A tool for mass transfer evaluation in packed-bed columns for chemical engineering students

This paper presents a Microsoft Excel tool to calculate liquid-gas mass transfer coefficients in packed towers to support numerical design activities in the courses of Unit Operations for Industrial Process and Sustainable Process Design for the Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II (Italy).The Mass Transfer Solver Tool (MT Solver Tool) uses several available models to estimate, separately, the values of liquid and gas mass-transfer coefficients and the wet surface area for 144 random and structured packings of interest for absorption/stripping and distillation processes. In addition, a separate spreadsheet can be used in a user-defined mode, to evaluate the mass transfer coefficients with new packing types or to interpret experimental data when the geometrical and physical characteristics of the packing are known. Eventually, the tool is supplied with a data library, where packing geometry and model fitting parameters can be retrieved.The software is aimed to support students and educators in the Unit Operations for Industrial Process and Sustainable Process Design courses. In particular, this is meant to be an example on how the accuracy of design algorithms adopted in unit operation processes is affected by the use of the underpinning correlations for mass transfer rate or pressure drops. Besides, this is aimed to encourage comparison of different correlations when exact field data are not available. Besides, chemical engineers and researchers interested in packed columns design and modelling data may also benefit from the utilization of the software. The MT Solver Tool was introduced to students in a dedicated tutorial lesson after lecturers on packed column design algorithms for distillation, absorption and stripping. Most of the students of the course participated to a group training aimed to simulate the design of an absorption column supported by the MT Solver Tool providing feedback on its application.After the training, an anonymous survey was proposed to the students to monitor the approval rating of the proposed activity and the use of the MT Solver Tool software to support numerical calculations.     

分析铁路改良粉细砂填料应用性能试验

在设计铁路路基的填料时,最常出现的是在进行铁路建设的地方就地取材。在以粉细砂为主的地区通常会选择用粉细砂作为铁路的填料,在所有的填料中,粉细砂填料属于C组类型填料,但是因为两个方面的原因需要对其进行一定的改良,一方面是因为粉细砂的粒径比较单一、级配不好,K30不能够满足规范标准的要求;另一方面则是因为大型机械不能够进行施工。本文通过掺入不同体积A、B组砾砂填料到粉细砂填料中进行试验,结果显示这种操作可以在不同程度上提高K30的值,从而在达到相关设计要求的同时解决施工方面的难题。     

基于混合蚁群算法的异质车队低碳VRP研究

针对货运车辆在配送调度过程中产生大量碳排放的问题，建立模型将多种影响碳排放量的因素协同优化。模型中考虑了不同载重量的异质车队，两个节点之间有多条道路的柔性路径，以及车辆重量随卸货而减少的动态负载等因素，以碳排放量、行驶时间和行驶路程为优化目标，并加入了节点需求时间窗、根据速度变化划分路段、交接和卸货时间的约束。提出了一种混合蚁群算法，利用蚁群算法信息素强度更新方式保持群体记忆性，利用粒子群算法的快速收敛特性增加计算效率。通过随机数值算例的仿真优化与对比分析，验证了算法和模型的有效性。     

Delay compensated control of the Stefan problem and robustness to delay mismatch

This paper presents a control design for the one‐phase Stefan problem under actuator delay via a backstepping method. The Stefan problem represents a liquid‐solid phase change phenomenon which describes the time evolution of a material's temperature profile and the interface position. The actuator delay is modeled by a first‐order hyperbolic partial differential equation (PDE), resulting in a cascaded transport‐diffusion PDE system defined on a time‐varying spatial domain described by an ordinary differential equation (ODE). Two nonlinear backstepping transformations are utilized for the control design. The setpoint restriction is given to guarantee a physical constraint on the proposed controller for the melting process. This constraint ensures the exponential convergence of the moving interface to a setpoint and the exponential stability of the temperature equilibrium profile and the delayed controller in the norm. Furthermore, robustness analysis with respect to the delay mismatch between the plant and the controller is studied, which provides analogous results to the exact compensation by restricting the control gain.     

Airline planning and scheduling: Models and solution methodologies

The airline industry is a representative industry with high cost and low profitability. Therefore, airlines should carefully plan their schedules to ensure that overall profit is maximized. We review the literature on airline planning and scheduling and focus on mathematical formulations and solution methodologies. Our research framework is anchored on three major problems in the airline scheduling, namely, fleet assignment, aircraft routing, and crew scheduling. General formulation, widely used solution approaches, and important extensions are presented for each problem and integrated problems. We conclude the review by identifying promising areas for further research.     

埋地管道腐蚀防护--防腐层与阴极保护存在的问题分析

在埋地管道研究工作中,关于其腐蚀的防护一直是研究的焦点问题,但现阶段常用的防护手段多为防腐层与阴极防护。为此,在文中主要对二者的保护措施展开了相应地阐述,并重点分析了2种保护手段存在的问题,旨在为后续的管道防腐研究提供相应的参考。     

基于伪布尔模型和启发式算法求解无容量设施选址问题

采用伪布尔模型和启发式算法来求解无容量设施选址问题。首先给出了问题的伪布尔(pseudo-Boolean)表示，然后基于Khumawala规则对问题进行预处理，最后提出两种启发式分支准则来求解问题。实验结果表明所提算法简单有效。     

Optimal design of Raman fibre amplifier based on terminal value optimization strategy and shuffled frog leaping algorithm

This paper introduces an evolutionary algorithm, Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm (SFLA), to solve the optimization problem in designing the multi-pumped Raman Fibre Amplifier (RFA). SFLA is a powerful optimizer tool because of its efficient mathematical expressions and global search capability. We utilize SFLA to determine the optimal pump wavelengths and pump powers by minimizing the gain ripple of RFA. To accelerate calculations, a terminal value optimization strategy (TVOS) is incorporated into the evolution of SFLA. This proposed strategy takes the terminal power values of pumps as the decision variables in optimization. Then, the optimal original power values of the pumps are obtained by solving the Power Coupled Equations once, without using the traditional method of repetitive guesses.The combination of SFLA and TVOS enhances the efficiency of optimization and accelerates calculation, while satisfying the design requirements of RFA.The simulation results show that nearly 65% of computational time has been saved compared with the traditional average power analysis. The 4-pumped C+L band of backward multi-pumped RFA with the average net gain of 0 dB, 1 dB and 2 dB are designed individually, where the gain ripple is less than 0.64 dB. The combination of SFLA and TVOS enhance the optimization efficiency and improve the performance of RFA with good gain profile.     

论三峡水库“蓄清排浑”运用方式及其优化

泥沙问题是三峡工程的关键技术问题之一,在三峡工程论证和初步设计阶段提出水库采取"蓄清排浑"的运用方式,可以解决泥沙问题。2003年水库蓄水运用以来的实践表明,水库基本遵循了"蓄清排浑"调度运用原则,并根据上游来水来沙减少等新情况对水库运用方式进行了优化调整。本文系统分析了三峡水库"蓄清排浑"运行方式及其优化调整的利弊,包括提前5年实施175 m试验性蓄水、汛期水位动态变化、汛末提前蓄水等对水库淤积和坝下游河道演变的影响,提出了进一步优化水库调度方式,形成"蓄清排浑"运用的新模式,保持水库长期使用的建议,试图为三峡水库科学高效安全运用提供科技支撑。     

A new linearly constrained minimum variance beamformer for reconstructing EEG sparse sources

Brain source imaging based on EEG aims to reconstruct the neural activities producing the scalp potentials. This includes solving the forward and inverse problems. The aim of the inverse problem is to estimate the activity of the brain sources based on the measured data and leadfield matrix computed in the forward step. Spatial filtering, also known as beamforming, is an inverse method that reconstructs the time course of the source at a particular location by weighting and linearly combining the sensor data. In this paper, we considered a temporal assumption related to the time course of the source, namely sparsity, in the Linearly Constrained Minimum Variance (LCMV) beamformer. This assumption sounds reasonable since not all brain sources are active all the time such as epileptic spikes and also some experimental protocols such as electrical stimulations of a peripheral nerve can be sparse in time. Developing the sparse beamformer is done by incorporating L1-norm regularization of the beamformer output in the relevant cost function while obtaining the filter weights. We called this new beamformer SParse LCMV (SP-LCMV). We compared the performance of the SP-LCMV with that of LCMV for both superficial and deep sources with different amplitudes using synthetic EEG signals. Also, we compared them in localization and reconstruction of sources underlying electric median nerve stimulation. Results show that the proposed sparse beamformer can enhance reconstruction of sparse sources especially in the case of sources with high amplitude spikes.