Search Results

The onboard “SODART” telescope silicon detector cooling system of the “Spectrum-X-Gamma” observatory, which is designed for the space objects X-ray radiation study, is described. The scale-down model of the passive cooling system description and thermal vacuum test results of this model are given. In the real cooling system the minimal detector temperature at 300 mW heat release is expected about 107 K.

The current research was aimed at determining the most effective way to use alternative renewable feedstock to power a diesel engine. Mimusops elengi, a new and novel biofuel was recognized for this current study, which is widely available in the south of India. The investigation was conducted on B20 volume basis (20% Mimusops elengi methyl ester blended with 80% diesel). Furthermore, it was recognized that when the performance characteristics were traded off, the emission magnitude has slightly higher. To address the diesel engine pollution, an oxygenated nano additive like titanium oxide was dissipated only with the fuel blend at distinct mass fractions of 25 parts per million (ppm) with differing injection pressures of 180 bar, 200 bar, 220 bar, and 240 bar. The tests were created using a statistical programme known as design of experiments, which is purely based on Taguchi and response surface methodology.

Five different diesel fuels, having been made available by the mineral oil industry within the framework of a research program of the Coordinating European Council (CEC/PF-26), were examined in addition to this program by the Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz AG by means of the 13-mode test in accordance with the former US legislation and the ECE regulation No. 49 and by US Transient Tests. The results have been compared with results based on commercial European diesel fuel. There has been observed the emission behaviour of an 8-cylinder NA engine with a “state of the art” direct fuel injection system by particularly taking into consideration the particulate emission and the particulate components. The gaseous emissions, particularly CO and HC, are unfavourably influenced by low cetane numbers being associated with increased aromaticity in the diesel fuel.

Driver state monitoring is a crucial technology for enhancing road safety and preventing human error-caused accidents in the era of autonomous vehicles. This paper presents CogniSafe, a comprehensive driver monitoring system that uses deep learning and computer vision methods to detect various types of driver distractions and fatigue. CogniSafe consists of four modules: Driver anomaly detection and classification: A novel two-phase network that proposes and recognizes driver anomalies, such as texting, drinking, and adjusting radios, using multimodal and multiview input. Gaze estimation: A video-based neural network that jointly learns head pose and gaze dynamics, achieving robust and efficient gaze estimation across different head poses. Eye state analysis: A multi-tasking CNN that encodes features from both eye and mouth regions, predicting the percentage of eye closure (PERCLOS) and the frequency of mouth opening (FOM).

The method of flame ionization was used for measuring total hydrocarbons in both single-cylinder and multicylinder 4-cycle, direct injection diesel engine exhaust. Use of the emission parameters of hydrocarbon concentration, per cent unburned fuel, specific hydrocarbon rate, mass of hydrocarbons per million cycles, mass of hydrocarbons per mile, and mass of hydrocarbons per ton-mile are discussed. The basic approach used in the flame ionization detector is shown. The hydrocarbon sample was transferred from the exhaust system through a heated sample line and oven operating at 375 F. The sample line was aspirated to reduce the sample residence time to 2 sec. The effect various sampling locations have on hydrocarbon measurements from a single-cylinder engine is shown and discussed. The effects of load, speed, and injection timing on hydrocarbon emission data are shown for a single-cylinder engine.

Regulated emissions from four current production European vehicles were measured over the Common Artemis Driving Cycles (CADC). Particulate Mass and Particle Number measurements were made in accordance with the newly-developed draft Particulate Measurement Programme (PMP) developed for the UN-ECE's expert group on pollution and energy (GRPE). During the test programme measurements were also made of currently non-regulated emissions including PAHs and speciation of the particulate material and key hydrocarbons. CADC results are presented for each of the four vehicles tested (one conventional gasoline vehicle, two different types of diesel without Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) and one diesel with DPF) with results measured on the regulated New European Driving Cycle (NEDC) test for comparison. The emissions results on the Artemis cycles showed some significant differences from those on the regulated (NEDC) test cycle.

This study proposes a novel biofuel for spark ignition (SI) engine, α-pinene (C10H16), which is non-oxygenated and thus has a gravimetric energy density comparable to that of hydrocarbon fuels. The ignition characteristics of α-pinene were evaluated in an ignition quality tester (IQT) under standard temperature and pressure conditions. The measured ignition delay time (IDT) of α-pinene is 10.5 ms, which is lower than that of iso-octane, 17.9 ms. The estimated research octane number (RON) for pinene from IQT is 85. A temperature sweep in IQT showed that that α-pinene is less reactive at low temperatures, but more reactive at high temperatures when compared to isooctane. These results suggest that α-pinene has high octane sensitivity (OS) and is suitable for operation in turbocharged SI engines. With these considerations, α-pinene was operated in a single cylinder SI engine.

The Swedish Biomimetics 3000's μMist® platform technology has been used to develop a radically new injection system. This prototype system, developed and characterized with support from Lotus, as part of Swedish Biomimetics 3000®'s V₂IO innovation accelerating model, delivers improved combustion efficiency through achieving exceptionally small droplets, at fuel rail pressures far less than conventional GDI systems and as low as PFI systems. The system gives the opportunity to prepare and deliver all of the fuel load for the engine while the intake valves are open and after the exhaust valves have closed, thereby offering the potential to use advanced charge scavenging techniques in PFI engines which have hitherto been restricted to direct-injection engines, and at a lower system cost than a GDI injection system.

COMPARISON of work capacity per unit mass and volume of different energy carriers shows that liquid hydrocarbons are superior to other energy sources. Solar and nuclear powerplants as well as their use in conjunction with a steam engine are examined in this paper. Suitability of an electric drive is discussed. Using a production 2-stroke diesel engine and its development forecast, a comparison is made of spark ignition, diesel, and gas turbine engines. The status of the free-piston engine turbine combination is reviewed.

TODAY'S high-compression engines present new problems of engine noise to automotive engineers. This paper deals with some of the factors which contribute to rumble, knock, and surface ignition. The work was primarily concerned with the influence of fuel composition on the equilibrium octane number requirement and surface ignition tendency of high-compression engines. Both the effect of the combustion-chamber deposits formed by the fuel and the effect of the combustion characteristics of the fuel itself were considered. The results indicate that a reduction in gasoline tail-end volatility or the use of an effective ignition control additive can reduce knock, surface ignition, and rumble; while use of gasolines containing high concentrations of aromatic hydrocarbons can increase these combustion difficulties.

eROSITA (extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) is a powerful X-ray telescope under development by the Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) in Garching, Germany. eROSITA is the core instrument on the Russian SRG1 mission which is planned for launch in 2011. It comprises seven nested Wolter-I grazing incidence telescopes, each equipped with its own CCD camera. The mirror modules have to be maintained at 20°C while the cameras are operated at -80°C. Both, mirrors and CCDs have to be kept within tight limits. The CCD cooling system consists of passive thermal control components only: two radiators, variable conductance heat pipes (VCHP) and two special thermal storage units. The orbit scenario imposes severe challenges on the thermal control system and also on the attitude control system.

The permanently increasing number of convenience and safety functions leads to higher complexity of in-car electronics and the rapidly growing amount of sensors, actuators and electronic control units places higher demands on high- speed data communication protocols. Safety-critical systems need deterministic protocols with fault-tolerant behavior. The need for on-board diagnosis calls for flexible use of bandwidth and an ever-increasing number of functions necessitates a flexible means of extending the system. None of the communication solutions available on the market until now (like CAN or TTP) have been able to fulfill all these demands. To solve these problems, BMW together with several semiconductor companies has developed a new protocol for safety-critical applications in automotive vehicles.

A “next generation” condensing heat exchanger for space systems has to satisfy demanding operational requirements under variable thermal and moisture loads and reduced gravity conditions. Mathematical models described here are used to investigate transient behavior of wetting and de-wetting dynamics in the binary porous system of porous tubes and porous cold plate. The model is based on the Richard's equation simplified for the zero-gravity conditions. The half-saturation distance or the zone of influence of the porous annular suction tubes on the cold-plate porous material will be in the range of 1 to 10 cm for the time scales ranging from 100 to 10,000 seconds and moisture diffusivity in the range of D = 10-4 to 10-6 m2/s.

“Zoning” a catalytic converter involves placing higher concentrations of platinum group metals (PGM) in the inlet portion of the substrate. This is done to optimize the cost-to-performance tradeoff by increasing the reaction rate at lower temperatures while minimizing PGM usage. A potentially useful application of catalyst zoning is to improve performance using a constant PGM mass. A study was performed to assess what the optimum ratio of front to rear palladium zone length is to achieve the highest performance in vehicle emission testing. Varying the zone ratio from 1:1 to 1:9 shows a clear hydrocarbon performance optimum at a 1:5.66 (15%/85%) split. This performance optimum shows as both a minimum in FTP75 non-methane organic gas (NMOG) emissions as well as a minimum in hydrocarbon, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxide light-off temperature. Overall, an improvement of 18%, or 11 mg/mi of combined NMOG+NOx emissions was obtained without using additional PGM.

Zero-offset in transducer output during airbag noise testing is often observed, but mostly ignored due to the lack of understanding of its causes and implications. In the field of high-g acceleration measurement, this phenomenon is well documented, and is referred to as zeroshift. Zero-offset occurs when a component in the measurement chain is exposed to some unexpected inputs which the component has not been designed to handle. These unexpected inputs can be mechanical, electrical, or optical. How the transducer reacts to such inputs and the amount of zero-offset produced depends on the sensing mechanism, material used, and the design of the component itself. This paper explores the causes of zero-offset from a general perspective, covering the entire measurement chain. Although much of the information and discussions are based on data obtained from acceleration measurement systems, the findings are applicable to other transducer types, such as pressure and acoustic measurements.

The thermal deflection associated with the conventional die heat treating procedure usually requires extra die grinding process to fine-tune the die surface. Due to the size of the production die, the grinding is time consuming and is not cost effective. The goal of the study is to develop a new die heat treating process utilizing the flexible laser heat treatment, which could serve the same purpose as the conventional die heat treating and avoid the thermal deflection. The unique look of the developed zebra pattern laser heat treating process is defined as the Zebra Line. The heat-treating parameters and processes were developed and calibrated to produce the laser heat treating on laboratory size dies, which were subjected to the die wear test in the laboratory condition. The USS HDGI 980 XG3TM steel was selected to be carried out on the developmental dies in the cyclic bend die wear test due to its high strength and coating characteristic.

Schlieren and shadowgraph imaging have been used for many years to identify refractive index gradients in various applications. For evaporating fuel sprays, these techniques can differentiate the boundary between spray regions and background ambient gases. Valuable information such as the penetration rate, spreading angle, spray structure, and spray pattern can be obtained using schlieren diagnostics. In this study, we present details of a z-type schlieren system setup and its application to port-fuel-injection gasoline sprays. The schlieren high-speed movies were used to obtain time histories of the spray penetration and spreading angle. Later, these global parameters were compared to specifications provided by the injector manufacturer. Also, diagnostic parameters such as the proportion of light cut-off at the focal point and the orientation of knife-edge (schlieren-stop) used to achieve the cut-off were examined.

Guidelines for designing you-are-here (YAH) maps aboard International Space Station (ISS) are proposed, based on results from previous 3D spatial navigation studies conducted by our research group and colleagues. This paper reviews terrestrial YAH maps, the common errors associated with them, and how to appropriately implement what is known from terrestrial to micro-gravity YAH maps. We conclude with a creative example of an ISS YAH map that utilizes given guidelines and information visualization techniques.

Yield potential was predicted and mapped for three corn fields in Central Illinois, using digital aerial color infrared images. Three methods, namely statistical (regression) modeling, genetic algorithm optimization and artificial neural networks, were used for developing yield models. Two image resolutions of 3 and 6 m/pixel were used for modeling. All the models were trained using July 31 image and tested using images from July 2 and August 31, all from 1998. Among the three models, artificial neural networks gave best performance, with a prediction error less than 30%. The statistical model resulted in prediction errors in the range of 23 to 54%. The lower resolution images resulted in better prediction accuracy compared to resolutions higher than or equal to the yield resolution. Images after pollination resulted in better accuracy compared to images before pollination.