CFD SIMULATION OF THE GAS-SOLID FLOW IN THE RISER OF A CIRCULATING FLUIDIZED BED WITH SECONDARY AIR INJECTION

A comprehensive investigation was carried out to study hydrodynamics aspects of secondary air injection in circulating fluidized beds. This article presents modeling and results of computational fluid dynamics simulations of gas-solid flow in the riser section of a laboratory-scale (ID = 0.23 m, height = 7.6 m) circulating fluidized bed with a radial secondary air injector. The gas-solid flow model is based on the two-fluid (Eulerian-Eulerian) approach, where both gas and solids phases are treated as interpenetrating continua. A granular kinetic theory model is used to describe the solids phase stresses. The simulation results are compared with measured pressure drop and axial particle velocity profiles; reasonable agreement is obtained. Qualitatively, excellent agreement is obtained in predicting the increase in solids volume fraction below secondary air ports, the accumulation of solids around the center of the riser due to momentum of secondary air jets, and the absence of the solids down-flow near the wall above the secondary air injection ports, which are the prominent features of secondary air injection observed in the experiments.     

Numerical investigation on the number of active surface sites of carbon catalysts in the decomposition of methane

The number of active sites on the surface of carbon catalysts is an important factor in determining their activity in the decomposition of methane. Although several studies have been performed to identify the nature of these sites, no method has been established to estimate their number. A method is presented to estimate this value, and its effect on hydrogen production is evaluated, along with that of temperature and residence time. For this purpose, the thermocatalytic decomposition of methane is modeled with the inclusion of the number of active sites of the catalyst in the kinetics. The results of the model indicate the high influence of variations of small residence times in this process, and the reduction of this effect at high temperatures. Also, the effect of the number of surface sites is shown to be more prominent at low residence times and temperatures. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 60: 2228–2234, 2014     

The general problem for an arbitrarily oriented crack in a FGM layer1

In this paper, the plane elasticity problem for an unconstrained FGM layer containing an arbitrarily oriented crack is considered. It is assumed that the elastic properties of the material are exponential functions of the thickness coordinate. The problem is formulated in terms of a system of Cauchy-type singular integral equations, which can be solved numerically. The stress intensity factors at the crack tips are computed for mechanical loads. A complete parametric study, by varying both the geometric and material parameters is conducted.     

Cracked shells under skew-symmetric loading

In this paper, the general problem of a shell containing a through crack in one of the principal planes of curvature and under general skew-symmetric loading is considered. By employing a Reissner type shell theory which takes into account the effect of transverse shear strains, all boundary conditions on the crack surfaces are satisfied separately. Consequently, unlike those obtained from the classical shell theory, the angular distributions of the stress components around the crack tips are shown to be identical to the distributions obtained from the plane and anti-plane elasticity solutions. Extensive results are given for axially and circumferentially cracked cylindrical shells, spherical shells, and toroidal shells under uniform in-plane shearing, out of plane shearing, and torsion. Taking advantage of the fact that the problem is formulated for “specially” orthotropic materials, the effect of orthotropy on the results is also studied in some detail.     

Bonded orthotropic strips with cracks

In this paper the elastostatic problem for a nonhomogeneous plane which consists of two sets of periodically arranged dissimilar orthotropic strips is considered. It is assumed that the plane contains a series of collinear cracks perpendicular to the interfaces and is loaded in tension away from and perpendicular to the cracks. First the problem of cracks fully imbedded into the homogeneous strips is considered. Then the singular behavior of the stresses for two special crack geometries is studied in some detail. The first is the case of a broken laminate in which the crack tips touch the interfaces. The second is the case of cracks crossing the interfaces. An interesting result found from the analysis of the latter which may have an important bearing on a possible delamination fracture initiation at stress-free boundaries in bonded orthotropic materials is that for certain orthotropic material combinations the stress state at the point of intersection of a crack and an interface may be bounded whereas in isotropic materials at this point stresses are always singular. A number of numerical examples are worked out in order to separate the primary material parameters influencing the stress intensity factors and the powers of stress singularity, and to determine the trends regarding the influence of the secondary parameters. Finally, some numerical results are given for the stress intensity factors in certain basic crack geometries and for typical material combinations.

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Résumé Dans ce mémoire, on considère le problème élasto-statique d'un plan non-homogène consistant en deux séries de feuilles orthotropes dissimilaires disposées de manière périodique. On suppose que le plan contient une série de fissures colinéaires perpendiculaires aux interfaces et qu'il est soumis à traction perpendiculairement à ces fissures et suffisamment loin de celles-ci. On considère en premier lieu le problème des fissures complètement noyées dans les bandes homogènes. Le comportement singulier des contraintes dans le cas d'une géométrie de fissures particulières est étudié dans le détail, le premier cas est celui d'une doublure interrompue dont les extrémités de la fissure atteignent l'interface; le second est le cas de fissures traversant les interfaces. Un résultat intéressant qui a été trouvé à partir de l'analyse de ce dernier cas et qui peut revêtir une importante signification sur les possibilités d'amorçage d'une rupture par délamination aux frontières libres de contraintes dans les matériaux orthotropes réunis, est que pour certaines combinaisons de matériaux orthotropes l'état de tension au point d'intersection d'une fissure et d'un interface peut être limité, bien que dans les matériaux isotropes à ce point les contraintes sont toujours singulières. Plusieurs exemples numériques sont examinés en vue de séparer les paramètres primaires du matériau influençant les facteurs d'intensité de contrainte et les puissances de la singularité de contrainte, et en vue de déterminer les tendances relatives à l'influence des paramètres secondaires. Finalement, quelques résultats numériques sont fournis pour les facteurs d'intensité de contrainte relatifs à certaines géométries de fissure de base et pour des combinaisons typiques de matériau.

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This work was supported by NASA-Langley under the Grant NGR-39-007-011 and by the National Science Foundation under the Grant ENG77-19127.     

1D modeling of a flowing electrolyte-direct methanol fuel cell

In this study, the performance characteristics of a flowing electrolyte-direct methanol fuel cell (FE-DMFC) and a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) are evaluated by computer simulations; and results are compared to experimental data found in the literature. Simulations are carried out to assess the effects of the operating parameters on the output parameters; namely, methanol concentration distribution, cell voltage, power density, and electrical efficiency of the cell. The operating parameters studied include the electrolyte flow rate, flowing electrolyte channel thickness, and methanol concentration at the feed stream. In addition, the effect of the circulation of the flowing electrolyte channel outlet stream on the performance is discussed. The results show that the maximum power densities that could be achieved do not significantly differ between these two fuel cells; however the electrical efficiency could be increased by 57% when FE-DMFC is used instead of DMFC.     

Effect of gasification agent on the performance of solid oxide fuel cell and biomass gasification systems

In this paper, an integrated solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) and biomass gasification system is modeled to study the effect of gasification agent (air, enriched oxygen and steam) on its performance. In the present modeling, a heat transfer model for SOFC and thermodynamic models for the rest of the components are used. In addition, exergy balances are written for the system components. The results show that using steam as the gasification agent yields the highest electrical efficiency (41.8%), power-to-heat ratio (4.649), and exergetic efficiency (39.1%), but the lowest fuel utilization efficiency (50.8%). In addition, the exergy destruction is found to be the highest at the gasifier for the air and enriched oxygen gasification cases and the heat exchanger that supplies heat to the air entering the SOFC for the steam gasification case.     

Development of a reaction mechanism for predicting hydrogen production from homogeneous decomposition of methane

In this paper, a reaction mechanism is developed to model the kinetics of hydrogen production from decomposition of methane. The pyrolysis of hydrocarbons from several combustion mechanisms is compared with experiment to obtain the elementary reactions of this mechanism. Some modifications are then made to reduce the large errors observed at a high residence time. Sensitivity analysis is performed to find the reactions with the highest effect on hydrogen production and their rate constants are changed by using other mechanisms to obtain the lowest error in hydrogen production compared to experimental data. This study shows that modifying the rate constants of the reactions of dissociation of methane to hydrogen and methyl radicals, and the formation of benzene from propargyl radicals have the highest effect on improving the results. The new mechanism reduces the error introduced from existing models for predicting the amount of hydrogen production up to 15%, depending on residence time and temperature levels.     

Drop-weight impact of plain-woven hybrid glass–graphite/toughened epoxy composites

The progressive damage behaviors of hybrid woven composite panels (101.6 mm × 101.6 mm) impacted by drop-weights at four different velocities were studied by a combined experimental and 3-D dynamic nonlinear finite element approach. The specimens tested were made of plain-weave hybrid S2 glass-IM7 graphite fibers/toughened epoxy (cured at 177 °C). The composite panels were damaged using a pressure-assisted Instron-Dynatup 8520 instrumented drop-weight impact tester. During these low-velocity simpact tests, the time-histories of impact-induced dynamic strains and impact forces were recorded. The damaged specimens were inspected visually and using ultrasonic C-Scan methods. The commercially available 3-D dynamic nonlinear finite element (FE) software, LS-DYNA, incorporated with a proposed user-defined damage-induced nonlinear orthotropic model, was then used to simulate the experimental results of drop-weight tests. Good agreement between experimental and FE results has been achieved when comparing dynamic force, strain histories and damage patterns from experimental measurements and FE simulations.     

Kinetic model of homogeneous thermal decomposition of methane and ethane

In this paper, the homogeneous decomposition of methane and ethane is modeled in a well stirred flow reactor. The kinetics of this process is represented by a reaction mechanism of 242 reactions and 75 species, based on a mechanism developed for hydrocarbon combustion and soot formation. It is shown that this model correctly predicts the hydrogen yield from pyrolysis in a temperature range of 600–1600 °C, and pressure range of 0.1–10 atm. Furthermore, the effect of temperature, pressure and residence time on the amount of hydrogen produced from the decomposition of methane, ethane, natural gas, and a mixture of methane and argon is studied. The model predicts that the use of ethane or its addition to methane increases the speed of hydrogen production at low temperatures and pressures. The addition of a noble gas like argon also increases the yield of hydrogen at high pressures.