Strategic Investment in Electric Vehicle Charging Service:Fast Charging or Battery Swapping

With the increasing adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), there is a growing need for public charging infrastructure. As a result, significant investments have been made in charging services, particularly, fast-charging (FC) and battery-swapping (BS) services. This paper examines the impact of technical and operational factors, as well as market conditions, on the pricing and profitability of each service to explore whether and how EV charging service providers should invest in these emerging charging services. The analysis with benchmark to private-use slow-charging (SC) services reveals that if the valley electricity price is high and the potential market size is small, lowering service costs does not make BS services a viable option. When the valley electricity price is low, reducing battery loss will not give FC services an advantage. However, in such scenarios, BS services can gain an edge by decreasing service costs. Interestingly, even if both SC and BS services are negatively affected by higher valley electricity prices, the impact on the profitability of BS services is more severe. Our results provide implications for the development of public EV charging service infrastructure. We recommend that implementing energy storage solutions can help alleviate the negative consequences of escalating valley electricity prices and wider peak–valley electricity price differences on BS services and FC services, respectively

Reviewing Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre: An Innovative Curatorial Approach Combining Visual and Audio Elements

This article offers a retrospective on the operational model and aesthetic dimensions of steampunk sculptures at the Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre, located in Glasgow. The theatre employs an amalgamation of exhibitions and performances, meticulously choreographed by artist Eduard Bersudsky and his team, who coordinate each mechanical sculpture’s movements. Accompanied by ambient sounds and national music, as well as the dynamic interconnected performances of the sculptures themselves, the audience would be immersed in an artistic appreciation experience, allowing for deeper engagement with the relatively obscure art form of steampunk. This approach, addressing the issue of audiences perhaps being unable to fully appreciate art due to limited viewing time, transcends the traditional exhibition’s lack of a clear timeline or sequence. Furthermore, the article revisits how Eduard Bersudsky incorporates Russian cultural elements, history, and technology into his steampunk mechanical sculptures, which reflect the artist’s contemplation on war and authority, as well as his exploration of the relationship between technology and humanity

Observation of Enhanced Dynamic {\Delta}G effect near Ferromagnetic Resonance Frequency

The field-dependence elastic modulus of magnetostrictive films, also called {\Delta}E or {\Delta}G effect, is crucial for ultrasensitive magnetic field sensors based on surface acoustic waves (SAWs). In spite of a lot of successful demonstrations, rare attention was paid to the frequency-dependence of {\Delta}E or {\Delta}G effect. In current work, shear horizontal-type SAW delay lines coated with a thin FeCoSiB layer have been studied at various frequencies upon applying magnetic fields. The change of shear modulus of FeCoSiB has been extracted by measuring the field-dependent phase shift of SAWs. It is found that the {\Delta}G effect is significantly enhanced at high-order harmonic frequencies close to the ferromagnetic resonance frequency, increasing by ~82% compared to that at the first SAW mode (128 MHz). In addition, the smaller the effective damping factor of magnetostrictive layer, the more pronounced {\Delta}G effect can be obtained, which is explained by our proposed dynamic magnetoelastic coupling model

Physical modelling of tidal stream turbine wake structures under yaw conditions

Tidal stream turbines may operate under yawed conditions due to variability in ocean current directions. Insight into the wake structure of yawed turbines can be essential to ensure efficient tidal stream energy extraction, especially for turbine arrays where wake interactions emerge. We studied experimentally the effects of turbines operating under varying yaw conditions. Two scenarios, including a single turbine and a set of two turbines in alignment, were configured and compared. The turbine thrust force results confirmed that an increasing yaw angle results in a decrease in the turbine streamwise force and an increase in the turbine spanwise force. The velocity distribution from the single turbine scenario showed that the wake deflection and velocity deficit recovery rate increased at a rate proportional to the yaw angle. The two-turbine scenario results indicated that the deployment of an upstream non-yawed turbine significantly limited the downstream wake steering (i.e., the wake area behind the downstream turbine). Interestingly, a yawed downstream turbine was seen to influence the steering of both the upstream and the downstream wakes. These systematically derived data could be regarded as useful references for the numerical modelling and optimisation of large arrays

A universal interatomic potential for perovskite oxides

With their celebrated structural and chemical flexibility, perovskite oxides have served as a highly adaptable material platform for exploring emergent phenomena arising from the interplay between different degrees of freedom. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations leveraging classical force fields, commonly depicted as parameterized analytical functions, have made significant contributions in elucidating the atomistic dynamics and structural properties of crystalline solids including perovskite oxides. However, the force fields currently available for solids are rather specific and offer limited transferability, making it time-consuming to use MD to study new materials systems since a new force field must be parameterized and tested first. The lack of a generalized force field applicable to a broad spectrum of solid materials hinders the facile deployment of MD in computer-aided materials discovery (CAMD). Here, by utilizing a deep-neural network with a self-attention scheme, we have developed a unified force field that enables MD simulations of perovskite oxides involving 14 metal elements and conceivably their solid solutions with arbitrary compositions. Notably, isobaric-isothermal ensemble MD simulations with this model potential accurately predict the experimental phase transition sequences for several markedly different ferroelectric oxides, including a 6-element ternary solid solution, Pb(In$_{1/2}$Nb$_{1/2}$)O$_3$--Pb(Mg$_{1/3}$Nb$_{2/3}$)O$_3$--PbTiO$_3$. We believe the universal interatomic potential along with the training database, proposed regression tests, and the auto-testing workflow, all released publicly, will pave the way for a systematic improvement and extension of a unified force field for solids, potentially heralding a new era in CAMD.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure