Study on Thermal Insulation Performance of Cross-Laminated Bamboo Wall

In recent years,bamboo,as a green building material,has attracted more and more attention worldwide.Inspired by the investigation of cross-laminated timber in structural systems,a new engineered cross-laminated bamboo(CLB)consisting of the cross lamination of bamboo scrimber plates is proposed in this paper.To evaluate its potential in structural applications,the thermal insulation performances of the CLB walls and CLB walls with the EPS foam plate were studied and evaluated by the temperature-controlled box-heat flow meter method.Test results indicated that the thermal insulation performance improved with the increase of thickness,but different wall configurations had little effect on the thermal insulation performance under the same thickness of the CLB wall.The thermal insulation performance of EPS-CLB composite wall was much better than that of CLB wall.In addition,a relatively acceptable accuracy of the theoretical calculations was proved.Finally,the influence of different locations of the EPS foam plate on heat transfer coefficient can be neglected as it was studied based on the validated numerical models.

Techniques for quickly changing fuel gas in continuous annealing furnaces

An increasing number of annealing furnaces have recently been using cheaper and cleaner natural gas （NG） instead of liquefied petroleum gas （LPG） as fuel gas.However,the fuel gas of the furnaces often needs to be changed when NG supply is not adequate or when LPG becomes cheaper.Usually,changing the fuel gas involves changing various equipment as well as control parameters for instruments and the control system and hence is time consuming.Therefore,it is important to develop a quick process for changing fuel gas.This study discusses the techniques for quickly changing fuel gas in an annealing furnace.These techniques deal with the design of the pipe,valve and burner,the selection of the flow meter and the flow control valve,the switch of the software and parameters for the control system,as well as the operation,commissioning and hot test of the furnace when the fuel gas is changed.Using these techniques,it is possible to change fuel gas in 6 h.

Comparison of Three Methods for Determination of Root Hydraulic Conductivity of Maize(Zea mays L.)Root System

Three techniques of root pressure probe, pressure chamber and high pressure flow meter were used to measure the hydraulic conductivities （Lpr） of whole root systems of young maize （Zea mays L.） seedlings grown hydroponically under either drought or normal water conditions. Compared to normal water conditions, drought stress simulated by polyethylene glycol 6 000 （osmotic potential =-0.2 MPa） reduced Lpr in the root system by over 50%. It indicated that water permeability in the roots decreased significantly when plants suffered from water shortages. Moreover, there was no significant difference （P〈 0.05） on the Lpr values in the root systems developed under a given water stress regime among the three techniques used. Therefore, all three methods are acceptable to study the hydraulic conductivity of maize seedling root systems. We have also highlighted some of the technical limitations of each method. It can be inferred that the root pressure probe is preferable for young maize seedlings because it is subtle and has the additional ability to determine solute transport properties, but the method is time consuming. Other advantages and disadvantages of each technique are discussed in order to acquaint researchers with basic information that could contribute to their choice of an appropriate technique for future studies.

CFD-Aided Investigation of Combined Flow Conditioners for Gas Ultrasonic Flow Meter

Stable and fully developed gas flow field is crucial for realizing accurate measurement of gas ultrasonicflow meter. To reduce the flow field distortion, a flow conditioner is usually used. However, the traditionalmonotype flow conditioner can only improve the flow field distribution partly. The measurement accuracy of thetransit time ultrasonic flow meter is still affected because of its serious flow field distortion in the complex pipelineconditions. In this paper, to further improve the flow field distribution, a combined conditioner is investigated.The combined flow conditioner is composed of fan-shaped section, turbulent mixing cavity, and honeycomb-shapedsection. The effects of fan blade angle and cavity length on the flow field of the DN50 flow meter are studied usingcomputational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. Simulation results indicate that compared with the monotypeconditioner, the combined conditioner has better performance on effectively reducing the swirl and turbulence andproviding more stable and repetitive velocity profiles. Experiments also validate the effectiveness of the combinedconditioner. The flow meter with the combined conditioner has better repeatability of less than 0.2%, which isbetter than those of the monotype conditioners under the same conditions. This work is very useful for accuratemeasurement of gas ultrasonic flow meter, especially for the complex pipeline conditions.

Measurement of oil-water flow via the correlation of turbine flow meter, gamma ray densitometry and drift-flux model

The flow rate of the oil-water horizontal flow is measured by the combination of the turbine flow meter and the singlebeam gamma ray densitometry. The emphasis is placed on the effects of the pipe diameter, the oil viscosity and the slip velocity on the measurement accuracy. It is shown that the mixture flow rate measured by the turbine flow meter can meet the application requirement in the water continuous pattern（ o- w flow pattern）. In addition, by introducing the developed drift-flux model into the measurement system, the relative errors of measurements for component phase flow rates can be controlled within ±5%. Although more accurate methods for the flow rate measurement are available, the method suggested in this work is advantageous over other methods due to its simplicity for practical applications in the petroleum industry.

MEASUREMENT OF SOLID SLURRY FLOW VIA CORRELATION OF ELECTROMAGNETIC FLOW METER,ELECTRICAL RESISTANCE TOMOGRAPHY AND MECHANISTIC MODELLING

The study presented here was carried out to obtain the actual solids flow rate by the combination of electrical resistance tomography and electromagnetic flow meter. A new in-situ measurement method based on measurements of the Electromagnetic Flow Meters （EFM） and Electrical Resistance Tomography （ERT） to study the flow rates of individual phases in a vertical flow was proposed. The study was based on laboratory experiments that were carded out with a 50 mm vertical flow rig for a number of sand concentrations and different mixture velocities. A range of sand slurries with median particle size from 212 μm to 355 μm was tested. The solid concentration by volume covered was 5% and 15%, and the corresponding density of 5% was 1078 kg/m^3 and of 15% was 1238 kg/m^3. The flow velocity was between 1.5 m/s and 3.0 m/s. A total of 6 experimental tests were conducted. The equivalent liquid model was adopted to validate in-situ volumetric solids fraction and calculate the slip velocity. The results show that the ERT technique can be used in conjunction with an electromagnetic flow meter as a way of measurement of slurry flow rate in a vertical pipe flow. However it should be emphasized that the EFM results must be treated with reservation when the flow pattern at the EFM mounting position is a non-homogenous flow. The flow rate obtained by the EFM should be corrected considering the slip velocity and the flow pattern.

Prediction of oil flow rate through an orifice flow meter: Artificial intelligence alternatives compared

Fluid-flow measurements of petroleum can be performed using a variety of equipment such as orifice meters and wellhead chokes.It is useful to understand the relationship between flow rate through orifice meters(Qv)and the five fluid-flow influencing input variables:pressure(P),temperature(T),viscosity(μ),square root of differential pressure(ΔP^0.5),and oil specific gravity(SG).Here we evaluate these relationships using a range of machine-learning algorithms applied to orifice meter data from a pipeline flowing from the Cheshmeh Khosh Iranian oil field.Correlation coefficients indicate that(Qv)has weak to moderate positive correlations with T,P,andμ,a strong positive correlation with theΔP^0.5,and a weak negative correlation with oil specific gravity.In order to predict the flow rate with reliable accuracy,five machine-learning algorithms are applied to a dataset of 1037 data records(830 used for algorithm training;207 used for testing)with the full input variable values for the data set provided.The algorithms evaluated are:Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System(ANFIS),Least Squares Support Vector Machine(LSSVM),Radial Basis Function(RBF),Multilayer Perceptron(MLP),and Gene expression programming(GEP).The prediction performance analysis reveals that all of the applied methods provide predictions at acceptable levels of accuracy.The MLP algorithm achieves the most accurate predictions of orifice meter flow rates for the dataset studied.GEP and RBF also achieve high levels of accuracy.ANFIS and LSSVM perform less well,particularly in the lower flow rate range(i.e.,<40,000 stb/day).Some machine learning algorithms have the potential to overcome the limitations of idealized streamline analysis applying the Bernoulli equation when predicting flow rate across an orifice meter,particularly at low flow rates and in turbulent flow conditions.Further studies on additional datasets are required to confirm this.