Round‐robin measurement intercomparison of c‐Si PV modules among Asian testing laboratories

Because of recent advances in the production and installation of photovoltaic (PV) systems, the international conformity of PV module performance measurement has become increasingly important. The increase in PV production sites is particularly significant in the Asian region. The present paper summarizes and discusses the results of a round‐robin intercomparison of crystalline silicon modules among national laboratories and certified testing laboratories in the Asian region conducted from 2009 to 2011. Most of the values of P_max measured at the different laboratories were within a ±2% range, although some P_max results showed differences of up to about 3%. This result is comparable to that obtained in the recent intercomparison among international laboratories. Possible sources of difference in the measured values of I_sc, V_oc, FF, and P_max are discussed, for further improvement of international conformity in PV measurement technologies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Middleware extensions that trade consistency for availability

Replicated distributed object systems are deployed to provide timely and reliable services to actors at distributed locations. This paper treats applications in which data updates are dependent on satisfaction of integrity constraints over multiple objects. Network partitions, caused by occasional link failures, overload or attacks create problems in keeping both consistency and availability in such networks. We propose a means of achieving higher availability by providing partition‐awareness in middleware. The general approach has been illustrated by implementing a number of CORBA extensions that trade consistency for availability during network partitions. This paper contains a thorough experimental evaluation that presents the gains and costs of our approach. The experiments clearly illustrate the benefit of our protocols in terms of significantly higher availability and the number of performed operations. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vibration of axisymmetric composite piezoelectric shells coupled with internal fluid

This paper presents the theoretical and finite element formulations of piezoelectric composite shells of revolution filled with compressible fluid. The originality of this work lies (i) in the development of a variational formulation for the fully coupled fluid/piezoelectric structure system, and (ii) in the finite element implementation of an inexpensive and accurate axisymmetric adaptive laminated conical shell element. Various modal results are presented in order to validate and illustrate the efficiency of the proposed fluid–structure finite element formulation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statische und dynamische Axialdruckversuche an vergrouteten Rohr‐in‐Rohr‐Verbindungen mit verschiedenen Füllmaterialien

In diesem Beitrag wird über Ergebnisse von experimentellen und numerischen Untersuchungen an vergrouteten Rohr‐in‐Rohr‐Verbindungen berichtet, die am Institut für Stahlbau der Leibniz Universität Hannover durchgeführt wurden. Diese sogenannten “Grouted Joints” kommen z. B. als Verbindungselemente zwischen dem im Boden eingerammten Pfahl und dem Turm einer Offshore‐Windenergieanlage zum Einsatz. An deutlich kleineren Prüfkörpern wurden Axialdruckversuche im Labor durchgeführt, um den Unterschied zwischen glatten und gerippten Stahlrohrmantelflächen im Grenzzustand der Tragfähigkeit und Ermüdung aufzuzeigen. Dabei kamen auch verschiedene Füllmaterialien für den Ringspalt zum Einsatz. Die Tragfähigkeit bei den Prüfkörpern mit glatten Rohrmantelflächen ist hauptsächlich von der Haftfestigkeit des Füllmaterials auf den Stahloberflächen und deren Beschaffenheit abhängig. Durch die Anordnung von Schubrippen kann die Trag‐ und Ermüdungslast um ein Vielfaches gegenüber der glatten Variante gesteigert werden. Dies ist hauptsächlich auf die Wirkung von Druckstreben zwischen den Schubrippen zurückzuführen, deren Tragfähigkeit sich mit zunehmender Druckfestigkeit des Füllmaterials erhöht. Mit einem Bemessungsmodell kann unter Berücksichtigung der Druckstrebentragfähigkeit und Anzahl der Schubrippen die Traglast von Grouted Joints abgeschätzt werden. Static and dynamic axial compression tests on grouted tube‐in‐tube connections with various grout materials. This paper summarises static and dynamic axial compression tests on small scale grouted joints for offshore wind energy converters. The connection is mostly used between driven monopiles and tower sections as tube‐in‐tube connection. The gap between the tubes is filled with grout materials. The test series comprises grouted joints with smooth and ribbed surfaces of the tubes which are loaded by axial compression. The ultimate and fatigue limit state of the connection can be increased with shear keys along the overlapped length of the tubes to get a ribbed contact surface to the grout. In this case the axial load is transferred by compression struts between the shear keys. The bearing capacity depends mainly on the compressive strength of the grout and the geometry of the shear keys. In addition to the experimental results an analytical design concept is presented within this paper for grouted joints with shear keys. With the analytical model the axial load capacity of the grouted joint can be determined under consideration of the compression struts and number of shear keys.     

Study of the solvent effect on miscibility between poly(vinyl chloride) and poly(methyl methacrylate) in the solution state – viscometric measurements

In this work, the solvent effect on the miscibility between poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) in ternary polymer solutions was examined by the viscometric method. In these systems, we could understand that the used solvents, tetrahydrofuran (THF) or N,N‐dimethylformamide (DMF), mainly affect the interaction between PVC and PMMA, while prompting various miscible properties. In PVC/PMMA/THF solution, THF is a near θ‐solvent and a poor solvent for PVC and PMMA, respectively. The mixing of the tighter PMMA coils and more extended PVC coils in THF may cause the sea–island heterogeneous structure below the weight fraction of PMMA in the polymer mixture w_PMMA = 0.7, resulting in immiscible PVC/PMMA mixtures. At w_PMMA ≥ 0.7, the PVC/PMMA mixtures are relatively miscible, giving homogeneous polymer solutions. It means that the miscibility between PVC and PMMA depends on the composition of polymer mixture. However, due to the similar affinity of DMF to PVC and PMMA, PVC/PMMA/DMF solutions exhibit high miscibility between PVC and PMMA at about w_PMMA = 0.5. © 2000 Society of Chemical Industry     

Automatic event‐triggered call‐forwarding mechanism for mobile phones

Call forwarding is a traditional telecom service that allows a user to forward incoming calls to another telephone number. This service requires the user to manually activate and deactivate the feature and therefore may not be very convenient. This paper proposes an automatic call‐forwarding algorithm (CFA) for mobile phones. By installing a software in a smartphone, call forwarding is automatically triggered (e.g., when the phone is plugged in a charger or is turned off) or disabled (e.g., when the phone is unplugged from the charger or is turned on). We investigate the performance of the CFA through analytic analysis, simulation, and measurement. Our study indicates that CFA is very feasible for commercial usage. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.