The problem of determining displacements of objects is an important and current issue, in particular in terms of operational safety. This is a requirement that covers geodetic, periodic control measurements in order to determine horizontal and vertical displacements. The paper is focused on the analysis of vertical displacements. Geodetic measurements and their interpretation allow to reduce the risk of possible structural catastrophes. The major research topic of the majority of available papers is displacement determination of individual controlled points, in a situation where there are identified as fixed reference points. There are cases making identification of such points difficult or impossible to use in displacement analysis. This paper addresses a rare case of determining vertical displacements in unstable reference systems. Due to the fact that most of the existing and known literature methods do not always bring satisfactory results, the paper propose a new method of vertical displacement determination in the absence of reference points in the local coordinate system. Practical considerations on simulated data show that the presented method performs the task correctly.
Participation in loss or damage by sacrifice stems from either custom or legal regulations. This obligation can also be limited by agreement between parties. The instrument for modifying the range of loss or damage by sacrifice is the set of principles in the York-Antwerp Rules. The York-Antwerp Rules are currently the oldest maritime trade institution in such common practical use. The definition of loss or damage by sacrifice comes from the rules accepted in 1924 which originated from British regulations on maritime insurance dating from 1906. In Polish maritime code, the term “loss or damage by sacrifice ” describes only a certain type of damage, independent of the means it was inflicted. Norwegian maritime code is a good example of a rational attitude towards this issue; article 211 of this code refers directly to the York-Antwerp Rules. In terms of legislative techniques, the York-Antwerp Rules are not perfect. The terms of dispatch and the role of the dispatcher, which are closely related to the loss and damage by sacrifice, are rather incidental in the York-Antwerp Rules and are on the margins of issues regarding the effectivity of settlement.
The paper analyzes the impact of potential changes in the price relation between domestic and imported coal and its influence on the volume of coal imported to Poland. The study is carried out with the application of a computable model of the Polish energy system. The model reflects fundamental relations between coal suppliers (domestic coal mines, importers) and key coal consumers (power plants, combined heat and power plants, heat plants, industrial power plants). The model is run under thirteen scenarios, differentiated by the ratio of the imported coal price versus the domestic coal price for 2020–2030. The results of the scenario in which the prices of imported and domestic coal, expressed in PLN/GJ, are equal, indicate that the volume of supplies of imported coal is in the range of 8.3–11.5 million Mg (depending on the year). In the case of an increase in prices of imported coal with respect to the domestic one, supplies of imported coal are at the level of 0.4–4.1 million Mg (depending on the year). With a decrease in the price of imported coal, there is a gradual increase in the supply of coal imports. For the scenario in which a 30% lower imported coal price is assumed, the level of imported coal almost doubles (180%), while the supply from domestic mines is reduced by around 28%, when compared to the levels observed in the reference scenario. The obtained results also allow for the development of an analysis of the range of coal imports depending on domestic versus imported coal price relations in the form of cartograms.
The dynamic development of wind power in recent years has generated the demand for production forecasting tools in wind farms. The data obtained from mathematical models is useful both for wind farm owners and distribution and transmission system operators. The predictions of production allow the wind farm operator to control the operation of the turbine in real time or plan future repairs and maintenance work in the long run. In turn, the results of the forecasting model allow the transmission system operator to plan the operation of the power system and to decide whether to reduce the load of conventional power plants or to start the reserve units.
The presented article is a review of the currently applied methods of wind power generation forecasting. Due to the nature of the input data, physical and statistical methods are distinguished. The physical approach is based on the use of data related to atmospheric conditions, terrain, and wind farm characteristics. It is usually based on numerical weather prediction models (NWP). In turn, the statistical approach uses historical data sets to determine the dependence of output variables on input parameters. However, the most favorable, from the point of view of the quality of the results, are models that use hybrid approaches. Determining the best model turns out to be a complicated task, because its usefulness depends on many factors. The applied model may be highly accurate under given conditions, but it may be completely unsuitable for another wind farm.
Taking the importance of time and risk into account has a significant impact on the value of
investment projects. Investments in the energy sector are long-term projects and, as such, are burdened
with uncertainty associated with the long-term freezing of capital and obtaining the expected
return. In the power industry, this uncertainty is increased by factors specific to the sector,
including in particular changes in the political and legal environment and the rapid technological
development. In the case of discounted cash flow analysis (DCF), commonly used for assessing the
economic efficiency of investments, the only parameter expressing investor uncertainty regarding
investment opportunities is the discount rate, which increases with the increasing risk of the project.
It determines the value of the current project, thus becoming an important criterion affecting
investors’ decisions. For this reason, it is of great importance for the assessment of investment
effectiveness. This rate, usually in the form of the weighted average cost of capital (WACC), generally
includes two elements: the cost of equity capital and borrowed capital. Due to the fluctuant
relationship between these two parameters in project financing, performing a WACC analysis in
order to compare the risks associated with the different technologies is not completely justified.
A good solution to the problem is to use the cost of equity. This article focuses on the analysis of this
cost as a measure of risk related to energy investments in the United States, Europe and worldwide.
With the upcoming implementation of the centralized capacity market in Poland, capacity auctions will be organized where domestic power companies will offer their available capacities. It is assumed that bidding will be auctioned according to the so called descending clock auction system with uniform-price (Pay-as-Clear), which will lead to the market equilibrium price. Some analysts, however, are of the view that it is more appropriate to organize capacity auctions in the Pay-as-Bid formula, as this system should lead to lower prices that those of Pay-as-Clear, hence lower costs of capacity purchase. However, this opinion does not confirm the practice – theoretical considerations do not take into account such important factors as the behavior of market players and the tendency of bidders to accept a higher risk or the lack of access to advanced analyses, and thus better information for all market participants. This paper presents a hypothetical calculation of the prices in the centralized capacity market using Monte Carlo simulations. The results of the study confirm that the price level for the Pay-as-Bid system, due to the asymmetry of information and the level of concentration of the power generation sector in Poland would lead to higher prices than for the Pay-as-Clear system on average by approximately 2.5%. The implementation of the PAB system would, therefore, be less efficient to electricity consumers.
The article focuses on multicomponent system separation with the use of an innovative membrane-based technique i.e. pervaporation. Pervaporation is a membrane technique for separation of liquid mixtures on solid nonporous membranes. Pervaporation is used in this study to separate a quaternary system acetone-butanol-ethanol-water. Such a system may be derived from ABE fermentation process, and the resulting product, biobutanol, is a potential biofuel and may be used in internal combustion engines.
Experiments in the study involving concentration of butanol by pervaporation were performed using PERVAP 4060 flat-sheet commercial membrane. To describe the PV process a semi-empirical approach was used. As a result of experiments and calculations permeance coefficients were obtained. Separation and permeance factors were calculated to assess the efficiency of the system separation. Beforehand, activity coefficients were determined for all the components of the mixture with the NRTL equation. Separation coefficients for all the components differed depending on process parameters: concentration, feed flow rate and process temperature. The study confirmed the separation effect of the quaternary system. The most interesting results were obtained for the concentration of butanol. Pervaporation allows to concentrate butanol over 10 times. The permeance coefficient reached for butanol an average value of 7.06·10-3 in comparison with the results for ethanol 3.24·10-2 and acetone 1.83·10-2 [kmol(m2h)-1]. The temperature change from 50 to 70°C led to an increased permeance factor and there was no apparent effect on it in the feed flow rate. Due to the hydrophobicity of the membrane water fluxes in the quaternary system were negative.
In the last decade a growing interest was observed in low-cost adsorbents for heavy metal ions. Clinoptilolite is a mineral sorbent extracted in Poland that is used to remove heavy metal ions from diluted solutions. The experiments in this study were carried out in a laboratory column for multicomponent water solutions of heavy metal ions, i.e. Cu(II), Zn(II) and Ni(II). A mathematical model to calculate the metals' concentration of water solution at the column outlet and the concentration of adsorbed substances in the adsorbent was proposed. It enables determination of breakthrough curves for different process conditions and column dimensions. The model of process dynamics in the column took into account the specificity of sorption described by the Elovich equation (for chemical sorption and ion exchange). Identification of the column dynamics consisted in finding model coefficients β, KE and Deff and comparing the calculated values with experimental data. Searching for coefficients which identify the column operation can involve the use of optimisation methods to find the area of feasible solutions in order to obtain a global extremum. For that purpose our own procedure of genetic algorithm is applied in the study.
Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) are a moderately new class of liquid substances that are characterized by a great variety of possible anion-cation combinations giving each of them different properties. For this reason, they have been termed as designer solvents and, as such, they are particularly promising for liquid-liquid extraction, which has been quite intensely studied over the last decade. This paper concentrates on the recent liquid-liquid extraction studies involving ionic liquids, yet focusing strictly on the separation of n-butanol from model aqueous solutions. Such research is undertaken mainly with the intention of facilitating biological butanol production, which is usually carried out through the ABE fermentation process. So far, various sorts of RTILs have been tested for this purpose while mostly ternary liquid-liquid systems have been investigated. The industrial design of liquid-liquid extraction requires prior knowledge of the state of thermodynamic equilibrium and its relation to the process parameters. Such knowledge can be obtained by performing a series of extraction experiments and employing a certain mathematical model to approximate the equilibrium. There are at least a few models available but this paper concentrates primarily on the NRTL equation, which has proven to be one of the most accurate tools for correlating experimental equilibrium data. Thus, all the presented studies have been selected based on the accepted modeling method. The reader is also shown how the NRTL equation can be used to model liquid-liquid systems containing more than three components as it has been the authors’ recent area of expertise.
The chosen, typical causes of quality defects of cast-iron „alphin” rings embedded in aluminum cast are being presented in this paper.
Diffusive joint of those inserts with the pistons casts is being used, due to extreme work conditions of destructive influence of the fuel mix
and variable thermo-mechanical loads, which reign in the combustion motor working chamber.