ABSTRACT
COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating the transition to decarbonized energy systems. In this context, major Operators and Contractors are bound to promote innovation and technological development. The paper describes how this is being applied to the design of offshore pipelines that are now required to transport not only Hydrocarbons but also anthropogenic CO2 and low-carbon Hydrogen. In order to evaluate all the new technical challenges presented in designing CO2 and H2 pipelines, a state of art has been carried out and is here presented focusing on all the new technical aspects associated to the main disciplines involved in the pipeline network design. Different technical aspects (such as performances evaluation of Equation of State in CCS, Design Standards application to both CO2 and hydrogen pipelines, energy capacity of hydrogen pipelines and others) have been also analytically or numerically addressed simulating credible pipeline operating scenarios. To achieve that, an intensive engineering effort is being dedicated to the development of knowledge, engineering tools, methods and procedures that will be the basis for the execution of future projects concerning H2 and CO2 transportation and storage. A particular focus has been dedicated to offshore pipeline design both for new installation and repurposing of existing ones. In parallel, the cooperation started between Operators, Contractors, Manufacturers, Institutions and Universities, as described in the present paper, acts as a "booster" for the consolidation of knowledge and for the advancing of technology to put in place to overcome those new challenges. Recommendations are made in relation to the gaps found in experimental evidence present in literature and gaps in Standards coverage for the proper pipeline design in those new scenarios. © Copyright 2021, Society of Petroleum Engineers
ABSTRACT
This study aims to develop and evaluate an Augmented Reality (AR) application to teach power electronics to beginners. For this purpose, two topics were presented: The first was the design of a series-connected Resistance–Inductor–Capacitor (RLC) circuit in AR, the space-state equations of which were analyzed in an interactive way, and its assembly in a virtual protoboard to analyze the voltage and currents as measured by an oscilloscope. The second presented topic in AR was about Bidirectional Direct Current (DC)–DC converters, known as Buck–Boost;the aim was to study their behavior when energy is exchanged between two systems, usually photovoltaic panels, electric vehicles, and storage systems. The attitudes of the students towards the AR application was significantly better than those towards traditional teaching. The measurements of the developed skills indicated better cognitive performance when using AR technology. The designed AR tool was used in an industry course to explore the students’ opinions, who provided valuable feedback.
ABSTRACT
Not only coughing and sneezing, but even normal breathing can produce aerosols, because rupture of liquid plugs forms microdroplets during pulmonary airway reopening. Aerosols are important carriers of various viruses, such as influenza, SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. To control airborne disease transmission, it is important to understand aerosol formation, which is related to the pressure drop, liquid plug, and film. In addition, the detrimental pressure and shear stress at the airway wall produced in the process of airway reopening have also attracted a lot of attention. In this paper, we proposed a multiphase lattice Boltzmann method to numerically simulate pulmonary airway reopening, in which the gas-liquid transition is directly driven by the equation of state. After validating the numerical model, two rupture cases with and without aerosol formation were compared and analyzed. We found that injury of the epithelium in the case with aerosol formation was almost the same as that without aerosol formation, even though the pressure drop in the airway increased by about 50%. Further investigation showed that the aerosol size and maximum differences of the wall pressure and shear stress increased with pressure drop in the pulmonary airway. A similar trend was observed when the thickness of the liquid plug became larger, while an opposite trend occurred when the thickness of the liquid film increased. The model can be extended to study generation and transmission of bioaerosols carrying the influenza or coronavirus. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
ABSTRACT
The solubility behavior of the pharmaceutical materials in a supercritical fluid is very important to produce the micro/nano-sized drug particulates. In the current study, solubility of montelukast as a potential treatment of COVID-19, in supercritical carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) was considered under different sets of temperature (308–338 K) and pressure (12–30 MPa). The obtained solubilities were in the range of 0.4 × 10-6 to 6.12 × 10-5 at (338 K, 12 MPa) and (338 K, 30 MPa), respectively. Two approaches i) empirical equations (i.e., Sodeifian et al., Bartle et al., Chrastil and Bian et al., Mendez-Santiago and Teja (MST) and Jouyban et al. and ii) equations of state (i.e., Peng-Robinson (PR)) combined with van der Waals (vdW2) mixing rules, SAFT-VR Mie were applied to correlate the experimental solubility data. According to the results, it could be concluded that Chrastil and Bartle et al. models produced the best correlations with the average absolute relative deviation % of 10.28 and 10.81, respectively. In addition, PR and SAFT-VR Mie EoS could provide satisfactory results for SC-CO2 solubility of montelukast at 308 to 338 K. Eventually, the results were devised to estimate the vaporization (ΔHvap), solvation (ΔHsol) and total enthalpies (ΔHtotal) of the solution. © 2021 Elsevier B.V.