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The purpose of this paper is to describe the first and novel beam splitting day-lighting system possessing highest possible solar transmission efficiency to provide illumination to the core and underground areas of any structure/building.

In this system, by using a number of individually pointable thin and light optical elements mounted on a top of structure/building, the solar light is concentrated. The concentrated beam is focussed to a secondary reflecting element which directs it to a beam splitter while passing through a Fresnel lens and a horizontal solar pipe. The beam splitter located inside the structure/building splits the solar beam into a number of secondary beams using a special arrangement of a number of inbuilt light guiding optical elements inside the beam splitter. The beam splitter produces a desired number of beams which are then redirected to the beam diffusers with the help of the solar pipe and the solar pipe joint which deflects the light at the angle of 90°.

The system considers the use of highly sophisticated and the highly efficient optical elements so that to attain the highest possible end-to-end efficiency of the system. The system has the highest potential to transport the solar energy to larger distances than all the available day-lighting systems and possesses the potential to be used for underground human colonisation.

The widespread adoption of such a system could substantially reduce energy consumption worldwide, which would contribute to bring down the increasing slope in the graph of greenhouse gases.

The paper presents the novel beam splitting day-lighting system.

This paper scrutinizes exergy loss and hydrothermal analysis of Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) unit by means of FLUENT. Several mirrors were used to guide the solar radiation inside the receiver, which has parabolic shape. Radiation model was used to simulate radiation mode.

Heat losses from receiver should be minimized to reach the optimized design. Outputs were summarized as contours of incident radiation, isotherm and streamline. Outputs were classified in terms of contours and plots to depict the influence of temperature of hot wall, wind velocity and configurations on performance of Linear Fresnel Reflector (LFR) based on thermal and exergy treatment. Four arrangements for LFR units are considered and all of them have same height.

Greatest Nu and E_x can be obtained for case D due to the highest heat loss from hot wall. Share of radiative heat flux relative to total heat flux is about 94% for case D. In case D when T_r = 0.388, As h_ext rises from 5 to 20, Nu_total enhances about 11.42% when T_r = 0.388. By selecting case D instead of case A, E_x rises about 16.14% for lowest T_r. Nu_total and E_x of case D augment by 3.65 and 6.23 times with rise of T_r when h_ext = 5. To evaluate the thermal performance (η_th) of system, absorber pipe was inserted below the parabolic reflector and 12 mirrors were used above the ground. The outputs revealed that η_th decreases about 14.31% and 2.54% with augment of T_in and Q if other factors are minimum.

This paper scrutinizes exergy loss and hydrothermal analysis of LFR unit by means of finite volume method. Several mirror used to guide the solar radiation inside the receiver, which has parabolic shape. DO model was used to simulate radiation mode. Heat losses from receiver should be minimized to reach the optimized design. Outputs were summarized as contours of incident radiation, isotherm and streamline.

Energy security is a major concern for India and many rural areas remain un-electrified. Thus, innovations in sustainable technologies to provide energy services are required. Biomass and solar energy in particular are resources that are widely available and underutilised in India. This paper aims to provide an overview of a methodology that was developed for designing and assessing the feasibility of a hybrid solar-biomass power plant in Gujarat.

The methodology described is a combination of engineering and business management studies used to evaluate and design solar thermal collectors for specific applications and locations. For the scenario of a hybrid plant, the methodology involved: the analytical hierarchy process, for solar thermal technology selection; a cost-exergy approach, for design optimisation; quality function deployment, for designing and evaluating a novel collector – termed the elevation linear Fresnel reflector (ELFR); and case study simulations, for analysing alternative hybrid plant configurations.

The paper recommended that for a hybrid plant in Gujarat, a linear Fresnel reflector of 14,000 m2 aperture is integrated with a 3 tonne per hour biomass boiler, generating 815 MWh per annum of electricity for nearby villages and 12,450 tonnes of ice per annum for local fisheries and food industries. However, at the expense of a 0.3 ¢/kWh increase in levelised energy costs, the ELFR can increase savings of biomass (100 t/a) and land (9 ha/a).

The research reviewed in this paper is primarily theoretical and further work will need to be undertaken to specify plant details such as piping layout, pump sizing and structure, and assess plant performance during real operational conditions.

The paper considers the methodology adopted proved to be a powerful tool for integrating technology selection, optimisation, design and evaluation and promotes interdisciplinary methods for improving sustainable engineering design and energy management.

This paper aims to examine the uniform diffracted fields from a perfectly magnetic conductive (PMC) surface with the extended theory of boundary diffraction wave (BDW) approach.

Miyamoto and Wolf’s symbolic expression of the vector potential was used in the extended theory of BDW integral. This vector potential is applied to the problem, and the nonuniform field expression found was made uniform. Here, the expression is made uniform, using the detour parameter with the help of the asymptotic correlation of the Fresnel function. The BDW theory for the PMC surface extended the diffracted fields, and the uniform diffracted fields were calculated.

The field expressions obtained were interpreted with the graphs numerically for different aperture radii and observation distances. It has been shown that the BDW is continuous behind the diffracting aperture. There does not exist any discontinuity at the geometrically light-to-shadow transition boundary, as is required by the theory.

The results were graphically compared with diffracted fields for other surfaces. As far as we know, the uniform diffracted fields from the circular aperture on a PMC surface were calculated for the first time with the extended theory of the BDW approach.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on exploring an innovative combination of cutting‐edge technologies to be implemented within automated processes for composite parts manufacturing. The objective is the design of a production route for components with tailored fibre orientation and ply lay‐up, with improved damage tolerance thanks to through‐the‐thickness reinforcement and integrated health monitoring systems based on optical fibres technology. This study is part of the FP7 project ADVITAC.

The proposed technologies are described in detail and their compatibility and potential for integration are discussed.A set up for on‐line monitoring of infusion and curing processes of carbon/epoxy laminates preformed by dry fibre placement technology is proposed, and a preliminary study of their mechanical performance is presented. The possibility of reinforcing through‐the‐thickness preforms manufactured with dry slit tapes automatically laid‐up and consolidated by laser heating is investigated.

Improved knowledge was obtained of interaction/compatibility between the discussed technologies and scope for application.

The paper reports the technical potential and practical feasibility of the proposed integrated production process. Limited quantitative evaluations on the materials performance are provided. The analysis of the technologies involved represents the early outcome of the ongoing ADVITAC project.

This study contributes to the identification of a new generation of composite architecture which allows production cost and weight savings while retaining the level of quality suitable for demanding structural applications, with particular relevance to the aerospace field.

This paper investigates for the first time the practical possibility of designing a single automated process involving dry fibre placement, tufting and optical fibre sensor monitoring for the production of complex composite components.

The purpose of this paper is to present a complete analysis of leaky modes within a microstructured optical fibre (MOF). Some new numerical results illustrating the versatility and accuracy of our approach are to be given.

A method involving both finite elements and perfectly matched layer (PML) is proposed.

A rigorous definition of the leaky modes is proposed that leads to a proof of the validity of the PML approach together with a rule for the choice of the PML parameters.

The choice of parameters associated with the PML are discussed in great detail. The accuracy of the constant of propagation (and especially the imaginary part) are highlighted.

Imaging is a really difficult problem when systems are implemented in the near‐field region and real‐time needs. The purpose of this paper is to consider a novel system model and present a narrowband 2‐D imaging algorithm in the near‐field region and under the real time constraint.

The first part of this paper proposes a novel approximation for the round‐trip distance of the near‐field echoed data based on a 2‐D synthetic aperture planar array. The second part of this work proposes a near‐field narrow imaging algorithm based on the above system model. Narrowband waveforms are employed in the array system, so that the range alignment and decoupling in range‐azimuth are not necessary.

The errors of the proposed approximation are much smaller as compared with those of the Fresnel approximation. For example, the errors of the proposed approximation are negligible when the antenna is fixed at (0, 0). In other cases, the errors are decreased by almost 50 percent. Compared with 2‐D plane array, the synthetic aperture plane of the paper reduces the number of antennas. Finally, numerical simulation results verify the validity of the imaging algorithm.

The near‐field difficulty is solved by the adoption of the proposed approximation. The theoretical analysis and simulation results verify the validity of the imaging algorithm in the near‐field region and under the real time constraint.

In this paper, we study a new class of optical fibers to be utilized in future optics and optoelectronics. These so‐called photonic band gap (PBG) waveguides can be classified into a fundamentally different way to all optical waveguides and possess radically different guiding properties due to PBG guidance, as opposed to guidance by total internal reflection.

This paper aims to review various techniques used in computational electromagnetism such as the treatment of open problems, helicoidal geometries and the design of arbitrarily shaped invisibility cloaks. This seemingly heterogeneous list is unified by the concept of geometrical transformation that leads to equivalent materials. The practical set‐up is conveniently effected via the finite element method.

The change of coordinates is completely encapsulated in the material properties.

The most significant examples are the simple 2D treatment of helicoidal geometries and the design of arbitrarily shaped invisibility cloaks.

The paper provides a unifying point of view, bridging several techniques in electromagnetism.

This paper concerns the study of non‐linear effects in optical fibres with a core made of a Kerr type medium. The aim is to propose an algorithm to find spatial solitons, i.e. solutions with a harmonic behaviour in time and along the fibre but with a field distribution in the cross‐section corresponding to a self‐trapped propagation of the electromagnetic field.

The field is supposed to be harmonic in time and along the direction of invariance of the fibre but inhomogeneous in the cross‐section. This modifies the refractive index profile of the fibre (a step‐index one in this study). A scalar model of the fibre, together with the finite element method (that is well suited to deal with inhomogeneous media), is used and a new iterative algorithm is proposed to obtain the non‐linear solutions. An adaptive meshing is necessary to guarantee the accuracy of the model.

The new algorithm converges to self‐coherent solutions that are different from those obtained via a fixed power algorithm. The equivalents both of a fundamental mode and of a second order mode are studied.

The approach acknowledges the findings of the previously known spatial solitons (with a slight modification of the algorithm) together with a new family of solutions. It opens a new field of investigation to understand this whole family of non‐linear solutions as it shows that only a small part of them was known up to now.