The Baltic is a unique brakish sea. Its moderate salinity is the result of the fresh river water input and non-periodic inflows of salty, oxygenated waters from the North Sea. However, the balance continually fluctuates. What impact does that have on the sea?

In this paper, numerical results of modeling of acoustic waves propagation are presented. For calculation of the acoustic fluctuations, a solution of the full non-linear Euler equation is used. The Euler equations are solved with the use of a numerical scheme of third-order accuracy in space and time. The paper shows a validation process of the described method. This method is suitable also for an aerodynamic noise assessment on the basis of unsteady mean flow field data obtained from a CFD calculations. In such case this method is called a hybrid CFD/CAA method. The proposed method is numerically decoupled with CFD solution, therefore the information about the mean unsteady flow field can be obtained using an arbitrary CFD method (solver). The accuracy of the acoustic field assessment depends on the quality of the CFD solutions. This decomposition reduces considerably the computational cost in comparison with direct noise calculations.

The presented Euler acoustic postprocessor (EAP) has been used for modeling of the acoustic waves propagation in a cavity and in the flow field around a cylinder and an aerodynamic profile.

The paper presents experimental investigations of pressure fluctuations near the tip clearance region of the rotor blades of the axial-flow low-speed compressor stage in stable and unstable parts of the overall performance characteristic. In this investigation, unsteady pressure was measured with the use of high frequency pressure transducers mounted on the casing wall of rotor passage. The pressure signals and their frequency characteristics were analyzed during the steady-state processes, before the rotating stall, during the transition from the steady-state process to the rotating stall, and during a stabilized phenomenon of low-frequency rotating stall. As the operating point moves to the unstable region of flow characteristic, an inception of the rotating stall can be observed, which rotates with a speed of about 41.4% of the rotor speed. The results of this study confirm that in the low-speed axial compressor stage operating in a rotating stall regime there appears one stall cell that spreads over to adjacent rotor blade channels. As the flow rate is reduced further, the frequency of the rotating stall decreased to 34.8% of the rotor speed and the number of blade channels with the stall cell increases.

The aim of the study was to determine the influence of the load on the water accumulation embankment crown on changes in the course of the filtration curve in its body. The study was carried out with a medium-size filtration apparatus. We made a model of hydrotechnical embankment with the following dimensions. Width: base 2.0 m, crown 0.5 m. Slope inclination: waterside 1:1.5, landside 1:1. Embankment height 0.6 m, width 1.0 m, weight 900 kg. The construction mater-ial included a homogeneous mineral subsoil classified as silty medium sand (siMSa). The embankment model made in a medium-size apparatus kept the accumulation level at a height of 0.5 m. With data from the recording systems, we deter-mined the course of the filtration curve. Next, we kept on loading and relieving the embankment crown using an actuator and a VSS plate with a diameter of 300 mm. During this process, we recorded changes in the level of the water table inside the embankment. A decrease in the water table was observed as a result of increased load. Once the load on the embankment crown was reduced, the water level inside the embankment increased. The embankment model built from natural soil works well as a structure that keeps damming water in a continuous manner. The use of drainage in the form of a stone prism at the foot of the landside slope allows protecting the slope against the negative influence of filtration (piping, lique-faction).

The scaling of turbulence characteristics such as turbulent fluctuation velocity, turbulent kinetic energy and turbulent energy dissipation rate was investigated in a mechanically agitated vessel 300 mm in inner diameter stirred by a Rushton turbine at high Reynolds numbers in the range 50 000 < Re < 100 000. The hydrodynamics and flow field was measured using 2-D TR PIV. The convective velocity formulas proposed by Antonia et al. (1980) and Van Doorn (1981) were tested. The turbulent energy dissipation rate estimated independently in both radial and axial directions using the one-dimensional approach was not found to be the same in each direction. Using the proposed correction, the values in both directions were found to be close to each other. The relation ε/(N3·D2) ∞ const. was not conclusively confirmed.

The velocity field around the standard Rushton turbine was investigated by the Laser Doppler Anemometry (LDA) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements. The mean ensembleaveraged velocity profiles and root mean square values of fluctuations were evaluated at two different regions. The first one was in the discharge stream in the radial direction from the impeller where the radial flow is dominant and it is commonly modelled as a swirling turbulent jet. The validity range of the turbulent jet model was studied. The second evaluated region is under the impeller where flow seems to be at first sight rather rigorous but obtained results show nonnegligible values of fluctuation velocity.

Products of Gaussian noises often emerge as the result of non-linear detection techniques or as parasitic effects, and their proper handling is important in many practical applications, including fluctuation-enhanced sensing, indoor air or environmental quality monitoring, etc. We use Rice’s random phase oscillator formalism to calculate the power density spectra variance for the product of two Gaussian band-limited white noises with zero-mean and the same bandwidth W. The ensuing noise spectrum is found to decrease linearly from zero frequency to 2W, and it is zero for frequencies greater than 2W. Analogous calculations performed for the square of a single Gaussian noise confirm earlier results. The spectrum at non-zero frequencies, and the variance of the square of a noise, is amplified by a factor two as a consequence of correlation effects between frequency products. Our analytic results are corroborated by computer simulations.

This paper presents a portable exhaled breath analyser, developed to detect selected diseases. The set-up

employs resistive gas sensors: commercial MEMS sensors and prototype gas sensors made of WO3 gas

sensing layers doped with various metal ingredients. The set-up can modulate the gas sensors by applying

UV light to induce physical changes of the gas sensing layers. The sensors are placed in a tiny gas

chamber of a volume of about 22 ml. Breath samples can be either injected or blown into the gas chamber

when an additional pump is used to select the last breath phase. DC resistance and resistance fluctuations

of selected sensors using separate channels are recorded by an external data acquisition board. Low-noise

amplifiers with a selected gain were used together with a necessary bias circuit. The set-up monitors other

atmospheric parameters interacting with the responses of resistive gas sensors (humidity, temperature, atmospheric

pressure). The recorded data may be further analysed to determine optimal detection methods.

The main points of the UPoN-2018 talk and some valuable comments from the Audience are briefly summarized. The talk surveyed the major issues with the notion of zero-point thermal noise in resistors and its visibility; moreover it gave some new arguments. The new arguments support the old view of Kleen that the known measurement data “showing” zero-point Johnson noise are instrumental artifacts caused by the energy-time uncertainty principle. We pointed out that, during the spectral analysis of blackbody radiation, another uncertainty principle is relevant, that is, the location-momentum uncertainty principle that causes only the widening of spectral lines instead of the zero-point noise artifact. This is the reason why the Planck formula is correctly confirmed by the blackbody radiation experiments. Finally a conjecture about the zero-point noise spectrum of wide-band amplifiers is shown, but that is yet to be tested experimentally.

Gas-liquid flows abound in a great variety of industrial processes. Correct recognition of the regimes of a gasliquid flow is one of the most formidable challenges in multiphase flow measurement. Here we put forward a novel approach to the classification of gas-liquid flow patterns. In this method a flow-pattern map is constructed based on the average energy of intrinsic mode function and the volumetric void fraction of gas-liquid mixture. The intrinsic mode function is extracted from the pressure fluctuation across a bluff body using the empirical mode decomposition technique. Experiments adopting air and water as the working fluids are conducted in the bubble, plug, slug, and annular flow patterns at ambient temperature and atmospheric pressure. Verification tests indicate that the identification rate of the flow-pattern map developed exceeds 90%. This approach is appropriate for the gas-liquid flow pattern identification in practical applications.

A correlation measuring tool for an endogenous pulsed neutron source experiment is developed in this work. Paroxysmal pulses generated by a bursts of neutron chains are detected by a 10-kbit embedded shift register with a time resolution of 100 ns. The system is implemented on a single reprogrammable device making it a compact, cost-effective instrument, easily adaptable for any case study. The system was verified experimentally in the Esfahan heavy-water zero power reactor (EHWZPR). The results obtained by the measuring tool are validated by the Feynman-α experiment, and a good agreement is seen within the boundaries of statistical uncertainties. The theory of the methods is briefly initiated in the text. Also, the system structure is described, the experimental results and their uncertainties are discussed, and neutron statistics in EHWZPR is examined experimentally.

To find effective and practical methods to distinguish gas-liquid two-phase flow patterns, new flow pattern maps are established using the differential pressure through a classical Venturi tube. The differential pressure signal was first decomposed adaptively into a series of intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) by the ensemble empirical mode decomposition. Hilbert marginal spectra of the IMFs showed that the flow patterns are related to the amplitude of the pressure fluctuation. The cross-correlation method was employed to sift the characteristic IMF, and then the energy ratio of the characteristic IMF to the raw signal was proposed to construct flow pattern maps with the volumetric void fraction and with the two-phase Reynolds number, respectively. The identification rates of these two maps are verified to be 91.18% and 92.65%. This approach provides a cost-effective solution to the difficult problem of identifying gas-liquid flow patterns in the industrial field.