1,720,967 research outputs found

    Plasma Assisted Re-Ignition of Aeroengines under High Altitude Conditions

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    Re-ignition of aeroengines under high altitude conditions is of great importance to the safety and use of lean-burn flame. This study is focused on the experimental and numerical characterization of flow dynamics and flame re-ignition in a rectangular burner. A ring-needle type plasma actuator was considered and run by high-voltage (HV) nanopulsed plasma generator. The electrical power delivered to the fluid and an optimal value of reduced electric field (EN) was calculated considering non-reactive flow. Smoke flow visualizations using a high-speed camera and proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) were performed to recognize the most dominant flow structures. Experimental results revealed the transport effects due to plasma discharge, such as the induced flow, that could have a strong impact on the recirculation zone near the corners of combustor, improving the mixing performance and reducing the ignition delay time. Two different numerical tools (ZDPlasKin and Chemkin) were used to investigate the ignition characteristics. ZDPlasKin calculated the thermal effect and the plasma kinetic of nanopulsed plasma discharge at the experimentally measured EN. Finally, based on the output of ZDPlasKin, Chemkin estimated the flame ignition at low pressure and low temperature conditions. It was noticed that time required to achieve the maximum flame temperature with plasma actuation is significantly less than the auto-ignition time (‘clean case’, simulation result of the model without considering the plasma effect). Maximum reduction in ignition time was observed at inlet pressure 1 bar (3.5 × 10−5 s) with respect to the clean case (1.1 × 10−3 s). However, as the inlet pressure is reduced, the ignition delay time was increased. At 0.6 bar flame ignition occurred in clean case at 0.0048 s and at 0.0022 s in presence of the plasma actuation, a further decrease of the pressure up to 0.4 bar leads the ignition at 0.0027 s and 0.0063 s in clean and plasma actuation, respectively

    Effects of nanosecond repetitively pulsed discharges timing for aeroengines ignition at low temperature conditions by needle-ring plasma actuator

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    These days, various national and international research organizations are working on the development of low NOx combustors. The present work describes the experimental and numerical characterization of flow dynamics and combustion characteristics in a rectangular burner. A ring-needle type plasma actuator was developed and driven by a high voltage nanosecond pulsed generator under atmospheric conditions. Smoke flow visualizations and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) were carried out to identify the relevant flow structures. Electrical characterization of the non-reactive flow was carried out to predict the electrical power and the optimum value of the reduced electric field (EN), which is useful for the implementation of a numerical model for the study of plasma-assisted ignition. A detailed plasma kinetic mechanism integrated with all excited species was considered and validated with experimental studies. Numerical modeling of plasma ignition has been performed by coupling ZDPlasKin with CHEMKIN. Energy and power consumption for methane/air plasma actuation is higher than the air plasma actuation. This could be due to the ex-citation and ionization of methane that required more energy deposition and power. The mole fraction of O atoms and ozone was higher in the air than the methane/air actuation. However, O atoms were produced in a very short time interval of 10−7 to 10−6 s; in contrast, the concentration of ozone was gradually increased with the time interval and the peak was observed around 10−1 s. Plasma discharges on the methane/air mixture also produced radicals that played a key role to enhance the combustion process. It was noticed that the concentration of H species was high among all radicals with a concentration of nearly 10−1. The concentration peak of CH3 and OH was almost the same in the order of 10−2. Finally, the mixture ignition characteristics under different low inlet temperatures were analyzed for both air and methane/air plasma actuation in the presence of different plasma discharges pulses numbers. Results showed that it is possible to reach flame ignition at inlet temperature lower than the minimum required in the absence of plasma actuation, which means ignition is possible in cold flow, which could be essential to address the re-ignition problems of aeroengines at high altitudes. At Ti = 700 K, the ignition was reached only with plasma discharges; ignition time was in the order of 0.01 s for plasma discharges on methane/air, lower than in case of plasma in air, which permitted ignition at 0.018 s. Besides this, in the methane/air case, 12 pulses were required to achieve successful ignition; however, in air, 19 pulses were needed to ignite

    Coupled fluid-structure simulations and experiments of DBD plasma actuator for damping of plate vibrations

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    In the present work, an experimental and numerical study has been performed to evaluate the suitability of the dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators to reduce free vibrations of plates. Two configurations composed of two different plexiglass plates and identical actuators were manufactured. Experimental campaigns, in terms of laser doppler anemometer velocity measurements, flow visualization and proper orthogonal decomposition were carried out to characterize the plasma actuator and to validate the numerical models. The plasma-induced virtual body force for the numerical analysis has been calibrated based on the experimental body force and the induced flow field. Then numerical studies of the plasma effect on the flow around an oscillating plate was performed. An experimental modal analysis has been also performed to understand the vibration characteristics of the plate and to support the numerical study. A reduced-order model of the system, based on the harmonic oscillator, was developed to properly design an open loop controller (system natural frequency, amplitude and timing of the attenuation force). Eventually, the work demonstrates that the control strategy based on the plasma actuation is effective in reducing the plate vibrations. However, a deeper study and a more sophisticated control strategy would be required to significantly mitigate the flutter oscillations of airfoils in real application

    Numerical and experimental analysis of the energy performance of an air-source heat pump (ASHP) coupled with a horizontal earth-to-air heat exchanger (EAHX) in different climates

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    Geothermal energy has a huge potential in building applications. This paper proposes the use of an Air-Source Heat Pump (ASHP) system coupled with a Horizontal Earth-To-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHX) to reduce energy consumption in buildings. The novelty is to geothermally pre-heat or pre-cool the air source of the ASHP through the EAHX, reducing the electric power needed, keeping constant heating/cooling capacity. The behaviour of ASHP-EAHX system has been investigated by a numerical model implemented in TRNSYS. A total of 54 combinations have been obtained and tested varying ground thermal properties, burial depth, air flow rate and pipe length. The model has been validated with a real case showing a good agreement between simulated and monitored data. The study is focused on the city of Turin (North of Italy), compared with Brindisi (South of Italy), and extremely cold and hot climates like Tromsø (Norway) and Béchar (Algeria), respectively. The ASHP-EAXH performance has been investigated, by the comparison with the traditional ASHP, using different coefficients, such as the Coefficient of Performance (COP), the Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER), the Seasonal Coefficient of Performance (SCOP), and the Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER). The paper reveals how the ASHP-EAHX system show higher performance compared to the traditional ASHP, in all seasons. The overall merit is, for cold extremely climate, the reduction of the shutdown periods, when the outside temperature is below the limit operating temperature, and to allow the extension of the use of the heat pump to locations, where it is currently not convenient for the average outside temperature lower than the limit operating temperature of the heat pump

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Dynamic analysis of the natural and mechanical ventilation of a solar greenhouse by coupling controlled mechanical ventilation (CMV) with an earth-to-air heat exchanger (EAHX)

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    Greenhouse crops represent a significant productive sector of the agricultural system; one of the main problems to be addressed is indoor air conditioning to ensure thermal well-being of crops. This study focuses on the ventilation analysis of solar greenhouse with symmetrical flat pitched roof and single span located in a warm temperate climate. This work proposes the dynamic analysis of the greenhouse modeled in TRNsys, simultaneously considering different thermal phenomena three-dimensional (3D) shortwave and longwave radiative exchange, airflow exchanges, presence of lamps with their exact 3D position, ground and plant evapotranspiration, and convective heat transfer coefficients. Several air conditioning systems were analyzed, automatic window opening, controlled mechanical ventilation systems (CMV) and horizontal Earth-to-Air Heat Exchanger (EAHX) coupled with CMV, for different air volume changes per hour. In summer, the exploitation of the ground allows having excellent results with the EAHX system, reducing the temperature peaks of up to 5 ◦C compared to the use of CMV. In winter, it is interesting to note that, although the EAHX is not the solution that raises the temperature the most during the day, its use allows flattening the thermal wave more. In fact, the trend is almost constant during the day, raising the temperature during the first and last hours of the day
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