Synthesis of Quaternary,Long-Chain N-Alkyl Amides and Their Corrosion Inhibition in Acidic Media

New cationic surfactants were synthesized by the quaternization of a number of straight-chain amide derivatives with triethylamine or pyridine. The corrosion inhibition tests of the surface-active compounds were performed at room temperature for 24 h on carbon steel coupons in acidic media using the gravimetric method. The acidic media used were 1.5 M HCl and 1.5 M H₂SO₄. Almost all of the synthesized cationic surfactants showed efficient inhibition of corrosion in the test. To establish the inhibition efficiencies of the inhibitors, surface characterization studies (contact angle measurements, SEM analysis and optical profilometer images) of the metal coupons used were performed.     

Wind turbine speed control of a contactless piezoelectric wind energy harvester

ABSTRACT

Wind turbine control is an important task to make the electricity generation secure in terms of energy demand and machine safety. It also yields to control the desired power level and optimized energy because of the assignment of turbine speed. The contactless piezoelectric wind energy harvester (CPWEH) used in this study has three piezoelectric layers located around the shaft with 120 degrees apart and they are buckled by the magnetic force without any physical contact. The superiority of this device is to generate energy for low wind speeds such as 1.5 m/s. However, for high speeds, high total harmonic distortions (THDs) govern the waveforms, thus controlling the turbine speed becomes necessary for optimizing the output power. Encouraged by this, a small low inertia dc generator is coupled with the wind turbine, and the generator terminals are connected to a resistor through a power switch to generate a braking torque that opposes to wind speed direction. By controlling the switch properly, turbine speed is ensured to remain within a certain band, which accordingly prevents the turbine from rotating very fast at damaging wind speeds. Several experiments are performed on the developed CPWEH with/without the presented control scheme which prove the existence of promising performance of our proposal.