A Computationally Efficient PWM Algorithm for Multilevel Inverters

Centred space vector PWM (CSVPWM) technique is popularly used for three level voltage source inverters. The reference voltage vector is synthesized by time-averaging of the three nearest voltage vectors produced by the inverter. Identifying the three voltage vectors, and calculation of the dwelling time for each vector are both computationally intensive. This paper analyses the process of PWM generation in CSVPWM. This analysis breaks up a three-level inverter into six different conceptual two level inverters in different regions of the fundamental cycle. Control of 3-level inverter is viewed as the control of the appropriate 2-level inverter. The analysis leads to a systematic simplification of the computations involved, finally resulting in a computationally efficient PWM algorithm. This algorithm exploits the equivalence between triangle comparison and space vector approaches to PWM generation. This algorithm does not involve any 3-phase/2-phase or 2-phase/3-phase transformation. This also does not involve any transformation from rectangular to polar coordinates, and vice versa. Further no evaluation of trigonometric functions is necessary. This algorithm also provides for the mitigation of DC neutral point unbalance, and is well suited to digital implementation. Simulation and experimental results are presented.

Synthesis of Cost-Optimal Shell-and-Tube Heat Exchangers

Synthesis of cost-optimal shell-and-tube heat exchangers is a difficult task since it involves a large number of parameters. An attempt is made in this article to simplify the process of choosing the parameter values that will minimize the cost of any heat exchanger satisfying a given heat duty and a particular set of constraints. The simplification is based on decoupling of the geometric and the thermal aspects of the problem. The concept of curves for cost-optimal design is introduced and is shown to simplify the synthesis process for shell-and-tube heat exchangers.

A structural principle for a class of adaptive systems

A feature common to many adaptive systems for identification and control is the adjustment.of gain parameters in a manner ensuring the stability of the overall system. This paper puts forward a principle which assures such a result for arbitrary systems which are linear and time invariant except for the adjustable parameters. The principle only demands that a transfer function be positive real. This transfer function dependent on the structure of the system with respect to the parameters. Several examples from adaptive identification, control and observer schemes are given as illustrations of the conceptual simplification provided by the structural principle.

Triple resonance, triple-quantum NMR studies of dipolar coupled spin systems

Multiple quantum-single quantum correlation experiments are employed for spectral simplification and determination of the relative signs of the couplings. In this study, we have demonstrated the excitation of three nuclei, triple quantum coherences and discussed the information obtainable from such experiments. The experiments have been carried out on doubly labeled acetonitrile and fluoroacetonitrile aligned in liquid crystalline media. The experiment is advantageous in providing many spectral parameters from a single experiment. The coherence pathways involved in the pulse sequence are described using product operators. (C) 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Link Conditions for Simplifying Meshes with Embedded Structures

Interactive visualization applications benefit from simplification techniques that generate good-quality coarse meshes from high-resolution meshes that represent the domain. These meshes often contain interesting substructures, called embedded structures, and it is desirable to preserve the topology of the embedded structures during simplification, in addition to preserving the topology of the domain. This paper describes a proof that link conditions, proposed earlier, are sufficient to ensure that edge contractions preserve the topology of the embedded structures and the domain. Excluding two specific configurations, the link conditions are also shown to be necessary for topology preservation. Repeated application of edge contraction on an extended complex produces a coarser representation of the domain and the embedded structures. An extension of the quadric error metric is used to schedule edge contractions, resulting in a good-quality coarse mesh that closely approximates the input domain and the embedded structures.

Geoarchaeological Evidence of a Chola-Period Tsunami from an Ancient Port at Kaveripattinam on the Southeastern Coast of India

Literature of the ancient Chola Dynasty (A.D. 9th-11th centuries) of South India and recent archaeological excavations allude to a sea flood that crippled the ancient port at Kaveripattinam, a trading hub for Southeast Asia, and probably affected the entire South Indian coast, analogous to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami impact. We present sedimentary evidence from an archaeological site to validate the textual references to this early medieval event. A sandy layer showing bed forms representing high-energy conditions, possibly generated by a seaborne wave, was identified at the Kaveripattinam coast of Tamil Nadu, South India. Its sedimentary characteristics include hummocky cross-stratification, convolute lamination with heavy minerals, rip-up clasts, an erosional contact with the underlying mud bed, and a landward thinning geometry. Admixed with 1000-year-old Chola period artifacts, it provided an optically stimulated luminescence age of 1091 perpendicular to 66 yr and a thermoluminescence age of 993 perpendicular to 73 yr for the embedded pottery sherds. The dates of these proxies converge around 1000 yr B. P., correlative of an ancient tsunami reported from elsewhere along the Indian Ocean coasts. (C) 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Output-Sensitive Construction of Reeb Graphs

The Reeb graph of a scalar function represents the evolution of the topology of its level sets. This paper describes a near-optimal output-sensitive algorithm for computing the Reeb graph of scalar functions defined over manifolds or non-manifolds in any dimension. Key to the simplicity and efficiency of the algorithm is an alternate definition of the Reeb graph that considers equivalence classes of level sets instead of individual level sets. The algorithm works in two steps. The first step locates all critical points of the function in the domain. Critical points correspond to nodes in the Reeb graph. Arcs connecting the nodes are computed in the second step by a simple search procedure that works on a small subset of the domain that corresponds to a pair of critical points. The paper also describes a scheme for controlled simplification of the Reeb graph and two different graph layout schemes that help in the effective presentation of Reeb graphs for visual analysis of scalar fields. Finally, the Reeb graph is employed in four different applications-surface segmentation, spatially-aware transfer function design, visualization of interval volumes, and interactive exploration of time-varying data.

Composite instantaneous comparators basis for design and their transient performance

Principles of design of composite instantaneous comparators (a combination of amplitude- and phase- comparison techniques) are laid out to provide directional, directional-reactance, nonoffset-resistance and conductance characteristices. The respective signals provided by the voltage transformer and the current transformer are directly used as relaying signals without resorting to any form of mixing. Phase shifts required, are obtained by using magnetic ferrite cores in a novel manner. Sampling units employing a combination of ferrite cores and semiconductor devices provide highly reliable designs. Special attention is paid to the choice of relaying signals, to eliminate the need for any synchronisation or modification and to avoid `image¿ characteristics. These factors have resulted in a considerable simplification of the practical circuitry. A thyristor AND circuit is employed in dual comparator units to provide the final tripping, and leads to a circuit which is much less sensitive to extraneous signals than a single-thyristor unit.

Differential Diffractive Reflectance Modulation Sensing

We fabricated a reflectance based sensor which relies on the diffraction pattern generated from a bio-microarray where an underlying thin film structure enhances the diffracted intensity from molecular layers. The zero order diffraction represents the background signal and the higher orders represent the phase difference between the array elements and the background. By taking the differential ratio of the first and zero order diffraction signals we get a quantitative measure of molecular binding while simultaneously rejecting common mode fluctuations. We improved the signal-to-noise ratio by an order of magnitude with this ratiometric approach compared to conventional single channel detection. In addition, we use a lithography based approach for fabricating microarrays which results in spot sizes as small as 5 micron diameter unlike the 100 micron spots from inkjet printing and is therefore capable of a high degree of multiplexing. We will describe the real-time measurement of adsorption of charged polymers and bulk refractometry using this technique. The lack of moving parts for point scanning of the microarray and the differential ratiometric measurements using diffracted orders from the same probe beam allows us to make real-time measurements in spite of noise arising from thermal or mechanical fluctuations in the fluid sample above the sensor surface. Further, the lack of moving parts leads to considerable simplification in the readout hardware permitting the use of this technique in compact point of care sensors.

Consistency tests of Ampcalculator and chiral amplitudes in SU(3) Chiral Perturbation Theory: A tutorial-based approach

Ampcalculator (AMPC) is a Mathematica (c) based program that was made publicly available some time ago by Unterdorfer and Ecker. It enables the user to compute several processes at one loop (upto O(p(4))) in SU(3) chiral perturbation theory. They include computing matrix elements and form factors for strong and non-leptonic weak processes with at most six external states. It was used to compute some novel processes and was tested against well-known results by the original authors. Here we present the results of several thorough checks of the package. Exhaustive checks performed by the original authors are not publicly available, and hence the present effort. Some new results are obtained from the software especially in the kaon odd-intrinsic parity non-leptonic decay sector involving the coupling G(27). Another illustrative set of amplitudes at tree level we provide is in the context of tau-decays with several mesons including quark mass effects, of use to the BELLE experiment. All eight meson-meson scattering amplitudes have been checked. The Kaon-Compton amplitude has been checked and a minor error in the published results has been pointed out. This exercise is a tutorial-based one, wherein several input and output notebooks are also being made available as ancillary files on the arXiv. Some of the additional notebooks we provide contain explicit expressions that we have used for comparison with established results. The purpose is to encourage users to apply the software to suit their specific needs. An automatic amplitude generator of this type can provide error-free outputs that could be used as inputs for further simplification, and in varied scenarios such as applications of chiral perturbation theory at finite temperature, density and volume. This can also be used by students as a learning aid in low-energy hadron dynamics.

Topological saliency

Topological methods have been successfully used to identify features in scalar fields and to measure their importance. In this paper, we define a notion of topological saliency that captures the relative importance of a topological feature with respect to other features in its local neighborhood. Features are identified by extreme points of an input scalar field, and their importance measured by the so-called topological persistence. Computing the topological saliency of all features for varying neighborhood sizes results in a saliency plot that serves as a summary of relative importance of all topological features. We develop a convenient tool for users to interactively select and inspect features using the saliency plot. We demonstrate the use of topological saliency together with the rich information encoded in the saliency plot in several applications, including key feature identification, scalar field simplification, and feature clustering. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Pure shift NMR approach for fast and accurate extraction of heteronuclear couplings

The direct and accurate determination of heteronuclear ((n)J(HX), X = F-19, P-31) couplings from the one dimensional H-1-NMR spectrum is severely hampered due to the simultaneous presence of large numbers of (n)J(HH). The present study demonstrates the utility of the pure shift NMR approach for spectral simplification, and precise and direct measurement of heteronuclear couplings. As a consequence of refocusing of homonuclear couplings ((n)J(HH)) by the pure shift NMR, only heteronuclear couplings ((n)J(HX)) appear as simple multiplets at the resonance position of each chemically non-equivalent proton, enabling their direct measurement from the 1D-H-1 spectrum. The experiment is demonstrated on a number of molecules containing either F-19 or P-31, where (n)J(HF) and (n)J(HP) could be precisely measured in a straightforward manner. The distinct advantage of the experiment is demonstrated on molecules containing more than one fluorine atom, where most of the available NMR experiments fail or have restricted utility.

Nonlinear analysis of a thin pre-twisted and delaminated anisotropic strip

The present work is aimed at the development of an efficient mathematical model to assess the degradation in the stiffness properties of an anisotropic strip due to delamination. In particular, the motive is to capture those nonlinear effects in a strip that arise due to the geometry of the structure, in the presence of delamination. The variational asymptotic method (VAM) is used as a mathematical tool to simplify the original 3D problem to a 1D problem. Further simplification is achieved by modeling the delaminated structure by a sublaminate approach. By VAM, a 2D nonlinear sectional analysis is carried out to determine compact expression for the stiffness terms. The stiffness terms, both linear and nonlinear, are derived as functions of delamination length and location in closed form. In general, the results from the analysis include fully coupled nonlinear 1D stiffness coefficients, 3D strain field, 3D stress field, and in-plane and warping fields. In this work, the utility of the model is demonstrated for a static case, and its capability to capture the trapeze effect in the presence of delamination is investigated and compared with results available in the literature.

Capturability of Augmented Pure Proportional Navigation Guidance Against Time-Varying Target Maneuvers

This paper proposes a variation of the pure proportional navigation guidance law, called augmented pure proportional navigation, to account for target maneuvers, in a realistic nonlinear engagement geometry, and presents its capturability analysis. These results are in contrast to most work in the literature on augmented proportional navigation laws that consider a linearized geometry imposed upon the true proportional navigation guidance law. Because pure proportional navigation guidance law is closer to a realistic implementation of proportional navigation than true proportional navigation law, and any engagement process is predominantly nonlinear, the results obtained in this paper are more realistic than any available in the literature. Sufficient conditions on speed ratio, navigation gain, and augmentation parameter for capturability, and boundedness of lateral acceleration, against targets executing piecewise continuous maneuvers with time, are obtained. Further, based on a priori knowledge of the maximum maneuver capability of the target, a significant simplification of the guidance law is proposed in this paper. The proposed guidance law is also shown to require a shorter time of interception than standard pure proportional navigation and augmented proportional navigation. To remove chattering in the interceptor maneuver at the end phase of the engagement, a hybrid guidance law using augmented pure proportional navigation and pure proportional navigation is also proposed. Finally, the guaranteed capture zones of standard and augmented pure proportional navigation guidance laws against maneuvering targets are analyzed and compared in the normalized relative velocity space. It is shown that the guaranteed capture zone expands significantly when augmented pure proportional navigation is used instead of pure proportional navigation. Simulation results are given to support the theoretical findings.

COMPUTATIONAL MODELING OF A MULTI-LAYERED PIEZO-COMPOSITE BEAM MADE UP OF MFC

The Variational Asymptotic Method (VAM) is used for modeling a coupled non-linear electromechanical problem finding applications in aircrafts and Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) development. VAM coupled with geometrically exact kinematics forms a powerful tool for analyzing a complex nonlinear phenomena as shown previously by many in the literature 3 - 7] for various challenging problems like modeling of an initially twisted helicopter rotor blades, matrix crack propagation in a composite, modeling of hyper elastic plates and various multi-physics problems. The problem consists of design and analysis of a piezocomposite laminate applied with electrical voltage(s) which can induce direct and planar distributed shear stresses and strains in the structure. The deformations are large and conventional beam theories are inappropriate for the analysis. The behavior of an elastic body is completely understood by its energy. This energy must be integrated over the cross-sectional area to obtain the 1-D behavior as is typical in a beam analysis. VAM can be used efficiently to approximate 3-D strain energy as closely as possible. To perform this simplification, VAM makes use of thickness to width, width to length, width multiplied by initial twist and strain as small parameters embedded in the problem definition and provides a way to approach the exact solution asymptotically. In this work, above mentioned electromechanical problem is modeled using VAM which breaks down the 3-D elasticity problem into two parts, namely a 2-D non-linear cross-sectional analysis and a 1-D non-linear analysis, along the reference curve. The recovery relations obtained as a by-product in the cross-sectional analysis earlier are used to obtain 3-D stresses, displacements and velocity contours. The piezo-composite laminate which is chosen for an initial phase of computational modeling is made up of commercially available Macro Fiber Composites (MFCs) stacked together in an arbitrary lay-up and applied with electrical voltages for actuation. The expressions of sectional forces and moments as obtained from cross-sectional analysis in closed-form show the electro-mechanical coupling and relative contribution of electric field in individual layers of the piezo-composite laminate. The spatial and temporal constitutive law as obtained from the cross-sectional analysis are substituted into 1-D fully intrinsic, geometrically exact equilibrium equations of motion and 1-D intrinsic kinematical equations to solve for all 1-D generalized variables as function of time and an along the reference curve co-ordinate, x(1).