Simple and Clear Approach to Industrial Boiler Circulation Analysis

Circulation in the industrial boiler is the continuous supply of water to the boiler heated tubes in order to sustain steady steam output without overheating tubes. Adequate circulation occurs when there is sufficient flow of water into tubes for adequate cooling. In the natural circulation industrial boiler system the rate of flow in the circulation system is governed by flow resistances and differences in density between downcomer tube circuits and heated riser circuits. Control of these resistances allows adequate flow of water to parallel circuits. Adequate water flow through the boiler's heat-absorbing circuits is necessary to cool the tubes. To insure proper boiler circulation, a simple, clear, and comprehensive approach is described in this article covering all aspects in boiler circulation analysis. The analysis details all boiler circulation circuits, explaining all forces imposed on them, including thermosyphon as well as friction forces.     

An efficient weighted trust‐based malicious node detection scheme for wireless sensor networks

The aim of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is to gather sensor data from a monitored environment. However, the collected or reported information might be falsified by faults or malicious nodes. Hence, identifying malicious nodes in an effective and timely manner is essential for the network to function properly and reliably. Maliciously behaving nodes are usually detected and isolated by reputation and trust‐based schemes before they can damage the network. In this paper, we propose an efficient weighted trust‐based malicious node detection (WT‐MND) scheme that can detect malicious nodes in a clustered WSN. The node behaviors are realistically treated by accounting for false‐positive and false‐negative instances. The simulation results confirm the timely identification and isolation of maliciously behaving nodes by the WT‐MND scheme. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is afforded by the adaptive trust‐update process, which implicitly performs trust recovery of temporarily malfunctioning nodes and computes a different trust‐update factor for each node depending on its behavior. The proposed scheme is more effective and scalable than the related schemes in the literature, as evidenced by its higher detection ratio (DR) and lower misdetection ratio (MDR), which only slightly vary with the network's size. Moreover, the scheme sustains its efficient characteristics without significant power consumption overheads.     

Synthesis and characterization of novel organotin monomers and copolymers and their antibacterial activity

Two novel organotin monomers, (N‐tri‐n‐butyltin) maleimide and m‐acryloylamino‐(tri‐n‐butyltin benzoate), were synthesized. Copolymerization of these two monomers with styrene was carried out in the bulk at 65°C using asobisisobutyronitrile as the free radical initiator. The monomers and copolymers were characterized by elemental analysis; the molecular weights of the copolymers were determined by GPC, solubility, IR, and ¹H‐NMR spectral studies. The antibacterial activities of the synthesized organotin monomers and copolymers toward various types of bacteria were also reported. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 77: 740–745, 2000     

An autonomous controller for improved dynamic performance of parallel-connected,single-phase inverters

A new control technique is presented for the parallel connection of distributed generation inverters. The proposed control technique is based on a modification of the power angle droop control method, and uses only locally measured feedback signals. An improvement in transient response is achieved because the real and imaginary components of the output current are used when deriving the power angle droop controller. The method achieves good active and reactive power sharing and minimises circulating current between parallel connected units. Improved transient response is obtained whilst maintaining power sharing precision or output voltage and frequency accuracy. Simulation and experimental results validate that performance is better than that attained with conventional droop-based approaches.     

Three-phase phase-lock loop for distorted utilities

A novel three-phase phase-locked loop (PLL) structure suitable for phase and angular frequency derivation from distorted ac utility voltages is presented. The proposed PLL has a simple structure; a conventional three-phase PLL followed by a proportional-integral (Pl)-controlled moving average filter together with a phase-locking algorithm. The objective of the proposed technique is to capture the fundamental phase angle and angular frequency of three-phase clean, distorted, balanced or unbalanced ac utilities. The PLL gives fast, accurate angular frequency and phase locking and is robust to utility distortion such as line notching, random noise, voltage imbalance, phase loss, phase imbalance, harmonics, dc offsets and frequency variation. The analysis presented substantiates the immunity of the proposed PLL to unbalanced and distorted utility conditions. The PLL technique is simulated and digital signal processor (DSP)-implemented for a three-phase system to verify the analytical results. The simulated and experimental results, for numerous utility conditions, demonstrate its phase-tracking ability, whereas the conventional technique fails to lock accurately in highly distorted, three-phase grid-connected operation.     

An efficient vertical handoff scheme for microcellular and macrocellular interworking

The next generation wireless network environments increasingly become integrated to support anywhere, anytime connectivity for various applications like multimedia, full‐motion video and high data rates with appropriate quality of service (QoS). With these emerging needs, interworking of microcellular and macrocellular networks has been accompanied by service providers. However, these networks have different technologies, which make efficient vertical handoff a challenging issue. In this study, an efficient vertical handoff scheme (EVHS) for interworking between microcellular and macrocellular networks is proposed and analyzed. The handoff decision criteria of the proposed scheme include crucial features like user mobility, network conditions, pricing issues, and user preferences in addition to the received signal strength (RSS). EVHS ensures the selection of the most appropriate network in terms of cost and acceptable QoS according to users' preferences. The results show that EVHS scheme outperforms other proposed schemes in the literature in terms of incompletion probabilities, grade of service (GoS) and cost without causing degradation in system utilization. Besides, although EVHS scheme is mainly intended for user satisfaction, the results show that it does not cause a significant degradation in the revenue of the service provider. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Coverage study for broadband wireless systems using link adaptation and diversity combining techniques

A broadband wireless access system is a bi-directional broadband wireless system to fixed networks at millimeter-wave frequencies. The propagation environment at millimeter-wave frequencies is one of the major challenges in delivering broadband services to fixed subscribers. At such high frequencies the signal is attenuated by the obstacles in the radio path between the subscriber and the hub, such as buildings, trees and vehicles in the radio path between the subscriber and the hub.Link adaptation techniques such as adaptive modulation and error control coding have been applied to wireless communication systems to overcome the multipath fading experienced by the transmitted signal. Diversity has long been recognized as an effective technique for combating the effect of channel multipath fading. In this study, we investigate the outage probability improvements due to the employments of various combinations of adaptive modulation, adaptive coding, and diversity techniques in a broadband wireless access system. The results indicate that using adaptive modulation, coding, and maximal ratio combining (MRC) yields significant enhancements in outage probability of the system.     

An efficient algorithm for mobile objects localization

A new efficient algorithm based on time of arrival to determine the position of a mobile object (MO) in a wireless environment is proposed. Since all operations in our algorithm are simple add and shift operations, it can be easily implemented in the MO's firmware or hardware to reduce the number of instructions and computational cost involved in the localization task. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms other algorithms in terms of computational cost and implementation simplicity. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reclassification of SRU equipment to ASME Section VIII Division 1

This paper investigates the possibility of reclassifying Sulfur Recovery Unit (SRU) reaction furnace equipment to design rules that meet ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) Section VIII Division 1, which is the standard for pressure vessel design. Currently most SRU equipment is designed and constructed following the design rules of ASME (BPVC) I, as they were considered steam generators or boilers. Plant inspection experiences difficulties testing and inspecting the components of a reaction furnace because of the mixture of ASME (BPVC) design rules with different inspection intervals. These difficulties include limited accessibility for inspecting the shell side of a Waste Heat Boiler (WHB), with an inspection interval of 24 months, without removing the tubes that are designed to the ASME (BPVC) VIII rules, with an inspection interval of 36 months. The objective of code reclassification is to extend the Testing & Inspection (T&I) period of WHB and steam drum in the SRU to 36 months as allowed by standards for equipment constructed under the rules of ASME (BPVC) Section VIII Division 1 and the National Board Inspection Code (NBIC). The results of the evaluation and analyses revealed acceptable component configurations (thickness, stress levels, etc.) in accordance with the design rules of ASME (BPVC) Section VIII Division 1. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj ). DOI 10.1002/htj.20352