Emission Source Characterization during an Ethylene Plant Shutdown

To conduct a well‐planned plant shutdown, so as to reduce flare emissions for the sake of plant profitability and local environmental sustainability, one of the primary tasks is to perform comprehensive and precise accountings for flare emissions. Since the literature is still lacking systematic and quantitative studies, plant‐wide dynamic simulations are employed to simulate an ethylene plant shutdown and characterize its flare emission sources through which dynamic emission profiles of various emission species changing with respect to time are obtained. Plant shutdown emission inventories are enriched with details for point emission sources, and possible technical supports are provided to both industry and environmental agencies on evaluating and developing cost‐effective flare minimization strategies in the future.     

Vermeidung von str?mungsinduzierte CO2-Korrosion in der Erdgasproduktion mit Hilfe von Korrosionsinhibitoren

CO₂ corrosion of carbon steel is a serious problem in oil and gas production, since the most used materials are low alloyed carbon steels. There are many approaches to handle the problem of CO₂ corrosion. One flexible and economic way to control corrosion in oil and gas facilities is inhibition but the efficiency of an inhibitor is often limited by flow velocities. To investigate inhibitor efficiency in a superficial flow with high gas velocities neither standardized test had been available nor publications about that topic. Therefore the goal was to do the first investigations in that important field. To reach this aim a special, not standardized flow loop test system has been constructed. Results of these investigations have shown that differences in inhibitor efficiencies are related to chemical composition and flow velocities.     

Thermochemical Investigations in the System Cadmium-Praseodymium Relevant for Pyrometallurgical Fuel Reprocessing

Vapor pressure measurements, in terms of a (non-)isothermal isopiestic method, were carried out in the system Cd-Pr between 749 K and 1067 K (476 °C and 794 °C). Thermodynamic activities of cadmium as a function of temperature were obtained directly for the composition ranging from 50.0 to 85.7 at. pct Cd. From these results, partial molar enthalpies of mixing of Cd were derived for the corresponding composition range. The activity values of Cd were converted to an average sample temperature of 823 K (550 °C) by applying an integrated form of the Gibbs–Helmholtz equation. These data indicate that Cd₂Pr and Cd₅₈Pr₁₃ are probably the most stable intermetallic compounds in this system. Using an activity value of Pr from the literature as integration constant, Gibbs–Duhem integration was performed, and integral Gibbs energies are presented at 823 K (550 °C), referred to Cd(l) and α-Pr(s). Gibbs energies of formation at the stoichiometric compositions of the phases Cd₆Pr, Cd₅₈Pr₁₃, Cd₄₅Pr₁₁, Cd₃Pr, and Cd₂Pr were determined to be about ?18.8, ?23.5, ?24.8, ?28.7, and ?33.8 kJ g-atom^?1 at 823 K (550 °C), respectively.     

Modeling Firm and Market Dynamics: A Flexible Model Reproducing Existing Stylized Facts on Firm Growth

This paper presents a model of firm and market dynamics that is able to reproduce the empirically observed patterns on firm growth and its statistical characteristics. It goes beyond the existing firm models by reproducing all stylized facts established in the literature. Furthermore, the model is flexible in the sense that various parameter settings are identified that reproduce the stylized facts. We identify and discuss different ranges of the model’s parameters that allow for adapting the model to certain industries and life-cycle stages.     

Probabilistic performance prediction model for Austrian torrent control infrastructure

Due to the growing stock of torrent control structures and decreasing investments, the protection level can be reduced in the long term. Therefore, the focus of the future investments has been shifted on efficiency improvement and maintenance of existing structures. The maintenance of the existing structures is necessary to ensure safety from natural hazards, which are increasing as a consequence of the climate change. Due to the increasing number of structures, there is a strong need to develop a good maintenance management for these infrastructure works. This study is based on data from the condition rating programme of the Austrian Service for Torrent and Avalanche Control. For the structures relevant in this work, 75,343 records were available. The data were examined for different construction type and construction materials. The reliability of the structures was determined by means of the Markov chain. The study describes a homogeneous Markov chain model formed by the data of the condition rating. The result of this study is a proposal for a time to failure (TTF) and a time to repair (TTR) for several construction types with different construction materials as well as the time-dependent use of construction materials in the sector of the Austrian torrent control infrastructure.