Numerical evaluation of NOx mechanisms in methane-air counterflow premixed flames

The control of nitrogen oxides (NO_x) has been a major issue in designing combustion systems, since NO_x play a key role in ozone depletion and the generation of photochemical smog. The characteristics of NO_x emission can be essential information for the development of a clean combustor having suitable reduction methodologies. In the present study, NO_x emission characteristics were evaluated numerically, accounting for the effect of equivalence ratio, stretch rate, pressure, and initial temperature. In general, peak NO_x emission appeared near the equivalence ratio of unity case, and NO_x emission increased with pressure and initial temperature due to the temperature sensitivity in NO_x mechanism. NO_x decreased with stretch rate due to the decrease in residence time in high temperature region. Furthermore, the thermal and prompt mechanisms were evaluated with equivalence ratio for two calculation methods. The conventional methods ignore the interaction of coupled mechanism of thermal and prompt NO_x. The reaction path diagram was introduced to understand effective reaction pathways in various conditions. This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate Editor Kyoung Doug Min Dr. Eun-Seong Cho received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Hanyang University, Korea, in 1996 and 1998, respectively. He then received his Ph.D. degree from Seoul National University, Korea, in 2005. He was a principal engineer of KD Navien research center and currently a research associate at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research interests include eco-friendly clean combustion technology, new and renewable energy systems. Prof. Suk Ho Chung received his B.S. degree from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1976 and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University, USA, in 1983. He is a Professor since 1984 in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea. His research interests cover combustion fundamentals, pollutant formation, laser diagnostics, and plasma-assisted combustion.     

Improvement of flame stability and NOx reduction in hydrogen-added ultra lean premixed combustion

Lean premixed combustion is a well known method in gas turbine combustors that can reduce fuel consumption and decrease flame temperature. In lean premixed flames, flame instabilities can occur because the combustion takes place near the lean flammable limit. For the purpose of increasing flame stability, a small amount of hydrogen was added into a fuel, which has ultra low lean flammable limit. The extinction stretch rate increased and total equivalence ratio at extinction decreased with hydrogen addition; consequently, ultra lean premixed combustion was possible and flame stability could be achieved at low temperature conditions. The NO_x emission increased with hydrogen addition for the same stretch rate and equivalence ratio, but the extinction stretch rate and lean flammability limit was enlarged. Consequently, NO_x emission decreased with hydrogen addition in the near extinction conditions. Hydrogen addition could improve flame stability and reduce NO_x emission in ultra lean premixed combustion. This paper was recommended for publication in revised form by Associate Editor Ohchae Kwon Dr. Eun-Seong Cho received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Hanyang University, Korea, in 1996 and 1998, respectively. He then received his Ph.D. degree from Seoul National University, Korea, in 2005. He was a principal engineer of KD Navien research center and currently a research associate at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. His research interests include eco-friendly clean combustion technology, new and renewable energy systems. Prof. Suk Ho Chung received his B.S. degree from Seoul National University, Korea, in 1976 and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University, USA, in 1983. He is a Professor since 1984 in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Seoul National University in Seoul, Korea. His research interests cover combustion fundamentals, pollutant formation, laser diagnostics, and plasma-assisted combustion.     

Oxidative stability of high-fatty acid rice bran oil at different stages of refining

The contents of natural antioxidants and the oxidative stability of rice bran oils at different refining steps were determined. Tocopherols and oryzanols were constant in crude and degummed oils but decreased in alkali-refined, bleached and deodorized oils. The process of degumming, alkali-refining, bleaching and deodorization removed 34% of the tocopherols and 51% of the oryzanols. During storage of deodorized oil for 7 wk, 34% of the tocopherols and 19% of the oryzanols were lost. The maximum weight gain, peroxide value and anisidine value were obtained from alkali-refined oil during storage. The order of oxidation stability was crude ≥ degummed > bleached = deodorized > alkali-refined oil.     

Damaged layer characteristics in micro-endmilling of copper using an ultrahigh-speed air spindle

This paper presents an investigation on the characteristics of damaged layer in micro-machining by using the ultrahigh-speed air spindle. The damaged layer in metal cutting is derived from plastic deformation and transformation of metal structure. In this study, micro-cutting force, surface roughness, and plastic deformation layer according to the variation of machining conditions were investigated by experiments. The damaged layer was measured using optical microscope for the samples prepared by metallographic techniques. Its scale was dependent on cutting process parameters, especially feed per tooth. According to experimental results, it was verified that the thickness of damaged layer was increased with increasing of feed per tooth and cutting depth, also thickness of damaged layer was reduced in down-milling compared to upmilling during micro-endmilling operation.     

A numerical study on extinction and NOx formation in nonpremixed flames with syngas fuel

The flame structure, extinction, and NO_x emission characteristics of syngas/air nonpremixed flames, have been investigated numerically. The extinction stretch rate increased with the increase in the hydrogen proportion in the syngas and with lower fuel dilution and higher initial temperature. It also increased with pressure, except for the case of highly diluted fuel at high pressure. The maximum temperature and the emission index of nitric oxides (EINO_x) also increased in aforementioned conditions. The EINO_x decreased with stretch rate in general, while the decreasing rate was found to be somewhat different between the cases of N₂ and CO₂ dilutions. The reaction paths of NO_x formation were analyzed and represented as NO reaction path diagram. The increase in N radical resulted in larger NO_x production at high initial temperature and pressure. As the pressure increases, EINO_x increases slower due to the third-body recombination. The thermal NO mechanism is weakened for high dilution cases and non-thermal mechanisms prevail. The combustion conditions achieving higher extinction stretch rate can be lead to more NO_x emission, therefore that the selection of optimum operation range is needed in syngas combustion.     

QFT Parameter-Scheduling control design for linear Time-Varying systems based on RBF networks

For most of linear time-varying (LTV) systems, it is difficult to design time-varying controllers in analytic way. Accordingly, by approximating LTV systems as uncertain linear time-invariant, control design approaches such as robust control have been applied to the resulting uncertain LTI systems. In particular, a robust control method such as quantitative feedback theory (QFT) has an advantage of guaranteeing the frozen-time stability and the performance specification against plant parameter uncertainties. However, if these methods are applied to the approximated linear time-invariant (LTI) plants with large uncertainty, the resulting control law becomes complicated and also may not become ineffective with faster dynamic behavior. In this paper, as a method to enhance the fast dynamic performance of LTV systems with bounded time-varying parameters, the approximated uncertainty of time-varying parameters are reduced by the proposed QFT parameter-scheduling control design based on radial basis function (RBF) networks.     

Prediction of forming limits for anisotropic sheets containing prolate ellipsoidal voids

In sheet metal forming operations, the formability of sheet metals is limited by the occurrence of internal damage evolution that eventually yields a localized neck. Thus, designing and optimizing a sheet metal forming process, requires the precise prediction of the forming limits of the sheet materials. Accordingly, the current work attempts to theoretically predict the forming limit diagrams (FLDs) of voided anisotropic sheets using a new version of the Marciniak and Kuczynski (M–K) model. The analysis employs Gologanu–Leblond–Devaux's yield function for materials containing axisymmetric prolate ellipsoidal cavities with random orientations in conjunction with Barlat and Lian's 1989 anisotropic yield criterion. The effect of a void shape parameter on a ductile material under biaxial tensile loading is introduced and examined within the framework of the M–K model, along with the effect of including a first-order strain gradient term in the flow stress. To confirm the validity of the proposed M–K model, the predicted FLDs were compared with experimental results for steel sheets. The predicted forming limits for the voided sheets were found to agree well with the experimental data.     

Temperature-programmed desorption study of molecular oxygen adsorbed on MFI-type zeolites

The adsorption of molecular oxygen at room temperature on the proton form of MFI zeolites with different Si/Al ratios has been investigated by temperature-programmed desorption (TPD). The internal Si-OH defects (silanol groups) in these zeolites are found to serve as O₂ adsorption sites. The apparent activation energies (17.5–21.8 kcal-mol^-1) of desorption determined from O₂ TPD measurements reveal that the extent of interactions between the Si-OH defects and the adsorbed O₂ molecules becomes weaker with decreasing Al content in the zeolite.     

A simulation approach for production-distribution planning with consideration given to replenishment policies

One of the key issues in the current research area of supply-chain networks is a production-distribution plan taking into account a multi-facility, multi-product, and multi-period problem. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal production-distribution plan in a network with a bill of material (BOM). First, we present a mathematical model to determine the capacities of facilities including the manufacturing plant and distribution center (DC). Next, with consideration given to the uncertainty and complexity of solving such a network, we apply a simulation approach. The simulation model is developed to analyze a production-distribution plan that satisfies customer demands for higher customer satisfaction and lower total relevant costs, while taking replenishment policies into consideration . The computational results for a simple example of the network represent the developed mathematical and simulation model and show the prospects of using this approach. The multi-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA) test results clearly indicate that all three factors have a significant effect on the grouping output.     

Hybrid approach to distribution planning reflecting a stochastic supply chain

Today’s business environment is experiencing as a period of expansion and the globalization. Therefore, a distribution plan with low cost and high customer satisfaction in supply chain management (SCM) has been widely investigated. The purpose of this study is to establish optimal distribution planning in the supply chain. In this paper, a hybrid approach involving a genetic algorithm (GA) and simulation is presented to solve this problem. The GA is employed in order to quickly generate feasible distribution sequences. Considering uncertain factors such as queuing, breakdowns and repairing time in the supply chain, the simulation is used to minimize completion time for the distribution plan. The computational results for an example of a simple supply chain are given and discussed to validate the proposed approach. We obtained a more realistic distribution plan with optimal completion time by performing the iterative hybrid GA simulation procedure which reflects the stochastic nature of supply chains.