Sustained combustion limits of a central dump solid fuel ramjet combustor at high altitude operational conditions

Solid Fuel Ramjet (SFRJ) technology is a very attractive propulsion option to extend the range of gun launched projectiles mainly due to the combination of high specific impulse inherent to airbreathing propulsion and mechanical properties of the solid fuel capable of withstanding the very high launch loads in the gun. In 2004, the Netherlands...

Development and demonstration of a live data streaming capability using an underwater acoustic communication link

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) offer an automated solution for the collection of environmental data underwater. While they provide an effective solution in scenarios where their task is limited to basic sensor data collection, supervisory control by an operator is still needed to make more complicated decisions. Because raw data of camera...

Security Games with Probabilistic Constraints on the Agent’s Strategy

This paper considers a special case of security games dealing with the protection of a large area divided in multiple cells for a given planning period. An intruder decides on which cell to attack and an agent selects a patrol route visiting multiple cells from a finite set of patrol routes such that some given operational conditions on the...

Understanding Solvent Degradation: a study from three different pilot plants within the OCTAVIUS Project: 13th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, GHGT 2016, 14-18 November 2016, Lausanne, Switzerland

Degradation of amines is one of the most important issues to be addressed for absorption-desorption based post-combustion CO2 capture. Several laboratory studies have been performed to identify the degradation products and understand the mechanisms of degradation. However, there seems to be a gap in knowledge from translating the lab scale...

Thermochemical Heat Storage: From Reaction Storage Density to System Storage Density

Long-term and compact storage of solar energy is crucial for the eventual transition to a 100% renewable energy economy. For this, thermochemical materials provide a promising solution. The compactness of a long-term storage system is determined by the thermochemical reaction, operating conditions, and system implementation with the necessary...

Evaluating vibration performance of a subsea pump module by full-scale testing and numerical modelling

Prior to subsea installation, a subsea system has to be tested to verify whether it performs in accordance with specifications and component specific performance evaluation criteria. It is important to verify that the assembled components work in accordance with the assumptions and design criteria used in the detailed engineering. These criteria...

Qualification of new design of flexible pipe against singing: Testing at multiple scales

Flexible pipes for production of oil and gas typically present a corrugated inner surface. This has been identified as the cause of "singing risers": Flow-Induced Pulsations due to the interaction of sound waves with the shear layers at the small cavities present at each of the multiple corrugations. The new flexible technology discussed in this...

DREAM: An ICT architecture framework for heterarchical coordination in power systems

Agent based techniques are used to coordinate demand and supply for increasing the embedding capacity of dispersed, badly predictable, renewable energy based power systems. VPPs (Virtual Power Plants) using this technology have demonstrated their feasibility in field tests and currently are scaled up to satisfy requirements for massive rollout ...

Preparation and Characterization of Sodium Sulfide Hydrates for Application in Thermochemical Storage Systems

Bottlenecks for realizing a commercial system for thermochemical heat storage (TCS) with hygroscopic salts are the chemical, physical and mechanical stability of the salt under operation conditions. Hence, improved knowledge of thermochemical materials (TCMs) is critical to spur progress in TCS system development. Sodium sulfide hydrates (Na2S...

A reconfiguration framework for self-organizing distributed state estimators

A sensor network operating under changing operational conditions will have to adapt to its environment, topology and system performance. In order to obtain this flexible behavior, a reconfiguration framework is proposed for distributed signal processing solutions. The considered example in this article is distributed Kalman filtering, whereas...

On-line battery identification for electric driving range prediction

Hybrid and electric vehicles require accurate knowledge of the battery to make an educated guess about the expected electric driving range. Range prediction is complicated by the fact that batteries are subject to external influences and aging. Also the future driving behavior is often unknown. This paper presents a model-based identification...

Energy-autonomous wireless vibration sensor for condition-based maintenance of machinery

This paper addresses the development of an energy-autonomous wireless vibration sensor for condition-based monitoring of machinery. Such technology plays an increasingly important role in modern manufacturing industry. In this work, energy harvesting is realized by resorting to a custom designed thermoelectric generator. The developed wireless...

Forces on bends and T-joints due to multiphase flow

To be able to assess the mechanical integrity of piping structures for loading to multiphase flow conditions, air-water experiments were carried out in a horizontal 1" pipe system. Forces and accelerations were measured on a number of bends and T-joint configurations for a wide range of operating conditions. Five different configurations were...

Thermo-mechanical challenges in the longevity of micro-electronics

Automotive electronics, solid-state-lighting, and solar cells need have to operate under harsh circumstances, either by the kind of environment they operate in, such as automotive electronics under the hood, or by the long durations of exposure. In both cases traditional lifetime assessment methods are failing: The accelaration factors, who are...

Multiphase fluid structure interaction in bends and T-joints

Air-water experiments were carried out in a horizontal 1" pipe system to measure the magnitude of the forces induced by the multiphase flow. Forces and accelerations were measured on a number of bends and T-joint configurations for a wide range of operating conditions. Five different configurations were measured: a baseline case consisting of...

Uncooled EGR as a means of limiting wall-wetting under early direct injection conditions

Collision of injected fuel spray against the cylinder liner (wall-wetting) is one of the main hurdles that must be overcome in order for early direct injection Premixed Charge Compression Ignition (EDI PCCI) combustion to become a viable alternative for conventional DI diesel combustion. Preferably, the prevention of wall-wetting should be...

District level energy management using a bottom-up modeling approach

An efficient urban energy system could be a highly diverse and well-integrated structure of buildings and systems. Such a structure needs an energy management framework capable of providing information on appropriate energy saving measures at any scale of implementation. This paper proposes a method to design such a framework. For quality...