A novel self-locked energy absorbing system

Metallic thin-walled round tubes are widely used as energy absorption elements. However, lateral splash of the round tubes under impact loadings reduces the energy absorption efficiency and may cause secondary damage. Therefore, it is necessary to assemble and fasten round tubes together by boundary constraints and/or fasteners between tubes, which increases the time and labor cost and affects the mechanical performance of round tubes. In an effort to break through this limitation, a novel self-locked energy-absorbing system has been proposed in this paper. The proposed system is made up of thin-walled tubes with dumbbell-shaped cross section, which are specially designed to interlock with each other and thus provide lateral constraint under impact loadings. Both finite element simulations and impact experiment demonstrated that without boundary constraints or fasteners between tubes, the proposed self-locked energy-absorbing system can still effectively attenuate impact loads while the round tube systems fail to carry load due to the lateral splashing of tubes. Furthermore, the geometric design for a single dumbbell-shaped tube and the stacking arrangement for the system are discussed, and a general guideline on the structural design of the proposed self-locked energy absorbing system is provided.     

Energy harvesting from a magnetic levitation system

Numerical and experimental studies of a magnetic levitation harvester are presented in the paper. The idea is based on the motion of permanent cylinder magnet in a coil exploited for energy harvesting. The novel model is based on a new definition of the coupling coefficient (inductive coefficient) which relates mechanical and an electrical components. The performed static and dynamics experimental tests show that this coefficient is a nonlinear function of the magnet position, and highly depends on the magnet coordinate in the coil, in such a way that the maximum energy is obtained in a coil ends. The comparison between classical – fixed value model – and novel nonlinear model of the inductive coefficient is presented for selected cases. The most essential differences are presented.     

On the efficiency of energy harvesting using vortex-induced vibrations of cables

Many technologies based on fluid–structure interaction mechanisms are being developed to harvest energy from geophysical flows. The velocity of such flows is low, and so is their energy density. Large systems are therefore required to extract a significant amount of energy. The question of the efficiency of energy harvesting using vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of cables is addressed in this paper, through two reference configurations: (i) a long tensioned cable with periodically-distributed harvesters and (ii) a hanging cable with a single harvester at its upper extremity. After validation against either direct numerical simulations or experiments, an appropriate reduced-order wake-oscillator model is used to perform parametric studies of the impact of the harvesting parameters on the efficiency. For both configurations, an optimal set of parameters is identified and it is shown that the maximum efficiency is close to the value reached with an elastically-mounted rigid cylinder. The variability of the efficiency is studied in light of the fundamental properties of each configuration, i.e. body flexibility and gravity-induced spatial variation of the tension. In the periodically-distributed harvester configuration, it is found that the standing-wave nature of the vibration and structural mode selection plays a central role in energy extraction. In contrast, the efficiency of the hanging cable is essentially driven by the occurrence of traveling wave vibrations.     

The Acceleration Severity Index in the impact of a vehicle against permanent road equipment support structures

The acceleration Severity Index (ASI), described in European Standard EN12767 (The passive safety of support structures for road equipment. Requirements, classification and the test method) is regarded as the most important indicator of impact on the occupants. The requirements for experiments are described, having in mind that the results depend on many factors. One of them is the selection of a vehicle to be used in the crash test. To perform numerical vehicle crash simulation, the finite-element models of permanent road equipment support structures were developed using the LS Dyna software available. To examine the response of the vehicle upon the impact, the acceleration severity index curves were calculated and visualised in Matlab.     

A general stability result for the semilinear viscoelastic wave model under localized effects

Our main goal in the present work is to address an integro-differential model under localized viscoelastic and frictional effects arising in the Boltzmann theory of viscoelasticity. More precisely, we consider a general version in the history context of the pioneer localized viscoelastic problem approached by Cavalcanti and Oquendo (2003) in the null history scenario, and more recently by Cavalcanti et al. (2018) in the history framework. By means of a new observability inequality, we prove a general stability result to the model under a weaker assumption on the localized frictional damping and a slower condition on the decreasing memory kernel (of polynomial type) than the previously mentioned works. To achieve such stability results, we still work in a general setting by removing the assumption on complementary damping mechanisms and show, in some reasonable situations concerning the density coefficient, that the localized viscoelastic effect is enough to ensure the general stability (of polynomial type) to the problem.     

Development of low concentrated solar photovoltaic system with lead acid battery as storage device

Energy storage system powered by renewable energies is a viable option to meet energy requirement without addition of carbon footprints to the environment. This study involves development of theoretical and computational models for a solar photovoltaic (PV) system coupled with a lead acid battery. The study commenced with selection of most appropriate lead acid battery and PV system for installation in a representative location in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Various technical and economic parameters were assessed and calculated by computational approach. The optimized lead acid battery was integrated with low concentration solar PV panels (CPV) followed by a feasibility study. Theoretical model was developed for the integrated system to calculate various parameters of the CPV and lead acid battery. Technical and economic assessment of this coupled unit was calculated using a theoretical approach. The developed model was then subjected to computational approach for verification and validation analysis of the integrated system. The detailed assessment of batteries and integrated system show the applicability of this system in Riyadh region. The research will be extended to develop energy storage systems for remote areas using lead acid batteries.     

Nonlinear energy harvesting from vibratory disc-shaped piezoelectric laminates

Implementing resonators with geometrical nonlinearities in vibrational energy harvesting systems leads to considerable enhancement of their operational bandwidths. This advantage of nonlinear devices in comparison to their linear counterparts is much more obvious especially at small-scale where transition to nonlinear regime of vibration occurs at moderately small amplitudes of the base excitation. In this paper the nonlinear behavior of a disc-shaped piezoelectric laminated harvester considering midplane-stretching effect is investigated. Extended Hamilton's principle is exploited to extract electromechanically coupled governing partial differential equations of the system. The equations are firstly order-reduced and then analytically solved implementing perturbation method of multiple scales. A nonlinear finite element method(FEM) simulation of the system is performed additionally for the purpose of verification which shows agreement with the analytical solution to a large extent. The frequency response of the output power at primary resonance of the harvester is calculated to investigate the effect of nonlinearity on the system performance. Effect of various parameters including mechanical quality factor, external load impedance and base excitation amplitude on the behavior of the system are studied. Findings indicate that in the nonlinear regime both output power and operational bandwidth of the harvester will be enhanced by increasing the mechanical quality factor which can be considered as a significant advantage in comparison to linear harvesters in which these two factors vary in opposite ways as quality factor is changed.     

Investigation of acoustic and geometric effects on the sonoreactor performance

In this work, three design configurations of a sonoreactor are considered under various operating conditions, and the acoustic characteristics during water sonication are investigated while using an immersed-type ultrasonic flat transducer probe in a sonoreactor model. Numerical models are also developed to simulate the sonication process, and they are successfully validated and compared with available data in the literature. Several sets of numerical investigations are conducted using the finite-element method and solved by the computational acoustics module in the COMSOL Multiphysics. The effects of the acoustical and geometrical parameters are investigated, analyzed, and reported, including the ultrasonic frequency, acoustic intensity, and scaling-up the reactor. The present study includes a parametric investigation examining the change of the ultrasonic frequency, intensity, and probe immersion depth on the performance. The results of the parametric study show that the highest cavitation energy corresponds to the maximum magnitude of negative pressure that takes place in the range of 60–80 kHz. The cavitation energy analyses are conducted under the conditions of 20 kHz of frequency and at 36 W input power. It is found that the cavitation energy of 15.87 W could produce 2.98 × 10⁻¹⁰ mol/J of sonochemical efficiency. In addition, the effect of altering the transducer probe depth changes the acoustic pressure field insignificantly. Furthermore, a recommendation is made to improve the sonochemical efficiency by introducing more considerable ultrasound input power while operating the sonoreactor at an ultrasonic frequency lower than 60 kHz. The results presented in this paper provide a comprehensive assessment of different sonoreactors and the feasibility of scaling-up their production rate.     

Cotunnite-Structured Titanium Dioxide and the Hardest known Oxide

Combined theoretical and experimental investigations led to the discovery of a new polymorph of titanium dioxide with titanium nine-coordinated to oxygen in the cotunnite (PbCl 2 ) structure. Hardness measurements on the cotunnite-structured TiO 2 synthesized at pressures above 60 GPa and temperatures above 1000 K reveal that this material is the hardest oxide yet discovered. Furthermore, it is one of the least compressible (with a measured bulk modulus of 431 GPa) and hardest (with a microhardness of 38 GPa) polycrystalline materials studied thus far.