Indoor 222Rn concentration measurements in some buildings of Hebron province during the winter season of the year 2000

In this study, we report on the indoor radon concentration levels in a number of locations scattered in the Hebron province, Palestine. The measurements were performed during the winter season of the year 1999/2000 using the CR-39 detectors. The radon concentration levels were found to vary from 23 to 580 Bq m(-3). The arithmetic average of the obtained radon concentration levels was found to be 91 Bq m(-3). It was found that most of the radon concentration levels in houses and school rooms are below the low reference levels limits. Most of the high-radon concentration levels were found in unpainted storage rooms.     

Numerical research of double‐diffusive natural convection in elliptical cylinders: Effect of thermal Rayleigh number

This paper is the first part of a two‐part study, and it presented numerical research of double‐diffusive natural convection within an annulus area, situated in two horizontal confocal elliptic solids charged by a Newtonian fluid. The elliptical coordinates were used to transform the physical domain into a rectangular one. To resolve the governing equations and the boundary layer conditions, a calculator code based on the finite volume approach was developed. The details of the influences of thermal Rayleigh number on heat and mass transfer were investigated. Results obtained were compared with those existing in other reasearch works.     

Robust SVM-direct torque control of induction motor based on sliding mode controller and sliding mode observer

This paper proposes a design of control and estimation strategy for induction motor based on the variable structure approach. It describes a coupling of sliding mode direct torque control (DTC) with sliding mode flux and speed observer. This algorithm uses direct torque control basics and the sliding mode approach. A robust electromagnetic torque and flux controllers are designed to overcome the conventional SVM-DTC drawbacks and to ensure fast response and full reference tracking with desired dynamic behavior and low ripple level. The sliding mode controller is used to generate reference voltages in stationary frame and give them to the controlled motor after modulation by a space vector modulation (SVM) inverter. The second aim of this paper is to design a sliding mode speed/flux observer which can improve the control performances by using a sensorless algorithm to get an accurate estimation, and consequently, increase the reliability of the system and decrease the cost of using sensors. The effectiveness of the whole composed control algorithm is investigated in different robustness tests with simulation using Matlab/Simulink and verified by real time experimental implementation based on dS pace 1104 board.     

Electric power generation based on variable speed wind turbine under load disturbance

This study was interested in the management of an energy production unit. A variable speed wind turbine (VSWT) was used as a principal source and a supercapacitor (SC) module was used as an energy storage system. Both were connected through a direct current bus. This unit was supplying a three-phase load using an inverter and an inductor and capacitor filter. In order to regulate the direct current bus voltage, the SC storage state was controlled by using a buck-boost converter according to load instructions and wind speed fluctuations. Then, a resonant controller was established to avoid any disturbances and to control the alternating line-to-line voltages of the load which may be unbalanced. This study has shown that the stability of the three-phase voltage source depends on the direct current bus power management and also on the line-to-line voltage control. Simulation results are presented to validate the efficiency of the control strategies used.     

Vibration Control of a Viscoelastic Translational Euler-Bernoulli Beam

In this paper, we consider a viscoelastic Euler-Bernoulli beam fixed to a base in a translational motion at one end and to a tip mass at its free end. Under a suitable control force applied at the base, we prove an arbitrary decay of the energy of the system. This is established for a large class of relaxation functions.     

Simulation of coupled heat and moisture transfer in air-conditioned buildings

The simultaneous heat and moisture transfer in the building envelope has an important influence on the indoor environment and the overall performance of buildings. In this paper, a model for predicting whole building heat and moisture transfer was presented. Both heat and moisture transfer in the building envelope and indoor air were simultaneously considered; their interactions were modeled. The coupled model takes into account most of the main hygrothermal effects in buildings. The coupled system model was implemented in MATLAB-Simulink, and validated by using a series of published testing tools. The new program was applied to investigate the moisture transfer effect on indoor air humidity and building energy consumption under different climates. The results show that the use of more detailed simulation routines can result in improvements to the building's design for energy optimisation through the choice of proper hygroscopic materials, which would not be indicated by simpler calculation techniques.     

Adaptive MRAC-based direct torque control with SVM for sensorless induction motor using adaptive observer

This paper presents an improved direct torque control (DTC) method for induction motor (IM) drive. The main drawback of the conventional DTC is the use of hysteresis comparators which leads to high torque and flux ripples. The improvement in this paper includes using the space vector modulation to preserve a constant switching frequency and to reduce totally flux and torque ripples. Besides, the torque and stator flux regulation will be done based on model reference adaptive control (MRAC) strategy to ensure a robust control against external disturbance and less sensitivity from machine parameter variation unlike the conventional proportional-integral (PI) controllers. Furthermore, a design of an adaptive observer based on Lyapunov stability is presented for speed/flux and load torque estimation. The observer can improve the control performances and decrease the cost and increase reliability of the global control system by reducing the number of sensors. The proposed strategy will be examined under simulation tests using Matlab/Simulink and experimental implementation with real-time interface (RTI) based on dSpace 1104 board.