Active (air-cooled) vs. passive (phase change material) thermal management of high power lithium-ion packs: Limitation of temperature rise and uniformity of temperature distribution

The effectiveness of passive cooling by phase change materials (PCM) is compared with that of active (forced air) cooling. Numerical simulations were performed at different discharge rates, operating temperatures and ambient temperatures of a compact Li-ion battery pack suitable for plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) propulsion. The results were also compared with experimental results. The PCM cooling mode uses a micro-composite graphite–PCM matrix surrounding the array of cells, while the active cooling mode uses air blown through the gaps between the cells in the same array. The results show that at stressful conditions, i.e. at high discharge rates and at high operating or ambient temperatures (for example 40–45 °C), air-cooling is not a proper thermal management system to keep the temperature of the cell in the desirable operating range without expending significant fan power. On the other hand, the passive cooling system is able to meet the operating range requirements under these same stressful conditions without the need for additional fan power.     

Characterization of Palladium Nanoparticles Adsorpt on Polyacrylic Acid Particles as Hydrogenation Catalyst

Palladium particles can be prepared in sizes of a few nanometers from Pd(OAc)₂in the presence of a block copolymer in aromatic unpolar solvents with suitable reducing agents like NaBH₄ or LiAlH₄. After mixing the organic metal solution with a polyacrylic acid (PAA) dispersion of defined concentration and following a crosslinking process with an epoxide, reactive membranes with a well-defined pore diameter were obtained. The catalytic activity of the prepared palladium particles incorporated in the crosslinked PAA network has been proven by the gas phase hydrogenation of propyne in a special membrane reactor.     

Thermal stability and crystallisation of a Zr55Cu30Al10Ni5 bulk metallic glass studied by in situ ultrasonic echography

An original in situ ultrasonic echography technique was used to study the thermal stability and crystallisation of a Zr₅₅Cu₃₀Al₁₀Ni₅ bulk metallic glass between RT and 630 °C. Changes in Young's modulus with temperature were reported allowing to study the supercooled-liquid state and the crystallisation process. Investigations of viscoelastic properties gave information on the correlation factor (hierarchically correlated motion theory) and three distinct crystallisation stages were observed. Their kinetics were studied using Voigt's and Reuss' approximations for a two-phase material and comparisons with the Johnson–Mehl–Avrami–Kolmogorov theory allowed us to consider a mixed surface/internal nucleation for the first stage and a surface nucleation for the two last stages.     

Cooperative OFDM for semi distributed detection in wireless sensor networks

In this paper, parallel distributed detection in wireless sensor network (WSN) is investigated. Sensors are assumed to be transmitting their local decisions to a fusion center through a wireless fading channel using cooperative transmission. To enable cooperative transmission, sensors are divided into groups where sensors in each group help each other in transmitting their decisions in a way that the fusion center receives each local decision as an orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) block. The fusion center detects all OFDM blocks sent by all groups to process them in order to obtain a final (global) decision. Using this cooperative transmission scheme enables the fusion center to apply diversity combining methods in order to reduce the fading effects of the channel. Optimal and sub-optimal fusion rules are derived for such system. Simulation results are provided to show the performance improvement that can be obtained compared to the conventional system where each local decision is transmitted to the fusion center individually and no diversity technique is applied at the fusion center.     

The contribution of classical (beta1/2-) and atypical beta-adrenoceptors to the stimulation of human white adipocyte lipolysis and right atrial appendage contraction by novel beta3-adrenoceptor agonists of differing selectivities

The role of beta3- and other putative atypical beta-adrenoceptors in human white adipocytes and right atrial appendage has been investigated using CGP 12177 and novel phenylethanolamine and aryloxypropanolamine beta3-adrenoceptor (beta3AR) agonists with varying intrinsic activities and selectivities for human cloned betaAR subtypes. The ability to demonstrate beta1/2AR antagonist-insensitive (beta3 or other atypical betaAR-mediated) responses to CGP 12177 was critically dependent on the albumin batch used to prepare and incubate the adipocytes. Four aryloxypropanolamine selective beta3AR agonists (SB-226552, SB-229432, SB-236923, SB-246982) consistently elicited beta1/2AR antagonist-insensitive lipolysis. However, a phenylethanolamine (SB-220646) that was a selective full beta3AR agonist elicited full lipolytic and inotropic responses that were sensitive to beta1/2AR antagonism, despite it having very low efficacies at cloned beta1- and beta2ARs. A component of the response to another phenylethanolamine selective beta3AR agonist (SB-215691) was insensitive to beta1/2AR antagonism in some experiments. Because no [corrected] novel aryloxypropanolamine had a beta1/2AR antagonist-insensitive inotropic effect, these results establish more firmly that beta3ARs mediate lipolysis in human white adipocytes, and suggest that putative 'beta4ARs' mediate inotropic responses to CGP 12177. The results also illustrate the difficulty of predicting from studies on cloned betaARs which betaARs will mediate responses to agonists in tissues that have a high number of beta1- and beta2ARs or a low number of beta3ARs.     

系统内可编程时钟提高设计灵活性和便携性

先进电子系统的功能与特性的整合在持续快速发展,这导致了目前时钟网络设计中的许多主要障碍。为满足各种芯片和接口在频率、I/O和性能方面对时钟的需求,经常需要既没有灵活性,也不具备便携性的非常精确的执行。最终的结果往往是一个由多个分散的振荡器和缓冲器组成的支离破碎的解决方案,只要系统要求不改变,它就可以工作。这种方法会使物料成本(BOM)、库存管理和设计资源的成本居高不下。进入新的多PLL时代,可编程时钟通过采用I2C和JTAG这样的行业标准接口,加上非易失性存储器就可以达到解决这些挑战的目标。通过通用接口实现系统内…     

Influence of internal phase properties on zeta-potential and dielectric constant of o/w emulsion

Dielectric constant (DEC) of internal phase influenced the zeta potential (ZP) of o/w emulsion prepared with or without emulgent. In both systems ZP and DEC of internal phase exhibited an approximately linear relationship. Using homologous aliphatic hydrocarbons as internal phases, emulsions were prepared with polysorbate-80. Increase in carbon chain length brought about increase in interracial area and decrease in ZPs of emulsions. A fair inverse correlation between ZP and DEC of internal phase was revealed in this series. Increase in phase volume ratio from 0.05 to 0.3 brought about limited changes in ZPs whereas by further increasing phase volume ratio, ZP decreased steadily. Studies pertaining to the effect of phase volume ratio on DEC of o/w emulsions are in accordance with earlier observations. Increase in phase volume ratio causes a steady decrease in DEC of emulsion. Of the five equations employed, the Bruggeman equation appears to predict the observed values more accurately.     

A PC Program for Preliminary Design of a Continuous Well-Mixed Fluid Bed Dryer

This communication gives an outline of a user-friendly PC wde developed for preliminary design of a fluid bed dryer (FBD) and its essential ancillaies e.g. cyclone, fan etc.. The fluid bed dryer may have internal heat exchangers. Correlations used for design calculations are presented. The program permits estimation of the energy consumption as well as the installed and operating costs.     

Dilute solution properties of methyl methacrylate—acrylonitrile copolymer (MA1)

This paper deals with studies on the dilute solution properties of methyl methacrylate—acrylonitrile copolymer of 0.289 mole fraction (mf) of acrylonitrile composition. Mark—Houwink parameters for this copolymer have been evaluated in acetonitrile (MeCN), 2-butanone (MEK), dimethylformamide (DMF) and γ-butyrolactone (γ-BL). The solvent power is found to be in the order of MEK < MeCN < DMF < γ-BL at 30°C. Herein, probably for the first time, the steric factor for the copolymer is found to be lower than that for the parent homopolymers and the excess interaction parameter, χ_AB is found to be negative. This probably suggests that the units are compatible to each other.