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Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering

Thermophotovoltaic Devices: Combustion Chamber Optimization And Modelling To Maximize Fuel Efficiency, Arnold Chris Toppo, Ernesto Marinero, Zhaxylyk Kudyshev Aug 2018

Thermophotovoltaic Devices: Combustion Chamber Optimization And Modelling To Maximize Fuel Efficiency, Arnold Chris Toppo, Ernesto Marinero, Zhaxylyk Kudyshev

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Currently, 110 billion cubic meters of natural gas (primarily methane), a potent greenhouse gas, are flared off for environmental and safety reasons. This process results in enough fuel to provide the combined natural gas consumption of Germany and France. The research team developed a thermophotovoltaic device to convert thermal energy to electricity at a high efficiency using proprietary emitters and combustion system. With the current focus being fuel efficiency and the combustion process, the assembly was simulated using ANSYS Fluent modelling software and the following parameters were optimized: air/fuel ratios, flow rates, and inlet sizes. Simultaneously the heat transfer across …


Dynamic Behavior Of A Clamped-Clamped Bi-Stable Laminate For Energy Harvesting, Ajay V. Kumar, Andres F. Arrieta Ph.D., Myungwon Hwang Aug 2016

Dynamic Behavior Of A Clamped-Clamped Bi-Stable Laminate For Energy Harvesting, Ajay V. Kumar, Andres F. Arrieta Ph.D., Myungwon Hwang

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Multi-stable laminates have many applications in morphing structures, energy harvesting devices, and metamaterials due to the specific characteristics attributed to the exhibited stable states. Changes between stable states allow for large deflections, on-demand variation of the stiffness of compliant structures embedded within these elements, and control of effective dynamic properties in periodic lattices. These changes in state can be accessed via a snap-through instability triggered by introducing a well-defined activation energy. The resulting oscillations could enable broadband energy harvesting via piezoelectric transduction and resistive circuits. In this paper, a clamped-clamped bi-stable laminate is studied to understand the behavior of the …