This thesis assessed the use of radar as a remote technique for monitoring seabirds in offshore locations.  The study site was in the Moray Firth, Scotland, at the Beatrice oil field, where two 5 MW wind turbines were installed in the summers of 2006 and 2007.  An S-band marine surveillance radar, equipped with commercially available automatic detection and tracking software was installed on the Beatrice Alpha platform to collect ornithological data.  Significant amounts of radar clutter were also recorded in this offshore environment, so bespoke filters were developed, to remove non-avian tracks from the dataset.  Filtered data showed temporal patterns in avian activity at the site, which could be linked to existing knowledge of the use of the site by seabirds.  Flight directions during the breeding season indicated that birds using the site were also attending colonies at the East Caithness cliffs SPA to the north west.  The flight speed parameter included in models of collision between birds and wind turbines was evaluated empirically using radar data.  Ground speed, which is influenced by wind was  highly variable, and was on average 0.707 ms^-1 slower than airspeed, increasing the collisions risk relative to the model’s predictions for many birds. Boat-based visual surveys were used to investigate the impact of turbine installation on the abundance and distribution of birds at the site during the breeding season.  No effect of turbine installation was detected, but environmental variation was shown to have a significant impact on bird abundance.  This demonstrates the difficulty of designing impact studies that can detect the faint signal of an impact, against background variability inherent in marine environments.

Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited / This thesis presents a simple, meanline analysis of the impact of blade roughness on the mass flow, work coefficient, and efficiency of a three-stage axial compressor as a function of the location of fouling. First, an extensive review is presented on the state-of-the-art of measuring compressor degradation and on the impact of roughness on loss and deviation in a compressor cascade. The performance of a baseline, three-stage compressor, which has hydrodynamically smooth blades, is predicted. Using this baseline geometry, the influence of roughness in the front, middle and rear stages is calculated using empirical data for the enhanced losses and increased deviation, with a stage stacking technique. Influence coefficients that relate percentage changes in one parameter to percentage changes in other parameters are calculated. This analysis predicts that the most sensitive parameter for predicting fouling in the front stages is the percentage change in mass flow and the most sensitive parameter for predicting fouling in the rear stages is the efficiency. / Lieutenant, United States Coast Guard

The high pressure turbine stage can be considered the most important component for the efficiency and longevity of a modern gas turbine. The flow field within this stage is highly complex and is both unsteady and three-dimensional. Understanding this flow field is essential if improvements are to be made to future engine designs. Increasingly designers are placing more emphasis on the use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) rather than experimental results. CFD methods can be more flexible and cost effective. However before these predictions can be used they must be validated against experimental data at engine conditions. The hostile environment and complexity of flows within a gas turbine engine mean that collection of experimental data is extremely challenging. This thesis describes the development of an instrumentation technique for unsteady gas turbine flow measurement capable of resolving unsteady three-dimensional flow. The technique is based on an aerodynamic probe constructed with miniature semiconductor pressure transducers manufactured by Kulite Semiconductor Inc. Measurements recorded using this instrumentation technique from the Oxford Rotor experiment are presented to illustrate its use, and these in turn are compared with a CFD prediction of the rotor flow-field. This work was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Kulite Semiconductor Inc. The Oxford Rotor project is jointly funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), and Rolls-Royce Plc.

At the rate the population is growing it is important to find ways to be more efficient with the energy and water we use. The increase in population increases the need for electricity and water, but the way we are using our sources will not leave us with enough for future generations. The constant use of "dirty energy", energy that emits CO2 and other chemicals into the atmosphere, will continue to harm our environment. A new system is needed to help preserve water and produce green energy that will not harm the only earth we have.

No description available.

The ternary Pt-Al-Cr system was investigated as part of the continued development of a thermodynamic database for the Pt-Al-Cr-Ru system. Scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses were used to obtain phase equilibria data. The alloys were studied in the as-cast condition, as well as after annealing at 600°C and 1000°C respectively. A solidification projection was constructed and a liquidus surface derived. Isothermal sections at 600°C and 1000°C were also determined. It was concluded that all phase regions were identified correctly since the results were selfconsistent. Three ternary phases were found and 19 ternary invariant reactions identified. A thermodynamic database was developed for the Pt-Al-Cr system using Thermo-Calc. Phase relations could be reasonably accurately predicted between 600°C and 1000°C, and even up to temperatures close to the melting point. However, the match between the calculated and experimental diagrams could be improved. As with the Pt-Cr-Ru system, problems with the constituting binary systems seemed to be the major cause for problems encountered in the modelling. Only once the Al-Pt and especially the Cr-Pt and Cr-Ru binary phase diagrams are confirmed more rigorously, the calculated ternary phase diagrams could be worked on with more confidence. More than half of the alloys investigated had hardnesses in excess of 600 HV10 regardless of their state of heat treatment. Based on the examination of hardness indentations, alloys in the Pt-Al-Cr system were also often brittle due to the presence of hard intermetallic compounds. Alloys containing ~Pt3Al showed better behaviour with regard to toughness which was encouraging for the Pt-based alloys that are being developed by Mintek.

by Julian Guerra. / Thesis (M.S.C.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2011. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2011. Mode of access: World Wide Web. / This work seeks to understand water turbine noise generation and to make preliminary estimations of the noise levels. Any structure attached to a turbine upstream its blades will generate unsteady fluctuating loads on the blade's surface, which are proportional to the radiated acoustic pressure. The noise levels of a simplified turbine based on existing designs surpass the ambient noise levels of the ocean at low frequencies (< 20 Hz) by approximately 50 dB ref 1 μPa and stay under the ambient noise levels at higher frequencies for a blade-passing frequency of 0.83 Hz and point of observation (100 m, 45 degrees, 45 degrees) from the hub. Streamlining the cross-section of the upstream structure as well as reducing its width decrease the noise levels by approximately 40 dB ref 1 μPa, at low frequencies and moderately increase them at higher frequencies. Increasing the structure-rotor distance decreases the noise levels with increasing frequencies (> 30 Hz).

Thesis. 1976. M.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Engineering. / Bibliography: leaf 149. / M.S.

Thesis (B.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 1982. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ENGINEERING / Includes bibliographical references. / by David Roland Mustelier. / B.S.

No description available.