Publications related to Prototype of a thermally driven heat pump based on integrated Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC)

Design and assessment of an evaporating water-cooled methanation reactor for a SOE-based power-to-methane system

The transition towards clean renewable energy sources, where wind and solar are prone to variation, requires adequate energy storage. Power-to-methane (PtM) systems can be part of the solution. Specifically, solid-oxide-electrolyser (SOE) based PtM systems ...

EPFL2024

Decomposition method to evaluate district heating/cooling network potential at urban scale

Luc Girardin, François Maréchal, Raphaël Briguet, Ana Catarina Gouveia Braz, Bingqian Liu

In this work, a tool to design district heating networks (DHN) is presented and applied to the city of Lausanne as a case study. The evaluation of the buildings’ heat/cooling demand is performed using a Geographic Information System (GIS) database, built f ...

Associazione Italiana Di Ingegneria Chimica2024

Performance of energy piles foundation in hot-dominated climate: A case study in Dubai

Lyesse Laloui, Elena Ravera, Sofie Elaine ten Bosch

Energy piles represent an innovative technology that can help provide sustainable geothermal heating or cooling energy for thermal conditioning purposes. In hot-dominated climates, the interest is to inject heat in the ground and extract energy for space-c ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Fast-Response Variable-Stiffness Magnetic Catheters for Minimally Invasive Surgery

Dario Floreano, Jun Shintake, Yi Sun, Yegor Piskarev, Matteo Righi

In minimally invasive surgery, such as cardiac ablation, magnetically steered catheters made of variable-stiffness materials can enable higher dexterity and higher force application to human tissue. However, the long transition time between soft and rigid ...

2024

Unearthing the foundational role of anharmonicity in heat transport in glasses

The time-honored Allen -Feldman theory of heat transport in glasses is generally assumed to predict a finite value for the thermal conductivity, even if it neglects the anharmonic broadening of vibrational normal modes. We demonstrate that the harmonic app ...

Amer Physical Soc2024

Thermal conductivity of Li 3 PS 4 solid electrolytes with ab initio accuracy

Michele Ceriotti, Federico Grasselli

The vast amount of computational studies on electrical conduction in solid-state electrolytes is not mirrored by comparable efforts addressing thermal conduction, which has been scarcely investigated despite its relevance to thermal management and (over)he ...

Amer Physical Soc2024

Renewable energy integration and waste heat valorization in aluminum remelting for co-producing kerosene and methanol

François Maréchal, Daniel Alexander Florez Orrego, Meire Ellen Gorete Ribeiro Domingos, Réginald Germanier

The aluminium sector relies on natural gas for the conversion of recycled scrap into new feedstock, which results in substantial atmospheric emissions. Hydric resources are also impacted, as they serve as heat sinks for the waste heat generated during the ...

Associazione Italiana Di Ingegneria Chimica2024

Self-catalysed frontal polymerisation enables fast and low-energy processing of fibre reinforced polymer composites

Véronique Michaud, Baris Çaglar, Jacobus Gerardus Rudolph Staal

Frontal polymerisation has the potential to bring unprecedented reductions in energy demand and process time to produce fibre reinforced polymer composites. Production of epoxy-based fibre reinforced polymer parts with high fibre volume content, commonly e ...

2024

Innovative thermophysical characterization of an ATF composite cladding: the case of silicon carbide

Andrea Cavaliere

Nuclear power is a powerful technology that plays an important role in the fight against climate change, and research is continuously engaged in studies that could further improve its safety. After the Fukushima accident, Accident Tolerant Fuels research h ...

EPFL2024

Enhancing Wind Farm Performance through Axial Induction and Tilt Control: Insights from Wind Tunnel Experiments

Fernando Porté Agel, Guillem Armengol Barcos

Static axial induction control and tilt control are two strategies that have the potential to increase power production in wind farms, mitigating wake effects and increasing the available power for downstream turbines. In this study, wind tunnel experiment ...

MDPI2024

Models implemented in the methodological approach to design the initial STEP first wall contour

Kevin Henricus Annemarie Verhaegh, Dario Vaccaro, Filippo Bagnato, Davide Galassi

The official Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production mission aims to demonstrate the ability to generate net electricity from fusion with the STEP Prototype Power plant. One of the key technological and engineering challenges in fusion power plants is mana ...

Elsevier Science Sa2024

Vapor compression and energy dissipation in a collapsing laser-induced bubble

Mohamed Farhat, Danail Obreschkow, Armand Baptiste Sieber, Davide Bernardo Preso

The composition of the gaseous phase of cavitation bubbles and its role on the collapse remains to date poorly understood. In this work, experiments of single cavitation bubbles in aqueous ammonia serve as a novel approach to investigate the effect of the ...

Aip Publishing2024

Wind turbine wake superposition under pressure gradient

Fernando Porté Agel, Arslan Salim Dar

We investigate the effect of pressure gradient on the cumulative wake of multiple turbines in wind tunnel experiments spanning across a range of adverse pressure gradient (APG), zero pressure gradient (ZPG), and favorable pressure gradient (FPG). Compared ...

2024

Plasmoid drift and first wall heat deposition during ITER H-mode dual-SPIs in JOREK simulations

Mengdi Kong

The heat flux mitigation during the thermal quench (TQ) by the shattered pellet injection (SPI) is one of the major elements of disruption mitigation strategy for ITER. It's efficiency greatly depends on the SPI and the target plasma parameters, and is ult ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2024

Study of flexible operating conditions in variable-speed hydraulic turbines : advanced models and experimental validation

Martin Seydoux

The global imperative to transition from fossil fuel-based energy sources to renewable alternatives has become increasingly urgent in the pursuit of sustainable and renewable power generation. This paradigm shift necessitates innovative approaches to manag ...

EPFL2024

On the prediction of the induced damage by the start-up sequence of Francis turbines: On operational resilience framework

Christophe Nicolet, Mario Paolone, Martin Seydoux, Elena Vagnoni

The number of transient operations in hydraulic machinery connected to power grid, notably start-ups and shut-downs, has observed a substantial increase in recent decades, primarily driven by the global shift toward intermittent renewable energy sources. S ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Computational fluid dynamics simulations of the heat transfer properties of graphene-based nanolubricants and application to hydrodynamic lubrication

Roberto Guarino

In this paper, we consider experimental data available for graphene-based nanolubricants to evaluate their convective heat transfer performance by means of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Single-phase models with temperature-dependent prope ...

Aip Publishing2024

Identification and Mitigation of Degradation Mechanisms Induced by Heat and Light in NiOx-based Perovskite Solar Cells

Marion Solange Madeleine Dussouillez

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) offer an attractive solution to increase the efficiency of PV panels via perovskite/silicon tandems thanks to their potential cost-effectiveness and high efficiency. In inverted PSC architecture (p-i-n), commonly used hole con ...

EPFL2024

Identification of typical district configurations: A two-step global sensitivity analysis framework

François Maréchal, Jonas Schnidrig, Cédric Terrier

The recent geopolitical conflicts in Europe have underscored the vulnerability of the current energy system to the volatility of energy carrier prices. In the prospect of defining robust energy systems ensuring sustainable energy supply in the future, the ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2024

Small-scale turbopumps for waste heat recovery applications based on an organic Rankine cycle: a study from pre-design to experimental validation

Sajjad Zakeralhoseini

The organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system is among the technologies applied to exploit waste heat in vehicles. Since common organic fluids have lower latent heat than water, higher mass flow rates are required to convert the same waste heat, considerably incr ...

EPFL2023