Effect of solid particles on gear tooth failure

The failure of spur gears operating in highly contaminated media was studied. In fact, the effect of the presence of solid particles in gear mechanisms during surface tooth contact was observed. It is shown that the solid contaminants lead to significant wear in the first few operating cycles, in zones with a high rate of sliding. The scanning electron microscopy(SEM) images show clearly that the wear is more significant for a dry contact in the presence of larger size particles. Indeed, the presence of contaminants leads to an increase in friction, and therefore raises the temperature and the vibration levels when the operation of gear mechanism becomes very severe especially for a dry contact under the effect of larger size particles. On the other hand, we have tried to obtain a better understanding and a good description of wear debris distributions in gear mechanisms by using unimodal, single distribution models(Weibull and three-parameter Weibull).

Impact of Wind Energy System Integration on the Al-Zawiya Refinery Electric Grid in Libya

Libya is an oil exporting country located in the middle of the North Africa. Exporting oil is the major income resource for the economics of the country. Al-Zawea refinery is one of the oil refineries in Libya. It is the largest refinery in the region. The refinery located in the Mediterranean coast. Electricity is the main sector in the refinery to produce and export oil. This paper discusses the possibility of the penetration of the renewable energy (wind) generated electricity into the refinery power system. Although, renewable energy application in Libya was started in the middle of the seventies, it has still not found its way into industry sector. This study proposes the possible impacts of renewable (wind) energy system integration on the Al-Zawea refinery electric grid to satisfy the refinery load demand.

Lithium-ion cell inconsistency analysis based on three-parameter Weibull probability model

The inconsistency of lithium-ion cells degrades battery performance,lifetime and even safety.The complexity of the cell reaction mechanism causes an irregular asymmetrical distribution of various cell parameters,such as capacity and internal resistance,among others.In this study,the Newman electrochemical model was used to simulate the 1 C discharge curves of 100 LiMn2 O4 pouch cells with parameter variations typically produced in manufacturing processes,and the three-parameter Weibull probability model was used to analyze the dispersion and symmetry of the resulting discharge voltage distributions.The results showed that the dispersion of the voltage distribution was related to the rate of decrease in the discharge voltage,and the symmetry was related to the change in the rate of voltage decrease.The effect of the cells’capacity dominated the voltage distribution thermodynamically during discharge,and the phase transformation process significantly skewed the voltage distribution.The effects of the ohmic drop and polarization voltage on the voltage distribution were primarily kinetic.The presence of current returned the right-skewed voltage distribution caused by phase transformation to a more symmetrical distribution.Thus,the Weibull parameters elucidated the electrochemical behavior during the discharge process,and this method can guide the prediction and control of cell inconsistency,as well as detection and control strategies for cell management systems.

Modeling Size-number Distributions of Seeds for Use in Soil Bank Studies

Knowledge of soil seed banks is essential to understand the dynamics of plant populations and communities and would greatly benefit from the integration of existing knowledge on ecological correlations of seed size and shape. The present study aims to establish a feasible and meaningful method to describe size-number distributions of seeds in multi-species situations. For that purpose, size-number distributions of seeds with known length, width and thickness were determined by sequential sieving. The most appropriate combination of sieves and seeds dimensions was established, and the adequacy of the power function and the Weibull model to describe size-number distributions of spherical, non-spherical, and all seeds was investigated. We found that the geometric mean of seed length, width and thickness was the most adequate size estimator, providing shape-independent measures of seeds volume directly related to sieves mesh side, and that both the power function and the Weibull model provide high quality descriptions of size-number distributions of spherical, non-spherical, and all seeds. We also found that, in spite of its slightly lower accuracy, the power function is, at this stage, a more trustworthy model to characterize size-number distributions of seeds in soil banks because in some Weibull equations the estimates of the scale parameter were not acceptable.

Effects of different drying methods on drying kinetics and physicochemical properties of Chrysanthemum morifolium Ramat

The effects of infrared-assisted hot-air drying(IR-HAD),temperature,humidity controlled hot-air drying(THC-HAD),and hot-air drying(HAD)on the drying kinetics,physicochemical properties,chlorogenic acid content and microstructure of chrysanthemum were experimentally examined.The results showed that the drying time reduced with increasing air drying temperature,with IR-HAD needing the shortest drying time,followed by THC-HAD and HAD.The effective moisture diffusivities(Deff)of chrysanthemum under IR-HAD,THC-HAD,and HAD at 60℃ were 3.22×10^(-9) m^(2)/s,2.19×10^(-9) m^(2)/s,and 2.89×10^(-9) m^(2)/s,respectively.IR-HAD preserved chrysanthemum surface color better than THC-HAD and HAD,whereas the THC-HAD samples obtained higher water holding capacity(WHC),water binding capacity(WBC),and chlorogenic acid content.Additionally,peroxidase(POD)residual activity of the samples decreased with increasing blanching time.The current work provides a theoretical basis for the drying of chrysanthemum.

A new method used for reservoir production performance analysis

Water flooding type-curves,recently receiving increasing attentions,play an essential role in evaluation of OOIP and prediction of future production.The study proposed a method modified form Weibull model and water flooding type-curves to analyze the reservoir production performance,including predication of oil production and water injection rates.The results indicate that the method can estimate and provide solutions for oil production,water injection rate and injection-production ratio with a well accuracy.A case study is conducted to demonstrate the applicability and accuracy of model by field data.The matching results illustrate a good accordance between calculated values and field data.