• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.179-189
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• 2019

Four-quadrant converters (4QCs) are widely used as AC-DC power conversion interfaces in many areas. A control delay commonly exists in the digital implementation process of 4QCs, especially for high power 4QCs with a low switching frequency. This usually results in alternating current distortion, increased current harmonic content and system instability. In this paper, the control delay is divided into a computation delay and a PWM delay. The impact of the control delay on the performance of a 4QC is briefly analyzed. To obtain a fundamental value of AC current that is as accurately as possible, a specific sampling method considering the PWM pattern is introduced. Then a current predictive control based on a modified z-transform is proposed, which is effective in reducing the control delay and easy in terms of digital implementation. In addition, it does not depend on object models and parameters. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed predictive current control method is verified by simulation and experimental results.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.287-298
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• 2018

High strength steels have been widely applied in recent years due to high strength and good working performance. When subjected to fire conditions, the strength and elastic modulus of high strength steels deteriorate significantly and hence the load bearing capacity of structures reduces at elevated temperatures. The reduction factors of mechanical properties of high strength steels are quite different from mild steels. Therefore, the fire design methods deduced from mild steel structures are not applicable to high strength steel structures. In recent ten years, the first author of this paper has carried out a lot of fundamental research on fire behavior of high strength steels and structures. Summary of these research is presented in this paper, including mechanical properties of high strength steels at elevated temperature and after fire exposure, creep response of high strength steels at elevated temperature, residual stresses of welded high strength steel member after fire exposure, fire resistance of high strength steel columns, fire resistance of high strength steel beams, local buckling of high strength steel members, and residual strength of high strength steel columns after fire exposure. The results show that the mechanical properties of high strength steel in fire condition and the corresponding fire resistance of high strength steel structures are different from those of mild steel and structures, and the fire design methods recommended in current design codes are not applicable to high strength steel structures.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.251-259
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• 2018

In general, the charge storage characteristics and overall performance of electrochemical energy devices (such as lithiumion batteries and supercapacitors) significantly depends on the structural and geometrical factors of the electrodes' active materials. The most widely used active materials of electrochemical energy storage devices are based on carbons of various forms. Each carbon type has drawbacks and advantages when used as the electrode material. Studies have been recently carried out to combine different types of carbons, in particular nanostructured carbons, in order to overcome the structure-originated limitations and thus enhance the overall electrochemical performances. In this feature article, we report the recent progress on the development of this novel class of materials (multidimensional nanocarbons), and their applications for supercapacitors. Multidimensional nanocarbons include graphenes/carbon nanotubes (CNTs), CNTs/carbon films, CNTs/fullerenes, and ternary carbon nanostructures. Various applications using these multidimensional nanocarbons have been proposed and demonstrated in the literature. Owing to the recent extensive studies on electrochemical energy storage devices and considering that carbons are their most fundamental electrode materials, the number of reports on nanocarbons employed as electrodes of the electrochemical energy storage devices is rapidly increasing. Recently, numerous multidimensional nanocarbons have been designed, prepared, and utilized as electrodes of electrochemical capacitors or supercapacitors, which are considered next-generation energy devices owing to their unique merits compared to the conventional structures. In this review, we summarize the basic motivations, preparation methods, and resultant supercapacitor performances of each class of multidimensional nanocarbons published in the literature, focusing on recent reports.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.858-868
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• 2019

With the widespread use of modern clean energy, lithium-ion batteries have become essential as a more reliable energy storage component in the energy Internet. However, due to the difference in monomers, some of the battery over-charge or over-discharge in battery packs restrict their use. Therefore, a novel multiphase interleaved converter for reducing the inconsistencies of the individual cells in a battery pack is proposed in this paper. Based on the multiphase converter branches connected to each lithium battery, this circuit realizes energy transferred from any cell(s) to any other cell(s) complementarily. This flexible interlaced converter is composed of an improved bi-directional Buck-Boost circuit that is presented with its own available control method. A simulation model based on the PNGV model of fundamental equalization is built with four cells in PSIM. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that converter and its control achieve simple and fast equalization. Furthermore, a comparison of traditional methods and the HNFABC equalization is provided to show the performance of the converter and the control of lithium-based battery stacks.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.51 no.7
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• pp.1828-1834
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• 2019

The performance of a plastic scintillator for use in an in situ measurement system was analyzed using simulation and experimental methods. The experimental results of four major pure beta-emitting radionuclides, namely $^3H$, $^{14}C$, $^{32}P$, and $^{90}Sr/^{90}Y$, were compared with those obtained using a Monte Carlo N-particle (MCNP) code simulation. The MCNP simulation and experimental results demonstrated good agreement for $^{32}P$ and $^{90}Sr/^{90}Y$, with a relative difference of 1.95% and 0.43% between experimental and simulation efficiencies for $^{32}P$ and $^{90}Sr/^{90}Y$, respectively. However, owing to the short range of beta particles in water, the efficiency for $^{14}C$ was extremely low, and $^3H$ could not be detected. To directly measure the low-energy beta radionuclides considering their short range, a system where the source could flow directly to the scintillator was developed. The optimal thickness of the plastic scintillator was determined based on the suggested diameter. Results showed that the detection efficiency decreases with an increase in the depth of the water. The detection efficiency decreased drastically to approximately 10 cm, and the tendency was gradually constant.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.737-747
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• 2019

Shape description is an important and fundamental issue in content-based image retrieval (CBIR), and a number of shape description methods have been reported in the literature. For shape description, both global information and local contour variations play important roles. In this paper a new included-angular ternary pattern (IATP) based shape descriptor is proposed for shape image retrieval. For each point on the shape contour, IATP is derived from its neighbor points, and IATP has good properties for shape description. IATP is intrinsically invariant to rotation, translation and scaling. To enhance the description capability, multiscale IATP histogram is presented to describe both local and global information of shape. Then multiscale IATP histogram is combined with included-angular histogram for efficient shape retrieval. In the matching stage, cosine distance is used to measure shape features' similarity. Image retrieval experiments are conducted on the standard MPEG-7 shape database and Swedish leaf database. And the shape image retrieval performance of the proposed method is compared with other shape descriptors using the standard evaluation method. The experimental results of shape retrieval indicate that the proposed method reaches higher precision at the same recall value compared with other description method.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.1-12
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• 2019

A fundamental study on a gas injection variable thrust method for thrust throttling in a liquid rocket engine was conducted. The gas injection variable thrust has the advantage of not only being able to control the thrust with a simple structure but it also increases the atomization performance through the injection pressure drop that increases in direct proportion to the density reduction. In this study, spray characteristics such as spray instability, spray pattern, spray angle, and breakup length based on changes in the liquid mass flow rate and amount of injected gas were investigated using effervescent swirl injectors.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.211-219
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• 2019

In magnetically coupled resonant (MCR) wireless power transfer (WPT) systems, the introduction of additional intermediate coils is an effective means of improving transmission characteristics, including output power and transmission efficiency, when the transmission distance is increased. However, the position of intermediate coils in practice influences system performance significantly. In this research, a three-coil MCR WPT system is adopted as an exemplification for determining how the spatial position of coils affects transmission characteristics. With use of the fundamental harmonic analysis method, an equivalent circuit model of the system is built to reveal the relationship between the output power, the transmission efficiency, and the spatial scales, including the axial, lateral, and angular misalignments of the intermediate and receiving coils. Three cases of transmission characteristics versus different spatial scales are evaluated. Results indicate that the system can achieve relatively stable transmission characteristics with deliberate adjustments in the position of the intermediate and receiving coils. A prototype of the three-coil MCR WPT system is built and analyzed, and the experimental results are consistent with those of the theoretical analysis.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.201-206
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• 2019

In this study, we performed an electrowinning process for effective removal of metals (Cu and Ni) in solution and their recovery as solid forms. A complete removal of Cu and Ni (1,000 mg/L) was observed during four times recycling test, indicating that our electrowinning system can ensure the efficient metal removal with high stability and durability. In addition, we investigated effect of operation parameters (i.e., concentration of boric acid only for Ni, variation of pH, concentration of electrolyte ($H_2SO_4$), and cell voltage) on the efficiency of metal removal (Cu and Ni) during the electrowinning. The addition of boric acid significantly enhanced removal efficiency of Ni as the concentration of boric acid increased up to 10 g/L. Compared to negligible pH effect (pH 1, 2, and 4) on the Cu removal, we observed the increase in removal efficiency of Ni as the pH increased from 1 to 4. The electrolyte concentration did not significantly influence the removal of Cu and Ni in this study. We also obtained great removal rates of Cu and Ni at 2.5 V and 4.0 V, which were much faster than those at lower voltages. Finally, almost 99% of each Cu and Ni (1,000 mg/L) was selectively removed from the mixture of metals by adjusting pH and addition of boric acid after the completion of Cu removal. The findings in this study can provide a fundamental knowledge about effect of important parameters on the efficiency of metal recovery during the electrowinning.

• International journal of steel structures
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.1464-1469
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• 2018

Steel frames with ductile connections have good seismic performance under strong earthquake, they are now popular for high seismic design. In order to simplify the process of numerical analysis of the steel frames with ductile connections, simplified connection models are introduced, two types of springs are placed in the simplified connection model, which can simulate deformation of the panel zone and members. 6-story-3-bay steel frames with ductile connections are simplified and carried out modal analysis, fundamental periods of the frames predicted by finite-element analysis for simplified steel frame models were compared to the results for actual frame models. 2-story steel frame with reduced beam section connections is simplified and carried out pseudo-static analysis, hysteretic curves and skeleton curves of the frame obtained by finite-element analysis for simplified steel frame model are compared to test results. The comparison show that the difference between them is small, it is reliable and effective to predict mechanical properties of the steel frame with ductile connection by finite-element analysis of simplified steel frame model.