Structure,dielectric properties of novel Ba(Zr,Ti)O3 based ceramics for energy storage application

(1-x) Ba(Zr_0.2Ti_0.8)O₃-x Na_0.5Bi_0.5TiO₃ (x = 0, 10, 20 30, 40, 50 mol%) (BZTN) ceramics are prepared by the traditional solid phase method. All BZTN ceramics exhibit a pseudo-cubic BZT based perovskite structure. Both the average grain size and the relaxor ferroelectricity of BZTN ceramics gradually increase with increasing NBT content. The W_rec of 3.22 J/cm³ and η of 91.2% is obtained for the BZTN40 ceramic at 241 kV/cm. BZTN40 ceramic also exhibits good temperature stability from room temperature to 150 °C and frequency stability from 1 Hz to 100 Hz. A P_D of 0.621 J/cm³ and a t_0.9 of 82 ns is obtained for the BZTN40 ceramic at 120 kV/cm. BZTN ceramics show application potential in energy storage and pulse power capacitors.     

A Two-Dimensional Numerical Analysis for Thermal Performance of an Intermittently Operated Radiant Floor Heating System in a Transient External Climatic Condition

Abstract

Building thermal inertia and operation control strategies have impacted on the thermal performance of a radiant floor heating system. This study conducts a two-dimensional numerical analysis of an intermittently operated radiant floor heating system using the Re-Normalization Group model with Discrete Ordinates Radiation model. A detailed numerical simulation setups and various analyses are provided, including grid independency analysis, initial condition, time step sizes and external boundary conditions. Three different weekend day intermittent operation strategies are investigated. The results showed that Case 3 designed with pre-heating of 20?h has better performance compared to Case 1 designed with pre-heating of 8?h and Case 2 designed with pre-heating of 14?h. The average indoor air temperature differences of approximate 2.1, 1.6 and 1.2 K are observed for Case 1, Case 2 and Case 3, respectively, when comparing two-time slot at 8:00am on Friday morning and Monday morning. This significantly highlights the effect of thermal inertia and the potential of energy saving due to the utilization of intermittent operation. Therefore, the current study presents numerical simulation potential in evaluating the radiant floor heating effects on indoor thermal environment, taking into account building thermal inertia and transient external climatic conditions.     

Structure and electrical properties of Ca2+-doped (Na0.47Bi0.47Ba0.06)TiO3 lead-free piezoelectric ceramics

The lead-free piezoelectric ceramics (Na_.47Bi_.47Ba_.06)_1-xCa_xTiO₃ (x?=?0, 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.05, and 0.08, abbreviated as BNBTC/0, BNBTC/1, BNBTC/2, BNBTC/3, BNBTC/5, and BNBTC/8, respectively) were obtained using the solid-state reaction method. The structure, electric conductivity, and dielectric, ferroelectric, and piezoelectric properties of the Ca²⁺-doped (Na_.47Bi_.47Ba_.06)TiO₃ ceramics were thoroughly investigated. The ceramics sintered at 1200?°C exhibit dense microstructures, having relative densities higher than 96%. The X-ray diffraction results demonstrate that all ceramics have a pure perovskite structure. The mean grain sizes of the ceramics are related to the Ca²⁺ quantity. A small quantity of Ca²⁺ ions (x?≤?0.03) improves the piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties of the samples. The dielectric behavior of the samples is sensitive to the Ca²⁺ content and electric poling. The results demonstrate that the electrical properties of the (Na_.47Bi_.47Ba_.06)TiO₃ lead-free ceramics can be well tuned by varying the Ca²⁺ quantity.     

Preparation of biaxially textured Ce1-x(Y0.2Zr0.8)xOδ buffer layers on RABiTS NiW tapes by chemical solution deposition

Highly (100)-oriented Ce_1-x(Y_0.2Zr_0.8)_xO_δ (CYZO) films were prepared on biaxially textured NiW substrates by a chemical solution deposition approach using metal inorganic salts as starting materials. It has been found that both the preferential orientation and surface roughness of CYZO films decrease gradually with increasing of the doping percentage of Y³⁺ and Zr⁴⁺ ions. The epitaxial growth relationship of (220)_CYZO//(200)_NiW and [00?l]_CYZO//[001]_NiW was demonstrated by XRD texture measurement as well as atomic resolution STEM observation. XRD, Raman and XPS spectra results indicate that Y³⁺ and Zr⁴⁺ ions were indeed introduced into CeO₂ lattice to substitute Ce⁴⁺ ions and form cubic fluorite CYZO solid solution. Moreover, CeO₂ buffer layer can be endowed a strong enough capability to prevent element diffusion through co-doping of yttrium and zirconium, provided that an optimal doping ratio of them is adopted. This will provide a new approach to fabricating strong-barrier single buffer layer for coated conductor.     

600MW超临界CFB机组深度调峰运行技术

经通过分析超临界CFB机组在深度调峰方面的优势,结合600MW超临界CFB机组的实际运行工况,提出机组在深度调峰前应开展的试验工作。研究600MW超临界CFB机组的深度调峰过程,从汽机、锅炉、电气等方面提出有效的技术措施,解决深度调峰可能带来的锅炉流化不良、环保参数控制困难等问题。通过在600MW超临界CFB机组上应用,机组在30%负荷深度调峰运行,工况稳定,各项参数正常,取得了较好效果。     

Synthesis of Cellulose-Based Macromolecular Coupling Agent and its Utilization in Poly (butylene succinate)/Wood Flour Composites

A long fatty side chain was introduced into the macromolecule of hydroxyethyl cellulose (HEC) via esterification reaction. The hydrophobicity of hydroxyethyl cellulose lauric acid ester (HECLAE) was enhanced in comparison with HEC. The obtained HECLAE was used as macromolecular coupling agent in poly (butylene succinate)/wood flour composites and exhibited a positive influence on improving the mechanical performance of composites. Besides, HECLAE plays a role as a hydrophobic agent in composites. A significant increase in storage modulus (E’) was observed upon the incorporation of treated wood flour. SEM images showed that the dispersion of treated wood flour in PBS matrix was improved.     

Approximate computational approaches for Bayesian sensor placement in high dimensions

Since the cost of installing and maintaining sensors is usually high, sensor locations should always be strategically selected to extract most of the information. For inferring certain quantities of interest (QoIs) using sensor data, it is desirable to explore the dependency between observables and QoIs to identify optimal placement of sensors. Mutual information is a popular dependency measure, however, its estimation in high dimensions is challenging as it requires a large number of samples. This also comes at a significant computational cost when samples are obtained by simulating complex physics-based models. Similarly, identifying the optimal design/location requires a large number of mutual information evaluations to explore a continuous design space. To address these challenges, two novel approaches are proposed. First, instead of estimating mutual information in high-dimensions, we map the limited number of samples onto a lower dimensional space while capturing dependencies between the QoIs and observables. We then estimate a lower bound of the original mutual information in this low dimensional space, which becomes our new dependence measure between QoIs and observables. Second, we use Bayesian optimization to search for optimal sensor locations in a continuous design space while reducing the number of lower bound evaluations. Numerical results on both synthetic and real data are provided to compare the performance of the lower bound with the estimate of mutual information in high dimensions, and a puff-based dispersion model is used to evaluate the sensor placement of the Bayesian optimization for a chemical release problem. The results show that the proposed approaches are both effective and efficient in capturing dependencies and inferring the QoIs.     

Influence of Si-Doping on the Performance of InGaN/GaN Multiple Quantum Well Solar Cells

Semiconductors - The performance of InGaN/GaN multiple quantum well (MQW) solar cells with five different Si-doping concentrations, namely 0, 4 × 1017 cm–3, 1 × 1018 cm–3, 3...     

Notch radius effect on fracture toughness of ceramics pertinent to grain size

Unlike fracture toughness, the notch fracture toughness of a ceramic is not a constant; rather, it increases with the notch-root radius ρ in a notched specimen. In this study, by analyzing the fracture measurements of eight different notched ceramics with an average grain size G of 3–40 μm, a simple model describing the relation between the notch fracture toughness and fracture toughness is proposed as a function of the relative notch-root radius ρ/G. The normal distribution is incorporated to consider the inevitable scatter in measurements where fracture mechanisms and errors are present. The results demonstrate that the model can effectively predict the quasi-brittle fracture variation trend for ceramics, including the upper and lower bounds, with 96% reliability, from a normal distribution; thus, it can address virtually all of the experimental data. We also determined that the notch fracture toughness approximates the fracture toughness if ρ ≤ G.     

An efficient video summarization for surveillance system using normalized k-means and quick sort method

There has been a vast augmentation in quantity of Video Content (VC) generated amid the last some years. The Video Summarization (VS) approach is introduced for managing the VC. Prevailing VS techniques have endeavored to render the VS but the systems have Execution Time (ET) as well as condensing the video's content in domain specific manner. To triumph over such disadvantages, this paper proposed efficient VS for surveillance system using normalized k-means along with quick sort method. The proposed technique comprises eight stages, like split video into frames, pre-sampling, provide ID number, feature extraction, Feature Selection (FS), clustering, extract frames, video summary. Initially, the video frames are pre-sampled utilizing the proposed Three Step Cross Searching Algorithm (TSCS) technique. Then, give the ID number for every frame. Next, the features are extracted as of the frames. Then, the necessary features are selected using Entropy based Spider Monkey Algorithms (ESMA). In next stage, the features are grouped using Normalized K-Means (N-Kmeans) algorithm for identifying best candidate frames. Then select the minimum distance value based cluster set is the Key Frame (KF) selection. At last, the video is orderly summarized using quick sort method. Finally, in experimental evaluation the proposed work is compared with the prevailing methods. The proposed VS gave better outcome than the existing approaches.