The present paper investigates the reliability and sensitivity analysis of a coal handling unit of a thermal power plant using a probabilistic approach. Coal handling unit is the main block of a thermal power plant and it is necessary for a good function of a power plant that its power supply, which is dealt in coal handling unit, must function continuously without any obstacle. The configurati...

When the electricity from the grid is not available, the generation of electricity in remote areas is an essential challenge to satisfy important needs. In many developing countries the power generation from Diesel engines is the applied technical solution. However the cost and supply of fuel make a strong dependency of the communities on the external support. Alternatives to fuel combustion ca...

This chapter presents a stochastic unit commitment model for power systems and revisits parallel decomposition algorithms for these types of models. The model is a two-stage stochastic programming problem with first-stage binary variables and second-stage mixed-binary variables. The here-and-now decision is to find day-ahead schedules for slow thermal power generators. The wait-and-see decision...

Article history: Received 28 October 2011 Accepted December, 5 2011 Available online 8 December 2011 Continuous generation of electricity of a power plant depends on the higher availability of its components/equipments. Higher availability of the components/equipments is inherently associated with their higher reliability and maintainability. This paper investigates the reliability, availabilit...

A dynamic (multi-stage) stochastic programming model for the weekly cost-optimal generation of electric power in a hydro-thermal generation system under uncertain demand (or load) is developed. The model involves a large number of mixed-integer (stochastic) decision variables and constraints linking time periods and operating power units. A stochastic Lagrangian relaxation scheme is designed by...

OBJECTIVES To compare curing performance of a second generation LED curing light with a high power tungsten quartz halogen (QTH). METHODS A hybrid composite resin (Filtek Z 250, 3M, USA) was used as test material and cured using a second generation LED light (Translux Power Blue™, Heraus Kulzer ,Germany) or a very high power QTH light unit (EMS, Switzerland). A two split aluminum mold was use...

This paper presents a new approach for thermal unit commitment (UC) using a differential evolution (DE) algorithm. DE is an effective, robust, and simple global optimization algorithm which only has a few control parameters and has been successfully applied to a wide range of optimization problems. However, the standard DE cannot be applied to binary optimization problems such as UC problems si...

In this study, by using the finite volume method, the heat transfer in a convective straight fin with temperature-dependent thermal properties and an internal heat generation under multi-boiling heat transfer modes are analyzed. In this regard, the local heat transfer coefficient is considered to vary within a power-law function of temperature. In the present study, the coexistence of all the b...

The heat transfer for a non-Newtonian power-law fluid over a moving surface is investigated by applying a uniform suction/injection velocity profile. The flow is influenced by internal heat generation/absorption. The energy equation is solved at constant surface temperature condition. The Merk-Chao series is applied to obtain a set of ODEs instead of a complicated PDE. The converted ordinary diffe...