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Assessing the pressure losses during hydrogen transport in the current natural gas infrastructure using numerical modelling
Get PDFThe UK government aims to transition its modern natural gas infrastructure towards Hydrogen by 2035. Since hydrogen is a much lighter gas than methane, it is important to understand the change in parameters when transporting it. While most modern work in this topic looks at the transport of hydrogen-methane mixtures, this work focuses on pure hydrogen transport. The aim of this paper is to highlight the change in gas distribution parameters when natural gas is replaced by hydrogen in the existing infrastructure. This study uses analytical models and computational models to compare the flow of hydrogen and methane in a pipe based on pressure loss. The Darcy-Weisbach and Colebrook-White equations were used for the analytical models, and the k- ε model was used for the computational approach. The variables considered in the comparison were the pipe material (X52 Steel and MDPE) and pipe diameters (0.01me1m). It was observed that hydrogen had to be transported 250e270% the velocity of methane to replicate flow for a fixed length of pipe. Furthermore, it was noted that MDPE pipes has 2e31% lower pressure losses compared to X52 steel for all diameters when transporting hydrogen at a high velocity.Cranfield Universit
Metals in Extreme Environments: Effect of Multiple High Velocity Impacts
Get PDFPoster contribution to the Defence and Security Doctoral Symposium 2023EPSR
Effects of nanobubble water on digestate soaking hydrolysis of rice straw
Get PDFThis study investigated the performance of combined nanobubble water (NW) and digestate in the soaking hydrolysis process. Two types of NW (CO2NW and O2NW) with digestate were used to soak rice straw for 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7 days. During soaking process, the volatile fatty acids (VFA) concentration in the treatment with O2NW and digestate for 3 days (O2NW-3 d) reached 7179.5 mg-HAc/L. Moreover, the highest specific methane yield (SMY) obtained in this treatment could reach 336.7 NmL/gVS. Although the addition of NW did not significantly increase SMY from digestate soaking, NW could accelerate the rate of methane production and reduce digestion time of T80. The enrichment of Enterobacter in the soaking process was observed when using CO2NW and O2NW as soaking solutions which played important roles in VFA production. This study provides a new insight into environment-friendly enhanced crop straw pretreatment, combining NW and digestate soaking hydrolysis.Bioresource Technolog
Long-wave infrared pulsed external-cavity QCL spectrometer using a hollow waveguide gas cell
Get PDFA spectrometer built using an external cavity pulsed quantum cascade laser is described. The spectrometer has a tuning range from 10 – 13 µm (1,000 – 769 cm−1) and is designed to target volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which often exhibit water-free molecular absorption within the region. The spectrometer utilizes a hollow silica waveguide gas cell which has an internal volume of a few millilitres, a fast response time (∼1 s), and is advantageous when only low sample volumes, similar to the cell volume, are available. Propane is used as a test gas because it is easy to handle, and its spectral profile is comparable to VOCs of interest. Its absorption in the region is primarily within the ν21 band which spans from 10.55 – 11.16 µm (948 – 896 cm−1). Spectral measurements at a range of concentrations show good linearity and an Allan deviation of absorbance values recorded over a 100-minute period indicates a minimum detectable absorbance of 3.5×10−5 at an integration time of 75 s.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/P015603/1).Optics Expres
Campus source to sink wastewater surveillance of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2)
Get PDFWastewater-based surveillance (WBS) offers an aggregate, and cost-effective approach for tracking infectious disease outbreak prevalence within communities, that provides data on community health complementary to individual clinical testing. This study reports on a 16-month WBS initiative on a university campus in England, UK, assessing the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in sewers from large buildings, downstream sewer locations, raw wastewater, partially treated and treated effluents. Key findings include the detection of the Alpha (B.1.1.7) variant in wastewater, with 70 % of confirmed campus cases correlating with positive wastewater samples. Notably, ammonium nitrogen (NH4-N) levels showed a positive correlation (ρ = 0.543, p < 0.01) with virus levels at the large building scale, a relationship not observed at the sewer or wastewater treatment works (WWTW) levels due to dilution. The WWTW was compliant to wastewater standards, but the secondary treatment processes were not efficient for virus removal as SARS-CoV-2 was consistently detected in treated discharges. Tools developed through WBS can also be used to enhance traditional environmental monitoring of aquatic systems. This study provides a detailed source-to-sink evaluation, emphasizing the critical need for the widespread application and improvement of WBS. It showcases WBS utility and reinforces the ongoing challenges posed by viruses to receiving water quality.Current Research in Microbial Science
‘None-the-wiser’? Citizenship education in preventing radicalisation: contrasting European and Middle East perspectives
No full textRadicalisation towards violent extremism within educational settings has emerged as a high profile and critical issue in many contemporary societies. Debates around the appropriate role of educational institutions should play in this regard have attracted intense media and public debate both in the UK and internationally. This research involved face-to-face interviews with 51 education sector professionals in Europe and the Middle East to establish an evidence base regarding current practice regarding the understanding of radicalisation and building young people’s resilience to violent extremism through Citizenship Education (CE). The results highlighted a range of the limitations and shortfalls perceived by staff in CE provision and delivery including failings with how CE was delivered; the negative impact of limited time allocation on CE activity; and staff apprehension regarding their role and the role CE potentially plays in countering extremist behaviour. Some implications in terms of policy and practice in this area are identified.Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggressio
Dataset for 'Standoff measurement of ageing-related carbonyl bonding in bitumen. Part 1: Measurement strategy and instrument design principles'
No full textWe describe a strategy to make in-situ measurements of a spectroscopic marker of ageing in bitumen binders used on asphalt-paved roads. Oxidation of bitumen at the surface increases the number of carbonyl (C=O) bonds, and this can be measured in the 6μm region (1700cm-1) of the mid-infrared. We propose a measurement strategy to make standoff measurements of surface reflectivity in this region, despite the challenge presented by numerous strong absorption lines from atmospheric water vapour within the optical path. We describe an instrument design making measurements at 4 discrete laser wavelengths, namely 1593.0, 1641.4 and 1731.3 cm-1 (around 6µm) and at 2633.6 cm‑1 (3.8µm), the first 3 responding to carbonyl absorption and the fourth acting as a spectral reference that is substantially unaffected by ageing. Part 2 of this paper describes the implementation of such an instrument and its experimental performanc
Metaldehyde treatability by dissolved air flotation combined with powdered activated carbon adsorption
Get PDFThe removal of metaldehyde to meet pesticide compliance limits in drinking
water remains a challenge for water companies. A combined treatment of
dissolved air flotation (DAF) and powdered activated carbon (PAC) was
investigated as a treatment process for metaldehyde removal. Four different
water sources were spiked with metaldehyde and treated using PAC. A PAC
dose of 100 mg/L using a contact time of 20 minutes was required in order to
effectively remove metaldehyde to the compliance concentrations for all of the
water sources. The water quality was shown to affect the removal of
metaldehyde through competition with NOM. Moreover, the PAC dosing
position relative to the coagulant was studied regarding its impact on the
removal of NOM and metaldehyde, the floc formation and the clarification
efficiency. The simultaneous addition of coagulant and PAC resulted in the
lowest removal of metaldehyde. The best removal was seen for dosing
sequences of PAC/Coagulant and Coagulant/PAC. However, there were no
significant differences between these two approaches. The sequence of
addition of PAC/Coagulant was selected due to its better clarification results.MSc by Research in Wate
Path-tracking control strategy for enhanced comfort in all-wheel-steering autonomous vehicles
Get PDFIn this paper, a path-tracking controller is developed for an autonomous vehicle with All-Wheel-Steering (AWS) capability. Based on nonlinear model predictive control, the proposed controller is formulated in a way that allows the manipulation of vehicle’s attitude during path-tracking. With high-fidelity vehicle dynamics simulation, the controller is examined at various velocities up to the limit handling condition. Comparison is carried out in the aspects of path-tracking, ride comfort and motion sickness, between the implementation with a constant yaw angle reference (referred to as crab steering) and the nominal steering behaviour for negotiating the same path. The ride comfort metric suggested by ISO-2631 is used to capture the benefits of the crab steering approach against the nominal case, and the simulation results reveal that crab steering is able to enhance the ride comfort for AWS vehicles in double lane-change and slalom manoeuvres.Innovate UKThis work is supported by Innovate UK under the AID-CAV project (project reference 104277).28th Symposium of the International Association of Vehicle System Dynamics, IAVSD 202
Dataset for "Automating the derivation of sugarcane growth stages from Earth Observation time series"
No full textThis dataset contains the processed time series from harmonised Landsat-8 and Sentinel-2 for sugarcane field parcels. These data were used for the development and validation of the algorithm detailed in the publication [cross reference]. Field parcel locations are not public data because they can be used to identify individual farmers