FLAME PROFILE IN A POROUS RADIANT BURNER USING 1/2” AND 1/4” ALUMINA’S SPHERES

Porous burners are known by their high efficiency and low polluting gases emissions. Their high efficiency is given by the great thermal radiation potential, whereas differently a normal burner, the process of combustion happens in the inner of the porous medium, which is compound by spheres of alumina, and the mix air-fuel goes through the preheating zone, potentializing the combustion. The burners are usually used in the industry, in the process of drying of paper and wood, plastic coating, food cooking and ambient heating. In this article, it was studied the behaviour of the flame in a porous radiant burner with alumina’s sphere of 1/2” and 1/4”, using LPG as fuel, compressed air as oxidizing agent and ceramic wool as thermal insulation. The burner was divided in three essential sections with a type K thermocouple in each one, which are: base, middle and top. The flame profile encountered was a floating one, however it is almost stable, presenting low variations of temperature and according to previously tests, less consuming of fuel

Vacuum Energy Density Fluctuations in Minkowski and Casimir States via Smeared Quantum Fields and Point Separation

We present calculations of the variance of fluctuations and of the mean of the energy momentum tensor of a massless scalar field for the Minkowski and Casimir vacua as a function of an intrinsic scale defined by a smeared field or by point separation. We point out that contrary to prior claims, the ratio of variance to mean-squared being of the order unity is not necessarily a good criterion for measuring the invalidity of semiclassical gravity. For the Casimir topology we obtain expressions for the variance to mean-squared ratio as a function of the intrinsic scale (defined by a smeared field) compared to the extrinsic scale (defined by the separation of the plates, or the periodicity of space). Our results make it possible to identify the spatial extent where negative energy density prevails which could be useful for studying quantum field effects in worm holes and baby universe, and for examining the design feasibility of real-life `time-machines'. For the Minkowski vacuum we find that the ratio of the variance to the mean-squared, calculated from the coincidence limit, is identical to the value of the Casimir case at the same limit for spatial point separation while identical to the value of a hot flat space result with a temporal point-separation. We analyze the origin of divergences in the fluctuations of the energy density and discuss choices in formulating a procedure for their removal, thus raising new questions into the uniqueness and even the very meaning of regularization of the energy momentum tensor for quantum fields in curved or even flat spacetimes when spacetime is viewed as having an extended structure.Comment: 41 pages, 2 figure

HEAT TRANSFER IN MULTI-CONNECTED AND IRREGULAR DOMAINS WITH NON-UNIFORM MESHES

In this work is presented a numerical solution for temperature profile in two-dimensional diffusion inside irregular multi-connected geometry. The special discretization has been done by two variants of the finite Element Method: Galerkin Finite Element Method (GFEM) and Least Squares Finite Element Method (LSFEM). Three applications are presented. The first for a regular double connected domain; the second for a regular multi-connected domain and the third application for an irregular multi-connected domain. In all applications are considered Dirichlet boundary conditions. The results obtained in the present work are compared with results from Ansys® simulations. The results of each method are presented and discussed and the characteristics and advantages of the methods are also discussed

Stochastic semiclassical cosmological models

We consider the classical stochastic fluctuations of spacetime geometry induced by quantum fluctuations of massless non-conformal matter fields in the Early Universe. To this end, we supplement the stress-energy tensor of these fields with a stochastic part, which is computed along the lines of the Feynman-Vernon and Schwinger-Keldysh techniques; the Einstein equation is therefore upgraded to a so called Einstein-Langevin equation. We consider in some detail the conformal fluctuations of flat spacetime and the fluctuations of the scale factor in a simple cosmological modelintroduced by Hartle, which consists of a spatially flat isotropic cosmology driven by radiation and dust.Comment: 29 pages, no figures, ReVTeX fil

Critical phenomena of thick branes in warped spacetimes

We have investigated the effects of a generic bulk first-order phase transition on thick Minkowski branes in warped geometries. As occurs in Euclidean space, when the system is brought near the phase transition an interface separating two ordered phases splits into two interfaces with a disordered phase in between. A remarkable and distinctive feature is that the critical temperature of the phase transition is lowered due to pure geometrical effects. We have studied a variety of critical exponents and the evolution of the transverse-traceless sector of the metric fluctuations.Comment: revtex4, 4 pages, 4 figures, some comments added, typos corrected, published in PR

Non-equilibrium dynamics of a thermal plasma in a gravitational field

We introduce functional methods to study the non-equilibrium dynamics of a quantum massless scalar field at finite temperature in a gravitational field. We calculate the Close Time Path (CTP) effective action and, using its formal equivalence with the influence functional, derive the noise and dissipation kernels of the quantum open system in terms of quantities in thermodynamical equilibrium. Using this fact, we formally prove the existence of a Fluctuation-Dissipation Relation (FDR) at all temperatures between the quantum fluctuations of the plasma in thermal equilibrium and the energy dissipated by the external gravitational field. What is new is the identification of a stochastic source (noise) term arising from the quantum and thermal fluctuations in the plasma field, and the derivation of a Langevin-type equation which describes the non-equilibrium dynamics of the gravitational field influenced by the plasma. The back reaction of the plasma on the gravitational field is embodied in the FDR. From the CTP effective action the contribution of the quantum scalar field to the thermal graviton polarization tensor can also be derived and it is shown to agree with other techniques, most notably, Linear Response Theory (LRT). We show the connection between the LRT, which is applicable for near-equilibrium conditions and the functional methods used in this work which are useful for fully non-equilibrium conditions.Comment: Final version published in Phys. Rev.