Dynamic Simulation and Operating Characteristics of Ground-Coupled Heat Pump with Solar Seasonal Heat Storage System

Abstract

A hybrid ground-coupled heat pump (GCHP) is an efficient and sustainable technology for space heating and cooling. A demonstration house equipped with GCHP with a solar seasonal heat storage (SSHS) system had been built in Harbin, a severe cold zone of China. A dynamic simulation model was built for the house and GCHP with the SSHS system using TRNSYS. The model used a newly developed vertical ground heat exchanger (VGHE) module which considered coupled heat and moisture transfer (CHMT) in ground with variable soil properties (VSPs) and phase change of soil moisture (PCSM). In the simulation, a large amount of computing is consumed for VSP and PCSM, while the computing amount for moisture transfer is small. The model with the new VGHE module produced better simulated results, compared with the field data. So, CHMT-VSP-PCSM affects the performance of VGHE and system to some extent, especially CHMT. Hourly variation laws of temperatures and energy parameters were analyzed, and different characteristics were showed up at different operating stages in heating and cooling seasons for both long and short terms. The GCHP with the SSHS system can meet the heating and cooling demands of the house in general. In cooling season, adjusting the ratio of the two groups of VGHE for heat storage and cooling will increase the utilization efficiency of VGHE and make the soil temperature more balanced.     

Effect of alkali concentrations and operating conditions on agglomeration/defluidization behavior during fluidized bed air gasification

Biomass gasification plays an important role in finding a solution to the energy crisis, and the fluidized bed (FB) is recognized as an important technique for using biomass. However, this process significantly tends toward bed material agglomeration. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to emphasize the effects of operating conditions and different Na concentrations on agglomeration behavior during FB air gasification. Defluidization time decreases as Na concentration increases from 0.8 to 3%. Defluidization time decreases as temperature and the amount of bed materials increase. In addition, no significant change in the trend for this process occurs as the equivalence ratio increases. Adding CaO and Al₂O₃ can significantly prolong this process, and the inhibition level follows the sequence: Al₂O₃ > CaO. The same observations are noted during both incineration and air gasification in the FB at various operating conditions.     

Hardware-efficient common-feedback Markov-random-field probabilistic-based noise-tolerant VLSI circuits

As the size of CMOS devices is scaled down to lower the power consumption and space occupied on the chip to the nano-scale, unfortunately, noise is not reduced accordingly. As a result, interference due to noise can significantly affect circuit performance and operation. Since noises are random and dynamic in nature, probabilistic noise-tolerant approaches are more desirable to handle this problem. However, trade-offs between hardware complexity and noise-tolerance are severe design challenges in the probabilistic-based noise-tolerant approaches. In this paper, we proposed a cost-effective common-feedback probabilistic-based noise-tolerant VLSI circuit based on Markov random field (MRF) theory. We proposed a common latch feedback method to lower the hardware complexity. To further enhance the noise-tolerant ability, the common latch feedback technique is combined with Schmitt trigger. To demonstrate the proof-of-concept design, a 16-bit carry-lookahead adder was implemented in the TSMC 90 nm CMOS process technology. As compared with the state-of-art master-and-slave MRF design, the experimental results show that not only the transistor count can be saved by 20%, the noise-tolerant performance can also be enhanced from 18.1 dB to 24.2 dB in the proposed common feedback MRF design.     

Simultaneous control of acid gases and PAHs using a spray dryer combined with a fabric filter using different additives

The purpose of this research was to simultaneously evaluate the removal efficiency of acid gases and PAHs from the flue gas emitted by a laboratory incinerator. This flue gas contained dust, acid gases, organics and heavy metals. A spray dryer combined with a fabric filter was used as the air pollution control device (APCD) in this study. The operating conditions investigated included different feedstock additives (polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and NaCl) and spray dryer additives (SiO2, CaCl2 and NaHCO3).The removal efficiency for SO2 could be enhanced by adding inorganic additives, such as SiO2, CaCl2 and NaHCO3. The presence of PVC in the incinerator feedstock also increased the removal efficiency of SO2in the spray dryer. The improved removal of PAHs could be attributed to the addition of feedstock additives (PVC and NaCl) and spray dryer additives (SiO2, CaCl2 and NaHCO3).     

Experimental Investigation of Soil Thermal Conductivity Over a Wide Temperature Range

The results are reported of an experimental investigation of the soil thermal conductivity over a wide temperature range, for various water contents and two soil types. The results are particularly important in predictions of underground heat transfer, which require a quantitative understanding of the coupled dependence of the soil thermal conductivity on texture, temperature, and water content. In the research, comprehensive sets of thermal conductivity for Ottawa sand (coarse soil) and Richmond Hill fine sandy loam (medium soil) are experimentally obtained using the guarded hot-plate method, for temperatures ranging from $2\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$ 2 ° C to $92\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$ 92 ° C and water contents varying from complete dryness to full saturation. For both soils, the thermal conductivity is observed to vary in three stages with respect to increasing water content: a very minor increase as water content increases to the permanent wilting point, a steep increase as water content further increases to field capacity, and a minor increase (for temperatures less than $72\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$ 72 ° C ) or decrease for (temperatures greater than $72\,^{\circ }\mathrm{C}$ 72 ° C ) when the field capacity is exceeded. Then, on the basis of gathered datasets, a similar $Ke(S_{\mathrm{r}},T)$ Ke ( S r , T ) form of the soil thermal conductivity model by Tarnawski et al. is used to empirically fit the data. The resulted correlations fit the data well with their overall root-relative-mean-square percentage errors of 4.7 % and 6.1 % for Ottawa sand and Richmond Hill fine sandy loam, respectively, and are suitable for most engineering applications.     

Design of concurrent error detectable current-mode A/D converters for real-time applications

Analog MOS circuits are becoming increasingly sophisticated in terms of checking and correcting themselves. Self-correcting, self-compensating, or self-calibrating techniques eliminate errors traditionally associated with analog circuits. For real-time applications, however, it is rather difficult to achieve validation of the data generated from analog-to-digital (A/D) converters in the presence of faulty switching element(s). Conventionally, the validation is accomplished by using a high resolution and high accuracy D/A converter and a window comparator; i.e., the validation must highly depend on the reliability of both the D/A converter and the window comparator. In this paper, a novel current-mode A/D converter design with concurrent error detection (CED) capability is presented. The A/D converter does not need well-matched components and high-gain amplifiers. Results show that the proposed design can detect all the transient faults and most of the permanent faults. The proposed design allows users to easily switch to the normal operation mode where CED capability is not used, without causing any performance degradation.     

A multiparticle Monte Carlo simulation of temperature noise and heat transfer in turbulent flow

Temperature fluctuations generated by turbulent mixing in flowing sodium, downstream of a specified temperature profile, are modelled by a Monte Carlo technique. Multiparticle batches are used to permit dissipation processes to be simulated. The model is validated against measurements made in pipe- and jet-flow experiments performed in sodium-loop facilities.     

Characteristics of two types of stabilized nano zero-valent iron and transport in porous media

Nano-scale zero-valent iron (NZVI) has been shown to be suitable for remediating contaminated aquifers. However, they usually aggregate rapidly and result in a very limited migration distance that inhibits their usefulness. This study employed poly acrylic acid (PAA) and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to synthesize two types of stabilized styles of NZVI with finer sizes (namely PNZVI and CNZVI). The mobility of stabilized NZVI was also demonstrated on the basis of transport in porous media. The results show that the PNZVI has a uniform particle size of 12 nm. However, tens of CNZVI particles with diameters of 1-3 nm were packed into secondary particles. Both the PNZVI and the CNZVI exhibited amorphous structures, and the stabilizer was bound to particle surfaces in the form of bidentate bridging via the carboxylic group, which could provide both electrostatic and steric repulsion to prevent particle aggregation. This study also proposes presumed stabilized configurations of PNZVI and CNZVI to reasonably illustrate their different dispersed suspension types. On the basis of the breakthrough curves and mass recovery, this study observed that the mobility of PNZVI in classic Ca²⁺ concentration of groundwater was superior to CNZVI. Nonetheless, the mobility of CNZVI would be decreased less significantly than PNZVI when encountering high Ca²⁺ concentrations (40 mM). Presumably, increasing the pore flow velocity would enhance the mobility of stabilized NZVI. Overall, the results of this study indicate that PNZVI has the potential to become an effective reactive material for in situ groundwater remediation.     

Al2O3-supported Cu-Co bimetallic catalysts prepared with polyol process for removal of BTEX and PAH in the incineration flue gas

The polyol process is an effective method to generate well-dispersed nanoscale active sites on a support. To study the activity of catalysts prepared by polyol process, Cu_1.25Co_3.75/Al₂O₃, Cu_2.5Co_2.5/Al₂O₃, and Cu_3.75Co_1.25/Al₂O₃ were studied in a pilot-scale incinerator system to remove benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and the effect of lead in a flue gas was also discussed. The pilot-scale experiment results indicated that Cu_1.25Co_3.75/Al₂O₃ exhibited a good performance on organic compounds removal, without being poisoned by lead. The bimetal containing Cu/Co = 1/3 exhibits a better activity and stabilization on oxidation than the others. When the Cu/Co ratio was above one, the X-ray powder diffractometer, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analyses results revealed that several components (Cu⁰, CuO, and CuCo₂O₄) of the spent catalysts disappeared. This may be due to the active sites that were covered with an amount of CH₃-groups.     

Synthesis and Preliminary Evaluation of [11C]GNE-1023 as a Potent PET Probe for Imaging Leucine-Rich Repeat Kinase 2 (LRRK2) in Parkinson's Disease

Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) is a large protein involved in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease (PD). It has been demonstrated that PD is mainly conferred by LRRK2 mutations that bring about increased kinase activity. As a consequence, selective inhibition of LRRK2 may help to recover the normal functions of LRRK2, thereby serving as a promising alternative therapeutic target for PD treatment. The mapping of LRRK2 by positron emission tomography (PET) studies allows a thorough understanding of PD and other LRRK2-related disorders; it also helps to validate and translate novel LRRK2 inhibitors. However, no LRRK2 PET probes have yet been reported in the primary literature. Herein we present a facile synthesis and preliminary evaluation of [¹¹C]GNE-1023 as a novel potent PET probe for LRRK2 imaging in PD. [¹¹C]GNE-1023 was synthesized in good radiochemical yield (10 % non-decay-corrected RCY), excellent radiochemical purity (>99 %), and high molar activity (>37 GBq μmol⁻¹). Excellent in vitro binding specificity of [¹¹C]GNE-1023 toward LRRK2 was demonstrated in cross-species studies, including rat and nonhuman primate brain tissues by autoradiography experiments. Subsequent whole-body biodistribution studies indicated limited brain uptake and urinary and hepatobiliary elimination of this radioligand. This study may pave the way for further development of a new generation of LRRK2 PET probes.