Software SOLEEC Applied for Parabolic Trough Solar Collector Designing

The present work describes software SOLEEC （copyright 03-2012-070510302900-01 Mexico）, a numerical tool for PTC （parabolic trough collector） designing. Software SOLEEC is divided into two main parts. The first one allows solar resource assessment for a specific place on the Earth. The computation and assessment can be done for a specific day on the year, for one specific month and the monthly averages along the year. The last one gives annual charts such as： solar constant, Earth declination, insolation hours, and sunrise and sunset hours. The second part has four different execution options for PTC designing, that is, using options one and two user can get five different designs based on receiver outer diameter evaluating solar radiation data along the full year or only one solar radiation value （monthly）, on the other hand options three and four were developed to compute the thermal evaluation for an operating collector for twelve solar radiation values （annually） or a specific month computation, respectively.     

Gas-Enhanced Ultra-High Shear Mixing: A Concept and Applications

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B - The processes of mixing, homogenizing, and deagglomeration are of paramount importance in many industries for modifying properties of liquids or...     

Plasma sheath behavior and ionic wind effect in electric field modified flames

Plasma sheath theory is applied to understand the plasma behavior in electric field modified flames. This paper presents a set of 1D plasma sheath equations with approximated analytical solutions to calculate the sheath thickness for given applied voltages and plasma properties. The results show that the anode sheath is ten of microns thick, less than 1 V, and largely independent of the applied voltage. The cathode sheath grows with the applied voltage to centimeters thick. The limited extent of the anode and cathode sheaths, which limits the reach of the electric field, in part explains the different flame behaviors reported in the literature. The ionic wind body force is also calculated based on ion energy losses due to collisions. The sheath analysis provides a possible explanation for reported flame behavior under a DC field modified such as saturation current and diode-like behavior.     

A fully discrete scheme for the pressure–stress formulation of the time-domain fluid–structure interaction problem

We propose an implicit Newmark method for the time integration of the pressure–stress formulation of a fluid–structure interaction problem. The space Galerkin discretization is based on the Arnold–Falk–Winther mixed finite element method with weak symmetry in the solid and the usual Lagrange finite element method in the acoustic medium. We prove that the resulting fully discrete scheme is well-posed and uniformly stable with respect to the discretization parameters and Poisson ratio, and we provide asymptotic error estimates. Finally, we present numerical tests to confirm the asymptotic error estimates predicted by the theory.     

Spray drying of babassu coconut milk using different carrier agents

The objective of this work was to optimize the spray drying of babassu coconut milk, an oil-in-water emulsion extracted from babassu kernels, using maltodextrin 10DE and modified starch as the carrier agents. Two central composite rotatable designs were used to verify the effect of the inlet air temperature and carrier agent concentration on process performance (process yield and outlet air temperature) and the physicochemical properties of the powder (moisture content, water activity, hygroscopicity, and lipid oxidation). Powders obtained under optimized conditions (25% maltodextrin concentration and 188°C, and a modified starch concentration of 20% and 170°C) were evaluated according to their morphology, particle size distribution, bulk and absolute densities, porosity, wettability, and thermal analysis.