Output feedback H2 model matching for decentralized systems with delays

This paper gives a new solution to the output feedback H2 model matching problem for a large class of delayed information sharing patterns. Existing methods for similar problems typically reduce the decentralized problem to a centralized problem of higher state dimension. In contrast, this paper demonstrates that the decentralized model matching solution can be constructed from the original centralized solution via quadratic programming. © 2013 AACC American Automatic Control Council.

Curvature and wrinkling of premixed flame kernels-comparisons of OH PLIF and DNS data

The effects of curvature and wrinkling on the growth of turbulent premixed flame kernels were studied using both two-dimensional OH Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS). Comparisons of results between the two approaches showed a high level of agreement, providing confidence in the simplified chemistry treatment employed in the DNS, and indicating that chemistry might have only a limited influence on the evolution of the freely propagating flame. The usefulness of PLIF in providing data over a wide parameter range was illustrated using statistics obtained from both CH4/air and H2/air mixtures, which show markedly different behavior due to their different thermo-diffusive properties. The results provided a demonstration of the combined power of PLIF and DNS for flame investigation. Each technique compensate for the weaknesses of the other, and to reinforce the strengths of both.

Different methods of manufacturing FE-based oxygen carrier particles for reforming via chemical looping, and their effect on performance

Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is a means of combusting carbonaceous fuels, which inherently separates the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the remaining combustion products, and has the potential to be used for the production of high-purity hydrogen. Iron-based oxygen carriers for CLC have been subject to considerable work; however, there are issues regarding the lifespan of iron-based oxygen carriers over repeated cycles. In this work, haematite (Fe2O3) was reduced in an N2+CO+CO2 mixture within a fluidised bed at 850°C, and oxidised back to magnetite (Fe3O4) in a H2O+N2 mixture, with the subsequent yield of hydrogen during oxidation being of interest. Subsequent cycles started from Fe3O4 and two transition regimes were studied; Fe3O4↔Fe0.947O and Fe 3O4↔Fe. Particles were produced by mechanical mixing and co-precipitation. In the case of co-precipitated particles, Al was added such that the ratio of Fe:Al by weight was 9:1, and the final pH of the particles during precipitation was investigated for its subsequent effect on reactivity. This paper shows that co-precipitated particles containing additives such as Al may be able to achieve consistently high H2 yields when cycling between Fe3O4 and Fe, and that these yields are a function of the ratio of [CO2] to [CO] during reduction, where thermodynamic arguments suggest that the yield should be independent of this ratio. A striking feature with our materials was that particles made by mechanical mixing performed much better than those made by co-precipitation when cycling between Fe3O4 and Fe0.947O, but much worse than co-precipitated particles when cycling between Fe3O 4 and Fe.

The production of separate streams of pure hydrogen and carbon dioxide from coal via an iron-oxide redox cycle

A chemical looping process using the redox reactions of iron oxide has been used to produce separate streams of pure H2 and CO2 from a solid fuel. An iron oxide carrier prepared using a mechanical mixing technique and comprised of 100wt.% Fe2O3 was used. It was demonstrated that hydrogen can be produced from three representative coals - a Russian bituminous, a German lignite and a UK sub-bituminous coal. Depending on the fuel, pure H2 with [CO] ≲50vol.ppm can be obtained from the proposed process. The cyclic stability of the iron oxide carrier was not adversely affected by contaminants found in syngas which are gaseous above 273K. Stable quantities of H2 were produced over five cycles for all three coals investigated. Independent of the fuel, SO2 was not formed during the oxidation with steam, i.e. the produced H2 was not contaminated with SO2. Since oxidation with air removes contaminants and generates useful heat and pure N2 for purging, it should be included in the operating cycle. Overall, it was demonstrated that the proposed process may be an attractive approach to upgrade crude syngas produced by the gasification of low-rank coals to pure H2, representing a substantial increase in calorific value, whilst simultaneous capturing CO2, a greenhouse gas. © 2010 Elsevier B.V.

Process development on the monolithic fabrication of an ultra-compact 4×4 optical switch matrix on InP/InGaAsP material

We have fabricated an ultra-compact 4×4 optical matrix on InP/InGaAsP material. 1×4 MMI couplers and TIR mirrors are employed to produce a compact 1×2 mm2 device. A CH4/H2/O2 RIE dry etch process has been used to realize two-level dry etching: deep-etch for both the MMI couplers and the mirrors and shallow-etch for the rest of the routing waveguides. It was found that a metal/dielectric bilayer mask is essential for multi-dry-etch processes and high profile verticality. We have found a Ti intermediate mask for the deep-etch process which is removable by SF6 dry-etch before the following shallow process. Dry-etch removal of the intermediate mask is necessary to protect the deep-etched mirror sidewall.

Tetrahedrally bonded amorphous carbon for field-emission displays

Field emission from a series of tetrahedrally bonded amorphous-carbon (ta-C) films, deposited in a filtered cathodic vacuum arc, has been measured. The threshold field for emission and current densities achievable have been investigated as a function of sp3/sp2 bonding ratio and nitrogen content. Typical as-grown undoped ta-C films have threshold fields of the order 10-15 V/μm and optimally nitrogen doped films exhibited fields as low as 5 V/μm. In order to gain further understanding of the mechanism of field emission, the films were also subjected to H2, Ar, and O2 plasma treatments and were also deposited onto substrates of different work function. The threshold field, emission current, emission site densities were all significantly improved by the plasma treatment, but little dependence of these properties on work function of the substrate was observed. This suggests that the main barrier to emission in these films is at the front surface.

Characterization of defect removal in hydrogenated and deuterated amorphous silicon thin film transistors

Thin film transistors (TFTs) utilizing an hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) channel layer exhibit a shift in the threshold voltage with time under the application of a gate bias voltage due to the creation of metastable defects. These defects are removed by annealing the device with zero gate bias applied. The defect removal process can be characterized by a thermalization energy which is, in turn, dependent upon an attempt-to-escape frequency for defect removal. The threshold voltage of both hydrogenated and deuterated amorphous silicon (a-Si:D) TFTs has been measured as a function of annealing time and temperature. Using a molecular dynamics simulation of hydrogen and deuterium in a silicon network in the H2 * configuration, it is shown that the experimental results are consistent with an attempt-to-escape frequency of (4.4 ± 0.3) × 1013 Hz and (5.7 ± 0.3) × 1013 Hz for a-Si:H and a-Si:D respectively which is attributed to the oscillation of the Si-H and Si-D bonds. Using this approach, it becomes possible to describe defect removal in hydrogenated and deuterated material by the thermalization energies of (1.552 ± 0.003) eV and (1.559 ± 0.003) eV respectively. This correlates with the energy per atom of the Si-H and Si-D bonds. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Non-catalytic multi-fuel reformer for syngas production for fuel cell applications

Rich combustion of n-heptane, diesel oil, jet A-1 kerosene, and bio-diesel (rapeseed-oil methyl ester) were studied to produce hydrogen enriched gas, ready for the cleanup stages for fuel cell applications. n-heptane was successfully reformed up to an equivalence ratio of 3:1, reaching a conversion efficiency up to 83% for a packed bed of alumina bead burner. Diesel, kerosene and bio-diesel were reformed to synthesis gas with conversion efficiency up to 65%. At equivalence ratio of 2:1 and P=7 kw, stability, low HC formation, high conversion efficiency, and low soot emission were achieved. A common synthesis gas composition around this condition was 15 and 13% H2, 15 and 17% CO, and 4 and 4.5% CO2 for n-heptane and diesel, jet A-1 and bio-diesel, respectively, for burner A. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the 2010 Spring National Meeting (San Antonio, TX 3/21-25/2010).

Growth window and possible mechanism of millimeter-thick single-walled carbon nanotube forests.

Our group recently reproduced the water-assisted growth method, so-called "SuperGrowth", of millimeter-thick single-walled carbon nanotube (SWNT) forests by using C2H4/H2/H2O/Ar reactant gas and Fe/Al2O3, catalyst. In this current work, a parametric study was carried out on both reaction and catalyst conditions. Results revealed that a thin Fe catalyst layer (about 0.5 nm) yielded rapid growth of SWNTs only when supported on Al2O3, and that Al2O3 support enhanced the activity of Fe, Co, and Ni catalysts. The growth window for the rapid SWNT growth was narrow, however. Optimum amount of added H2O increased the SWNT growth rate but further addition of H2O degraded both the SWNT growth rate and quality. Addition of H2 was also essential for rapid SWNT growth, but again, further addition decreased both the SWNT growth rate and quality. Because Al2O3 catalyzes hydrocarbon reforming, Al2O3 support possibly enhances the SWNT growth rate by supplying the carbon source to the catalyst nanoparticles. The origin of the narrow window for rapid SWNT growth is also discussed.

The behaviour of laminar stratified methane/air flames in counterflow

Flames propagating through a mixture with a gradient of equivalence ratio have been previously demonstrated to travel faster or slower than their equivalent premixed flames. The present study aims to numerically investigate the response of strained laminar methane-air flames to such gradients. The flames are simulated in a counterflow configuration where a premixed reactant stream at equivalence ratio φR opposes a hot equilibrium stream at equivalence ratio φP. Premixed and stratified flames are compared with respect to the equivalence ratio φ* and the corresponding gradient ∇φ* at the point of peak heat release rate, for three strain rates, a=50, 300 and 500s-1 and a range of φ*. The effect of different stratification levels is also investigated by varying the ratio of φP to φR, Θ. Results indicate that, as long as flames stabilize within the diffusion layer and Θ>1, increased heat release rate Q is seen throughout the progress variable space in comparison to the premixed state. In contrast, an attenuation of heat release rate is seen for Θ<1. The enhancement (or attenuation) of heat release varies monotonically with Θ. The effect of stratification on flame behavior becomes more pronounced as the strain rate increases. The present study reveals the mechanisms for the propagation of quasi-steady stratified flames under lean and rich conditions: stratified flames are primarily dominated by the diffusion of heat under lean conditions, and diffusion of H2 under rich conditions. Thanks to species and thermal support, stratified flames continue to burn beyond the premixed lean and rich flammability limits. Further investigation on the unsteady response of flames to the fluctuating equivalence ratio implies that the steady results represent the unsteady response well, as long as φ* and ∇φ* are similar in both steady and unsteady cases. © 2013 The Combustion Institute.

Oxygen carrier dispersion in inert packed beds to improve performance in chemical looping combustion

Various packed beds of copper-based oxygen carriers (CuO on Al2O3) were tested over 100 cycles of low temperature (673K) Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) with H2 as the fuel gas. The oxygen carriers were uniformly mixed with alumina (Al2O3) in order to investigate the level of separation necessary to prevent agglomeration. It was found that a mass ratio of 1:6 oxygen carrier to alumina gave the best performance in terms of stable, repeating hydrogen breakthrough curves over 100 cycles. In order to quantify the average separation achieved in the mixed packed beds, two sphere-packing models were developed. The hexagonal close-packing model assumed a uniform spherical packing structure, and based the separation calculations on a hypergeometric probability distribution. The more computationally intensive full-scale model used discrete element modelling to simulate random packing arrangements governed by gravity and contact dynamics. Both models predicted that average 'nearest neighbour' particle separation drops to near zero for oxygen carrier mass fractions of x≥0.25. For the packed bed systems studied, agglomeration was observed when the mass fraction of oxygen carrier was above this threshold. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

A high temperature and low power SOI CMOS MEMS based thermal conductivity gas sensor

The design, 3D FEM modelling and measurement results of a novel high temperature, low power SOI CMOS MEMS thermal conductivity gas sensor are presented here. The sensor consists of a circular membrane with an embedded tungsten micro-heater. The high sensing capability is based on the temperature sensitivity of the resistive heating element. The sensor was fabricated at a commercial foundry using a 1 μm process and measures only 1×1 mm 2. The circular membrane has a 600 μm diameter while the heating element has a 320 μm diameter. Measurement results show that for a constant power consumption of 75 mW the heater temperature was 562.4°C in air, 565.9°C in N2, 592.5°C for 1 % H2 in Ar and 599.5°C in Ar. © 2013 IEEE.