Carbon has been used electrochemically in various forms for water treatment and the carbon aerogel is one of them. Carbon Aerogels (CA) are used as electrodes due to their high surface capacity and high electrical conductivity. They are also known as Carbon Nanofoams (CNF). CA electrodes attract oppositely charged ions that are nearby. This concept is known as Capacitive De-Ionization (CDI). The use of CA in CDI for water purification is well documented, but not much work has been done on regeneration of CA electrodes. Once saturated, these electrodes lose their ability to adsorb additional ions and it must be restored by regeneration. If they cannot be regenerated, they would need to be replaced, which would greatly increase the cost of the treatment they are expensive. The goal of this study is to obtain data to define optimal regeneration conditions and to develop predictive capability by examining desorption behavior of adsorbed ions on CA electrodes. This study focuses on desorption of adsorbed ions and regeneration of CA. Various experiments were conducted to explore the effects on regeneration of CA of shorting of electrodes, change of polarity of electrodes, flow speed of water over CA electrodes, and temperature of regeneration water. The optimal combination of experimental variables was identified and was used for remaining experiments that tested the effect of size, charge and mass of adsorbed ions on regeneration of CA. Also, the effect of thickness of CA and its pore size on regeneration of CA was studied. Results indicated that application of reverse potential for the first few minutes of the total regeneration time provided the greatest regeneration. Longer application of reverse potential did not result in higher regeneration. The regeneration behavior when no potential applied with and without shorting was as expected. Application of reverse potential with variable temperature or variable flow speed of water over CA surfaces provided results that were different from the ones that were obtained with no potential being applied with or without shorting of electrodes.

For present day global economies energy use is the single most important criteria determining a nation’s wealth and sustainability. The global energy needs are met primarily by fossil fuels which are of finite supply. One means to extend the life span of the fossil fuel reserves has been to improve the efficiency of existing systems including generation, storage, usage etc., as a means of conservation. This dissertation investigates a motor technology that promises to complement existing conservation techniques. Given advances in high voltage power semiconductors, manufacturing techniques and materials research this dissertation evaluates the potential of the switched impedance motor (SIM), a type of electrostatic motor (ESM), as an efficient alternative to induction machines. Starting with a broad look at how force can be created using electrical means, this dissertation reviews the contributions of prior art, details their inhibitors and develops analytic expressions that allow these inhibitors to be overcome. Using these analytic expressions as design tools allows future SIM designers to realize this motor topology’s potential as a highly efficient machine and a global tool for energy conservation.

The shortage of clean water has become a significant global problem, and capacitive deionization (CDI) is a technology that can be used to help relieve the problem. A Ćuk converter system that can recover energy from CDI cells is described. This converter transfers energy between two CDI cells when a cell is in its desorption period, allowing energy that would otherwise be lost to be recovered and improving overall system efficiency. In order to control the states of the MOSFET switches in the converter, a self boost charge pump is used. In this way, the microcontroller can control system duty cycle and optimize energy efficiency. A design method of reducing ripple losses caused by passive elements is presented. Several sensor circuits and their design methods that can minimize power losses are shown. The influence of initial voltage drop and voltage ramp time is also examined. This Ćuk converter system is tested using a dummy cell and a real CDI cell. The converter system shows promising performance experimentally.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse contribuent au développement du contrôle non destructif des conduits de précontrainte extérieure dans les ouvrages d'art. Une sonde capacitive a été développée pour ausculter ces conduits. L'objectif est d'en améliorer le diagnostic.Dans un premier temps, une cellule de mesure en transmission coaxiale a été développée pour caractériser les matériaux présents dans le conduit sur la bande de fréquence 50 MHz - 1 GHz. Le ciment, les produits de la ségrégation du ciment et la cire d'injection ont été étudiés.La deuxième partie du travail exploite ces résultats dans une modélisation directe du problème global. Une étude paramétrique nous a permis de proposer une méthode d'estimation de l'épaisseur de vide à l'intérieur du conduit à partir des signaux délivrés par la sonde, qui a pu être validée sur une maquette de conduit. A partir de ces résultats sont proposées plusieurs améliorations du dispositif visant à l'obtention de signaux plus riches issus des capteurs, afin de pouvoir estimer un plus grand nombre de paramètres.

Designers of Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are always striving to improve the speed of their designs. The propagation delay of FPGA interconnection networks is a major challenge and continues to grow with newer technologies. FPGAs interconnection networks are implemented using NMOS pass transistor based multiplexers followed by buffers. The threshold voltage drop across an NMOS device degrades the high logic value, and results in unbalanced rising and falling edges, static power consumption due to the crowbar currents, and reduced noise margins. In this work, circuit design techniques to construct interconnection circuit with capacitive boosting are proposed. By using capacitive boosting in FPGAs interconnection networks, the signal transitions are accelerated and the crowbar currents of downstream buffers are reduced. In addition, buffers can be non-skewed or slightly skewed to improve noise immunity of the interconnection network. Results indicate that by using the presented circuit design technique, the propagation delay can be reduced by at least 10% versus prior art at the expense of a slight increase in silicon area. In addition, in a bid to reduce power consumption in reconfigurable arrays, operation in weak inversion region has been suggested. Current programmable interconnections cannot be directly used in this region due to a very poor propagation delay and sensitivity to Process-Voltage-Temperature (PVT) variations. This work also focuses on designing a common structure for FPGAs interconnection networks that can operate in both strong and weak inversion. We propose to use capacitive boosting together with a new circuit design technique, called Twins transmission gates in implementing FPGA interconnect multiplexers. We also propose to use capacitive boosting in designing buffers. This way, the operation region of the interconnection circuitry is shifted away from weak inversion toward strong inversion resulting in improved speed and enhanced tolerance to PVT variations. Simulation results indicate using capacitive boosting to implement the interconnection network can have a significant influence on delay and tolerance to variations. The interconnection network with capacitive boosting is at least 34% faster than prior art in weak inversion. / Graduate

The work presented in this thesis detail the measurement of the thermal expansion coefficient of three magnetic spin materials. Thermal expansion coefficient values were measured by capacitive dilatometry in several key low (T < 250 K) temperature regions specific to each material. This thesis is separated into several key parts. The first part establishes the theory behind observing phase transitions through the thermal expansion coefficient. Beginning with the classical definitions of the specific heat, compressibility and thermal expansion coefficient, the three properties are related using a property known as the Grüneisen parameter. To first order, the parameter allows phase transitions to be observed by the thermal expansion coefficient. The second part introduces capacitive dilatometry; a technique used to measure the thermal expansion coefficient. Three capacitive dilatometer devices are presented in this section. The silver compact dilatometer, the fused quartz dilatometer and the copper dilatometer. Each device discusses merits and weaknesses to their designs. Particular focus is made on the fused quartz dilatometer which was built during the duration of this thesis. The third part presents research on three magnetic spin materials; LiHoF4, Tb2Ti2O7 and Ba3NbFe3Si2O14. These materials are studied individually focusing on specific aspects. LiHoF4, a candidate material for the transverse field Ising model, provides insight to quantum phase transitions. Thermal expansion coefficient and magnetostriction along the c-axis for T ≈ 1.3-1.8 K and transverse field Ht ≈ 0-4 T were measured extracting critical points for a Ht-T phase diagram. Existing thermal expansion coefficient measurements had evidence of possible re-entrant behaviour. With a high density of low transverse field critical points it was established that LiHoF4 showed no evidence of re-entrant behaviour. The highly debated material Tb2Ti2O7 has a rich, controversial low temperature behaviour. Originally believed to be a spin liquid, specific heat results propose a scenario involving a sample composition dependent ordered state. Still under considerably attention, thermal expansion coefficient measurements were performed for T < 1 K. The results are interpreted to either fit into the proposed scenario or provide evidence for an alternate scenario. The material Ba3NbFe3Si2O14 exhibits a magnetoelectric multiferroic phase below TN ≈ 27 K; a phase where magnetic and electric order simultaneously exist. The formation of this phase is believed to have a similar structural shift observed in hexagonal perovskite multiferroic materials. The ferroelectric ordering in those materials are brought about through a centrosymmetric to non-centrosymmetric structural shift. The thermal expansion and thermal expansion coefficient coefficient along the a and c axis are measured for T > TN searching for a displacive structural phase transition.

This thesis reports the development of high-performance symmetric and decoupled micromachined gyroscopes for tactical-grade inertial measurement applications. The symmetric structure allows easy matching of the resonance frequencies of the drive and sense modes of the gyroscopes for achieving high angular rate sensitivity / while the decoupled drive and sense modes minimizes mechanical cross-coupling for low-noise and stable operation. Three different and new symmetric and decoupled gyroscope structures with unique features are presented. These structures are fabricated in four different micromachining processes: nickel electroforming (NE), dissolved-wafer silicon micromachining (DWSM), silicon-on-insulator (SOI) micromachining, and silicon-on-glass (SOG) micromachining. The fabricated gyroscopes have capacitive gaps from 1.5&micro / m to 5.5&micro / m and structural layer thicknesses from 12&micro / m to 100&micro / m, yielding aspect ratios up to 20 depending on the fabrication process. The size of fabricated gyroscope chips varies from 1x1mm2 up to 4.2x4.6mm2. Fabricated gyroscopes are hybrid-connected to a designed capacitive interface circuit, fabricated in a standard 0.6&micro / m CMOS process. They have resonance frequencies as small as 2kHz and as large as 40kHz / sense-mode resonance frequencies can be electrostatically tuned to the drive-mode frequency by DC voltages less than 16V. The quality factors reach to 500 at atmospheric pressure and exceed 10,000 for the silicon gyroscopes at vacuum. The parasitic capacitance of the gyroscopes on glass substrates is measured to be as small as 120fF. The gyroscope and interface assemblies are then combined with electronic control and feedback circuits constructed with off-the-shelf IC components to perform angular rate measurements. Measured angular rate sensitivities are in the range from 12&micro / V/(deg/sec) to 180&micro / V/(deg/sec), at atmospheric pressure. The SOI gyroscope demonstrates the best performance at atmospheric pressure, with noise equivalent rate (NER) of 0.025(deg/sec)/Hz1/2, whereas the remaining gyroscopes has an NER better than 0.1(deg/sec)/Hz1/2, limited by either the small sensor size or by small quality factors. Gyroscopes have scale-factor nonlinearities better than 1.1% with the best value of 0.06%, and their bias drifts are dominated by the phase errors in the demodulation electronics and are over 1deg/sec. The characterization of the SOI and SOG gyroscopes at below 50mTorr vacuum ambient yield angular rate sensitivities as high as 1.6mV/(deg/sec) and 0.9mV/(deg/sec), respectively. The NER values of these gyroscopes at vacuum are smaller than 50(deg/hr)/Hz1/2 and 36(deg/hr)/Hz1/2, respectively, being close to the tactical-grade application limits. Gyroscope structures are expected to provide a performance better than 10 deg/hr in a practical measurement bandwidth such as 50Hz, provided that capacitive gaps are minimized while preserving the aspect ratio, and the demodulation electronics are improved.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Complex (dusty) plasmas are a subject of growing interest. They areionized gases containing charged dust particles. In capacitively-coupled RF discharges, dust growth can occur naturally and two methods can be used to grow dust particles: chemically active plasmas or sputtering. The growth of dust particles in argon discharges by RF sputtering and the effect of dust particles on theplasma have been investigated from the plasma ignition to the afterglow. It was shown that plasma and discharge parameters are greatly affected by the dust particles. Furthermore, plasma instabilities can be triggered by the presence of the dust particles. These instabilities can be due to dust particle growth or they can be instabilities of a well established dust cloud filling the interelectrode space. When the discharge is switched off, the dust particles act like a sink for the charge carrier and consequently affect the plasma losses. It was shown that the dust particles do keep residual chargeswhich values are greatly affected by the diffusion of the charge carriers and especially the transition from ambipolar to free diffusion.

Apesar do crescente desenvolvimento das metodologias de localização de faltas fundamentadas na impedância para sistemas de distribuição de energia elétrica nas últimas décadas, alguns aspectos ainda carecem de progressos, especialmente frente à crescente necessidade de aumento da qualidade da energia elétrica entregue aos consumidores. Um destes aspectos diz respeito à consideração da capacitância das linhas de distribuição, efeito nunca dantes considerado para este fim pelas metodologias baseadas em impedância aparente. Assim sendo, o presente trabalho apresenta novos desenvolvimentos relativos à consideração do efeito capacitivo para as metodologias de localização de faltas fundamentadas na impedância para sistemas de distribuição de energia elétrica. O principal desenvolvimento apresentado é um novo equacionamento para fins de localização de faltas, que torna necessária a apresentação de outro desenvolvimento, o de um algoritmo de localização de faltas que considere a capacitância da linha. As novas equações são apresentadas para todos os tipos de faltas e constituem-se de equações polinomiais de segunda ordem em relação ao local da falta. De forma a entender a resposta destas equações frente a diferentes casos de faltas e determinar qual a solução fisicamente correta destas equações, as mesmas são analisadas sob três pontos de vista, a saber, matemático, físico, e numérico. Inicialmente estas equações são analisadas de forma analítica considerandose faltas em um mesmo local, mas com resistências diferentes. Posteriormente a mesma análise é realizada numericamente através de simulações computacionais. Os desenvolvimentos propostos são também submetidos a testes de faltas, simuladas computacionalmente em um sistema sem laterais ou cargas intermediárias. Os resultados obtidos são comparados frente a resultados obtidos também para outras metodologias que constituem atualmente o estado da arte em localização de faltas fundamentada na impedância para sistemas de distribuição de energia elétrica. Através destes resultados é possível mostrar a grande influência que o efeito capacitivo possui nestas metodologias, mesmo em sistemas aéreos de distribuição, e elucidar as grandes melhorias obtidas através dos desenvolvimentos propostos. / Despite the increasing development of impedance-based fault location techniques for electric power distribution systems in the last decades, some aspects still require to progress, especially with the increasing necessity of power quality enhancement. One of these aspects regards to the distribution line shunt admittance consideration, effect that has never been considered before by the impedance-based fault location methods for power distribution systems. In this way, this work presents further improvements regarding the capacitive effect consideration for impedance-based fault location methods for power distribution systems. The main improvement presented is the development of new fault location equations, which yield the necessity of another improvement, a modified fault location algorithm that also considers the line shunt admittance. The new equations are presented for all fault types and are constituted by second-order polynomials in relation to the fault location. In order to understand the response from these equations regarding different fault situations and determine which solution is the physically feasible one, these equations are analyzed from three different points of view, i.e., mathematical, physical, and numerical. First, the developed equations are analytically analyzed considering faults in one location with different fault resistances. After, the same analysis is numerically carried out through computational simulations. The performance of the proposed improvements are also evaluated through computational simulations of faults in a power distribution system without laterals or intermediate loads. The obtained results are compared with results from the current state-of-the-art impedance-based fault location methodologies for power distribution systems. Through these results it is possible to show the great effect that the line shunt admittance, even in aerial distribution systems, has on the existing fault location methodologies and also the great improvements brought by the proposed developments.

O presente trabalho apresenta o desenvolvimento de um traçador de curvas I-V para aplicação em arranjos fotovoltaicos a serem medidos em campo. Este sistema utiliza a carga capacitiva como método de polarização do gerador fotovoltaico sendo o chaveamento realizado por transistores bipolares de porta isolada (IGBT). Para controle do chaveamento dos IGBTs e aquisição dos pontos I-V, a placa Arduino foi aplicada demostrando-se adequada para a proposta. Para tanto foi escrito, em uma variação da linguagem de programação C++, o programa de controle desta placa. Foram construídos circuitos auxiliares de amplificação de sinal para realizar as medidas de corrente e de irradiância, sendo nestes casos, usados como sensores um resistor shunt e uma célula de referência calibrada, respectivamente. Para medida da temperatura foi aplicado o sensor de temperatura LM35 que apresentou resultados satisfatórios. Os dados adquiridos pela placa Arduino são salvos em um cartão de memória para posterior análise. A análise de incertezas foi realizada usando métodos estatísticos, onde foram determinados os erros sistemáticos e aleatórios para cada canal de medição. O protótipo construído foi aplicado no levantamento da curva I-V de um gerador fotovoltaico composto de uma série de 3 módulos instalada no terraço do prédio que abriga o simulador solar do Laboratório de Energia Solar da Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (LABSOL) e o seu resultado foi comparado com o sistema traçador de curvas do laboratório. O resultado, de maneira geral, foi satisfatório quando comparado com a medida a 2 fios pelo sistema do LABSOL, mas apresentou um erro maior quando comparado à medida a 4 fios. Este protótipo também foi submetido a um teste para avaliar sua capacidade de apresentar a curva I-V de forma adequada quando são provocados defeitos na série de módulos. O resultado apresentado pelo protótipo se mostrou bastante semelhante ao do apresentado pelo sistema do LABSOL. De maneira geral, pode-se afirmar que o protótipo, baseado em seus resultados, mostrou-se adequado para aplicação em medidas em campo de curvas I-V de arranjos fotovoltaicos. / This work presents the development of an IV tracer for in field measurement of PV arrays. This system uses a capacitive load as a method for polarizing the photovoltaic generator, with the switching being performed by insulated gate bipolar transistors (IGBT). To control switching of the IGBTs and acquisition of the IV curve, an Arduino board was applied, and was proved to be adequate for this purpose. The Arduino board control program was written in a variation of C++ language. Auxiliary circuits for amplifying the signal were built to measure electric current and irradiance, being in such cases used as sensors a shunt resistor and a calibrated reference solar cell, respectively. For obtaining the temperature, the LM35 temperature sensor was employed, presenting satisfactory results. The data acquired by the Arduino board are saved on a memory stick for later analysis. The uncertainty analysis was performed by using statistical methods, in which the systematic and random errors for each measurement channel were determined. The assembled prototype was applied for measuring the IV curve of a photovoltaic generator composed of a string of 3 modules located on the roof of one of the buildings from Solar Energy Laboratory of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (LABSOL) and its result was compared with the IV tracer used on the laboratory. The result was, generally, satisfactory when compared with the two-wire measurement by the laboratory’s system, but showed a larger error when compared with the four-wire measurement. This prototype was also submitted to a test to evaluate its capacity of adequately presenting the IV curve when defects are induced on the string. The result presented by the prototype was quite similar to that obtained from LABSOL’s system. In general, it is possible to affirm that the prototype, based on its results, proved to be adequate for in field measurement of photovoltaic arrays.