Korea Electric Power Research Institute (KEPCO RI) had developed molten carbonate fuel cell (MCFC) system since 1993. Finally, KEPCO RI developed and operated a 125 kW MCFC system in 2010. To make MCFC system compact, it is indispensable to install an ejector in this system where the anode off gas, the cathode off gas, and fresh air are mixed before flowing to the catalytic burner. KEPCO RI had developed various ejectors for MCFC system since 2006. The 125 kW MCFC system built with the developed ejector was operated successfully in Boryeong Thermal Power Plant in 2010. This 125 kW MCFC ejector was designed on the basis of the experimental results of 5 kW and 75 kW MCFC ejectors. The main goal of ejector design in our MCFC system is to maintain the entrainment ratio and the pressure between fuel cell stack and catalytic burner within the operating range. In this paper, the design results of the ejector are presented based on the 125 kW MCFC system operating conditions. In addition, a designed ejector was manufactured and installed in the MCFC system. As the fuel cell is under load operation, the pressure surrounding the ejector was measured to ensure that the fuel cell system is operating smoothly.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of thermodynamic performance of ammonia-water Rankine cycles with and without regeneration and Kalina cycle for recovery of low-temperature heat source. Special attention is paid to the effect of system parameters such as ammonia mass fraction and turbine inlet pressure on the characteristics of the system. Results show that maximum net power can be obtained in the regenerative Rankine cycle for high turbine inlet pressures. However, Kalina cycle shows better net power and thermal efficiency for low turbine inlet pressures, and the optimum ammonia mass fractions of Kalina cycle are lower than Rankine cycles.

In this paper, the reliability of the numerical analysis using the two phase flow on the behavior of the hydrogen bubbles in the alkali electrolysis stacks was investigated by comparing the results obtained from numerical analysis and flow visualization experiments. As the results, through comparison with results gotten to visualization experiments, it is possible to approximate analysis for the flow of hydrogen bubbles in the stacks by numerical analysis using the two-phase flow. Also, the flow of hydrogen bubbles around the electrodes could be similarly analyzed by numerical analysis using the two-phase flow.

The present article discusses about the measurement techniques of acoustic impedance that becomes one of the important acoustic characteristics of various boundaries found inside of propulsion systems. Acoustic characteristics including acoustic impedance and reflection coefficient can be often assessed and estimated by use of the two-microphone method. Theoretical expressions of acoustic impedance and reflection coefficient measured in an impedance tube are presented for both cases with mean flow and without flow, and the practical application of the method through calibration is also provided. The acoustic impedance and the reflection coefficient are related with axial locations of microphones, thermodynamic characteristics of gas inside, and the transfer function between the pressure wave measurements at multiple locations.

After $MoS_2$ catalyst was prepared at 1, 30, and 70 atm, the hydrothermal pressure effect over preparation of $MoS_2$ was investigated in terms of catalyst characterization and direct methanation. Multifaceted characterization techniques such as XRD, BET, SEM, TPR, EDS, and XPS were used to analyze and investigate the effect of high pressure over the preparation of surface and bulk $MoS_2$ catalyst. Result from XRD, SEM, and BET demonstrated that $MoS_2$ was more dispersed as preparation pressure was increased, which resulted finer $MoS_2$ crystal size and higher surface area. EDS result confirmed that bulk composition was $MoS_2$ and XPS result showed that S/Mo mole ratio of surface was about 1.3. TPR showed that $MoS_2$ prepared at 30 atm possessed higher active surface sites than $MoS_2$ prepared at 1 atm and these sites could contribute to higher CO yield during methanation. Direct methanation was used to evaluate the CO conversion of the both catalysts prepared at 1 atm and 30 atm and reaction condition was at feed mole ratio of $H_2/CO=1$, GHSV=4800, 30 atm, temperature($^{\circ}C$) of 300, 350, 400, and 450. $MoS_2$ prepared at 30 atm showed more stable and higher CO conversion than $MoS_2$ prepared at 1 atm. Faster deactivation was occurred over $MoS_2$ prepared at 1 atm, which indicated that preparation pressure of $MoS_2$ catalyst was the dominant factor to improve the yield of direct methanation.

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) system receives great attention as a promising power device for automotive applications. For the wide commercialization, the efficiency and performance of automotive PEMFC system should be further improved in terms of total system (stack and balance of plant [BOP]). Air supply module, which is a major part of the BOP, greatly affects the efficiency of automotive PEMFC system. In this paper, a systematic study on the low-pressure automotive PEMFC system was made in an attempt to enhance the net system efficiency. This study mainly presents an investigation of the effect of blower configuration (1-blower and 2-blower) on the net system efficiency of automotive PEMFC system. For this purpose, the effect of operating pressure and cathode stoichiometry on the system efficiency was investigated with stack temperature under the fixed net system power condition. Results indicate that 1-blower system is better in system efficiency over 2-blower system under an air stoichiometry of 2. However, 2-blower system is better in system efficiency under an air stoichiometry of 3. The simulation results show that the optimum operating strategy needs to be established for various blower system configurations considering blower performance maps.

Carbon fiber/epoxy composites are typical brittle materials and have low impact properties. Recently, it is important to investigate impact characteristics of carbon fiber composites because of increasing use as automobile parts and high pressure hydrogen vessels of fuel cell electric vehicles for light weight. In this study, the low velocity impact properties of carbon fiber/epoxy composites fabricated by a filament winding method are studied. The low velocity impact properties were measured by performing tests according to ASTM D7136. The low velocity impact simulations were carried out using commercial structural analysis software, Abaqus. The absorbed energy and the delamination shapes were compared between the experimental and simulation results. The numerical analysis method showed that the absorbed energy decreased with the reduced number of cohesive elements in the composite models.

In the present study, unsteady flow analysis has been conducted to investigate the blade forces and wake flow around a hybrid street-lamp having a vertical-axis small wind turbine and a photovoltaic panel. Uniform velocities of 3, 5 and 7 m/s are applied as inlet boundary condition. Relatively large vortex shedding is formed at the wake region of the photovoltaic panel, which affects the increase of blade torque and wake flow downstream of the wind turbine. It is found that blade force has a good relation to the variation of the angle of attack with the rotation of turbine blades. Variations in the torque on the turbine blade over time create a cyclic fluctuation, which can be a source of turbine vibration and noise. Unsteady fluctuation of blade forces is also analyzed to understand the nature of the vibration of a small wind turbine over time. The detailed flow field inside the turbine blades is analyzed and discussed.

Performance evaluation of a regenerative pump has been compared with a conventional open channel impeller and a S-shaped continuous impeller designed newly. To analyze flow field for both pumps, analysis code, CFX, is employed. Unstructured grids are used to represent a composite geometryincluding blade, casing and ducts. Throughout the comparisons between numerical simulation and experiments, the predicted efficiency has a good agreement with the experimental one. It is noted that the pump having a S-shaped continuous impeller is about 4.8 percent more efficient than conventional one, which is due to the relatively large pressure increase. Detailed flow field inside the pump is also analyzed and compared.

Li-ion battery system is regarded as one of the most potent power sources for electrified power-trains. For the Li-ion battery system to be widely adopted in automotive applications, the performance, safety, and cycle life issues need to be properly addressed. These issues are closely related to the thermal management of battery system. Especially, the effective cooling module design is the core part for the novel battery thermal management system development. In this paper, an experimental approach was carried out as a basic part of comprehensive battery thermal management research. The main goal of this paper is to present a comparison of two cooling systems (air cooling and phase change material (PCM) based cooling) of the unit 18650 battery module. The temperature rise with different battery discharge rate (c-rate) was mainly investigated and analyzed for two types of battery cooling systems. It is expected that this study can properly contribute to providing basic insights into the design of robust battery thermal management system for vehicular applications.

This study was carried out to investigate the injection characteristics of 800 kPa compressed natural gas compressed natural gas (CNG) injector developed in Korea. The CNG injector with multi-holes, employed in this experiment, was designed to inject CNG in the manifold at high pressure of 800 kPa. The spray macroscopic visualization test was carried out via Schlieren photography to study fuel-air mixing process. The fundamental spray characteristics, such as spray penetration, spray cone angle and spray velocity, were evaluated in the constant volume combustion chamber (CVCC) with varying the constant back pressure in CVCC from 0 to 1.8 bar. For the safety reason, nitrogen ($N_2$) and an acetone tracer were utilized as a surrogate gas fuel instead of CNG. The surrogate gas fuel pressures were controlled at 3, 5.5, and 8 bar, respectively. Injection durations were set at 5 ms throughout the experiment. The simulating events of the low engine speed were arranged at 1,000 rpm. The spray images were recorded by using a high-speed camera with a frame rate of 10,000 f/s at $512{\times}256pixels$. The spray characteristics were analyzed by using the image processing (Matlab). The results showed the significant difference that higher injection pressure had more effect on the spray shape than the lower injection pressure. When the injection pressure was increased, the longer spray penetration occurred. Moreover, the linear relation between speed and time are dependent on the injection pressure as well.

Even though the nuclear power plants has many advantages, safety issues of nuclear power plants are crucial factors of reliable operation. A tritium detector is a useful sensor to analyze amount of exposed radiation from the nuclear power plants. Currently, concentration of underwater tritium is measured precisely but it takes very long time. Since electrolysis is extracted hydrogen from the coolant of nuclear power plant, it can motivate to develop new type of real-time sensor. In this study, Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolyzer is studied for candidate as preprocessor of real-time tritium detector. Characteristics of the unit PEM electrolyzer were experimentally investigated. A simulation model is developed to understand physical behavior of unit PEM electrolyzer under dynamic operation.