Membrane heat exchanger in HVAC energy recovery systems, systems energy analysis

The thermal performance of an enthalpy/membrane heat exchanger is experimentally investigated. The heat exchanger utilizes a 60gsm Kraft paper as the heat and moisture transfer surface for HVAC energy recovery. The heat exchanger sensible, latent and total effectiveness have been determined through temperature and moisture content measurements. The annual energy consumption of an air conditioner coupled with an enthalpy/membrane heat exchanger is also studied and compared with a conventional air conditioning cycle using in-house modified HPRate software. The heat exchanger effectiveness are used as thermal performance indicators and incorporated in the modified software. Energy analysis showed that an air conditioning system coupled with a membrane heat exchanger consumes less energy than a conventional air conditioning system in hot and humid climates where the latent load is high. It has been shown that in humid climate a saving of up to 8% in annual energy consumption can be achieved when membrane heat exchanger is used instead of a conventional HVAC system.     

A methodology to compare combined heat and power systems operating under emissions reduction policies considering biomass co-fired,coal- and natural gas-fuelled steam turbines

A steam turbine CHP system with the option for co-firing biomass was examined under current carbon pricing legislation and the proposed emissions reduction policy of the newly elected Federal Government in Australia. When the boiler was fuelled by coal, the system was liable for the carbon price and was unprofitable indicating that the carbon price was successful as an incentive to reduce emissions. This result held only whilst carbon prices were at the values assumed in the analysis. The system would be more financially beneficial under the new Government policy, as it would not be penalized for its high emissions. All systems operating with a natural gas-fuelled boiler were unprofitable. In an attempt to reduce emissions, a co-fired boiler with biomass and coal was proposed. Emissions at 20 % biomass were still above the threshold determining liability; therefore, co-firing was not able to eliminate carbon pricing liability. Due to the high price of biomass, the carbon price could not be offset and was therefore not an economical solution for reducing emissions. However, when biomass pricing was adopted from more established markets, co-firing became somewhat conducive only when the carbon price was repealed.     

Boundary layer instability of the natural convection flow on a uniformly heated vertical plate

Direct numerical simulation is employed to investigate the two-dimensional boundary layer instability of a natural convection flow on a uniformly heated vertical plate submerged in a homogeneous quiescent environment. A Boussinesq fluid with Prandtl numbers of Pr = 0.733 (air) and 6.7 (water), in the local Rayleigh number range 0 ? Ra_x ? 2.4 × 10¹⁰, is studied. Controlled low amplitude numerical disturbances introduced into the base flow excite unstable travelling waves, with the resulting waves tracked and analyzed as they travel up the boundary layer. The numerical simulation readily reproduced what is predicted by the parallel linear stability theory for the two dimensional mode relatively short wave spectrum, but not for some parts of the long wave spectrum. Critical Rayleigh numbers have been obtained separately for both the temperature and velocity signals using the numerical results, and shown to be in good agreement with each other provided the data is renormalized using the boundary layer scalings of Sparrow and Greg [1]. It has been shown that the disturbance behavior depends on the Prandtl and Rayleigh numbers, the excitation frequency and to a lesser extent the prescribed thermal coupling at the plate.     

Impact of carbon tax on internal combustion engine size selection in a medium scale CHP system

Combined heat and power (CHP) systems due to their high efficiency compared to the conventional power generation systems have received considerable attention as they have less harmful impact on the environment. Recently, the serious concern with reducing the greenhouse gas emissions has focussed the attention on the possibility of a carbon tax in some countries. Here, we address the impact of such tax on the sizing and economics of a CHP system.     

A comparison of classification algorithms using Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 data for mapping lithology in Canada’s Arctic

To map Arctic lithology in central Victoria Island, Canada, the relative performance of advanced classifiers (Neural Network (NN), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Random Forest (RF)) were compared to Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) results using Landsat-7 and Landsat-8 imagery. A ten-repetition cross-validation classification approach was applied. Classification performance was evaluated visually and statistically using the global classification accuracy, producer’s and user’s accuracies for each individual lithological/spectral class, and cross-comparison agreement. The advanced classifiers outperformed MLC, especially when training data were not normally distributed. The Landsat-8 classification results were comparable to Landsat-7 using the advanced classifiers but differences were more pronounced when using MLC. Rescaling the Landsat-8 data from 16 bit to 8 bit substantially increased classification accuracy when MLC was applied but had little impact on results from the advanced classifiers.     

Linking Hydro-Physical Variables and Landscape Metrics using Advanced Data Mining for Stream-Flow Prediction

Water Resources Management - In Streamflow prediction the most important triggering/controlling variables are related to climate, physiography, and landscape patterns. This study investigated the...     

Some aspects concerning modelling the flow and heat transfer in horizontal mantle heat exchangers in solar water heaters

An experimental and numerical investigation has been undertaken to study the heat transfer process in horizontal mantle heat exchangers used in solar water heaters. A rectangular cavity has been used as a simplified geometry. With the aid of particle image velocimetry (PIV) the flow field in the centre‐plane of the rectangular cavity has been visualized. Three‐dimensional flow simulations were performed using a commercial CFD package. The impinging jet formed by the inlet flow directed towards the opposite wall was found to produce localised turbulence in the cavity, with an inlet Reynolds number as low as 360. This turbulence was found to effect the flow field and heat transfer in the cavity when the inlet Reynolds number was above 1200. It is shown that, with the boundary conditions used in this study, most of the heat transferred was in the bottom half of the cavity. This is not the ideal situation for optimization of solar water heating systems. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Limited-sample NMR using solenoidal microcoils, perfluorocarbon plugs, and capillary spinning

This study demonstrates three improvements to mass-limited NMR using solenoidal microcoils as detectors: (1) sample confinement using liquid perfluorocarbon plugs to increase the observe factor, (2) design and incorporation of a capillary spinner to improve spectral line widths, and (3) facile sample changing via the use of a capillary insert. The probe is constructed to spin a fused silica capillary of 530 microns i.d., 700 microns o.d. inside a solenoidal coil wound around a 0.8 mm i.d., 1 mm o.d. glass capillary. The smaller capillary contains the sample, and capillaries with different samples can be exchanged easily. In high-resolution limited sample microcoil NMR studies published thus far, the length of the sample plug has been 7-10 times the length of the solenoid to avoid line broadening from volume magnetic susceptibility (chi v) mismatches at both ends of the sample. This arrangement is not efficient since it places most of the sample volume outside of the coil observe volume. It is shown here that the observe factor cannot exceed 23% if the sample plug is bracketed by air, without substantial line broadening occurring. However, if the sample is bracketed by two liquid perfluorocarbon plugs, the observe factor can be increased to 70% while maintaining high spectral resolution. This is equivalent to improving the limit of detection by a factor of 3, or reducing the total data acquisition time for a given signal-to-noise by a factor of 9. It is also shown that, for the 440-nL sample plug used in this study (bracketed by the perflurocarbon plugs), sample spinning can improve the spectral resolution from 1.5 (nonspinning) to 0.6 Hz (spinning). This corresponds to a further improvement in the limit of detection of 2.5, or just over a factor of 6 decrease in data acquisition time.