Engineering Commons^™

Simulation Of Vertical Axis Wind Turbines With Variable Pitch Foils, L. Damon Woods, John F. Gardner, Kurt S. Myers

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A dynamic computer model of a turbine was developed in MATLAB in order to study the behavior of vertical axis wind turbines (VAWTs) with variable pitch (articulating) foils. The simulation results corroborated the findings of several empirical studies on VAWTs. The model was used to analyze theories of pitch articulation and to inform the discussion on turbine design. Simulations of various models showed that pitch articulation allowed Darrieus-style vertical axis wind turbines to start from rest. Once in motion, the rotor was found to accelerate rapidly to very high rotational velocities. The simulations revealed a plateau region of high efficiency …

Technical Subtopic 2.1: Modeling Variable Refrigerant Flow Heat Pump And Heat Recovery Equipment In Energyplus, Florida Solar Energy Center, Richard Raustad

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The University of Central Florida/Florida Solar Energy Center, in cooperation with the Electric Power Research Institute and several variable-refrigerant-flow air conditioning (VRF AC) manufacturers, provided a detailed computer model for a VRF AC system in the United States Department of Energy's (U.S. DOE) EnergyPlus' building energy simulation tool. No other simulation tool currently has the capability to accurately model this state-of-the-art VRF heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. Detailed laboratory testing and field demonstrations were performed to measure equipment performance and compare this performance with that predicted by the use of this new model through computer simulation.

This project …

Computational Modeling And Experimental Study On Optical Microresonators Using Optimal Spherical Structure For Chemical Sensing, Hanzheng Wang, Lei Yuan, Jie Huang, Xinwei Lan, Cheol-Woon Kim, Lan Jiang, Hai Xiao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Chemical sensors based on optical microresonators have been demonstrated highly sensitive by monitoring the refractive index (RI) changes in the surrounding area near the resonator surface. In an optical resonator, the Whispering Gallery Modes (WGMs) with high quality (Q) factor supported by the spherical symmetric structure interacts with the contiguous background through evanescent field. Highly sensitive detection can be realized because of the long lifetime of the photons. The computational models of solid glass microspheres and hollow glass spheres with porous wall (PW-HGM) were established. These two types of microresonators were studied through simulations. The PWHGM resonator was proved as …

Aspen Plus Simulation Of Biomass Gasification In A Steam Blown Dual Fluidised Bed, Wayne Doherty, Anthony Reynolds, David Kennedy

Book/Book Chapters

The efficient utilisation of biomass resources is of utmost importance. Biomass gasification offers much higher efficiencies than combustion. Gasification is a process in which a fuel is converted to a combustible gas (syngas). A dual fluidised bed gasifier known as the fast internally circulating fluidised bed (FICFB) was selected. It has been demonstrated at industrial scale and data is readily available for model validation. An Aspen Plus model was developed to simulate the FICFB gasifier. The model is based on Gibbs free energy minimisation and the restricted equilibrium method was used to calibrate it. The model has been validated and …