Fixed frequency sliding mode control of renewable energy resources in DC micro grid

The rising cost of fossil fuels, their high depleting rate and issues regarding environmental pollution have brought the attention of the researchers towards renewable energy technologies. Different renewable energy resources like wind turbines, fuel cells and solar cells are connected to DC micro grid through controllable power electronic converters. In presence of these diverse generation units, robust controllers are required to ensure good power quality and to regulate grid voltage. This paper presents a sliding mode control based methodology to address the above mentioned challenges. The proposed technique keeps the switching frequency constant so that electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) issues can be solved with conventional filter design. Parallel operation of converter in DC micro gird is considered. Chattering reduction and power quality improvement by harmonic cancellation is proposed. A scaled down hardware for unregulated 11.5 V to 17.5 V input and 24V output is designed and tested. The experimental results show good performance of the controller under different loads and uncertain input voltage conditions. Moreover, the results show the robustness of the closed loop system to sudden variations in load conditions. Furthermore, a significant improvement in power quality is achieved by harmonic cancellation of chattering in the output of the converters.     

Exploration of Advanced Electrode Materials for Approaching High‐Performance Nickel‐Based Superbatteries

The surging interest in high performance, low‐cost, and safe energy storage devices has spurred tremendous research efforts in the development of advanced electrode active materials. Herein, the in situ growth of zinc–iron layered double hydroxide (Zn–Fe LDH) on graphene aerogel (GA) substrates through a facile, one‐pot hydrothermal method is reported. The strong interaction and efficient electronic coupling between LDH and graphene substantially improve interfacial charge transport properties of the resulting nanocomposite and provide more available redox active sites for faradaic reactions. An LDH–GA||Ni(OH)₂ device is also fabricated that results in greatly enhanced specific capacity (187 mAh g^?1 at 0.1 A g^?1), outstanding specific energy (147 Wh kg^?1), excellent specific power (16.7 kW kg^?1), along with 88% capacity retention after >10 000 cycles. This approach is further extended to Ni–MH and Ni–Cd batteries to demonstrate the feasibility of compositing with graphene for boosting the energy storage performance of other well‐known Ni‐based batteries. In contrast to conventional Ni‐based batteries, the nearly flat voltage plateau followed by a sloping potential profile of the integrated supercapacitor–battery enables it to be discharged down to 0 V without being damaged. These findings provide new prospects for the design of high‐performance and affordable superbatteries based on earth‐abundant elements.     

Preparation of Au nanoparticles by Q switched laser ablation and their application in 4-nitrophenol reduction

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - This work reports the fabrication of Au nanoparticles (NPs) by laser ablation of a gold metal plate immersed in water in the absence of stabilizing...     

Laser-assisted preparation of C3N4/Fe2O3/Au nanocomposite: a magnetic reusable catalyst for pollutant degradation

Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy - Assorted common contaminants namely organic dyes and nitro compounds are generated by various industries and have caused alarming problems for the...     

A Highly Secured Image Encryption Scheme using Quantum Walk and Chaos

The use of multimedia data sharing has drastically increased in the past few decades due to the revolutionary improvements in communication technologies such as the 4th generation (4G) and 5th generation (5G) etc. Researchers have proposed many image encryption algorithms based on the classical random walk and chaos theory for sharing an image in a secure way. Instead of the classical random walk, this paper proposes the quantum walk to achieve high image security. Classical random walk exhibits randomness due to the stochastic transitions between states, on the other hand, the quantum walk is more random and achieve randomness due to the superposition, and the interference of the wave functions. The proposed image encryption scheme is evaluated using extensive security metrics such as correlation coefficient, entropy, histogram, time complexity, number of pixels change rate and unified average intensity etc. All experimental results validate the proposed scheme, and it is concluded that the proposed scheme is highly secured, lightweight and computationally efficient. In the proposed scheme, the values of the correlation coefficient, entropy, mean square error (MSE), number of pixels change rate (NPCR), unified average change intensity (UACI) and contrast are 0.0069, 7.9970, 40.39, 99.60%, 33.47 and 10.4542 respectively.     

Cell Selection for Load Balancing in Heterogeneous Networks

The vision of advanced long-term evolution (LTE-A) project is set to ultimate increase of network capacity in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). In HetNets with small cell configuration, a considerable majority of user devices is eventually connected to the macrocell base station (MBS), while small base stations (BSs), such as femtocell access points (FAPs), are still without any user. This results in unbalanced load and reduces the data rate of macrocell user equipment (MUE). In this paper, a method is proposed for load balancing among FAPs, while desired throughput is achieved. The proposed method uses the estimated received signal strength from different BSs and adjusted pilot signals. Under the critical signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) condition, a list of candidate FAPs is prepared. The updated candidate list henceforth does not include the least visited FAPs, which in turn leads to lower unnecessary handoffs. Once the BS with the highest number of free RBs and the highest pilot signal power is selected, FAP allocates the RBs with higher SINRs (qualified RBs) to user. In the case of FAP unavailability, the algorithm compels users to connect to the MBS with adequate qualified RBs. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated under a variety of FAPs density, and the number and velocity of users in terms of throughput and Jain’s fairness index. The results evidence affordable improvements in the throughput and Jain’s index in comparison with other methods.     

Optimization of centrifugally spun thermoplastic polyurethane nanofibers for air filtration applications

While our knowledge of fiber formation by using conventional nanofiber spinning techniques has increased to a considerable extent, there are still few studies on centrifugal spinning either in academia or in the industry. Centrifugal spinning is a comparatively new method of producing fibers having nano- or microscale diameters. In this study, three main parameters (nozzle orifice diameter, rotational speed, polymer concentration) of centrifugal spinning were optimized to produce air filter media from thermoplastic polyurethane nanofibers. The effect of concentration of polymer solution was found to be a major contributor in TPU fibers optimization estimating 77.5%. After the optimization studies, the average fiber diameter of nanofiber sample produced at optimum conditions (22G needle as an orifice, 4000 rpm, and 10 wt% concentration of polymer solution) was 205 ± 84 nm. Aerosol filtration performance of the produced webs was analyzed. Filtration efficiency of the optimized sample was found to be 99.4% for 0.3 µm particle size at an expense of 98 Pa pressure drop.

Copyright © 2018 American Association for Aerosol Research     

Some geotechnical properties of soils in the Haditha area,W. Iraq

The present study is part of the regional engineering geological survey of the western deserts dealing with soil investigations attempting their classification and evaluation for engineering purposes. Field study has revealed that these soils are mainly of residual origin, partly they are colluvial and alluvial. Laboratory test results show that they composed of both coarse and fine fractions. The coarse-grained are mainly of SM-group, less frequently of SC-group. Fine-grained soils are of both CL-and ML groups in equal significance. These soils are seldom free from soluble salts, particularly sulphates in the form of secondary gypsum, some with a high content. Results are discussed in details. Important engineering properties with suitability for engineering use are also given.     

Effects of suni-bug (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Eurygaster</Emphasis> spp.) damage on size distribution of durum wheat (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Triticum durum</Emphasis> L.) proteins

Wholemeal samples were obtained from five durum wheat cultivars at two different bug (Eurygaster spp.) damage levels (medium and high damage). The samples were incubated (60 and 120 min) and used in size exclusion high performance liquid chromatography (SE-HPLC) analyses. The results showed that the amount of larger polymeric protein (TP1) and smaller polymeric protein (TP2) obtained from total (sodium dodecyl sulfate soluble) proteins decreased significantly in the bug-damaged samples, while the amount of total larger monomeric proteins (TP3) increased. The polymeric/monomeric protein ratio of all cultivars decreased at 60 min of incubation with increasing damage level. For all cultivars, the ratio of unextractable polymeric protein (UPP%) significantly decreased at 60 min of incubation except cv. Diyarbakir. The results suggested that bug protease caused depolymerization and/or disaggregation of polymeric proteins to lower their average molecular size. The changes in protein structure as determined using SE-HPLC supported by the decreases in gluten content and gluten index values which decreased with suni-bug damage. Deteriorative effects of bug damage on durum wheat quality were found to be quite similar to those on bread wheats.     

Numerical analysis of heat transfer due to slot jets impingement onto two cylinders with different diameters

A numerical investigation has been performed two-dimensional slot impingement onto two heated cylinders with different diameters turbulent flow conditions. Height of slot jet is taken as constant for all cases. The study is performed to see the effects of effective parameters on heat and fluid flow as jet Reynolds number (11,000 ≤ Re ≤ 20,000), diameter ratio of cylinders (0.5 ≤ D₁/D₂ ≤ 1.5) and ratio of distance between cylinders to slot jet high (L/S). Streamlines, isotherms, local and mean Nusselt numbers and Cd coefficient were obtained. These results were compared with earlier experimental and numerical works and good agreement was obtained. It is found that diameter ratios of cylinders can be a control element for heat and fluid flow.