Theoretical Investigation of Waste Heat Recovery from an IC Engine Using Vapor Absorption Refrigeration System and Thermoelectric Converter

This study proposes the preliminary simulation of a single cylinder spark ignition engine with waste heat recovery system. To harvest waste heat energy from the engine exhaust a thermoelectric generator coupled to a vapor absorption refrigeration (VAR) system was proposed in this simulation work. Parametric simulation of engine, thermoelectric generator and VAR using thermodynamic relations was carried out in MATLAB – Simulink software. An attempt has been made mathematically to integrate engine, thermoelectric generator and VAR system to study the effect of engine load, speed, equivalence ratio on thermoelectric output and coefficient of performance (COP) of a VAR system. In this study, the VAR system runs by taking heat energy from the exhaust gas and the electric power produced by a thermoelectric generator was utilized to run the pump of the refrigeration system. It was found that COP of the absorption refrigeration system depends on engine load, speed and air fuel equivalence ratio. The study also reveals that about 10% to 15% of the total exhaust energy can be harvested using this system.     

Analysis and assessment of a nanoparticle seeded small scale absorption refrigeration system driven by a low‐grade waste heat source

The thermoeconomic behaviour of a nanoparticle seeded single effect LiBr‐H₂O absorption refrigeration system (ARS) is investigated for a small scale application. In the proposed method, alumina nanoparticles with volume concentrations of 3%, 5%, and 7% are dispersed into an aqua lithium bromide solution. The multiobjective heat transfer search algorithm is employed to examine the design trade‐off between the coefficient of performance (COP) and total annualized cost (TAC). To analyze the overall performance of the system, the influence of five design parameters, namely the temperatures of the generator, absorber, evaporator, condenser and heat exchanger pipe diameter, are studied. It is found that with an increase in the COP, the TAC of the system is initially raised marginally, and after that, raised rigorously with further increment. The comparative results indicate that the COP and TAC of the nanofluid based ARS system are increased by about 7% and decreased by about 3.2%, respectively, corresponding to the Pareto points of the base ARS system. A lower break‐even point of about 2.6 years is achieved for the ARS system containing nanoparticles compared to the base ARS system. Overall, the ARS system containing 5% nanoparticles is the best solution from a thermodynamic and economic point of view.     

Thermal modeling of drilling process in titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V)

Abstract

In drilling in titanium alloys, heat trapped in a hole adversely affects tool life, hole surface quality and integrity. Therefore, modeling temperature distribution in drilling is vital for effective heat dissipation and improving quality of drilled surfaces. The existing numerical and finite element models consider only frictional heat, whereas the effect of shear heat generation and tertiary heat generation is neglected. In the present work, a comprehensive thermal model of the drilling process is developed by considering all heat generated in shear, friction and tertiary zones. The drill cutting edges are divided into a series of independent elementary cutting tools (ECT). The calculated heat flux loads are applied on an individual ECT in the finite element model to determine the temperature distribution and the maximum temperature around the cutting edge. The temperature in the drill was also measured experimentally with the help of an Infrared (IR) camera. The results of numerical simulations lie within the error of ～8.75% when compared to the prior studies, and ～5.41% when compared to our experimental work. The thermal model gives the temperature distribution, and the maximum temperature observed at the corner of cutting edge was 604.2°C at a cutting speed of 35?m/min.     

Effect of boiling and roasting on the polyacetylene and polyphenol content of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) bulb

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare cv dulce.) is a hardy, perennial, umbelliferous (Apiaceae) plant as a source of the secondary metabolites group's polyacetylenes and polyphenols.The present study investigated the effect of boiling (100 ° C for 30 min) and roasting (160 °C for 15 min) on the levels of these phytochemicals. Boiling resulted in a significant decrease in the levels of polyacetylenes (falcarinol, falcarindiol, falcarindiol- 3- acetate) and polyphenols (caffeic acid, gallic acid, apigenin-7-o-glucoside, ferulic acid, syringic acid, isovitexin, phloridzin). The loss of polyphenols from the boiled bulbs may be in part due to leaching of these components in the water. Roasting resulted in a significant decrease in falcarindiol, falcarindiol-3-acetate, and falcarinol by 81%, 78%, and 66% when compared to raw unprocessed fennel bulbs. In general, levels of all polyphenols decreased in roasted samples. The exceptions were ferulic acid which showed an increase and gallic acid which did not show any decrease. In line with results for polyphenol levels, antioxidant activity decreased following thermal processing, and the presence of hydroxymethylfurfural was confirmed in roasted samples of fennel.     

A new approach to 3-miktoarm star polymers using a combination of reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) and ring opening polymerization (ROP) via “Click” chemistry

The synthesis of AB₂-type miktoarm star polymers using a combination of reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT), ring opening polymerization (ROP) and “Click” chemistry was demonstrated in this work. An azide functional RAFT agent was used to polymerize butyl acrylate, polyethylene glycol acrylate and N-isopropylacrylamide monomers. Propargylamine was reacted with glycerine carbonate to obtain a dihydroxy functional alkyne compound which was used for the ring opening polymerization of ?-caprolactone (?-CL) and lactide. The resulting alkyne functional polycaprolactone (PCL) and polylactide (PLA) polymers were reacted with azide functional polymers in the presence of copper bromide (CuBr) catalyst to obtain miktoarm star polymers. The polymers were characterized by gel permeation chromatography (GPC), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The star polymers had low polydispersity (∼1.3) with well-defined structures. These polymers have a number of potential applications including crosslinking agents for polyurethane (PU) coatings for biodegradable and fouling release applications.     

Development of support vector regression (SVR)-based correlation for prediction of overall gas hold-up in bubble column reactors for various gas-liquid systems

The objective of this study was to develop a unified data-driven correlation for the overall gas hold-up for various gas-liquid systems using support vector regression (SVR)-based modeling technique. Over the years, researchers have amply quantified the hydrodynamics of bubble column reactors in terms of the overall gas hold-up. In this work, about 1810 experimental points were collected from 40 open sources spanning the years 1965-2007. The model for overall gas hold-up was established as a function of several parameters which include superficial gas velocity, superficial liquid velocity, gas density, molecular weight of gas, sparger type, sparger hole diameter, number of sparger holes, liquid viscosity, liquid density, liquid surface tension, operating temperature, operating pressure and column diameter of the gas-liquid system. For understanding the hold-up behavior, the data used for training the model was grouped into various gas-liquid systems viz., air-water, gas-aqueous viscous liquids, gas-organic liquids, gas-aqueous electrolyte solutions and gas-liquid systems operated over a wide range of pressure. A generalized model established using SVR was evaluated for its performance for various gas-liquid systems. Statistical analysis showed that the proposed generalized SVR-based correlation for overall gas hold-up has prediction accuracy of 97% with average absolute relative error (% AARE) of 12.11%. A comparison of this correlation with the selected system specific correlations in the literature showed that the developed SVR-based correlation significantly gives enhanced prediction of overall gas hold-up.     

Polymeric Multilayers that Contain Silver Nanoparticles can be Stamped onto Biological Tissues to Provide Antibacterial Activity

The design of polyelectrolyte multilayers (PEMs) that can be prefabricated on an elastomeric stamp and mechanically transferred onto biomedically‐relevant soft materials, including medical‐grade silicone elastomers (E’～450–1500 kPa; E’‐elastic modulus) and the dermis of cadaver skin (E’～200–600 kPa), is reported. Whereas initial attempts to stamp PEMs formed from poly(allylamine hydrochloride) and poly(acrylic acid) resulted in minimal transfer onto soft materials, we report that integration of micrometer‐sized beads into the PEMs (thicknesses of 6–160 nm) led to their quantitative transfer within 30 seconds of contact at a pressure of ～196 kPa. To demonstrate the utility of this approach, PEMs were impregnated with a range of loadings of silver‐nanoparticles and stamped onto the dermis of human cadaver skin (a wound‐simulant) that was subsequently incubated with bacterial cultures. Skin dermis stamped with PEMs that released 0.25 ± 0.01 μg cm^?2 of silver ions caused a 6 log₁₀ reduction in colony forming units of Staphylococcus epidermidis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa within 12 h. Significantly, this level of silver release is below that which is cytotoxic to NIH 3T3 mouse fibroblast cells. Overall, this study describes a general and facile approach for the functionalization of biomaterial surfaces without subjecting them to potentially deleterious processing conditions.     

Universal theorems for total energy of the dynamics of linearly elastic heterogeneous solids

In this paper we consider a sample of a linearly elastic heterogeneous composite in elastodynamic equilibrium and present universal theorems which provide lower bounds for the total elastic strain energy plus the kinetic energy, and the total complementary elastic energy plus the kinetic energy. For a general heterogeneous sample which undergoes harmonic motion at a single frequency, we show that, among all consistent boundary data which produce the same average strain, the uniform-stress boundary data render the total elastic strain energy plus the kinetic energy an absolute minimum. We also show that, among all consistent boundary data which produce the same average momentum in the sample, the uniform velocity boundary data render the total complementary elastic energy plus the kinetic energy an absolute minimum. We do not assume statistical homogeneity or material isotropy in our treatment, although they are not excluded. These universal theorems are the dynamic equivalent of the universal theorems already known for the static case [Nemat-Nasser and Hori, 1993] and [Nemat-Nasser and Hori, 1995]. It is envisaged that the bounds on the total energy presented in this paper will be used to formulate computable bounds on the overall dynamic properties of linearly elastic heterogeneous composites with arbitrary microstructures.