Experimental Tests on Parabolic Trough Receivers Employing Bifurcated, Air-Filled Annuli

Author(s):  
Hany Al-Ansary ◽  
Obida Zeitoun

A new parabolic trough receiver design is tested. In this design, the annulus of the receiver is bifurcated such that the half facing away from the parabolic mirror, and receives minimal concentrated sunlight, is filled with an insulating material, whereas the half receiving the majority of the concentrated sunlight is allowed to be filled with air. By insulating the outward facing half of the annulus, heat loss by radiation is minimized. In the mean time, heat loss by natural convection due to the presence of air in the lower half of the annulus is expected to be significantly subdued, since the hotter air will be closer to the heat collection element, which is at a generally higher position than the glass envelope. Experimental tests were performed on roof-mounted troughs which utilize receivers with air-filled annuli. The system consists of two identical but independent rows. The receivers in the first row have normally air-filled annuli, while the receivers in the second row have annuli that are half-filled with an insulating material and half-filled with air. The results have shown that the thermal performance of the modified receiver was indeed superior to conventional receivers with air-filled annuli.

2013 ◽  
Vol 291-294 ◽  
pp. 127-131
Author(s):  
Jian Feng Lu ◽  
Jing Ding ◽  
Jian Ping Yang ◽  
Kang Wang

The heat loss of vacuum receiver plays critical important role in solar parabolic trough system. In this paper, experimental measurements and calculation models were conducted to investigate the heat loss of solar parabolic trough receiver with receiver length of 10.2 m and diameter of 0.120 m. In general, the heat loss of receiver decreased with the receiver wall temperature, while it can approach minimum under special wind condition. The heat loss of receiver mainly included the heat loss of glass and boundary region, and the heat losses of receiver, glass region and boundary region with tube temperatures of 176.2oC were respectively 987.1 W, 762.2 W and 224.9 W. Outside the glass envelope, the convection and radiation both play an important role in the heat loss of receiver, while the heat transfer is mainly dependent upon the radiation inside the glass envelope. In addition, the heat losses of convection outside the glass and radiation inside the glass from calculation very well agreed with the experimental data.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sayuj Sasidharan ◽  
Pradip Dutta

Purpose This paper aims to deal with characterisation of the thermal performance of a hybrid tubular and cavity solar thermal receiver. Design/methodology/approach The coupled optical-flow-thermal analysis is carried out on the proposed receiver design. Modelling is performed in two and three dimensions for estimating heat loss by natural convection for an upward-facing cavity. Heat loss obtained in two dimensions by solving coupled continuity, momentum and energy equation inside the cavity domain is compared with the loss obtained using an established Nusselt number correlation for realistic receiver performance prediction. Findings It is found that radiation emission from a heated cavity wall to the ambient is the dominant mode of heat loss from the receiver. The findings recommend that fluid flow path must be designed adjacent to the surface exposed to irradiation of concentrated flux to limit conduction heat loss. Research limitations/implications On-sun experimental tests need to be performed to validate the numerical study. Practical implications Numerical analysis of receivers provides guidelines for effective and efficient solar thermal receiver design. Social implications Pressurised air receivers designed from this method can be integrated with Brayton cycles using air or supercritical carbon-dioxide to run a turbine generating electricity using a solar heat source. Originality/value The present paper proposes a novel method for coupling the flux map from ray-tracing analysis and using it as a heat flux boundary condition for performing coupled flow and heat transfer analysis. This is achieved using affine transformation implemented using extrusion coupling tool from COMSOL Multiphysics software package. Cavity surface natural convection heat transfer coefficient is obtained locally based on the surface temperature distribution.


2013 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Röger ◽  
Peter Potzel ◽  
Johannes Pernpeintner ◽  
Simon Caron

This paper describes a transient thermography method to measure the heat loss of parabolic trough receivers and separate their heat loss mechanisms. This method is complementary to existing stationary techniques, which use either energy balances or glass envelope temperature measurements to derive overall heat losses. It is shown that the receiver heat loss can be calculated by applying a thermal excitation on the absorber tube and measuring both absorber tube and glass envelope temperature signals. Additionally, the emittance of the absorber selective coating and the vacuum quality of the annulus can be derived. The benefits and the limits of the transient method are presented and compared to the established stationary method based on glass envelope temperature measurements. Simulation studies and first validation experiments are described. A simulation based uncertainty analysis indicates that an uncertainty level of approximately 5% could be achieved on heat loss measurements for the transient method introduced in this paper, whereas for a conventional stationary field measurement technique, the uncertainty is estimated to 17–19%.


Author(s):  
Vikrant Khullar ◽  
Prashant Mahendra ◽  
Madhup Mittal

Abstract In the present work, a novel parabolic trough receiver design has been proposed. The proposed design is similar to the conventional receiver design except for the envelope and the annulus part. Here, a certain portion of the conventional glass envelope is coated with Sn-In2O3 and also Sn-In2O3 coated glass baffles are provided in the annulus part to reduce the radiative losses. The optical properties of the coated glass are such that it allows most of the solar irradiance to pass through, but reflects the emitted long wavelength radiations back to the absorber tube. Sn-In2O3 coated glass is referred to as “transparent heat mirror.” Thus, effectively reducing the heat loss area and improving the thermal efficiency of the solar collector. A detailed one-dimensional steady-state heat transfer model has been developed to predict the performance of the proposed receiver design. It was observed that while maintaining the same external conditions (such as ambient/initial temperatures, wind speed, solar insolation, flow rate, and concentration ratio), the heat mirror-based parabolic trough receiver design has about 3–5% higher thermal efficiency as compared to the conventional receiver design. Furthermore, the heat transfer analysis reveals that depending on the spatial incident solar flux distribution, there is an optimum circumferential angle (θ = θoptimum, where θ is the heat mirror circumferential angle) up to which the glass envelope should be coated with Sn-In2O3. For angles higher than the optimum angle, the collector efficiency tends to decrease owing to increase in optical losses.


1996 ◽  
Vol 75 (05) ◽  
pp. 731-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
V Cazaux ◽  
B Gauthier ◽  
A Elias ◽  
D Lefebvre ◽  
J Tredez ◽  
...  

SummaryDue to large inter-individual variations, the dose of vitamin K antagonist required to target the desired hypocoagulability is hardly predictible for a given patient, and the time needed to reach therapeutic equilibrium may be excessively long. This work reports on a simple method for predicting the daily maintenance dose of fluindione after the third intake. In a first step, 37 patients were delivered 20 mg of fluindione once a day, at 6 p.m. for 3 consecutive days. On the morning of the 4th day an INR was performed. During the following days the dose was adjusted to target an INR between 2 and 3. There was a good correlation (r = 0.83, p<0.001) between the INR performed on the morning of day 4 and the daily maintenance dose determined later by successive approximations. This allowed us to write a decisional algorithm to predict the effective maintenance dose of fluindione from the INR performed on day 4. The usefulness and the safety of this approach was tested in a second prospective study on 46 patients receiving fluindione according to the same initial scheme. The predicted dose was compared to the effective dose soon after having reached the equilibrium, then 30 and 90 days after. To within 5 mg (one quarter of a tablet), the predicted dose was the effective dose in 98%, 86% and 81% of the patients at the 3 times respectively. The mean time needed to reach the therapeutic equilibrium was reduced from 13 days in the first study to 6 days in the second study. No hemorrhagic complication occurred. Thus the strategy formerly developed to predict the daily maintenance dose of warfarin from the prothrombin time ratio or the thrombotest performed 3 days after starting the treatment may also be applied to fluindione and the INR measurement.


1983 ◽  
Vol 48 (8) ◽  
pp. 2232-2248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivo Roušar ◽  
Michal Provazník ◽  
Pavel Stuhl

In electrolysers with recirculation, where a gas is evolved, the pumping of electrolyte from a lower to a higher level can be effected by natural convection due to the difference between the densities of the inlet electrolyte and the gaseous emulsion at the outlet. An accurate balance equation for calculation of the rate of flow of the pumped liquid is derived. An equation for the calculation of the mean volume fraction of bubbles in the space between the electrodes is proposed and verified experimentally on a pilot electrolyser. Two examples of industrial applications are presented.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107815522110160
Author(s):  
Bernadatte Zimbwa ◽  
Peter J Gilbar ◽  
Mark R Davis ◽  
Srinivas Kondalsamy-Chennakesavan

Purpose To retrospectively determine the rate of death occurring within 14 and 30 days of systemic anticancer therapy (SACT), compare this against a previous audit and benchmark results against other cancer centres. Secondly, to determine if the introduction of immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI), not available at the time of the initial audit, impacted mortality rates. Method All adult solid tumour and haematology patients receiving SACT at an Australian Regional Cancer Centre (RCC) between January 2016 and July 2020 were included. Results Over a 55-month period, 1709 patients received SACT. Patients dying within 14 and 30 days of SACT were 3.3% and 7.0% respectively and is slightly higher than our previous study which was 1.89% and 5.6%. Mean time to death was 15.5 days. Males accounted for 63.9% of patients and the mean age was 66.8 years. 46.2% of the 119 patients dying in the 30 days post SACT started a new line of treatment during that time. Of 98 patients receiving ICI, 22.5% died within 30 days of commencement. Disease progression was the most common cause of death (79%). The most common place of death was the RCC (38.7%). Conclusion The rate of death observed in our re-audit compares favourably with our previous audit and is still at the lower end of that seen in published studies in Australia and internationally. Cases of patients dying within 30 days of SACT should be regularly reviewed to maintain awareness of this benchmark of quality assurance and provide a feedback process for clinicians.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Naomi Vather-Wu ◽  
Matthew D. Krasowski ◽  
Katherine D. Mathews ◽  
Amal Shibli-Rahhal

Background: Expert guidelines recommend annual monitoring of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OHD) and maintaining 25-OHD ≥30 ng/ml in patients with dystrophinopathies. Objective: We hypothesized that 25-OHD remains stable and requires less frequent monitoring in patients taking stable maintenance doses of vitamin D. Methods: We performed a retrospective cohort study, using the electronic health record to identify 26 patients with dystrophinopathies with a baseline 25-OHD ≥30 ng/mL and at least one additional 25-OHD measurement. These patients had received a stable dose of vitamin D for ≥3 months prior to their baseline 25-OHD measurement and throughout follow-up. The main outcome measured was the mean duration time the subjects spent with a 25-OHD ≥30 ng/mL. Results: Only 19% of patients dropped their 25-OHD to <  30 ng/ml, with a mean time to drop of 33 months and a median nadir 25-OHD of 28 ng/mL. Conclusions: These results suggest that measurement of 25-OHD every 2–2.5 years may be sufficient in patients with a baseline 25-OHD ≥30 ng/mL and who are on a stable maintenance dose of vitamin D. Other patients may require more frequent assessments.


Electronics ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 876
Author(s):  
Igor Gonçalves ◽  
Laécio Rodrigues ◽  
Francisco Airton Silva ◽  
Tuan Anh Nguyen ◽  
Dugki Min ◽  
...  

Surveillance monitoring systems are highly necessary, aiming to prevent many social problems in smart cities. The internet of things (IoT) nowadays offers a variety of technologies to capture and process massive and heterogeneous data. Due to the fact that (i) advanced analyses of video streams are performed on powerful recording devices; while (ii) surveillance monitoring services require high availability levels in the way that the service must remain connected, for example, to a connection network that offers higher speed than conventional connections; and that (iii) the trust-worthy dependability of a surveillance system depends on various factors, it is not easy to identify which components/devices in a system architecture have the most impact on the dependability for a specific surveillance system in smart cities. In this paper, we developed stochastic Petri net models for a surveillance monitoring system with regard to varying several parameters to obtain the highest dependability. Two main metrics of interest in the dependability of a surveillance system including reliability and availability were analyzed in a comprehensive manner. The analysis results show that the variation in the number of long-term evolution (LTE)-based stations contributes to a number of nines (#9s) increase in availability. The obtained results show that the variation of the mean time to failure (MTTF) of surveillance cameras exposes a high impact on the reliability of the system. The findings of this work have the potential of assisting system architects in planning more optimized systems in this field based on the proposed models.


Trauma ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146040862094972
Author(s):  
Ahmed Fadulelmola ◽  
Rob Gregory ◽  
Gavin Gordon ◽  
Fiona Smith ◽  
Andrew Jennings

Introduction: A novel virus, SARS-CoV-2, has caused a fatal global pandemic which particularly affects the elderly and those with comorbidities. Hip fractures affect elderly populations, necessitate hospital admissions and place this group at particular risk from COVID-19 infection. This study investigates the effect of COVID-19 infection on 30-day hip fracture mortality. Method: Data related to 75 adult hip fractures admitted to two units during March and April 2020 were reviewed. The mean age was 83.5 years (range 65–98 years), and most (53, 70.7%) were women. The primary outcome measure was 30-day mortality associated with COVID-19 infection. Results: The COVID-19 infection rate was 26.7% (20 patients), with a significant difference in the 30-day mortality rate in the COVID-19-positive group (10/20, 50%) compared to the COVID-19-negative group (4/55, 7.3%), with mean time to death of 19.8 days (95% confidence interval: 17.0–22.5). The mean time from admission to surgery was 43.1 h and 38.3 h, in COVID-19-positive and COVID-19-negative groups, respectively. All COVID-19-positive patients had shown symptoms of fever and cough, and all 10 cases who died were hypoxic. Seven (35%) cases had radiological lung findings consistent of viral pneumonitis which resulted in mortality (70% of mortality). 30% ( n = 6) contracted the COVID-19 infection in the community, and 70% ( n = 14) developed symptoms after hospital admission. Conclusion: Hip fractures associated with COVID-19 infection have a high 30-day mortality. COVID-19 testing and chest X-ray for patients presenting with hip fractures help in early planning of high-risk surgeries and allow counselling of the patients and family using realistic prognosis.


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