses are limiting factors for cowpea production in the Brazilian Northeast region. The tolerance of genotypes to drought is an alternative to decrease the negative effects of stresses on cowpea production. Thus, the objective of this work was to identify parents and combinations of cowpea genotypes with high probability of generating segregating populations with tolerance to drought..