The effect of absorber packing height on the performance of a hybrid liquid desiccant system

A hybrid system consisting of vapour compression unit, a liquid desiccant system, and a flat solar hot water collector were designed, fabricated and tested. This combination allowed for a separate control of humidity and temperature without energy penalty. Various packing heights of the absorber component were tested to determine the optimal performance of the combined unit. A 1000 mm packing height with cross-sectional area of 600×600 mm, proved to be the best height that gives promising improvements in the coefficient of performance of the vapour compression unit.     

Mathematical model to identify nitrogen variability in large rivers

The river Swale in Yorkshire, northern England has been the subject of many studies concerning water quality. This paper builds on existing data resources and previous 1D river water quality modelling applications at daily resolution (using QUESTOR) to provide a different perspective on understanding pollution, through simulation of the short‐term dynamics of nutrient transport along the river. The two main objectives are (1) building, calibration and evaluation of a detailed mathematical model (Advection‐Dispersion Model: ADModel), for nutrient transport under unsteady flow conditions and (2) the development of methods for estimating key parameters characterizing pollutant transport (velocity, dispersion coefficient and transformation rates) as functions of hydrological parameters and/or seasonality. The study of ammonium and nitrate has highlighted temporal variability in processes, with maximum nitrification and denitrification rates during autumn. Results show that ADModel is able to predict the main trend of measured concentration with reasonable accuracy and accounts for temporal changes in water flow and pollutant load along the river. Prediction accuracy could be improved through more detailed modelling of transformation processes by taking into account the variability of factors for which existing data were insufficient to allow representation. For example, modelling indicates that interactions with bed sediment may provide an additional source of nutrients during high spring flows. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self-reinforcing mechanisms for cellularisation: a longitudinal case study

Firms that adopt cellular manufacturing (CM) often need to restructure their products, personnel, equipment, factory management and organisation culture. Despite voluminous literature on CM, only a few case studies related to cellularisation exist. Therefore, to enhance understanding in this area, this paper presents a longitudinal case study on cellularisation in an electronic assembly plant. Six years of data were collected from the observations and discussions of an industrialist and an academician. Events instrumental to the persistence of CM were highlighted, with reference to path dependence analysis. Cellularisation is not entirely evolutionary or teleological but is an interplay of the two; it is significantly influenced by the positive feedback of self-reinforcing mechanisms after departing from critical junctures. The observed self-reinforcing mechanisms were expounded and divided into six categories.     

Understanding employee resourcing in construction organizations

In recent years the literature on employee resourcing has consistently advocated the importance of adopting a holistic, strategic approach to employee deployment decision making rather than adopting a reactive needs‐based approach. This is particularly problematic in construction where the multi‐project environment leads to constantly changing resource requirements and to changing demands over a project's life cycle. This can lead to inappropriate decisions, which fail to meet the longer‐term needs of both construction organizations and their employees. A structured and comprehensive understanding of the current project team deployment practices within large construction organizations was developed. Project deployment practices were examined within seven case study contracting firms. The emergent themes that shaped the decision‐making processes were grouped into five broad clusters comprising human resource planning, performance/career management, team deployment, employee involvement and training and development. The research confirms that a reactive and ad hoc approach to the function prevails within the firms investigated. This suggests a weak relationship between the deployment process and human resource planning, team deployment, performance management, employee involvement and training and development activities. It is suggested that strategic HR–business partnering could engender more transparent and productive relationships in this crucial area.     

某机械设备液压系统分析

供弹系统是影响舰炮发射速度的因素,为了提高其供弹速度设计一套快速供弹系统本文从敏捷供弹系统的组成出发、叙述了扬弹机构的工作原理,设计了扬弹机的液压系统,对液压缸和蓄能器进行了具体的分析和计算,从理论上证明了此方案的可行性。     

Performance of microwave synthesized dual solvent dope solution and lithium bromide additives on poly(ethersulfone) membranes

BACKGROUND: Generally the fabrication of polymeric membranes is a complicated and expensive process since it involves several steps. The preliminary preparation steps involve polymer drying and dissolution and is very time consuming and expensive. Currently, conventional electrothermal heating (CEH) is used to dissolve polyethersulfone in an aprotic solvent for membrane fabrication. Usually CEH requires 6 to 8 h at temperatures of 80 to 95 °C. This paper reports the fabrication and characterization of polyethersulfone (PES) asymmetric ultrafiltration membrane made from microwave (MW) synthesis casting solution consisting of various compositions of double solvents and lithium bromide (LiBr) additive. RESULTS: Homogeneous dual solvent dope solutions prepared via microware irradiation took only 1 h instead of the 7 h when prepared using CEH. The results also revealed that the membrane permeation and rejection rates, pore size and porosity were dependent on the ratio of LiBr to acetone. Membranes with LiBr kept at 2 and 3 wt% exhibited both high rejection and permeation rates with minimum pore sizes of 1.067 and 1.214 nm respectively. The presence of LiBr and the occurrence of chain scission were elucidated using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy while its hydrophilic property was confirmed by water absorption and contact angle measurements. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that the microwave technique is capable of producing 1 L membrane solutions in less than 1 h. The membranes prepared from the microwave solutions show good rejection and permeation rates. Copyright © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry     

FVM based numerical study on the effect of solder bump arrangement on capillary driven flip chip underfill process

In this paper, the finite volume method (FVM) based numerical simulation is used for the flow visualization of capillary driven underfill process for different solder bump arrangements of flip chip packages is presented. Three different 3D flip chip package models are developed and simulated using computational fluid dynamic (CFD) code, FLUENT 6.3. Capillary action and cross viscosity model are taken into account in the simulation. One-line dispensing method is applied in the analysis and the volume of fluid (VOF) technique is used to track the flow front. The effect of solder balls arrangement on flow behavior and filling time is studied and the solder balls arrangement is found to affect the flow behavior and filling time. The flow patterns of simulation are observed for three flip chip packages and compared. The ability of the proposed model and FLUENT in handling flip chip underfill problems is proved to be excellent.     

Electronic States and Light Absorption in a Cylindrical Quantum Dot Having Thin Falciform Cross Section

Energy level structure and direct light absorption in a cylindrical quantum dot (CQD), having thin falciform cross section, are studied within the framework of the adiabatic approximation. An analytical expression for the energy spectrum of the particle is obtained. For the one-dimensional “fast” subsystem, an oscillatory dependence of the wave function amplitude on the cross section parameters is revealed. For treatment of the “slow” subsystem, parabolic and modified Pöschl-Teller effective potentials are used. It is shown that the low-energy levels of the spectrum are equidistant. In the strong quantization regime, the absorption coefficient and edge frequencies are calculated. Selection rules for the corresponding quantum transitions are obtained.     

Improvement of the stoichiometric network analysis for determination of instability conditions of complex nonlinear reaction systems

Stoichiometric network analysis (SNA), a known method for analyzing complex reaction systems including biochemical ones, is improved and applied to a nonlinear process studied far from equilibrium in a continuously fed, well stirred tank reactor (CSTR). A particular attention is focused on the determination of the narrow range of the control parameter values where the main steady state is unstable and where different dynamic states can be simulated numerically. The instability region, the most important feature of nonlinear reaction systems, is calculated as a function of the SNA parameters (current rates and reciprocal concentrations of intermediate species in the steady state) and simplified by retaining only the dominant terms. Since the number of the current rates is usually larger than the number of linearly independent equations to be used for their calculation, it is shown here that the current rates can be replaced with a smaller number of reaction rates at the steady state. These rates are related to the experimental data in a simple manner. The instability condition is also written as a function of dimensionless parameters derived from the SNA. This general approach is applied to a model of the Bray–Liebhafsky (BL) reaction having seven reactions without direct autocatalysis or autoinhibition, studied under CSTR conditions. Since the model has six intermediate species, it would be very difficult to analyze its instability condition by the conventional procedure, where a sixth order characteristic equation would have to be solved. On the other hand, the instability condition, obtained easily by the improved SNA, locates correctly the oscillatory region using numerical integration. Other dynamic states found earlier with a larger model of the BL reaction, such as mixed-mode oscillations, period doubling and chaos, are also obtained within the theoretically predicted oscillatory region. Thus, besides the general advantages of the improved stoichiometric network analysis as a method appropriate for the examination of complex nonlinear reactions, we show that the various mentioned dynamic states can be obtained by a very simple variant of the model of the BL reaction realized under CSTR conditions.