Combustor diffuser interaction program

Advances in gas turbine engine performance are achieved by using compressor systems with high stage loading and low part count, which result in high exit Mach numbers. The diffuser and combustor systems in such engines should be optimized to reduce system pressure loss and to maximize the engine thrust-to-weight ratio and minimize length. The state-of-the-art combustor-diffuser systems do not meet these requirements. Detailed understanding of the combustor-diffuser flow field interaction is required for designing advanced gas turbine engines. An experimental study of the combustor-diffuser interaction (CDI) is being conducted to obtain data for the evaluation and improvement of analytical models applicable to a wide variety of diffuser designs. The CDI program consists of four technical phases: Literature Search; Baseline Configuration; Parametric Configurations; and Performance Configurations. Phase 2 of the program is in progress

Heat Shock Protein 70 (Hsp70) Acts as a Guardian Against Multiple Cell Death Pathways.

The proper balance between protein synthesis, folding, and turnover is termed protein homeostasis, or proteostasis. Cancer cells are especially reliant on the activities of molecular chaperones, such as heat shock proteins 70 (Hsp70) and 90 (Hsp90), which are critical to protein quality control. Hsp70 and Hsp90 collaborate to buffer cancer cells against unstable oncogenic mutations, and these chaperones are thought to prevent apoptosis during rapid metabolism and cell division. While Hsp90’s specific roles in cancer are relatively well described and inhibitors are being studied in multiple clinical trials, less is known about Hsp70. In this thesis, we aimed to characterize Hsp70’s roles in cancer signaling. Towards this goal, we developed the first selective and potent inhibitors of Hsp70, based on the rhodocyanine MKT-077. We found that these molecules, including JG-98 and JG-13, have potent cytotoxic activity in multiple cancer cell lines, with minimal effect on normal fibroblasts. Moreover, these compounds were highly synergistic with inhibitors of either Hsp90 or the proteasome. Using JG-98 as a chemical probe, we found that Hsp70 suppresses apoptotic cell death through a novel process dependent on RIP1 kinase. Further, under conditions in which apoptosis was inhibited, JG-98 triggered a strong necroptotic phenotype, suggesting that Hsp70 helps regulate a key cellular “decision” to proceed with either apoptosis or necrosis. Thus, Hsp70 shares some cellular roles in common with Hsp90, but also has important differences that might be exploited in the pursuit of anti-cancer agents with new mechanisms-of-action. Hsp70 is actually a family with thirteen members in humans, and it is still unclear if these isoforms play distinct or overlapping roles in cancer. To better understand this question, we have made significant efforts towards designing small molecules that target cytosolic and mitochondrial Hsp70s specifically. These probes have the potential to further transform or understanding of Hsp70 as a cancer chaperone. Taken together, these studies reveal that Hsp70 operates in a much more global cytoprotective fashion in cancer cells than previously suggested. This work also makes significant strides towards the development of improved chemotherapeutics targeting the protein quality control machinery.PHDChemical BiologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120856/1/sharans_1.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120856/2/sharans_2.pd

FPGA Based Control Method for Three Phase BLDC Motor

This paper introduces a good method which is helpful to assist in the design and control of cost effective, efficient Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors. Speed Control of BLDC motor using PIC microcontrollers requires more hardware, and with the availability of FPGA versatile features motivated to develop a cost effective and reliable control with variable speed range. In this paper, an algorithm which uses the Resolver signals captured from the motor is developed with the help of Resolver to Digital converters. The program has been written using VHDL. This program generates the firing pulses required to drive the MOSFETs of three phase fully controlled bridge converter driven by drivers. Then the program has been loaded on the Spartan- 3 FPGA device and tested on the 30V, 2000 rpm BLDC motor which can make the motor run at constant speed ranging from 10 to 2000 rpm. The proposed hardware and the program are found to be very good and efficient. The results are good compare to PIC Microcontroller based design

Short-term forecasting of load and renewable energy using artifical neural network

Load forecasting is a technique used for the prediction of electrical load demands in battery management. In general, the aggregated level used for short-term electrical load forecasting (STLF) consists of either numerical or non-numerical information collected from multiple sources, which helps in obtaining accurate data and efficient forecasting. However, the aggregated level cannot precisely forecast the validation and testing phases of numerical data, including the real-time measurements of irradiance level (W/m2) and photovoltaic output power (W). Forecasting is also a challenge due to the fluctuations caused by the random usage of appliances in the existing weekly, diurnal, and annual cycle load data. In this study, we have overcome this challenge by using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) methods such as Bayesian Regularisation (BR) and Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithms. The STLF achieved by ANN-based methods can improve the forecast accuracy. The overall performance of the BR and LM algorithms were analyzed during the development phases of the ANN. The input layer, hidden layer and output layer used to train and test the ANN together predict the 24-hour electricity demand. The results show that utilizing the LM and BR algorithms delivers a highly efficient architecture for renewable power estimation demand. © 2021 Seventh Sense Research Group

Influence of Hydrogen Content on Axial Fracture Toughness Parameters of Zr-2.5Nb Pressure Tube Alloy in the Temperature Range of 306-573 K

Tubes fabricated from dilute Zr-alloys serve as miniature pressure vessels in Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors and are subjected to stress, aqueous corrosion and intense irradiation during service. Hydrogen evolved during the corrosion reaction may enter into the material and precipitate as hydride phase, which acquire platelet shaped morphology in Zr-alloys and are known to embrittle the host matrix. Since hydride embrittlement is a major life limiting factor for the components made from these alloys, several theoretical and experimental studies have been carried out to understand the influence of hydrogen/hydride on the mechanical properties in general and micromechanisms assisting crack nucleation and its propagation in the presence of hydride, in particular. For ductile materials like Zr-alloys, crack initiation follows void nucleation and its growth in the plastic zone. Nucleation of voids is associated with fracture of second phase particle or separation of matrix-precipitate interface. Hydrides are suspected to be fracture initiating sites in Zr-alloys and the presence of hydride platelets normal to tensile load significantly influences crack propagation. However, the role of hydrides in crack nucleation and its propagation and influence of temperature on the same has not been delineated clearly. In this work, influence of hydrogen and temperature on the axial fracture toughness parameters of Zr-2.5Nb pressure tube alloys is reported. The fracture toughness tests were carried out using 17 mm width curved compact tension specimens machined from gaseously hydrogen charged tube-sections and tested in the temperature range of 306 to 573 K. Metallography of the samples revealed that hydrides were predominantly oriented along axial-circumferential plane of the tube. The fracture toughness parameters like JQ, J0.15, JMax, J1.5, dJ/da, KJC and KMax were determined as per the ASTM standard E-813, with the crack length measured using direct current potential drop technique. The plane strain K values were computed from the corresponding J values. The critical crack length for catastrophic failure was determined using a numerical method, which is widely used in literature. It is observed that for a given test temperature both the fracture toughness parameters representing crack initiation, such as JQ, J0.15 and KJC and crack propagation, such as JMax, J1.5, and KMax, decrease mildly with increase in hydrogen content whereas mean dJ/da is practically unaffected by hydrogen content. Also, for a given hydrogen content crack initiation fracture toughness parameters showed large scatter with a tendency to decrease with increase in test temperature whereas the crack propagation fracture toughness parameters increased with temperature to a saturation value

Robust Local Explanations for Healthcare Predictive Analytics: An Application to Fragility Fracture Risk Modeling

With recent advancements in data analytics, healthcare predictive analytics (HPA) is garnering growing interest among practitioners and researchers. However, it is risky to blindly accept the results and users will not accept the HPA model if transparency is not guaranteed. To address this challenge, we propose the RObust Local EXplanations (ROLEX) method, which provides robust, instance-level explanations for any HPA model. The applicability of the ROLEX method is demonstrated using the fragility fracture prediction problem. Analysis with a large real-world dataset demonstrates that our method outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of local fidelity. The ROLEX method is applicable to various types of HPA problems beyond the fragility fracture problem. It is applicable to any type of supervised learning model and provides fine-grained explanations that can improve understanding of the phenomenon of interest. Finally, we discuss theoretical implications of our study in light of healthcare IS, big data, and design science

Aneurysmal bone cyst of medial end of clavicle: a rare case report

Aneurysmal bone cyst is a benign, but locally aggressive benign tumor. The clavicle being a rare site of tumors and very few cases of aneurysmal bone cyst of clavicle have been reported in literature. Due to its rarity of location of its presentation we hereby report a rare case of aneurysmal bone cyst of medial end of clavicle in a 20-year-old female which was treated by wide local resection and reconstruction