Characteristics of ventilation coefficient and its impact on urban air pollution

The temporal variation of ventilation coefficient was estimated and a simple model for the prediction of urban ventilation coefficient in Changsha was developed. Firstly, Pearson correlation analysis was used to investigate the relationship between meteorological parameters and mixing layer height during 2005-2009 in Changsha, China. Secondly, the multi-linear regression model between daytime and nighttime was adopted to predict the temporal ventilation coefficient. Thirdly, the validation of the model between the predicted and observed ventilation coefficient in 2010 was conducted. The results showed that ventilation coefficient significantly varied and remained high during daytime, while it stayed relatively constant and low during nighttime. In addition, the diurnal ventilation coefficient was distinctly negatively correlated with PM10 (particle with the diameter less than 10 μm) concentration in Changsha, China. The predicted ventilation coefficient agreed well with the observed values based on the multi-linear regression models during daytime and nighttime. The urban temporal ventilation coefficient could be accurately predicted by some simple meteorological parameters during daytime and nighttime. The ventilation coefficient played an important role in the PM10 concentration level.

An Experimental Study of Structured Packing in High Pressure Services

Both distillation performance and hydrodynamic study for backmixing by tracer technique were carried out in a high-pressure packed column with 0.15 m inner diameter over a wide range of operating conditions. Isobutane and n-pentane are employed as test mixture in the distillation experiment and air/water is used for the hydrodynamic study. The column is installed with Mellapak 350Y structured packing and the total packing height is 2.0 m. With the increasing operating pressure, the separation efficiency increases slightly while the F-factor corresponding to the maximum efficiency at each pressure is descending. It is noted that, at all operating pressures, with the increase of F-factor, the packing efficiency is slightly higher up to the flooding point. The application of SRP model to high-pressure distillation gives much lower values of HTUOG than those obtained experimentally. An additional term, the height of mixing unit, is introduced to correct the SRP model and improve its accuracy at high pressure. From the tracer experiments, the height of mixing unit for gas phase was found to be larger than that for the liquid phase. From this viewpoint, it is believed that the gas phase backmixing gives more unfavorable influence on the separation efficiency in comparison with liquid phase.

Vehicle height and leveling control of electronically controlled air suspension using mixed logical dynamical approach

Vehicle height and leveling control of electronically controlled air suspension(ECAS) still poses theoretical challenges for researchers that have not been adequately addressed in prior research. This paper investigates the design and verification of a new controller to adjust the vehicle height and to regulate the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body(leveling control) during the height adjustment procedures. A nonlinear mechanism model of the vehicle height adjustment system is formulated to describe the dynamic behaviors of the system. By using mixed logical dynamical(MLD) approach, a novel control strategy is proposed to adjust the vehicle height by controlling the on-off statuses of the solenoid valves directly. On this basis, a correction algorithm is also designed to regulate the durations of the on-off statuses of the solenoid valves based on pulse width modulated(PWM) technology, thus the effective leveling control of the vehicle body can be guaranteed. Finally, simulations and vehicle tests results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control methodology.