The effects of using aqueous nanofluids containing covalently functionalized graphene nanoplatelets with triethanolamine (TEA-GNPs) as novel working fluids on the thermal performance of a flat-plate solar collector (FPSC) have been investigated. Water-based nanofluids with weight concentrations of 0.025%, 0.05%, 0.075%, and 0.1% of TEA-GNPs with specific surface areas of 300, 500, and 750 m2/g were prepared. An experimental setup was designed and built and a simulation program using MATLAB was developed. Experimental tests were performed using inlet fluid temperatures of 30, 40, and 50 °C; flow rates of 0.6, 1.0, and 1.4 kg/min; and heat flux intensities of 600, 800, and 1000 W/m2. The FPSC’s efficiency increased as the flow rate and heat flux intensity increased, and decreased as inlet fluid temperature increased. When using nanofluids in the FPSC, the measured temperatures of absorber plate and tube wall decreased down to 3.35% and 3.51%, respectively, with the increase in weight concentration and specific surface area, while the efficiency increased up to 10.53% for 0.1- wt% TEA-GNPs nanofluid with specific surface area of 750 m2/g, in comparison with water. When using water as heat transfer fluid, very good agreement was obtained between the experimental and predicted values of absorber plate temperature, tube wall temperature, and collector’s efficiency with maximum differences of 3.02%, 3.19%, and 3.26%, respectively. While, when using nanofluids, higher differences were found, up to 4.74%, 4.7%, and 13.47% for TEA-GNPs nanofluid with specific surface area of 750 m2/g, respectively. Accordingly, the MATLAB code was capable of simulating the thermal performance of FPSCs utilizing nanofluids as their heat transfer fluids with acceptable accuracy. Values of performance index were all greater than 1, and increased as weight concentration increased up to 1.104 for 0.1- wt% TEA-GNPs nanofluid with specific surface area of 750 m2/g, implying higher positive effects on efficiency than negative effects on pressure drop. Accordingly, the investigated nanofluids can efficiently be used in FPSCs for enhanced energy efficiency, and the 0.1- wt% water-based TEA-GNPs nanofluid with specific surface area of 750 m2/g was comparatively the superior one.
In this research, the electrical characteristics of glow discharge plasma were studied. Glow discharge plasma generated in a home-made DC magnetron sputtering system, and a DC-power supply of high voltage as input to the discharge electrodes were both utilized. The distance between two electrodes is 4cm. The gas used to produce plasma is argon gas which flows inside the chamber at a rate of 40 sccm. The influence of work function for different target materials (gold, copper, and silver), - 5cm in diameter and around 1mm thickness - different working pressures, and different applied voltages on electrical characteristics (discharge current, discharge potential, and Paschen’s curve) were studied. The results showed that the discharge cur
... Show MoreDue to their attractive properties, silver nanowires (Ag-NWs) are newly used as nanoelectrodes in continuous wave (CW) THz photomixer. However, since these nanowires have small contact area, the nanowires fill factor in the photomixer active region is low, which leads to reduce the nanowires conductivity. In this work, we proposed to add graphene nanoantenna array as nanoelectrodes to the silver nanowires-based photomixer to improve the conductivity. In addition, the graphene nanoantenna array and the silver nanowires form new hybrid nanoelectrodes for the CW-THz photomixer leading to improve the device conversion efficiency by the plasmonic effect. Two types of graphene nanoantenna array are proposed in two separate photomixer conf
... Show MorePolyacrylamide Solutions of different concentrations (0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 %) of Ag nanoparticles and ZnO nanoparticles were prepared, the viscosities and surface tension were measured for all solutions, where measurements indicated an increase in these properties with increased concentration, where the relative viscosity of polyacrylamide/zinc nanoparticles increased from 1.275 to 2.243, and the relative viscosity of polyacrylamide/silver nanoparticles increased from 1.178 to 1.934. Viscosity is significant parameters during electrospinning process. While the surface tension of the polyacrylamide/zinc nanoparticles has changed from 0.0343 Nm-1 to .0.0.0 Nm-1 and changed from .0.000Nm-1 to.0.0.0 Nm-1. Also the constants KH and KK were
... Show MoreWastewater recycling for non-potable uses has gained significant attention to mitigate the high pressure on freshwater resources. This requires using a sustainable technique to treat natural municipal wastewater as an alternative to conventional methods, especially in arid and semi-arid rural areas. One of the promising techniques applied to satisfy the objective of wastewater reuse is the constructed wetlands (CWs) which have been used extensively in most countries worldwide through the last decades. The present study introduces a significant review of the definition, classification, and components of CWs, identifying the mechanisms controlling the removal process within such units. Vertical, horizontal, and hybrid CWs
... Show MoreWe have studied Bayesian method in this paper by using the modified exponential growth model, where this model is more using to represent the growth phenomena. We focus on three of prior functions (Informative, Natural Conjugate, and the function that depends on previous experiments) to use it in the Bayesian method. Where almost of observations for the growth phenomena are depended on one another, which in turn leads to a correlation between those observations, which calls to treat such this problem, called Autocorrelation, and to verified this has been used Bayesian method.
The goal of this study is to knowledge the effect of Autocorrelation on the estimation by using Bayesian method. F
... Show MoreThe particle-hole state densities have been calculated for 232Th in
the case of incident neutron with , 1 Z Z T T T T and 2 Z T T .
The finite well depth, surface effect, isospin and Pauli correction are
considered in the calculation of the state densities and then the
transition rates. The isospin correction function ( ) iso f has been
examined for different exciton configurations and at different
excitation energies up to 100 MeV. The present results are indicated
that the included corrections have more affected on transition rates
behavior for , , and above 30MeV excitation energy
This paper proposes feedback linearization control (FBLC) based on function approximation technique (FAT) to regulate the vibrational motion of a smart thin plate considering the effect of axial stretching. The FBLC includes designing a nonlinear control law for the stabilization of the target dynamic system while the closedloop dynamics are linear with ensured stability. The objective of the FAT is to estimate the cubic nonlinear restoring force vector using the linear parameterization of weighting and orthogonal basis function matrices. Orthogonal Chebyshev polynomials are used as strong approximators for adaptive schemes. The proposed control architecture is applied to a thin plate with a large deflection that stimulates the axial loadin
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