• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.525-532
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• 2014

The sensing of a stack coolant deficiency is very important in that cooling performance of a fuel cell, overheating prevention of a stack or coolant heater. This paper explains the performance comparison between the coolant contact/noncontact level sensors and coolant deficiency sensing logic using the pressure sensor in a stagnant or circulating flow. Throughout the comparison, the pressure sensor is more suitable than the other sensors in terms of the precision, fast response, sensing frequency. After the experiment, the pressure sensor is equipped to an FCEV(Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) to verify sensing definitely. There was no miss-sensing using pressure sensor while FCEV runs in the conditions of the paved road and cross country road.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.516-524
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• 2014

Proper discharge of nitrogen gas and water condensate is required in a conventional fuel cell system for performance, stability and durability of fuel cell stacks. Present study covers the development of integrated unit and its functioning logic for simultaneous nitrogen gas purge and water condensate drainage in a fuel cell vehicle system. Configuration of condensate drainage pipe, purge valve and level sensor is considered and optimized in physical integration. As a key factor, discharge time is considered and optimized based on the test result of constant-current operation with various operating temperature in logic development. Consequently, derived optimal values are applied and verified in actual vehicle drive mode test. Increase of system design flexibility, weight reduction and cost reduction are anticipated with this study. Additional study for physical and logical improvement is currently being implemented.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.550-559
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• 2014

Hydraulic performance of the 1 inch ball valve have been analyzed based on the three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes analysis and an experiment. The experimental test rig of the 1 inch ball valve has been developed to investigate pressure drop for the 1 inch ball valve. The numerical model, which has reliability and effectiveness, has been constructed through the grid dependency test and validation with the results of the experiment. Shear stress transport turbulence model has been used to enhance an accuracy of the turbulence prediction in the pipeline and ball valve, respectively. Effects of the ball valve angle on the flow characteristics and friction performance have been evaluated.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.541-549
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• 2014

The monthly-average meteorological data, in particular, the monthly average daily terrestrial horizontal insolation are required for designing solar thermal energy systems. In this paper, the dynamic thermal performance of a flat plate solar collector system is numerically investigated through a year from the monthly average insolation data in Seoul. For a specified data set of solar collector system, the dynamic behaviors of total solar radiation on the tilted collector surfaces, heat loss from the collector system, useful energy and collector efficiency are analyzed from January to December by a mathematical simulation model. In addition, the monthly average daily total solar radiation, useful energy, and daily collector efficiencies through a year are estimated. The simulated results show that the average total radiation is highest in March and the useful energy is highest in October, while the total radiation and the collector efficiency are lowest in July.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.349-356
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• 2011

During the process of synthesis of $TiO_2$ powders using a high-speed planetary milling machine, Fe metallic powders were created which could be dissolved in sulfuric acid solution. With adding $NH_4OH$ solution to the $TiO_2$ powder, it was found that the crystal structure of the synthesized powder did not change and the crystal size decreased slightly. However, when the sulfur powder is mixed with $TiO_2$, the crystal structure of the MA powder was changed from anatase into rutile phase and its size decreased significantly which is in the order of nm in diameter. In case of mechanical alloying with $TiO_2$ powder only, the crystal structure of the powder was transformed into rutile phase and its size was greatly reduced into several nm. Because its size becomes fine, the energy band gap of its rutile phase is larger than that of bulk states (3.0eV).

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.340-348
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• 2011

Effects of various inorganic-metal oxide (Zr, Zn, Si, Al and Ca as promoters and stabilizers) additive on the reduction rate of iron oxide and the composition of forming hydrogen using the steam-iron cycle operation was investigated. The reduction rate of redox agent with additive was determined from weight change by TGA. The changes of weight loss and reduction rate according to redox agent with various additive affected the hydrogen purity and cycle stability of the process. The cyclic micro reactor showed that hydrogen purity exceeding 95% could be obtained by the water splitting with Si/Fe, Zn/Fe, Zr/Fe redox agents. The redox agents with these elements had an affect on redox cycle stability as a good stabilizer for forming hydrogen by the steam-iron process.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.357-362
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• 2011

Complete mixture preparation of reactants prior to catalytic reforming is an enormously important step for successful operation of a fuel reformer. Incomplete mixing between fuel and reforming agents such as air and steam can cause temperature overshoot and deposit formation which can lead the failure of operation. For that purpose it is required to apply computational models describing coupled kinetics and transport phenomena in the mixing region, which are computationally expensive. Therefore, it is advantageous to analyze the gas-phase reaction kinetics prior to application of the coupled model. This study suggests one of the important design constraints, the required residence time in the mixing chamber to avoid substantial gas-phase reactions which can lead serious deposit formation on the downstream catalyst. The reactivity of various gaseous and liquid fuels were compared, then liquid fuels are far more reactive than gaseous fuels. n-Octane was used as a surrogate among the various hydrocarbons, which is one of the traditional liquid fuel surrogates. The conversion was slighted effected by reactants composition described by O/C and S/C. Finally, threshold residence times in the mixing region of a hydrocarbon reformer were studied and the mixing chamber is required to be designed to make complete mixture of reactants by tens of milliseconds at the temperature lower than $400^{\circ}C$.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.372-379
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• 2011

A nuclear fusion fuel cycle plant is composed of various subsystems such as a hydrogen isotope storage and delivery system, a tokamak exhaust processing system, and a hydrogen isotope separation system. Korea shares in the construction of its ITER fuel cycle plant with the EU, Japan, and the US, and is responsible for the development and supply of the storage and delivery system. The authors thus present details on the development status of hydrogen isotope storage technologies for nuclear fusion fuel cycle plants. We have developed various hydride beds of different size. We have realized a hydrogen delivery rate of 12.5 $Pam^3/s$ with a typical 1242g-ZrCo bed.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.402-408
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• 2011

Organic Rankine cycles (ORC) can be used to produce power from heat at different temperature levels available as geothermal heat, as biogenic heat from biomass, as solar or as waste heat. In ORC working fluids with relatively low critical temperatures and pressures can be compressed directly to their supercritical pressures and heated before expansion so as to obtain a better thermal match with their heat sources. In this work thermal performance of ORC with and without an internal heat exchanger is comparatively investigated in the range of subcritical and transcritical cycles. R134a is considered as working fluid and special attention is paid to the effect of turbine inlet pressure on the characteristics of the system. Results show that operation with supercritical cycles can provide better performance than subcritical cycles and the internal heat exchanger can improve the thermal efficiency when the temperature of heat source becomes higher.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.313-318
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• 2011

This study is about characteristics of generating efficiency and $NO_x$ emissions of a 30 kW gas engine generator in case of using model biogas with hydrogen addition. In this case, both generating efficiency and $NO_x$ emissions are lower than the case of using urban gas (LNG). However, generating efficiency and $NO_x$ emissions are higher than the case of using model biogas only. It means that adding hydrogen which has a high flame propagation velocity has the possibility to improve the generating efficiency, but simultaneously it is also able to increase the $NO_x$ emissions of a gas engine generator.