Low Cost 1D DCT Core for Multiple Video Codec

The expandability of high demands for multimedia applications brings out more and more video standards for improving the coding and compression efficiency.As the most commonly used transform,Discrete cosine transform (DCT) achieves excellent energy compaction property and good compression efficiency.Hardware sharing is the mostly used efficient strategy to reduce the cost for video codec.Based on traditional matrix factorization,this paper makes three observations to direct the design of proposed hardware sharing architecture.The proposed architecture can be generally used to compute 8×8 DCT of AVS,H.264,VC-1 and HEVC in a low cost way,and can be used to decode Full-HD and WQXGA formate video sequences in real time.The design has been synthesized in 0.13μm technology.The synthesis results show that the proposed architecture achieves 76.9％ reduction in gate count,85.6％ decrease in power consumption and 35％ improvement in operational speed in comparison with other existing designs.     

Recent developments in simulation techniques for vapour-compression refrigeration systems

Simulation has been widely used for performance prediction and optimum design of refrigeration systems. A brief review on history of simulation for vapour-compression refrigeration systems is done. The models for evaporator, condenser, compressor, capillary tube and envelop structure are summarized. Some developing simulation techniques, including implicit regression and explicit calculation method for refrigerant thermodynamic properties, model-based intelligent simulation methodology and graph-theory based simulation method, are presented. Prospective methods for future simulation of refrigeration systems, such as noise-field simulation, simulation with knowledge engineering methodology and calculation methods for nanofluid properties, are introduced briefly.     

Pool boiling of ammonia/water and its pure components: Comparison of experimental data in the literature with the predictions of standard correlations

Although ammonia/water has been used for decades as a working pair in absorption cycles for industrial refrigeration, very limited data are available on boiling heat transfer of this mixture. The intention of this work is to carry out a bibliographic revision of the information available in the open literature about nucleate pool boiling of the ammonia/water mixture and its pure components. The experimental data have been compared with existing prediction correlations for the pure components and also for their mixtures.For water, all the pure component pool boiling correlations gave similar predictions and were in good agreement with experimental data. For ammonia the prediction of the correlation and the experimental data showed more differences.At a given heat flux, the experimental data show that the mixture pool boiling heat transfer coefficient is lower than that obtained with pure components. Three of the well-known correlations for mixtures were compared against the experimental data. None of these correlations provided a good prediction of the mixture pool boiling heat transfer coefficient over a wide range of mass fraction. Furthermore, a new correlation has been proposed.     

Absorption performance enhancement by nano-particles and chemical surfactants in binary nanofluids

The objectives of this paper are to visualize the bubble behavior during the NH₃/H₂O absorption process with chemical surfactant and nano-particles and to study the effect of nano-particles and surfactants on the absorption characteristics. Binary nanofluid which means binary mixture with nano-sized particles is tested to apply nanofluid to the absorption system. Cu, CuO and Al₂O₃ nano-particles are added into NH₃/H₂O solution to make the binary nanofluids, and 2-ethyl-1-hexanol, n-octanol and 2-octanol are used as the surfactants. The concentration of ammonia in the basefluid, that of nano-particles in the nanofluid, and that of surfactants in the nanofluid are considered as the key parameters. The results show that the addition of surfactants and nano-particles improves the absorption performance up to 5.32 times. It can be concluded that the addition of both surfactants and nano-particles enhances significantly the absorption performance during the ammonia bubble absorption process.     

Methodology for thermal design of novel combined refrigeration/power binary fluid systems

Refrigeration cogeneration systems which generate power alongside with cooling improve energy utilization significantly, because such systems offer a more reasonable arrangement of energy and exergy “flows” within the system, which results in lower fuel consumption as compared to the separate generation of power and cooling or heating. This paper proposes several novel systems of that type, based on ammonia–water working fluid. Importantly, general principles for integration of refrigeration and power systems to produce better energy and exergy efficiencies are summarized, based primarily on the reduction of exergy destruction. The proposed plants analyzed here operate in a fully-integrated combined cycle mode with ammonia–water Rankine cycle(s) and an ammonia refrigeration cycle, interconnected by absorption, separation and heat transfer processes. It was found that the cogeneration systems have good performance, with energy and exergy efficiencies of 28% and 55–60%, respectively, for the base-case studied (at maximum heat input temperature of 450 °C). That efficiency is, by itself, excellent for cogeneration cycles using heat sources at these temperatures, with the exergy efficiency comparable to that of nuclear power plants. When using exhaust heat from topping gas turbine power plants, the total plant energy efficiency can rise to the remarkable value of about 57%. The hardware proposed for use is conventional and commercially available; no hardware additional to that needed in conventional power and absorption cycles is needed.     

Comparison of R-290 and two HFC blends for walk-in refrigeration systems

To help provide a clear understanding of the relative performance potential of HFCs (R-404A and R-410A) as compared to R-290 for walk-in refrigeration systems representing direct expansion commercial refrigeration systems with small charge, an experimental evaluation of the three refrigerants was investigated. To compare the environmental impact of refrigerants over the entire life cycle of fluid and equipment, including power consumption, the life cycle climate performance (LCCP) of the three refrigerants were evaluated based on measured data. The estimated LCCPs at various emission rates indicate that the LCCP of R-290 is always lower than that of R-404A. The LCCP of R-410A is lower than that of R-290 as long as the annual emission is kept below 10%. It was concluded that R-410A has less or equivalent environmental impact as compared to R-290 when safety (toxicity and flammability), environmental impact (climate change), cost and performance (capacity and COP) are considered.     

Density of organic binary mixtures from equilibrium measurements

A reduction model for equilibrium measurements data (pressure–temperature–weight data) was developed. The model allows indirect measurements of the refrigerant concentration at the liquid and the gas phases and the solution density. The reduction model was validated by both comparing the obtained pressure–temperature–concentration relation at equilibrium conditions and solution densities with experimentally direct measurements carried out by Kriebel and Loffler [M. Kriebel, J. Loffler, Therodynamische eigenschaften des binary systems difluormono-chlormethan (R22) – tetraäthylenglykoldimethyläther (E181), Kältetechnik 17 (1965) 266–271] (up to 80 °C) and by us (up to 120 °C) over a wide range of pressure and temperature.     

Measurements of the surface tension for R290, R600a and R290/R600a mixture

The surface tensions of R290, R600a and R290/R600a mixture have been measured by the modified differential capillary-rise method. Twenty-two data points for R290 and 21 data points for R600a were obtained in the temperature range between 273 K and 354 K, and 43 data points for R290/R600a mixture on three isotherms of 278 K, 300 K and 320 K were obtained. The experimental uncertainties of temperature and surface tension are estimated to be within 20 mK and 0.2 mN m⁻¹, respectively. Surface tension correlations as a function of temperature for pure R290 and R600a were formulated in the temperature range between 253 K and critical temperature, and the correlation as a function of the composition for R290/R600a mixture was discussed at 278 K, 300 K and 320 K. It is found that the surface tension for R290/R600a mixture can be reproduced by the simple mixing rule by mole fraction with the correlations of both pure components.     

Identification and control of multi-evaporator air-conditioning systems

Modern multi-evaporator air-conditioners (MEACs) incorporate variable-speed compressors and variable-opening expansion valves as the actuators for improving cooling performance and energy efficiency. These actuators have to be properly feedback-controlled; otherwise the systems may exhibit even poorer performance than the conventional machines which use fixed-speed compressors and conventional expansion valves. In this paper, feedback controller design for the MEAC system is first addressed through experimental identification. The identification produces a low-order, linear model suitable for controller design. The feedback controller employed is multi-input–multi-output-based and possesses a cascade structure for dealing with the fast and slow dynamics in the system. To determine appropriate control parameters, conditions that establish the stability for the cascade design are given. Due to the deficiency in control inputs, the proposed control structure exhibits steady-state errors in the superheat responses which in turn can produce unacceptable steady-state superheats. To resolve this issue, the reference superheat settings are determined via an optimization procedure so that the resultant steady-state superheats become acceptable. The control experiments indicate that the proposed controller can successfully regulate the indoor temperatures and maintain the steady-state superheat temperatures at acceptable levels.     

Comparison of parallel- and counter-flow circuiting in an industrial evaporator under frosting conditions

This paper describes a theoretical model of a large-scale, ammonia-fed evaporator coil used in an industrial refrigeration system and operating under low temperature air and refrigerant conditions that are typically encountered in refrigerated storage spaces. The model is used to simulate the performance of counter-flow and parallel-flow circuited evaporator coil designs under frosting conditions. The counter-flow frost model is validated using in situ data obtained from a field-installed evaporator coil. The performance of an evaporator in a parallel-flow circuit arrangement is simulated and compared to counter-flow circuiting. The effects of coil circuiting are evaluated in terms of the frost distribution across the evaporator coil and the associated reduction in cooling capacity during operation.