Search results for "gradient"
showing 10 items of 725 documents
A robust evolutionary algorithm for the recovery of rational Gielis curves
2013
International audience; Gielis curves (GC) can represent a wide range of shapes and patterns ranging from star shapes to symmetric and asymmetric polygons, and even self intersecting curves. Such patterns appear in natural objects or phenomena, such as flowers, crystals, pollen structures, animals, or even wave propagation. Gielis curves and surfaces are an extension of Lamé curves and surfaces (superquadrics) which have benefited in the last two decades of extensive researches to retrieve their parameters from various data types, such as range images, 2D and 3D point clouds, etc. Unfortunately, the most efficient techniques for superquadrics recovery, based on deterministic methods, cannot…
Optimization of net power density in Reverse Electrodialysis
2019
Abstract Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) extracts electrical energy from the salinity difference between two solutions using selective ion exchange membranes. In RED, conditions yielding a large net power density (NPD) are generally desired, due to the still large cost of the membranes. NPD depends on a large number of physical and geometric parameters. Some of these, for example the inlet concentrations of concentrate and diluate, can be regarded as “scenario” variables, imposed by external constraints (e.g., availability) or chosen by different criteria than NPD maximization. Others, namely the thicknesses HCONC, HDIL and the velocities UCONC, UDIL in the concentrate and diluate channels, c…
Exergetic and exergoeconomic analysis of a novel hybrid solar-geothermal polygeneration system producing energy and water
2016
Abstract A dynamic simulation model of a novel solar–geothermal polygeneration system and the related exergetic and exergoeconomic analyses are presented in this paper. The plant is designed in order to supply electrical, thermal and cooling energy and fresh water for a small community, connected to a district heating and cooling network. The hybrid system is equipped with an Organic Rankine Cycle fueled by medium-enthalpy geothermal energy and by a Parabolic Trough Collector solar field. Geothermal brine is also used for space heating and cooling purposes. Finally, geothermal fluid supplies heat to a Multi-Effect Distillation unit, producing also desalinized water from seawater. Dynamic si…
Experimental investigation and modeling of diffusion dialysis for HCl recovery from waste pickling solution
2019
Abstract Hydrochloric acid recovery from pickling solutions was studied by employing a batch diffusion dialysis (DD) laboratory test-rig equipped with Fumasep membranes. The effect of main operating parameters such as HCl concentration (0.1–3 M) and the presence of Fe2+ (up to 150 g/l) was investigated to simulate the system operation with real industrial streams. The variation of HCl, Fe2+ and water flux was identified. When only HCl is present, a recovery efficiency of 100% was reached. In the presence of FeCl2, higher acid recovery efficiencies, up to 150%, were observed due to the so-called “salt effect”, which promotes the passage of acid even against its concentration gradient. A 7% l…
Climatic gradients along the windward slopes of Mount Kenya and their implication for crop risks. Part 2 : crop sensitivity.
2016
16 pages; International audience; Mount Kenya is an equatorial mountain whose climatic setting is fairly simple (two rainy seasons in March–May, the Long Rains, and October–December, the Short Rains) though concealing significant spatial variations related to elevation and aspect (part I, Camberlin et al., 2014). This part II is dedicated to the sensitivity of sorghum yields to climate variability in space and time, with a focus on the intra-seasonal characteristics of the rainy seasons. To that aim we use the crop model SARRA-H calibrated for the region and fed with rainfall, temperature, wind speed, humidity and solar radiation data over the period 1973–2001 at three stations located on t…
Characterization of pressure retarded osmosis lab-scale systems
2016
Power generation from salinity gradient is a viable alternative to produce energy from renewable sources. Pressure Retarded Osmosis (PRO) is one of the technologies proposed so far for the exploitation of such energy source. In the present preliminary work, two different geometry modules were tested under atmospheric pressure (i.e. forward osmosis or depressurized-PRO conditions). The first one is a conventional planar geometry cell. The second is a customized cylindrical membrane module, able to mechanically support the osmotic membrane along with the spacers. The latter, thanks to its design, allows membranes and spacers to be easily changed for testing purposes. A novel simplified proced…
On universality of critical behavior in the focusing nonlinear Schrödinger equation, elliptic umbilic catastrophe and the Tritronquée solution to the…
2008
We argue that the critical behavior near the point of “gradient catastrophe” of the solution to the Cauchy problem for the focusing nonlinear Schrodinger equation \(i\epsilon \varPsi _{t}+\frac{\epsilon^{2}}{2}\varPsi _{xx}+|\varPsi |^{2}\varPsi =0\) , e ≪1, with analytic initial data of the form \(\varPsi (x,0;\epsilon)=A(x)e^{\frac{i}{\epsilon}S(x)}\) is approximately described by a particular solution to the Painleve-I equation.
A Numerical Method for an Inverse Problem Arising in Two-Phase Fluid Flow Transport Through a Homogeneous Porous Medium
2019
In this paper we study the inverse problem arising in the model describing the transport of two-phase flow in porous media. We consider some physical assumptions so that the mathematical model (direct problem) is an initial boundary value problem for a parabolic degenerate equation. In the inverse problem we want to determine the coefficients (flux and diffusion functions) of the equation from a set of experimental data for the recovery response. We formulate the inverse problem as a minimization of a suitable cost function and we derive its numerical gradient by means of the sensitivity equation method. We start with the discrete formulation and, assuming that the direct problem is discret…
Strain gradient elasticity within the symmetric BEM formulation
2014
The symmetric Galerkin Boundary Element Method is used to address a class of strain gradient elastic materials featured by a free energy function of the (classical) strain and of its (first) gradient. With respect to the classical elasticity, additional response variables intervene, such as the normal derivative of the displacements on the boundary, and the work-coniugate double tractions. The fundamental solutions - featuring a fourth order partial differential equations (PDEs) system - exhibit singularities which in 2D may be of the order 1/ r 4 . New techniques are developed, which allow the elimination of most of the latter singularities. The present paper has to be intended as a resear…
Transportation-cost inequality on path spaces with uniform distance
2008
Abstract Let M be a complete Riemannian manifold and μ the distribution of the diffusion process generated by 1 2 ( Δ + Z ) where Z is a C 1 -vector field. When Ric − ∇ Z is bounded below and Z has, for instance, linear growth, the transportation-cost inequality with respect to the uniform distance is established for μ on the path space over M . A simple example is given to show the optimality of the condition.