This paper presents the origins of marine steam turbine application on liquefied natural gas carriers. An analysis of alternative propulsion plant trends has been made. The more efficient ones with marine diesel engines gradually began to replace the less efficient plants. However, because of many advantages of the steam turbine, further development research is in progress in order to achieve comparable thermal efficiency. Research has been carried out in order to achieve higher thermal efficiency throughout increasing operational parameters of superheated steam before the turbine unit; improving its efficiency to bring it nearer to the ideal Carnot cycle by applying a reheating system of steam and multi stage regenerative boiler feed water heating. Furthermore, heat losses of the system are reduced by: improving the design of turbine blades, application of turbine casing and bearing cooling, as well as reduction in steam flow resistance in pipe work and maneuvering valves. The article identifies waste energy sources using the energy balance of a steam turbine propulsion plant applied on the liquefied natural gas carrier which was made out basing on results of a passive operation experiment, using the measured and calculated values from behavioral equations for the zero-dimensional model. Thermodynamic functions of state of waste heat fluxes have been identified in terms of their capability to be converted into usable energy fluxes. Thus, new ways of increasing the efficiency of energy conversion of a steam turbine propulsion plant have been addressed.

Niniejsza publikacja przedstawia metodykę DEA jako narzędzie do oceny efektywności technologii energetycznych. W pierwszej części pracy ukazano podstawowe narzędzia wykorzystywane do oceny portfela projektów inwestycyjnych w przemyśle energetycznym. W dalszej części scharakteryzowano metody Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), czyli nieparametryczne procedury ustalania efektywności technologicznej badanych obiektów pod względem analizowanych czynników. W części praktycznej – wykorzystując analizę DEA – dokonano przykładowej oceny efektywności trzynastu technologii energetycznych, w tym technologii nadkrytycznego spalania węgla, zgazowania węgla połączonego z turbiną gazową oraz samodzielnego układu turbiny gazowej. Do analizy wykorzystano model nadefektywności nieradialnej z uwzględnieniem podziału na nakłady decyzyjne, niedecyzyjne oraz produkty pożądane i niepożądane. Dodatkowo przeprowadzona została analiza wyników dla przykładowej technologii. Zostały wytłumaczone możliwe sposoby interpretacji wyników końcowych z punktu widzenia obiektów efektywnych, jak i nieefektywnych. W tym drugim przypadku przedstawiono także kalkulację rozwiązania wzorcowego dla danej instalacji wraz z wnioskami co do skali działalności.

In this paper two different update schemes for the recently developed plug-in direct particle swarm repetitive controller (PDPSRC) are investigated and compared. The proposed approach employs the particle swarm optimizer (PSO) to solve in on-line mode a dynamic optimization problem (DOP) related to the control task in the constant-amplitude constant-frequency voltage-source inverter (CACF VSI) with an LC output filter. The effectiveness of synchronous and asynchronous update rules, both commonly used in static optimization problems (SOPs), is assessed and compared in the case of PDPSRC. The performance of the controller, when synthesized using each of the update schemes, is studied numerically.

In this paper an artificial neural network, which realizes a nonlinear adaptive control algorithm, has been applied in a control system of variable speed generating system. The speed is adjusted automatically as a function of load power demand. The controller employs a single layer neural network to estimate the unknown plant nonlinearities online. Optimization of the controller is difficult because the plant is nonlinear and no stationary. Furthermore, it deals with the situation where the plant becomes uncontrollable without any restrictive assumptions. In contrast to previous work [1] on the same subject, the number of neural networks has been reduced to only one network. The number of the neurons in a network structure as well as choosing certain design parameters was specified a priori. The computer test results have been presented to show performance of proposed neural controller.

In this paper, the issue related to control of the plant with nonconstant parameters is addressed. In order to assure the unchanged response of the system, an adaptive state feedback speed controller for permanent magnet synchronous motor is proposed. The model-reference adaptive system is applied while the Widrow-Hoff rule is used as adjustment mechanism of controller’s coefficients. Necessary modifications related to construction of the cost function and formulas responsible for adjustment of state feedback speed controller’s coefficients are depicted. The impact of adaptation gain, which is the only parameter in proposed adjustment mechanism, on system behaviour is experimentally examined. The discussion about computational resources consumption of the proposed adaptation algorithm and implementation issues is included. The proposed approach is utilized in numerous experimental tests on modern SiC based drive with nonconstant moment of inertia. Comparison between adaptive and nonadaptive control schemes is also shown.

The selection of a reference model (RM) for a Model-Reference Adaptive Control is one of the most important aspects of the synthesis process of the adaptive control system. In this paper, the four different implementations of RM are developed and investigated in an adaptive PMSM drive with variable moment of inertia. Adaptation mechanisms are based on the Widrow-Hoff rule (W-H) and the Adaptation Procedure for Optimization Algorithms (APOA). Inadequate order or inaccurate approximation of RM for the W-H rule may provide poor behavior and oscillations. The results prove that APOA is robust against an improper selection of RM and provides high-performance PMSM drive operation.

This publication presents an assessment of the economic efficiency of a hypothetical installation for the gasification of the municipal and industrial waste for the production of syngas used subsequently for the production of energy or chemical products. The first part of the work presents an example of a technological system for the energo-chemical processing of coal mud and municipal waste, based on the gasification process using a fluidized bed reactor. A hypothetical installation consists of two main blocks: a fuel preparation unit and a gasification unit. In the fuel preparation installation, reception operations take place, storage, and then grinding, mixing, drying and transporting fuel to the gasification unit. In the gasification installation, fuel gasification, oxygen production, cooling and purification of raw process gas and ash treatment are carried out. The following key assumptions regarding the gasification process, as well as the capital expenditures and operating costs related to the process, were estimated. Consequently, based on the method of discounted cash flows, the unit cost of generating energy contained in the synthesis gas (cost of energy, COE) was determined and the results were interpreted. In order to obtain an acceptable efficiency of the gasification process for waste fuels for the production of alternative fuel (process gas), it is necessary to supplement the mixture of waste coal and coal mud with the RDF. In this case, the unit cost of fuel measured by the PLN/GJ index is lower than in the case of hard coal and comparable with brown coal. The use of coal mud for the production of process gas in an economically efficient way is possible only in the case of changes in the legal system allowing for charging fees for the utilization of industrial waste – coal mud.

The paper presents a three-phase grid-tied converter operated under unbalanced and distorted grid voltage conditions, using a multi-oscillatory current controller to provide high quality phase currents. The aim of this study is to introduce a systematic design of the current control loop. A distinctive feature of the proposed method is that the designer needs to define the required response and the disturbance characteristic, rather than usually unintuitive coefficients of controllers. Most common approach to tuning a state-feedback controller use linear-quadratic regulator (LQR) technique or pole-placement method. The tuning process for those methods usually comes down to guessing several parameters. For more complex systems including multi-oscillatory terms, control system tuning is unintuitive and cannot be effectively done by trial and error method. This paper proposes particle swarm optimization to find the optimal weights in a cost function for the LQR procedure. Complete settings for optimization procedure and numerical model are presented. Our goal here is to demonstrate an original design workflow. The proposed method has been verified in experimental study at a 10 kW laboratory setup.

This paper presents a state feedback controller (SFC) for position control of PMSM servo-drive. Firstly, a short review of the commonly used swarm-based optimization algorithms for tuning of SFC is presented. Then designing process of current control loop as well as of SFC with feedforward path is depicted. Next, coefficients of controller are tuned by using an artificial bee colony (ABC) optimization algorithm. Three of the most commonly applied tuning methods (i.e. linear-quadratic optimization, pole placement technique and direct selection of coefficients) are used and investigated in terms of positioning performance, disturbance compensation and robustness against plant parameter changes. Simulation analysis is supported by experimental tests conducted on laboratory stand with modern PMSM servo-drive.

In this paper an application of extended Kalman filter (EKF) for estimation and attenuation of periodic disturbance in permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive is investigated. Most types of disturbances present into PMSM drive were discussed and described. The mathematical model of the plant is presented. Detailed information about the design process of the disturbance estimator was introduced. A state feedback controller (SFC) with feedforward realizes the regulation and disturbance compensation. The theoretical analysis was supported by experimental tests on the laboratory stand. Both time- and frequency-domain analysis of the estimation results and angular velocity were performed. A significant reduction of velocity ripple has been achieved.

The addition of hard ceramic particles of nc-(Ti,Mo)C in carbon network into Ti matrix has been proved to be an efficient way to enhance their properties. The purpose of this work was to analyze the corrosion, tribological, mechanical and morphological effects of combining nc-(Ti,Mo)C/C with titanium metal, to create a unique composite via selective laser melting technique (SLM). Composites with different weight percentage (5, 10 and 20 wt %) of ceramic phase were produced. The samples of pure Ti and Ti-6Al-4V alloy were also tested, as a reference. These composites were examined for corrosion resistance in body fluid (artificial saliva solution). Moreover, the properties of titanium composites reinforced with nc-TiC powders were compared. It was stated that mechanical properties were significantly improved with increasing amount of nc-(Ti,Mo)C/C in Ti matrix. In terms of corrosion resistance, the composites showed worse properties compared to pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy, but better than TiC-reinforced composites.

Since 1978 the retreat of Ecology Glacier in the vicinity of Henryk Arctowski Station has opened new ice-free areas for colonization by terrestrial organisms initiated by pioneer microbes. Samples were collected from the soil surface, at 0, 5 and 20 cm below surface close to glacier front, then stored at below -20°C . Total bacterial count (TC), estimated by epifluorescence microscopy, reached high values, of 1010 g-1 dry wt. Healthy looking bacterial cells of mean volume 0.0209 µm3 at 0 cm to 0.0292 µm3 at 20 cm made up from 7% at 0 cm , to 30% at 20 cm of total bacterial population. The number of colony forming units (CFU) accounted for only 0.02% of TC. Taxonomically they belonged to the a, b, g subdivisions of the proteobacteria and to the Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides (CFB) group. Morphophysiologically CFU bacteria were diverse, from Gram variable short coccal forms to very long rods or filaments. Randomly selected CFU colonies were characterized by low sugar assimilation and high esterase/lipase activity. Spore forming bacteria – absent from 0 and 5 cm , formed a small fraction of 175 cells g-1 dry wt at the 20 cm depth. Filamentous fungi were relatively abundant and represented mainly by oligotrophs.