Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology recently gained interest based on its expected low levelized cost of electricity, high efficiency, and scalability. Many CPV systems employ Fresnel lenses composed of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) to obtain a high optical flux density on the cell. The optical and mechanical durability of these lenses, however, is not well established relative to the desired surface life of 30 years. Our research aims to quantify the expected lifetime of PMMA in key market locations (FL, AZ, and CO).

This presentation is an update on the Gearbox Reliability Collaborative (GRC) for the AWEA Wind Project Operations, Maintenance & Reliability Seminar. GRC accomplishments are: (1) Failure database software deployed - partners see business value for themselves and customers; (2) Designed, built, instrumented, and tested two gearboxes - (a) Generated unprecedented public domain test data from both field testing and dynamometer testing, (b) Different responses from 'identical' gearboxes, (c) Demonstrated importance of non-torque loading and modeling approach; and (3) Active collaborative, with wide industry support, leveraging DOE funding - Modeling round robin and Condition Monitoring round robin.

Presentation containing photographs of historic markers in Grayson County, Texas, organized alphabetically by city name. Each site slide includes the name, a photograph of the marker, and (when relevant) a photograph of the building or area described by the marker.

This presentation describes a National Renewable Energy Laboratory project to collect and analyze commercial fleet deployment data from medium-duty plug-in hybrid electric and all-electric vehicles that were deployed using funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. This work supports the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Program and its Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity.

This presentation discusses the American Library Association's (ALA's) National Gaming Day @ your library, a fairly new event created to promote the "educational, recreational, and social value of all types of games". The University of North Texas (UNT) Library has participated for two years and has organized their event to offer fun along with a focus on research and development opportunities available for people interested in all aspects of gaming. In this presentation, the authors detail the planning and organization of National Gaming Day at an academic library.

This presentation is part of a Doctoral Student Special Interest Group (SIG) panel discussion group from the 2012 Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE). Doctoral students discuss various ways to keep up with changes in information science and technology through developing professional learning communities.

Presentation for the 2012 International Internet Preservation Consortium General Assembly. This presentation provides an overview and update on the Twittervane project.

This presentation discusses cataloging tasks, including Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR), Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD), Functional Requirements for Subject Authority Data (FRSAD), and concepts related to the tasks and decisions involved in cataloging.

This presentation is part of a panel discussion titled "Academic Libraries as Partners in Research." This presentation discusses libraries, research, and collaboration, with examples and strategies from the point-of-view of a Library and Information Science (LIS) educator and researcher.

This presentation is part of a panel discussion titled Academic Libraries as Partners in Research. This presentation discusses how digital libraries can support faculty scholarly activity, with examples and strategies from the UNT Digital Library collections.

This presentation discusses the Building America Program. This presentation discusses the background and goals of the program. A few hot topic technologies are discussed. Outreach activities are discussed as well.

This presentation describes the current status of the DOE's Energy Storage R and D program, including modeling and design tools and the Computer-Aided Engineering for Automotive Batteries (CAEBAT) program.

This presentation discusses Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (FRBR)/ Functional Requirements for Authority Data (FRAD) Intentions and Resource Description and Access (RDA). This presentation includes information on the background and intent of FRBR, FRAD, and RDA, user tasks, and current issues.

Description and history of the IEC 61215 qualification test, what it accomplishes, and what it does not accomplish that would be useful to the community. The commercial success of PV is based on long term reliability of the PV modules. Today's modules are typically qualified/certified to: (1) IEC 61215 for Crystalline Silicon Modules; (2) IEC 61646 for Thin Film Modules; and (3) IEC 62108 for CPV Modules. These qualification tests do an excellent job of identifying design, materials and process flaws that could lead to premature field failures. This talk will provide a summary of how IEC 61215 was developed, how well it works and what its limitations are.

This presentation covers modeling metal fatigue as a key step in photovoltaic (PV) module lifetime predictions. Described are time-dependent and time-independent case studies.

Description of how to make PV modules so that they are less likely to turn into safety hazards. Making modules inherently safer with minimum additional cost is the preferred approach for PV. Safety starts with module design to ensure redundancy within the electrical circuitry to minimize open circuits and proper mounting instructions to prevent installation related ground faults. Module manufacturers must control the raw materials and processes to ensure that that every module is built like those qualified through the safety tests. This is the reason behind the QA task force effort to develop a 'Guideline for PV Module Manufacturing QA'. Periodic accelerated stress testing of production products is critical to validate the safety of the product. Combining safer PV modules with better systems designs is the ultimate goal. This should be especially true for PV arrays on buildings. Use of lower voltage dc circuits - AC modules, DC-DC converters. Use of arc detectors and interrupters to detect arcs and open the circuits to extinguish the arcs.

This presentation discusses U.S. DOE Learning Demonstration Project goals, fuel cell vehicle and H2 station deployment status, and technical highlights of vehicle and infrastructure analysis results and progress.

This is the presentation for the closing remarks at the Texas Electronic Theses and Dissertations (TxETD) Annual Conference. It discusses how ETDs and open access will revolutionize the academy.

Engineering robust adhesion of the junction-box (j-box) is a hurdle typically encountered by photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturers during product development. Furthermore, there are historical incidences of adverse effects (e.g., fires) caused when the j-box/adhesive/module system has failed in the field. The addition of a weight to the j-box during the 'damp heat' IEC qualification test is proposed to verify the basic robustness of the j-box adhesion system. The details of the proposed test are described, in addition to the preliminary results conducted using representative materials and components.

This presentation discusses electronic theses and dissertations at the University of North Texas (UNT). UNT began mandatory ETDs for both theses and dissertations in fall 1999, making it the 3rd institution in the world to go "electronic" in this way. There have been challenges along the way, but from the very beginning there has been a close and cordial relationship between the Grad School and the Libraries which serves to "book end" the student's ETD experience in a meaningful and productive way. During this session, UNT's ETD process from start to finish will be explained, especially the ways in which the Grad School and the Libraries work together to enhance the lifecycle management of students' research output at UNT.

Recently there has been an interest in the use of thermoplastic encapsulant materials in photovoltaic modules to replace chemically crosslinked materials, e.g., ethylene-vinyl acetate. The related motivations include the desire to: reduce lamination time or temperature; use less moisture-permeable materials; or use materials with better corrosion characteristics. However, the use of any thermoplastic material in a high-temperature environment raises safety and performance concerns, as the standardized tests currently do not expose the modules to temperatures in excess of 85C, yet modules may experience temperatures above 100C in operation. Here we constructed eight pairs of crystalline-silicon modules and eight pairs of glass/encapsulation/glass mock modules using different encapsulation materials of which only two were designed to chemically crosslink. One module set was exposed outdoors with insulation on the back side in Arizona in the summer, and an identical set was exposed in environmental chambers. High precision creep measurements and performance measurements indicate that despite many of these polymeric materials being in the melt state at some of the highest outdoor temperatures achievable, very little creep was seen because of their high viscosity, temperature heterogeneity across the modules, and in the case of the crystalline-silicon modules, the physical restraint of the backsheet. These …

Presentation with opening remarks for the 2012 Texas Electronic Theses and Dissertations (TxETD) Annual Conference.

This presentation discusses mining online newspaper archives. The topics in this presentation include the types of information found in these newspapers, the technology and standards for digitizing newspapers and offering effective search and navigation, ways to search, view, and browse the newspapers and how to use the search results.

This presentation is part of the faculty lecture series UNT Speaks Out on Gas Well Drilling Redux. This presentation discusses the 'not in my back yard' (NIMBY) attitude - opposition by residents to a proposal for new development that is close to their homes - and focus on whether is it principled or hypocritical to simultaneously oppose the development while benefiting economically from it.