Superhydrophobic PAN nanofibers for gas diffusion layers of proton exchange membrane fuel cells for cathodic water management

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells are considered to be promising alternatives to natural resources for generating electricity and various other powers. Optimal water management in the gas diffusion layer (GDL) is critical to the high performance of fuel cells. The basic function of the GDL includes transporting the reactant gas from flow channels to the catalyst effectively, draining liquid water from the catalyst layer to the flow channels, and conducting electrons with low humidity. In this study, poly-acrylonitrile (PAN) was dissolved in a solvent and electrospun at various conditions to produce PAN nanofibers prior to their stabilization at atmospheric pressure at 280 °C for 1 h and carbonization at 850 °C for one more hour. The surface hydrophobicity of the carbonized PAN nanofibers were adjusted using superhydrophobic and hydrophilic agents. The thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties of the new GDLs showed better results than the conventional ones. Water condensation tests (superhydrophobic and hydrophilic) on the surfaces of the GDLs showed a crucial step towards improved water management in fuel cells. This study may open up new possibilities for developing high-performing GDL materials for future PEM fuel cell applications.     

Investigation of thermal comfort properties of zinc oxide coated woven cotton fabric

In this paper, we investigated thermal comfort properties of twill weave cotton woven fabric coated zinc oxide layer in Roaches high temperature sample dyeing machine in gentle conditions. The effect of coated film structure on thermal comfort properties of the fabric was characterized using SEM observation, EDS analysis, and Permetest instruments. EDS analysis and SEM images of the ZnO coated twill weave cotton fabric proved that ZnO coating layer which has significant effects on thermal comfort properties was successfully synthesized on the fabric surface by covering the pores of the twill weave cotton fabric. Results showed that thermal resistance of ZnO coated fabric increased approx. 36–52%, while thermal conductivity is decreased approx. 27–34% and WVP is decreased approx. 22–28%. Further studies have started and in progress to evaluate wash fastness, wear performance, abrasion properties, and fabric handle properties.     

Gilbert Damping Constant of Quaternary Co2MnAl1?x Sn x Heusler Alloy Thin Films

Polycrystalline quaternary Co₂MnAl_1?x Sn _x films with x=0.25, 0.5, 0.75,?1 were prepared at room temperature using magnetron sputtering technique on SiO₂ substrates and post-annealed at various temperatures. We investigated the crystal structures, magnetic properties, and magnetic damping constants (??) of the prepared films. Out-of-plane angular dependences of the resonance field and the linewidth of the ferromagnetic resonance spectra were measured and analyzed using the Landau?CLifshitz?CGilbert equation to determine the magnetic properties and damping constant. Co₂MnAl_0.75Sn_0.25 and Co₂MnSn films had A2 ordered crystal structure while Co₂MnAl_0.25Sn_0.75 and Co₂MnAl_0.5Sn_0.5 films had A2 ordering up to 400?°C and 300?°C annealing temperature, respectively, and they had B2 ordering for the remaining temperatures. Also the crystal structure deteriorated at 600?°C for all of the film systems. The saturation magnetization, M _S , of films increased with annealing temperature till 400?°C except Co₂MnAl_0.5Sn_0.5 in which M _S increased till 500?°C, which is consistent with the structural analysis. The effective magnetization was obtained from the FMR spectra and it was found that it decreased with increasing Sn-concentration and reached a minimum value at Co₂MnAl_0.25Sn_0.75 composition. Lastly, Co₂MnAl_1?x Sn _x films annealed at 500?°C showed the best crystal ordering. The lowest ?? value was 0.008 and obtained from Co₂MnAl_0.5Sn_0.5 films annealed at 500?°C.     

Exergoeconomic evaluation on the optimum heating circuit system of Simav geothermal district heating system

Simav is one of the most important 15 geothermal areas in Turkey. It has several geothermal resources with the mass flow rate ranging from 35 to 72 kg/s and temperature from 88 to 148 °C. Hence, these geothermal resources are available to use for several purposes, such as electricity generation, district heating, greenhouse heating, and balneological purposes. In Simav, the 5000 residences are heated by a district heating system in which these geothermal resources are used. Beside this, a greenhouse area of 225,000 m² is also heated by geothermal. In this study, the working conditions of the Simav geothermal district heating system have been optimized. In this paper, the main characteristics of the system have been presented and the impact of the parameters of heating circuit on the system are investigated by the means of energy, exergy, and life cycle cost (LCC) concepts. As a result, the optimum heating circuit has been determined as 60/49 °C.     

Intelligent adaptive nonlinear flight control for a high performance aircraft with neural networks

This paper describes the development of a neural network (NN) based adaptive flight control system for a high performance aircraft. The main contribution of this work is that the proposed control system is able to compensate the system uncertainties, adapt to the changes in flight conditions, and accommodate the system failures. The underlying study can be considered in two phases. The objective of the first phase is to model the dynamic behavior of a nonlinear F-16 model using NNs. Therefore a NN-based adaptive identification model is developed for three angular rates of the aircraft. An on-line training procedure is developed to adapt the changes in the system dynamics and improve the identification accuracy. In this procedure, a first-in first-out stack is used to store a certain history of the input-output data. The training is performed over the whole data in the stack at every stage. To speed up the convergence rate and enhance the accuracy for achieving the on-line learning, the Levenberg-Marquardt optimization method with a trust region approach is adapted to train the NNs. The objective of the second phase is to develop intelligent flight controllers. A NN-based adaptive PID control scheme that is composed of an emulator NN, an estimator NN, and a discrete time PID controller is developed. The emulator NN is used to calculate the system Jacobian required to train the estimator NN. The estimator NN, which is trained on-line by propagating the output error through the emulator, is used to adjust the PID gains. The NN-based adaptive PID control system is applied to control three angular rates of the nonlinear F-16 model. The body-axis pitch, roll, and yaw rates are fed back via the PID controllers to the elevator, aileron, and rudder actuators, respectively. The resulting control system has learning, adaptation, and fault-tolerant abilities. It avoids the storage and interpolation requirements for the too many controller parameters of a typical flight control system. Performance of the control system is successfully tested by performing several six-degrees-of-freedom nonlinear simulations.     

Cost optimization of submersible motors using a genetic algorithm and a finite element method

This paper presents an optimal design method to optimize cost of three-phase submersible motors. The optimally designed motor is compared with an industrial motor having the same ratings. The motor design procedure consists of a system of non-linear equations, which imposes induction motor characteristics, motor performance, magnetic stresses, and thermal limits. The genetic algorithm (GA) is used for cost optimization, and a software algorithm has been developed. As a result of the realized optimization, besides the improvements on the motor cost, motor torque improvements have also been acquired. The 2-D finite element method (FEM) is then used to confirm the validity of the optimal design. Computer simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed design process that can achieve a good prediction of the motor performance. Through the studies accomplished, it has been observed that submersible induction motors’ torques and efficiencies improve, their length reduces, and hence some material savings are obtained.     

A water pumping control system with a programmable logic controller (PLC) and industrial wireless modules for industrial plants--an experimental setup

This paper describes a water pumping control system that is designed for production plants and implemented in an experimental setup in a laboratory. These plants contain harsh environments in which chemicals, vibrations or moving parts exist that could potentially damage the cabling or wires that are part of the control system. Furthermore, the data has to be transferred over paths that are accessible to the public. The control systems that it uses are a programmable logic controller (PLC) and industrial wireless local area network (IWLAN) technologies. It is implemented by a PLC, an communication processor (CP), two IWLAN modules, and a distributed input/output (I/O) module, as well as the water pump and sensors. Our system communication is based on an Industrial Ethernet and uses the standard Transport Control Protocol/Internet Protocol for parameterisation, configuration and diagnostics. The main function of the PLC is to send a digital signal to the water pump to turn it on or off, based on the tank level, using a pressure transmitter and inputs from limit switches that indicate the level of the water in the tank. This paper aims to provide a convenient solution in process plants where cabling is not possible. It also has lower installation and maintenance cost, provides reliable operation, and robust and flexible construction, suitable for industrial applications.     

Asynchronous delay doubler and binary low‐pass filter for a time‐delay chaotic circuit

In this paper, an asynchronous digital circuit is introduced for increasing the amount of delay in binary delay lines in an area efficient way. The circuit that uses its slave delay line twice per delay event is called asynchronous delay doubler (ADD). The delay increases exponentially, while the number of components increases linearly in the recursive utilization of ADD. An assumption on the event interval of the input 2signal helps to design the ADD in a very simple form. Therefore, the ADD can be implemented with a small amount of logical resource (gates or look‐up tables). For proper operation, interval between the events (positive edge or negative edge) on the binary input signal should be larger than the delay provided by the recursive ADD block. In order to satisfy this assumption, an auxiliary asynchronous circuit, which is called binary low‐pass filter (BLPF), is also proposed. The BLPF filters out the pulses narrower than the delay generated by its recursive ADD block. The proposed ADD design is suitable especially for the applications, like random number generation, in which the deviation in amount of delay is useful as an entropy source. In order to prove the concept, a chain of recursive ADD block is implemented with BLPFs on a field‐programmable gate array and utilized in a true random bit generator. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Solution blowing of thermoplastic polyurethane nanofibers: A facile method to produce flexible porous materials

Solution blowing (SB) is a promising and scalable approach for the production of nanofibers. Air pressure, solution flow‐rate, and nozzle‐collector distance were determined as effective process parameters, while solution concentration was also reported as a material parameter. Here we performed a parametric study on thermoplastic polyurethane/dimethyl formamide (TPU/DMF) solutions to examine the effect of such parameters on the resultant properties such as fiber diameter, diameter distribution, porosity, and air permeability of the nanofibrous webs. The obtained solution blown thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) nanofibers had average diameter down to 170 ± 112 nm, which is similar to that observed in electrospinning. However, the production rate per nozzle can be 20 times larger, which is primarily dependent on air pressure and solution flow rate (20 mL/h). Moreover, it was even possible to produce nanofibers polymer concentrations of 20%; however, this increased the average nanofiber diameter. The fibers produced from the TPU/DMF solutions at concentrations of 20% and 10% had average diameters of 671 ± 136 nm and 170 ± 112 nm, respectively. SB can potentially be used for the industrial‐scale production of products such as nanofibrous filters, protective textiles, scaffolds, wound dressings, and battery components. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2016 , 133, 43025.