Achieving energy neutrality has shifted focus towards aeration systems optimization, due to the high energy consumption of aeration processes in modern advanced wastewater treatment plants. The activated sludge wastewater treatment process is dependent on aeration efficiency which supplies the oxygen needed in the treatment process. The process is a complex heterogeneous mixture of microorganisms, bacteria, particles, colloids, natural organic matter, polymers and cations with varying densities, shapes and sizes. These activated sludge parameters have different impacts on aeration efficiency defined by the OTE, % and alpha. Oxygen transfer efficiency (OTE) is the mass of oxygen transferred into the liquid from the mass of air or oxygen supplied, and is expressed as a percentage (%). OTE is the actual operating efficiency of an aeration system. The alpha Factor (α) is the ratio of standard oxygen transfer efficiency at process conditions (αSOTE) to standard oxygen transfer efficiency of clean water (SOTE). It is also referred to as the ratio of process water volumetric mass transfer coefficient to clean water volumetric mass transfer coefficient. The alpha factor accounts for wastewater contaminants (i.e. soap and detergent) which have an adverse effect on oxygen transfer efficiency. Understanding their different impacts and how different treatment technologies affect aeration efficiency will help to optimize and improve aeration efficiency so as to reduce plant operating costs. A pilot scale study of fine pore diffuser fouling and mitigation, quantified by dynamic wet pressure (DWP), oxygen transfer efficiency and alpha measurement were performed at Blue Plains, Washington DC. In the study a mechanical cleaning method, reverse flexing (RF), was used to treat two diffusers (RF1, RF2) to mitigate fouling, while two diffusers were kept as a control with no reverse flexing. A 45 % increase in DWP of the control diffuser after 17 month of operation was observed, an indication of fouling. RF treated diffusers (RF1 and RF2) did not show any significant increase in DWP, and in comparison to the control diffuser prevented a 35 % increase in DWP. Hence, the RF fouling mitigation technique potentially saved blower energy consumption by reducing the pressure burden on the air blower and the blower energy requirement. However, no significant impact of the RF fouling mitigation treatment technique in preventing a decrease in alpha-fouling (𝝰F) of the fine pore diffusers over time of operation was observed. This was because either the RF treatment method maintained wide pore openings after cleaning over time, or a dominant effect of other wastewater characteristics such as the surfactant concentration or particulate COD could have interfered with OTE. Further studies on the impact of wastewater characteristics (i.e., surfactants and particulate COD) and operating conditions on OTE and alpha were carried out in another series of pilot and batch scale tests. In this study, the influence of different wastewater matrices (treatment phases) on oxygen transfer efficiency (OTE) and alpha using full-scale studies at the Blue Plains Treatment Plant was investigated. A strong relationship between the wastewater matrices with oxygen transfer characteristics was established, and as expected increased alphas were observed for the cleanest wastewater matrices (i.e., with highest effluent quality). There was a 46 % increase in alpha as the total COD and surfactant concentrations decreased from 303 to 24 mgCOD/L and 12 to 0.3 mg/L measured as sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) in the nitrification/denitrification effluent with respect to the raw influent. The alpha improvement with respect to the decrease in COD and surfactant concentration suggested the impact of one or more of the wastewater characteristics on OTE and alpha. Batch testing conducted to characterize the mechanistic impact of the wastewater contaminants present in the different wastewater matrices found that the major contaminants influencing OTE and alpha were surfactants and particulate/colloidal material. The volumetric mass transfer coefficient (kLa) measurements from the test also identified surfactant and colloidal COD as the major wastewater contaminants present in the influent and chemically enhanced primary treatment (CEPT) effluent wastewaters impacting OTE and alpha. Soluble COD was observed to potentially improve OTE and alpha due to its contribution in enhancing the oxygen uptake rate (OUR). Although the indirect positive impact of OUR on alpha observed in this study contradicts some other studies, it shows the need for further investigation of OUR impacts on oxygen transfer. Importantly, the mechanistic characterization and quantitative correlation between wastewater contaminants and aeration efficiency found in this study will help to minimize overdesign with respect to aeration system specification, energy wastage, and hence the cost of operation. This study therefore shows new tools as well as the identification of critical factors impacting OTE and alpha in addition to diffuser fouling. Gas transfer depression caused by surfactants when they accumulate at the gas-liquid interface during the activated sludge wastewater treatment process reduces oxygen mass transfer rates, OTE and alpha which increases energy cost. In order to address the adverse effect of surfactants on OTE and alpha, another study was designed to evaluate 4 different wastewater secondary treatment strategies/technologies that enhances surfactant removal through enhanced biosorption and biodegradation, and to also determine their effect on oxygen transfer and alpha. A series of pilot and batch scale tests were conducted to compare and correlate surfactant removal efficiency and alpha for a) conventional high-rate activated sludge (HRAS), b) optimized HRAS with contactor-stabilization technology (HRAS-CS), c) optimized HRAS bioaugmented (Bioaug) with nitrification sludge (Nit S) and d) optimized bioaugmented HRAS with an anaerobic selector phase technology (An-S) reactor system configuration. The treatment technologies showed surfactant percentage removals of 37, 45, 61 and 87 %, and alphas of 0.37 ±0.01, 0.42 ±0.02, 0.44 ±0.01 and 0.60 ±0.02 for conventional HRAS, HRAS-CS, Bioaug and the An-S reactor system configuration, respectively. The optimized bioaugmented anaerobic selector phase technology showed the highest increased surfactant removal (135 %) through enhanced surfactant biosorption and biodegradation under anaerobic conditions, which also complemented the highest increased alpha (62 %) achieved when compared to the conventional HRAS. This study showed that the optimized bioaugmented anaerobic selector phase reactor system configuration is a promising technology or strategy to minimize the surfactant effects on alpha during the secondary aeration treatment stage / Ph. D.

High deposition rates on large areas are industrial needs for mass production of microcrystalline silicon (μc-Si:H) solar cells. This doctoral work aims at exploring the usefulness of Matrix Distributed Electron Cyclotron Resonance (MDECR) plasmas to process the intrinsic layer of μc-Si:H p-i-n solar cells at high rates. With the high dissociation of silane achieved in MDECR plasmas, deposition rates as high as 6nm/s and 2.8nm/s have been demonstrated in our lab for amorphous and microcrystalline silicon respectively, without hydrogen dilution. This technique is also promising because it can be easily scaled up on large areas, just by extending the matrix of elementary microwave applicators. This subject was a unique opportunity to cover the whole chain of this field of research : A new MDECR reactor has been specially designed and assembled during this project. Its maintenance and its improvement have been important technical challenges : for example, the addition of a load-lock enabled us to lower the oxygen concentration in our films by a factor of 10. The impact of the deposition parameters (e.g. the ion energy, the substrate temperature, different gas mixtures, the microwave power) has been explored in extensive parametric studies in order to optimize the material quality. Great efforts have been invested in the characterization of the films. Our strategy has been to develop a wide range of diagnostics (ellipsometry, Raman spectroscopy, SIMS, FTIR, XRD, electrical characterizations etc.). Finally, p-i-n cells have been processed with the selected interesting materials. The successive successful improvements in the material quality (e.g. diffusion lengths of holes parallel to the substrate as high as 250 nm) did unfortunately not result in high efficiency solar cells. Their limited performance is in particular due to a very poor response in the red part of the spectrum resulting in low current densities. Consequently, the potential sources of limitation of the reactor, the material and the device have been studied : e.g. the presence of “cracks” prone to post-oxidation in the highly crystallized materials and the risk of deterioration of the ZnO substrate or of the p-doped layer by a too high process temperature or by hydrogen diffusing from the plasma.

A constitutive model has been developed to model the shock response of single crystal aluminum from peak pressures ranging from 2-110 GPa. This model couples a description of higher-order thermoelasticity with a dislocation-based viscoplastic formulation, both of which are formulated for single crystals. The constitutive model has been implemented using two numerical methods: a plane wave method that tracks the propagating wave front; and an extended one-dimensional, finite-difference method that can be used to model spatio-temporal evolution of wave propagation in anisotropic materials. The constitutive model, as well as these numerical methods, are used to simulate shock wave propagation in single crystals, polycrystals, and pre-textured polycrystals. Model predictions are compared with extensive existing experimental data and are then used to quantify the influence of the initial material state on the subsequent shock response. A coarse-grained model is then proposed to capture orientation-dependent deformation heterogeneity, and is shown to replicate salient features predicted by direct finite-difference simulation of polycrystals in the weak shock regime. The work in this thesis establishes a general framework that can be used to quantify the influence of initial material state on subsequent shock behavior not only for aluminum single crystals, but for other face-centered cubic and lower symmetry crystalline metals as well.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:28:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo .pdf: 1416633 bytes, checksum: 22095939bdd40881c123d814a5962c73 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-29 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The integration between wastewater treatment in high rate algal ponds (HRAPs) and microalgae culture, aiming biomass production, has been largely discussed, in order to reduce costs associated with both process. Nevertheless, for that association being feasible, it is still necessary reaching in the field the observed productivity in the laboratory scales. In many cases, this lack is due to the fact that when microalgae are exposed to high sunlight rates, sunlight saturation and photoinibition effects may influence their growth. On the other hand, solar radiation represents an important factor in the pollutants removal on HRAPs. The aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of different levels of solar radiation on the wastewater treatment efficiency of the HRAP, specifically on the removal of nutrients and indicator microorganisms, trough the use of different covers in high rate ponds fed with UASB effluent. Reductions of 22, 30 and 60% of the natural Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) (1.920 μE.m-2.s-1) were assessed. A 30% reduction on the PAR resulted on greatest values of dissolved oxigen, whereas a 60% reduction resulted on smallest values of pH and temperature. Concerning nitrogen removal, the 20% reduction showed to be more efficient for total kjeldahl nitrogen and ammonium removal. The variation on PAR did not influence Phosphorus or indicator microorganisms removal. The observed productivity, from 5,3 to 7,4g.m-2.d-1, and pollutants removal efficiency (45 to 61% for TKN, 58 to 78% for NH3, 9 to 16% for total Phosphorus and from 1.5 to 2.0 removed logs for total coliforms and E.coli) support the viability of the association between algal biomass production and wastewater treatment. / A integração dos processos de tratamento de esgoto em lagoas de alta taxa (LATs) e cultivo de microalgas com vistas à produção de biomassa tem sido amplamente discutida, como forma de reduzir os custos associados a ambos. No entanto, para que tal associação seja de fato viável, ainda é necessário alcançar em campo as produtividades observadas em escala de laboratório. Muitas vezes, essa lacuna se deve ao fato de que, quando as microalgas estão expostas a altas intensidades luminosas, os efeitos de saturação luminosa e fotoinibição podem interferir no seu crescimento. Por outro lado, a radiação solar representa um importante fator na remoção de poluentes nas LATs. O objetivo deste trabalho foi avaliar a influência de diferentes níveis de radiação solar na eficiência de pós-tratamento de efluente de reator UASB das LATs, especificamente na remoção de nutrientes e microrganismos indicadores de contaminação. Através da utilização de diferentes formas de cobertura, avaliou-se reduções da ordem de 22, 30 e 60% na Radiação Fotossinteticamente Ativa (RFA) média natural, de 1.920 μE.m-2.s-1. A redução da RFA em 30% propiciou os maiores valores de oxigênio dissolvido, e a redução de 60% resultou em menores valores de pH e temperatura. No que diz respeito à remoção de nitrogênio, a redução de 20% apresentou-se mais eficiente para remoção de NTK e NH3. Os diferentes níveis de radiação avaliados apresentaram resultados semelhantes para a remoção de fósforo e microrganismos indicadores. A produtividade observada, de 5,3 a 7,4g.m-2.d-1, e as eficiências de remoção de poluentes (45 a 61% para NTK, 58 a 78% para NH3, 9 a 16% para Ptotal e de 1,5 a 2,0 logs removidos para coliformes totais e E.coli) sugerem a viabilidade da associação entre sistemas de produção de biomassa algal e tratamento de esgoto.

Although high rate algae ponds (HRAPs) are a proven wastewater treatment technology with numerous environmental, social, and economic benefits, their widespread use has been hindered by inconsistent and unreliable settling performance. Hence, the goal of this thesis is to investigate how specific operational parameters affect the settling performance of HRAPs. Nine HRAPs (30 m2 surface area, 0.3 m depth) were operated as three triplicate sets, with each set run on either a 2, 3, or 4 day HRT continuously from January 25, 2012 through April 11, 2013. Settling performance was determined (i) by measuring the TSS of Imhoff cone supernatant after 2 and 24 hours of settling and (ii) by measuring the TSS of tube settler effluent. Ponds operating on 2 - 3 day HRTs (loading rate was 24 - 36 g/m3-day csBOD5 and food to microorganism (F/M) ratio was 0.13 - 0.21 day-1) were able to settle consistently with residual TSS averaging less than 40 mg/L after 2 hours of settling time. Tube settlers showed potential as effective harvesting devices; ponds operating on a 2-day HRT averaged 27.9 ± 9.2 mg/L TSS in tube settler effluent at an overflow rate (OFR) of 9.4 L/min-m2. Microscopy analysis was performed and relationships were made between settling performance and algae dominance and floc structure.

Although the A-stage high-rate activated sludge (HRAS) process destroys some of the chemical energy present in municipal wastewater, this process has been gaining attention as a viable technology for achieving energy neutrality at water resource recovery facilities. In addition to carbon capture for energy recovery, A-stages are also being utilized upstream of shortcut biological nitrogen removal (BNR) processes as these BNR processes often require a controlled influent carbon to nitrogen ratio that is lower than required for conventional BNR processes. While there is extensive knowledge on conventional activated sludge processes, including process controllers and activated sludge models, there has been little detailed research on the carbon removal mechanisms of A-stage processes operated at solids retention times (SRT) less than about one day. The overall objective of this study was to elucidate the chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal mechanisms of short SRT activated sludge processes with a specific focus on the removal of the different COD fractions under varying operating conditions including dissolved oxygen, hydraulic retention time, temperature, and SRT. Once understood, automatic process control logic was developed with the purpose of producing the influent characteristics required for emerging shortcut BNR processes and capturing the remaining COD with the intent of redirecting it to an energy recovery process. To investigate the removal and assimilation of readily biodegradable substrate (SS), this study evaluated a respirometric method to estimate the SS and active heterotrophic biomass (XH) fractions of the raw wastewater influent and effluent of an A-stage pilot process. The influent SS values were comparable to the SS values determined using a physical-chemical method, but the effluent values did not correlate well. This led to the measurement of the heterotrophic aerobic yield coefficient and decay rate of the pilot process. The yield coefficient was estimated to be 0.79±0.02 gCOD/gCOD, which was higher than the accepted value of 0.67 g/g. It was speculated that the batch respirometry tests resulted in the aerobic storage of SS and this likely contributed to the error associated with the determination of SS and XH. Therefore, physical-chemical fractionation methods were used to determine the removal of the individual COD fractions. It was concluded that the SRT was the primary control parameter and below a 0.5 day SRT the dominate COD removal mechanisms were assimilation and oxidation of readily degradable substrate and sedimentation of particulate matter. At SRTs between 0.5-1 days, COD removal became a function of hydrolysis, as adsorption of particulate and colloidal matter was maximized but not complete because of limited adsorption sites. Once adequate adsorption sites were available, effluent quality became dependent on the efficiency of bioflocculation and solids separation. While the SRT of the pilot process could not be directly controlled because of severe biofouling issues when using in situ sensors, a MLSS-based SRT controller was successfully implemented instead. The controller was able to reduce total COD removal variation in the A-stage by 90%. This controller aslo provided the capability to provide a consistent carbon to nitrogen ratio to the downstream B-stage pilot process. To ascertain the settling, dewaterability, and digestibility of the sludge produced by the pilot A-stage process, several standardized and recently developed methods were conducted. The results from these tests indicated that the A-stage had similar dewaterability and digestibility characteristics to primary sludge with average achievable cake solids of 34.3±0.4% and average volatile solids reduction (VSR) of 82±4%. The A-stage sludge also had an average specific methane yield of 0.45±0.06 m3CH4/kgVS. These results were attributed to low extracellular polymeric substance (EPS) content. However, further research is needed to better quantify EPS and determine the effect of HRAS operating parameters on EPS production. Overall the A/B pilot study was able to capture 47% of the influent COD as waste sludge while only oxidizing 45% of the influent COD. Of the COD captured, the A-stage contributed over 70% as dry solids. Coupled with high sludge production, VSR, and methane yield the A/B process was able to generate 10-20% more biogas and 10-20% less dry solids after anaerobic digestion than a comparable single-sludge BNR process. / Ph. D.

Yes / In this work, a new prototype of the eight-element MIMO antenna system for 5G communications, internet of things, and networks has been proposed. This system is based on an H-shaped monopole antenna system that offers 200 MHz bandwidth ranges between 3.4-3.6GHz, and the isolation between any two elements is well below -12dB without using any decoupling structure. The proposed system is designed on a commercially available 0.8mm-thick FR4 substrate. One side of the chassis is used to place the radiating elements, while the copper from the other side is being removed to avoid short-circuiting with other components and devices. This also enables space for other systems, sub-systems, and components. A prototype is fabricated and excellent agreement is observed between the experimental and the computed results. It was found that ECC is 0.2 for any two radiating elements which is consistent with the desirable standards, and channel capacity is 38 bps/Hz which is 2.9 times higher than 4x4 MIMO configuration. In addition, single hand mode and dual hand mode analysis are conducted to understand the operation of the system under such operations and to identify losses and/or changes in the key performance parameters. Based on the results, the proposed antenna system will find its applications in modern 5G handheld devices and internet of things with healthcare and high rate delivery. Besides that, its design simplicity will make it applicable for mass production to be used in industrial demands.

While traumatic aortic injury (TAI) and rupture (TAR) continue to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality in motor vehicle accidents, its underlying mechanisms are still not well understood. Different mechanisms such as increase in intraluminal pressure, relative movement of aorta with respect to mediastinal structures, direct impact to bony structures have been proposed as contributing factors to TAI/TAR. At the tissue level, TAI is assumed to be the result of a complex state of supra-physiological, high rate, and multi-axial loading. A major step to gain insight into the mechanisms of TAI is a characterization of the aortic tissue mechanical and failure properties under loading conditions that resemble traumatic events. While the mechanical behavior of arteries in physiological conditions have been investigated by many researchers, this dissertation was motivated by the scarcity of reported data on supra-physiological and high rate loading conditions of aorta. Material properties of the porcine aortic tissue were characterized and a Fung-type constitutive model was developed based on ex-vivo inflation-extension of aortic segments with intraluminal pressures covering a range from physiological to supra-physiological (70 kPa). The convexity of the material constitutive model was preserved to ensure numerical stability. The increase in ë_è from physiological pressure (13 kPa) to 70 kPa was 13% at the outer wall and 22% at the inner wall while in this pressure range, the longitudinal stretch ratio ë_z increased 20%. A significant nonlinearity in the material behavior was observed as in the same pressure range, the circumferential and longitudinal Cauchy stresses at the inner wall were increased 16 and 18 times respectively. The effect of strain-rate on the mechanical behavior and failure properties of the tissue was characterized using uniaxial extension experiments in circumferential and longitudinal directions at nominal strain rates of 0.3, 3, 30 and 400 s-1. Two distinct states of failure initiation (FI) and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) were identified at both directions. Explicit direct relationships were derived between FI and UTS stresses and strain rate. On the other hand, FI and UTS strains were rate independent and therefore strain was proposed as the main mechanism of failure. On average, engineering strain at FI was 0.85±0.03 for circumferential direction and 0.58±0.02 for longitudinal direction. The engineering strain at UTS was not different between the two directions and reached 0.89±0.03 on average. Tissue pre-failure linear moduli showed an average of 60% increase over the range of strain rates. Using the developed material model, mechanical stability of aorta was studied by varying the loading parameters for two boundary conditions, namely pinned-pinned boundary condition (PPBC) and clamped-clamped boundary condition (CCBC). The critical pressure for CCBC was three times higher than PPBC. It was shown that the relatively free segment of aorta at the isthmus region may become unstable before reaching the peak intraluminal pressures that occur during a trauma. The mechanical instability mechanism was proposed as a contributing factor to TAI, where elevations in tissue stresses and strains due to buckling may increase the risk of injury. / Mechanical Engineering

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 23-26, 2000 / Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center, San Diego, California / This paper introduces new telemetry equipment based on Digital Subscriber Loop DSL technology (high speed transmission over copper cables) for military and industrial applications. A brief xDSL technology overview is followed with introduction of the new ‘P3’ product. A number of new applications for remote data transmission are presented and further highlighted in the Australian Army report detailing their recent equipment operational deployments.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 22-25, 2001 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / This paper introduces new telemetry (communications) equipment based on Digital Subscriber Loop DSL technology (high speed transmission over copper cables) for defense and industrial applications. A brief xDSL technology overview is followed with introduction of the new ‘P3’ product and its application, reviewing advantages of using copper as a communications medium whenever rapidly deployed data and voice links are essential. An Australian Army report, detailing a specific equipment deployment’s findings is reproduced as an independent reference material.