Prandtl number and thermoacoustic refrigerators

From kinetic gas theory, it is known that the Prandtl number for hard-sphere monatomic gases is 2/3. Lower values can be realized using gas mixtures of heavy and light monatomic gases. Prandtl numbers varying between 0.2 and 0.67 are obtained by using gas mixtures of helium-argon, helium-krypton, and helium-xenon. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation into the effect of Prandtl number on the performance of a thermoacoustic refrigerator using gas mixtures. The measurements show that the performance of the refrigerator improves as the Prandtl number decreases. The lowest Prandtl number of 0.2, obtained with a mixture containing 30% xenon, leads to a coefficient of performance relative to Carnot which is 70% higher than with pure helium.     

Thermal-relaxation dissipation in thermoacoustic systems

Pressure oscillations in a sound wave are accompanied by temperature oscillations. In the presence of a solid boundary, the heat transfer from the oscillating gas to the solid boundary causes dissipation of the acoustic energy. This results in the attenuation of the sound wave. This thermal-relaxation dissipation process has a negative effect on the performance of thermoacoustic heat pumps and engines. A simple analytical model describing the interaction between an acoustic wave and a solid boundary is presented. The effect of the solid material and gas type on thermal-relaxation dissipation is analysed. The main result of this model is that the choice of a solid material with the smallest possible heat capacity per unit area in combination with a gas with the largest possible heat capacity per unit area minimises the thermal-relaxation dissipation. From the different combinations solid-gas used in the calculations, the combination cork-helium leads to the lowest thermal attenuation of the sound wave. In this case, the heat transfer from the gas to the wall less damps the temperature oscillations. However, because of the porosity of cork that may cause some problems, it is suggested that the combination polyester-helium can be used in practice to minimise the thermal-relaxation losses.     

Dimensionally Scaled Miscible Displacements in Heterogeneous Permeable Media

Understanding and predicting the performance of solvent drives and remediation of contaminated aquifers in heterogeneous reservoirs is of great importance to the petroleum and environmental industries. In this paper, a general method to scale flow through heterogeneous reservoirs is presented for a miscible displacement of oil by a solvent. Results show that scaling miscible displacements in a two-dimensional, heterogeneous, anisotropic vertical cross section requires the matching of 13 dimensionless scaling groups. These groups were derived using a general procedure of inspectional analysis. A detailed numerical sensitivity study was performed to reveal the relationship between the scaling groups and the fractional oil recovery of miscible displacements in heterogeneous reservoirs. This relationship was then mapped using an artificial neural network, which can be used as a quick prediction tool for the fractional oil recovery for any combinations of the scaling groups, thus eliminating the need for the expensive fine-mesh simulations. These results have potential applications in modeling miscible displacements and in the scaling of laboratory displacements to field conditions.     

Rhodium-catalyzed hydroformylation of olefins: Effect of [bis(2,4-di-tert-butyl) pentaerythritol] diphosphite (alkanox P-24) on the regioselectivity of the reaction

Rhodium (I) associated with [bis(2,4-di-tert-butyl) pentaerythritol] diphosphite (I) as a ligand represents an active catalyst system for highly regioselective hydroformylation of various alkenes. The commercially available bis(2,4-di-tert-butyl)pentaerythritol diphosphite (alkanox P-24) (I), which has been used so far as an antioxidant in the stabilization of polymers, was used as a diphosphite ligand for the selective hydroformylation reaction of olefins. Excellent selectivity towards linear aldehydes and excellent conversions were achieved in the hydroformylation of alkenes. The hydroformylation reaction was applied to various olefinic substrates including the internal alkenes.     

A stability result for the vibrations given by the standard linear model with thermoelasticity of type III

The aim of this article is to establish the well-posedness as well as an exponential stability result for the standard linear solid vibrating systems of thermoelasticity type III. Numerical experiments using finite differences are given to confirm our analytical result.     

Optimal Scheduling of a Two-stage Hybrid Flow Shop

We present an exact branch-and-bound algorithm for the two-stage hybrid flow shop problem with multiple identical machines in each stage. The objective is to schedule a set of jobs so as to minimize the makespan. This is the first exact procedure which has been specifically designed for this strongly -hard problem. Among other features, our algorithm is based on the exact solution of identical parallel machine scheduling problems with heads and tails. We report the results of extensive computational experiments on instances which show that the proposed algorithm solves large-scale instances in moderate CPU time.     

A Simplified Wittig Synthesis Using a Solid-Liquid Transfer Process : VI - Synthesis of γ -Unsaturated Alcohols from Aromatic and Heteroaromatic Aldehydes

Very good yields can be obtained for the synthesis of γ-unsaturated alcohols without degradation of γ-hydroxylated phosphonium salts using the phase transfer technique in low hydrated solidliquid medium.     

Appearance of fractional vortex dipoles by using spiral linear zone plate

We present a novel technique based on linear zone plate (LZP) by which linear singularities regarded as fractional vortex dipoles are efficiently generated. Our approach requires applying spiral phase to a LZP, so fractional vortex dipoles are then acquired. By also implementing transverse phase shift to the spiral LZP, we are able to equally divide the number of the produced dark beams carrying mixed phase dislocations into two transverse separate parts. As a result, by varying a so called the controlling parameter the lateral positions of the focused fractional vortex dipoles are changed. Since we are able to generate dark beams in different and specific linear positions, therefore we suggest these features will be of great interest in one-dimensional optical trapping. All results are completely verified by experimental works.