A Wave Energy Extraction System in Experimental Flume

Ocean wave energy is a high energy density and renewable resource. High power conversion rate is an advantage of linear generators to be the competitive candidates for ocean wave energy extraction system. In this paper, the feasibility of a wave energy extraction system by linear generator has been verified in an experimental flume. Besides, the analytical equations of heaving buoy oscillating in vertical direction are proposed, and the analytical equations are proved conveniently. What is more, the active power output of linear generator of wave energy extraction system in experimental flume is presented. The theoretical analysis and experimental results play a significant role for future wave energy extraction system progress in real ocean waves

COMPUTER SIMULATION OF OVERTOPPING OF LEVEES

There have been many cases of earth embankment failures, for example, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, where breaching occurred and devastated the surrounding population. Levee failures are preventable by a better understanding of the ways in which these embankments are designed and fail. The objective of this research is to protect levees against future failures. This paper studies various overtopping quantities and durations to represent the same level of levee erosion hazard. This study is based on experimental results of steady flows on the land side of a levee. The effect of water flow has been investigated and a comparison has been done between rills formations and erosion time for various water flows. Results showed that the pictures of digital simulations and real photographs which have been taken during tests in the laboratory are in a good concordance. Ha habido muchos casos de fallos de terraplén, por ejemplo, el huracán Katrina en 2005, en el cual se produjo una ruptura, devastando la población de los alrededores. Las fallas de diques se pueden prevenir, y es un objetivo de esta investigación alcanzar una mejor comprensión de las maneras en que estos diques se diseñan y fallan, a fin de poder protegerlos contra futuros fallos. Este documento desarrolla y recomienda equivalencias preliminares de combinaciones acumulativas de varias cantidades de desbordamiento y las duraciones asociadas que representan el mismo nivel de riesgo de erosión del dique. Las metodologías se basan en los resultados experimentales de flujos constantes en el lado seco de un dique. El efecto del flujo de agua se ha estudiado específicamente en esta investigación, y se ha hecho una comparación entre las formaciones de surcos y el tiempo de erosión para distintos flujos de agua

Simulating Levee Erosion with Physical Modeling Validation

This paper studies rill and gully initiation and propagation on levees, dams, and general earth embankments. It specifically studies where these erosion features occur, and how long a particular embankment can sustain overtopping before breaching and catastrophic failure. This contrasts to previous levee erosion analysis, which has primarily concerned the final effects of erosion, such as soil loss, depth of scour and breach width. This paper describes the construction of scaled-down physical models of levees composed of different homogeneous sands, as well as sand-clay mixtures, and their laboratory testing. A 3-D laser range scanner captured the surface features of the physical model, before and after erosion. The resulting data is utilized in developing digital simulations of the rill erosion process. Those simulations combine 3-D Navier-Stokes fluid simulations and a segmented height field data structure to produce an accurate portrayal of the erosive processes, which will be validated by physical modeling

Quantitative analysis of simulated erosion for different soils

Levee overtopping can lead to failure and cause catastrophic damage, as was the case during Hurricane Katrina. We present a computer simulation of erosion to study the development of the rills and gullies that form along an earthen embankment during overtopping. We have coupled 3D Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics with an erodibility model to produce our simulation. Through comparison between simulations and between simulation and analogous laboratory experiments, we provide quantitative and qualitative results, evaluating the accuracy of our simulation

Validation of Erosion Modeling: Physical and Numerical

The overall intent of this research is to develop numerical models of erosion of levees, dams and embankments, validated by physical models. The physical models are performed at 1-g and at high g\u27s using a geotechnical centrifuge. The erosion is modeled in detail, from beginning to end, that is from the time the levee is overtopped until the levee is breached. Typical quantities measured as a function of time are the depth, width and volume of rills, number of junction points, are the rills straight or meandering, sediment transport quantities, and finally breach. This data can be obtained from the numerical modeling, but is difficult to obtain from the physical modeling. Video images indicate the physical modeling agrees quite well with the numerical modeling. A comparison has also been done between observed breaching width and the FEMA new formula for both 1-g and centrifuge tests

Measuring terrain distances through extracted channel networks

This paper initiates a forensic analysis of the causes of levee failures by analyzing and extracting information from a sequence of elevation data. This is a crucial step in bettering the design and construction of levees and dams. (Fully diagnosing failures usually requires knowledge beyond the geometry of the levee, such as weather conditions and material properties). We use results from computer simulations of levee overtopping for training data. The simulations use smoothed particle hydrodynamics coupled with a well-known erodibility model. Using the sequential nature of our data, we extract important channel networks that form as the soil is scoured away. We present a series of metrics to measure the distance between channel networks to assist in determining the critical threshold value used to extract important channels from the flow network. Methods for determining this ideal threshold have gone mainly unexplored, and so we present a comparison of various threshold values and how closely they identify matching channel networks on sequential terrains. These threshold values allow us to identify important properties of the terrain that form its fingerprint, a way of characterizing the geometry of the terrain. Our method for fingerprinting terrain is an important step toward the diagnosis of levee failure from digital elevation data

Effect of Mg and C contents in MgCNi3, and structure and superconductivity of MgCNi3-xCox

The effect of Mg and C contents on TC in MgCNi3, and structure and superconductivity of MgCNi3-xCox were studied. It is found that the excess of Mg and C in initial material mixture is favorable to improve TC and obtain single-phase samples. For preparing MgCNi3 superconductor, the optimum composition of starting materials is MgC1.45Ni3 with 20wt.% excess of Mg of the stoichiometric composition. In MgCNi3-xCox system, a continuous solid solution is formed, lattice parameter decreases slightly and TC decreases obviously with increasing x. A suppression of superconductivity is observed due to the substitution of Co (Mn) for Ni. The suppression effect is smaller for the substitution of Co than that of Mn.Comment: 13 pages pd

Simulating Levee Erosion with Physical Modeling Validation

This paper studies rill and gully initiation and propagation on levees, dams, and general earth embankments. It specifically studies where these erosion features occur, and how long a particular embankment can sustain overtopping before breaching and catastrophic failure. This contrasts to previous levee erosion analysis, which has primarily concerned the final effects of erosion, such as soil loss, depth of scour and breach width. This paper describes the construction of scaled-down physical models of levees composed of different homogeneous sands, as well as sand-clay mixtures, and their laboratory testing. A 3-D laser range scanner captured the surface features of the physical model, before and after erosion. The resulting data is utilized in developing digital simulations of the rill erosion process. Those simulations combine 3-D Navier-Stokes fluid simulations and a segmented height field data structure to produce an accurate portrayal of the erosive processes, which will be validated by physical modeling

The Performance of a Diesel Engine Fueled with Diesel Oil, Biodiesel and Preheated Coconut Oil

Fossil fuel crisis and depletion, environmental pollution and ever-increase in vehicle and transportation means have renewed the scientist\u27s interest in the world in order to look for potential alternative fuels, which are attractive such as biodiesel, bioethanol, DME and vegetable oils. Inedible vegetable oils such as coconut oil, Jatropha oil, linseed oil or animal fat are full of potential for using directly or manufacturing biodiesel. This work is carried out in order to study the four stroke diesel engine D240 performance characteristics fueled with preheated pure coconut oil (PCO), Jatropha oil methyl ester (JOME) and compare with diesel oil (DO). The test diesel engine performance such as power (Ne), torque (Me), specific fuel consumption (ge) and thermal efficiency (ηe) is determined, calculated and evaluated while using JOME, preheated PCO and compared to DO. The results show that, power (Ne), torque (Me) and thermal efficiency (ηe) while engine is fueled with JOME and PCO are lower, otherwise specific fuel consumption (ge) is higher than those of diesel fuel, the test engine performance are gained the best for JOME and PCO100. Keywords: biofuel, biodiesel, preheated vegetable oils, engine performance, efficiency, specific fuel consumption.Article History: Received Dec 9, 2016; Received in revised form January 28, 2017; Accepted February 4, 2017; Available onlineHow to Cite This Article: Hoang, T.A and Le,V. V. (2017). The Performance of A Diesel Engine Fueled With Diesel Oil, Biodiesel and Preheated Coconut Oil. International Journal of Renewable Energy Development, 6(1), 1-7.http://dx.doi.org/10.14710/ijred.6.1.1-