Sootblowing is a process in which supersonic steam jets are used to periodically blast deposits off heat transfer tubes in kraft recovery boilers. However, sootblowing significantly consumes the valuable high pressure steam generated by the boiler, hence it should be optimized. A recovery boiler consists of three convective sections - superheater, generating bank and economizer. The tube arrangement in these sections, particularly the tube spacing is different from each other. Moreover, tubes in an economizer are finned. A sootblower jet will interact differently with these tube arrangements, potentially affecting its strength, and hence deposit removal capability. The objective of this work was to characterize jet/tube interaction in the three sections of a recovery boiler. Lab-scale experiments were conducted in which these interactions were visualized using the schlieren technique coupled with high-speed video, and were quantified by pitot pressure measurements. This work is the first to visualize the interactions. The offset between the jet and tube centrelines, the nozzle exit diameter relative to the tube diameter, and the distance between the nozzle and tube were varied to examine their effects on jet/tube interaction. Results showed that due to the very low spreading rate of a supersonic jet, a jet (primary jet) stops interacting with a superheater platen when the jet is only a small distance away from it. When the jet impinges on a tube, the jet deflects at an angle, giving rise to a weaker ‘secondary’ jet. Due to the large inter-platen spacing, a secondary jet has an insignificant impact in a superheater. In a generating bank, the primary jet weakens between the closely spaced tubes due to increased mixing. However, a secondary jet impinges on the adjacent tubes exerting a high impact pressure on those tubes. The primary jet also weakens between finned economizer tubes, but remains stronger for a greater distance than in a generating bank. As in the case inside a generating bank, a secondary jet also impinges on adjacent rows of tubes in an economizer. The results imply that in a superheater, a sootblower jet must be directed close to the platens to yield useful jet/deposit interactions, and to avoid wasting steam by blowing between the platens. In a generating bank, deposits beyond the first few tubes of a row experience a weaker sootblower jet, and thus may not be removed effectively. However, secondary jets may contribute to removing deposits from the first few adjacent tubes. They may also induce erosion-corrosion of those tubes. Secondary jets may also help remove deposits from adjacent rows in a finned tube economizer. In an economizer, the strength and hence, the deposit removal capability of a sootblower jet diminish only slightly beyond the supersonic portion of the jet. A mathematical model was also developed to determine the feasibility of using inclined sootblower nozzles in recovery boiler superheaters, and suggests that it may be possible to clean superheater platens more effectively with slightly inclined nozzles.

Sled Crash Test System is one of the key elements in todays high safety vehicle designs. In the crash test systems, high speed imaging by high speed cameras is required. For the success of high speed imaging, high speed cameras should be well secured on the sled of the system which is being accelerated to high-g values to simulate vehicle crash. In this study, structural analysis of the high &ndash / g camera support structure for the sled crash test sytem which is available in METU-BiLTiR Center Vehicle Safety Unit is carried out. For the secure connection of the high speed cameras, three different configurations of the camera support structure with different camera positions are analyzed by transient dynamic analysis. The finite element simulations are carried out under the acceleration of 90 g which is the maximum applicable acceleration on the system. After verification of the configurations with the computer simulations, one of the configuration has been tested at the sled test facility of METU-BILTIR Center Vehicle Safety Unit.

Dans le contexte actuel de diminution des pollutions d’origine agricole, laréduction des apports d’intrants devient un enjeu primordial. En France, laviticulture est l’activité qui possède le taux le plus important de traitementsphytosanitaires par unité de surface. Elle représente, à elle seule, 20% de laconsommation annuelle de pesticides. Par conséquent, il est nécessaire d’étudierle devenir des pesticides appliqués afin de réduire les quantités perduesdans l’environnement. Dans le cadre de la réduction d’apport de produitsphytosanitaires dans les vignes, de nombreux travaux ont été effectués sur lamodélisation du comportement d’un spray de gouttelettes et sa répartitionau niveau de la parcelle et de l’air environnant. Cependant, il est égalementimportant de s’intéresser au comportement de la gouttelette directement auniveau de la feuille. Les progrès dans le domaine de l’imagerie et la diminutiondu coût des systèmes ont rendus ces systèmes beaucoup plus attractifs.Le travail de cette thèse consiste en la mise en place d’un système d’imagerierapide qui permet l’observation du comportement à l’impact de gouttelettesrépondant aux conditions de pulvérisation. Les caractéristiques ainsi que lecomportement associé de chaque gouttelette sont extraits grâce à une méthodede suivi d’objets. Une analyse statistique basée sur un nombre représentatifde résultats permet ensuite d’évaluer de manière robuste le devenir d’unegoutte en fonction de ses caractéristiques. Parallèlement, un paramètre décrivantl’état de surface de la feuille est également étudié grâce à l’imagerie : larugosité qui joue un rôle prédominant dans la compréhension des mécanismesd’adhésion / In the domain of vineyard precision spraying research, one of the most importantobjectives is to minimize the volume of phytosanitary products ejected bya sprayer in order to be more environmentally respectful with more effectivevine leaf treatments. Unfortunaltely, even if lot of works have been carriedout at a parcel scale, mainly on losses caused by drift, less works have beencarried out at the leaf scale in order to understand which parameters influencethe spray quality. Since few years, recent improvements in image processing,sensitivity of imaging systems and cost reduction have increased the interestof high-speed imaging techniques. Analyzing the behavior of droplets afterimpact with the leaf thanks to high speed imaging technology is a relevantsolution. By this way, we propose a droplets behavior analyzing process invineyard spraying context based on high-speed acquision system combinedwith image processing techniques. This process allows us to extract dropletsparameters. Therefore, a statistical study is processed in order to determinethe effects of droplets parameters on leaf impact or to predict behavior of asingle droplet. Since this behavior is strongly related to leaf surface, we alsopropose to validate a natural leaf roughness characterization method basedon texture analysis

This thesis concerns experimental investigations of laser cutting and piercing, with theoretical and practical discussions of the results. The thesis is made up of an introduction to laser cutting and six scientific Papers. These Papers are linked in such a way that each of them studies a different aspect of laser cutting: process efficiency in Paper I, morphology and melt flow on the laser cut front in Papers II, III and IV and laser piercing in Papers V and VI. Paper I investigates the effect of material type, material thickness, laser wavelength, and laser power on the efficiency of the cutting process for industrial state-of-the-art CO2 and fibre laser cutting machines. Here the cutting efficiency is defined in its most fundamental terms: as the area of cut edge created per Joule of laser energy. In Paper II a new experimental technique is presented which has been developed to enable high speed imaging of laser cut fronts produced using standard, commercial parameters. The results presented here suggest that the cut front produced when cutting 10 mm thick medium section stainless steel with a fibre laser and a nitrogen assist gas is covered in humps which themselves are covered in a thin layer of liquid. Paper III presents numerical simulations of the melt flow on a fibre laser ablation-driven processing front during remote fusion cutting, RFC. The simulations were validated with high speed imaging observations of the processing front. The simulation results provide explanations of the main liquid transport mechanisms on the processing front, based on information on the temperature, velocity and pressure fields involved. The results are of fundamental relevance for any process governed by a laser ablation induced front. In Paper IV cutting fronts created by CO2 and fibre lasers in stainless steel at thicknesses between 2 mm and 10 mm have been ‘frozen’ and their geometry has been measured. The resulting three-dimensional shapes have been curve fitted as ninth order polynomials. Various features of the cutting front geometry are discussed, including the lack of correlation of the cut front inclination with either the relevant Brewster angle or the inclination of the striations on the cut edge. In this paper, mathematical descriptions of the cutting fronts are obtained, which can be used as input parameters by any researcher in the field of laser cutting simulations. Paper V investigates the subject of laser piercing. Before any cut is started the laser needs to pierce the material. In this paper the laser piercing process is investigated using a wide range of laser pulse parameters, for stainless steel using a fibre laser. The results reveal the influence of pulse parameters on pierce time and pierced hole diameter. A high speed imaging camera was used to time the penetration event and to study the laser-material interactions involved in drilling the pierced holes. In Paper VI a ‘dynamic’ or ‘moving beam’, laser piercing technique is introduced for processing 15 mm thick stainless steel. One important aspect of laser piercing is the reliability of the process because industrial laser cutting machines are programmed for the minimum reliable pierce time. In this work a comparison was made between a stationary laser and a laser which moves along a circular trajectory with varying processing speeds. High speed imaging was employed during the piercing process to understand melt behavior inside the pierce hole. Throughout this work experimental techniques, including advanced high speed imaging, have been used in conjunction with simulations and theoretical analysis, to provide new knowledge for understanding and improving laser beam cutting and its associated piercing process.

In Laser Materials Processing there has always been a need for suitable methods to supervise and monitor the processes on line, to ensure correct production quality or to trigger alarms when failures are detected. Numerous investigations have been made in this field, including experimental and theoretical work. It is common practice in this field to monitor surface temperature, plasma radiation and back-reflected laser light, coaxially with the laser beam. Traditionally, the monitoring systems involved carry out no statistical analysis of the signals received - they merely involve thresholds. This thesis looks at the feedback collected during laser welding using such a co-axial setup from a Digital Signal Processing point of view and also uses high speed video photography to correlate signal perturbations with process anomalies.Modern Digital Signal Processing techniques such as Kalman filtering, Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis have been applied to the measurement data and have generated new ways to describe the weld behaviour using parameters such as reflected pulse shape. The limitations of commercially available welding supervision systems have been studied and design suggestions for the next generation of on line weld monitoring equipment have been formulated.

No description available.

Ablation controlled electrothermal (ET) plasma discharge devices consist of a small diameter capillary through which a large amount of energy is discharged. The high energy in the discharge ablates an inner sleeve material, ionizes the material, and a high energy-density plasma jet accelerates out the open end. ET devices can find applications in internal combustion engines, Tokamak fusion fueling and stabilization, hypervelocity launchers, and propulsion. The ballistic properties of an ET device are highly dependent on the propellant and ablated material. A useful noninvasive technique to characterize a propellant in these types of devices is spectroscopy. The purpose of this study is to design and conduct experiments on the ET facility called PIPE to verify results and assumptions in the ETFLOW simulation code as well as resolve data collection issues such as equipment triggering as spectrometer saturation. Experiments are carried out using an Ocean Optics LIBS2500plus high resolution spectrometer and a Photron FASTCAM SA4 high speed camera. Electron plasma temperatures are estimated using copper peaks in the UV region with the relative line intensity method, and electron plasma density is estimated by measuring the full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the stark broadened H--β line at 486 nm. Electron temperatures between 0.19 eV and 0.49 eV, and electron densities between 4.68*1022 m-3 and 5.75*10²² m⁻³ were measured in the expanding plasma jet about an inch outside the source with values as expected for this region. Velocity measurements of PIPE match well with simulations at around 5333 m/s. This study concluded that the assumption that the propellant Lexan is completely dissociated is a valid assumption, and that the ETFLOW results for electron temperature, density, and bulk plasma velocity match experimental values. / Master of Science

<p>A previously designed lens system is constructed and characterized for possible application to engine diagnostics and 3D reconstructions of combusting flows. Since optical engines cannot be operated at the same conditions as a production engine, optical access to a production engine, with minimum changes in the engine geometry is necessary for developing a better understanding of the in-cylinder processes. The application of a probe designed to fit in the pressure transducer port of a diesel engine was demonstrated in this work. Measurement of various optical parameters established the ability of the lens system to have a good resolution over the entire stroke length of the cylinder. The temperature analysis of the probe and lens system confirmed its ability to withstand the high-temperature conditions in the engine cylinder head. The lens system design was coupled with imaging fibers to transmit images from the image plane of the probe to a high-speed camera located at a safe distance from the combusting environment. Due to the robust design of the probe and its compatibility with an imaging fiber, the probe was identified to be a good alternative as an inexpensive lens system for tomography in challenging environments. To validate its use, 3D reconstruction of a sewing pin using a range of views was demonstrated. Parameters affecting the reconstructions were identified and optimized to obtain high-quality reconstructions. </p>

This thesis consists of five articles and a summary. Thethesis deals with methods for measuring properties of thevoice. The methods are all computer-based, but utilisedifferent approaches for measuring different aspects of thevoice. Paper I introduces the Visual Sort and Rate (VSR) method forperceptual rating of voice quality. The method is based on theVisual Analogue Scale (VAS), but simultaneously shows allstimuli as icons along the VAS on the computer screen. As thelistener places similar-sounding stimuli close to each otherduring the rating process, comparing stimuli becomeseasier. Paper II introduces the correlogram. Fundamental frequencyF0 sometimes cannot be strictly defined, particularly forperturbed voice signals. The method displays multipleconsecutive correlation functions in a grey scale image. Thus,the correlogram avoids selecting a single F0 value. Rather itpresents an unbiased image of periodicity, allowing theinvestigator to select among several candidates, ifappropriate. PaperIII introduces a method for detection of phonation tobe utilised in voice accumulators. The method uses twomicrophones attached near the subject’s ears. Phase andamplitude relations of the microphone signals are used to forma phonation detector. The output of the method can be used tomeasure phonation time, speaking time and fundamental frequencyof the subject, as well as sound pressure level of both thesubject’s voicing and the ambient sounds. Paper IV introduces a method for Fourier analysis ofhigh-speed laryngoscopic imaging. The data from the consecutiveimages are re-arranged to form time-series that reflect thetime-variation of light intensity in each pixel. Each of thesetime series is then analysed by means of Fouriertransformation, such that a spectrum for each pixel isobtained. Several ways of displaying these spectra aredemonstrated. Paper V examines a test set-up for simultaneous recording ofairflow, intra-oral pressure, electro-glottography, audio andhigh-speed imaging. Data are analysed with particular focus onsynchronisation between glottal area and inverse filteredairflow. Several methodological aspects are also examined, suchas the difficulties in synchronising high-speed imaging datawith the other signals. / QC 20100609

Electrons are weakly attracted to liquid helium due to the small but finite polarizability of helium atoms. However, they cannot enter the liquid unless their energy is more than 1 eV, due to the Pauli exclusion principle. As a result, electrons are bound perpendicular to the surface but are free to move parallel to the surface i.e., they form a two-dimensional electron system (2DES). If the electron density of the 2DES is increased above a critical value ( 1013 per m2) the surface becomes un-stable leading to the formation of charged bubbles known as multielectron bubbles (MEBs). In MEBs the electrons are confined to the inner bubble surface and hence we have a 2DES on a curved surface. The critical density of electrons on the bulk surface is too low to study the quantum dominated phases of the 2DES. In contrast, due to the enormous surface defects and impurities, the electronic density of 2DES in semiconductors cannot be lowered below 1015 per m2, which is high enough such that the 2DES is always in a quantum liquid phase. Alternatively, the possibility of varying the electron density over a wide range and the effects of curvature implies that MEBs can be used to probe new phases of 2DES like Wigner crystallization with strong electron-ripplon coupling, quantum melting, superconductivity etc. In this thesis the experiments done on MEBs in liquid helium are described. In the initial experiments we generated MEBs which were observed to shrink in size. We saw a difference in their collapse behaviour: MEBs in super fluid helium though initially bigger in size collapse much faster than MEBs generated in normal fluid. The vapour present in the MEBs cannot condense fast in normal fluid due to the lower thermal conductivity. In subsequent experiments, we could trap these MEBs, generated in normal fluid and stabilised by their vapour content, in a linear Paul trap. We measured the charge and radius of these trapped MEBs by analysing their dynamics. Interestingly, the stably trapped MEBs were found not to lose charge as they shrink and disappear in hundreds of milliseconds, implying that the charge density inside increases at least two orders of magnitude from the initial value. MEBs so trapped can be used to study the properties of 2DES in the high electron density limit where the quantum confinement energy dominates. Later, we measured the charge of the MEB with respect to time when it was held on a solid substrate. We propose a charge loss mechanism as the tunneling of electrons across a thin lm of helium formed between the MEB and the substrate. We estimated the density of electrons on this thin lm by using a numerical model. We found that the maximum electron density (about a few 1015 per m2) which could be held on a thin lm is limited by tunneling. Moreover, the substrate surface roughness did not affect the charge loss due to the microscopic contact of MEBs with the substrate, resolving the complications in charge loss observed in previous experiments on macroscopic thin films on metallic substrates. Finally, we describe the experiments and the results on the stability of MEBs generated in super fluid helium. Highly charged MEBs (with more than 104 electrons which have an equilibrium radius that is easily visible) are found to be unstable against fission into smaller bubble showing a type of electro-hydrodynamic instability. However, the stability of bubbles with radius less than our detection limit ( 1 m) is still an open question.