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In the future energy landscape, combined cycle power plants will increasingly take the role of providing balancing power for fluctuating renewable energy sources due to their high availability and fast start-up times. This implies more frequent cycling, a larger number of speed cycles and thus new challenges for plant design and operation. One of these challenges is a potential increase of cyclic fatigue incurred by last-stage blades during start-up and coast-down. Blade vibrations might be induced by synchronous shaft vibrations when the blade resonance is excited by lateral shaft vibrations. In this paper, we report measurement results of shaft and blade vibrations observed at some Siemens Energy steam turbines. Apart from the expected increase of blade vibrations when the double rotating speed crosses the blade resonance, a distinctive dip of shaft vibrations at the low-pressure turbine bearings is observed. We argue that this phenomenon is likely related to the aforementioned interaction between blade and shaft vibrations and present a theoretical framework to describe this interaction and the observed effect.

A 2 m diameter REFLUX™ Classifier was tested on coal feeds up to 6 mm top size. Solids feed rate was varied from 50 to 160 t/h at suspension concentrations up to 37 wt.% solids. Performance was con...

Over the past years in the industry, the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) waste into the atmosphere have been rapidly increasing. The carbon capture technology is used in a few power plants to capture CO2molecules from the flue gas. Researchers have established method to use CO2and convert into valuable products. Therefore, this study is aim to simulate the reaction between captured CO2with hydrogen to produce renewable methanol. In order to achieve objective of designing the renewable methanol plant, the Aspen Hysys is used as modelling and simulation tool to obtain about 50k tonnes per year of renewable methanol production. Then, the amount of CO2is evaluated based on the amount of CO2in flue gas, CO2capture and renewable methanol produced. The results of the simulation that obtained is about 16510 kg/h of captured CO2and 6049 kg/h of methanol produced from the 17936 kg/h of CO2contained in flue gas. Three different coal-fired power plant capacities have been studied to evaluate their methanol production capacity. A small 110 MW power plant could produce 12705 kg/h of methanol, while 1400 MW and 2420 MW power plant will achieve 161,703 kg/h and 279515 kg/h respectively.

For a first-of-a-kind nuclear fusion reactor like ITER, remote maintainability of neutron-activated and contaminated components is one of the key aspects of plant design and operations, hence a fundamental ingredient of its success, as well as of the demonstration of long-term viability of fusion as an energy source. The whole ITER Remote Maintenance System (IRMS) is of unprecedented complexity and includes specifically developed technologies. Its procurement and start of operation will represent a major innovation to maintenance in hostile environments. Europe is a key contributor, with three remote handling (RH) systems, a.k.a. packages, plus a robotic inspection and metrology tool, currently under design. This paper gives an update on the status of design and procurement activities related to the IRMS. It will first introduce some key aspects of the reactor remote maintainability, and then give an overview of the present configuration of the global system. After this, the scope, status and challenges of the European (EU) packages will be illustrated in more detail, together with some key technological developments. Finally, the way all these efforts are coordinated will be presented together with the overall implementation scenario and milestones, and the way they fit with ITER construction and operation.

Crushing is a size reduction process that plays a key role in both mineral processing and crushing–screening plant design. Investigations on rock crushability have become an important issue in mining operations and the manufacture of industrial crusher equipment. The main objective of this research is to quantify the crushability of hard rocks based on their mineralogical and mechanical properties. For this purpose, the mineralogical, physical, and mechanical properties of various hard rocks were determined. A new compressive crushing value (CCV) testing methodology was proposed. The results obtained from CCV tests were compared with those from mineralogical inspections, rock strength as well as mechanical aggregate tests. Strong correlations were found between CCV and several rock and aggregate properties such as uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), the brittleness index (S20), and aggregate impact value (AIV). Furthermore, the relationship between the mineralogical properties of the rocks and their CCVs were established. It is concluded that the proposed testing methodology is simple and highly repeatable and could be utilized as a pre-design tool in the design stage of the crushing process for rock quarries. © 2018, University of Science and Technology Beijing and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature., Bülent Ecevit Üniversitesi: 2016-98150330-01, This work was financially supported by Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit University (No. 2016-98150330-01).

Currently, for the EU DEMO, two Breeding Blankets (BBs) have been selected as potential candidates for the integration in the reactor. They are the Water Cooled Lithium Lead and the Helium Cooled Pebble Bed BB concepts. The two BB variants together with the associated ancillary systems drive the design of the overall plant. Therefore, a holistic investigation of integration issues derived by the BB and the installation of its ancillary systems has been performed. The issues related to the water activation due to the 16N and 17N isotopes and the impact on the primary heat transfer systems have been investigated providing guidelines and dedicated solution for the integration of safety devices as isolation valves. The tritium retention and the permeation rates through the blanket and its ancillary systems have been also assessed taking into account different operating points both for the BB and ancillaries and comparing, when possible, the releases with the operating and safety limits. Moreover, the issues related to the tritium start-up inventory as well as the uncertainties on the Tritium Breeding Ratio (TBR) due to the integration of the auxiliary systems within the Vacuum Vessel have been also studied. Finally, the impact of the BB concepts on the safety systems like the Vacuum Vessel Pressure Suppression System is described with a particular focus on the different measures that should be implemented according to the considered concept. All these aspects are then taken into account to drive future developments during the Concept Design Phase., peer-reviewed

This article explores the optimization of plant characteristics and controller parameters for electrified mobility. Electrification of mobile transportation systems, such as automobiles and aircraft, presents the ability to improve key performance metrics such as efficiency and cost. However, the strong bidirectional coupling between electrical and thermal dynamics within new components creates integration challenges, increasing component degradation, and reducing performance. Diminishing these issues requires novel plant designs and control strategies. The electrified mobility literature provides prior studies on plant and controller optimization, known as control co-design (CCD). A void within these studies is the lack of model predictive control (MPC), recognized to manage multi-domain dynamics for electrified systems, within CCD frameworks. This article addresses this through three contributions. First, a thermo-electromechanical hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) powertrain model is developed that is suitable for both plant optimization and MPC. Second, simultaneous plant and controller optimization is performed for this multi-domain system. Third, MPC is integrated within a CCD framework using the candidate HEV powertrain model. Results indicate that optimizing both the plant and MPC parameters simultaneously can reduce physical component sizes by over 60% and key performance metric errors by over 50%.

[ES] En este artículo se presenta un modelo dinámico para un recuperador de gases - sales fundidas incluido en una planta de demostración de una tecnología de hibridación de plantas termosolares con otras fuentes de energías renovables. Tanto el demostrador como el modelo se han desarrollado en el ámbito del proyecto HYSOL. Este trabajo describe brevemente dicho proyecto, su tecnología, demostrador y principalmente el modelo dinámico del recuperador, cuyo estado estacionario ha sido comparado con los cálculos de diseño. El artículo se completa con simulaciones dinámicas donde se estudia la convergencia del modelo, la contribución de los distintos procesos físicos a la transferencia de calor y el impacto de las condiciones ambientales a las pérdidas térmicas., [EN] In this paper, a dynamic model of a molten salt -gas heat recovery system of a demonstrator for a hybrid renewable solar thermal power plant, developed in the scope of the HYSOL project, is presented. This work describes briefly the HYSOL project, its technology, the demonstrator and mainly the developed heat recovery system dynamic model; its steady state has been compared to the expected results from plant design calculations. This paper is completed with dynamic simulations where, the model convergence is studied, the contribution of the different heat transfer processes is analyzed, and the impact of the environment conditions to thermal losses is evaluated., Este trabajo ha sido financiado con el proyecto HYSOL del Séptimo Programa Marco de la Unión Europea (FP7/2013-2016) según el acuerdo de subvención número 308912.

In any type of welding, its heat affected zone (HAZ) is the most critical section where the probability of hydrogen or solidification cracking is prominent. Continuous efforts are being applied by researchers and welders to minimize HAZ and its alterations. For the same purpose, by varying the factors of submerged arc welding (SAW) process which directly influences the heat input and cooling rate of the weld, experiments are carried out on the plates of micro-alloyed high strength pipeline steel. Voltage, welding speed, contact tube to work distance, wire feed rate and preheating temperature are taken as process variables. The experiments are designed according to the central composite rotatable design approach of response surface methodology (RSM). Multi-objective optimization of HAZ characteristics (HAZ area and its hardness) is carried out using grey relational analysis (GRA). To un-correlate the correlated characteristics of HAZ, principal component analysis (PCA) approach is coupled with GRA. The results of the confirmatory test have shown an improvement of 28.51 % and 5.94 % in area and hardness value of HAZ respectively at optimal setting combination of SAW process parameters.

Future power grids would be unstable because of the larger share of renewable and nuclear power sources. This instability might bring some additional difficulties to fusion plant installation. Therefore, the authors carried out a quantitative feasibility study from the aspect of grid stability through simulation. Results showed that the more renewable and nuclear sources are linked to a grid, the greater disturbance the grid experiences upon a sudden output interruption of a fusion power plant, e.g. plasma disruption. The frequency deviations surpassed 0.2 Hz on some grids, suggesting potential limitations of fusion plant installation on future grids. To clearly show the suggested limitations of fusion plant installations, a novel diagram was presented.

This study discusses about the future of augmented reality (AR) and its capability to transform engineering design. AR lets designers visualize parts such as the motorcycle cladding, fuel-tank cover, and seal. AR’s possibilities have spurred major engineering software companies such as Bentley Systems, Siemens PLM, and Autodesk, and even the software behemoth Microsoft, to invest in AR for engineering, manufacturing, and plant design. Merging engineering software and AR could let engineers suspend 3D models in midair and tweak them in real time. In AR’s new era, wearable headsets are smaller, less bulky, and far more user friendly than older AR devices. They are also reliable, affordable, and do not tie their wearers by cord to a computer system. New AR applications have let auto mechanics gaze through headsets for visual guidance as they repaired car engines. It is predicted that AR will also be useful for the Internet of Things and the Industrial Internet of Things.

This article deals with improving the planning of hem flange bonding in the car body manufacturing process. Particularly during the ramp-up of the plant, great effort is put into ensuring that the generated adhesive bond meets the quality requirements. Here, several challenges occur in parallel. This ranges from the specific adhesive design, a result of multi-dimensional and individually curved car body parts, to the multi-stage process chain, where the associated manufacturing equipment is complex. This intricacy is countered by a discrete analysis of the adhesive continuum. Based on an established method, the location where the adhesive must be applied is computed under consideration of contiguous contours, disturbance variables and applicability by the projected dispensing system. For this reason the performance of the involved machines is examined. The results of this new method comprise a robot path along which an application system is guided, and control commands for the latter. Finally, a validation proves that this way, the adhesive application can be designed in a shorter period of time and in high quality at an early stage of plant design.

Performing flotation within the grinding circuit has been successfully utilized by many concentrators across the globe for decades and has advantages including the reduced need for water, chemicals, and power when compared with the conventional style of flotation. The term “unit cell” is used to encompass all forms of flotation within the grinding circuit and includes both cyclone underflow and mill discharge (cyclone feed) flotation. This paper has been written to provide a review of the current use of unit cell flotation and provide the operator with key information vital to the successful understanding, application and operation of flotation machines within this unique flotation environment. Examples from operating plants are presented and discussed as appropriate. Mill discharge flotation has been highlighted as a key area for future development as it presents a unique opportunity to maximize plant design efficiency, reducing both capital costs and operating costs.Methods for characterizing op...

For the development of a wind power plant, plant design and its project feasibility analysis are implemented with wind data observed by a met-mast at a target location. Since observation period/time of a met-mast is normally about one year before the plant design, correlation with long-term data existing in the neighborhood of the target location is used for hindcasting past met-mast data to reduce uncertainty in the feasibility analysis, which is called the Measure-Correlate-Predict (MCP) method. In this study, cyclostationary empirical orthogonal function (CSEOF) analysis as a new approach is employed to extend the 1.5-year offshore met-mast HeMOSU-1 data into 34-year long-term data based on the MERRA reanalysis dataset. Both the one- and two-dimensional CSEOF results are compared with that of the widely-used MCP method. The CSEOF method shows a similar level of accuracy to the existing method for mean wind speed, while the former exhibits a slightly better accuracy for the frequency distribution of wind speed and the capacity factor as an index related to the estimation of wind power generation. In additional hypothetical test based on reanalysis datasets, the 1D-CSEOF method shows, in general, a better performance than the conventional MCP method in terms of the accuracy of statistical properties of wind.

The civil structures of nuclear plants need to meet the most strict criteria in terms of safety and reliability not only during their design and construction, but during the duration of their life cycle. In addition, during the life-cycle of nuclear plant higher safety demands than the ones at the time of plant design may appear and the plant needs to prove meeting of such requirements. Validation of thermo-mechanical properties was required for the concrete structure of the containment building of Bohunice NPP in Slovakia. Identification of thermo-mechanical parameters of the material used in the containment structure was necessary to perform said analysis and detailed investigation on the concrete composition was performed. This paper describes the information that can be obtained using state-of-the art analytical methods – X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and thermic analysis (TG/DTA).

Simulation is widely used in design and optimization of mineral processing circuits to answer “what if” questions regarding the employment of different equipment and configurations. The questions could be answered better if the long-term economic impacts of different circuits are readily estimated within the designing stage, considering both economic and technical constraints and criteria. This paper introduces a new open source user-friendly techno-economic simulator developed in Matlab/Simulink that joins multivariate capital and operating cost models to technical models of equipment and estimates some economic analytical indicators of the circuits such as Net Present Value simultaneously when the circuit is being designed. The proposed approach enables the designer to easily consider the technical and economic interactions and tradeoffs. As a case study, the long-term economic impact of selecting different numbers of leaching tanks is investigated and it is shown that even the optimum number of tanks could be a function of discount rate of the project.

This paper presents a nested codesign (combined plant and controller design) formulation that uses optimal design of experiments (DoE) techniques at the upper level to globally explore the plant design space, with continuous-time control parameter adaptation laws used at the lower level. The global design space exploration made possible through optimal DoE techniques makes the proposed methodology appealing for complex, nonconvex optimization problems for which legacy approaches are not effective. Furthermore, the use of continuous-time adaptation laws for control parameter optimization allows for the extension of the proposed optimization framework to the experimental realm, where control parameters can be optimized during experiments. At each full iteration, optimal DoE are used to generate a batch of plant designs within a prescribed design space. Each plant design is tested in either a simulation or experiment, during which an adaptation law is used for control parameter optimization. Two techniques are proposed for control parameter optimization at each iteration: extremum seeking (ES) and continuous-time DoE. The design space is reduced at the end of each full iteration, based on a response surface characterization and quality of fit estimate. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated for an airborne wind energy (AWE) system, where the plant parameters are the center of mass location and stabilizer area, and the control parameter is the trim pitch angle.

Users, researchers and engineers require a fundamental knowledge of reverse pump theory. In this chapter first, a complete description of all PAT components is given. Then, the theory of small reverse pumps is described, based on the results of theoretical analyses, experiments and numerical simulations. PAT characteristic and efficiency curves are introduced and, the influence of pump size and rotational speed on such curves is considered. The possibility of using numerical simulations instead of experimental results is discussed. Finally, additional aspects like cavitation and the incidence of pressure surges are presented and different tools, commonly used for PAT sizing and hydropower plant design, are described. The reader will be prepared, by means of the theoretical basis provided, for the comprehension of the hydraulic and mechanical processes connected with a PAT operation.

Hole drilling is the most common machining operation performed on computer numerical control (CNC) machine tools or machining workshops. Drilling appears to be a relatively simple process however; when it involves drilling deep holes, it becomes one of the most complicated metal cutting processes. Although modern machine tool controllers are equipped with special drilling canned cycles, these cycles have significant constraints mainly due to their limited framework of application. The present work proposes a general G-code algorithm intended to accommodate effective deep hole drilling. The algorithm is characterized by flexibility in the pecking strategy and adaptability to the needs of each individual drilling case. The development of the proposed algorithm is based on parametric programming which is a powerful CNC programming technique.

There is a potential interest at CRL to detritiate moderately tritiated light water and to reclaim tritiated, downgraded heavy water. With only a few limitations, a single CECE process configuratio...

Race tracking is movement of the resin along the sides, inside the mould in between the gaps of the preform and the mould; it is also the path of least friction in the flow. The issues related to design of the infusion set up to minimize the race tracking and methods of avoiding the race tracking during the infusion are highlighted in the paper. Presence of race tracking in a two-dimensional (2-D) radial infusion schemes, and the average increase in the thickness of the preform due to race tracking is evaluated here with different infusion strategy. Setups having the same material properties, and mould size are used for better comparison. The setup dimensional aspect for race tracking free infusion is also highlighted in the paper. Further numerical simulation of three different infusion strategies in the radial two-dimensional infusions is carried out to closely understand race tracking and its implications.

The design of a small road surface shot blasting cleaning machine, using the motor driven wheel blasting high-speed rotation, the pellet material (steel shot or sand) at high speed and certain Angle to throw, throw rock formed certain fan type flow, impact to the road to play the role of a blasting and removing the effect of the residue .Then, projectile and dust into the separator, separator will be tiny and dust separation, dust into the dust collector, and the projectile into the shot blasting machine to recycle. Complete road surface shot blasting cleaning machine of shot blasting machine, sand pill purification plant design. By using solid works 3D drawing software of 3D modeling and virtual assembly.

In the present study, friction stir welding of AA7039 butt plates were investigated with respect to threaded probed tools having different shoulder diameters and shoulder surface geometries. The ultimate tensile properties, micro hardness and grain size of the welds were investigated with respect to the varying tool geometries. The mechanical properties of the welded joints were observed to be influenced by the shoulder diameter and shoulder surface geometry. With the increase in the shoulder diameter, the effect of shoulder concavity on refining the weld grain size diminished. Good quality welds were produced by using tools with semi-concave shoulder surface having shoulder and probe diameters of 19 mm and 7 mm respectively. The fracture surfaces of AA7039 weld samples were dimpled and the crack front energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy analysis exhibited absence of segregation of Zn.

Since the renewed interest in supercritical carbon dioxide cycles, a large number of cycle layouts have been proposed in literature. These analyses, which are essentially theoretical, consider different operating conditions and modelling assumptions and thus the results are not comparable. There are also works that aim to provide a fair comparison between different cycles in order to assess which one is most efficient. These analyses are very interesting but, usually, combine thermodynamic and technical restrictions thus making it difficult to draw solid and general conclusions with regards to which the cycle of choice in the future should be . With this background, the present work provides a systematic thermodynamic analysis of twelve supercritical carbon dioxide cycles under similar working conditions, with and without technical restriction in terms of pressure and/or temperature. This yields very interesting conclusions regarding which the most interesting cycles are amongst those proposed in literature. Also, useful recommendations are extracted from the parametric analysis with respect to the directions that must be followed when searching for more efficient cycles. The analysis is based on efficiency and specific work diagrams with respect to pressure ratio and turbine inlet temperature in order to enhance their applicability to plant designs driven by fuel economy and/or footprint.

Effective use of photovoltaic (PV) modules requires reliable models for a number of applications, such as monitoring the performance of PV systems, estimating the produced power and plant design, etc. Development of accurate and simple models for different PV technologies remains a big challenge. In this paper, a comparative study of seven implicit and explicit models, published in the literature, is presented. The predicted current-voltage characteristics of the main commercial PV module technologies (multi-crystalline Silicon, Copper Indium Gallium Selenide, and Cadmium Telluride), have been compared both with the ones from the datasheet and with the ones obtained experimentally. Moreover, the investigated models have also been evaluated in terms of accuracy, required parameters, generalisation capability and complexity.

The operation of pre-industrial membrane distillation (MD) units is of great importance in order to implement this new technology. The systematic development from module to plant design for MD is conducted in an industrial research-cooperation. The consequent up-scaling from a lab plant at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) for MD module evaluation to a pre-industrial plant is presented. Permeate gap MD (PGMD) and Direct Contact MD (DCMD) spiral wound modules with different channel lengths have been used in this study to evaluate the most suitable module configuration and design. It has been decided to go along with DCMD modules with a relatively short channel length. A pilot plant for on land testing has been built and operated for 9 months before constructing the pre-industrial unit. In the pre-industrial plant waste heat was used and a heat recovery and recycle concept was implemented and tested successfully. It has been proven that long-term operation with real seawater is possible without significant performance decline. Besides operational data also MD plant design specifics will be discussed. The importance of ambient pressure conditions for the MD modules was determined. In addition, the possibility of piping system deaeration is discussed.

This paper firstly analyzes the steel-structure industrial plants and solar photovoltaic power generation technology and then sums up the practical example, the application of solar photovoltaic power generation technology in the plant design of Shandong Hi-Function Energy Technology Co., Ltd. and finally conducts beneficial exploration and research to the design on solar photovoltaic power generation integration of steel-structure industrial plants in cold regions.

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is an additive manufacturing technology for rapid prototyping that can build intricate parts in minimal time with least human intervention. The process parameters such as layer thickness, orientation, raster angle, raster width and air gap largely influence on dimensional accuracy of built parts which can be expressed as change in length, width and thickness. This paper presents experimental data and a fuzzy decision making logic in integration with the Taguchi method for improving the dimensional accuracy of FDM processed ABSP 400 parts. It is observed that length and width decreases but thickness shows positive deviation from desired value of the built part. Experimental results indicate that optimal factor settings for each response are different. Therefore, all the three responses are expressed in a single response index through fuzzy logic approach. The process parameters are optimized with consideration of all the performance characteristics simultaneously. Finally, an inference engine is developed to perform the inference operations on the rules for fuzzy prediction model based on Mamdani method. Experimental results are provided to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The predicted results are in good agreement with the values from the experimental data with average percentage error of less than 4.5.

CSIRO researchers have been involved in the development of predictive metallurgical indices as a tool in the hydro- and geometallurgy fields. Rapid, small-scale, cost effective tests and protocols have been developed for comparative ranking of attributes relevant to leach performance, e.g. leach index (relative indication of leach performance), recovery, impurity deportment, reagent consumption and mineralogy of samples for their relative ranking. Results from these tests can be used for plant design or process optimisation to maximise the commercial value of an ore body and to minimise the social and environmental impact of mining operations. The motivation for development of these tests includes the reduction in use of traditional mineralogical tools, be they for reasons of accessibility, cost, speed or scale-up for processing of large sample numbers. Mineralogical analysis remains essential for validating leach results in the development of test protocols and as a means of quality control. This paper presents an accurate, robust statistical method for QEMSCAN data analysis that has been developed for use in conjunction with the geometallurgical leach tests.

Microalgae have the potential to be the feedstock for biofuels and laboratory scale electroflocculation was studied as a harvesting technique for marine microalgae. The effects of the electrode separation and mechanical mixing on the energy consumption were also assessed. Results were used to design a commercial scale electroflocculation plant for the estimation of the harvesting cost. By combining electroflocculation with mixing and settling, an overall energy consumption of 0.33 MJ m −3 has been achieved. On a large scale, the mixing can be made energy efficient by the use of a baffled hydraulic mixer. The total cost for the harvesting, including electrical energy, electrode metal dissolution and capital depreciation, is estimated to be $0.19 kg −1 of the ash free dry mass. Hence, electroflocculation has the potential to be more economical than other harvesting techniques for marine microalgae.

This paper presents the multi-response optimisation of friction stir processing (FSP) process of AZ 31 Mg alloy for an optimal parametric combination to yield maximum tensile strength and elongation using Taguchi and Grey relational analysis (GRA). In this study, the FSP process parameters such as rotational speed, traverse speed and tool tilt angle have been selected. The experiments were planned using Taguchi parametric design L 9 with various combinations of process parameters. Statistical technique ANOVA was used to determine percentage of contribution of process parameters. Optimal results have been verified through confirmation experiments. The results indicate that rotational speed has more effect on responses followed by traverse speed and tool tilt angle. In addition, mathematical models were developed to establish relationship between different process variables and outcomes.

Der Designprozess des Rohrleitungs- und Instrumentierungsfliesbildes (R&I-Fliesbild), das aufgrund seiner auftragsspezifischen Unikaterstellung einen enormen Aufwand und hohe Kosten fur jedes Chemieanlagenprojekt bedeutet, bietet ein erhebliches Einsparungspotenzial innerhalb des Planungsprozesses chemischer Anlagen. Der Beitrag thematisiert die Verkurzung von Projektdurchlaufzeiten durch Beschleunigung der Entwicklungsphase von R&I-Fliesbildern. Es wird ein modulbasierter Ansatz zur Erstellung wissensbasierter R&I-Fliesbilder in der fruhen Basic-Engineering-Phase vorgestellt und gezeigt, wie eine verfahrenstechnische Anlage systematisch aus vorgefertigten, flexiblen Planungseinheiten rechnergestutzt zusammengesetzt werden kann. The design process of the piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs), which involves enormous effort and high costs for every chemical plants project due to its order-specific unique creation, provides a considerable saving potential within the planning process of chemical plants. This paper focuses on the topic of reducing project cycle times by accelerating the development phase of P&IDs. A module based approach will be introduced in order to create knowledge based P&IDs in the early basic engineering phase and it will be demonstrated, how to assemble a process plant from predefined, flexible planning modules.

Press-hardening is a comparatively time consuming forming process since both forming as well as quenching is performed in the die tool. In order to accelerate this process, an alternative cooling strategy is considered which is based on spray cooling outside the die tool. The object of our investigation is 22MnB5 material. Quenching tests show that sufficient cooling rates greater than 50 K/s can be obtained by means of water-air spray cooling using two-component nozzles. The strength values and fracture strains realised here correspond to the mechanical properties attainable during press-hardening. Furthermore, a plant design is presented which is suitable for cooling vehicle body parts such as tunnels in order to reduce the turnaround time by means of prematurely removing the components from the die-forming tool and subsequently cooling in a spray field.

The carbon in pulp (CIP) and carbon in leach (CIL) processes became firmly established in the gold mining industry in the 1980s, initially in South Africa and Australia, from where they spread rapidly to all the gold producing regions of the world. The percentage of annual global gold production by activated carbon-based processes grew from zero in the 1970s to almost 70% by the turn of the century, which represented a phenomenal rate of acceptance of a new technology by a traditionally conservative industry. The main reason for this rapid acceptance of the new technology was the fact that the first few large industrial plants in South Africa convincingly demonstrated better gold recoveries than the traditional filtration/Merrill Crowe process, with lower capital and operating costs. And as the plants developed an operating track record over their first few years of life, they proved to be remarkably robust mechanically, and highly tolerant of plant upsets, changes in feed composition and solution phase contaminants that had caused great problems in Merrill Crowe plants. These stellar attributes of the carbon-based gold plants have led to complacency and laziness in the industry, both at the new plant design stage, and with on-going optimization of existing plants. In many cases, basic “rules of thumb” that were developed as design criteria for the early CIP plants are still used today, with no appreciation of the factors that may cause one plant to perform quite differently from another. There seems to be little incentive to improve performance when it is well known that most CIP and CIL plants operate quite well with minimal optimization and, in many cases, minimal understanding of the factors that influence performance. Consequently, almost all CIP and CIL plants are overdesigned at the construction stage and are then operated sub-optimally. This can lead to higher gold losses and/or higher capital and operating costs than necessary. This paper examines the factors that influence CIP and CIL plant design and performance, and demonstrates a very simple methodology that can be used to arrive at something close to an optimum plant design. It can also be used as an on-going tool by plant metallurgists to transform a fairly well run plant into an exceptionally well run plant.

Thermodynamic optimization of a multi-effect desalination (MED) plant has been performed. The effects of feed water flow rate, temperature of seawater, numbers of effects, temperature differences of preheaters and the outlet pressure have been studied. Tables for numerical calculations have been designed based on the DoE method. The effects of the foregoing parameters on the maximum and minimum distilled water have been investigated. In addition several contours have been presented to help a designer to find suitable conditions for a plant design.

Large industrial plants have often hundreds of heating and cooling heat exchangers. A common situation is that cooling demands of the processes are satisfied without any deeper analysis of the overall impact of the cooling systems on the plant’s economy or the environment. If cooling water is available it is used as much as needed and then pumped back to the river, some degrees warmer. An optimisation model was developed for integration of cooling and heating systems to tackle the problem. An industrial cooling system is a complex energy system comprising different options of producing cooling, distribution pipelines for cold media and cooling storages. Integration of power generation and heating systems to the cooling systems was included in the model. An illustrative example is presented in the paper. 10 process streams with cooling demand and 10 streams with heating demand were chosen, situated at different locations at the plant site. The optimal matches between the streams were found together with the sizes of the heat exchangers and the demands of hot and cold utilities. The costs of pipelines and the pumping costs of the streams are included in the model. The model can be used in the design of greenfield and retrofit investments and in versatile what-if analyses of the plant design or operation.

Over 100 papers were reviewed to elucidate factors influencing large-scale seawater desalination plants with reverse osmosis networks (SWRO). This paper consists of subjects such as SWRO systems investigation, system models of pretreatment and RO networks, systems optimization to minimize the total cost of SWRO plant design, and the future direction of SWRO technology. In order to design a large-scale seawater desalination plant, a systematic understanding of SWRO processes should be followed. After investigating all the processes, including site-specific features, seawater intakes, pretreatment systems, RO networks, energy recovery systems, post-treatment systems, brine disposal, and the environmental impact of SWRO desalination, system models are discussed for predicting the performance of each system. Based on the minimal principle of total cost required for a full-scale SWRO plant, optimized results are discussed. Studies needed for developing future SWRO technologies are suggested.

A systematic step-by-step framework for analyzing hydrogen behavior and implementing passive autocatalytic recombiners (PARs) to mitigate hydrogen deflagration or detonation risk in severe accidents (SAs) is presented. The procedure can be subdivided into five main steps: (1) modeling the containment based on the plant design characteristics, (2) selecting the typical severe accident sequences, (3) calculating the hydrogen generation including in- and ex-vessel period, (4) modeling the gas distribution in containment atmosphere and estimating the hydrogen combustion modes and (5) evaluating the efficiency of the PAR-system to mitigate the hydrogen risk with and without catalytic recombiners, according to the safety criterion. For the Chinese 600MWe pressurized water reactor (PWR) with a large-dry containment, large break loss-of-coolant accident (LB-LOCA) is screened out as the reference severe accident sequence, considering the nature of hydrogen generation and the probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) result on accident sequences. The results show that a certain number of recombiners could remove effectively hydrogen and oxygen, to protect the containment integrity against hydrogen deflagration or detonation.

The generation, provision and applications of industrial furnace gases are reviewed. These applications include protective or inert atmospheres, active atmospheres for case hardening, quenchants and high pressure treatments. In all cases, the need to assure purity of the gas and to control atmosphere composition and gas flow is critical. As techniques have become more sophisticated, modelling has become more important in treatment and plant design. A perspective on future challenges is given.

The design of reverse osmosis and nano filtration plants is essentially influenced not only by the module arrangement, but also by the arrangement of the pressure vessel connections. Multifarious design possibilities can be considered as a result of many improvements introduced over the last few years. The key attributes is the three purposes port arrangement, feed-, concentrate- and permeate connection while comparing multiple port versus end port design. The following paper discusses the main factors for future plant design: • Cost savings by reducing the complexity of stainless steel piping in multiple port design. • The impact of the more compact design on total foot print required for the membrane plant, • How can technical risks, especially corrosion, be considerably reduced, and • The impact of the hydraulic design of the entire piping system and its influence on energy costs.

The Larnaca SWRO desalination plant has successfully operated for more than 6 years. It was one of the first major SWRO plants to have a tight boron specification. With some management of the membrane elements at the site, the plant has consistently met the water quality and quantity requirements of their customer. The unique plant design allows for changes in the second pass that optimize the power requirements, while ensuring boron quality is just made. This has made the plant very efficient and cost-effective. The performance of the SWRO and BWRO elements has met expectations and performed stably for a number of years. As a result, this process design has become a proto-type for other SWRO plants with tight (especially boron).

The double-ended-guillotine break (DEGB) criterion of the largest primary piping system in the plant, which generally provides the limiting condition for the emergency core cooling system requirements, is widely recognized as an extremely unlikely event. As a result, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff are currently considering a risk-informed revision of the design-basis break size requirements for commercial nuclear power plants. In support of this effort, loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) frequency estimates have been developed using an expert elicitation process by consolidating service history data and insights from probabilistic fracture mechanics (PFM) studies with knowledge of plant design, operation, and material performance. Baseline LOCA frequency estimates for the 5th percentile, median, mean and 95th percentile were determined from each panelist's elicitation responses. Group estimates were determined by aggregating the individual estimates using the geometric mean of the individual estimates for each frequency parameter. Group variability was estimated by calculating 95% confidence bounds for each of the group frequency parameters (i.e., median, mean, and 5th and 95th percentiles). A number of sensitivity analyses were conducted to examine the effects on the quantitative results from varying the assumptions, structure and techniques of the baseline analysis procedure.

A technique for evaluating the preferential usage of one or the other engineering decision is presented; for this, the objective function that represents the comparative profit of future GTP owners from realization of alternative power plant variants is used. The efficiency of the approach being proposed is shown by analyzing the possible modifications of the Siemens GT10C and GTX100 gas turbine plants operating in the Russian Federation.

This paper presents the major design criteria and features for the 13.3 million gallons per day (MGD) seawater reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant that is currently under construction in Madinat Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah, Yanbu Industrial City, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The seawater RO plant is made up of six trains of about 2.2 MGD capacity each. The plant consists of five major systems: seawater supply, seawater pretreatment, high pressure pumping, RO modules, and permeate posttreatment. The paper also discusses technical issues and parameters associated with the plant design, and advances made in the seawater reverse osmosis desalination technology.

According to Appendix L of the BPVC Section XI, flaw tolerance assessment is performed using the stress intensity factor even for low-cycle fatigue. On the other hand, in Section III, the fatigue damage is assessed using the design fatigue curve, which has been determined from strain-based fatigue tests. Namely, the stress is used for the flaw tolerance assessment, whereas the strain (Ke factor) is quoted for the design. In order to resolve this inconsistency, in the present study, the strain intensity factor was used for crack growth prediction. First, it was shown that the strain range was the key parameter for predicting the fatigue life and crack growth. The crack growth rates correlated well with the strain intensity factor even for the low-cycle fatigue. Then, the strain intensity factor was applied to predict the crack growth under uniform and thermal cyclic loading conditions. The estimated fatigue life for the uniform cyclic loading condition agreed well with that obtained by the low-cycle fatigue tests, while the fatigue life estimated for the cyclic thermal loading condition was longer. It was shown that the inspection result of “no crack” can be reflected to determining the future inspection time by applying the flaw tolerance analysis. It was concluded that the flaw tolerance concept is applicable not only to the plant maintenance but also to plant design. The fatigue damage assessment using the design fatigue curve can be replaced with the crack growth prediction.Copyright © 2015 by ASME

International audience; The ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) process uses the difference in temperature between the warm seawater on the ocean surface and the deep cold seawater to operate a Rankine cycle system for producing electrical power without consuming fossil fuel. This thermodynamic cycle uses a very low temperature gradient that limits its efficiency at 3–5%. Consequently every consumptions and losses of the system have to be optimized to increase the cost-effectiveness of this technology. This paper presents a thermodynamic analysis of a closed OTEC Rankine cycle. The model used in this paper is based on the work of Martins, using the concept of equivalent Gibbs systems. In an equivalent system, mass, energy and entropy are linked through the Gibbs equation, and the entropy production can easily be expressed in terms of fluxes and their related forces. Assuming linear phenomenological laws, the phenomenological coefficients are assessed from technical data. This method permits the study or design of a lot of process engineering. Moreover, a reliable analysis of the second principle can be realized, in order to compare several processes. This method will be used to analyze the cycle, to determine which components need to be optimized. Based on these results, sensitivity analysis are made on these components and the generic optimization program GenOpt is used to determine the optimized parameters of a 10 MW OTEC plant that could be installed on Reunion Island.

The EU-DEMO remote maintenance strategy must be relevant for a range of in-vessel component design options. The remote maintenance project must provide an understanding of the limits of the strategy and technologies so as to inform the developing plant design of the maintenance constraints. A comprehensive set of maintenance requirements has been produced, in conjunction with the plant designers, against which design options can be assessed. The proposed maintenance solutions are based around a strategy that deploys casks above each of the vertical ports to exchange the blanket segments and at each of the divertor ports to exchange the divertor cassettes. The casks deploy remote handling equipment to open and close the vacuum vessel, remove and re-install pipework, and replace the in-vessel components. A technical design risk assessment has shown that the largest risks are common to all of the proposed solutions and that they are associated with two key issues, first; the ability to handle the large blanket and divertor components to the required positional accuracy with limited viewing and position feedback, and second; to perform rapid and reliable pipe connections, close to the blankets, with demonstrated quality that meets the safety requirements.

For the European Pressurized Water Reactor (EPR) a large effort was made to improve the plant design with respect to radiation protection using the experience gained during the design of former generations of pressurized water reactor (PWR) in France and Germany, and their current operation. Keeping the radiation exposure of personnel to an acceptable level is one of the main objectives of the EPR design. Both the individual and the collective doses are considered. Internationally comparable limits based on recommendations of the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) have been established for individual doses. These limits describe the framework within which the individual dose shall be kept as low as possible, applying the principles: • Justification: No practice involving exposures to radiation should be adopted unless it produces sufficient benefit to the exposed individuals or to society to offset the radiation detriment it causes. • Optimization: In relation to any particular source within a practice, the magnitude of individual doses, the number of people exposed, and the likelihood of incurring exposures where these are not certain to be received should all be kept as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA), economic and social factors being taken into account. • Limitation: The exposure of individuals resulting from the combination of all the relevant practices is subject to dose limits. The paper describes the design provision and measures introduced in the plant design to achieve the above described goals. They are in essence: • measures to avoid or to reduce sources of radiation; • layout aspects; • provisions made in the component design with respect to ease of operation and maintenance management; • improved possibilities of decontamination; • use of operating experience for design improvements. The radiation protection layout principles compiled on the basis of safe operating experience gained from the existing pressurized water reactors in France and Germany are used to develop an improved plant design with respect to radiation protection aspects and dose optimization. Summary: The European Pressurized Water Reactor is an evolutionary third-generation pressurized water reactor with a rating in the 1600 MWe class. Its development was started in 1992 by Framatome and Siemens, whose nuclear activities were combined in January 2001 to form Framatome ANP, now AREVA NP. Being the product of intense bilateral cooperation the EPR combines the technological accomplishments of the world's two leading PWR product lines—the French N4 reactors in operation at Chooz and Civeaux and the Konvoi reactors in operation at Neckarwestheim, Emsland and Isar in Germany. From the very start, development of the EPR was focused on improving plant safety and economics even further and also a large effort was made to improve the plant design with respect to radiation protection. Keeping the doses received by operating and maintenance personnel to a level far below the limiting values was one of the main objectives of the EPR design. Both the individual and the collective doses are considered in this article.