In this paper we investigate the flow of wind over a relatively complex topography at the lower portion of the atmospheric boundary-layer, by using the well known general purpose CFD package ANSYS-CFX-11. The work was motivated by the difficulty in choosing the optimal locations for turbines (micrositing) in regions of good energy potential, but with complex topography. The simulations were compared with data from landmark experiment at Askervein Hill -Scotland, in 1983. The resulting simulations also were compared favorably with the results of another package for wind simulation.

Micro-gas turbines are a good alternative for on-site power generation, since their operation is very reliable. The possibility of operating with various fuels increases versatility and, as a result, the usage of these devices. Focusing on a performance improvement of a tri-fuel low-cost micro-gas turbine, this work presents investigations of the inner flow of its combustion chamber. The aim of this analysis was the characterization of the flame structure by the temperature field of the chamber inner flow. The chamber was fuelled with natural gas. In the current chamber, a swirler and a reversed flow configuration were utilized to provide flame stabilization. The inner flow investigations were done with numerical analysis, which were compared to experimental data. The analysis of the inner flow was done with numerical simulations, which used the RSM turbulence model. A β-PDF equilibrium model was adopted to account for the turbulent combustion process. Different models of heat transfer were compared. Thermal radiation and specially heat conduction in the liner walls played significant roles on results.

Recently, the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method has been utilized as an effective tool for capturing details of the fluid flows. The Lagrangian nature of the SPH method facilitates the modeling of the free surface flows. In the present article, different numerical features of 3D-SPH are probed to find a set of options that can be used to achieve an accurate numerical simulation of the dam break problem. Several numerical techniques such as time stepping algorithm, filter density and viscosity treatment are considered as compiling options. Twelve sets of mentioned schemes are also chosen and the elevation of free surface flow is captured. The obtained results are compared against the experimental data existing in the literature. Finally, it is concluded that the Symplectic algorithm in conjunction with density filter and SPS turbulence model can be used to achieve the desired accurate numerical results.

Exergetic analysis can provide useful information as it enables the identification of irreversible phenomena bringing about entropy generation and, therefore, exergy losses (also referred to as irreversibilities). As far as human thermal comfort is concerned, irreversibilities can be evaluated based on parameters related to both the occupant and his surroundings. As an attempt to suggest more insights for the exergetic analysis of thermal comfort, this paper calculates irreversibility rates for a sitting person wearing fairly light clothes and subjected to combinations of ambient air and mean radiant temperatures. The thermodynamic model framework relies on the so-called conceptual energy balance equation together with empirical correlations for invoked thermoregulatory heat transfer rates adapted for a clothed body. Results suggested that a minimum irreversibility rate may exist for particular combinations of the aforesaid surrounding temperatures. By separately considering the contribution of each thermoregulatory mechanism, the total irreversibility rate rendered itself more responsive to either convective or radiative clothing-influenced heat transfers, with exergy losses becoming lower if the body is able to transfer more heat (to the ambient) via convection.

It is shown that the generation of cavities in a liquid can produce usable work, which is illustrated by the stretching of a string. This work is done during the expansion of the cavity, and not with its collapse. Basic equations are presented for the movement of a device moved by the so called cavity events. A theoretical solution is also proposed, which uses polynomial functions relating the so called "excess of pressure" in the cavity and time. Evaluations of the force generated during the expansion of the cavity showed a mean peak value of about 58 N for the moving container, while measurements with the container fixed to a support showed a peak value of 476 N, considered somewhat overestimated, because high frequency oscillations seem to superpose the mean behavior. Simultaneous phenomena occurring during the cavity events are also described. Series of pictures of the experiments are presented.

The use of quick-stop device allows observing a sequence of frozen images focused on the chip formation area when machining in orthogonal turning tests. This work records the development of a quick-stop device employing a servo motor. The present invention relates generally to a quick stop device, for combination with a cutting machine that is able to abruptly interrupt the cutting process between a cutting tool and the surface being cut. A dead metal zone is clearly seen when using rounded-edge cutting tools. In this study, variation of the dead metal zone is examined with the computer aided quick-stop device (CAQSD). It is clear from the experimental photomicrographs that as the cutting edge radius increases, dead metal zone increases.

The effects of double diffusive natural convection heat and mass transfer along a vertical plate embedded in a power-law fluid saturated Darcy porous medium in the presence of Soret and Dufour effects are studied. The governing partial differential equations are transformed into ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations and then solved numerically. A parametric study of the physical parameters involved in the problem is conducted and a representative set of numerical results is illustrated graphically.

Advanced combustion modes such as Controlled Auto-Ignition or Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition have been under much attention due to their ability to reduce both emissions and fuel consumption. Thus, this paper aims at demonstrating the achievement of Controlled Auto-Ignition combustion on a standard 4-cylinder gasoline engine with negative valve overlap (NVO) and analyzing its performance and emissions. The engine remained with substantially original components. The only major modification was the replacement of the camshafts for a new set of bespoke ones. The results showed a fair range of load and speed under CAI combustion with reduced brake specific consumption and ultra-low levels of NOx emissions. CO was also reduced, while HC emissions showed increased values. The results also point out some of the drawbacks of CAI combustion and the technological challenges of this advanced combustion process.

In this paper, a priori and a posteriori analyses of algebraic linear and non-linear models are carried out in order to compare their ability to predict near wall turbulent flows. Tests were done using data from a direct numerical simulation (DNS) of a plane channel flow for three Reynolds numbers, based on the friction velocity, Reτ = 180, Reτ = 395 and Reτ = 590 . These models include the linear standard k - ε model, the linear v²- f (Manceau et al., 2002) and the non-linear model of Shih (Shih et al., 1995). The results obtained are then compared with the DNS data of Moser et al. (1999). The comparisons are shown for the mean velocity profile, components of the Reynolds stress tensor, the turbulent kinetic energy (k), and the dissipation rate (ε). The results suggest that the v² - f is an efficient model to capture the turbulent shear stress component of the Reynolds stress near wall flows. However, it is unable to predict correctly the level of anisotropy between normal components of the Reynolds stress tensor. Furthermore, it is shown that the presence of non-linear terms in a turbulent model improves the ability to predict the anisotropy

The objective of this research is to find new equations for a novel phase-shifting method in digital photoelasticity. Some innovations are proposed. In terms of phase-shifting, only the analyzer is rotated, and the other equations are deduced by applying a new numerical technique instead of the usual algebraic techniques. This approach can be used to calculate a larger sequence of images. Each image represents a measurement of the stresses present in the object. Every photographic image has errors and random noise, but the uncertainties due to these effects can be reduced with a larger number of observations.

In deterministic optimization, the uncertainties of the structural system (i.e. dimension, model, material, loads, etc) are not explicitly taken into account. Hence, resulting optimal solutions may lead to reduced reliability levels. The objective of reliability based design optimization (RBDO) is to optimize structures guaranteeing that a minimum level of reliability, chosen a priori by the designer, is maintained. Since reliability analysis using the First Order Reliability Method (FORM) is an optimization procedure itself, RBDO (in its classical version) is a double-loop strategy: the reliability analysis (inner loop) and the structural optimization (outer loop). The coupling of these two loops leads to very high computational costs. To reduce the computational burden of RBDO based on FORM, several authors propose decoupling the structural optimization and the reliability analysis. These procedures may be divided in two groups: (i) serial single loop methods and (ii) unilevel methods. The basic idea of serial single loop methods is to decouple the two loops and solve them sequentially, until some convergence criterion is achieved. On the other hand, uni-level methods employ different strategies to obtain a single loop of optimization to solve the RBDO problem. This paper presents a review of such RBDO strategies. A comparison of the performance (computational cost) of the main strategies is presented for several variants of two benchmark problems from the literature and for a structure modeled using the finite element method.

The exact modeling of the fast-fill process of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fueled storage bank occurring to Compressed Natural Gas Vehicle (NGV) cylinders is an unintelligible process, and should be thoroughly studied. In this paper, a theoretical model based on mass balance and thermodynamic laws has been developed to study dynamic fast filling process of CNG storage bank to vehicle's (NGV) cylinder. Because Methane occupies a large percentage (between 70% to 99%) of natural gas, for the sake of simplicity it is assumed that Methane is the only substance in Natural gas and thermodynamic properties table has been employed for case of real gas model based on methane. For modeling the heat transfer, the system has been treated as an adiabatic lump one. The result shows the initial pressure of storage bank has a big effect on the storage bank volume for bringing up the NGV cylinder to its target pressure (20 MPa). The storage bank volumes required for bringing up the NGV cylinder to its final (target) pressure (20 MPa) for various initial storage bank pressure, like 20.8 MPa (RPS = 1.04), 23 MPa (RPS = 1.15) and 25 MPa (RPS = 1.25) are respectively 22, 6 and 4 times the NGV cylinder volume. It is noted that RPS is the ratio of storage bank pressure (PS) to target pressure (PT) (In this research is 20 MPa). The results also showed that ambient temperature has a big effect on refueling process, chiefly on final NGV cylinder and storage bank conditions.

Non-destructive evaluation methods and signal process techniques are important steps in structural health monitoring systems to assess the structure integrity. This paper presents a method for fault location in aluminum beams based on time of flight of Lamb waves. The dynamic response signal captured from the structure was processed using the discrete wavelet transform. The information accuracy obtained from the processed signal depends on the correct choice of the mother wavelet. The best mother wavelet was selected using the Shannon's entropy criterion. Numerical results for a damage localized in different positions are presented using the spectral finite element method, and an experimental setup was used to assess the accuracy of the method. The results showed that the combination of the non-destructive evaluation technique based on Lamb waves with the discrete wavelet transform is effective in detecting and locating faults in aluminum beams whose results had errors less than 1%.

This paper presents a time-domain formulation called Explicit Green's approach (ExGA) linear θ method for the solution of the bioheat equation. Starting from the hyperbolic bioheat equation, which includes the parabolic one as a special case, the linear method is incorporated into the standard ExGA time marching scheme. The numerical Green's function is firstly computed in the Laplace transform domain and then back-transformed to the time domain through the Stehfest inversion algorithm. The proposed formulation has the properties of stabilizing the results and suppressing numerical oscillations that appear in the presence of discontinuous solutions as assessed through the analysis of some bioheat transfer problems.

The objective of this work is to optimize the control parameters of the direct injection (DI) single cylinder diesel engine with respect to NOx (Oxides of Nitrogen) and fuel emissions through experimental investigations and Taguchi method. A single cylinder 5.2 kW diesel engine was selected for this experiment. Five parameters such as clearance volume, valve opening pressure, nozzle-hole diameter, static injection timing and load torque were varied at four levels and the responses such as NOx emissions and fuel economy were recorded. The optimum values of the response variables could be predicted using S/N ratio and optimum combination of control parameters were specified. Results of confirmation tests showed good agreement with predicted results. Thus the relationship between the diesel engine operating parameters with NOx and b.s.f.c (brake specific fuel consumption) could be understood using Taguchi method of experimental design.