Petrochemical storage tanks are generally inspected when the tank is offline mostly to assess the extent of underside corrosion on the tank floor. Emptying, cleaning and opening a tank for inspection take many months ...Petrochemical storage tanks are generally inspected when the tank is offline mostly to assess the extent of underside corrosion on the tank floor. Emptying, cleaning and opening a tank for inspection take many months and are very expensive. Inspection costs can be reduced significantly by inserting robots through manholes on the tank roof to pertbrm non-destructive testing （NDT）. The challenge is to develop robots that can operate safely in explosive and hazardous environments and measure the thickness of floor plates using ultrasound sensors. This paper reports on the development of a small and inexpensive prototype robot （NDTBOT） which is designed to be intrinsically safe for zone zero operation. The robot ＂hops＂ across the floor to make measurements, without any external moving parts. The paper describes the design, experimental testing of the NDTBOT and presents results of steel plate thickness measurements made under water.展开更多
Increasing demand for downsizing of engines to improve CO2 emissions has resulted in renewed efforts to improve the efficiency and expend the stable operating range of the centrifugal compressors used in petro-chemica...Increasing demand for downsizing of engines to improve CO2 emissions has resulted in renewed efforts to improve the efficiency and expend the stable operating range of the centrifugal compressors used in petro-chemical equipment and turbochargers. The losses in these compressors are dominated by tip clearance flow. In this paper, the tip clearance flow in the subsonic impeller is numerically investigated. The nature of the tip clearance in inducer, axial to radial bend and exducer are studied in detail at design and off-design conditions by examining the detailed flow field through the clearance and the interaction of the clearance flow with the shear effect with the endwalls. The correlation between blade loading and span wise geometry and clearance flow at different locations are presented.展开更多
文摘Petrochemical storage tanks are generally inspected when the tank is offline mostly to assess the extent of underside corrosion on the tank floor. Emptying, cleaning and opening a tank for inspection take many months and are very expensive. Inspection costs can be reduced significantly by inserting robots through manholes on the tank roof to pertbrm non-destructive testing （NDT）. The challenge is to develop robots that can operate safely in explosive and hazardous environments and measure the thickness of floor plates using ultrasound sensors. This paper reports on the development of a small and inexpensive prototype robot （NDTBOT） which is designed to be intrinsically safe for zone zero operation. The robot ＂hops＂ across the floor to make measurements, without any external moving parts. The paper describes the design, experimental testing of the NDTBOT and presents results of steel plate thickness measurements made under water.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51276125)the National Basic Research Program of China ("973" Project) (Grant No. 2012CB720101)
文摘Increasing demand for downsizing of engines to improve CO2 emissions has resulted in renewed efforts to improve the efficiency and expend the stable operating range of the centrifugal compressors used in petro-chemical equipment and turbochargers. The losses in these compressors are dominated by tip clearance flow. In this paper, the tip clearance flow in the subsonic impeller is numerically investigated. The nature of the tip clearance in inducer, axial to radial bend and exducer are studied in detail at design and off-design conditions by examining the detailed flow field through the clearance and the interaction of the clearance flow with the shear effect with the endwalls. The correlation between blade loading and span wise geometry and clearance flow at different locations are presented.
