A comprehensive second law analysis of combustion for a range of conditions and fuels was completed. Constant pressure, constant volume and constant temperature combustion processes were examined. The parameters studied were reactant temperature, reactant pressure, equivalence ratio and the fuels themselves. In addition, the contribution and relative significance of the various components (thermo-mechanical, reactive and diffusion) to the mixture availability was examined. Also, the effect of reactant mixture dissociation was incorporated into the combustion analysis. It was found that for similar initial conditions, constant pressure combustion and constant volume combustion exhibited similar trends. For constant temperature combustion, the trend is significantly different from the constant pressure and constant volume combustion, with almost the entire reactant availability being destroyed due to combustion at lower temperatures. Amongst the parameters examined, reactant mixture temperature had the most significant effect on the fraction of availability destroyed during combustion. The percentage availability destroyed reduced from 25 to 30% at 300 K to about 5% at 6000 K for constant pressure and constant volume combustion processes. The effect of the reactant mixture pressure on the fraction of availability destroyed was more modest. The values for the percentage availability destroyed for pressures ranging from 50 kPa to 5000 kPa were found to lie within a range of 5%. The effect of equivalence ratio on the fraction of reactant mixture availability destroyed was also documented. In general, it was found that the destruction of availability decreased with increasing equivalence ratios. This value, however, accounts for the availability due to fuel like species in the product mixture. Therefore, for practical applications, combustion of the stoichiometric mixture would be preferred over the rich equivalence ratios. It was found that the fraction of reactant availability destroyed increased with increasing complexity of the fuel??s molecular structure. In addition, it was shown that the diffusion availability terms is small and may be neglected, while the reactive availability and thermo-mechanical availability are more significant.

The UK Government has identified that nearly 15% of the UK’s electricity generation must come from offshore wind by 2020. The reliability of the offshore windfarms and their electrical transmission systems is critical for their feasibility. Offshore windfarms located more than 50-100km from shore, including most Round 3 offshore windfarms, are likely to employ Voltage Source Converter (VSC) High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission schemes. This thesis studies factors which affect the reliability of VSC-HVDC transmission schemes, in respect to availability, protection, and system modelling. The expected availability of VSC-HVDC systems is a key factor in determining if Round 3 offshore windfarms are technically and economically viable. Due to the lack of publications in this area, this thesis analyses the energy availability of a radial and a Multi-Terminal (MT) VSC-HVDC system, using component reliability indices derived from academic and industrial documentation, and examining the influence of each component on the system’s energy availability. An economic assessment of different VSC-HVDC schemes is undertaken, highlighting the overall potential cost savings of HVDC grids. The connection of offshore windfarms to a MT HVDC system offers other potential benefits, in comparison to an equivalent radial system, including a reduction in the volume of assets and enhanced operational flexibility. However, without suitable HVDC circuit breakers, a large MT HVDC system would be unviable. In this thesis, a review of potential HVDC circuit breaker topologies and HVDC protection strategies is conducted. A HVDC circuit breaker topology, which addresses some of the limitations of the existing designs, was developed in this thesis, for which a UK patent application was filed. Accurate simulation models are required to give a high degree of confidence in the expected system behaviour. Modular Multi-level Converters (MMCs) are the preferred HVDC converter topology, however modelling MMCs in Electromagnetic Transient (EMT) simulation programs has presented a number of challenges. This has resulted in the development of new modelling techniques, for which the published validating literature is limited. In this thesis these techniques are compared in terms of accuracy and simulation speed and a set of modelling recommendations are presented. Cable models are the other main DC component which, upon analysis, is found to have a significant impact on the overall model’s simulation results and simulation time. A set of modelling recommendations are also presented for the leading cable models. Using the modelling recommendations to select suitable MMC models, radial and MT EMT MMC-HVDC models for the connection of typical Round 3 windfarms are developed in this thesis. These models are used to analyse the steady-state and transient performance of the connections, including their compliance to the GB grid code for AC disturbances and reactive power requirements. Furthermore, the MT model is used to investigate the effect of MT control strategies on the internal MMC quantities.

This master thesis deals with application of Markov processes in analysis of reli- ability of complex industrial systems. We describe a general algorithm whose input is a special form of a failure tree, which describes reliability of a certain system, and whose output is a Markov process, which describes evolution of reliability of the given system in time. We assume exponentially distributed time to failure and reparation time of components of the system. The new model of reliability analy- sis, which uses a Markov process describing the given system, enables to consider dynamical evolution of the system and reparation of components when probability of the system failure within the time interval is computed. Moreover, unlike in the classical reliability model, which uses only failure trees, the new model enables to compute, for example, probability distribution of the functionality-determining states of the given system in the phase of steady running, mean time to a failure of the system or probability that the system fails for the whole time period of the length h, h > 0. The procedures how to get these indicators of reliability are described in this thesis in detail. All theoretical findings of this thesis are applied to two concrete subsystems of nuclear power plant Temelín and further, there is an...

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-03-15T13:05:35Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Disserta__o_Igor_Costa__Copy_(1).pdf: 11507063 bytes, checksum: f631fc6dd87314e89ea560a118301875 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T13:05:35Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) Disserta__o_Igor_Costa__Copy_(1).pdf: 11507063 bytes, checksum: f631fc6dd87314e89ea560a118301875 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-31 / As limitações da computação móvel abrem caminhos para utilizar recursos de computação em nuvem voltadas à dispositivos móveis, sendo este o principal objetivo da Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). Questões como armazenamento e processamento podem afetar a disponibilidade de um serviço no dispositivo móvel, assim, para minimizar esses problemas é possível o particionamento da aplicação em frontend e backend. Os serviços de nuvem auxiliam esse processo com a utilização de ambientes Mobile Backend-as-a-Service (MBaaS), que permitem os desenvolvedores conectar o backend de suas aplicações para o armazenamento em nuvem. Uma plataforma de MBaaS oferece um serviço de sincronização completa para aplicações móveis. Uma vez que os dados armazenados no dispositivo móvel estão sincronizados com os centros de dados distribuídos, a disponibilidade do sistema no lado servidor é um atributo fundamental que requer investigação, pois sistemas computacionais tendem a falhar. As falhas podem ocorrer em hardwares, softwares e meios de conexão, acarretando assim, em prejuízos financeiros e comprometendo a credibilidade das empresas provedoras do serviço. Os administradores necessitam de mecanismos para estimar a disponibilidade de seus sistemas, podendo definir Service Level Agreement (SLA) com mais propriedade. Assim, modelos analíticos podem ser utilizados para avaliar a disponibilidade destes tipos de ambientes, bem como auxiliar a mitigar o downtime, aumentando a disponibilidade do serviço. Este trabalho propõe modelos analíticos para avaliar a disponibilidade desses ambientes. Para tanto, foi adotada uma metodologia: primeiramente definiu-se a arquitetura básica do serviço; a qual foi modelada a partir de um modelo hierárquico, composto de diagramas de blocos de confiabilidade (RBD) e cadeias de Markov de tempo contínuo (CTMC) e validado através de um testbed de injeção de falhas e reparos em um ambiente real. Baseado no modelo de serviço proposto, foi efetuada a análise de sensibilidade, que identificou o sistema como componente crítico. A partir disto, foram sugeridos modelos hierárquicos que representem o ambiente de nuvem, e com base neste ambiente, através da técnica de análise de sensibilidade, foram propostas quatro arquiteturas, sendo estas avaliados em termos de disponibilidade e downtime anual. Os resultados demonstram que a implementação de um processo de recuperação automática sobre o componente de software, Java Virtual Machine, reduz o downtime anual na arquitetura básica em cerca de 10%, bem como é possível observar que no ambiente de nuvem utilizando o mecanismo de redundância warm-standby nos nós e no frontend apresenta efetiva melhora na disponibilidade. Desta forma, a presente pesquisa pode orientar os administradores de sistemas MBaaS no planejamento de suas políticas de manutenção. / The mobile computer restrictions propose new ways to use cloud computing resources aimed at mobile devices, this is the Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) primary goal. Issues such as storage and processing can impact the service availability on the mobile device. With the reducing purpose, these questions are its possible divide the application into two pieces, frontend, and backend. The cloud services assist this process with the Mobile Backend-as-a- Service (MBaaS) use. This tool allows the developers connect yours application backend to cloud storage. The MBaaS OpenMobster platform offers complete synchronization service to mobile applications. Since the data stored on mobile was synchronized distributed data center, the server’s system availability is an essential attribute and request attention, because computer systems will sometimes fail. The failures can happen on components variety as hardware, software and connections, causing financial losses and reliability compromising of the companies, which offer this services. The administrators need tools to project the system availability, with this they can define the SLA with more assurance. Analytic models can be used to availability evaluate in this environment and mitigate the downtime risk, this improves the service availability. This work primary goal is proposed analytic models to availability evaluated in these environments. It was adopted a methodology as follow: First, define the base service architecture. It was modeled by use a hierarchical model, using a reliability block diagram (RBD) and continuous-time Markov chain (CTMC). The validation considers a fault injection testbed and repairs on real environment. Considering the model proposed, it was done sensitivity analysis, these results present the system as a critical component. This analysis was proposed hierarchical models to represents cloud environment. On these sensibility analysis, a background was offered four scenarios. The scenarios were evaluated to determine the availability and annual downtime. The results show that the an automatic recovery implementation process on the software component, Java Virtual Machine, decrease the annual downtime on base architecture to 10%. The results present the availability improvement when adopted redundancy strategy as warm standby on a cloud environment. This way, the work can guide the MBaaS system administrators in planning their maintenance policies.