• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
• /
• v.16 no.2
• /
• pp.57-65
• /
• 2008

Wastewater containing strong organic matter is very difficult to treat by utilizing general sewage treatment plant. but the wastewater is adequate to generate biomass energy (bio-gas; methane gas) by utilizing anaerobic digestion. EcoDays Plug Flow Reactor (E-PFR), which was already proved as an excellent aerobic wastewater treatment reactor, was adapted for anaerobic food wastewater digestion. This research was performed to improve the efficiency of bio-gas production and to optimize anaerobic wastewater treatment system. Food wastewater from N food waste treatment plant was applied for the pilot scale experiments. The results indicated that the efficiency of anaerobic wastewater treatment and the volume of bio-gas were increased by applying E-PFR to anaerobic digestion. The structural characteristics of E-PFR can cause the high efficiency of anaerobic treatment processes. The unique structure of E-PFR is a diaphragm dividing vertical hydraulic multi-stages and the inversely protruded fluid transfer tubes on each diaphragm. The unique structure of E-PFR can make gas hold-up space at the top part of each stage in the reactor. Also, E-PFR can contain relatively high MLSS concentration in lower stage by vertical up-flow of wastewater. This hydraulic flow can cause high buffering capacity against shock load from the wastewater in the reactor, resulting in stable pH (7.0~8.0), relatively higher wastewater treatment efficiency, and larger volume of bio-gas generation. In addition, relatively longer solid retention time (SRT) in the reactor can increase organic matter degradation and bio-gas production efficiency. These characteristics in the reactor can be regarded as "ideal" anaerobic wastewater treatment conditions. Anaerobic wastewater treatment plant design factor can be assessed for having 70 % of methane gas content, and better bio-gas yielding and stable treatment efficiency based on the results of this research. For example, inner circulation with generated bio-gas in the reactor and better mixing conditions by improving fluid transfer tube structure can be used for achieving better bio-gas yielding efficiency. This research results can be used for acquiring better improved regenerated energy system.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
• /
• v.32 no.5
• /
• pp.628-635
• /
• 2014

The large amount of $CO_2$ emitted from mushrooms during incubation and developmental stages can be utilized in plant production systems as a $CO_2$ source. The objectives of this study were to measure the $CO_2$ emission and absorption rates of mushroom and lettuce, respectively, and to analyze the $CO_2$ concentrations at various ratios of mushroom and lettuce in a closed production system. The $CO_2$ emission rate of king oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus eryngii ( DC.) Qu$\acute{e}$l) and $CO_2$ absorption rate of lettuces (Lactuca sativa L. cv. Asia Heuk Romaine) were measured by using two closed acryl chambers ($1.0m{\times}0.8m{\times}0.5m$) in which indoor temperatures were maintained at $18^{\circ}C$ and $22^{\circ}C$, respectively. The lettuce was grown at a light intensity of PPF $340mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}$ and with nutrient solution at EC $1.2dS{\cdot}m^{-1}$. The air was periodically circulated between the two chambers using a diaphragm pump. The $CO_2$ emission rate of the mushroom increased until the $15^{th}$ day after scratching (DAS) and then decreased. The rate also increased with increased indoor temperature. In particular, the $CO_2$ emission rate per fresh weight of fruit body increased by about 3.1 times after thinning compared to before thinning. In terms of $CO_2$ balance, the $CO_2$ emission rates from a bottle (950 mL) of the mushroom at 9, 12, and 14 DAS were equivalent to those of 3, 4.5, and 5.5 lettuce plants at 7, 10, and 12 DAT (days after transplanting), respectively. This work shows that balance in $CO_2$ concentration could be achieved using an appropriate ratio of the two crops in a closed production system.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.569-576
• /
• 2007

Ventricular Assist Device(VAD) has switched its goal from a short-tenn use for bridge-to-transplantation to a long-tenn use for destination therapy, With this goal, the importance of long-tenn reliability gets more interests and importances, H-VAD is an portable extracorporeal biventricular assist device, and adopts an electro-pneumatic driving mechanism. The pneumatic pressure to pump out blood is generated with compression of bellows, and is transmitted in a closed pneumatic circuit through a pneumatic line. The existing pneumatic VAD adopts a air compressor which can generate stable pressures but has defects such as a noise and a size problem. Thus, it is not suitable for being used as a portable device, These problems are covered with adopting a closed pneumatic circuit mechanism with a bellows which has a small size and small noise generation, but it has defects that improper pneumatic setting causes a failure of adequate flow generation. In this study, the pneumatic pressure regulation system is developed to cover these defects of a bellows-type pneumatic VAD. The optimal pneumatic pressure conditions according to various afterload conditions for an optimal flow rate were investigated and the afterload estimation algorithm was developed, The final pneumatic regulation system estimates a current afterload and regulate the pneumatic pressure to the optimal point at a given afterload condition. The afterload estimation algorithm showed a sufficient performance that the standard deviation of error is 8.8 mmHg, The pneumatic pressure regulation system showed a sufficient performance that the flow rate was stably governed to various afterload conditions. In a further study, if a additional sensor such as ultrasonic sensor is developed to monitor the direct movement of diaphragm in a blood pump part, the reliability would be greatly increased. Moreover, if the afterload estimation algorithm gets more accuracy, it would be also helpful to monitor the hemodynamic condition of patients.

• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.23-32
• /
• 2006

This study was conducted to improve the design and construction technique of orthotropic steel-deck bridges. After conducting an F.E.M. analysis of the various rib types of the connection details, static and fatigue tests were conducted, using a three-dimensional, full-scaled, orthotropic, steel-deck-plate model with internal diaphrams, to check the fatigue strength depending on the types of details. The model structure was made of two types of longitudinal ribs: the domestic standard and the European rabbit types. The fatigue strength of the steel-deck system was found to have improved through the installation of an internal diaphram, as no cracks were found on the bottom round part of the scallop with a diaphram. There were no differences between the domestic and the European types of details in terms of strength may be partially influenced by the shape of the scallop and by the installation of an internal diaphram, but it can be improved more significantly according to the quality of the welding that will be done.

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.195-215
• /
• 2016

Rehabilitation of historical unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings is a priority in many parts of the world, since those buildings are a living part of history and a testament of human achievement of the era of their construction. Many of these buildings are still operational; comprising brittle materials with no reinforcements, with spatially distributed mass and stiffness, they are not encompassed by current seismic assessment procedures that have been developed for other structural types. To facilitate the difficult task of selecting a proper rehabilitation strategy - often restricted by international treaties for non-invasiveness and reversibility of the intervention - and given the practical requirements for the buildings' intended reuse, this paper presents a practical procedure for assessment of seismic demands of URM buildings - mainly historical constructions that lack a well-defined diaphragm action. A key ingredient of the method is approximation of the spatial shape of lateral translation, ${\Phi}$, that the building assumes when subjected to a uniform field of lateral acceleration. Using ${\Phi}$ as a 3-D shape function, the dynamic response of the system is evaluated, using the concepts of SDOF approximation of continuous systems. This enables determination of the envelope of the developed deformations and the tendency for deformation and damage localization throughout the examined building for a given design earthquake scenario. Deformation demands are specified in terms of relative drift ratios referring to the in-plane and the out-of-plane seismic response of the building's structural elements. Drift ratio demands are compared with drift capacities associated with predefined performance limits. The accuracy of the introduced procedure is evaluated through (a) comparison of the response profiles with those obtained from detailed time-history dynamic analysis using a suite of ten strong ground motion records, five of which with near-field characteristics, and (b) evaluation of the performance assessment results with observations reported in reconnaissance reports of the field performance of two neoclassical torsionally-sensitive historical buildings, located in Thessaloniki, Greece, which survived a major earthquake in the past.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
• /
• v.22 no.1
• /
• pp.39-48
• /
• 2012

The behaviors of a diaphragm wall and a contiguous pile wall such as CIP(Case-in-place pile) and SCW(Soil-cement wall), applied to the top-down construction method, were analyzed using the SUNEX program, which is widely used to design earth retaining walls. Four types of earth pressures, as described by Rankine (1857), Terzaghi and Peck (1967), Tchbotarioff (1973), and Hong and Yun (1995a), were applied to the analysis program to predict the lateral displacement of walls. The results show that the displacements of an earth retaining walls vary with the applied earth pressure. The predicted lateral displacement based on Hong & Yun's (1995a) earth pressure is similar to the measured displacement. Therefore, the actual lateral displacement of an earth retaining wall, as applied to top-down construction method, can be accurately predicted by using an analysis program considering Hong and Yun's (1995a) earth pressure.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
• /
• v.8 no.6
• /
• pp.8-15
• /
• 2008

In this paper, in order to analyze property of frequency response in optical microphone, system was implemented. The capacitance microphone and fiber-optic transmission path type fiber-optic microphone (FOM) have weaknesses in directivity, size, weight, and price. However suggested optical microphone can be constituted by cheap devices, so it has many benefits like small size, light weight, high directivity, etc. Head part of optical microphone which is suggested in this paper is movable back and forth by sound pressure with the attached reflection plate. Operating point is determined by measuring the respond characteristics and choosing the point on which has maximum linearity and sensitivity while changing the distance between optical head and vibrating plate. We measured the output of the O/E transformed signal of the optical microphone while frequency of sound signal is changed using sound measurement/analysis program, Smaart Live and USBPre, which are based on PC, and compared the result from an existing capacitance microphone. The measured Optical microphone showed almost similar output characteristics as those of the compared condenser microphone, and its bandwidth performance was about 300[Hz]-3[kHz] at up to 3 [dB].

• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.9 no.4
• /
• pp.789-830
• /
• 2015

The recent re-assessment of the seismic hazard in Europe led for many regions of low to moderate seismicity to an increase in the seismic demand. As a consequence, several modern unreinforced masonry (URM) buildings, constructed with reinforced concrete (RC) slabs that provide an efficient rigid diaphragm action, no longer satisfy the seismic design check and have been retrofitted by adding or replacing URM walls with RC walls. Of late, also several new construction projects have been conceived directly as buildings with both RC and URM walls. Despite the widespread use of such construction technique, very little is known about the seismic behaviour of mixed RC-URM wall structures and codes do not provide adequate support to designers. The aim of the paper is therefore to propose a displacement-based design methodology for the design of mixed RC-URM edifices and the retrofit of URM buildings by replacing or adding selected URM walls with RC ones. The article describes also two tools developed for estimating important quantities relevant for the displacement-based design of structures with both RC and URM walls. The tools are (i) a mechanical model based on the shear-flexure interaction between URM and RC walls and (ii) an elastic model for estimating the contribution of the RC slabs to the overturning moment capacity of the system. In the last part of the article the proposed design method is verified through nonlinear dynamic analyses of several case studies. These results show that the proposed design approach has the ability of controlling the displacement profile of the designed structures, avoiding concentration of deformations in one single storey, a typical feature of URM wall structures.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
• /
• 2006.11a
• /
• pp.367-370
• /
• 2006

The ballistic range has long been employed in a variety of engineering fields such as high-velocity impact engineering, projectile aerodynamics, creation of new materials, etc, since it can create an extremely high-pressure state in very short time. Two-stage light gas gun is being employed most extensively. The present experimental study has been conducted to develop a new type of ballistic range which can easily perform a projectile simulation. The ballistic range consists of a high-pressure tube, piston, pump tube, shock tube and launch tube. The experiment is conducted to find out the dependence of various parameters on the projectile velocity. The pressure in high-pressure tube, pressure of diaphragm rupture and projectile mass are varied to obtain various projectile velocities. This study also addresses the effect of the presence of a shock tube located between the pump tube and launch tube on system study. The experimental results are compared with those obtained through an author's theoretical study.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
• /
• v.36 no.1
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2011

An experimental variable rate nursery sprayer was developed to adjust application rates for canopy volume in real time. The sprayer consisted of two vertical booms integrated with ultrasonic sensors, and variable rate nozzles coupled with pulse width modulation (PMW) based solenoid valves. A custom-designed microcontroller instructed the sensors to detect canopy size and occurrence and then controlled nozzles to achieve variable application rates. A spray delivery system, which consisted of diaphragm pump, pressure regulator and 4-cycle gasoline engine, offered the spray discharge function. Spray delay time, time adjustment in spray trigger for the leading distance of the sensor, was measured with a high-speed camera, and it was from 50 to 140 ms earlier than the desired time (398 ms) at 3.2 km/h under indoor conditions. Consequently, the sprayer triggered 4.5 to 12.5 cm prior to detected targets. Duty cycles of the sprayer were from 20 to 34 ms for senor-to-canopy (STC) distance from 0.30 to 0.76 m. Outdoor test confirmed that the nozzles were triggered from 290 to 380 ms after detecting tree canopy at 3.2 km/h. The spray rate of the new sprayer was 58.4 to 85.2% of the constant application rate (935 L/ha). Spray coverage was collected at four areas of evergreen canopy by water sensitive papers (WSP), and ranged from 1.9 to 41.1% and 1.8 to 34.7% for variable and constant rate applications, respectively. One WSP area had significant (P < 0.05) difference in mean spray coverage between two application conditions.