Lista de Projetos

The objective of this paper is to evaluate from the output surface the damage of the catalytic tubes of the columns of the reformer furnaces in order to predict its remaining life. Catalytic tubes are the most critical components in reformer furnaces. Reformer furnaces are widely used in the petrochemical industry to produce hydrogen from hydrocarbons. It is in the radiant tubes containing a catalyst that the hydrogen production takes place, as a result of endothermic reactions between hydrocarbons (mostly methane) and water vapor. These reactions proceed at a temperature range between 800 and 900 deg C and the working pressure in a reformer furnace is between 2 and 5 MPa. These are severe working conditions that cause structural damage in the tubes. It is necessary to develop methods for the inspection of tube degradation and for a realistic prediction of its residual life.Some analytical methods have been developed to estimate reformer columns service life or the time to failure, as the assessment of damage and advance planning of column replacement should be made to ensure that failures or unplanned shutdowns are avoided. However, direct methods to evaluate the probable extent of damage and remaining life in a particular furnace are always much more preferable. Nowadays, direct tests are performed destructively by examining metallographically the microstrutural changes and creep damage on a series of ring samples cut along the length of single tube removed from the reformer furnace. The objective of this project is to project and implement an in-situ measurement system to inspect through a nondestructive testing (NDT) technique, based on eddy currents, reformer tubes damages to infer about its remaining life. The eddy current method is based on the excitation of the material with a time variable magnetic field. In this way, the electromotive force developed inside the material will give rise to electric eddy currents. These currents are related to the conductivit...

O projeto tem por objetivo contribuir de uma forma inovadora para o conhecimento das práticas de visualidade e mobilidade que se desenvolveram em contextos simultaneamente cinematográficos e turísticos, no Portugal do século 20. Tendo como fonte primária principal o Arquivo Nacional da Imagem em Movimento (ANIM), da Cinemateca Portuguesa - Museu do Cinema, o enfoque da pesquisa é o "filme turístico", i.e. os filmes que visam, de uma forma mais ou menos direta, promover uma região ou localidade como destino de viagem ou, de um modo mais genérico, promover a prática da viagem. O corpus a explorar agrega filmes produzidos em Portugal entre a Primeira República e o final do Estado Novo (1910-1974), incidindo sobre formatos pouco estudados, como as curtas e médias metragens e a não ficção. O projeto intervirá teoricamente, e de uma forma inovadora e verdadeiramente interdisciplinar, nas seguintes áreas e problemáticas. (1) Estudos de turismo: distanciando-se do conceito de "tourist gaze" (Urry 1990), dado o cariz abstrato e a-histórico que o caracteriza, a fim de propor um conceito de olhar turístico alternativo, i.e. um conceito materialista, histórico e dinâmico deduzível a partir das articulações específicas que se estabelecem em torno da imagem em movimento e que se relacionam quer com o campo artístico e cinematográfico quer com as práticas de lazer e mobilidade. (2) História do cinema: revisão da historiografia do cinema português, tradicionalmente centrada na ficção, com vista a recuperar formatos e géneros subestimados ou ignorados, entre os quais se encontram os filmes turísticos. Esta revisão acompanha o interesse crescente em fontes históricas marginais, bem como os recentes avanços na organização e no acesso aos arquivos. (3) Estudos fílmicos e de fontes históricas marginais, bem como os recentes avanços na organização e no acesso aos arquivos. (3) Estudos fílmicos e de género: reconceptualização do filme turístico a partir dos visionamentos de vários filmes,...

Main Objective: The primary contribution of the project will be twofold: (i) we will demonstrate a number of collective behaviors on a system of aquatic drones to show that systems of such drones have the potential to take on important maritime tasks, and (ii) we will explore the application of our novel hybrid approach to the synthesis of self-organized controllers for multirobot systems.

Broadband wireless systems require high power and spectral efficiencies, and transmission over severely time-dispersive channels. Developing on the concept of Linear Amplification with Non- Linear Components (LINC), the main technical objective of the project is to design, implement and validate a new set of digital transmission techniques with high power and spectral efficiency for future wireless broadband systems to be employed in the uplink of mobile systems or in satellite communications. Our main goal is to design signals with low Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) or even quasi-constant envelope and high spectral efficiency, employing amplification techniques based on low- cost, highly efficient grossly NonLinear (NL) amplifiers (e.g., class D and E amplifiers), which are simpler and have higher amplification and output power then quasi-linear amplifiers. Since a grossly NL amplifier is only suitable for signals with quasi-constant envelope, we will develop new signal designs and/or transmission techniques compatible with grossly NL amplifiers.This research project combines theoretical development (including signal and receiver design), CMOS implementation of key components (with emphasis on matched amplifiers and output power combination with minimum losses) and FPGA-based implementation for an overall system’s proof of concept, for the most promising techniques.