Solar energy is one of the more attractive renewable energy sources that can be used as an input energy source for heat engines. In fact, any heat energy sources can be used with the Stirling engine. Stirling engines are mechanical devices working theoretically on the Stirling cycle, or its modifications, in which compressible fluids, such as air, hydrogen, helium, nitrogen or even vapors, are used as working fluids. When comparing with the internal combustion engine, the Stirling engine offers possibility for having high efficiency engine with less exhaust emissions. However, this paper analyzes the basic background of Stirling engine and reviews its existing literature pertaining to dynamic model and control system for parabolic dish-stirling (PD) system.
Parabolic Dish (PD) Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) generation has appeared as one of Renewable Energy (RE) that is efficient and trustworthy. As technology moves into commercialization, it is necessary to study the performance of PD system at various locations. Current literature on PD especially for tropical environment such as Malaysia and locations with Direct Normal Irradiance (DNI) lower than 1500 kWh/m2/year is still scarce and scattered. Most of the studies are focusing on the performance at location with DNI higher than 2100 kWh/m2/year. Therefore, this paper presents the performance of PD in tropical environment of Malaysia and four other locations such as; Thailand, Korea, Australia and United States of America (USA). System Advisor Model (SAM) was used to analyze the performance of PD for the selection countries. The simulation result shows that the annual energy production for George Town in Malaysia is 21,845 kWh, and shows areas of high DNI have high power output such as Pheonix, USA 184,189kWh; Canberra, Australia 121,536 kWh; Bangkok, Thailand is 48,736 kWh and Inch’on, Korea 45,450 kWh.
Mobile applications which are also known as mobile apps is a software program which is developed for mobile devices such as smartphone and tablets. Recently, the development of mobile apps for the educational purpose has been expanding rapidly. It becomes as one of a powerful tool for transforming learning and for improving the quality of education, enhancing the student understanding, helping affirm as well as advance the relationships between educators and students. Among the incredible number of mobile apps, there are a large number of apps for educational purposes. However, there is still a lack of mobile apps which focus on enhancing student understanding in Practical Work (PW). PW is important and plays a central role in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). It is because PW can develop hand on skill and at the same time as a bridging between theory and practice. However, most of the student cannot do well in PW because; students are not interested to read lab sheets, lack on preparation as well as lack on the understanding in theory which is related to PW. Therefore, P_Lab is developed with aim for enhancing the student understanding in the PW. P_Lab is a mobile app that is developed from AppMakr.com which is a do-it-yourself platform and the process requires less coding knowledge. To study the effectiveness of the P_Lab, pre-test, post-test and a questionnaire has been given to the Electrical Engineering student in Politeknik Melaka. Results showed that students made extensive use of resources provided from P_Lab, considered the P-Lab to be beneficial for enhancing their understanding in practical work, and found that it is easy to use with minimal support and training. An analysis showed a statistically significant increase in understanding scores for practical work-related questions after the introduction of P_Lab mobile app.
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