Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Ground-Source Heat Pumps In Ireland: Heat Transfer Experimentation For The Design And Modelling Of A Sub-Slab Installation., Sarah O'Connell

Theses

Ground-source heat pump technology is currently undergoing rapid growth in Ireland. Three aspects of ground-source heat pumps have been studied in this thesis. The market expansion taking place in Ireland, heat transfer from the soil to the pipe of a ground- source heat pump collector, and the design of an innovative sub-slab ground-source heat pump system.

Initial investigations into the use of ground-source heat pumps in Ireland revealed surprising growth in the use of the technology. There have been approximately 1500 systems installed mainly since 2000. The ground-source heat pump market in Ireland has an estimated annual growth rate of …

Optimisation Of Heat Transfer And Fluid Flow In The Cooling Of Building Integrated Photovoltaic Facades., Eoin Patrick Hodge

Theses

The aim of this research was to explore the effects of mature and developing technologies from aeronautical industries such as impingement and film cooling, and electronic cooling techniques, in the setting up of different laminar and turbulent flow regimes on PV cooling duct heat transfer rates, with air flow as that brought about with natural buoyancy effects in a vertical building facade. The problem of efficiency losses in PV panels, due to overheating, is one of the factors restricting the development and use of this renewable power source. PV panels can experience very high temperatures, due to the heat input …

Magneto-Acoustic Emission Analysis Of Microstructural Change In Aisi 430 And Aisi 304 Stainless Steel, Denis O'Sullivan

Theses

Magneto-acoustic emission (MAE) is a relatively new non-destructive detection technique. Its working principle is based on Barkhausen discontinuities and magnetostriction within a ferromagnetic material that is subjected to a varying magnetic field. Magneto-acoustic emission (MAE) and magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) sensing techniques were developed and employed to characterise plastically deformed and heat-treated AISI 430 ferritic stainless steel and AISI 304 austenitic stainless steel samples. A new waveform measurement parameter for magneto-acoustic emission was developed called MAE (Absolute “energy”).

Both MAE and MBN were found to decrease with increasing plastic deformation of AISI 430. MAE (Absolute “energy”) and MBN (RMS) were …