Ground Magnetic, GPR, and Dipole-Dipole Resistivity for Landfill Investigation

Ground magnetic, ground penetrating radar (GPR), and dipole-dipole resistivity were carried out to environmentally investigate a landfill. In this context, these geophysical techniques were conducted to identify the subsurface contents of the landfill, furthermore, specify any possible leakage and/or contamination in the study area. The ground-magnetic survey carried out in the study area comprised 31 profiles each 120 m in length. Different wavelength filters were applied to the measured data. Vertical derivative, downward continuation, apparent susceptibility, band-pass, and analytical signal filters separated successfully the shallow sources. Whereas, upward continuation and low-pass Gaussian filters isolated significantly the deep magnetic sources. 3D Euler deconvolution (SI = 3) remarkably estimated the depths of the shallow sources (0 - 10 m) of the landfill contents. The conducted GPR and dipole-dipole resistivity allocated tangibly the locations and depths of the near surface anomalies. Both techniques didn’t reveal any possible leakage and/or contamination. Noteworthy, integration among magnetic, GPR, and dipole-dipole resistivity confirmed positively the results of each method. Nevertheless, some anomalies were recognized successfully by one technique and not by the others.

Effects of continuously regenerating diesel particulate filters on regulated emissions and number-size distribution of particles emitted from a diesel engine

The effects of continuously regenerating diesel particulate filter （CRDPF） systems on regulated gaseous emissions, and number-size distribution and mass of particles emanated from a diesel engine have been investigated in this study. Two CRDPF units （CRDPF-1 and CRDPF-2） with different specifications were separately retrofitted to the engine running with European steady-state cycle （ESC）. An electrical low pressure impactor （ELPI） was used for particle number-size distribution measurement and mass estimation. The conversion/reduction rate （RcR） of hydrocarbons （HC） and carbon monoxide （CO） across CRDPF-1 was 83% and 96.3%, respectively. Similarly, the RCR of HC and CO and across CRDPF-2 was 91.8% and 99.1%, respectively. The number concentration of particles and their concentration peaks; nuclei mode, accumulation mode and total particles; and particle mass were highly reduced with the CRDPF units. The nuclei mode particles at downstream of CRDPF-1 and CRDPF-2 decreased by 99.9% to 100% and 97.8% to 99.8% respectively; and the particle mass reduced by 73% to 92.2% and 35.3% to 72.4%, respectively, depending on the engine conditions. In addition, nuclei mode particles increased with the increasing of engine speed due to the heterogeneous nucleation initiated by the higher exhaust temperature, while accumulation mode particles were higher at higher loads due to the decrease in the air-to-fuel ratio （A/F） at higher loads.

Mixed-integrator-based bi-quad cell for designing a continuous time filter

A new mixed-integrator-based bi-quad cell is proposed. An alternative synthesis mechanism of complex poles is proposed compared with source-follower-based bi-quad cells which is designed applying the positive feedback technique. Using the negative feedback technique to combine different integrators, the proposed bi-quad cell synthesizes complex poles for designing a continuous time filter. It exhibits various advantages including compact topology, high gain, no parasitic pole, no CMFB circuit, and high capability. The fourth-order Butterworth lowpass filter using the proposed cells has been fabricated in 0.18μm CMOS technology. The active area occupied by the filter with test buffer is only 200 × 170 μm^2. The proposed filter consumes a low power of 201 μW and achieves a 68.5 dB dynamic range.

Impacts of continuously regenerating trap and particle oxidation catalyst on the NO_2 and particulate matter emissions emitted from diesel engine

Two continuously regenerating diesel particulate filter （CRDPF） with different configurations and one particles oxidation catalyst （POC） were employed to perform experiments in a controlled laboratory setting to evaluate their effects on NO2, smoke and particle number emissions. The results showed that the application of the after-treatments increased the emission ratios of NO2/NOx significantly. The results of smoke emissions and particle number （PN） emissions indicated that both CRDPFs had sufficient capacity to remove more than 90% of total particulate matter （PM） and more than 97% of solid particles. However, the POC was able to remove the organic components of total PM, and only partially to remove the carbonaceous particles with size less than 30 nm. The negligible effects of POC on larger particles were observed due to its honeycomb structure leads to an inadequate residence time to oxidize the solid particles or trap them. The particles removal efficiencies of CRDPFs had high degree of correlations with the emission ratio of NO2/NOx. The PN emission results from two CRDPFs indicated that more NO2 generating in diesel oxidation catalyst section could obtain the higher removal efficiency of solid particles. However this also increased the risk of NO2 exposure in atmosphere.