<p> With increased public interest in protecting the environment, scientists and engineers aim to improve energy conversion efficiency. Thermoelectrics offer many advantages as thermal management technology. When compared to vapor compression refrigeration, above approximately 200 to 600 watts, cost in dollars per watt as well as <i>COP</i> are not advantageous for thermoelectrics. The goal of this work was to determine if optimized pulse supercooling operation could improve cooling capacity or efficiency of a thermoelectric device. The basis of this research is a thermal-electrical analogy based modeling study using SPICE. Two models were developed. The first model, a standalone thermocouple with no attached mass to be cooled. The second, a system that includes a module attached to a heat generating mass. With the thermocouple study, a new approach of generating response surfaces with characteristic parameters was applied. The current pulse height and pulse on-time was identified for maximizing Net Transient Advantage, a newly defined metric. The corresponding pulse height and pulse on-time was utilized for the system model. Along with the traditional steady state starting current of <i>I_max, I_opt</i> was employed. The pulse shape was an isosceles triangle. For the system model, metrics new to pulse cooling were <i>Q_c</i>, power consumption and COP. The effects of optimized current pulses were studied by changing system variables. Further studies explored time spacing between pulses and temperature distribution in the thermoelement. It was found net <i>Q_c</i> over an entire pulse event can be improved over <i> I_max</i> steady operation but not over steady <i>I_opt</i> operation. <i>Q_c</i> can be improved over <i>I_opt</i> operation but only during the early part of the pulse event. COP is reduced in transient pulse operation due to the different time constants of <i>Q_c</i> and <i> P_in.</i> In some cases lower performance interface materials allow more <i>Q_c</i> and better <i>COP</i> during transient operation than higher performance interface materials. Important future work might look at developing innovative ways of biasing Joule heat to <i>T_h.</i></p>

The Yankee cylinder is used in most of Metso Paper's machines. It is used in the drying and creping process. Since the outcome of these processes largely affect the paper's final quality it is important that the Yankee cylinder behaves in a controlled fashion. One important parameter affecting the behaviour of the Yankee cylinder is its surface temperature. The objective of this thesis was to search for and evaluate methods for measuring the surface temperature of a Yankee cylinder during operation. Metso Paper is looking for a method having an accuracy of ΔT = 1°C, a response time of t&lt;10 ms, and being portable. Three different instruments were tested during the thesis: Thermophone, a contact measurement device currently used by Metso Paper. RAYNGER MX4, a pyrometer from Raytek. FLIR P640, a thermographic camera with a 640x480 focal plane array from FLIR. The instruments were tested by performing measurements on Metso Paper's pilot machine in Karlstad during operation. The measurements revealed drawbacks for all three instruments. The biggest drawbacks of the Thermophone was its response time, t~5 min, and its dependence on the frictional heating of the teflon cup. The frictional heating causes the measured temperature to increase even after 15 min making it hard to know when to stop the measurement. How much the frictional heating affects the measured temperature was difficult to analyse, making it a suggestion for future studies. The biggest drawback of the pyrometer and the thermographic camera is the measurement error due to emissivity errors. Since the Yankee cylinder have a varying surface finish the emissivity varies a lot along the surface introducing temperature errors as large as ΔT=30°C. Two methods that claim to be emissivity independent were investigated; double-band and gold cup pyrometers. Double-band pyrometers require the target to be a grey body and for it to have large temperatures, T&gt;300°C, making this method unsuitable for measuring the surface temperature of the Yankee cylinder. Gold cup pyrometers require the gold hemisphere to have a reflectance of ρ=1. Because of the environment surrounding the Yankee cylinder it would be difficult keeping the gold hemisphere as clean as required making this method unsuitable as well.

This thesis concerns the analytical and numerical analysis of the water vapour condensation from the multicomponent mixture of condensable and noncondensable gases in the area of the nuclear reactor thermal-hydraulic safety. Following an extensive literature review in this field three aspects of the condensation phenomenon have been taken into consideration: a surface condensation, a liquid condensate interaction with gaseous mixtures and a spontaneous condensation in supersaturated mixtures. In all these cases condensation heat and mass transfer rates are significantly dependent on the local mixture intensive parameters like for example the noncondensable species concentration. In order to analyze the multicomponent mixture distribution in the above-mentioned conditions, appropriate simplified physical and mathematical models have been formulated. Two mixture compositions have been taken into account: a binary mixture of water vapour with heavy noncondensable gas and a ternary mixture with two noncondensable gases with different molecular weights. For the binary mixture a special attention has been focused on the heavy gas accumulation in the near-interface region and the influence of liquid film instabilities on the interface heat and mass transfer phenomena. For the ternary mixture of gases a special attention has been paid to the influence of the light gas and induced buoyancy forces on the condensation heat and mass transfer processes. Both analytical and numerical methods have been used in order to find solutions to these problems. The analytical part has been performed applying the boundary layer approximation and the similarity method to the system of film and mixture conservation equations. The numerical analysis has been performed with the in-house developed code and commercial CFD software. Performing analytical and CFD calculations it has been found that most important processes which govern the multicomponent gas distribution and condensation heat transfer degradation are directly related to the interaction between interface mass balances and buoyancy forces. It has been observed that if the influence of the liquid film instabilities is taken into consideration the heat transfer enhancement due to the presence of different types of waves is directly related to the internal film hydrodynamics and shows up in the mixture-side heat transfer coefficient. The model developed for the dispersed phase growth shows that degradation of the condensation heat transfer rate, which is a consequence of degradation of the convective mass flux, should be taken into account for highly supersaturated gaseous mixtures and can be captured by combination with the mechanistic CFD surface condensation model. Keywords: condensation, noncondensable gases, CFD simulation, boundary-layer approximation, binary and ternary mixtures / <p>QC 20100623</p>

<p> The scientific community is interested in furthering the understanding of shock wave structures in water, given its implications in a wide range of applications; from researching how shock waves penetrate unwanted body tissues to studying how humans respond to blast waves. Shock wave research on water has existed for over five decades. Previous studies have investigated the shock response of water at pressures ranging from 1 to 70 GPa using flyer plate experiments. This report differs from previously published experiments in that the water was loaded to shock pressures ranging from 0.36 to 0.70 GPa. The experiment also utilized tap water rather than distilled water as the test sample.</p><p> Flyer plate experiments were conducted in the Shock Physics Laboratory at Marquette University to determine the structure of shock waves within water. A 12.7 mm bore gas gun fired a projectile made of copper, PMMA, or aluminum at a stationary target filled with tap water. Graphite break pins in a circuit determined the initial projectile velocity prior to coming into contact with the target. A Piezoelectric timing pin (PZT pin) at the front surface of the water sample determined the arrival of the leading wave and a Photon Doppler Velocimeter (PDV) measured particle velocity from the rear surface of the water sample. The experimental results were compared to simulated data from a Eulerian Hydrocode called CTH [1]. The experimental results differed from the simulated results with deviations believed to be from experimental equipment malfunctions. The main hypothesis being that the PZT pin false triggered, resulting in measured lower than expected shock velocities. The simulated results were compared to published data from various authors and was within range.</p>

<p> The use of explosives brings countless benefits to our everyday lives in areas such as mining, oil and gas exploration, demolition, and avalanche control. However, because of the potential destructive power of explosives, strict safety procedures must be an integral part of any explosives operation. </p><p> The goal of this work is to provide a solution to protect against the hazards that accompany the general use of explosives, specifically in avalanche control. For this reason, a blast shield was designed and tested to protect the Colorado Department of Transportation personnel against these unpredictable effects. This document will develop a complete analysis to answer the following questions: what are the potential hazards from the detonation of high explosives, what are their effects, and how can we protect ourselves against them. To answer these questions theoretical, analytical, and numerical calculations were performed. Finally, a full blast shield prototype was tested under different simulated operational environments proving its effectiveness as safety device. The Colorado Department of Transportation currently owns more than fifteen shields that are used during every operation involving explosive materials.</p>

This thesis presents research and design of a Proportional, Integral, and Derivative (PID) controller that uses a microcontroller (Arduino) platform. The research part discusses the structure of a PID algorithm with some motivating work already performed with the Arduino-based PID controller from various fields. An inexpensive Arduino-based PID controller designed in the laboratory to control the temperature, consists of hardware parts: Arduino UNO, thermoelectric cooler, and electronic components while the software portion includes C/C++ programming. The PID parameters for a particular controller are found manually. The role of different PID parameters is discussed with the subsequent comparison between different modes of PID controllers. The designed system can effectively measure the temperature with an error of ± 0.6℃ while a stable temperature control with only slight deviation from the desired value (setpoint) is achieved. The designed system and concepts learned from the control system serve in pursuing inexpensive and precise ways to control physical parameters within a desired range in our laboratory.

Thesis (M.S. in civil engineering)--Washington State University, December 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 37-38).

<p>The Yankee cylinder is used in most of Metso Paper's machines. It is used in the drying and creping process. Since the outcome of these processes largely affect the paper's final quality it is important that the Yankee cylinder behaves in a controlled fashion. One important parameter affecting the behaviour of the Yankee cylinder is its surface temperature.</p><p>The objective of this thesis was to search for and evaluate methods for measuring the surface temperature of a Yankee cylinder during operation. Metso Paper is looking for a method having an accuracy of ΔT = 1°C, a response time of t<10 ms, and being portable.</p><p>Three different instruments were tested during the thesis:</p><ul><li>Thermophone, a contact measurement device currently used by Metso Paper.</li><li>RAYNGER MX4, a pyrometer from Raytek.</li><li>FLIR P640, a thermographic camera with a 640x480 focal plane array from FLIR.</li></ul><p>The instruments were tested by performing measurements on Metso Paper's pilot machine in Karlstad during operation. The measurements revealed drawbacks for all three instruments. The biggest drawbacks of the Thermophone was its response time, t~5 min, and its dependence on the frictional heating of the teflon cup. The frictional heating causes the measured temperature to increase even after 15 min making it hard to know when to stop the measurement. How much the frictional heating affects the measured temperature was difficult to analyse, making it a suggestion for future studies.</p><p>The biggest drawback of the pyrometer and the thermographic camera is the measurement error due to emissivity errors. Since the Yankee cylinder have a varying surface finish the emissivity varies a lot along the surface introducing temperature errors as large as ΔT=30°C.</p><p>Two methods that claim to be emissivity independent were investigated; double-band and gold cup pyrometers. Double-band pyrometers require the target to be a grey body and for it to have large temperatures, T>300°C, making this method unsuitable for measuring the surface temperature of the Yankee cylinder.</p><p>Gold cup pyrometers require the gold hemisphere to have a reflectance of ρ=1. Because of the environment surrounding the Yankee cylinder it would be difficult keeping the gold hemisphere as clean as required making this method unsuitable as well.</p>

Light scattering in turbid media is essential for such diverse application areas as paper and print, computer rendering, optical tomography, astrophysics and remote sensing. This thesis investigates angular variations of light reflected from plane-parallel turbid media using both mathematical models and reflectance measurements, and deals with several applications. The model of most widespread use in industry is the Kubelka-Munk model, which neglects angular variations in the reflected light. This thesis employs a numerical solution of the angle resolved radiative transfer problem to better understand how the angular variations are related to medium properties. It is found that the light is reflected anisotropically from all media encountered in practice, and that the angular variations depend on the medium absorption and transmittance and on the angular distribution of the incident light. If near-surface bulk scattering dominates, as in strongly absorbing or highly transmitting media or obliquely illuminated media, relatively more light is reflected in large polar (grazing) angles. These results are confirmed by measurements using a set of paper samples. The only situation with isotropic reflectance is when a non-transmitting, non-absorbing medium is illuminated diffusely. This is the only situation where the Kubelka-Munk model is exactly valid. The results also show that there is no such thing as an ideal bulk scattering diffusor, and these findings can affect calibration and measurement procedures defined in international standards.The implications of the presented results are studied for a set of applications including reflectance measurements, angle resolved color and point spreading. It is seen that differences in instrument detection and illumination geometry can result in measurement differences. The differences are small and if other sources of error - such as fluorescence and gloss - are not eliminated, the differences related to instrument geometry become difficult to discern. Furthermore, the angle resolved color of a set of paper samples is assessed both theoretically and experimentally. The chroma decreases and the lightness increases as the observation polar angle increases. The observed differences are clearly large, and it is an open issue how angle resolved color should be handled. Finally, the dependence of point spreading in turbid media on the medium parameters is studied. The asymmetry factor is varied while maintaining constant the optical response in a standardized measurement geometry. It is seen that the point spreading increases as forward scattering becomes more dominant, and that the effect is larger if the medium is low-absorbing with large mean free path. A generic model of point spreading must therefore capture the dependence on all of these medium parameters.This thesis shows that turbid media reflect light anisotropically, and angle resolved radiative transfer models are therefore necessary to capture this. Using simplified models can introduce errors in an uncontrolled manner. The results presented potentially have consequences for all applications dealing with light scattering, some of which are studied here.

Materials with biotechnological applications and materials that interact with the biological environment play an ever increasing role in our lives and society. In order to be able to tailor specific properties of these materials to suit their intended applications, it is important to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between the material structure and its function. This thesis contributes to the goal of achieving a better understanding of the functional properties of materials through the development of novel characterizing methods as well as the analysis of such materials. Electrodynamic and mechanical spectroscopy methods are developed or employed in the characterization of three classes of materials, namely, pharmaceutical, biomedical and biological materials. Two electrodynamic methods utilizing conductivity measurements were developed for the investigation of drug release from pharmaceutical dosage forms, particularly in low liquid volumes. Furthermore, a mechanical spectroscopy method based on the split Hopkinson pressure bar setup was developed for the viscoelastic characterization of pharmaceutical compacts. It was shown that this method is a valuable complement to other methods of characterization. Dielectric spectroscopy was integrated with microfabrication techniques to create a method for bacteria detection in a biotechnological application. As well, dielectric spectroscopy was used in the characterization of a novel biomimetic ionomer and was demonstrated to be a powerful tool for studying the bulk molecular dynamics of this functional material. The work presented in this thesis not only provides an enhanced understanding of materials and their functional properties, but also presents new methods that should be useful for the future characterization of such materials.