A new parameter extraction method for accurate modeling of PEM fuel cells

In this paper, a new parameter extraction method for accurate modeling of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems is presented. The main difficulty in obtaining an accurate PEM fuel cell dynamical model is the lack of manufacturer information about the exact values of the parameters needed for the model. In order to obtain a realistic dynamic model of the PEM system, the electrochemical considerations of the system are incorporated into the model. Although many models have been reported in the literature, the parameter extraction issue has been neglected. However, model parameters must be precisely identified in order to obtain accurate simulation results. The main contribution of the present work is the application of the simulated annealing (SA) optimization algorithm as a method for identification of PEM fuel cell model parameter identification. The major advantage of SA is its ability to avoid becoming trapped in local minimum, as well as its flexibility and robustness. The parameter extraction and performance validation are carried out by comparing experimental and simulated results. The good agreement observed confirms the usefulness of the proposed extraction approach together with adopted PEM fuel cell model as an efficient tool to help design of power fuel cell power systems. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Microstructure and wear studies of laser clad Al-Si/SiC(p) composite coatings

Coatings of a composite material consisting of an Al-Si matrix reinforced with SiC particles were produced by laser cladding on UNS A03560 cast Al-alloy substrates from mixtures of powders of Al-12 wt.% Si alloy and SiC. The influence of the processing parameters on the microstructure and abrasive wear resistance of the coatings was studied. For an interaction time of 0.08 s and a power density of 330 MW/m², corresponding to a specific energy of 26 MJ/m², the interaction between SiC and liquid Al is limited and the reinforcement particles remain essentially undissolved. The coating's microstructure is formed of SiC particles dispersed in a matrix consisting of primary α-Al dendrites and interdendritic α-Al + Si eutectic. For interaction times of 0.3 and 0.45 s and a power density of 193 MW/m², corresponding to specific energies of 58 and 87 MJ/m², SiC reacts with molten Al and partially dissolves. The resulting microstructure consists of undissolved SiC particles, found mainly at the bottom of the clad tracks, where the maximum temperature reached during processing is lower, and Al₄SiC₄ and Si particles dispersed in a matrix of α-Al + Si eutectic. The coatings prepared with higher specific energy (58 MJ/m²) present a hardness of 250 V and an abrasive wear rate in three-body abrasion tests with SiC as abrasive of 1.7 × 10^− 4 mm³/m, while those produced with 26 MJ/m² present a hardness of 120 V and a wear rate of 0.43 × 10^− 4 mm³/m. These results show that Al₄SiC₄ and Si increase the hardness of the material by dispersion hardening but do not contribute to its abrasive wear resistance, because they are softer than the abrasive particles, and confirm that the parameters used to prepare Al-Si-SiC composite coatings by laser cladding must be selected so that only minimal reactions occur between SiC and molten Al.     

A Local Graph-rewriting System for Deciding Equality in Sum-product Theories

In this paper we give a graph-based decision procedure for a calculus with sum and product types. Although our motivation comes from the Bird-Meertens approach to reasoning algebraically about functional programs, the language used here can be seen as the internal language of a category with binary products and coproducts. As such, the decision procedure presented has independent interest.A standard approach based on term rewriting would work modulo a set of equations; the present work proposes a simpler approach, based on graph-rewriting. We show in turn how the system covers reflection equational laws, fusion laws, and cancellation laws.     

Combining operational flexibility and dependability in FTT-CAN

The traditional approaches to the design of distributed safety-critical systems, due to fault-tolerance reasons, have mostly considered static cyclic table-based traffic scheduling. However, there is a growing demand for operational flexibility and integration, mainly to improve efficiency in the use of system resources, with the network playing a central role to support such properties. This calls for dynamic online traffic scheduling techniques so that dynamic communication requirements are adequately supported. Nevertheless, using dynamic traffic management mechanisms raises additional problems, in terms of fault-tolerance, related with the weaker knowledge of the future system state caused by the higher level of operational flexibility. Such problems have been recently addressed in the scope of using flexible time-triggered CAN (FTT-CAN) in safety-critical applications in order to benefit from the high operational flexibility of this protocol. This paper gathers and reviews the main mechanisms that were developed to provide dependability to the protocol, namely, master replication and fail-silence enforcement.     

Evolution of the morphological and rheological properties along the extruder length for compatibilized blends of a commercial liquid‐crystalline polymer and polypropylene

In a previous article, we reported on the evolution of the morphological and rheological properties along the length extruder for blends of a liquid‐crystalline polymer (LCP), Rodrun LC3000, and polypropylene (PP). In this work, we extended this study to compatibilized PP/Rodrun LC3000 blends, containing 10 wt % LCP and different compatibilizers, to determine the influence of the addition of a compatibilizer during the processing and, consequently, on the final properties of such systems. The results revealed that the addition of compatibilizers led to a decrease in the mean diameters of the LCP structures, in comparison with those presented by the noncompatibilized blend containing the same LCP content. This phenomenon occurred more quickly for those blends in which compatibilization was carried out in an efficient way. Linear oscillatory shear was mainly sensitive to the type of morphology present in the blends, whereas nonlinear oscillatory shear was more sensitive to the evolution in the droplet/fibril size and along the extruder length. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 99: 347–359, 2006     

Summary cache: a scalable wide-area Web cache sharing protocol

The sharing of caches among Web proxies is an important technique to reduce Web traffic and alleviate network bottlenecks. Nevertheless it is not widely deployed due to the overhead of existing protocols. In this paper we demonstrate the benefits of cache sharing, measure the overhead of the existing protocols, and propose a new protocol called “summary cache”. In this new protocol, each proxy keeps a summary of the cache directory of each participating proxy, and checks these summaries for potential hits before sending any queries. Two factors contribute to our protocol's low overhead: the summaries are updated only periodically, and the directory representations are very economical, as low as 8 bits per entry. Using trace-driven simulations and a prototype implementation, we show that, compared to existing protocols such as the Internet cache protocol (ICP), summary cache reduces the number of intercache protocol messages by a factor of 25 to 60, reduces the bandwidth consumption by over 50%, eliminates 30% to 95% of the protocol CPU overhead, all while maintaining almost the same cache hit ratios as ICP. Hence summary cache scales to a large number of proxies. (This paper is a revision of Fan et al. 1998; we add more data and analysis in this version.)     

The impact of sulphur dioxide and oxygen on the behaviour of 2-furaldehyde in beer: an industrial approach

2‐Furaldehyde is often used as an analytical indicator of beer flavour deterioration. Although 2‐furaldehyde itself has a flavour threshold far above levels generally present in beer, it can be used as a good marker of heat damage of beer. A reversed‐phase liquid chromatographic assay, using ultraviolet‐visible detection, was applied to investigate the behaviour of 2‐furaldehyde throughout the brewing process and during extended storage of beer. The impact of storage temperature, sulphur dioxide and oxygen content on the level of 2‐furaldehyde was studied. It was found that the concentration of 2‐furaldehyde markedly increases during wort boiling and is rapidly reduced by yeast during the first hours of fermentation, emphasising the yeast reducing capacity as a determinant factor for the 2‐furaldehyde content found in the final beer. The results obtained suggest that sulphur dioxide and oxygen content play a key role on the 2‐furaldehyde content in packaged beer. 2‐Furaldehyde increase during ageing is oxygen dependent and sulphur dioxide retards its development by possibly protecting beer against the occurrence of oxidative reactions.     

Studies of the temperature coefficient of capacitance (TCC) of a new electroceramic composite: Pb(Fe0.5Nb0.5)O3 (PFN)–Cr0.75Fe1.25O3(CRFO)

In this paper we did a study of the dielectric properties: capacitance (C), dielectric permittivity(ε), electric modulus(M) and dielectric loss(tangα)) in the radio-frequency(RF) and microwave (MW) frequency range as a function of temperature and the temperature coefficient of capacitance (TCC) of the composites [Pb(Fe_1/2Nb_1/2)O₃(PFN)]_Z–[Cr_YFe_2−YO₃(CRFO)]_100−Z where Z = 0, 10, 50, 90 and 100%. The compounds were prepared by the powder-sintering and the X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used in this study using the Rietveld procedure. The X-ray analysis shows that PFN phase is tetragonal where the CRFO phase belongs to a trigonal structure. The capacitance, dielectric permittivity, electric modulus and loss were studied in the frequency range of 100 Hz to 1GHz and temperature range of 25–100 °C. The values of TCC for all the samples are presenting positive values. The study of the electric modulus (M) as a function of frequency and temperature lead to the measurement of the activation energy (E_ac), which is directed linked to the relaxation process associated to the interfacial polarization effect in the samples. The study of the electrical properties in the RF and MW range of frequencies is important in view of possible applications of these composites as future components in RF and MW circuits.     

Biological monitoring of toxic metals – steel workers respiratory health survey

The aim of this work is to search for respiratory system aggressors to which workers are submitted in their labouring activity. Workers from one sector of a steel plant in Portugal, Siderurgia Nacional (SN), were selected according to the number of years of exposure and labouring characteristics. The work reports on blood elemental content alterations and lung function tests to determine an eventual bronchial hyper-reactivity. Aerosol samples collected permit an estimate of indoor air quality and airborne particulate matter characterisation to further check whether the elemental associations and alterations found in blood may derive from exposure. Blood and aerosol elemental composition was determined by PIXE and INAA. Respiratory affections were verified for 24% of the workers monitored. There are indications that the occurrence of affections can be associated with the total working years. The influence of long-term exposure, health status parameters, and lifestyle factors in blood elemental variations found was investigated.