New perspectives and pre-feasibility results of the process heat HTR work

Some pre-feasibility results from the design evaluations of the advanced high temperature reactor AHTR for process heat applications are given, e.g. coating of the spherical fuel elements with silicon carbide as a fission product barrier, design of the central graphite column and the graphite top reflector without any metallic structure, after heat removal system based on natural convection for the primary and secondary circuit, venturi jets to reduce the depressurization rate of the helium in case of damage to the primary ducts etc.. On the basis of these results it is possible in the future, that AHTR can be designed in such a way, that any type of damage of the plant or due to any operator error, poses no hazard to the public.With these design perspectives and attendant simplification of the plant design, it is possible to reduce the investment costs by 10 to 15%, so that the economic competitiveness of AHTR will improve in the future.It has been further shown, that coal gasification with a high temperature reactor reduces CO₂-emissions by a factor of about two by the methanol production and also by the electricity generation in comparison to the conventional methods.     

Physics-based modeling and simulation of human walking: a review of optimization-based and other approaches

A review of human walking modeling and simulation is presented. This review focuses on physics-based human walking simulations in the robotics and biomechanics literature. The gait synthesis methods are broadly divided into five categories: (1) inverted pendulum model; (2) passive dynamics walking; (3) zero moment point (ZMP) methods; (4) optimization-based methods; and (5) control-based methods. Features of various methods are discussed, and their advantages and disadvantages are delineated. The modeling, formulation, and computation aspects of each method are reviewed.