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To use effectively the shell in high-performance applications, analyzing the effect of hygrothermal effects on a piezoelectric delamination event is necessary. A laminated piezoelectric cylindrical shell with delamination is first established under hygrothermal effects, followed by an internal force analysis and an energy analysis of the shell. Then, a parametric vibration equation of the Mathieu for the shell is obtained by using the energy variation of the Rayleigh-Ritz method; later on, the harmonic balance method is employed to solve this equation. Finally, the effects of delamination parameters, geometric parameters, hygrothermal effects, and piezoelectric materials on the shell under uniformly distributed axial load are discussed.

In the past decade, compressed air vehicles have attracted much attention because of their zero pollution, high efficiency, environmental friendliness and relative maturity. To further explore the potential of compressed air technology in vehicles, three-stage and four-stage compressed air engine systems are optimized in present study by analyzing the energy and exergy distribution from a technological viewpoint. Their characteristics are compared in terms of shaft work, coolth, overall efficiency, and exergy distribution. Stage expansion ratios differ under maximum work output. The shaft work and coolth of both systems are increased with the increase of working pressure, turbine inlet temperature, or stage efficiency. Three-stage compressed air engine systems have a lower work output and coolth than four-stage compressed air engine systems at given operation condition. The overall efficiencies of these two systems are comparable to those of conventional diesel engines and fuel cell vehicles. Exergy losses of the two systems are composed by the exergy loss in the turbines, heat exchangers, and exits. The analyses suggest that increasing the number of stages, improving stage efficiency, and utilizing coolth to reduce the exergy loss in heat exchangers are effective ways to decrease the total exergy loss and improve the work output and overall efficiency of the compressed air engine systems.

A thermodynamic study and an energy analysis are performed on the autothermal reforming (ATR) and sorption-enhanced autothermal reforming (SE-ATR) of olive mill wastewater (OMW) to produce green hydrogen. For comparative purposes, the traditional reforming (TR) and sorption-enhanced reforming (SER) are also assessed. The thermodynamic equilibrium compositions are calculated by using the Gibbs free energy minimization method. The effect of temperature, pressure and steam-to-carbon molar ratio (S/C) is assessed for the different reactor configurations. The energy analysis is done by determining the level of oxygen needed to operate under thermally neutral conditions. The results show a reduced hydrogen yield for ATR and SE-ATR compared to their non-autothermal counterparts, but a decreased energy requirement per mole of hydrogen produced. For the ATR, the thermally neutral operation requires a high amount of oxygen, which reduces the hydrogen yield. However, for SE-ATR, the exothermal sorption reaction provides nearly enough energy for the process to be thermally neutral by itself.

The coalescence-induced droplet self-jumping behavior on the superhydrophobic surface (SHS) provides a new way to achieve atmospheric corrosion protection. This work controls the droplet self-jumping behavior by regulating the SHS's surface energy and analyzes the relevant mechanism from the energy perspective, revealing the key pathway by which the surface energy impacts the droplet self-jumping behavior. On this basis, the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy testing technique is used to evaluate the effect of the droplet self-jumping behavior on the SHS corrosion protection performance, and the SHS atmospheric corrosion protection mechanism based on the coalescence-induced droplet self-jumping behavior is revealed. This study provides theoretical guidance for the development of SHS-based anticorrosion protection.

Stenter machines are used widely in textile dyeing and printing houses for drying and heat setting of fabric. This is one of the most thermal energy-consuming equipment in the textile process. In t...

Background Most of the organic content of waste activated sludge (WAS) comprises microbial cells hard to degrade, which must be pre-treated for energy recovery by anaerobic digestion (AD). Electrooxidation pre-treatment (EOP) with boron-doped diamond (BDD) electrode have been considered a promising novel technology that increase hydrolysis rate, by the disintegrating cell walls from WAS. Although electrochemical oxidation could efficiently solubilize organic substances of macromolecules, limited reports are available on EOP of WAS for improving AD. In this endeavour, the mathematical optimization study and the energy analysis of the effects of initial total solids concentrations [TS] of WAS and current density (CD) during EOP on the methane production and removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and volatile solids (VS) were investigated. Because limited reports are available on EOP of WAS for improving biogas production, it is not well understood; however, it has started to attract interest of scientists and engineers. Results In the present work, the energy recovery as biogas and WAS conversion were comprehensively affected by CD and [TS], in an integrated EOP and AD system. When working with WAS at 3% of [TS] pre-treated at current density of 24.1 mA/cm2, the highest COD and VS removal were achieved, making it possible to obtain the maximum methane (CH4) production of 305 N-L/kg VS and a positive energy balance of 1.67 kWh/kg VS. Therefore, the current densities used in BDD electrode are adequate to produce the strong oxidant (hydroxyl radical, ·OH) on the electrode surface, allow the oxidation of organic compounds that favours the solubilization of particulate matter and VS from WAS. Conclusions The improvement of VS removal and COD solubilization were due to the effects of pre-treatments, which help to break down the microbial cells for faster subsequent degradation; this allows a decomposition reaction that leads to biodegrade more compounds during AD. The balance was positive, suggesting that even without any optimization the energy used as electricity could be recovered from the increased methane production. It is worth noting that this kind of analysis have not been sufficiently studied so far. It is therefore important to understand how operational parameters can influence the pre-treatment and AD performances. The current study highlights that the mathematical optimization and energy analysis can make the whole process more convenient and feasible.

This paper presents energy and exergy analyses of solar drying of coconuts in a hemispherical solar tunnel drier. Coconuts were dried from an initial moisture content of about 55% (w.b.) to 7% (w.b.) in the solar tunnel drier in 60 hrs whereas the open sun drying process takes 153 hrs for reducing the moisture content to the same level. The drying experiments were conducted at a mass flow rate of 7.25 kg/s with an average air velocity of 0.1 m/s. Using the first law of thermodynamics, energy analysis was carried out to estimate the amount of energy received by the solar tunnel drier and the ratios of energy utilization. However, exergy analysis was accomplished to determine the exergy loss and exergy efficiency by applying the second law of thermodynamics. Energy utilization, energy utilization ratio, exergy inflow and exergy loss in the drier were studied and these values are found to be increased with increasing solar radiation. The exergy inflow and exergy loss in the drier varied between 0.194 kJ/s–8.18 kJ/s and 0.085 kJ/s–5.377 kJ/s respectively. The exergy efficiency of the drier varied between 23.6%–53%.

The enrichment of conventional fuels by hydrogen is quite popular owing to positive environmental aspects compared to the main fuel. In most of the studies, the entropy analysis was not examined in...

Liquid-liquid flow in the pipeline transportation system can consume large energy due to high frictional drop which can be decreased by adding some chemical additives. The effect of these additives is different from type to type and most of them used only for single phase flow. This work focuses on reducing the pump energy requirements of two-phase flow (oil–water) by using three types of additives, anionic surfactant (sodium lignosulfonate (SLS)), cationic surfactant (hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)) and titanium nanoparticles. An energy analysis in case of varying the type of additives, mixture velocity, and oil fraction are presented. The results showed that the power consumption is reduced significantly and maximum reduction (84%) was gained by using CTAB. The results also confirm that less value of oil fraction is required to phase inversion point after using CTAB, while SLS and nanoparticle cause an increase in the required value of oil fraction.

The thermodynamic (energy and exergy) analysis of a condensate heating system, its segments, and components from a marine steam propulsion plant with steam reheating is performed in this paper. It is found that energy analysis of any condensate heating system should be avoided because it is highly influenced by the measuring equipment accuracy and precision. All the compo- nents from the observed marine condensate heating system have energy destructions lower than 3 kW, while the energy efficiencies of this system are higher than 99%. The exergy efficiency of closed condensate heaters continuously increases from the lowest to the highest steam pressures (from 70.10% to 92.29%). The ambient temperature variation between 5 °C and 45 °C notably influences the exergy efficiency change of both low pressure heaters and the low pressure segment equal to 31.61%, 12.37%, and 18.35%, respectively.

This paper presents a milling force model for carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) multidirectional laminates based on segmented specific cutting energy. The proposed model simplifies the milling process of CFRP unidirectional laminates into multiple orthogonal cuttings. The CFRP specific cutting energy was determined by experimental segmentation. An empirical formula for the CFRP segmented specific cutting energy was established, and the milling force of the CFRP multidirectional laminates was predicted using the linear superposition principle. Experimental results confirmed the high accuracy of the milling force model. The specific cutting energy gradually decreased with increasing equivalent cutting thickness. With an increase in the fiber cutting angle θ, the specific cutting energy increased first and then decreased, peaking around θ = π/2.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) can store information of building elements and provide a computational platform for physical analyses for building systems. BIM can resolve several problems throughout various phases of design (as well as construction and operation). While use-cases such as daylight or energy analysis widely take advantage of this computational power, there is no integrated acoustical analysis tool or any external programs with acceptable interoperability within the BIM ecosystem. This study investigates the possibility of developing a BIM-based calculation method based on the most widely used design authoring tool in North America, i.e., Autodesk Revit, to estimate the acoustical properties of buildings with acceptable accuracy and details. A novel algorithm is designed to calculate reverberation time (RT), one of the most critical acoustic indicators of building spaces. The algorithm extracts geometric information from the BIM (i.e., the model); matches it with the physical properties provided by an open-source library; performs the analysis; visualizes the results on the model. The tool is tested over several case studies, and the results have been verified and validated using other existing methods. In the paper, we have studied the acoustical properties of an educational building using the designed tool under various scenarios.

This article introduces the basic principles of four kinds of inerters applied for structural vibration control including a traditional inertial mass damper and ideal clutch inerter damper. The clutch inerter damper with all damping (clutch inerter damper_all damped) and clutch inerter damper with partial damping (clutch inerter damper_part damped) are distinguished in detail. First, a series of energy indexes are defined for further analysis. Second, the control effect of displacement for the uncontrolled structure and the four inerter-based single-degree-of-freedom systems are compared. Finally, considering the total input energy ( E1) and the invalid damping energy ( ECID_ric) as the effective indexes, combined with a large number of numerical simulation results, the variation rules of the two energy indexes with respect to two key parameters (inertia mass ratio and additional damping) are summarized, and the optimal parameters are proposed. The effectiveness of the optimal value is verified by displacement comparison.

Managing produced water (PW) is one of the significant environmental issues pertaining to the energy industry. The PW needs to be treated to meet environmental regulations and can be reused for irr...

A walking beam type reheating furnace with advanced control technology has been evaluated by combined energy and exergy analysis. In order to gain insight into the performance of the present furnace, the results of energy analysis are compared with those in published papers and the irreversibility of the furnace is analyzed via exergy destruction calculation. The results show that slabs preheated before charged into the furnace can save fuel and improve energy utilization. The structure and material of the wall and roof show good thermal insulation. However, the oxidized scale is a little more and the temperature of flue gas is high in the present reheating furnace. The energy efficiency of the furnace is 71.01%, while exergy efficiency is 51.41%, indicating a potential for energy-saving improvements of the present furnace. The exergy destruction of the furnace accounts for 28.36% of total exergy input which is mainly caused by heat transfer through a finite temperature difference (14.71%), fuel combustion (11.66%) and scale formation (1.99%).

Supermarkets contribute significantly to global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, several energy-efficiency measures have been implemented in supermarkets. However, to further enhance the energy efficiency of supermarkets, stakeholders such as store managers and food retail chain management have to cooperate and their specific objects of investigation have to be considered. Against this background, an integrated data-driven framework is developed and exemplarily applied on supermarkets in northern Germany.

PurposeThis paper aims to further the discussion on Building Information Modelling (BIM) legal requirements, providing a framework with key energy parameters capable of supporting the Appointing Party in the definition of the Exchange Information Requirements (EIR) for a BIM project appointment. The EIR is described in ISO-19650–1:2018 as a fundamental step in the information delivery cycle.Design/methodology/approachA literature review on the topic of BIM energy analysis was completed to identify current knowledge gaps and support the need for the proposed framework. Afterwards, the framework was established based on the review findings and the authors’ domain knowledge. The applicability of the proposed framework was assessed through a case study, where several energy simulations were performed in three different design stages of the same BIM model.FindingsThis study identified a lack of standards and legislation capable of supporting the Appointing Party in the definition of energy-related BIM requirements. To this end, a new framework is proposed to mediate existing practices, linking prior knowledge with BIM’s new reality. The study showcases the applicability of the framework, identifying that the performance of different energy studies involves distinct Level of Development (LOD) requirements, which in turn have an impact on the modelling time and cost.Originality/valueA BIM framework for the specification of information requirements in energy-related projects was developed to support the Appointing Party. The framework presents appropriate parameters for energy analysis in each design stage, as well as the suitable LOD for the BIM model.

Theoretical prediction is the most important method for discovering new structure. The stability of the nitride MAX phase (N-MAX) Mn+1ANn, (A = Al, Si, M = Ti, Zr, Hf) was studied using first principles. The formation energy analysis of the competitive phases shows that N-MAX tends to form the larger n-index M4AN3 structure. The formation energy of the Mn+1SiNn system is higher than that of the Mn+1AlNn system, indicating that the Mn+1AlNn system has greater phase stability and experimental synthesis possibility than the Mn+1SiNn system. In all computing systems, the formation energy of Hfn+1AlNn is the lowest, indicating the largest synthesis possibility. Among all the considered structures, Hf2AlN is the material with the best comprehensive performance, such as the bulk modulus reaches 800 GPa. Due to its high elastic anisotropy, Hf4SiN3 is the excellent candidate for the precursor of MXene 2D nanosheets. The study provides a theoretical prediction for the synthesis of potentially undiscovered phases in the N-MAX systems.

The stimuli-responsive membrane with ON/OFF-switchable pores has various applications such as targeted drug delivery and biosensor. In this work, the perforated vesicle/membrane self-assembled from...

Nanoemulsions as colloidal dispersions of deformable nanodroplets promise wide range of applications in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and agriculture. The main limitation that reduces their industrial applications is stability, with Ostwald ripening acting as the main destabilization mechanism. Different from the conventional methods by functionalizing nanoemulsions with adequate ripening inhibitors, here we propose an alternative strategy to stabilize nanoemulsions by inhibiting Ostwald ripening. We report via Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) and theoretical analysis that the evolution of droplets can be manipulated with the help of solid substrates, either along or against the direction of Ostwald ripening. It turns out that through pinning contact line of sessile droplets, heterogeneous substrates or solid nanoparticles can behave as a scaffold to suppress Ostwald ripening, to regulate droplet morphology and to enhance droplet stability. The identical curvature and unexpected stability of scaffolding droplets are then interpreted with free energy analysis. In addition, by simulating substrates with various heterogeneities and solid particles of different shapes, we demonstrate that it is a common phenomenon that scaffolding droplets can evolve beyond Ostwald ripening.

Low temperature, fixed bed grain drying was investigated as an alternative to high temperature drying. Drying data was collected in an on-farm bin drying system over three harvest seasons. A one-di...

Efficient use of energy in crops production will minimize greenhouse gas emission (GHG), prevent destruction of natural resources, and promote sustainable agriculture as an economical crop production system. The aim of this study is applying the multi-objective genetic algorithm MOGA to optimize the energy inputs and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) for wetland rice production in Malaysia. The developed multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) model, showed an excess of energy inputs used by the farmers more than the required energy by 37.8% and 40% for the transplanting and broadcast seeding methods. The potential of GHG emissions reduction by MOGA was computed as 95.89 and 236.13 kg CO2eq/ha. Nitrogen represents the highest contributor to the reduction of both, total energy input and total GHG emissions in the two cultivation methods transplanting and broadcast seeding methods. Despite lower consumption of inputs by MOGA, crop yield is estimated at 9.4 ton/ha in transplanting and 9.2 ton/ha in broadcast seeding, which is close to the region’s maximum under current condition. The main finding that MOGA model showed an excess of energy inputs used and the potential of GHG emissions reduction was 19.6% and 46.37%.for the transplanting and broadcast seeding methods.

With recent advancement in energy-based sustainable design of building structures, the need for inclusive yet practical models to integrate resilience and sustainability is increasingly recognized....

Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the world and produces only water vapor as a result of chemical reaction that occurred in fuel cells. Therefore, fuel cell electric vehicles, which use hydrogen as fuel, continue its growing trend in the sector. In this study, an energy distribution comparison is carried out between fuel cell electric vehicle and fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle. Hybridization of fuel cell electric vehicle is designed by equipped a traction battery (15 kW). Modeled vehicles were prepared under AVL Cruise program with similar chassis and same fuel cell stacks for regular determining process. Numerical analyses were presented and graphed with instantaneous results in terms of sankey diagrams with a comparison task. WLTP driving cycle is selected for both vehicles and energy input/output values given with detailed analyses. The average consumption results of electric and hydrogen usage is found out as 4.07 kWh and 1.125 kg/100 km respectively for fuel cell electric vehicle. On the other hand, fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle's average consumption results figured out as 3.701 kWh for electric and 0.701 kg/100 km for hydrogen consumption. As a result of this study, fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle was obtained better results rather than fuel cell electric vehicle according to energy and hydrogen consumption with 8% and 32%, respectively. (C) 2019 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Water, which is used as a cooling agent in various thermal power-based industries, is utilised for the extraction of heat from numerous equipments. Extracted energy need to be discharged in ambient...

Geothermal energy is a kind of green and non-polluting renewable energy. Medium and low-temperature geothermal energy below 150 °C is usually used directly for heating, industrial and agricultural heating, bathing, etc., and the utilization rate is low. Organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system can be used in a low-temperature geothermal power generation systems. Thermodynamic analysis of the thermal cycle system is carried out in this paper. Based on the principle of exergy analysis, the cycle parameters such as evaporation temperature, condensation temperature, superheating temperature, and supercooling temperature are analyzed. The results show that the exergy efficiency and system output power can improve by increasing evaporation temperature and the exergy loss can decrease in the evaporator. Increasing superheating temperature enhances the output power of the expander and the exergy loss in the condenser, decreases the exergy efficiency simultaneously. Increasing condensation temperature decreases the exergy efficiency of the system and the output power of the expander, and increases the exergy loss of the system. Although the output power of the expander will not be affected by supercooling temperature, the rise of supercooling temperature will reduce the exergy efficiency of the system and increase the exergy loss of the evaporator.

The article presents an energy analysis of a real suction-pressure unit of a high-efficiency radial piston pump. This pump can be used in small hydropower plants, where, together with a variable displacement hydraulic motor, it would form a hydrostatic transmission. The main advantage of this solution is the possibility of a stepless, automatic change of gear ratio during its operation, which allows an increase of the efficiency of power generation in a hydropower plant. Mathematical models of friction and resistance of flow through self-acting and geometrical deformations of chambers and piston under stress field are presented. In addition, mass, volume, and energy balance calculations were computed for the ideal unit and pressure losses were determined. Derived indicator diagrams for each chamber of the ideal suction-pressure unit served to analyze the technical work of occurring processes. The paper also presents the formulation of total efficiency of the unit. Lastly, the experimental procedure is presented, according to which it is possible to register the most important parameters of the proposed model.

The traditional vegetable drying (open-air/sun drying) method of harvesting of tomato, potato and onion in the Fogera District in Amhara regional state, Ethiopia, leads to loss of product, reduction in the quality of product and economic loss for the poor farmers. So, this experiment aimed to show the effectiveness of solar dryer technology by increasing the quality of the product in tomato, potato, and onion in Fogera district Northwest Ethiopia, 2018. A simple solar vegetable dryer is experimentally analyzed to alleviate the problem associated with vegetable processing in Woreta city. The first law of thermodynamics energy analysis was carried out to estimate the amount of useful energy gained from solar air dryer and energy utilization ratio of the drying chamber and the energy through drying box. The magnitude of the exergy inflow, outflow and exergy losses in the drying chamber during the drying process was determined by applying the second law of thermodynamics. The average solar drying efficiency was found to be 75.01% to 86.70% for tomato, 75.70% to 87.90% for potato and 58.7% to 85.5% for onion. Regrading the drying period, it took 33 h for tomato, 27 h for potato and 44 h for onion during the experimental test.

The aim of this research is to evaluate the performance of impact-induced vibration control using momentum exchange impact damper with pre-straining spring mechanism (PSMEID) based on the energy analysis and verifying the effectiveness of the proposed method experimentally using a simple three-body collision model. It is shown from the simulation study that the fraction of energy absorbed by the primary mass was small if the excitation frequency differs from the primary mass natural frequency. In the case of excitation frequency is lower than the primary mass natural frequency, most of the impact energy is transferred to the damper mass. For excitation frequencies higher than the primary mass natural frequency, a large amount of impact energy is reflected after the collision. The energy absorption ratio is small if the damper mass ratio(M d /M p ) approaches 0.2 and the ratio between pin force (f )and the reference friction force (f ) closest to 1. The optimum condition of the pre-straining spring stiffness increases when the impact damper mass ratio is increased. The experiment was conducted to validate the simulation results. The experimental data has shown that the fref minimum acceleration response is obtained using the pre-straining spring deflection ratio (xps/xpsref= 0.18).

In this paper, the influences of parameters such as the bond length, surface textures of reinforcement, reinforcement type and stirrups restraint were considered. Pull-out failure, splitting failure and splitting-pullout failure modes were observed during the test. The slip at the free end always lagged behind the slip at the loading end and the bond-slip curve of ribbed basalt fiber reinforced polymer (BFRP) bars included the micro-slip stage, slip stage, descent stage, and residual stage. Reducing the bond length and using ribbed-sand coated bars were beneficial to improve the bond performance. Increasing the bond length from 2.5 d to 5 d reduced the bond strength by 49.2%. The application of ribbed-sand coated bars instead of plain bars increased the bond strength by 1202.3%. The difference in bond strength between steel bars, BFRP bars and glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) bars was small and the bond strengths of the three were much greater than that of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) bars. This was mainly attributed to the different rib forms of the bars. The application of stirrups increased the bond strength by 11.5%, which indicated that the stirrup restraints can improve the bond behavior to a certain extent. Besides, the analysis of the bond-slip curve based on the energy perspective was consistent with test results.

This Letter reports a method to obtain fine-grained energy consumption analysis of programs running on the low-power internet of things (IoT) devices. In the energy estimation domain, most state-of-the-art solutions focus on the coarse-grained approach to monitor the energy consumption of a device or an application. However, few solutions addressed energy monitoring to analyse fine-grained energy consumption of a program, especially for IoT appliances. Therefore, the authors present a fine-grained gem5-based energy profiling tool to help developers to evaluate the energy efficiency of hot spots in their programs. The authors demonstrate its usability by applying it to profiling garbage collection and property lookup in Jerryscript, a JavaScript engine specifically designed for resource-constrained IoT devices, and discover that these two operations are consuming, as they account for 17.67 and 12.26% of total energy, respectively. Therefore, this tool can aid the developers to gain insight into the energy efficiency of their software.

This study was conducted to develop a high-moisture food waste dryer that uses steam as a direct heat source to improve the drying speed. Another objective was to verify its performance through experiments. A dryer with a drying capacity of 10,000 kg/hr, which uses steam from an incineration plant as a drying heat source, was fabricated. The performance and applicability of the dryer were verified through drying experiments, in which the food waste collected from large restaurants near the incineration plant was used as the experimental material. The drying experiment results showed that the input steam temperature increased by 21℃ from approximately 145℃ to 166℃ compared to the case in which drying was performed by converting steam into heated air. The drying speed increased by 1.5 times from approximately 0.63 to 0.94 %/hr, and drying up to approximately 20%(wb) moisture content was possible. The drying energy rate, which represents the ratio of the energy consumed for drying to the input energy, increased by approximately ten times from 7.17% to 70.87%. The total drying time still remained approximately 100 hr due to the re-condensation of moisture. When steam was directly used as a drying heat source to improve the drying speed of food waste containing high moisture, the drying speed, water content after drying, and drying energy rate were clearly improved compared to the case in which steam was converted into heated air for use. Therefore, it was deemed necessary to develop a dryer that directly uses steam from an incineration plant for drying. To shorten the total drying time, it is necessary to develop a device that solves the problem of moisture condensation in the dryer.

Infections by the Ebola virus (EBOV) rapidly cause fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans. Viral entry into host cells is the most critical step in infection and an attractive target for therapeutic intervention. Herein, the invagination behavior and entry dynamics of filamentous Ebola virus-like particles (EBO-VLPs) were investigated using a force tracing technique based on atomic force microscopy and single-particle fluorescence tracking in real time. The filamentous EBOV-VLPs might enter cells in both horizontal and vertical modes, and the virus-receptor interactions during endocytic uptake were analyzed. In addition, molecular dynamics simulations and engulfment energy analysis further depicted EBO-VLP entry in the horizontal and vertical directions and suggested that internalization in the vertical direction requires a larger force and more time. This report provides useful information for further revealing the mechanism of viral infection, which is important for understanding viral pathogenesis.

The failure patterns and energy evolution of three types of shaft lining concrete subjected to static and dynamic loading were reported. The energy and damage characteristics of concrete were determined by means of a uniaxial hydraulic servo machine, acoustic emission (AE) equipment, a split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) and an ultrasonic wave analyser. The experimental results indicate that the confluence of multiple cracks forms a penetrating cross section in normal high-strength concrete (NHSC) under the condition of static loading, while the elastic energy that surges out at failure can cause tremendous damage when subjected to dynamic loading. A single crack was split into multiple propagation directions due to the presence of fibres in steel fibre-reinforced concrete (SFRC); adding fibre to concrete should be an effective way to dissipate energy. The non-steam-cured reactive powder concrete (NSC-RPC) designed in this paper can store and dissipate more energy than normal concrete, as NSC-RPC exhibits a strong ability to resist impact. Applying NSC-RPC to the long-service material of a shaft lining structure in deep underground engineering is quite effective.

The present work focusses on comparison of several low Global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants in search of possible alternatives to a refrigerant HFC-134a of a home refrigerator without any mo...

Our aim in this work is to improve the design and model of real-life applications. We put forward a standard based on m-polar fuzzy soft set decision-making criterion to examine the optimal alternative for the suitability of S-boxes to image encryption applications. The proposed standard studies the results of correlation analysis, entropy analysis, contrast analysis, homogeneity analysis, energy analysis, and mean of absolute deviation analysis. These analyses are applied to well-known substitution boxes. The algorithm of outcomes of these analyses is additional observed and a m-polar fuzzy soft set decision-making criterion is used to decide the optimal alternative for suitability of S-box to image encryption applications. All results taken by using the reality values for all S-boxes and experimental problems with reality values are discussed to show the validity of the optimal alternative for the suitability of S-box to image encryption.

In this study, hybrid solar drying of coffee beans was performed, and energy analysis was carried out, to assess the system’s performance, in terms of energy efficiency, compared to solar drying and the open sun drying method. The dryer has three compartments: solar collector for collecting solar radiation, drying chamber, and a Liquid Petroleum Gas burner, which acted as an auxiliary heater to assist the thermal energy. The drying chamber has four trays for placing the dried product. The initial moisture content of coffee beans was 54.23% w.b and was reduced to the final moisture content between 11-12% w.b. The coffee beans dried faster when subjected to the solar hybrid drying method, compared to other methods, with the dryer temperature of 40°C, 50°C, and 60°C. Results indicated that the coffee beans’ drying times varied from 10 to 14 hours. However, at temperature 50°C and 60°C for the 1st tray, the water content was reduced more rapidly compared to the other tray. From the results of this study, we can see the different efficiency of solar collector that shows of 54.15% at variable temperature 60°C for drying time 12:00 to 14:00 p.m for hybrid solar drying and for the solar drying process is 50.07% at the range of drying time 12:00 to 14:00 p.m. Mathematical modelling shows that Page model is the most suitable for describing the coffee beans’ drying behaviour using a hybrid solar dryer. The effective diffusivity values found in this experiment are all in the acceptable range for most agricultural products. ©2020. CBIORE-IJRED. All rights reserved

The improved effect of the bonding behavior of concrete and reinforcement is a critical indicator for estimating the validity of strengthening measures. The bonding behavior of unconfined or textile reinforced concrete (TRC)-confined concrete and a plain or deformed reinforcement was comparatively analyzed via the pull-out tests, and the influence of chloride wet-dry cycles also was considered on the bonding behavior. Moreover, the bonding behavior was further revealed from the view of energy. The study results indicated that the bonding failure of specimens with a deformed reinforcement was changed after TRC confinement, showing a certain ductile failure characteristic, and the integrity of the confined specimens was ensured at failure. The impact of chloride attack on the bonding behavior of concrete and a plain or deformed reinforcement was different under the unconfined or TRC-confined condition. The deterioration mechanism of the bonding behavior needs to be further investigated when the reinforcement is corroded seriously. The results from the energy analysis are consistent with the pull-out test results.

The Irish Seafood agency reports that 15% of global energy is consumed by operations related to refrigeration and air conditioning in the fish industry which stresses the importance of integration with clean renewables and adoption of smart energy management solutions. While fish processing industries have high energy costs with continuous refrigeration, air conditioning and ice making processes, there is a real need to analyse and model energy use in fish ports to understand environmental impacts in terms of CO2 emissions while exploring the potential for integrating renewable energy sources.In this paper, we conduct energy modelling and optimization for the Milford Haven fish processing port in South Wales. We explain how a simulation capability can be developed at the fish industry port level and propose a simulation-based optimization strategy to determine optimized schedules for appliances. The results show that energy consumption can be reduced with the use of optimized appliance schedules developed in relation to the total energy demand as well as a wide range of optimization constraints. Keywords: Energy analysis, Energy modelling, Simulation, Optimization, Renewable energy, Scheduling appliances

Limited by its low energy capacity, small UAVs have short flight time. Therefore, it is of great significance to improve the endurance performance of small UAVs by applying solar energy technology and dynamic soaring technology which can obtain external energy. This paper analyzes the energy exchange principle of small UAVs using solar energy technology and dynamic soaring technology, and works out the strategy of maximum energy gain. Small UAV flight dynamics model combined with solar power-energy system was built, choosing surround flight path at twilight moment for simulation validation. The advantages of small solar UAV using dynamic soaring technology in energy acquisition in hovering flight and pure dynamic gliding flight are verified, compared with traditional solar vehicle. The significance of combining the two energy acquisition technologies to improve the endurance of small UAV is proved, which provides a basis for further study of all-weather uninterrupted flight in the future.

The present work aimed to increase the liquefaction and biohydrogen recovery of sea eelgrass by combining the surfactant, sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP) with dispersion homogenization. Firstly, the dispersion homogenization (DH) of sea eelgrass was performed by varying the dispersion revolution speed (rpm) from 4000 to 16,000 and treatment time from 0 to 60 min. The conditions for STPP induced dispersion homogenization (SDH) pretreatment (10,000 rpm and 0.05 g/g TS of STPP dosage) was optimized based on the liquefaction (solubilization) of sea eelgrass biomass. A higher liquefaction of 25.6% was achieved through SDH pretreatment. Bioacidification result shows that the percentage increment of volatile fatty acids (VFA) in SDH was found to be 54% higher when compared to DH. SDH pretreated sea eelgrass, when subjected to biohydrogen production yielded a peak production of 23.2 mL H2/g VS than DH (16 mL H2/g VS) and control-untreated raw biomass (3.2 mL H2/g VS). The preliminary energy analysis revealed that SDH was considered to be an energy efficient pretreatment process with energy ratio of 1.9 when compared to DH (0.75).

This work contains the experimental analysis results in real environment conditions of the use of $$\hbox{Al}_2\hbox{O}_3$$ -based nanofluid (NF) at different concentration ratios (0.1% and 0.2%) in a ground source heat pump (GSHP) system with a slinky ground heat exchanger (GHE). The energetic and exergic efficiencies of the system were investigated with the data obtained from the experimental results of base fluid (ethylene glycol (EG)-water) (EG volumetric ratio 25%) and NF with $$\hbox{Al}_2\hbox{O}_3$$ concentration ratios of 0.1% and 0.2%. The exergetic model is obtained by applying energy and exergy equations for each system component. Exergetic efficiencies of the system components are evaluated separately and their potential for improvement is presented. According to the results of the energetic analysis, the overall system’s coefficient of performance (COP) values for the base fluid and NF with concentration ratios of 0.1% and 0.2% were 4.30, 4.38 and 4.34, respectively. These results show that NF contributes to system performance. However, an increase in system performance was not achieved due to the increase in NF concentration; on the contrary, a decrease in performance was observed. Exergetic efficiencies of the system for base fluid and NF with concentration ratios of 0.1% and 0.2% were 88.3%, 89.7% and 89.0%, respectively, for the heat pump unit, while these values were 78.7%, 79.3% and 79.0% for the entire system, respectively. The results show that the usage of NF with low concentration ratios increases the energetic and exergic efficiency of the system.

The environmental safety of a car is currently one of the most important indicators of vehicle competitiveness and quality in the consumer market. Currently, assessment of the ecological properties of vehicles is based on various criteria. In the case of combustion-powered cars, most attention is usually paid to the values characterizing their use, and in terms of environmental assessment, pollutant emissions, and operational fuel consumption are key factors. The current article considers the possibility of using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method to analyze the ecological properties of a passenger car during its operation. A simplified LCA method for vehicles, which, in strictly defined cases, can be used for the analysis of environmental impact and assessment of the energy analysis related to its operation, is presented. For this purpose, a vehicle life cycle model is developed. Data on the operation of 33 passenger cars from different manufacturers with similar operational characteristics, coming from different production periods, are analyzed in detail. The vehicle use model takes into account the environmental load due to fuel consumption and pollutant emissions from the internal combustion engine, as well as processes related to the maintenance of the car. The obtained results show that, from the point of view of a car’s impact on the environment throughout its life cycle, the phase of its operation plays the most important role. For the annual operation period, the results of the analysis lead to the conclusion that, in the assessment of energy inputs and related emissions throughout the life cycle of a passenger car, the mileage of the car, which is determined by both the periodicity of replacement of elements and materials subject to normal wear and the length of the adopted period, is of key importance. For the tested vehicles, both the energy input resulting from fuel consumption as well as CO2 and SO2 emissions constitute about 94% to 96% of the total input during the annual operation of the vehicle.

One of the main concerns regarding intensive broiler production is the high use of energy for climate control. An improved design of broiler house envelopes could decrease this energy consumption. Current evaluation methods only consider the delivered energy, which is misleading because it does not consider the entire energy supply chain. By contrast, primary energy encompasses all forms of direct energy, e.g. thermal and electrical, that are supplied to the broiler house, including the energy losses along the energy supply chain. In this work, delivered energy and primary energy approaches are adopted to identify the most energy-efficient solution for envelopes in typical European broiler houses. This work evaluates 18 scenarios characterized by three different envelope types and six different outdoor weather conditions. Financial aspects are evaluated through global cost analysis. The results of this study show that a high-insulated envelope is suitable in the considered outdoor weather conditions, but it is not sustainable from a financial point of view. By contrast, a medium insulated envelope shows a favourable energy performance and its global cost is similar to that of a non-insulated envelope. A comparison of the results reveals that the delivered energy approach considerably underestimates the broiler house energy consumption compared to the primary energy approach. These results strongly suggest that a primary energy approach is well-suited for the assessment of the energy performance of broiler houses and livestock houses. This is because it accounts for the total direct energy supplied to the broiler house considering the specificity of the energy mix of the analysed country and the considered energy carrier. The proposed approach lays the groundwork for future research regarding the assessment of the energy performance of livestock houses.

In this communication, the performance evaluation has been discussed for various kinds of photovoltaic (PV) technologies which has integrated to solar air collector with drying system. Mathematical modelling has been carried out for photovoltaic thermal air collector (PVTAC) with dryer. On the basis of mathematical model, energy analysis has been carried out for different types of partially covered PV technologies (namely, c-Si, p-Si, a-Si, CdTe and CIGS) air collector. CIGS has been found to be the best PV technology for large systems in terms of minimum embodied energy and payback period.

The environmental impact of buildings has stimulated efforts to promote sustainable development in the construction sector. Technological development aims to provide an effective framework for the design, construction, and management of buildings through the use of tools such as Building Information Modeling (BIM). This paper critically assesses the use of BIM technology in vernacular design and analysis through the case study of a Greek vernacular museumbuilding. Based on software application as well as in-situ observation and interviews, accurate energy analysis and safety were proved to be important advantages achieved through BIM technology. On the contrary, the inability to capture tacit knowledge and the lack of adaptability to local specificities appear to be the main weaknesses of BIM technology. Certain measures to enhance the use of BIM technology for the design and analysis of vernacular buildings are proposed

Energy-saving has become a high priority in the Architectural design of buildings, particularly in hot climate regions like Saudi Arabia. Thus, selecting the appropriate Architectural Design Features (ADFs) at the early design stage provides significant opportunity to manage heat flow, prevent excessive energy consumption, and maintain a comfortable temperature for the occupants. In this research, a structured “Architectural based-Energy Impact Scoring System (AEISS)” has been developed. The system incorporates seven key ADFs that were identified based on inputs from a large number of experienced architects, and embody 40 different design options. To support designers in selecting and evaluating, including energy analysis, of any Architectural design that has any combination of design options, AEISS incorporates a comprehensive decision scoring system. Energy analysis is performed using a simulation tool (Ecotect®) that is integrated with the Revit BIM models. To validate AEISS, three design alternatives were evaluated for a residential building in Saudi Arabia. Using AEISS, it was possible to arrive at the optimum design. This research presents a scientific decision-making approach to quantify design alternatives while reducing designers’ subjectivity in the evaluation process.

Tubular membrane structures are abundant in living cells and participate in various cell activities with the help of specific proteins. This complicated protein-membrane interaction raises a largely unclear question of how cells create, maintain and eliminate membrane nanotubes with a variety of proteins involved. To simplify the question and to give a common mechanism, we simply model membrane proteins as various solid nanoparticles (NPs) of different shapes, instead of considering the detailed structure of different proteins. With this minimal model of membrane proteins, we use molecular simulations to study the common features for protein self-assembly on membrane tubes. Both molecular simulations and energy analysis reveal that on tubular membrane surfaces, the radial aggregation structure of spherical NPs prevails over axial aggregation. We demonstrate that anisotropic deformation of membrane tubes by NP adhesion leads to a direction-dependent (effective) inter-NP attraction, which controls the direction of NP assembly. Moreover, this radial aggregation morphology seems to be independent of the shape of NPs, except for NPs with a length comparable to the tube diameter. This observation indicates that proteins with strong adhesion to a membrane tube tend to form ring-like aggregates, and this finding offers an insight into how proteins play their roles in generating, maintaining and breaking tubular membrane structures.

The advent of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has led to a rapid growth in data generation. The amount of computation resources required to process the massive data generated by IoT devices, along with the new intelligent use and applications of IoT data such as smart city that can be computation intensive and delay sensitive, have caused an increase in demand for locally available resources at network edge for computation offloading. To address this issue, we have proposed the concept of opportunistic fog radio access network (OF-RAN), which extends the computation capacity of existing fog-RAN (F-RAN) by establishing virtual fog access points (v-FAP) opportunistically using resourceful user devices that participate as service nodes. In this article, we develop an analytical model to evaluate the offloading performance of three RAN architectures: the traditional cloud radio access network (C-RAN), the existing F-RAN, and the proposed OF-RAN. The performances are analyzed in terms of their energy consumption, completion delay, and failure rate, under the effect of varying scenarios.

The 3A zeolites are excellent adsorbents for industrial-scale gas dehydration because of the low energy required for regeneration and ease of operation. A computational study of the dehydration of an industrial feed stream containing ethane and water was performed using an in-house code that included an appropriate equilibrium adsorption isotherm. The validated computational model was used to examine the impact of particle size on the process dynamics and the corresponding pressure drop. The water concentration along the adsorption column was also investigated. To increase the process capacity, the packed adsorption bed was divided into two distinct layers, which were operated with different particle sizes. The length of each layer was determined by a parametric study. The best breakthrough time, i.e., 107,800 s, at the allowed pressure drop was obtained when the lengths of the first and second layers were 4.5 and 1 m, respectively. The results showed that the new two-layer adsorption bed could save around 33.8% in total energy requirement in comparison to that of a single bed.