Predoctoral Felowship Programme 2014

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Mart-Franqus Research Felloship Programme. Doctoral grants - 2014

The objective of this programme is to complete a doctoral thesis at the Rovira i Virgili

University.

Background

The Rovira i Virgili University (URV) is an institution dedicated to providing the public service

of higher education and research by means of teaching, research and university extension

Activities.

To meet this commitment in the field of research, the URV needs to train research staff bymeans of doctoral programmes and theses.

To reach its objectives, the URV wants to incentivize the training

of future doctoral students by means of a grants programme that enables the URV to:

- Qualitatively and quantitatively increase the human and economic resources available

to the URV for predoctoral training, research and teaching.

- Strengthen the university's own doctoral programmes.- Increase the number of doctoral theses carried out in its departments.

- Complement the training of doctoral students within the frame of R+D+I projects

carried out by URV research groups.

Conditions of the public competition for the contracting of traineepredoctoral research staff
http://www.urv.cat/en_index.html


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Characteristics of the contracts:

Trainee predoctoral researchers will have full-time research and teaching duties. Their

principle obligation will be to complete a doctoral thesis at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili

University within one of its official doctoral programmes.

However, the corresponding Departmental Council may assign the trainee predoctoral

researchers to collaborate in providing teaching assistance for up to 60 hours a year.

These collaborations will be recorded in the individual's Academic Organization Plan

(POA) and will provide the individual's department with a substantial amount of teaching

support.

Calendar

17/06/2014 End of period for application

27/06/2014 Provisional list of candidates admitted and excluded07/07/2014 End of period of resolution of errors

11/07/2014 Final list of candidates admitted and excluded

The resolution period begins on 14nd july 2014 and will be opened until 30th September 2014


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Requisites:

Possess an official Spanish undergraduate degree, or equivalent, and masters degree.

Students who meet the any of the following requirements may also access:

Possess an official Spanish university qualification or a qualification from another member

country of the European Area of Higher Education that enables the holder to access the

master's course in accordance with article 16 of Royal Decree 1393/2007, of 29 October,

and have passed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits during the course of their official

university studies, of which at least 60 must be master's degree credits.

Students who possess an official Spanish undergraduate degree which, in accordance with

European Union law, is worth at least 300 ECTS credits. These students must complete the

research bridging courses, unless their undergraduate degree's study plan includes

research training credits that are equivalent in value to the master's degree credits.

Students who possess a foreign qualification that does not require homologation, providing

that the URV can verify that this qualification is equivalent to an official Spanish universitymaster's degree and that it allows the holder to access a doctoral programme in the issuing

country.

Students who are registered an official university master's degree at the URV that allows

the holder to access the doctoral programme in the 2013-2014 academic year.


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Duration

Contracts will have an initial duration of one year and may twice be extended for another

year up to a total period of three years provided that the thesis supervisor has submitted a

favourable report and in accordance with the academic committee of the doctoralprogramme.

Amount

The money provided by the predoctoral contracts will be used to pay:

Gross monthly payment: the gross monthly payment of the contracts during the first year(2014) is 1.139,32per month.

Corresponding fees for the thesis supervision.

Presentation of applications

Individuals who wish to participate in this competition and who meet the requirements to

do so must present the corresponding application form in accordance with the model

found on the website of the URV.

Application forms must be presented to the auxiliary registry at the Central Services,

building N5 of the URV (C/ Marcell Domingo, 2-4-6, post code 43007, Tarragona

(Spain))


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Documentation to be provided by the candidates:

Individuals who meet the necessary requirements to apply for one of these contracts must

present the following documentation:

- Application form completed in accordance with the electronic instructions and addressedto the Rector of the URV

- Photocopy of identity card, resident's card or passport

- Curriculum Vitae accompanied by supporting documentation

- Photocopy of the certificate of the official academic qualification or proof of payment of thefees for the issuance of the certificate that allows the holder to access the doctoral studies.

Students who are registered on an official university master's course at the URV that allows

them to access the doctoral programme during the 2013/2014 academic year must present

a photocopy of their master's course registration form.

- Photocopy of academic transcript of the undergraduate degree and, in the case of thosecandidates who have completed the master's degree, also the corresponding transcript.

- Other merits

For more information, please visit the web page:

http://www.urv.cat/recerca_innovacio/programes/urv/programa_marti_franques/2014/PIPF/en_index.html


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List of predoctoral contracts offered by CREVER-URV

Reference or code of place:2014PMF-PIPF-65

Area of knowledge:Thermal engineering

Type:URV-FCLP contracts / Supervisor: Dr. Joan Carles Bruno

Title

Dynamic performance of absorption chillers for their integration with renewable energy

sources and energy storage systems

Background

The absorption chiller time-dependent response to events such as ambient conditions

changes, set point modifications, available power variations, startup and shutdown,

periodic onoff operation is very important for the integration of the chiller with variable

renewable energy sources and different types of thermal energy storage. This behavior

can only be studied by means of transient simulations. Whereas steady-state simulationsare relatively straightforward and widely used, dynamic modelling is more complex and

still remains a research topic.

Most of the existing attempts to develop dynamic absorption chiller models have resulted

in the creation of detailed models of specific chillers that are of limited application for other

chillers. An alternative approach is to develop a model capable of being easily customized

through calibration with data obtained with different units

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Objectives

The objective of this PhD project is to develop dynamic models for absorption chillers using

modular components and calibrated with experimental data using parameter estimation

techniques. The final goal is to integrate this time dependent models with solar energy

systems that are mainly characterized by its intermittency and with thermal energy storage

systems where the time for charging and discharging the storage media is a very critical

issue.

Methodology and working plan

1) Review of dynamic models commonly used in the literature and assessment of modellingtools. Selection of the best dynamic modelling approach according to this review.

2) Development of the dynamic model using a selected appropiate tool, for example Aspen

Plus, Matlab/Simulink, etc.

3) Running of two absorption chillers in a test bench to obtain operational data to calibrate

and validate the dynamic model using parameter estimation methods.

4) Application of the dynamic model in a real application such as in a solar trigeneration

system with thermal storage.

5) Dissemination of results and conclusions.

Reference of place:2014PMF-PIPF-65


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Area of knowledge:Thermal engineering

Type: URV-FCLPcontracts / Supervisor: Dr. Alberto Coronas

Title

Development of an absorption/thermochemical system for solar cooling and heat storage

Background

An integrated approach which covers cold production and heat storage together and uses

non-fossil or at least low-carbon energy input can be a good solution for reducing the

environmental impact especially of buildings by maximizing the use of renewable energies .

To this end, new systems need to be developed and be able to:

work with low temperature heat sources. This widens the development of low grade heat

technologies, such as waste heat recovery or solar thermal energy or geothermal energy,which represent a huge amount of low-carbon thermal sources.

store thermal energy. This increases the flexibility of the production of energy. This flexibility

will support the deployment of intermittent renewable energies but it also allows reducing

the use of high-carbon energies to manage peak demands.

produce energy for demands that usually lead to high GHG emissions, namely cold , and

especially in the case of peak demand.

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Objective

The objective of this project is the coupling of different thermodynamic cycles in order tocombine their advantages in hybrid systems that will lead to innovative functionalities and a

significant increase in flexibility, efficiency, and compactness.

The cycles to combine and their main advantages are:

Thermochemical cycles (based on solid/gas reaction): most efficient thermal energy

storage with high energy density, working at various temperatures,

Absorption cycles: most efficient heat actuated cold production or heat pumping

Methodology and working plan

1) Review of thermochemical and absorption refrigeration cycles and working mixtures

working at low heat source temperatures.

2) Selection of the working pairs and modeling of the thermodynamic properties .

3) Simulation of the hybrid absorption /thermochemical system

4) Experimental study of the thermochemical process

5) Application for solar cooling system

6) Dissemination of results and conclusions.

Reference of place:2014PMF-PIPF-66


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Area of knowledge:Analytical Chemistry

Type: URV-FCLP contracts / Supervisor: Dr. M. Soledad Larrechi

Title

Study of thermophysical properties of ionic liquid mixtures as new working fluids for high

performance absorption heat pumps using Experimental Design Techniques.

BackgroundThe use of Ionic Liquids as fluids for refrigeration cycles is incident in the implementation of

clean technologies. The ionic liquids (IL) have remarkable properties, such as thermal

stability, broad range of liquid temperatures and negligible vapor pressure that confer

significant potential as refrigerant absorbents in absorption refrigeration cycles. They are

considered design solvents" because depending on the application, the ionic liquid can be

designed for performance.Processes, as the refrigeration cycles based on absorption heat pumps, involving ionic

liquids have to be designed and evaluated before implant. Crucial to the implementation of

ILs on a larger scale is the knowledge of their physical properties. Because the experimental

way to determine this properties is a large resource and time consuming task, the

implementation of the experimental design techniques is interesting for obtain optimal

information about their possibilities.

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Objectives and Methodology

In this PhD project, strategies based on experimental design will be developed in order toachieve the following objectives:

1. Determine the relevant factors that affect to the viscosity, density, heat capacity , of the

pure IL and binary mixtures of IL + NH3; IL+CO2; Il+H2O

2. Modeling the properties in function of the factors: Pressure, Temperature, and

composition

3. Application of methodologies of multi criteria optimization to select the optimal fluid.

4. Incorporate mixture designs, to modeling the properties of ternary mixtures.

The experimental design methods used are: factorial and fractional designs; simplexdesign, and optimization methods including mullticriteria decision.

The results will lead to the publication of several papers in scientific journal with recognized

impact factor, their communication in congress scientific and will contribute to the

implementation of clean technology in the considered research field.

Predoctoral Felowship Programme 2014

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