Sensitivity analysis of thermal performances of flat plate solar air heaters

Sensitivity analysis is a mathematical tool, first developed for optimization methods, which aim is to characterize a system response through the variations of its output parameters following modifications imposed on the input parameters of the system. Such an analysis may quickly become laborious when the thermal model under consideration is complex or the number of input parameters is high. In this paper, we develop a mathematical model to analyse the heat exchanges in four different types of solar air collectors. When building this thermal model we show that for each collector, at quasi-steady state, the energy balance equations of the components of the collector cascade into a single first-order non-linear differential equation that is able to predict the thermal behaviour of the collector. Our heat transfer model clearly demonstrates the existence of an important dimensionless parameter, referred to as the thermal performance factor of the collector, that compares the useful thermal energy which can be extracted from the heater to the overall thermal losses of that collector for a given set of input parameters. A sensitivity analysis of our thermal model has been performed for the most significant input parameters such as the incident solar irradiation, the inlet fluid temperature, the air mass flow rate, the depth of the fluid channel, the number and nature of the transparent covers in order to measure the impact of each of these parameters on our model. An important result which can be drawn from this study is that the heat transfer model developed is robust enough to be used for thermal design studies of most known flat plate solar air heaters, but also of flat plate solar water collectors and linear solar concentrators.     

Sensitivity analysis for discrete optimal control problems

We present local sensitivity analysis for discrete optimal control problems with varying endpoints in the case when the customary regularity of boundary conditions can be violated. We study the behavior of the optimal solutions subject to parametric perturbations of the problem.     

双涂层光纤应变传感器的理论与实验研究

对带有聚合物涂敷层和缓冲层的光纤应变传感器的力学特性进行了研究，建立了双涂层光纤与基体材料相互作用的线弹性理论模型.理论研究表明：在小半径近似条件下，双涂层光纤的力学传递特性决定于涂覆层和缓冲层的弹性模量的相对值；当缓冲层的弹性模量远大于涂覆层时，其作用可忽略.实验中，将光纤传感器埋入基体材料内部，利用白光干涉应变测量方法，对平均应变传递系数进行了实验研究.实验结果与理论仿真具有较好的一致性.     

吸收式光纤温度传感器的研究

提出了一种利用半导体光吸收谱随温度变化原理设计的半导体吸收式光纤温度传感器.该传感器用GaAs晶片作为温度敏感元件，以光纤作为传光介质，发光二极管作为光源，光电管作为光电转换器件.利用双光束补偿原理,消除了由于光源不稳定产生的干扰.研制出的光纤传感器具有体积小，结构简单，抗电磁干扰，灵敏度高等优点.实验表明:该传感器在－20℃~85℃温度范围内可以达到0.1℃的准确度，可以实现强电磁干扰下的高空飞行器内环境温度的测量.为进一步实现光传飞控系统中的温度测控奠定了基础.     

Sensitivity analysis of an optimized bar-spring model with hill-top branching

Summary Characteristics of optimal solutions under nonlinear buckling constraints are investigated by using a bar-spring model. It is demonstrated that optimization under buckling constraints of a symmetric system often leads to a structure with hill-top branching, where a limit point and bifurcation points coincide. A general formulation is derived for imperfection sensitivity of the critical load factor corresponding to a hill-top branching point. It is shown that the critical load is not imperfection-sensitive even for the case where an asymmetric bifurcation point exists at the limit point.     

Sensitivity-enhanced IPAP experiments for measuring one-bond C–C and C–H residual dipolar couplings in proteins

Sensitivity-enhanced 2D IPAP experiments using the accordion principle for measuring one-bond 13C'-13Calpha and 1Halpha-13Calpha dipolar couplings in proteins are presented. The resolution of the resulting spectra is identical to that of the decoupled HSQC spectra and the sensitivity of the corresponding 1D acquisitions are only slightly lower than those obtained with 3D HNCO and 3D HN(COCA)HA pulse sequences due to an additional delay 2Delta. For cases of limited resolution in the 2D 15N-1HN HSQC spectrum the current pulse sequences can easily be modified into 3D versions by introducing a poorly digitized third dimension, if so desired. The experiments described here are a valuable addition to the suites available for determination of residual dipolar couplings in biological systems.     

Maintenance of Soft Calibration Models in the Determination of Zinc,Cadmium, Lead and Copper by Differential Pulse Anodic Stripping Voltammetry

A strategy for constructing a global multivariate calibration model that includes calibration samples measured over time on different days is developed and applied in electroanalysis. Both synthetic and real samples (tap, extracted and river water) are analyzed by differential‐pulse anodic stripping voltammetry, showing the suitability of the global model constructed that provides successful results similar to those of the usual multivariate calibration. In addition the capability of discrimination of this model is evaluated in prediction for the mean of three replicates with estimation of probability of false noncompliance, α, and false compliance, β, being found 3.1, 11.2, 6.7 and 64.7 nM for nominal concentrations of zinc, cadmium, lead and copper of 96.0, 40.4, 37.3 and 328.0 nM respectively when α=β=0.05. It has been proven that the use of the global calibration does not imply a loss of multivariate analytical sensitivity, using this parameter as quality index of the analytical procedure. The viability of using calibration maintenance strategies with electroanalytical techniques is shown, providing a way to save time and experimental effort when these techniques are used in routine analysis.     

Experimental identification of physical parameters of fluid-filled pipes using acoustical signal processing

A method is formulated for the identification of an unknown physical parameter of a fluid-filled pipe using the measurement of sound speed in the pipe. The method uses a simple formula which provides the relationship between the sound speed and a few physical parameters of the pipe: thickness, diameter, wall material constants and fluid constants. Once the sound speed in the pipe is measured, the simple formula can be used to extract one of the unknown parameters providing the remaining ones are known.The sound speed in the pipe is measured using a 3-transducer array. In order to demonstrate the potential of the technique the results of several measurements obtained in a water-filled steel pipe are presented.The required accuracy of the measurement of sound speed and of the specification of known parameters is analysed. The accuracy depends on the unknown parameter which is to be identified. For example, if the pipe thickness is the unknown parameter, the other parameters have to be known within a very narrow margin of error. On the contrary, if the fluid properties have to be identified the needed accuracy of known parameters gets much lower.     

Parametric multiple sequence alignment and phylogeny construction

Bounds are given on the size of the parameter-space decomposition induced by multiple sequence alignment problems where phylogenetic information may be given or inferred. It is shown that many of the usual formulations of these problems fall within the same integer parametric framework, implying that the number of distinct optima obtained as the parameters are varied across their ranges is polynomially bounded in the length and number of sequences.     

An efficient sampling method for stochastic inverse problems

A general framework is developed to treat inverse problems with parameters that are random fields. It involves a sampling method that exploits the sensitivity derivatives of the control variable with respect to the random parameters. As the sensitivity derivatives are computed only at the mean values of the relevant parameters, the related extra cost of the present method is a fraction of the total cost of the Monte Carlo method. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated on an example problem governed by the Burgers equation with random viscosity. It is specifically shown that this method is two orders of magnitude more efficient compared to the conventional Monte Carlo method. In other words, for a given number of samples, the present method yields two orders of magnitude higher accuracy than its conventional counterpart.