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Unsteady shallow meandering flows in rectangular reservoirs: a modal analysis of URANS modelling
(2022)
Shallow flows are common in natural and human-made environments. Even for simple rectangular shallow reservoirs, recent laboratory experiments show that the developing flow fields are particularly complex, involving large-scale turbulent structures. For specific combinations of reservoir size and hydraulic conditions, a meandering jet can be observed. While some aspects of this pseudo-2D flow pattern can be reproduced using a 2D numerical model, new 3D simulations, based on the unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations, show consistent advantages as presented herein. A Proper Orthogonal Decomposition was used to characterize the four most energetic modes of the meandering jet at the free surface level, allowing comparison against experimental data and 2D (depth-averaged) numerical results. Three different isotropic eddy viscosity models (RNG k-ε, k-ε, k-ω) were tested. The 3D models accurately predicted the frequency of the modes, whereas the amplitudes of the modes and associated energy were damped for the friction-dominant cases and augmented for non-frictional ones. The performance of the three turbulence models remained essentially similar, with slightly better predictions by RNG k-ε model in the case with the highest Reynolds number. Finally, the Q-criterion was used to identify vortices and study their dynamics, assisting on the identification of the differences between: i) the three-dimensional phenomenon (here reproduced), ii) its two-dimensional footprint in the free surface (experimental observations) and iii) the depth-averaged case (represented by 2D models).
This study investigated the anaerobic digestion of an algal–bacterial biofilm grown in artificial wastewater in an Algal Turf Scrubber (ATS). The ATS system was located in a greenhouse (50°54′19ʺN, 6°24′55ʺE, Germany) and was exposed to seasonal conditions during the experiment period. The methane (CH4) potential of untreated algal–bacterial biofilm (UAB) and thermally pretreated biofilm (PAB) using different microbial inocula was determined by anaerobic batch fermentation. Methane productivity of UAB differed significantly between microbial inocula of digested wastepaper, a mixture of manure and maize silage, anaerobic sewage sludge, and percolated green waste. UAB using sewage sludge as inoculum showed the highest methane productivity. The share of methane in biogas was dependent on inoculum. Using PAB, a strong positive impact on methane productivity was identified for the digested wastepaper (116.4%) and a mixture of manure and maize silage (107.4%) inocula. By contrast, the methane yield was significantly reduced for the digested anaerobic sewage sludge (50.6%) and percolated green waste (43.5%) inocula. To further evaluate the potential of algal–bacterial biofilm for biogas production in wastewater treatment and biogas plants in a circular bioeconomy, scale-up calculations were conducted. It was found that a 0.116 km2 ATS would be required in an average municipal wastewater treatment plant which can be viewed as problematic in terms of space consumption. However, a substantial amount of energy surplus (4.7–12.5 MWh a−1) can be gained through the addition of algal–bacterial biomass to the anaerobic digester of a municipal wastewater treatment plant. Wastewater treatment and subsequent energy production through algae show dominancy over conventional technologies.
Edge-based and face-based smoothed finite element methods (ES-FEM and FS-FEM, respectively) are modified versions of the finite element method allowing to achieve more accurate results and to reduce sensitivity to mesh distortion, at least for linear elements. These properties make the two methods very attractive. However, their implementation in a standard finite element code is nontrivial because it requires heavy and extensive modifications to the code architecture. In this article, we present an element-based formulation of ES-FEM and FS-FEM methods allowing to implement the two methods in a standard finite element code with no modifications to its architecture. Moreover, the element-based formulation permits to easily manage any type of element, especially in 3D models where, to the best of the authors' knowledge, only tetrahedral elements are used in FS-FEM applications found in the literature. Shape functions for non-simplex 3D elements are proposed in order to apply FS-FEM to any standard finite element.
Recent earthquakes as the 2012 Emilia earthquake sequence showed that recently built unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings behaved much better than expected and sustained, despite the maximum PGA values ranged between 0.20–0.30 g, either minor damage or structural damage that is deemed repairable. Especially low-rise residential and commercial masonry buildings with a code-conforming seismic design and detailing behaved in general very well without substantial damages. The low damage grades of modern masonry buildings that was observed during this earthquake series highlighted again that codified design procedures based on linear analysis can be rather conservative. Although advances in simulation tools make nonlinear calculation methods more readily accessible to designers, linear analyses will still be the standard design method for years to come. The present paper aims to improve the linear seismic design method by providing a proper definition of the q-factor of URM buildings. These q-factors are derived for low-rise URM buildings with rigid diaphragms which represent recent construction practise in low to moderate seismic areas of Italy and Germany. The behaviour factor components for deformation and energy dissipation capacity and for overstrength due to the redistribution of forces are derived by means of pushover analyses. Furthermore, considerations on the behaviour factor component due to other sources of overstrength in masonry buildings are presented. As a result of the investigations, rationally based values of the behaviour factor q to be used in linear analyses in the range of 2.0–3.0 are proposed.
GHEtool is a Python package that contains all the functionalities needed to deal with borefield design. It is developed for both researchers and practitioners. The core of this package is the automated sizing of borefield under different conditions. The sizing of a borefield is typically slow due to the high complexity of the mathematical background. Because this tool has a lot of precalculated data, GHEtool can size a borefield in the order of tenths of milliseconds. This sizing typically takes the order of minutes. Therefore, this tool is suited for being implemented in typical workflows where iterations are required.
GHEtool also comes with a graphical user interface (GUI). This GUI is prebuilt as an exe-file because this provides access to all the functionalities without coding. A setup to install the GUI at the user-defined place is also implemented and available at: https://www.mech.kuleuven.be/en/tme/research/thermal_systems/tools/ghetool.
In order to realistically predict and optimize the actual performance of a concentrating solar power (CSP) plant sophisticated simulation models and methods are required. This paper presents a detailed dynamic simulation model for a Molten Salt Solar Tower (MST) system, which is capable of simulating transient operation including detailed startup and shutdown procedures including drainage and refill. For appropriate representation of the transient behavior of the receiver as well as replication of local bulk and surface temperatures a discretized receiver model based on a novel homogeneous two-phase (2P) flow modelling approach is implemented in Modelica Dymola®. This allows for reasonable representation of the very different hydraulic and thermal properties of molten salt versus air as well as the transition between both. This dynamic 2P receiver model is embedded in a comprehensive one-dimensional model of a commercial scale MST system and coupled with a transient receiver flux density distribution from raytracing based heliostat field simulation. This enables for detailed process prediction with reasonable computational effort, while providing data such as local salt film and wall temperatures, realistic control behavior as well as net performance of the overall system. Besides a model description, this paper presents some results of a validation as well as the simulation of a complete startup procedure. Finally, a study on numerical simulation performance and grid dependencies is presented and discussed.
The mechanical behavior of the large intestine beyond the ultimate stress has never been investigated. Stretching beyond the ultimate stress may drastically impair the tissue microstructure, which consequently weakens its healthy state functions of absorption, temporary storage, and transportation for defecation. Due to closely similar microstructure and function with humans, biaxial tensile experiments on the porcine large intestine have been performed in this study. In this paper, we report hyperelastic characterization of the large intestine based on experiments in 102 specimens. We also report the theoretical analysis of the experimental results, including an exponential damage evolution function. The fracture energies and the threshold stresses are set as damage material parameters for the longitudinal muscular, the circumferential muscular and the submucosal collagenous layers. A biaxial tensile simulation of a linear brick element has been performed to validate the applicability of the estimated material parameters. The model successfully simulates the biomechanical response of the large intestine under physiological and non-physiological loads.
Wearable EEG has gained popularity in recent years driven by promising uses outside of clinics and research. The ubiquitous application of continuous EEG requires unobtrusive form-factors that are easily acceptable by the end-users. In this progression, wearable EEG systems have been moving from full scalp to forehead and recently to the ear. The aim of this study is to demonstrate that emerging ear-EEG provides similar impedance and signal properties as established forehead EEG. EEG data using eyes-open and closed alpha paradigm were acquired from ten healthy subjects using generic earpieces fitted with three custom-made electrodes and a forehead electrode (at Fpx) after impedance analysis. Inter-subject variability in in-ear electrode impedance ranged from 20 kΩ to 25 kΩ at 10 Hz. Signal quality was comparable with an SNR of 6 for in-ear and 8 for forehead electrodes. Alpha attenuation was significant during the eyes-open condition in all in-ear electrodes, and it followed the structure of power spectral density plots of forehead electrodes, with the Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.92 between in-ear locations ELE (Left Ear Superior) and ERE (Right Ear Superior) and forehead locations, Fp1 and Fp2, respectively. The results indicate that in-ear EEG is an unobtrusive alternative in terms of impedance, signal properties and information content to established forehead EEG.
We study the possibility to fabricate an arbitrary phase mask in a one-step laser-writing process inside the volume of an optical glass substrate. We derive the phase mask from a Gerchberg–Saxton-type algorithm as an array and create each individual phase shift using a refractive index modification of variable axial length. We realize the variable axial length by superimposing refractive index modifications induced by an ultra-short pulsed laser at different focusing depth. Each single modification is created by applying 1000 pulses with 15 μJ pulse energy at 100 kHz to a fixed spot of 25 μm diameter and the focus is then shifted axially in steps of 10 μm. With several proof-of-principle examples, we show the feasibility of our method. In particular, we identify the induced refractive index change to about a value of Δn=1.5⋅10−3. We also determine our current limitations by calculating the overlap in the form of a scalar product and we discuss possible future improvements.