38. R&D on hydrogen production by high-temperature electrolysis of steam

One of the objectives of the high-temperature engineering test reactor (HTTR) is to demonstrate the effectiveness of high-temperature nuclear heat utilization, which aims to extend the application of nuclear heat to non-electric fields, especially to hydrogen production. As part of the development of the hydrogen production processes, laboratory-scale experiments of a high-temperature electrolysis of steam (HTES) had been carried out with a practical electrolysis tube with 12 solid-oxide cells connected in series. Using this electrolysis tube, hydrogen was produced at the maximum density of 44 N cm³/cm² h at a electrolysis temperature of 950 °C. Thereafter, to improve hydrogen production performance, a self-supporting planar electrolysis cell with a practical size (80 mm × 80 mm of electrolysis area) was fabricated. In the preliminary electrolysis experiment carried out at 850 °C, the planar cell produced hydrogen at the maximum density of 38 N cm³/cm² h, and the energy efficiency was almost as high as that obtained with the electrolysis tube at 950 °C. However, both electrolysis tubes and planar cells did not keep their integrity in one thermal cycle. Durability of the solid-oxide cell against the thermal cycle is one of the key issues of HTES.     

Bending Behavior of Steel Pipe Girders Filled with Ultralight Mortar

Bending behavior of steel pipes filled with ultralight mortar was studied by bending tests using a steel pipe, steel pipes filled with ultralight mortar, and steel pipes filled with light aggregate concrete and normal concrete. The steel pipe model filled with normal concrete had 1.8 times higher bending strength than the steel pipe model. The bending behavior of the steel pipe filled model with ultralight mortar was not improved when the compressive strength of the ultralight mortar was less than 1 MPa. However, ductility was much improved when the compressive strength was over 5 MPa, and the ultimate steel strain was more than double of the steel pipe model. The strains of steel and concrete in all the models were proportional to the distance from the neutral axis until the steel plate yielded. A simple analytical method was proposed to calculate the bending moments of the ultralight mortar filled steel pipes. The calculated values agreed very well with the test results.     

Remote sensing of vegetation and land-cover change in Arctic Tundra Ecosystems

The objective of this paper is to review research conducted over the past decade on the application of multi-temporal remote sensing for monitoring changes of Arctic tundra lands. Emphasis is placed on results from the National Science Foundation Land-Air-Ice Interactions (LAII) program and on optical remote sensing techniques. Case studies demonstrate that ground-level sensors on stationary or moving track platforms and wide-swath imaging sensors on polar orbiting satellites are particularly useful for capturing optical remote sensing data at sufficient frequency to study tundra vegetation dynamics and changes for the cloud prone Arctic. Less frequent imaging with high spatial resolution instruments on aircraft and lower orbiting satellites enable more detailed analyses of land cover change and calibration/validation of coarser resolution observations.The strongest signals of ecosystem change detected thus far appear to correspond to expansion of tundra shrubs and changes in the amount and extent of thaw lakes and ponds. Changes in shrub cover and extent have been documented by modern repeat imaging that matches archived historical aerial photography. NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) time series provide a 20-year record for determining changes in greenness that relates to photosynthetic activity, net primary production, and growing season length. The strong contrast between land materials and surface waters enables changes in lake and pond extent to be readily measured and monitored.     

Robustness of linearly solvable Markov games employing inaccurate dynamics model

As a model-based reinforcement learning technique, linearly solvable Markov decision process (LMDP) gives an efficient way to find an optimal policy by making the Bellman equation linear under some assumptions. Since LMDP is regarded as model-based reinforcement learning, the performance of LMDP is sensitive to the accuracy of the environmental model. To overcome the problem of the sensitivity, linearly solvable Markov game (LMG) has been proposed, which is an extension of LMDP based on the game theory. This paper investigates the robustness of LMDP- and LMG-based controllers against modeling errors in both discrete and continuous state-action problems. When there is a discrepancy between the model used for building the control policy and dynamics of the tested environment, the LMG-based control policy maintained good performance while that of the LMDP-based control policy deteriorated drastically. Experimental results support the usefulness of LMG framework when acquiring an accurate model of the environment is difficult.     

Experimental Evaluation of Characteristics of SR Motor Made of Permendur

A switched reluctance (SR) motor has a doubly salient pole structure. The performance of the SR motor strongly depends on the magnetic properties of the core material, since it consists only of an iron core and copper windings. This study experimentally evaluates the performance of an SR motor made of permendur (Fe–49% Co alloy), which has very high saturation flux density and low core loss. Two types of SR motors that have the same dimensions but different core materials are used: one motor is made of the conventional nonoriented Si steel, and the other is made of permendur. Comparison of the characteristics of the two motors shows that the performance of the permendur SR motor surpasses that of the conventional one in terms of output power and efficiency. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 187(1): 51–57, 2014; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ). DOI 10.1002/eej.22431     

Estimation of element-based zero-stress state for arterial FSI computations

In patient-specific arterial fluid–structure interaction (FSI) computations the image-based arterial geometry comes from a configuration that is not stress-free. We present a method for estimation of element-based zero-stress (ZS) state. The method has three main components. (1) An iterative method, which starts with an initial guess for the ZS state, is used for computing the element-based ZS state such that when a given pressure load is applied, the image-based target shape is matched. (2) A method for straight-tube geometries with single and multiple layers is used for computing the element-based ZS state so that we match the given diameter and longitudinal stretch in the target configuration and the “opening angle.” (3) An element-based mapping between the arterial and straight-tube configurations is used for mapping from the arterial configuration to the straight-tube configuration, and for mapping the estimated ZS state of the straight tube back to the arterial configuration, to be used as the initial guess for the iterative method that matches the image-based target shape. We present a set of test computations to show how the method works.     

Patient-specific computer modeling of blood flow in cerebral arteries with aneurysm and stent

We present the special arterial fluid mechanics techniques we have developed for patient-specific computer modeling of blood flow in cerebral arteries with aneurysm and stent. These techniques are used in conjunction with the core computational technique, which is the space?Ctime version of the variational multiscale (VMS) method and is called ??DST/SST-VMST.?? The special techniques include using NURBS for the spatial representation of the surface over which the stent mesh is built, mesh generation techniques for both the finite- and zero-thickness representations of the stent, techniques for generating refined layers of mesh near the arterial and stent surfaces, and models for representing double stent. We compute the unsteady flow patterns in the aneurysm and investigate how those patterns are influenced by the presence of single and double stents. We also compare the flow patterns obtained with the finite- and zero-thickness representations of the stent.     

Development of a simple method for fabrication of transparent conductive films with high mechanical strength

We have developed a simple method of fabricating transparent conductive films with a high mechanical strength on glass and indium tin oxide substrates. It does not require a large excess of organic solvents and polymerization catalysts and can yield smooth films by spin-coating of a mixture of a commercially available aqueous dispersion of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene)-poly(4-styrene sulfonate) and a neat liquid of tetraethyl orthosilicate. Preparation conditions such as feed ratio, kinds of additives, and annealing temperature and time were optimized to give highly conductive, transparent and mechanically strong films.     

Space–time interface-tracking with topology change (ST-TC)

To address the computational challenges associated with contact between moving interfaces, such as those in cardiovascular fluid–structure interaction (FSI), parachute FSI, and flapping-wing aerodynamics, we introduce a space–time (ST) interface-tracking method that can deal with topology change (TC). In cardiovascular FSI, our primary target is heart valves. The method is a new version of the deforming-spatial-domain/stabilized space–time (DSD/SST) method, and we call it ST-TC. It includes a master–slave system that maintains the connectivity of the “parent” mesh when there is contact between the moving interfaces. It is an efficient, practical alternative to using unstructured ST meshes, but without giving up on the accurate representation of the interface or consistent representation of the interface motion. We explain the method with conceptual examples and present 2D test computations with models representative of the classes of problems we are targeting.