Engineering Commons^™

Dynamics Modeling Of Molten Salt Reactors, Visura Umesh Pathirana

Doctoral Dissertations

The abundance of energy is a necessity for the prosperity of humans. The rise in energy demand has created energy shortages and issues related to energy security. Nuclear energy can produce vast amounts of reliable energy without many of the negative externalities associated with other competing energy sources, such as coal and natural gas. As a result, public interest in nuclear power has increased in the past decade. Many new types of nuclear reactor are proposed. These nuclear reactor designs feature many passive technologies that can operate without external influence. Reactors that feature advanced passive safety features are catagorized as …

Additively Manufactured Nature Inspired Morphology For Redesign: Advancing Next Generation Energy Systems, Vanshika Singh

Doctoral Dissertations

To meet cleaner energy goals and increasing demand, energy systems such as gas turbines and power plants are required to be operated under harsh loading conditions like higher temperatures and pressures, fluctuating loads, and corrosive environments. Advanced manufacturing techniques such as additive manufacturing (AM) have put us on the trajectory for next-generation system designs, allowing complex geometries and high-temperature alloys with tailored material properties. We need new and systematic design philosophies to use AM's unique characteristics prudently. For a given functionality, nature tends to provide similar solutions in animate and inanimate structures. We propose to take inspiration from nature's repetitive …

Heat Pump Integrated Thermal Storage For Building Demand Response And Decarbonization, Sara Sultan

Doctoral Dissertations

This work presents a novel thermal energy storage (TES) integrated with existing residential heat pump (HP). The research focuses on controls and configuration for energy, demand, cost and carbon emissions savings for residential buildings’ energy consumption. This work will be significant in developing a framework especially for reduced energy demand and carbon emissions associated with space heating and cooling in residential buildings. Since buildings account for about 40% primary energy consumption in U.S. and half of that is associated with HP.

An existing air source HP in integrated with a phase change material (PCM) based TES via active configuration where …

Transient Thermal Performance Enhancement Of Phase Change Materials Through Novel Pin Arrangements Under Varied Gravity Conditions, Junaid Khan

Masters Theses

This thesis presents a comprehensive examination of encapsulation techniques and performance enhancement strategies for Phase Change Materials (PCMs) in the thermal management of spacecraft avionics. This research contributes to optimizing PCM applications in spacecraft through historical analysis, transient thermal performance enhancement, and computational studies.

The first chapter explains the significance of PCMs in passive thermal management since the beginning of space-age technology, it underlines the low thermal conductivity of PCMs and the necessity of incorporating materials with high thermal conductivity, such as metal foams, to improve heat transfer. It also discusses various advancements in PCM research for spacecraft thermal management …

Investigating The Electrochemical Performance Of Biphenyl-Sodium Polysulfide Organic Redox Flow Batteries, Mohammad Bahzad

Doctoral Dissertations

With the increased utilization of renewable energy sources, demand for long-duration energy storage systems has increased to moderate the intermittent power generation problem of these sources. Among the various energy storage technologies, those based on electrochemical conversion have received tremendous attention in recent decades. Organic redox flow batteries (ORFBs) are promising candidates for large-scale energy storage. The advantages of ORFBs are flexibility, wide voltage window, high energy density, and low cost. Although recent developments in ORFBs are promising, their future implementation requires further development, especially to understand their electrochemical performance and alleviate system inefficiencies. Most of ORFBs' performance loss comes …