Analysis of the scale up of a transpiring wall reactor with a hydrothermal flame as a heat source for the supercritical water oxidation

Experimental data from a tubular reactor and from a transpiring wall reactor (TWR) are used to analyze the scaling up of SCWO reactors operating with a hydrothermal flame as a heat source. Results obtained with the tubular reactor show that fluid velocity inside the reactor determines the minimum injection temperature at which a stable hydrothermal flame is formed. When the fluid velocity inside of the reactor is lower, the extinction temperature of the hydrothermal flame in that reactor is also lower. Using this reactor, extinction temperatures are always near or above the critical temperature of water. Total TOC removals are possible working with isopropyl-alcohol at temperatures between 650 and 700 °C and residence times of 0.5 s. Results of the TWR show that steady operation with a hydrothermal flame inside is possible even when reagents are injected at subcritical conditions as low as 170 °C. Temperature measurements show that reaction is not initiated in the injector but in the reaction chamber, where fluid velocity is lower than 0.1 s. This was explained by estimating that the flame front velocity of a hydrothermal flame is of the order of 0.1 m/s. Thus, it is expected that the flame is stabilized in the reaction chamber and not in the injector, where fluid velocities are higher than 2 m/s. A previously developed model of the TWR was modified in order to describe the ignition in the reaction chamber and not in the injector. The model reproduces satisfactorily experimental data and it was used to propose the design of scaled up reactors for SCWO with a hydrothermal flame inside.     

A New Active Tilting-Pad Bearing: Nonlinear Modeling and Feedback Control

This article introduces a new type of active fluid film bearing and its feedback control. In particular, the active adjustment of the angular velocity of the pads of a tilting-pad bearing in response to changes in the operating conditions of the rotating machine is proposed. This is motivated by the observation that there is more control authority in the pad tilting motion than in its radial translation. To this end, a dynamic model for the bearing system is first developed, inclusive of the nonlinear hydrodynamic force for the infinitely short bearing case. A model-based controller is then constructed, based on measurements of the journal position and velocity and pad tilting angles, to ensure that the journal is asymptotically regulated to the bearing center. Numerical simulations illustrate the performance of the active bearing under the proposed control in comparison with the bearing's standard passive mode of operation.     

Sustainability metrics for eco-technologies assessment, Part II. Life cycle analysis

This work presents a sustainability analysis of CO₂ reuse to produce dimethyl carbonate (DMC) via ethylene oxide (ROUTE A) and via urea methanolysis (ROUTE B). Two different technologies are considered in ROUTE A: reaction followed by separation and reactive distillation. Life cycle analyses of the ROUTES are presented employing sustainability analysis performed in HYSYS process simulator, along with WAR Algorithm. Process economical optimization is performed to maximize the processes profitability. A sustainability function, defined as a 2D indicator involving both economical and environmental aspects, is calculated for the optimized processes. Additional sustainability indexes are evaluated: material index, energy index, and ecoefficiency. The results, under both economical and environmental aspects, show that ROUTE A is the most sustainable. The study also points to the relevance of the frontier set between the domains cradle-to-gate and gate-to-gate in assessing process sustainability during LCA.     

Ante- and perinatal factors and child characteristics predicting parenting experience among formerly infertile couples during the child's first year: A controlled study.

In this prospective controlled study, the authors examined (a) parenting experiences among couples with successful assisted reproduction treatment (ART; n = 367) and fertile spontaneously conceiving controls (n = 371) and (b) the impact of ante- and perinatal factors and child characteristics on parenting experiences. The results show that positive mothering experiences increased more during the 1st year of parenting and were generally higher among ART mothers than control mothers. No differences were found between ART fathers and controls in their fathering experience. Unpleasant birth experiences, low birth weight, and difficulty soothing the child were associated with high levels of parental stress in the control group, but this was not so among the ART parents. Psychosocial interventions in maternal care should take into account the various meanings that couples give to the history of infertility and conception and ante- and perinatal experiences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verifying Object-based Graph Grammars

The development of concurrent and reactive systems is gaining importance since they are well-suited to modern computing platforms, such as the Internet. However, the development of correct concurrent and reactive systems is a non-trivial task. Object-based graph grammar (OBGG) is a visual formal language suitable for the specification of this class of systems. In previous work, a translation from OBGG to PROMELA (the input language of the SPIN model checker) was defined, enabling the verification of OBGG models using SPIN. In this paper we extend this approach in two different ways: (1) the approach for property specification is improved, enabling to prove properties not only about possible OBGG derivations, but also about the internal state of involved objects; (2) an approach is defined to interpret PROMELA races as OBGG derivations, generating graphical counter-examples for properties that are not true for a given OBGG model. Another contribution of this paper is (3) the definition of a method for model checking partial systems (isolated objects or a set of objects) using an assume-guarantee approach. A gas station system modeled with OBGGs is used to illustrate the contributions.This work is partially sponsored by projects IQ-MObile (CNPq-Brazil/CNR-Italy) and PLATUS (CNPq).Osmar Marchi dos Santos is partially sponsored by CAPES-Brazil.     

A posteriori error estimator and adaptive procedures for computation of shakedown and limit loads on pressure vessels

Adaptive finite element procedures are presented for the computation of upper bounds estimates of limit and shakedown loads for pressure vessels. The method consists of an h-type adaptive mesh refinement strategy based upon an a-posteriori error estimator measured by the energy norm. The problem is formulated in a kinematic approach using Koiter's shakedown theorem. A constitutive model, for elastic-perfectly plastic materials, relates the plastic strains increments and curvatures to plastic multipliers through the flow law associated with a shell piecewise-linear yield surface (hexagonal prism). A consistent relationship between nodal displacements and nodal plastic multipliers is enforced by minimizing the strain residual between the total strain and the plastic strain increments, which is measured with respect to the energy norm. Discretization of the shell into finite elements allows the reduction of the problem to a minimization problem which is solved by linear programming.     

Static and Dynamic Mechanical Behavior of Electron Beam‐Cured Monomer and Monomer/Liquid Crystal Systems

Summary: This paper discusses static and dynamic mechanical properties of electron beam‐cured mixtures made of the nematic liquid crystal (LC) E7 and either tripropyleneglycol diacrylate (TPGDA) or propoxylated glycerol triacrylate (GPTA) as monomers differing essentially by their functionality. Dilution of the initial mixture with LC leads to a significant weakening of the film mechanical strength. Strong effects were found on Young modulus and rubbery state modulus. As the concentration of LC increases, these mechanical parameters drop significantly together with the glass transition temperature of the polymer showing a plasticizing effect. The results for the glass transition temperatures for the polymer and the LC were confirmed by thermograms obtained by differential scanning calorimetry.

Storage tensile modulus versus temperature of EB‐cured TPGDA/E7 films for different LC concentrations.     

Selective refinement queries for volume visualization of unstructured tetrahedral meshes

We address the problem of the efficient visualization of large irregular volume data sets by exploiting a multiresolution model based on tetrahedral meshes. Multiresolution models, also called Level-Of-Detail (LOD) models, allow encoding the whole data set at a virtually continuous range of different resolutions. We have identified a set of queries for extracting meshes at variable resolution from a multiresolution model, based on field values, domain location, or opacity of the transfer function. Such queries allow trading off between resolution and speed in visualization. We define a new compact data structure for encoding a multiresolution tetrahedral mesh built through edge collapses to support selective refinement efficiently and show that such a structure has a storage cost from 3 to 5.5 times lower than standard data structures used for tetrahedral meshes. The data structures and variable resolution queries have been implemented together with state-of-the art visualization techniques in a system for the interactive visualization of three-dimensional scalar fields defined on tetrahedral meshes. Experimental results show that selective refinement queries can support interactive visualization of large data sets.