The electrical sector in the Caribbean region of Colombia is currently facing problems that affect its reliability. Many thermo-electric plants are required to fill the gap and ensure energy supply. This paper thus proposes a hybrid renewable energy generation plant that could supply a percentage of the total energy demand and reduce the environmental impact of conventional energy generation. The hybrid plant works with a photovoltaic (PV) system and wind turbine systems, connected in parallel with the grid to supply a renewable fraction of the total energy demand. The investigation was conducted in three steps: the first stage determined locations where the energy system was able to take advantage of renewable sources, the second identified a location that could work more efficiently from an economic perspective, and finally, the third step estimated the number of PV solar panels and wind turbines required to guarantee optimal functioning for this location using, as a main method of calculation, the software HOMER pro^® for hybrid optimization with multiple energy resources. The proposed system is expected to not only limit environmental impacts but also decrease total costs of electric grid consumption from thermoelectric plants. The simulations helped identify Puerto Bolivar, Colombia, as the location where the hybrid plant made the best use of non-conventional resources of energy. However, Rancho Grande was found to offer the system more efficiency, while generating a considerable amount of energy at the lowest possible cost. An optimal combination was also obtained—441 PV arrays and 3 wind turbines, resulting in a net present cost (NPC) of $11.8 million and low CO₂ production of 244.1 tons per year.

The purpose of this study is to approve the usage of CFD tools in order to characterize the performance of centrifugal pumps performance for industrial appliances, through the application of a mathematical model able to predict accurately the efficiency behavior and other key parameters for a specific pump, which is an integral and low-cost solution in order to improve their design process. Based on the CFD OpenFOAM®, the study initially attempts to reproduce experimental measurements performed on a cast-iron, 3-bladed industrial pump through simulation. After this has been done, a Central Composite Design has been implemented in order to analyze the response of performance parameters (pump head, suction and discharge pressures, NPSH, efficiency, torque) as a function of a definite set of geometric and operational pump variables, besides some physical properties of the fluid flow. The obtained results have shown that although the pump has a high efficiency at design operation conditions, there is an unused window for its better usage, that can conduce to efficiency increments up to 20% when the operation is at its best point, which in turn represents a chance for a sustainable management of these machines at the industrial level. Copyright © 2019 Praise Worthy Prize - All rights reserved.

This paper presents a new educational package based on e-learning called TermolabUA integrated by three programs, which are VOLCONTROL focused on the analysis of steady-state flow devices, CarnotCycle aimed to analyze reversible and irreversible processes, and CombustionUA to study combustion processes. The educational package was designed for both, to promote significant learning on some thermodynamic topics in undergraduate students, and to help the student to reach the cognitive competencies of interpreting, arguing and proposing, and interacting with the different graphical user interfaces to solve relevant cases studies. Also, the teaching-learning activity helps them to understand the influence of a specific variable on the energy and entropy behavior of the selected systems, which is traditionally studied manually in a classroom. The results of the t-Student tests showed that the average grades obtained by the students in the problems using the software were higher than the average grade without using the software. The estimate for the average grade difference was 0.56 with a P-value = 3.31E-13 for Problem 1 and 0.631 with a P-value = 3.31E-13 for Problem 2 in the Workshop- VOLCONTROL. Similar results were obtained for the problems reported in the CarnotCycle and CombustionUA Workshop with an estimate for average grade differences and P-values lower than 0.79 and 0.05, respectively. It means that the new software package significantly improved the learning skills of the students.