A model for numerical evaluation of the global stability region in power systems determined by a nonlinear limit cycle

A power system is a large dynamic system, which includes many nonlinear elements. According to the nonlinear analyses using Hopf bifurcation theory, it can be detected that a limit cycle exists around an operating point, which may affect the global stability of a power system significantly. The authors have presented a numerical method to analyze the nonlinear characteristics in power systems by observing the power swing after some perturbation where the coefficients of nonlinear terms are determined by the least squares method. In this paper the method is modified for the application to a longitudinally interconnected power system including an excitation system, and the influence of the excitation voltage limiter on the nonlinear phenomena of the whole power system can be detected by some numerical analyses. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 144(3): 17–27, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience ( www.interscience.wiley.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.10193     

Ironmaking with ammonia at low temperature

This paper describes the reduction of hematite with ammonia for ironmaking, in which the effect of temperature on the products was examined. The results showed that the reduction process began at 430 °C during heating, and with an increase in temperature, the reduction mechanism changed apparently from a direct reduction of ammonia (Fe(2)O(3) + 2NH(3) → 2Fe + N(2) + 3H(2)O) to an indirect reduction via the thermal decomposition of ammonia (2NH(3) → N(2) + 3H(2), Fe(2)O(3) + 3H(2) → 2Fe + 3H(2)O) at temperatures over 530 °C. The final product obtained at 600 and 700 °C was pure metallic iron, in contrast with that formed at 450 °C, that is, a mixture of metallic iron and iron nitride. The results suggest the possibility of using ammonia as a reducing agent for carbonless ironmaking, which is operated at a much lower temperature than 900 °C in conventional coal-based ironmaking.     

Effect of tube bundles on nucleate boiling and critical heat flux

In order to elucidate boiling heat transfer characteristics for each tube and the critical heat flux (CHF) for tube bundles, an experimental investigation of pool and flow boiling of Freon-113 at 0.1 MPa was performed using two typical tube arrangements. A total of fifty heating tubes of 14 mm diameter, equipped with thermocouples and cartridge heaters, were arrayed at pitches of 18.2 and 21.0 mm to simulate both square in-line and equilateral staggered bundles. For the flow boiling tests the same bundles as were used in pool boiling were installed in a vertical rectangular channel, to which the fluid was supplied with an approach velocity varying from 0.022 to 0.22 m/s. It was found in this study that the boiling heat transfer coefficient of each tube in a bundle was higher than that for an isolated single tube in pool boiling. This enhancement increases for tubes at higher locations, but decreases as heat flux is increased. At heat fluxes exceeding certain values, the heat transfer coefficient becomes the same as that for an isolated tube. As the heat flux approaches the CHF, flow pulsations occurred in the pool boiling experiments although the heat transfer coefficient was invariant even under this situation. The approach velocity has an appreciable effect on heat transfer up to a certain level of heat flux. In this range of heat flux, the heat transfer coefficient exceeds the values observed for pool boiling. An additive method with two contributions, i.e., single phase convection and boiling, was used to predict the heat transfer coefficient for bundles. The predicted results showed reasonable agreement with the measured results. The critical heat flux in tube bundles tended to increase as more bubbles were rising through the tube clearance. © 1998 Scripta Technica, Heat Trans Jpn Res, 27(4): 312–325, 1998     

Effect of plate position and size for self-induced flow oscillation of underexpanded supersonic jet impinging on perpendicular plate

When the underexpanded supersonic jet impinges on the obstacle, it is well known that the self-induced flow oscillation occurs at the specific condition of the pressure ratio in the flowfield, the position of an obstacle and so on. This oscillation is related with the noise problems of aeronautical and other industrial engineering so that the characteristic and the mechanism of self-induced flow oscillation have to be cleared to control the various noise problems. But, it seems that the characteristics of t...     

Short‐circuit phenomenon through hot gas ejected from molded case circuit breakers during high current interruption process and prevention of its occurrence

An experimental investigation on short‐circuit phenomenon through ejected hot gas between source‐side terminals in molded case circuit breakers (MCCBs) was performed. The rate of occurrence of the short‐circuit phenomenon was found to increase with the peak value of the breaking current and with the order of the breaking test. The conductance of the ejected hot gas was also found to rise with the peak value of the breaking current and with the order of the breaking test. These results indicate that the hot gas of high conductance is the cause of the short‐circuit phenomenon. Some effective means were taken in the MCCB to reduce the conductance of the hot gas. Decreasing the conductance of the hot gas successfully prevented the occurrence of short‐circuit phenomenon. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Electr Eng Jpn, 132(1): 22–29, 2000     

Motion analysis of a tripod parallel mechanism

A tripod parallel mechanism consists of three links of fixed length and a rigid platform, and these are connected by revolute joints. The platform can achieve sixdegrees-of-freedom (6-DOF) motion by the coordinated movement of the bottom ends of the three links on a horizontal plane. This mechanism has advantages over the more common six extendible parallel manipulators. It has a much larger work space and a simple structure. In this article, we show that the vector analysis for this tripod parallel mechanism and the derivation of the positions of the three bottom ends of the links in an arbitrary attitude of platform can be found by inverse kinematics and the conditions of geometrical constraint. Then, by a numerical simulation, the trajectories of the bottom ends of the three links are shown.     

Computer-aided design of a factor Xa inhibitor by using MCSS functionality maps and a CAVEAT linker search

We have investigated a new approach to efficiently find a novel inhibitor against a serine protease (i.e. an activated coagulation factor X, FXa) by using de novo design programs and the X-ray crystal structure of the target enzyme. FXa is a coagulant enzyme that generates thrombin (a serine protease) and participates in both intrinsic and extrinsic coagulation pathways. We adopted multiple copy simultaneous search (MCSS) and CAVEAT linker search techniques, which disclosed a novel FXa inhibitor (T01312) consisting of two binding moieties (the benzamidinyl and adamantyl groups) and a linker unit (the carboxybenzylamine group). The inhibitory activity of T01312 against FXa was determined to be a small K(i)-value of 48nM, which is two orders of magnitude smaller than that against thrombin. An X-ray crystal analysis of T01312 complexed with trypsin (an analogue of FXa) and docking studies of T01312 with trypsin and FXa showed that: (i) the benzamidinyl group is a predominant binding moiety in the anionic pocket (S1 site) with an asparatic acid residue; (ii) a hydrophobic pocket (S4 site) is the binding site of the adamantyl group; (iii) the carboxylate group of the linker contributes to the selectivity for FXa against thrombin. Thus, the combination of the knowledge of the X-ray crystal structure of the target molecule with MCSS and CAVEAT linker search techniques proved to be an effective hit-finding method that does not require the screening of huge compound libraries.