Modern man’s addiction to fossil fuels or non-renewable energy is the key reason behind the unprecedented economic growth experienced globally over the past 100 years. However, by definition these energy resources are not only finite, but their widespread use is causing massive environmental damage through air pollution and its associated impact on people’s health, as well as the emission of greenhouse gases which are attributed to the unprecedented rate of global warming - And it is for this reason that international initiatives such as the Kyoto Protocol, (which South Africa is a signatory of), aim to mitigate global warming by reducing member countries’ CO2 emissions.Simultaneously, South Africa (SA) is experiencing its own electricity supply problems due to under investment in the sector. While new power plants are being built, they utilize non-renewable energy sources and will take time to build (up to 5 years). It is also important to note that due to large coal reserves, South Africans enjoy amongst the lowest electricity tariffs in the world, but SA is amongst this planet’s biggest per capita polluters.The research thus aims to identify whether high income households are wasteful users of electricity - due to historic low prices, lack of knowledge regarding energy efficiency and the impact that electricity generation has on the environment - while at the same time determining the group's perception of domestic solar water heaters (DSWH), given our country’s favourable climaticconditions. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

In the present work, an inter principle research is carried out on complex fluid flow and heat transfer, using an innovative technology Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), from the Department of Physics. To enhance heat transfer performance of complex fluid flow, the present work mainly focuses on two different parts, one is the adoption of nanofluid; the other is flow forces analysis through bionic engineering studies on plant water migration system. Nanofluids are attracting considerable attention from both academic and industrial communities. Comparing with conventional pure fluids or solutions, nanofluids have higher thermal conductivity, due to the high surface to volume ratio of nanoparticle and liquid interface, which exhibits a great potential in enhancing heat transfer performance in various occasions. It is believed that different types and concentrations of nanofluid could strongly affect the thermal performance, and a great number of papers have been published to illustrate the phenomenon. However, none has really focused on the possible concentration change of nanofluid while flowing. Otherwise, the thermal performance of nanofluid flow could never be quantified. In the present work, a novel method to measure the dynamic concentration of nanofluid is proposed, using NMR technology. The experiments were carried out with ferrofluid under different concentration and temperature. A new parameter T2* was introduced in the study. T2* is a relaxation time of the signals that is released by hydrogen atoms after Radio Frequency (RF). And this signal intensity can be strongly affected by nanofluids. Experiments were carried out to obtain the T2* of nanofluid in the pipe. An empirical equation based on T2* and temperature was proposed to calculate the concentration of nanoparticles. Then, experiments were carried out with flowing ferrofluid in pipe. The dynamic concentration was calculated with the empirical equation. And with the series of experiment, it is confirmed that the flowing nanofluid consists of an obvious concentration gradient, and thus cause different layers of thermal performance from boundary to central line of a laminar pipe flow. Furthermore, the experiment result also gives out a chance to investigate the mechanism of nanoparticle movement in laminar flow with the concentration gradient along radius. Bionic Engineering is another research field that has been more and more interesting to researches from various fields. Since life has been evolving for over millions of years, many functions in lives has become extremely high efficiency and adaptive. These functions can be very worthy for researchers to study and utilize in industries. For heat transfer in fluid flow, it is very important to enhance the flow pattern. And thus water migration system in plants become very attractive. Plant can take water from soil up to several metres high. Learning from the water migration process in plants has been attracting interests from scientist for over a hundred years. The water migration in plant stem, especially xylem, involves various driving forces including capillary effect, osmosis effect, Marangoni effect and transpiration effect, etc. This present work mainly focuses on the water transport process within xylem. As xylem system is simplified as micro channel, a mathematic model is presented based on micro channel theory, with critical analysis and simplification. With a simplified micro channel from xylem structure and the calculation using the model of water migration in xylem, the relationship between various forces and water migration velocity is identified. The velocity of water migration within the plant stem is considered as detail as possible using all major forces involved. And a full mathematical model is proposed to calculate and predict the velocity of water migration in plants. Comparison between the calculated result and experimental one is made, to confirm the accuracy of the mathematical model. The present work proved that the mathematical model should be enough to predict the water migration in plants, and could also be critical for future water transport prediction in complex fluid flow in industry applications such as heat pipe.

Efficient bale stack location, infield bale logistics, and equipment track impacted area were conducted in three different studies using simulation in R. Even though the geometric median produced the best logistics, among the five mathematical grouping methods, the field middle was recommended as it was comparable and easily accessible in the field. Curvilinear method developed (8-259 ha), incorporating equipment turning (tractor: 1 and 2 bales/trip, automatic bale picker (ABP): 8-23 bales/trip, harvester, and baler), evaluated the aggregation distance, impacted area, and operation time. The harvester generated the most, followed by the baler, and the ABP the least impacted area and operation time. The ABP was considered as the most effective bale aggregation equipment compared to the tractor. Simple specific and generalized prediction models, developed for aggregation logistics, impacted area, and operation time, have performed well (0.88?R2?0.99). An ABP of 8 bales capacity, also capable of 11 bales/trip, was recommended. / North Dakota State University. Teaching Assistant Scholarship

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Thesis (M.S.)--University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 2009. / Title from title page screen (viewed on Oct. 23, 2009). Thesis advisor: James A. Larson. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Doctoral)--İzmir Institute of Technology, İzmir, 2005 / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-292).

The problems of excessive consumption of fossil resources, oil shortages and greenhouse gas emissions are becoming increasingly severe. Research and development work on new methods of thermal energy storage are imminently required. To effectively store seasonal renewable energy, a novel high capacity heat storage system has been designed and evaluated/validated through laboratory experiments and numerical simulations in this research. The system is driven by direct flow evacuated tube solar collector with enhanced PCM tank and intends to be applied in residential and commercial buildings. Theoretical and experimental approaches and numerical analysis have been employed in this study. Firstly, phase change materials (PCM) with specific heat density, melting point, melting and solidifying time have been investigated. This type of PCMs can maintain a considerable high internal temperature of environment chamber in a frozen ambient temperature. Numerical modelling has been conducted on a passive house (Nottingham H.O.U.S.E) to study whether proposed thermochemical materials can cover relative heating load and be power by solar panel in terms of roof size. Meanwhile, PCMs have been used to give a long duration for temperature-controlled chamber in laboratory, and thermochemical materials have been utilized in closed pumping pipe system for cooling and heating purpose. Secondly, characteristic experiments have been conducted on a modified solar collector working with an enhanced PCM tank that is integrated with a fan coil heat exchanger. The results show that light radiation of tungsten lamps (as a solar simulator) has approximately 70% efficiency to equate to solar radiation under the same Pyranometer reading value. At the same time, the solar system can supply over 50°C heating energy and the PCM tank within it can supply higher output temperature with longer duration than water tank. The efficiency of the whole solar collector heating system is over 50% as a heat absorption chamber in sunny days, while only approximately 10% under mostly cloudy weather. Lastly, proposed thermochemical materials (silica gel, calcium chloride, zeolite 13x, vermiculite and activated carbon) have been evaluated on designed thermochemical absorption chamber to supply fresh high temperature air for space heating. The results show that zeolite holds the highest reacted temperature (over 58°C) and vermiculite has really fast absorbing hydration duration, less than half hour. Silica gel possesses the biggest water absorbing capacity and vermiculite has a worse result. A comparison between experimental and numerical modelling results has been revealed. Considering the complexity of processes in cooling and heating system, the agreement of simulation and experimentation is satisfactory, thus the lumped numerical model is acceptable and significant for investigation of this scaled seasonal high capacity heat storage system. A full size seasonal heat storage system with a nominal heating capacity of 3kW has been proposed and illustrated in economic and environmental issues section. The results from net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) sensitivity analysis both shows it is greatly attractive to develop this novel system for application in both household and commercial buildings in consideration of its about 9 years payback period, 20 years life span and zero gas (C02) emissions. An intelligent transpired solar collector system is also introduced and illustrated as future work.

Shading louvres on buildings must serve to allow maximum window insolation in winter, while have the prime function of intercepting unwanted direct solar radiation in summer; which could cause excessive solar heat gain, especially in glazed offices and commercial spaces. Studies of the effect of solar protection on heating and cooling loads show that shading strategies are climate dependent. And it is accepted today that solar protection does reduce energy use for cooling, and tends to increase heating loads. The balance between the benefits in cooling and the losses in heating is only achievable by good designs. The main focus of this research work has been in harnessing the thermal energy available within the incident solar radiation intercepted by the shading louvres; hence benefiting, from shading in terms of energy savings, as well as from the collected energy. In achieving this aim, both theoretical and experimental techniques have been utilized, as design analysis tools, in order to select a design that satisfies both the efficiency and cost criteria. A suitable collector design has, then, been identified, its thermal performance characterised, and its prototype manufactured and built. The prototype of the chosen design has been field-tested in Nottingham-England and Porto-Portugal. Finally, the characteristics of the design have been incorporated into a computer simulation scenario, in which a real office building in Winterthur-Switzerland has been analysed for its total (cooling and heating) annual energy consumption. Findings of this research work indicate that these louvres, despite certain geometrical limitations, could act as solar collectors with good energy collection characteristics. And they could contribute with substantial reductions in the overall annual energy consumption resulting from the combined effect of shading and collecting energy. This was found particularly to be the case when the collected energy is made to part-fuel, an adsorption chiller for the purpose of air-conditioning the same building.

Renewable energies are a critical element for reducing greenhouse gases emissions and achieving a sustainable development. Until recently, building integration of renewable sources was focused on solar technologies. Nevertheless,building integrated wind turbines can and must be part of the solution to the global energy challenge. This research investigated the potential of integrating small vertical wind turbines between medium-rise buildings. Wind velocities were measured around 7 fifteenstorey towers. The measurements were carried out for nine different configurations,using a boundary layer wind tunnel and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Computed and measured results showed reasonable agreement. The differences were more apparent at ground level. It was established that building orientation and the separation between buildings defines to a great extent the wind environment around buildings. It was found that a distance between buildings of 15 metres and an orientation of θ=260˚ produced the higher augmentation factors. This configuration produced up to 17,812kWh in a typical Nottingham UK year, using six vertical wind turbines of 2.5kW each. Results suggested that the use of CFD as a visualisation tool is extremely useful at design stages in projects involving the integration of wind turbines. Nevertheless, the results of CFD simulations are highly dependent on the type of roughness modification applied to the wall functions, the choice of the turbulence model and the modelling of the inlet wind velocity profile. Because servicing buildings accounts for around half of the UK’s total energy consumption, the need to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels is central to good building design. That is why the architectural practice must respond professionally by delivering buildings that successfully integrate wind energy technologies, which can only be achieved if the designer actively engages with the environmental design principles and improves his understanding of building physics.

Conventionally the power network operators were obliged to buy all the wind energy generated by wind farms. However, as the penetration of wind energy (or generally any other sort of renewable source) in a power system is increased, the ability of other generators to balance the demand becomes limited. This will necessitate the control of wind turbines in order to generate a given demand power rather than extracting the maximum wind power. This control approach is termed “Power Demand Control” in this thesis. In contrast to Power Demand Control, “Power Smoothing Control” utilizes energy storage systems in order to absorb high frequency wind fluctuations, hence, delivering a smoother version of wind power into the grid/load. The drawback of the Power Smoothing approach is that the average power into the grid/load is still determined by the available wind power rather than the system operator. The Power Demand Control approach, which has received little attention in literatures, is the main focus of this thesis. This research proposes control schemes with and without external energy storage for the Power Demand Control strategy. This thesis studies different possible methods of applying Power Demand Control, in particular the droop control method. It is shown that a droop-controlled wind farm does not need a central “Supervisory wind Farm Control” unit to determine the power demanded from each DFIG. Moreover, a droop-controlled wind farm has the advantage of controlling the local grid voltage and frequency. This means that no external voltage and frequency source is required which makes a droop-controlled wind farm a more suitable option for integration of wind energy at distribution level. The classical droop control is modified in order to make the DFIGs share the demand power not only according to their ratings but also to their associated available wind power. The applications of the control paradigm are discussed, including: integration into microgrids, AC grids and HVDC connection feeders. This work mainly concentrates on microgrid applications. An Energy Management System is proposed in order to keep the energy level of the energy storage (or the DFIG’s shaft speed) within its limits using an Auxiliary Generator and a Dispatchable Load. Different possible system configurations are introduced and their advantages and drawbacks are discussed. It is illustrated through simulation that the proposed control scheme can inherently ride-through a grid fault with no need for communication. Furthermore, it is shown that the control scheme can operate if the wind speed drops to zero. The simulations are carried out using the PSCAD/EMTDC software.