Set up of a Screen-Printing Procedure for the Production of a β Alumina-Based Gas Sensor*

A gas sensor based on a -alumina thick film was recently developed on a laboratory scale. This sensor can be successfully used for selective detection of CO and NO_x, resulting from an appropriate choice of the working temperature of the sensing element. This paper deals with the approach of the industrial transfer of the sensor prototype, mainly concerning the scale-up of the screen-printing procedure from a hand-operated apparatus to an industrial production machine. Many parameters were already investigated during the laboratory development, namely the ink composition in terms of organic/inorganic component ratio, the type and amount of the liquid dispersant and rheological agent, the composition and softening temperature of the binder, the -alumina/binder weight ratio. During the industrial transfer, some other parameters must be considered, such as the particle size distribution of the ceramic components of the ink, the influence of the mesh number of the screen fabric on the surface texture of the -alumina film, the viscosity performances of the ink as a function of the applied shear rate and ageing. A common commercial metallic paste was also used as reference for optimizing the characteristics of the -alumina based ink.     

Improving the accuracy of multisided travelling wave determination of location of a fault in a power line by means of the difference–distance-measuring technique

The double-ended travelling wave method of determination of location of a fault in electrical networks has significant errors due to changes in the propagation velocity of electromagnetic waves. We have developed a travelling wave method of improving the accuracy of location of a fault determination in power transmission lines that is based on navigation algorithms. The method is applicable to lines with branches. The distance to fault determination for the developed method is up to twice as accurate as the double-ended travelling wave location of a fault method. The accuracy of the developed method is less influenced by external factors (change of sag, soil resistance, the instantaneous value of the current at the fault time) than is the accuracy of the double-ended travelling wave location of a fault method. The proposed method allows reducing the errors in determining distance to the location of a fault, and its accuracy is less affected by external factors. The developed method can be incorporated into existing and prospective devices based on travelling wave methods of location of a fault determination.     

Nuclear Power Industry of China Enters a New Stage of Development

This article describes the basic conditions of nuclear power plants or projects in China, which have been built up, or under construction, or approved by the State Council. Excellent operating indexes of the existing nuclear power plants and the capability of independent design, manufacture, construction and operation are briefly enumerated. There are over thirty nuclear power plant sites in the coastal and inland areas, which have been checked or preevaluated. This proves that a solid foundation for large-scaled development of nuclear power industry has been laid and nuclear power will certainly play an important role in power supply and environment protection of China.     

Multiple-Input–Multiple-Output Linear-Quadratic Control of the Energy Production of a Synchronous Generator in a Nuclear Power Plant

—A multiple-input–multiple-output linear-quadratic servo controller is proposed for a synchronous generator operating in a nuclear power plant that keeps the active power at the desired level and performs reactive power reference tracking using the reactive power demand from a central dispatch center. The controller design was based on the locally linearized version of a previous non-linear dynamical model of the synchronous electrical generator [1 Anderson, P., and Fouad, A., Power-Systems-Control and Stability, Ames, IA: The IOWA State University Press, Chap. 4, 1977. [Google Scholar], 2 Fodor, A., Magyar, A., and Hangos, K.M., Control-oriented modeling of the energy-production of a synchronous generator in a nuclear power plant, Energy, . 39, pp. 135–145, 2012.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]], the parameters of which have been identified using measured data from Paks Nuclear Power Plant (Hungary). The method can easily be applied to any industrial power plant generator connected to the electrical grid after estimating its parameters. The proposed observer-based multiple-input–multiple-output state feedback controller is a linear-quadratic servo controller with very good reference tracking and disturbance rejection properties, which were confirmed by simulation experiments.     

Experimental investigation of input–output characteristics of a travelling-wave ultrasonic motor

Speed, position and load characteristics of the ultrasonic motor is considerably influenced from the input characteristics such as driving frequency, magnitude and phase difference of phase voltages. Input and output characteristics of a traveling-wave ultrasonic motor have been investigated from the experimental point of view in the present study. For this aim, a half-bridge serial-resonance inverter based drive system has been designed and then implemented. The inverter is featured with pulse width modulation and pulse frequency modulation techniques. The frequency, amplitude and phase angle of two-phase sinusoidal output of the driver has been designed to be changed for the control purpose. Then the measuring circuits and tools have been set up to obtain required measurements. Input characteristics such as duty ratio of control signal-dc reference voltage, dc reference voltage-driving frequency and output characteristics such as driving frequency-rotor speed, driving frequency-feedback voltage, phase voltage-rotor speed are obtained from the experiments. Also load characteristics are studied with experiments. Afterwards these characteristics are discussed in details. This study gives a systematical experimental approach in order to demonstrate operating and control principles and characteristics of the travelling-wave ultrasonic motor.     

Hydropower sets off a new upsurge of construction

In 2005, the State Grid Corporation of China （SG） realized three historical breakthroughs： its fixed assets investment exceeded 100 billion Yuan; scale of starting construction of 220 kV and above transmission lines was in excess of 20,000 km; and newly-added transmission line at 220-kV and above voltage was nearly 20,000 kin. Moreover, pre-engineering work including a UHV experiment and a demonstration project made important phasic progresses.     

Dynamic MR imaging of a minipig’s knee using a high-density multi-channel receive array and a movement device

Object

To construct an optimised, high-density receive array and a movement device to achieve dynamic imaging of the knee in orthopedic large animal models (e.g., minipigs) at 1.5 T.

Materials and methods

A 13-channel RF receive array was constructed, and the crucial choice of the array element size (based on considerations like region of interest, geometry of the minipig’s knee, achievable signal-to-noise ratio, applicability of parallel imaging, etc.) was determined using the Q factors of loops with different sizes. A special movement device was constructed to guide and produce a reproducible motion of the minipig’s knee during acquisition.

Results

The constructed array was electrically characterised and the reproducibility of the cyclic motion was validated. Snapshots of dynamic in vivo images taken at a temporal resolution (308 ms) are presented. Some of the fine internal structures within the minipig’s knee, like cruciate ligaments, are traced in the snapshots.

Conclusion

This study is a step towards making dynamic imaging which can give additional information about joint injuries when static MRI is not able to give sufficient information, a routine clinical application. There, the combination of a high-density receive array and a movement device will be highly helpful in the diagnosis and therapy monitoring of knee injuries in the future.     

Calibration of UHF Sensors for GIS： Comparison of Different Methods and Testing of a Calibration System Based on a Conical AntennaEI北大核心CSCD

Different methods of calibrating ultra high frequency（UHF） sensors for gas-insulated substations （GIS） were investigated in the past. The first approach was to use strip lines, triplates and TEM calibration cells. These cells had already been in use for years for example to test the electromagnetic compatibility of electronic devices. The smaller the size of the cell, the higher its bandwidth-but the cell should be large enough to not disturb the electric field with the installed sensor under test. To overcome this problem, a calibration procedure using a gigahertz transverse e- lectromagnetic（GTEM） test cell and a pulsed signal source were introduced in 1997. Although this procedure has many advantages and is easy to understand, measurements show several shortcomings of this calibration method. To overcome the disadvantages of the known systems, a calibration cell using a monopole cone antenna and a metallic ground plane were developed and tested. The UHF sensor was placed in a region with minimum distortion of the elec- tric field due to its installation. Experience shows that the new method for calibrating UHF sensors is necessary in or- der to overcome the limits in the calibration of large sensors and to suppress the propagation of higher order modes and reflections. Due to its surprisingly simple structure, its low price and low overall measurement uncertainty, it is the preferred method for calibrating UHF sensors for GIS applications.     

Coordinated power system stabilizers design of a nine-machine system

In our earlier paper,power system stabilizers (PSSs) are designed for a nine-machine system,a new pole-placement tech-nique is developed for the design,and participation factors are used to decide how many stabilizers are required and where they shall be.Eachmachine being represented by a low-order linear model,there is some reservation of the results.In this paper,extensive transient simulationsare performed and each machine is represented by a high-order nonlinear model.Coherent groups are found.A weighted speed deviationindex (SDI) is defined to find out the most unstable machines in the system.PSSs are designed after the decisions of PSS number and sites.Transient simulations are carried out again for the closed-loop system.A system stability index (SSI) is used to evaluate the stability of theclosed-loop system.It is found that three PSSs are sufficient to ensure the stability of the nine-machine system.     

Novel economic modelling of a peer-to-peer electricity market with the inclusion of distributed energy storage—The possible case of a more robust and better electricity grid

Current electricity distribution systems allow prosumers to sell their surplus electricity back to the Distributed Network Operator (DNO). The export tariffs at which these sell-backs take place are considerably lower than the feed-in tariffs, offering little incentive to prosumers to sell their surplus energy. A peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity market where consumers and prosumers can interact by selling and buying energy between them at a premium rate that is lower than the standard feed-in tariffs but higher than the export tariffs is proposed. Such a system was modelled to process transactions every 20 s, and a simulation tool was created to obtain the total daily money flows between a consumer-prosumer pair. The inclusion of a Distributed Storage System (DSS) is also considered in the modelled system and simulation. The simulation results showed that the inclusion of a DSS is always beneficial for all parties in economic terms: consumers could save up to 6.4 % on the cost of their electricity while prosumers could save up to 49.1 %. A DSS could generate an income flow for the DNO of up to 6.9p/day per each consumer-prosumer pair.     

Simulation of resonant tunneling heterostructures: numerical comparison of a complete Schrödinger-Poisson system and a reduced nonlinear model

Two different models are compared for the simulation of the transverse electronic transport through a heterostructure: a 1D self-consistent Schrödinger-Poisson model with a numerically heavy treatment of resonant states and a reduced model derived from an accurate asymptotic nonlinear analysis. After checking the agreement at the qualitative and quantitative level on quite well understood bifurcation diagrams, the reduced model is used to tune double well configurations for which nonlinearly interacting resonant states actually occur in the complete self-consistent model.     

Design of a tunable optical chromatic dispersion compensator with simplified control of a Mach–Zehnder lattice,and dispersion slope mitigation

Planar lightwave circuits composed of Mach–Zehnder interferometers are suitable for compensating chromatic dispersion in optical fiber communication. The number of externally controlled phase shifts is halved if the power equidistribution between the branches is monitored and controlled in each Mach–Zehnder section. Suitably chosen delays yield increased tunability and, in multichannel compensators, a selectable dispersion slope.     

Design of a 2-DOF-PID controller using an improved sine–cosine algorithm for load frequency control of a three-area system with nonlinearities

This paper proposes an improved sine–cosine algorithm (ISCA) based 2-DOF-PID controller for load frequency control. A three-area test system is built for study, while some physical constraints (nonlinearities) are considered for the investigation of a realistic power system. The proposed method is used as the parameter optimizer of the LFC controller in different scenarios. The 2-DOF-PID controllers are used because of their capability of fast disturbance rejection without significant increase of overshoot in set-point tracking. The 2-DOF-PID controllers’ efficacy is observed by examining the responses with the outcomes obtained with PID and FOPID controllers. The simulation results with the suggested scheme are correlated with some of the existing algorithms, such as SCA, SSA, ALO, and PSO in three different scenarios, i.e., a disturbance in two areas, in three areas, and in the presence of physical constraints. In addition, the study is extended to a four-area power system. Statistical analysis is performed using the Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test (WSRT) on 20 independent runs. This confirms the supremacy of the proposed method.     

Large generation groups hold high a banner of saving energy

Although there were influencing factors, for example, gradual dropping of power coal quality, the power industry still got good results in energy conservation and consumption reduction in 2005. Net coal consumption of nationwide 6-MW and above generating units averaged 374 g/kWh, 2g/kWh decreased as compared with that of 2004. It was equal to more than 3 million tons of standard coal saved. Five large generation groups＇ net coal consumption were also under the average level of the whole country.     

Is the Security of Electricity Supply a Public Good?

So far in the debates over electricity market reform, there has been little attempt to evaluate just how significant the security of supply is to electricity consumers and to think of it in terms of public good criteria.     

Design of a 2-DOF-PID controller using an improved sine–cosine algorithm for load frequency control of a three-area system with nonlinearities

This paper proposes an improved sine–cosine algorithm (ISCA) based 2-DOF-PID controller for load frequency control. A three-area test system is built for study, while some physical constraints (nonlinearities) are considered for the investigation of a realistic power system. The proposed method is used as the parameter optimizer of the LFC controller in different scenarios. The 2-DOF-PID controllers are used because of their capability of fast disturbance rejection without significant increase of overshoot in set-point tracking. The 2-DOF-PID controllers’ efficacy is observed by examining the responses with the outcomes obtained with PID and FOPID controllers. The simulation results with the suggested scheme are correlated with some of the existing algorithms, such as SCA, SSA, ALO, and PSO in three different scenarios, i.e., a disturbance in two areas, in three areas, and in the presence of physical constraints. In addition, the study is extended to a four-area power system. Statistical analysis is performed using the Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test (WSRT) on 20 independent runs. This confirms the supremacy of the proposed method.     

High-efficiency condenser of steam from a steam–gas mixture

The design of a module for a high-efficiency condenser of steam with a high content (up to 15%) of noncondensable gases (NCGs) with a nearly constant steam–gas mixture (SGM) velocity during the condensation of steam has been developed. This module provides the possibility to estimate the operational efficiency of six condenser zones during the motion of steam from the inlet to the SGM suction point. Some results of the experimental tests of the pilot high-efficiency condenser module are presented. The dependence of the average heat transfer coefficient k? on the volumetric NCG concentration v? has been derived. It is shown that the high-efficiency condenser module can provide a moderate decrease in k? from 4400–4600 to 2600–2800 W/(m² K) at v? ≈ 0.5–9.0%. The heat transfer coefficient distribution over different module zones at a heat duty close to its nominal value has been obtained. From this distribution, it can be seen that the average heat transfer coefficient decreases to 2600 W/(m² K) at an NCG concentration v? = 7.5%, but the first condenser sections (1–3) retain high values of k? at a level of no lower than 3200 W/(m² K), and the last sections operate less well, having k? at a level of 1700 W/(m² K). The dependence of the average heat transfer coefficient on the water velocity in condenser tubes has been obtained at a nearly nominal duty such that the extrapolation of this dependence to the water velocity of 2 m/s may be expected to give k? = 5000 W/(m² K) for relatively pure steam, but an increase in k? at v? = 8% will be smaller. The effect of the gas removal device characteristic on the operation of the high-efficiency condenser module is described. The design developed for the steam condenser of a gas-turbine plant with a power of 25 MW, a steam flow rate of 40.2 t/h, and a CO₂ concentration of up to 12% with consideration for the results of performed studies is presented.     

Spectroscopic sampling of the left side of long-TE spin echoes: a free lunch?

Objective

Use of spectroscopically-acquired spin echoes typically involves Fourier transformation of the right side of the echo while largely neglecting the left side. For sufficiently long echo times, the left side may have enough spectral resolution to offer some utility. Since the acquisition of this side is “free”, we deemed it worthy of attention and investigated the spectral properties and information content of this data.

Materials and methods

Theoretical expressions for left- and right-side spectra were derived assuming Lorentzian frequency distributions. For left-side spectra, three regimes were identified based upon the relative magnitudes of reversible and irreversible transverse relaxation rates, R ₂′ and R ₂, respectively. Point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) data from muscle, fat deposit and bone marrow were acquired at 1.5 T to test aspects of the theoretical expressions.

Results

For muscle water or methylene marrow resonances, left-side signals were substantially or moderately larger than right-side signals but were similar in magnitude for muscle choline and creatine resonances. Left- versus right-side spectral-peak amplitude ratios depend sensitively on the relative values of R ₂ and R ₂′, which can be estimated given this ratio and a right-side linewidth measurement.

Conclusion

Left-side spectra can be used to augment signal-to-noise and to estimate spectral R ₂ and R ₂′ values under some circumstances.

     

Reduction of Losses and Efficiency Enhancement of a Zero-voltage Transition–Zero-current Transition Pulse-width Modulated Synchronous Buck Converter with a Simple Passive Auxiliary Circuit

In this article, a novel auxiliary circuit is incorporated with a synchronous buck converter, which provides zero-voltage transition–zero-current transition switching conditions for the main and synchronous switches in the proposed converter. There are no additional voltage and current stress on main and synchronous switches due to the resonance of the auxiliary circuit that acts for a small segment of time in the proposed converter. A zero-voltage transition–zero-current transition pulse-width modulated synchronous buck converter with a simple passive auxiliary circuit reduces the stress and improves the efficiency by pacifying the conduction and switching losses compared to a traditional converter. The important design feature of the zero-voltage transition zero-current transition pulse-width modulated synchronous buck converter is the placement of resonant components that mollify the conduction and switching losses. Due to the zero-voltage transition–zero-current transition, the resonant components with low values are used, thereby resulting in the increase of switching frequency. The zero-voltage transition–zero-current transition operation of the proposed converter is presented through theoretical analysis. The characteristics of the proposed converter are verified with simulation in the PSIM (Powersim Inc, Rockville, USA) co-simulated with a MATLAB/SIMULINK (The Math Works, Natick, Massachusetts, USA) environment and implemented experimentally.