Search results for: economic processes

Authors: Pakorn Traiprasertpong, Apichit Svang-Ariyaskul

Abstract:

The production of ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) was simulated through Aspen Plus. The objective of this work was to use the simulation results to be an alternative platform for ETBE production from naphtha cracking wastes for the industry to develop. ETBE is produced from isobutylene which is one of the wastes in naphtha cracking process. The content of isobutylene in the waste is less than 30% weight. The main part of this work was to propose a process to save the environment and to increase the product value by converting a great majority of the wastes into ETBE. Various processes were considered to determine the optimal production of ETBE. The proposed process increased ETBE production yield by 100% from conventional process with the purity of 96% weight. The results showed a great promise for developing this proposed process in an industrial scale.

Keywords: ETBE, process simulation, naphtha cracking, Aspen Plus

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Authors: Chirawat Wattanapanich, Hong Wei

Abstract:

This study presents new gait representations for improving gait recognition accuracy on cross gait appearances, such as normal walking, wearing a coat and carrying a bag. Based on the Gait Energy Image (GEI), two ideas are implemented to generate new gait representations. One is to append lower knee regions to the original GEI, and the other is to apply convolutional operations to the GEI and its variants. A set of new gait representations are created and used for training multi-class Support Vector Machines (SVMs). Tests are conducted on the CASIA dataset B. Various combinations of the gait representations with different convolutional kernel size and different numbers of kernels used in the convolutional processes are examined. Both the entire images as features and reduced dimensional features by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) are tested in gait recognition. Interestingly, both new techniques, appending the lower knee regions to the original GEI and convolutional GEI, can significantly contribute to the performance improvement in the gait recognition. The experimental results have shown that the average recognition rate can be improved from 75.65% to 87.50%.

Keywords: Convolutional image, lower knee, gait.

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Authors: I. V. Kuzminov

Abstract:

The proposed article is an analytical review of previously published articles in the series "Physics of Gravity", "The Picture of the World by Second Law of Thermodynamics" and others. The article shows the key role of the forces of gravity and the action of the second law of thermodynamics in shaping the picture of the world. In other words, the second law of thermodynamics can be called the law of matter cooling. The action in the compartment of the inverse temperature dependence of the forces of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics is carried out by the processes of separation, condensation, phase transitions, and transformation of matter. On the basis of the proposed concept, along the way, completely new versions of the development of events in the biography of the Earth are put forward. For example, new versions of the origin of planets, the origin of continents and others are being put forward. This article contains a list of articles and videos that are somehow related to the proposed topic. Articles and videos are presented in English and Russian.

Keywords: Gravity, the second law of thermodynamics, electron rotation, inverse temperature dependence, inertia forces, centrifugal forces.

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Authors: A. Pashayev, D. Askerov, R. Sadiqov, A. Samedov, C. Ardil

Abstract:

In contrast to existing methods which do not take into account multiconnectivity in a broad sense of this term, we develop mathematical models and highly effective combination (BIEM and FDM) numerical methods of calculation of stationary and quasi-stationary temperature field of a profile part of a blade with convective cooling (from the point of view of realization on PC). The theoretical substantiation of these methods is proved by appropriate theorems. For it, converging quadrature processes have been developed and the estimations of errors in the terms of A.Ziqmound continuity modules have been received. For visualization of profiles are used: the method of the least squares with automatic conjecture, device spline, smooth replenishment and neural nets. Boundary conditions of heat exchange are determined from the solution of the corresponding integral equations and empirical relationships. The reliability of designed methods is proved by calculation and experimental investigations heat and hydraulic characteristics of the gas turbine first stage nozzle blade.

Keywords: Gas turbine, cooled blade, nozzle blade, temperature field.

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Authors: Petr Teply

Abstract:

While the form of crises may change, their essence remains the same (such as a cycle of abundant liquidity, rapid credit growth, and a low-inflation environment followed by an asset-price bubble). The current market turbulence began in mid-2000s when the US economy shifted to imbalanced both internal and external macroeconomic positions. We see two key causes of these problems – loose US monetary policy in early 2000s and US government guarantees issued on the securities by government-sponsored enterprises what was further fueled by financial innovations such as structured credit products. We have discovered both negative and positive lessons deriving from this crisis and divided the negative lessons into three groups: financial products and valuation, processes and business models, and strategic issues. Moreover, we address key risk management lessons and exit strategies derived from the current crisis and recommend policies that should help diminish the negative impact of future potential crises.

Keywords: exist strategy, global crisis, risk management, corporate governance

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Authors: Sh. E. Jamanbalayeva, G. S. Abdiraiymova, N. Zh. Biyekenova, D. K. Burkhanova

Abstract:

At present the process of formation of corporate values in Kazakh universities is under the influence of a whole range of socio-economic and cultural changes: on the one hand universities must maintain and transmit traditional cultural values of education, on the other, to improve quality of service and to involve young people to science, providing thus own competitiveness. Thus, this article presents some results of two cycles of sociological research conducted in 2012 and aimed at identifying possible ways to popularize science and readiness to participate of youth in given activities, expectations of young scientists and the prospects of future development of the Kazakh science.

Keywords: Corporate culture, higher education institutions, motivation reforms, young scientists.

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Authors: Ferreira F. C. L., Souza D. N., Rodrigues T. M. A., Cunha C. J., Dullius M. A., Andrade J. E., Sousa A. H., Vieira J. P. C., Carvalho Júnior A. B., Santos L. P. B., Passos R. O.

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The objective this study was to characterize and develop anthropomorphic liver phantoms in tomography hepatic procedures for quality control and improvement professionals in nuclear medicine. For the conformation of the anthropomorphic phantom was used in plaster and acrylic. We constructed three phantoms representing processes with liver cirrhosis. The phantoms were filled with 99mTc diluted with water to obtain the scintigraphic images. Tomography images were analyzed anterior and posterior phantom representing a body with a greater degree cirrhotic. It was noted that the phantoms allow the acquisition of images similar to real liver with cirrhosis. Simulations of hemangiomas may contribute to continued professional education of nuclear medicine, on the question of image acquisition, allowing of the study parameters such of the matrix, energy window and count statistics.

Keywords: Nuclear medicine, liver phantom, control quality

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Authors: M. Bittencourt, E. K. Yanful, D. Velasquez, A. E. Jungles

Abstract:

The CMLP building was developed to be a model for sustainability with strategies to reduce water, energy and pollution, and to provide a healthy environment for the building occupants. The aim of this paper is to investigate the environmental effects of energy used by this building. A LCA (life cycle analysis) was led to measure the real environmental effects produced by the use of energy. The impact categories most affected by the energy use were found to be the human health effects, as well as ecotoxicity. Natural gas extraction, uranium milling for nuclear energy production, and the blasting for mining and infrastructure construction are the processes contributing the most to emissions in the human health effect. Data comparing LCA results of CMLP building with a conventional building results showed that energy used by the CMLP building has less damage for the environment and human health than a conventional building.

Keywords: Environmental Impacts, Green buildings, Life CycleAnalysis, Sustainability

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Authors: Suken Nayak, Aditya Kambli, Bharati Ingale, Gauri Shukla

Abstract:

The technological concepts such as wireless hospital and portable cardiac telemetry system require the development of physiological signal acquisition devices to be easily integrated into the hospital database. In this paper we present the low cost, portable wireless ECG acquisition hardware that transmits ECG signals to a dedicated computer.The front end of the system obtains and processes incoming signals, which are then transmitted via a microcontroller and wireless Bluetooth module. A monitoring purpose Bluetooth based end user application integrated with patient database management module is developed for the computers. The system will act as a continuous event recorder, which can be used to follow up patients who have been resuscitatedfrom cardiac arrest, ventricular tachycardia but also for diagnostic purposes for patients with arrhythmia symptoms. In addition, cardiac information can be saved into the patient-s database of the hospital.

Keywords: ECG, Bluetooth communication, monitoring application, patient database

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Authors: Denis Trcek

Abstract:

Trust is essential for further and wider acceptance of contemporary e-services. It was first addressed almost thirty years ago in Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria standard by the US DoD. But this and other proposed approaches of that period were actually solving security. Roughly some ten years ago, methodologies followed that addressed trust phenomenon at its core, and they were based on Bayesian statistics and its derivatives, while some approaches were based on game theory. However, trust is a manifestation of judgment and reasoning processes. It has to be dealt with in accordance with this fact and adequately supported in cyber environment. On the basis of the results in the field of psychology and our own findings, a methodology called qualitative algebra has been developed, which deals with so far overlooked elements of trust phenomenon. It complements existing methodologies and provides a basis for a practical technical solution that supports management of trust in contemporary computing environments. Such solution is also presented at the end of this paper.

Keywords: internet security, trust management, multi-agent systems, reasoning and judgment, modeling and simulation, qualitativealgebra

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Authors: Craig Loschmann

Abstract:

With the global financial crisis turning into what more and more appears to be a prolonged “Great Recession", we are witnessing marked reductions in remittance transfers to developing countries with the likely possibility that overall flows will decline even further in the near future. With countless families reliant on remittance inflows as a source of income maintaining their economic livelihood, a reduction would put many at risk of falling below or deeper into poverty. Recognizing the importance of remittance inflows as a lifeline to the poor, policy should aim to (1) reduce the barriers to remit in both sending and receiving nations thus easing the decline in transfers; (2) leverage the development impacts of remittances; and (3) buffer vulnerable groups dependent on remittance transfers as a source of livelihood through sound countercyclical macroeconomic policies.

Keywords: crisis, migration, remittance, livelihood.

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Authors: Viliam Makis, Farnoosh Naderkhani, Leila Jafari

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In this paper, we present a model and an algorithm for the calculation of the optimal control limit, average cost, sample size, and the sampling interval for an optimal Bayesian chart to control the proportion of defective items produced using a semi-Markov decision process approach. Traditional p-chart has been widely used for controlling the proportion of defectives in various kinds of production processes for many years. It is well known that traditional non-Bayesian charts are not optimal, but very few optimal Bayesian control charts have been developed in the literature, mostly considering finite horizon. The objective of this paper is to develop a fast computational algorithm to obtain the optimal parameters of a Bayesian p-chart. The decision problem is formulated in the partially observable framework and the developed algorithm is illustrated by a numerical example.

Keywords: Bayesian control chart, semi-Markov decision process, quality control, partially observable process.

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Authors: Redha Elhuni, M. Munir Ahmad

Abstract:

The main purpose of this research is to construct a generic model for successful implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) in Oil sector, and to find out the effects of this model on the organizational sustainability development (OSD) performance of Libyan oil and gas companies using the structured equation modeling (SEM) approach. The research approach covers both quantitative and qualitative methods. A questionnaire was developed in order to identify the quality factors that are seen by Libyan oil and gas companies to be critical to the success of TQM implementation. Hypotheses were developed to evaluate the impact of TQM implementation on O SD. Data analysis reveals that there is a significant positive effect of the TQM implementation on OSD. 24 quality factors are found to be critical and absolutely essential for successful TQM implementation. The results generated a structure of the TQMSD implementation framework based on the four major road map constructs (Top management commitment, employee involvement and participation, customer-driven processes, and continuous improvement culture).

Keywords: TQM, CQFs, Oil & Gas, OSD, Libya.

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Authors: L. Belkhiri, L. Mouni, A. Tiri, T.S. Narany

Abstract:

In the present study, the self-organizing map (SOM) clustering technique was applied to identify homogeneous clusters of hydrochemical parameters in El Milia plain, Algeria, to assess the quality of groundwater for potable and agricultural purposes. The visualization of SOM-analysis indicated that 35 groundwater samples collected in the study area were classified into three clusters, which showed progressive increase in electrical conductivity from cluster one to cluster three. Samples belonging to cluster one are mostly located in the recharge zone showing hard fresh water type, however, water type gradually changed to hard-brackish type in the discharge zone, including clusters two and three. Ionic ratio studies indicated the role of carbonate rock dissolution in increases on groundwater hardness, especially in cluster one. However, evaporation and evapotranspiration are the main processes increasing salinity in cluster two and three.

Keywords: Drinking water, groundwater quality, irrigation water, self-organizing maps.

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Authors: Taimur Qureshi, Djamel A Zighed

Abstract:

Many supervised induction algorithms require discrete data, even while real data often comes in a discrete and continuous formats. Quality discretization of continuous attributes is an important problem that has effects on speed, accuracy and understandability of the induction models. Usually, discretization and other types of statistical processes are applied to subsets of the population as the entire population is practically inaccessible. For this reason we argue that the discretization performed on a sample of the population is only an estimate of the entire population. Most of the existing discretization methods, partition the attribute range into two or several intervals using a single or a set of cut points. In this paper, we introduce a technique by using resampling (such as bootstrap) to generate a set of candidate discretization points and thus, improving the discretization quality by providing a better estimation towards the entire population. Thus, the goal of this paper is to observe whether the resampling technique can lead to better discretization points, which opens up a new paradigm to construction of soft decision trees.

Keywords: Bootstrap, discretization, resampling, soft decision trees.

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Authors: A. S. Kipcak, P. Gurses, E. Moroydor Derun, S. Piskin

Abstract:

Borate minerals have attracted considerable attention in the past years due to their structural chemistry and mechanical properties in several industries. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to the use of; synthetically produced magnesium borates as catalysts reinforcing material for plastics, the conversion of hydrocarbons, electro-conductive treating agent, anti-wear and anti-corrosion materials. Magnesium borates can be synthesized by several methods such as; hydrothermal and solid-state (thermal) processes. In this study the hydrothermal production method was applied at the modest temperature of 80C along with convenient crystal growth. Using MgCl2.6H2O, H3BO3, and NaOH as starting materials, 30, 60, 120, 240 minutes of reaction times were studied. After all, the crystal structure and the morphology of the products were examined by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). As a result the forms of Admontite and Mcallisterite minerals were synthesized.

Keywords: FT-IR, hydrothermal method, magnesium borates, XRD.

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Authors: S. Sarumathi, N. Shanthi, P. Ranjetha

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Data mining is the procedure of determining interesting patterns from the huge amount of data. With the intention of accessing the data faster the most supporting processes needed is clustering. Clustering is the process of identifying similarity between data according to the individuality present in the data and grouping associated data objects into clusters. Cluster ensemble is the technique to combine various runs of different clustering algorithms to obtain a general partition of the original dataset, aiming for consolidation of outcomes from a collection of individual clustering outcomes. The performances of clustering ensembles are mainly affecting by two principal factors such as diversity and quality. This paper presents the overview about the different cluster ensemble algorithm along with their methods used in cluster ensemble to improve the diversity and quality in the several cluster ensemble related papers and shows the comparative analysis of different cluster ensemble also summarize various cluster ensemble methods. Henceforth this clear analysis will be very useful for the world of clustering experts and also helps in deciding the most appropriate one to determine the problem in hand.

Keywords: Cluster Ensemble, Consensus Function, CSPA, Diversity, HGPA, MCLA.

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Authors: Abubakar Dikko

Abstract:

The research investigates the causes of unemployment in Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa and the role of Capital Accumulation in reducing the unemployment profile of these economies as proposed by the post-Keynesian economics. This is conducted through extensive review of literature on the NAIRU models and focused on the post-Keynesian view of unemployment within the NAIRU framework. The NAIRU (non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment) model has become a dominant framework used in macroeconomic analysis of unemployment. The study views the post-Keynesian economics arguments that capital accumulation is a major determinant of unemployment. Unemployment remains the fundamental socio-economic challenge facing African economies. It has been a burden to citizens of those economies. Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa are great African nations battling with high unemployment rates. The high unemployment rate in the country led the citizens to chase away foreigners in the country claiming that they have taken away their jobs. The study proposes there is a strong relationship between capital accumulation and unemployment in Namibia, Nigeria, and South Africa, and capital accumulation is responsible for high unemployment rates in these countries. For the economies to achieve steady state level of employment and satisfactory level of economic growth and development, there is need for capital accumulation to take place. The countries in the study have been selected after a critical research and investigations. They are selected based on the following criteria; African economies with high unemployment rates above 15% and have about 40% of their workforce unemployed. This level of unemployment is the critical level of unemployment in Africa as expressed by International Labour Organization (ILO). And finally, the African countries experience a slow growth in their Gross fixed capital formation. Adequate statistical measures have been employed using a time-series analysis in the study and the results revealed that capital accumulation is the main driver of unemployment performance in the chosen African countries. An increase in the accumulation of capital causes unemployment to reduce significantly. The results of the research work will be useful and relevant to federal governments and ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) of Namibia, Nigeria and South Africa to resolve the issue of high and persistent unemployment rates in their economies which are great burden that slows growth and development of developing economies. Also, the result can be useful to World Bank, African Development Bank and International Labour Organization (ILO) in their further research and studies on how to tackle unemployment in developing and emerging economies.

Keywords: Capital accumulation, NAIRU, post-Keynesian economics, unemployment.

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Authors: Mohammed S. ALSaidi, John P. Mo

Abstract:

Modern engineering assets are complex and very high in value. They are expected to function for years to come, with ability to handle the change in technology and ageing modification. The aging of an engineering asset and continues increase of vendors and contractors numbers forces the asset operation management (or Owner) to design an asset system which can capture these changes. Furthermore, an accurate performance measurement and risk evaluation processes are highly needed. Therefore, this paper explores the nature of the asset management system performance evaluation for an engineering asset based on the System Support Engineering (SSE) principles. The research work explores the asset support system from a range of perspectives, interviewing managers from across a refinery organization. The factors contributing to complexity of an asset management system are described in context which clusters them into several key areas. It is proposed that SSE framework may then be used as a tool for analysis and management of asset. The paper will conclude with discussion of potential application of the framework and opportunities for future research.

Keywords: Asset management, performance, evaluation.

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Authors: M. Hossain, A. H. Khan, M. A. R. Sarkar

Abstract:

Primary containment structure is one of the five safety layers of a nuclear facility which is needed to be designed in such a manner that it can withstand the pressure and excessive radioactivity during accidental situations. It is also necessary to ensure minimization of cost with maximum possible safety in order to make the design economically feasible and attractive. This paper attempts to identify the optimum design conditions for primary containment structure considering both mechanical and radiation safety keeping the economic aspects in mind. This work takes advantage of commercial simulation software to identify the suitable conditions without the requirement of costly experiments. Generated data may be helpful for further studies.

Keywords: PWR, concrete containment, finite element approach, neutron attenuation, Von Mises Stress.

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Authors: V. J. Pillewan, D. N. Raut, K. N. Patil, D. K. Shinde

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Forging, milling, turning, grinding and shaping etc. are the various industrial manufacturing processes which generate the metal waste. Grinding is extensively used in the finishing operation. The waste generated contains significant impurities apart from the metal particles. Due to these significant impurities, it becomes difficult to process and gets usually dumped in the landfills which create environmental problems. Therefore, it becomes essential to reuse metal waste to create value added products. Powder injection molding process is used for producing the porous metal matrix framework. This paper discusses the presented design of the porous framework to be used for the liquid filter application. Different parameters are optimized to obtain the better strength framework with variable porosity. Carbon nanotubes are used as reinforcing materials to enhance the strength of the metal matrix framework.

Keywords: Grinding waste, powder injection molding, carbon nanotubes, metal matrix composites.

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Authors: F. Demir

Abstract:

Strategic Management is highly critical for all types of organizations. This paper examines maturity level of strategic management practices of public and private sector organizations in Turkey, and presents a conceptual model for assessing the maturity of strategic management in any organization. This research focuses on R&D intensive organizations (RDO) because it is claimed that such organizations are more innovative and innovation is a critical part of the model. The Strategic management maturity model (S-3M) is basically composed of six maturity levels with five different dimensions. Based on 63 organizations, the findings reveal that the average maturity of all organizations in the sample group is three out of five. It corresponds to the stage of ‘performed’. Results simply show that the majority of organizations from various industries and sectors implement strategic management activities; however, they experience multiple challenges to optimize strategic management processes and integrate organizational components with business strategies. Briefly, they struggle to become an innovative organization.

Keywords: Strategic management, innovation, developing countries, research and development.

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Authors: Ilze Stokmane

Abstract:

Baltic competitiveness is quite controversial. In a situation with the rapid structural changes, economy develops in balance very rarely - in different fields will always be more rapid changes in another more stagnation. Analyzing different economic indices developed by international organizations the situation in three Baltic countries are described from a different competitiveness positions highlighting strengths and weaknesses of each country. Exploring the openness of the economy, it is possible to observe certain risks included in the reports describing situation of competitiveness where government policies competing in the tax system, the rates of labour market policies, investment environment, etc. This is a very important factor resulting in competitive advantage. Baltic countries are still at a weak position from a technological perspective, and need to borrow the knowledge and technology from more developed countries.

Keywords: Baltic countries, Baltic region, competitiveness, indices of competitiveness.

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Authors: Soe Winn, May Thwe Oo

Abstract:

Business process automation is an important task in an enterprise business environment software development. The requirements of processing acceleration and automation level of enterprises are inherently different from one organization to another. We present a methodology and system for automation of business process management system architecture by multi-agent collaboration based on SOA. Design layer processes are modeled in semantic markup language for web services application. At the core of our system is considering certain types of human tasks to their further automation across over multiple platform environments. An improved abnormality processing with model for automation of BPMS architecture by multi-agent collaboration based on SOA is introduced. Validating system for efficiency of process automation, an application for educational knowledge base instance would also be described.

Keywords: Business process management system, businessprocess automation, multi-agent collaboration, Service OrientedArchitecture, extensible service application

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Authors: Anne M. Sørebø

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In this paper we investigate how wide-ranging organizational support and the more specific form of support, namely management support, may influence on tourism workers satisfaction with a cash transaction system. The IS continuance theory, proposed by Bhattacherjee in 2001, is utilized as a theoretical framework. This implies that both perceived usefulness and ease of use is included in the research model, in addition to organizational and management support. The sample consists of 500 workers from 10 cruise and tourist ferries in Scandinavia that use a cash transaction system to perform their work tasks. Using structural equation modelling, results indicate that organizational support and ease of use perceptions is critical for the users- level of satisfaction with the cash transaction system.The findings have implications for business managers and IS practitioners that want to increase the quality of IT-based business processes within the tourism industry.

Keywords: ease of use, IS continuance, organizational support, tourism industry, user satisfaction.

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Authors: Dhanashree Nansaheb Kharde, Justus Selwyn

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These days customer satisfaction plays vital role in any business. When customer searches for a product, significantly a junk of irrelevant information is what is given, leading to customer dissatisfaction. To provide exactly relevant information on the searched product, we are proposing a model of KaaS (Knowledge as a Service), which pre-processes the information using decision making paradigm using Multi-agents. Information obtained from various sources is taken to derive knowledge and they are linked to Cloud to capture new idea. The main focus of this work is to acquire relevant information (knowledge) related to product, then convert this knowledge into a service for customer satisfaction and deploy on cloud. For achieving these objectives we are have opted to use multi agents. They are communicating and interacting with each other, manipulate information, provide knowledge, to take decisions. The paper discusses about KaaS as an intelligent approach for Knowledge acquisition.

Keywords: Knowledge acquisition, multi-agents, intelligent user interface, ontology, intelligent agent.

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Authors: T.S.Balasubramanian, V.Balasubramanian, M.A.Muthumanikkam

Abstract:

This paper reports the fatigue crack growth behaviour of gas tungsten arc, electron beam and laser beam welded Ti-6Al-4V titanium alloy. Centre cracked tensile specimens were prepared to evaluate the fatigue crack growth behaviour. A 100kN servo hydraulic controlled fatigue testing machine was used under constant amplitude uniaxial tensile load (stress ratio of 0.1 and frequency of 10 Hz). Crack growth curves were plotted and crack growth parameters (exponent and intercept) were evaluated. Critical and threshold stress intensity factor ranges were also evaluated. Fatigue crack growth behaviour of welds was correlated with mechanical properties and microstructural characteristics of welds. Of the three joints, the joint fabricated by laser beam welding exhibited higher fatigue crack growth resistance due to the presence of fine lamellar microstructure in the weld metal.

Keywords: Fatigue, Non ferrous metals and alloys, welding

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Authors: S. Sabzchi Asl, N. Tahouni, M. H. Panjeshahi

Abstract:

Benchmarking of a process with respect to energy consumption, without accomplishing a full retrofit study, can save both engineering time and money. In order to achieve this goal, the first step is to develop a conceptual-mathematical model that can easily be applied to a group of similar processes. In this research, we have aimed to identify a set of key parameters for the model which is supposed to be used for benchmarking of combined cycle power plants. For this purpose, three similar combined cycle power plants were studied. The results showed that ambient temperature, pressure and relative humidity, number of HRSG evaporator pressure levels and relative power in part load operation are the main key parameters. Also, the relationships between these parameters and produced power (by gas/ steam turbine), gas turbine and plant efficiency, temperature and mass flow rate of the stack flue gas were investigated.

Keywords: Combined cycle power plant, energy benchmarking, modelling, Retrofit.

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Authors: M. G. Rostedt, M. J. Hall, L. Shi, R. D. Matthews

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Silicon substrates coated with multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were experimentally investigated to determine spark breakdown voltages relative to uncoated surfaces, the degree of surface degradation associated with the spark discharge, and techniques to minimize the surface degradation. The results may be applicable to instruments or processes that use MWCNT as a means of increasing local electric field strength and where spark breakdown is a possibility that might affect the devices’ performance or longevity. MWCNTs were shown to reduce the breakdown voltage of a 1mm gap in air by 30-50%. The relative decrease in breakdown voltage was maintained over gap distances of 0.5 to 2mm and gauge pressures of 0 to 4 bar. Degradation of the MWCNT coated surfaces was observed. Several techniques to improve durability were investigated. These included: chromium and gold-palladium coatings, tube annealing, and embedding clusters of MWCNT in a ceramic matrix.

Keywords: Ionization sensor, spark, nanotubes, electrode, breakdown.

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Authors: W. Afef, A. Mohamed Ammar, G. Kamel, O. Ahmed

Abstract:

In the present study, a numerical approach to describe the pyrolysis of a single solid particle of wood is used to study the influence of various conditions such as particle size, heat transfer coefficient, reactor temperature and heating rate. The influence of these parameters in the change of the duration of the pyrolysis cycle was studied. Mathematical modeling was employed to simulate the heat, mass transfer, and kinetic processes inside the reactor. The evolutions of the mass loss as well as the evolution of temperature inside the thick piece are investigated numerically. The elaborated model was also employed to study the effect of the reactor temperature and the rate of heating on the change of the temperature and the local loss of the mass inside the piece of wood. The obtained results are in good agreement with the experimental data available in the literature.

Keywords: Wood, Pyrolysis, Modeling, Convective heat transfer, Kinetic.

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