In recent years power generation from renewable energy has grown substantially both in South Africa and around the world. This growth is set to continue as there is more pressure to reduce the burning of fossil fuels. However, renewable energy power generation suffers from unpredictability, which causes problems when it comes to managing power grids. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants offer a practical solution to store power in the form of thermal energy storage (TES). Thus, the plant can run when there is no solar energy available, leading to a more stable power supply. Unfortunately, CSP plants cost more than other renewables such as photovoltaic and wind power. Thus, there is a need for research into how to bring down the cost of CSP plants. One of the most proven types of CSP is the parabolic trough plant. The most recent innovation is to try and use molten salt as the heat transfer fluid which would reduce the cost of the plant. However, this new technology has not been implemented on a full scale CSP plant and little testing has been done to prove the technology. The HPS2 is a test facility aimed at testing the use of molten salt as a heat transfer fluid (HTF). This test facility, located in Evora Portugal, is being developed by an international consortium led by the German DLR institute of Solar Research. It is one of the first test facilities of its kind where experiments will be conducted to demonstrate the validity of using molten salt as a HTF and a storage medium in a parabolic trough CSP plant. The HPS2 test facility is not yet operational and there is a need for a dynamic thermofluid process model to better understand and predict both its steady state and transient operational behaviour. This dissertation reports on the development of such a dynamic thermofluid process model and the results obtained from it. The process model developed primarily focuses on the steam cycle with the TES incorporated into the model. The physical geometry of each of the components are employed to construct discretized elements for which the conservation of mass, energy, and momentum are applied in a one-dimensional network approach. The economizer and evaporator combined has a helical coil geometry and uses molten salt as a heat transfer fluid, which is unique. Thus, correlations had to be adjusted for the flow characteristics found in the economizer/evaporator. Results from the steady state simulations of the steam cycle show that the molten salt mass flowrate through the steam generation system will have to be reduced from the initially expected value to meet operational requirements. Results of the dynamic simulations show that the test facility will be able to produce a constant power supply despite transient solar conditions and highlights key dynamic responses for operators to be aware of.

Yes / Batch reactive distillation is well known for improved conversion and separation of desired reaction products. However, for a number of reactions, the distillation can separate the reactants depending on their boiling points of them and thus not only reduces the benefit of the reactive distillation but also offers operational challenges for keeping the reactants together. Methyl lactate (ML) synthesis via the esterification of lactic acid (LA) with methanol in a reactive distillation falls into this category and perhaps that is why this process has not been explored in the past. The boiling points of the reactants (LA, methanol) are about 490 K and 337 K while those of the products (ML, water) are 417 K and 373 K respectively. Clearly in a conventional reactive distillation (batch or continuous) methanol will be separated from the LA and will reduce the conversion of LA to ML significantly. Here, first the limitations of the use of conventional batch distillation column (CBD) for the synthesis of ML is investigated in detail and a semi-batch reactive distillation (SBD) configuration is studied in detail where LA is the limiting reactant and methanol is continuously fed in excess in the reboiler allowing the reactants to be together for a longer period. However, this poses an operational challenge that the column has to be carefully controlled to avoid overflow of the reboiler at any time of the operation. In this work, the performance of SBD for the synthesis of ML is evaluated using model based optimization in which operational constraints are embedded. The results clearly demonstrate the viability of the system for the synthesis of ML.

Yes / Multistage Flash (MSF) desalination process is still a dominant process, especially in the Gulf region, to produce high quality freshwater. Although there has been energy price surge in recent years, MSF process will continue to operate in that region for some foreseeable future. The key challenge is how to make such processes still profitable. Understanding the dynamics of any processes under uncertainty and disturbances is very important to make a process operationally feasible and profitable. The main aim of this work is to understand the dynamics of industrial scale MSF process using high fidelity and reliable process model. For this purpose, a detailed dynamic model for the MSF process incorporating key and new features is developed and validated against the actual data of a large-scale seawater desalination plant. The model is then used to study the behaviour of large scale MSF processes for disturbances in steam temperature, feed temperature and the recycle brine flow rate. The simulation results show that the last stage requires a longer time to settle compared to the preceding stages. In addition, steam temperature shows insignificant influence on the performance ratio compared to the inlet seawater temperature and recycle brine flow rate. Furthermore, it is found that the productivity of plant can increase in the winter compared to that in the summer. However, this benefit comes at the expense of increased steam consumption in the winter, resulting in a low performance ratio.

Yes / In this work, a novel concept in freeze desalination (FD) was introduced. Nowadays the total liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity has reached 290 Megatons per year. Its enormous cold energy released from re-gasification can be used in the freeze desalination process to minimize the overall energy consumption. A process of FD on flake ice maker utilizing LNG cold energy was designed and simulated by HYSYS software. An ice bucket on flake ice maker was chosen as seawater crystallizer mainly due to its continuous ice making and removing ice without heat source. A dynamic model of the freezing section has been developed and simulated through gPROMS software. The results show that the consumption of 1 kg equivalent LNG cold energy can obtain about 2 kg of ice melt water. In addition, it is shown that the power consumption of this LNG/FD hybrid process is negligible.

Yes / This paper introduces a hybrid dynamic modelling approach for the prediction of NOx emissions for a Diesel engine, based on a multi-physics simulation platform coupling a 1-D air path model (GT-Suite) with in-cylinder combustion model (CMCL Stochastic Reactor Model Engine Suite). The key motivation for this research was the requirement to establish a real time stochastic simulation capability for emissions predictions early in engine development, which required the replacement of the slow combustion chemistry solver (SRM) with an appropriate surrogate model. The novelty of the approach in this research is the introduction of a hybrid approach to metamodeling that combines dynamic experiments for the gas path model with a zonal optimal space-filling design of experiments (DoEs) for the combustion model. The dynamic experiments run on the virtual Diesel engine model (GT- Suite) was used to fit a dynamic model for the parameters required as input to the SRM. Optimal Latin Hypercubes (OLH) DoE run on the SRM model was used to fit a response surface model for the NOx emissions. This surrogate NOx model was then used to replace the computationally expensive SRM simulation, enabling real time simulations of transient drive cycles to be executed. The performance of the proposed approach was validated on a simulated NEDC drive cycle against experimental data collected for the engine case study, which proved the capability of methodology to capture the transient trends for the NOx emissions. The significance of this work is that it provided an efficient approach to the development of a global model with real time transient modelling capability based on the integration of dynamic and local DoE metamodeling experiments.

Submitted by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-10-08T15:24:28Z No. of bitstreams: 4 Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 (1).pdf: 19476757 bytes, checksum: c3c7f6834d5372b8310480dd04e9b4ce (MD5) Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 - (2).pdf: 19145431 bytes, checksum: b305998c733a99dbb79b8d4fbc058bdc (MD5) Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 - (3).pdf: 2571829 bytes, checksum: 694edb48c095aff3cb683d5f3919e002 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2014-10-09T15:49:17Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 4 Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 (1).pdf: 19476757 bytes, checksum: c3c7f6834d5372b8310480dd04e9b4ce (MD5) Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 - (2).pdf: 19145431 bytes, checksum: b305998c733a99dbb79b8d4fbc058bdc (MD5) Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 - (3).pdf: 2571829 bytes, checksum: 694edb48c095aff3cb683d5f3919e002 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T15:49:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 4 Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 (1).pdf: 19476757 bytes, checksum: c3c7f6834d5372b8310480dd04e9b4ce (MD5) Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 - (2).pdf: 19145431 bytes, checksum: b305998c733a99dbb79b8d4fbc058bdc (MD5) Tese - Pedro Alves Vieira - 2013 - (3).pdf: 2571829 bytes, checksum: 694edb48c095aff3cb683d5f3919e002 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-02-22 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / The historical process of occupation and land use in the Cerrado biome has been accompanied by different rates and conversion levels. Recent surveys indicate that about 50% of the original Cerrado cover has been already converted to large-scale agriculture. In Goiás, this process started with the mining activity, in the early XVIII century. However, the first governmental development policies start only in the early 40’s, under the govern of Getulio Vargas, and only in the 60’s, with the goals set by President Juscelino Kubitschek, became trully effective. In face of the historical land use dynamics, eventually over highly vulnerable areas, the Cerrado suffered a significant loss in environmental quality. An example in this direction is the medium Araguaia basin, which presents a stock of sandy sediments of about 200 million tons, in part fed by the upper Rio Vermelho basin, where sediment loss reaches 2 million tons a year. Within this context, this study, based on field, census, and orbital data (from different acquisition periods and with different resolutions), integrated and analyzed via GIS and scenario modelling techniques, pursued the identification, for the total area of the Rio Vermelho basin (nearly 11,000 km2), of different classes of natural vulnerability (relying on the mapping of entropy levels, as well as on tectonic and physiografic patterns), relatively to the occupation process, in four distinct periods (1976, 1987, 2002 e 2008). Approximately 65% of the basin area has been converted, which caused a severe environmental impact, affecting ~40% of the permanent protected areas (mainly around springs, lakes, and rivers), as well as ~9% of highly vulnerable areas. The occupation analysis for two distinct periods, i.e. 1976 (start) and 1987 (end), suggests that soil fertility and occupation fronts already established are the dominant factors controlling the basin fate, with new occupations being directed and concentrated along the main road network. / O processo histórico de ocupação e uso das terras no bioma Cerrado tem sido acompanhado por diferentes taxas e níveis de conversão de sua cobertura vegetal. Levantamentos recentes indicam que aproximadamente 50% da sua cobertura original já foram transformados pela agricultura e pecuária em escala industrial. Este processo de ocupação em Goiás tem início com a mineração, ainda no século XVIII. Contudo, as primeiras políticas de desenvolvimento só começam a acontecer a partir de 1940, no Governo de Getúlio Vargas, sendo que as principais transformações das paisagens do bioma Cerrado advem do uso da terra em grande escala, o que passa a acontecer efetivamente a partir da década de 1960, com o Plano de Metas implantado no Governo de Juscelino Kubitschek. Em face desta dinâmica histórica de uso e ocupação, ora avançando por sobre áreas de alta vulnerabilidade natural, é que o Cerrado experimenta uma grande perca de qualidade ambiental. Assim, em solo goiano, o trecho médio do Rio Araguaia apresenta um estoque de sedimentos arenosos na ordem de 200 milhões de toneladas, enquanto que a bacia hidrográfica do Rio Vermelho, em particular, apresenta uma perda estimada de sedimentos siltico/argiloso/ano na ordem de ~ 2.000.000 de toneladas. Dentro deste contexto, este trabalho, com base em dados de campo, censitários e imagens orbitais de diferentes épocas e resoluções, integrados e analisados através de técnicas de geoprocessamento e modelagem de cenários, buscou identificar, para a totalidade da bacia do Rio Vermelho (aproximadamente 11.000 km2), diferentes níveis de vulnerabilidade natural (tendo por referência o mapeamento da entropia do relevo e dos principais padrões tectônicos e fisiográficos), em relação aos processos de ocupação, em quatro períodos distintos (1976, 1987, 2002 e 2008). Até o momento, 65% da área total da bacia já foram convertidos, sendo que o passivo ambiental, em torno de rios, lagos e nascentes, é de aproximadamente 40% das áreas consideradas sob proteção permanente. Especificamente para as áreas de maior vulnerabilidade, este passivo é da ordem 9%. A análise de dois momentos de ocupação, i.e. 1976 (início) e 1987 (fim) sugere que a fertilidade do solo e frentes de ocupação já estabelecidas são fatores determinantes para os destinos da bacia no que concerne o avanço da ocupação antrópica.

A complete chain of analysis and synthesis system identification tools for detectability assessment and adaptive identification of parameters with physical interpretation that can be found commonly in control-oriented powertrain models is presented. This research is motivated from the fact that future powertrain control and monitoring systems will depend increasingly on physically oriented system models to reduce the complexity of existing control strategies and open the road to new environmentally friendly technologies. At the outset of this study a physics-based control-oriented dynamic model of a complete transient engine testing facility, consisting of a single cylinder engine, an alternating current dynamometer and a coupling shaft unit, is developed to investigate the functional relationships of the inputs, outputs and parameters of the system. Having understood these, algorithms for identifiability analysis and adaptive identification of parameters with physical interpretation are proposed. The efficacy of the recommended algorithms is illustrated with three novel practical applications. These are, the development of an on-line health monitoring system for engine dynamometer coupling shafts based on recursive estimation of shaft’s physical parameters, the sensitivity analysis and adaptive identification of engine friction parameters, and the non-linear recursive parameter estimation with parameter estimability analysis of physical and semi-physical cyclic engine torque model parameters. The findings of this research suggest that the combination of physics-based control oriented models with adaptive identification algorithms can lead to the development of component-based diagnosis and control strategies. Ultimately, this work contributes in the area of on-line fault diagnosis, fault tolerant and adaptive control for vehicular systems.

Ce travail vise à développer un modèle générique capable de mieux rendre compte et de prédire les transferts de radionucléides dans le système sol/solution du sol/plante. La première partie de ce travail a été consacrée à l’analyse critique des modèles disponibles dans la littérature pour décrire l’adsorption du césium par les minéraux argileux (principal processus contrôlant sa disponibilité dans les sols). Cette analyse a débouché sur la formulation d’un nouveau modèle mécaniste combinant deux approches: la complexation de surface et l’échange d’ions. Cette approche, a été testée afin de modéliser l’adsorption du Cs sur plusieurs substrats argileux naturels. Ce travail a permis de valider le modèle proposé et de démontrer qu’il constitue un avantage majeur par rapport aux différents modèles existants. La deuxième partie a été consacrée, à la réalisation d’une série d’expérimentations, conduite en milieux contrôlés sur des systèmes dynamiques, et la modélisation de la (bio)disponibilité du Cs dans ces systèmes. A la suite de ces essais, les interactions entre solide et solution observées ont pu être correctement reproduites à partir du modèle proposé en prenant en compte la fraction argileuse du sol uniquement. Ces simulations ont également été comparées aux simulations obtenues à partir des modèles empirique (Kd) et cinétique (EK). Enfin, le développement d’un outil numérique permettant de coupler la description des interactions géochimiques au transfert vers la plante (approche cinétique) a permis de reproduire correctement les essais réalisés en Rhizotests couplant sol, solution et plante et de mieux caractériser la fraction du Cs disponible pour les plantes. / The overall objective of this work is to develop a generic model able to better account and predict the transfer of radionuclides in the soil / soil solution / plant. The first part of the work was devoted to the critical analysis of the models available in the literature to describe the cesium adsorption on clay minerals (the process that mainly controls its availability in the soils). This analysis enabled us to propose a new mechanistic model combining two approaches: surface complexation and cation exchange. Our approach has been tested in order to model the adsorption of Cs on several natural clay substrates, in a wide range of Cs concentrations and physicochemical conditions. This work allowed to validate the proposed mechanistic model and to demonstrate that it constitutes a major advantage over the various existing models. The second part was devoted, to the performing of a series of experiments, carried out in controlled environments on dynamic systems and modeling the (bio)availability of Cs in these systems. Following these tests, the observed interactions between solid and solution could be correctly reproduced with the proposed model taking into account only the clay fraction of the soil. These simulations were also compared with simulations obtained using a empiric (Kd) kinetic models (E-K approach). Finally, the development of a numerical tool for coupling the description of geochemical interactions with transfer to the plant (Michaelis-Menten approach) allowed to reproduce adequately the trials carried out in Rhizotests coupling soil, solution and plant, and to better characterize of the Cs fraction available for plants.

Orientador: Paulo Roberto Gardel Kurka / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Mecanica / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-23T18:37:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Araujo_CleudmarAmaralde_D.pdf: 10285241 bytes, checksum: 75a97d74eaed141b8b86031582b7a8ba (MD5) Previous issue date: 1998 / Resumo: Uma das principais técnicas de modelagem mixta de sistemas complexos ou de grande porte é a técnica de síntese modal. Os vários métodos de síntese modal propostos são formulados sob dois pontos de vista distintos, ou seja, considerando-se o sistema sem amortecimento ou com amortecimento geral. Além disso, surgem inerentes dificuldades na aplicação da metodologia de síntese modal na análise experimental. Neste trabalho é proposto uma técnica de síntese modal generalizada aplicada em sistemas sem amortecimento ou com amortecimento geral. O método utiliza um superconjunto modal de flexibilidade residual, cuja principal aplicação é na síntese modal experimental. O método utiliza um processo de remontagem das subestruturas que otimiza as equações finais da síntese. Propõe-se, também, um novo procedimento, definido como critério de eliminação automática de modos (CEA), que define um índice de qualidade para os modos das subestruturas, indicando quais serão aqueles mais apropriados para serem mantidos nas bases modais. Todas as metodologias propostas no trabalho foram implementadas em um software denominado Programa STRUCT. O método foi testado através de quatro exemplos de simulação. Foi feita uma validação experimental através de uma estrutura construída em escala reduzida, que visa representar um modelo esquemático e simplificado de uma asa de avião com um tanque de combustível fixado em sua extremidade. Além disso, foi também construído o modelo de elementos finitos da estrutura, com a finalidade de ajustar os modelos analítico e experimental / Abstract: Modal Synthesis is one of the main techniques for the modelling of complex or large sized system's. Two approaches for modal synthesis might be formulated those which considers the behaviour of undamped system's and those where the effects of generalized damping is apprised. Further to those consideration comes the application of the modal synthesis techniques in experimental modal analysis. The present work proposes a generalized modal synthesis procedure for damped and undamped system's. The method uses a residual flexibility superset which is applied to the experimental modal analysis. A methodology for assembling adjacent substructures is also proposed which represents an important step towards the obtention of more accurate final results. Another important procedure introduced is that of automatic selection of modes to be kept in the modal base of the residual flexibility superset, defining a quality index for the modes of each substructure. AlI methodologies have been implemented in the form of the STRUCT software. Results of four numerical simulation and a practical application have been included to illustrate the performance of the methodologies. Finite element models have also been developed for the practical application (Combination of aircraft wing and fuel tank models) for performance comparison purposes / Doutorado / Mecanica dos Solidos / Doutor em Engenharia Mecânica

Tato diplomová práce se zabývá rekonstrukcí dynamického modelu produkce polyhydroxyalkanoátů (PHA) termofilní bakterií Schlegelella thermodepolymerans. První kapitola poskytuje čtenářům krátký úvod do systémové biologie a matematické teorie grafů. Na ni navazuje druhá kapitola zabývající se různými přístupy v dynamickém modelování, včetně běžně používaných nástrojů pro dynamickou analýzu komplexních systémů. Třetí kapitola pak sleduje další pojmy a možnosti týkající se analýzy modelu. Následující kapitola se zaměřuje na metabolomiku a často používané laboratorní techniky a pátá kapitola je pak věnována polyhydroxyalkanoátům, zejména jejich chemické struktuře a vlastnostem. V kapitole šesté je navržen obecný booleovský model pro produkci PHA termofilními bakteriemi. Kapitola sedmá se poté zaměřuje na zdokonalení modelu se zaměřením na S. thermodepolymerans. Výsledný dynamický model je podroben analýze a výsledky jsou diskutovány.