Le compresseur d'air alimentant en oxygène la pile est un élément important dans les systèmes pile à combustible. Le compresseur peut consommer jusqu'à 20% de l'électricité produite dans les cas les plus défavorables. Le choix et le dimensionnement du compresseur, ainsi que son système de contrôle associé, sont directement liés à la performance du système global. La taille et le poids du système de compression d'air doivent être réduits pour le rendre plus adapté aux applications automobiles. En outre, le contrôle du système de compression d'air est également une problématique importante car il affecte l'efficacité et la sécurité de fonctionnement de la pile à combustible. Pour éviter une sous-alimentation en oxygène de la pile, le débit massique d’air fourni doit être géré de façon appropriée en fonction de la demande de la charge électrique. Pendant ce temps, la pression ne doit pas montrer de trop grandes variations ou ondulations qui peuvent endommager la membrane de la pile.Un contrôle à découplage proposé récemment dans la littérature, nommé contrôle à découplage de perturbation (DDC), est utilisé pour le système de compression centrifuge. Le DDC traite les interactions internes comme une perturbation, puis les éliminent dans le contrôle. Les performances du DDC sont comparées à un dispositif de commande en mode glissant décentralisé. Grâce à la comparaison de ces deux contrôleurs, les résultats montrent que le DDC proposé est performant tant pour des cas stables que dynamiques. Le compresseur centrifuge est donc utilisable pour les systèmes pile à combustible automobiles. Sur un banc d'essai hardware-in-the-loop (HIL), le contrôleur proposé est validé avec un modèle de pile à combustible de 10 kW avec des demandes de charge variables. En outre, une méthode d'évitement d’instabilité, à savoir un limiteur de référence, est proposé pour empêcher le dépassement de la ligne de pompage du compresseur. Les résultats expérimentaux montrent que, dans tous les cas, la zone d’utilisation du compresseur est bien cantonnée à droite de la ligne de pompage. / Air compressor supplying the oxygen to the stack is an important component in the fuel cell systems. The compressor can consumes up to 20 % of the generated power in the most severe cases. The selecting of the compressor and corresponding control are directly related to the performance of the fuel cell. The size and weight of the air compressor has to be reduced to make them more feasible for automotive applications. Moreover, the control of the air compression system is also an important issue, which affects the efficiency and the safety of the fuel cell. To avoid oxygen starvation of the stack, the mass flow of the supplied air has to be controlled appropriately according to the load demand. Meanwhile, the pressure should not have large deviations or ripples which may damage the stack membrane.A recently proposed disturbance decoupling control (DDC) is used for the centrifugal compression system. DDC treats the internal interactions as a disturbance and then eliminates them in the control. The performance of the DDC is compared with a decentralized sliding mode controller. Through the comparison of those two controllers, the results show that the proposed DDC performs better in both the steady state and dynamic conditions, making the centrifugal compressor is capable of applying to the fuel cell in automotive applications. On a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testbench, the proposed controller is validated with a 10 kW fuel cell model under varied load demands. Moreover, a surge avoidance method, namely reference limiter, is proposed to prevent the compressor from surging. The experimental results show that the operation is restricted to the right of the surge line.

<p>The engine torque is an important control signal. This signal is disturbed by the devices mounted on the belt. To better be able to estimate the torque signal, this work aims to model the auxiliary devices'influence on the crankshaft torque. Physical models have been developed for the air conditioning compressor, the alternator and the power steering pump. If these models are to be used in control unit function development and testing, they have to be fast enough to run on a hardware-in-the-loop simulator in real time. The models have been simplified to meet these demands. </p><p>The compressor model has a good physical basis, but the validity of the control mechanism is uncertain. The alternator model has been tested against a real electronic control unit in a hardware-in-the-loop simulator, and tests show good results. Validation against measurements is however necessary to confirm the results. The power steering pump model also has a good physical basis, but it is argued that a simple model relating the macro input-output power could be more valuable for control unit function development.</p>

<p>Mean Value Engine Modeling (MVEM) is used to make engine control development less expensive. With more and more cars equipped with turbocharged engines good turbo MVEM models are needed. A turbocharger consists of two major parts: turbine and compressor. Whereas the turbine is relatively durable, there exist phenomenons on the compressor that can destroy the turbocharger. One of these is surge.</p><p>Several compressor models are developed in this thesis. Methods to determine the compressor model parameters are proposed and discussed both for the stable operating range as well as for the surge region of a compressor map. For the stationary region methods to automatically parameterize the compressor model are developed. For the unstable surge region methods to get good agreement for desired surge properties are discussed. The parameter sensitivity of the different surge properties is also discussed. A validation of the compressor model shows that it gives good agreement to data, both for the stationary region as well as the surge region.</p><p>Different open loop and closed loop controllers as well as different performance variables are developed and discussed. A benchmark is developed, based on a measured vehicle acceleration, and the control approaches are compared using this benchmark. The best controller is found to be a open loop controller based on throttle and surge valve mass flow.</p>

This thesis presents numerical predictions for the leakage and direct stiffness coefficients of pocket damper seals. Modifications made to earlier flow-prediction models are discussed. Leakage and static pressure measurements on straight-through and diverging configurations of eight-bladed and twelve-bladed seals were used for code validation and for calculation of seal discharge coefficients. Higher than expected leakage rates were measured in the case of the twelve-bladed seal, while the leakage rates for the eight-bladed seals were predicted reasonably accurately. Results are presented for shake tests conducted on the seals at pressures of up to 1000 Psi (6.90 MPa). Test variables included pressure drop across the seals and rotor speed. The experimentally obtained stiffness coefficients are compared to results of a rotordynamic damper seal code, which uses the corrected mass flow-rate calculation method. Results show that the code under-predicts the magnitude of the seal's stiffness for most test cases. However, general trends in the frequency dependency of the direct stiffness are more accurately predicted. The expectation of high values of negative stiffness in diverging seals is confirmed by the results, but the frequency at which the sign of the stiffness becomes positive is considerably lower than is predicted. In addition to presenting high-pressure test data, this thesis also attempts to provide some insight into how seal parameters can be modified to obtain desired changes in seal stiffness.

La thèse de Jean-François Simon est consacrée au développement d'un outil de simulation numérique de l'écoulement dans les turbomachines axiales. La démarche proposée a pour but de réduire l'empirisme présent dans les outils de calcul méridien en turbomachines. Cet objectif est atteint en deux étapes, l'une consistant à traiter de manière cohérente les effets dus à la viscosité du fluide dans le plan méridien, l'autre à injecter dans le calcul méridien les tensions déterministes et circonférentielles ainsi que les forces d'aubes. Les équations de Navier-Stokes sont moyennées azimutalement et sont résolues par une approche volumes-finis. La capture des effets dus à la viscosité du fluide le long des parois de carter et de moyeu permet d'éviter l'introduction d'un coefficient de blocage, ou le recours à un calcul couche-limite séparé. Jean-François Simon prolonge en outre l'approche d'Adamczyk par un opérateur de moyenne circonférentielle. Différents termes additionnels apparaissent alors dans les équations du modèle et traduisent entre autres linfluence des phénomènes non axisymétriques. L'importance relative de ces différentes contributions est analysée. Les méthodologies développées sont appliquées à plusieurs cas-tests (rotor simple, étages de compresseur ou de turbine, compresseur multi- étagé), qui permettent d'illustrer l'intérêt de la démarche proposée.

Turbocharging the internal combustion (IC) engine is a common technique to increase the power density. If turbocharging is used with the downsizing technique, the fuel consumption and pollution of green house gases can be decreased. In the turbocharger, the energy of the engine exhaust gas is extracted by expanding it through the turbine which drives the compressor by a shaft. If a turbocharged IC engine is compared with a natural aspirated engine, the turbocharged engine will be smaller, lighter and will also have a better efficiency, due to less pump losses, lower inertia of the system and less friction losses. To be able to further increase the efficiency of the IC engine, the understanding of the highly unsteady flow in turbochargers must be improved, which then can be used to increase the efficiency of the turbine and the compressor. The main objective with this thesis has been to enhance the understanding of the unsteady flow in turbocharger and to assess the sensitivity of inflow conditions on the turbocharger performance. The performance and the flow field in a radial turbocharger turbine working under both non-pulsatile and pulsatile flow conditions has been assessed by using Large Eddy Simulation (LES). To assess the effects of different operation conditions on the turbine performance, different cases have been considered with different perturbations and unsteadiness of the inflow conditions. Also different rotational speeds of the turbine wheel were considered. The results show that the turbine cannot be treated as being quasi-stationary; for example,the shaft power varies for different frequencies of the pulses for the same amplitude of mass flow. The results also show that perturbations and unsteadiness that are created in the geometry upstream of the turbine have substantial effects on the performance of the turbocharger. All this can be summarized as that perturbations and unsteadiness in the inflow conditions to the turbine affect the performance. The unsteady flow field in ported shroud compressor has also been assessed by using LES for two different operational points. For an operational point near surge, the flow field in the entire compressor stage is unsteady, where the driving mechanism is an unsteadiness created in the volute. For an operational point far away from surge, the flow field in the compressor is relatively much more steady as compared with the former case. Although the stable operational point exhibits back-flow from the ported shroud channels, which implies that the flow into the compressor wheel is disturbed due to the structures that are created in the shear layer between the bulk flow and the back-flow from the ported shroud channels. / QC20100622

In this thesis, an experimental research is conducted on scroll-based Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) focusing on the expansion process. An important feature of the ORC is the ability to utilize low or moderate temperature heat sources derived from renewable energy such as concentrated solar radiation, biomass/biofuels combustion streams, geothermal heat and waste heat recovery. The ORC is more appropriate than steam Rankine cycle to generate power from low capacity heat sources (5-500 kW thermal). For example, expansion of superheated steam from 280oC/1000 kPa to a pressure corresponding to 35oC saturation requires a volume ratio as high as 86, whereas for the same operating conditions toluene shows an expansion ratio of 6 which can be achieved in a single stage turbine or expander. The objective of this work is to experimentally study the performance of a selected refrigeration scroll compressor operating in reverse as expander in an ORC. To this purpose, three experimental systems are designed, built and used for conducting a comprehensive experimental programme aimed at determining the features of the expansion process. In preliminary tests the working fluid utilized is dry air while the main experiments are done with the organic fluid R134a. Experimental data of the scroll expander are collected under different operating conditions. Power generation in various conditions is analyzed in order to determine the optimum performance parameters for the scroll expander. In addition, thermodynamic analysis of the system is conducted through energy and exergy efficiencies to study the system performance. Based on the experimental measurements, the optimum parameters for an ORC cycle operating with the Bitzer-based expander-generator unit are determined. The cycle energy and exergy efficiencies are found 5% and 30% respectively from a heat source of 120oC. / UOIT

High-peak power laser systems are defined along with a brief introduction of the technology used in their development and application to the project. A review of concepts surrounding optical pulses, focusing on the particular phenomena involved with the ultrafast, follows. Numerical models involving optical pulses are introduced and verified. An extensive description of the laser system is presented, including models used in its design. Data verifying the correct operation of the laser system is presented and interpreted. A dispersion compensation system, including a function model, is introduced, and its application to the laser system is analyzed. An introduction to pulse characterization techniques is presented followed by the design and verification of two different characterization devices. Experiments utlizing the dispersion compensation system and pulse characterization devices are presented and the results are interpreted. Conclusions are made regarding the performance of the laser system models and pulse characterization devices, along with suggested improvements for each. The results of the experiments are discussed including suggestions for future work.

The engine torque is an important control signal. This signal is disturbed by the devices mounted on the belt. To better be able to estimate the torque signal, this work aims to model the auxiliary devices'influence on the crankshaft torque. Physical models have been developed for the air conditioning compressor, the alternator and the power steering pump. If these models are to be used in control unit function development and testing, they have to be fast enough to run on a hardware-in-the-loop simulator in real time. The models have been simplified to meet these demands. The compressor model has a good physical basis, but the validity of the control mechanism is uncertain. The alternator model has been tested against a real electronic control unit in a hardware-in-the-loop simulator, and tests show good results. Validation against measurements is however necessary to confirm the results. The power steering pump model also has a good physical basis, but it is argued that a simple model relating the macro input-output power could be more valuable for control unit function development.

High-peak power laser systems are defined along with a brief introduction of the technology used in their development and application to the project. A review of concepts surrounding optical pulses, focusing on the particular phenomena involved with the ultrafast, follows. Numerical models involving optical pulses are introduced and verified. An extensive description of the laser system is presented, including models used in its design. Data verifying the correct operation of the laser system is presented and interpreted. A dispersion compensation system, including a function model, is introduced, and its application to the laser system is analyzed. An introduction to pulse characterization techniques is presented followed by the design and verification of two different characterization devices. Experiments utlizing the dispersion compensation system and pulse characterization devices are presented and the results are interpreted. Conclusions are made regarding the performance of the laser system models and pulse characterization devices, along with suggested improvements for each. The results of the experiments are discussed including suggestions for future work.