In this paper, we propose to make use of an auditory fuel efficiency display as means to support car drivers in adopting an energy-efficient driving style. We report on the development of the EcoSonic system as a platform for evaluating such displays and present five design approaches to guide their realization. In a study with 30 participants, we evaluated two prototype auditory displays again...

Coal is a highly variable fuel, which ranges from high heating-value anthracite through various forms of bituminous coal to intermediates in coal formation, viz. lignite and peat. Each of these types of fuel can contain different levels of moisture, non-combustible inorganic material (ash), sulfur, and sometimes significant levels of other impurities, e.g. arsenic, fluorine, lead and mercury. R...

Biodiesel is an important new alternative transportation fuel. Biodiesel processing and quality are close related. The process used to refine the feedstock and to convert it to biodiesel determines whether the fuel will meet the applicable specifications. In this work, a new characterization method is proposed using an electronic nose coupled to artificial neural networks. Four samples of biodi...

The complex interfacial phenomena involved in two-phase gas-liquid flow have defied mathematical simplification and modeling. However, these systems are used in heat exchangers, condensers, chemical processing plants, nuclear reactor systems, and fuel cells. The present work considers a 1 mm-square minichannel and adiabatic flows corresponding to practical PEM fuel cell conditions. Pressure dro...

In recent years, production and consumption of biofuels has become controversial, mainly due to the competitive use of natural resources for food/feed and fuel production. Second generation biofuels (with cellulosic ethanol being on top of developments nowadays) have a great potential to provide an economically feasible solution. However, high processing costs related to breaking down cellulosi...

The trend in developing common rail injection systems goes to higher injection pressures and smaller minimum injected fuel masses. Multiple injection patterns generate pressure oscillations on the connection pipe between common rail and injector. These oscillations influence the amount and progression of the injected fuel mass and therefore the combustion process. As the oscillations depend on ...

Stable power processes are never guaranteed. An assortment of unstable behaviors wrecks power apparatus, including mechanical vibration, malfunctioning control apparatus, unstable fluid flow, unstable boiling of liquids, or combinations thereof. A necessary condition for stable reactor power is that the reactor distortion accompanying a temperature rise decreases the reactivity, thus slowing an...

In contemporary society we observe an everlasting permeation of electron devices, smartphones, portable computing tools. The tiniest living organisms on Earth could become the key to address this challenge: energy generation by bacterial processes from renewable stocks/waste through devices such as microbial fuel cells (MFCs). However, the application of this solution was limited by a moderatel...

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells are becoming more popular as an energy conversion device because its efficiency and simplicity in design and operation. Significant improvements and recent developments in the areas of water and heat management, membranes, electrode designs, and, most recently, the interdigitated flow field design, have increased greatly the attractiveness of this syste...

Abstract Flight path optimization is designed for minimizing aircraft noise, fuel consumption and air pollution around airports. This paper gives theoretical considerations and algorithms solving the Hamilton-JacobiBellman equation (HJB) of aircraft trajectory optimization. Comparisons with direct and indirect methods are carried out. The OCP problem is transformed into new equalities-constrain...