A new weighted‐sum‐of‐gray‐gases model for oxy‐combustion scenarios

A new weighted‐sum‐of‐gray gases (WSGG) model that is based on the statistical narrow band model (SNB) RADCAL is proposed for use in computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of air and oxy‐combustion. When employed in conjunction with the discrete ordinates (DO) method, the model predictions compare well against line‐by‐line benchmark data that have been made available recently that are based on the latest spectroscopic databases. Furthermore, the model compares well against the EM2C SNB model calculations that have served as benchmark data in three‐dimensional geometries. Radiative transfer calculations in these prototypical problems therefore confirm recent experimental observations that SNB RADCAL and EM2C SNB serve as good model databases to develop approximate radiative property models. To achieve an optimum balance of speed and accuracy in computationally intensive CFD simulations, non‐gray formulations of the WSGG model are also employed with the P1 model and solutions are compared against those generated by the DO model. While the P1 model gave favorable comparisons when cold, black walls were present, the errors in the surface incident radiative flux predictions increased in the presence of hot, reflecting walls. Finally, in fully coupled simulations of natural gas combustion under air‐firing and oxy‐firing modes, the predicted incident radiative flux profiles were distinctly different between the gray and non‐gray calculations at regions of high temperature gradients, while the centerline temperature predictions were comparatively unaffected. The effects of turbulence radiation interactions were also accounted for through the temperature self‐correlation term. However, the magnitudes of the temperature fluctuations were small and localized within this furnace and did not significantly alter our predictions. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Photonics-to-electronics integration for optical interconnects in the early 21st century

It is useful to examinethe history of penetration opti-cal datalinksinto communication over thelast 30 years .Fig.1 shows an approxi mate perspective of the rate ofpenetration of optics versus the link distance and thebandwidth.Thelower horizontal axis re…     

Copper molybdenum sulfide: A novel pseudocapacitive electrode material for electrochemical energy storage device

The ever-growing demand for energy storage devices necessitates the development of novel energy storage materials with high performance. In this work, copper molybdenum sulfide (Cu₂MoS₄) nanostructures were prepared via a one-pot hydrothermal method and examined as an advanced electrode material for supercapacitor. Physico-chemical characterizations such as X-ray diffraction, laser Raman, field emission scanning electron microscope with elemental mapping, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analyses revealed the formation of I-phase Cu₂MoS₄. Electrochemical analysis using cyclic voltammetry (CV), charge-discharge (CD) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) showed the pseudocapacitive nature of charge-storage via ion intercalation/de-intercalation occurring in the Cu₂MoS₄ electrode. The Cu₂MoS₄ electrode delivered a specific capacitance of 127 F g^?1 obtained from the CD measured using a constant current density of 1.5 mA cm^?2. Further, Cu₂MoS₄ symmetric supercapacitor (SSC) device delivered a specific capacitance of 28.25 F g^?1 at a current density of 0.25 mA cm^?2 with excellent rate capability. The device acquired high energy and power density of 3.92 Wh kg^?1 and 1250 W kg^?1, respectively. The Nyquist and Bode analysis further confirmed the pseudocapacitive nature of Cu₂MoS₄ electrodes. The experimental results indicate the potential application of Cu₂MoS₄ nanostructures as a novel electrode material for energy storage devices.     

OXYGEN LIMITATION IN MICROFLUIDIC BIOFUEL CELLS

Biofuel cells are devices that use biocatalysts (enzymes or microbes) to convert biochemical energy directly into electrical energy. Microfluidic biofuel cells exploit the lack of active mixing at microscale dimensions to eliminate the use of proton exchange membranes that separate anolyte and catholyte streams. Simulation of this system, by solving the governing 3-D conservation equations (flow, species transport), reveals that oxygen availability limits the performance of the cathode. An exponential decay in the availability of oxygen at the cathode is observed along the length of the microchannel, indicating that increasing the number of electrode pairs reduces the overall current density. This conclusion is consistent with experimental observations. Increasing electrolyte flow rates can reduce the mass transport limitations by decreasing the diffusion boundary-layer thickness, but disparity between the flow rates of the anolyte and catholyte can induce wastage of dissolved oxygen.     

Application of grey fuzzy logic for the optimization of drilling parameters for CFRP composites with multiple performance characteristics

Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) composite materials have potential applications in various domains. In machining, drilling is essentially required to join different structures. But CFRP drilling poses many problems that decrease the quality of holes. In this paper, Taguchi’s L₂₇ orthogonal array is used to perform drilling of CFRP composite plates. To improve the quality of the holes drilled, the optimal combination of drilling parameters is chosen using grey relational analysis. Grey fuzzy optimization of drilling parameters is based on five different output performance characteristics, namely, thrust force, torque, entry delamination, exit delamination and eccentricity of the holes. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is used to find the percentage contribution of the drilling parameters and found that feed rate is the most influential factor in drilling of CFRP composites.     

Heat and Mass Transport during Microwave Heating of Mashed Potato in Domestic Oven—Model Development,Validation, and Sensitivity Analysis

A 3‐dimensional finite‐element model coupling electromagnetics and heat and mass transfer was developed to understand the interactions between the microwaves and fresh mashed potato in a 500 mL tray. The model was validated by performing heating of mashed potato from 25 °C on a rotating turntable in a microwave oven, rated at 1200 W, for 3 min. The simulated spatial temperature profiles on the top and bottom layer of the mashed potato showed similar hot and cold spots when compared to the thermal images acquired by an infrared camera. Transient temperature profiles at 6 locations collected by fiber‐optic sensors showed good agreement with predicted results, with the root mean square error ranging from 1.6 to 11.7 °C. The predicted total moisture loss matched well with the observed result. Several input parameters, such as the evaporation rate constant, the intrinsic permeability of water and gas, and the diffusion coefficient of water and gas, are not readily available for mashed potato, and they cannot be easily measured experimentally. Reported values for raw potato were used as baseline values. A sensitivity analysis of these input parameters on the temperature profiles and the total moisture loss was evaluated by changing the baseline values to their 10% and 1000%. The sensitivity analysis showed that the gas diffusion coefficient, intrinsic water permeability, and the evaporation rate constant greatly influenced the predicted temperature and total moisture loss, while the intrinsic gas permeability and the water diffusion coefficient had little influence.     

A frequency offset estimation technique for frequency-selectivefading channels

Rapid frequency offset estimation is required in burst communication systems. The performance of traditional open loop frequency estimation techniques is severely degraded by multipath propagation. We present a new data-aided technique for frequency offset estimation in the presence of strong multipath. The technique allows estimation of the frequency offset with no knowledge of the channel parameters. Results comparing the new technique with the maximum-likelihood estimation technique in a frequency selective Ricean fading environment are presented     

Production inventory with service time and interruptions

This paper considers an (s,S) production inventory system with positive service time, with time for producing each item following Erlang distribution. Customers arrive according to a Poisson process. A customer who arrives when there is no inventory in the system is considered lost. On the other hand, a customer who finds a busy server with at least one inventory in the system joins a queue of infinite capacity. When the inventory level falls to s, production process is switched on, and it is switched off when the inventory level reaches back to S. Service time to each customer also follows an Erlang distribution. The service of a customer may be interrupted, where the time for such a phenomenon follows an exponential distribution, whenever it occurs. An interrupted service, after repair, resumes from where it was stopped. The correction/repair time follows an exponential distribution. We assume that the service of a single customer may encounter any number of interruptions and that the customer being served waits there until his service is completed. Moreover, at a time the server is subject to at most one interruption. We also assume that no inventory is lost due to a service interruption. Like the service process, the production process also is subject to interruptions, where the duration to an interruption follows an exponential distribution. However, in contrast to the service interruption, in the case of interruption to production process, we assume that the item being processed is lost because of interruption. That is, the production process, on being interrupted, restarts from the beginning, after repair. The repair time of an interrupted production process follows exponential distribution. Few of the last service phases are assumed to be protected in the sense that the service will not be interrupted while being in these phases. The same is assumed for the production process also.

The model is analysed as a level-independent quasi-birth–death process. We apply a novel method to obtain an explicit expression for the necessary and sufficient condition for the stability of the system under study. This method works even if we assume general phase-type distributions for the production as well as the service processes, and hence can be used to characterise the stability of inventory systems where the assumption of disallowing the customers to join the system, when there is a shortage of inventory has been made. Under stability, we apply matrix analytic methods to compute the system state distribution. In consequence to that, several system performance measures have been derived, and their dependence on the system parameters has been studied numerically.     

Converting heterogeneous statistical tables on the web to searchable databases

Much of the world’s quantitative data reside in scattered web tables. For a meaningful role in Big Data analytics, the facts reported in these tables must be brought into a uniform framework. Based on a formalization of header-indexed tables, we proffer an algorithmic solution to end-to-end table processing for a large class of human-readable tables. The proposed algorithms transform header-indexed tables to a category table format that maps easily to a variety of industry-standard data stores for query processing. The algorithms segment table regions based on the unique indexing of the data region by header paths, classify table cells, and factor header category structures of two-dimensional as well as the less common multidimensional tables. Experimental evaluations substantiate the algorithmic approach to processing heterogeneous tables. As demonstrable results, the algorithms generate queryable relational database tables and semantic-web triple stores. Application of our algorithms to 400 web tables randomly selected from diverse sources shows that the algorithmic solution automates end-to-end table processing.