High level of noise is a disturbance to the human environment. Noise in industries is also an occupational hazard because of its attendant effects on workers’ health. Noise presents health and social problems in industrial operations, and the source is related to the machineries used in the industries. One of the unique features of the noise associated with wood machinery is the level of exposure and duration. Equipment used in a factory can be extremely loud. They can produce noise at decibels high enough to cause environmental health and safety concerns. The mechanically driven transport and handling equipment, cutting, milling, shaping and dust extractor installations in the wood industry generate noise. The sources of noise pollution have increased due to non-compliance with basic safety practices. The increased use of locally fabricated machine in the industry has increased the level of noise and vibration. The effects of industrial noise pollution as discussed include: increase in blood pressure; increased stress; fatigue; vertigo; headaches; sleep disturbance; annoyance; speech problems; dysgraphia, which means reading/learning impairment; aggression; anxiety and withdrawal. As presented in this paper, noise control techniques include; sound insulation, sound absorption, vibration damping and Vibration isolation.

The objective of this paper is to research the impact of electrical and physical parameters that characterize the complementary MOSFET transistors (NMOS and PMOS transistors) in the CMOS inverter for static mode of operation. In addition to this, the paper also aims at exploring the directives that are to be followed during the design phase of the CMOS inverters that enable designers to design the CMOS inverters with the best possible performance, depending on operation conditions. The CMOS inverter designed with the best possible features also enables the designing of the CMOS logic circuits with the best possible performance, according to the operation conditions and designers’ requirements.

The thermal degradation behaviour of 10:90 and 90:10 blends of Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and petroleum coke has been investigated using mechanical alloying (milling) at 300 rpm and for periods up to 1-10 hours. Milled specimens were characterised using SEM and x-ray diffraction; their thermal degradation behaviour was investigated using thermo-gravimetric analyser (TGA) for temperatures up to 1200°C. Whereas PET specimens showed a tendency towards flattening out and increased surface area during collisions in ball mills, petroleum coke particles tended to break down into smaller particles. 10:90 and 90:10 blends of PET and coke showed significant microstructural evolution with increasing speeds and time including fracture, strain hardening and re-welding. X-ray diffraction results showed clear evidence for increasing amorphous component in petroleum coke without much influence on PET crystallinity. Thermo-gravimetric results showed a significant increase in the overall degradation and much higher weight losses associated with mechanical alloying. This study has shown that mechanical alloying could be used to modify the degradation behaviour of coke/plastic blends and corresponding yield during pyrolysis with implications for plastic waste management.

Precast concrete sandwich panels (PCSP) are energy efficient building system that is achieved through an insulation layer created between the concrete wythes. The insulation layer is usually of low bearing strength material making it more applicable for non-structural building systems. Hence, shear connectors are introduced to improve its structural capacity, which subsequently degrades it thermal performance by serving as thermal bridges across the panel. This article review researches of alternative materials and methods used to improve the thermal efficiency as well as reduced the strength loss due to insulation in PCSP. The alternative materials are basalt fibre reinforced polymer (BFRP), carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP), glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP), and foam concrete which are selected due to their low thermal conductivity for use in shear connection. While thermal path method has been used to prevent the effect of thermal bridges. Although, some of these materials have successfully achieved the desirable behaviours, however, several undesirable properties such as brittleness, bond slip, the sudden crushing of the panel system, and FRP failure below its ultimate strength were observed. Hence, the practicality of the alternative materials is still questionable despite its higher cost compared to the conventional steel and concrete used in the PCSP system.

In this paper, at first, a color image of a car is taken. Then the image is transformed into a grayscale image. After that, the motion blurring effect is applied to that image according to the image degradation model described in equation 3. The blurring effect can be controlled by a and b components of the model. Then random noise is added in the image via Matlab programming. Many methods can restore the noisy and motion blurred image; particularly in this paper Inverse filtering as well as Wiener filtering are implemented for the restoration purpose. Consequently, both motion blurred and noisy motion blurred images are restored via Inverse filtering as well as Wiener filtering techniques and the comparison is made among them.

In the last decade, the drone market has grown rapidly for both civil and military purposes. Due to their versatility, drones demand is constantly increasing, with several industrial players joining the venture to transfer urban mobility to the air. This has exacerbated the problem of noise pollution, mainly due to the relatively lower altitude of these vehicles and to the proximity of their routes to extremely densely populated areas. In particular, both the aerodynamic and aeroacoustic optimization of the propulsive system and of its interaction with the airframe are key aspects of the design of aerial vehicles for the success or the failure of their mission. The industrial challenge involves finding the best performance in terms of loading, efficiency and weight, and, at the same time, the most silent configuration. For this reason, research has focused on an initial localization of the noise sources and, on further analysis, of the noise generation mechanism, focusing particularly on directivity and scattering. The aim of the present study is to review the noise source mechanisms and the state-of-the-art technologies available in literature for its suppression, focusing especially on the fluid-dynamic aspects of low Reynolds numbers of the propulsive system and on the interaction of the propulsive-system flow with the airframe.

In this paper, the effect of an exterior shading element (Iwan) on energy consumption in four different climatic regions, and for different geographical directions, has been investigated numerically and experimentally. By applying different materials and techniques and creating various elements and spaces, architects make hard climatic conditions more tolerable for residents. Iwan is one of the cooling elements which is used in different forms and dimensions in the Islamic architecture. In the present research, Iwan has been introduced as a climatic element in traditional and contemporary architectures and its role in reducing the energy consumption in buildings has been studied. In this respect, first, the thermal loads of a building without Iwan are computed by means of EnergyPlus software. Then, four different forms of Iwan are added to the above-mentioned structure along the four principal geographical directions, and the effect of Iwan on the reduction of thermal loads is analyzed for four different climates. Finally, the design parameters of Iwan, in terms of depth and form, that can help reduce the thermal loads in different climatic conditions are presented. The results show that the best position for using an Iwan is the south direction and the use of Iwan in temperate & humid, hot & humid, cold & mountainous and hot & dry climates could reduce the energy consumption in buildings by 32%, 26%, 14%, and 29%, respectively.

Noise reduction in medical images is a perplexing undertaking for the researchers in digital image processing. Noise generates maximum critical disturbances as well as touches the medical images quality, ultrasound images in the field of biomedical imaging. The image is normally considered as gathering of data and existence of noises degradation the image quality. It ought to be vital to reestablish the original image noises for accomplishing maximum data from images. Medical images are debased through noise through its transmission and procurement. Image with noise reduce the image contrast and resolution, thereby decreasing the diagnostic values of the medical image. This paper mainly focuses on Gaussian noise, Pepper noise, Uniform noise, Salt and Speckle noise. Different filtering techniques can be adapted for noise declining to improve the visual quality as well as reorganization of images. Here four types of noises have been undertaken and applied on medical images. Besides numerous filtering methods like Gaussian, median, mean and Weiner applied for noise reduction as well as estimate the performance of filter through the parameters like mean square error (MSE), peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), Average difference value (AD) and Maximum difference value (MD) to diminish the noises without corrupting the medical image data.

Solar energy is a renewable resource of energy that is broadly utilized and has the least emissions among the renewable energies. In this study, machine learning methods of artificial neural networks (ANNs), least squares support vector machines (LSSVM), and neuro-fuzzy are used for advancing prediction models for thermal performance of a photovoltaic-thermal solar collector (PV/T). In the proposed models, the inlet temperature, flow rate, heat, solar radiation, and the sun heat have been considered as the inputs variables. Data set has been extracted through experimental measurements from a novel solar collector system. Different analyses are performed to examine the credibility of the introduced approaches and evaluate their performance. The proposed LSSVM model outperformed ANFIS and ANNs models. LSSVM model is reported suitable when the laboratory measurements are costly and time-consuming, or achieving such values requires sophisticated interpretations.

In this work commercial 18650 lithium-ion cells with LiMn₂O₄, LiFePO₄ and Li(Ni_0.33Mn_0.33Co_0.33)O₂ cathodes were exposed to external heating in an Accelerating Rate Calorimeter (es-ARC, THT Company) to investigate the thermal behavior under abuse conditions. New procedures for measuring external and internal pressure change of cells were developed. The external pressure was measured utilizing a gas-tight cylinder inside the calorimeter chamber in order to detect venting of the cells. For internal pressure measurements, a pressure line connected to a pressure transducer was directly inserted into the cell. During the thermal runaway experiments, three stages (low rate, medium rate and high rate reaction) have been observed. Both pressure and temperature change indicated different stages of exothermic reactions, which produced gases or/and heat. The onset temperature of thermal runaway was estimated according to temperature and pressure changes. Moreover, the different activation energies for the exothermic reactions could be derived from Arrhenius plots.

The paper examines design and operating data of current concentrated solar power (CSP) solar tower (ST) plants. The study includes CSP with or without boost by combustion of natural gas (NG), and with or without thermal energy storage (TES). The latest, actual specific costs per installed capacity are very high, 6085 $/kW for Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) with no TES, and 9227 $/kW for Crescent Dunes with TES. The actual production of electricity is very low and much less than the expected. The actual capacity factors are 22% for ISEGS, despite combustion of a significant amount of NG largely exceeding the planned values, and 13% for Crescent Dunes. The design values were 33% and 52%. The study then reviews the proposed technology updates to produce better ratio of solar field power to electric power, better capacity factor, better matching of production and demand, lower plant’s cost, improved reliability and increased life span of plant’s components. The key areas of progress are found in materials and manufacturing processes, design of solar field and receiver, receiver and power block fluids, power cycle parameters, optimal management of daily and seasonal operation of the plant, new TES concepts, integration of solar plant with thermal desalination, integration of solar plant with combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) installations and finally, specialization and regionalization of the project specification.

Industries, which are mainly responsible for high energy consumptions, need to invest in research projects in order to develop new managing systems for rational energy use and to tackle the devastating effects of climate change caused by human behavior. The study reported in this paper concerns the forging industry, where the production processes generally start with the heating of the steel in furnaces and continue with other processes, such as heat treatments and mechanical machining. One of the most critical operations, in terms of energy loss, is the opening of the furnace doors for the insertion and extraction operations. During this time, the temperature of the furnaces decreases by hundreds of degrees in a few minutes. Because the dispersed heat needs to be supplied again through the combustion of fuel, increasing the consumption of energy and the pollutant emissions, the evaluation of the amount of the lost energy is crucial for the development of operating or mechanical systems able to contain this dispersion. To perform this study, CFD simulation software was used. Results show that at the door opening, because of temperature and pressure differences between the furnace and the ambient, turbulences are generated. Results also show that the amount of energy lost for an opening of 10 minutes for radiation, convection and conduction is equal to 5606 MJ where convection is the main contributor with 5020 MJ. The model created, after being validated, has been applied to perform other simulations in order to improve the energy performance of the furnace. Results show that a reduction of the opening time of the door allows energy savings and limits pollutant emissions.

This paper presents an overview of the smart electro-clothing systems (SeCSs) targeted at health monitoring, sports benefits, fitness tracking, and social activities. Technical features of the available SeCSs, covering both textile and electronic components, are thoroughly discussed and their applications in the industry and research purposes have been highlighted. In addition, it also presents the developments in the associated areas of wearable sensor systems and textile-based dry sensors. As it became evident during the literature research, such a review on SeCSs covering all relevant issues has not been presented before. This paper will be particularly helpful for new generation researchers investigating the design, development, function and comforts of the sensor integrated clothing materials.

Polymer nanocomposites are composed of polymer materials reinforced with nano fillers. In the present study the effective thermal conductivity of the composites filled with nanofillers has been investigated using commercially available finite element software ABAQUS 6.11. The nanofillers used were alumina particles and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and the matrix was considered to be made of epoxy. For the analysis 2D and 3D Representative Volume Elements (RVEs) were generated using Random Sequential Adsorption (RSA) algorithm using MATLAB and Python scripts. Thermal conductivity was found out for 2D and 3D RVEs for different area and weight fractions respectively. Two different shapes of the alumina nanoparticles were considered: spherical (circular) and ellipsoidal (elliptical) for 3D (2D) analysis. It was found that the thermal conductivity was increased with the addition of nanofillers. The increase in thermal conductivity was approximately same for both types of inclusions at corresponding area or weight fractions in 2D or 3D analysis. The results showed that addition of MWNTs to the composites lead to a significant increase in thermal conductivity than spherical or ellipsoidal inclusions.

This paper describes the preparation and description of four new complexes [Bu₂Sn(AA)Cl] (AA = glycine, DL-valine and L-leucine) and [Bu₂SnPhen₂] (Phen = DL-phenylalanine) They were characterized by elemental analyses of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, chlorine and tin; and by infrared, ^119mSn-Mössbauer and ^119mSn-RMN spectroscopies, and by the applications of TG and DSC techniques in dynamic helium atmosphere. For the [Bu₂Sn(AA)Cl], trigonal bipyramidal tin species, AA were coordinated bidentatedly by the carboxylic oxygen and by the NH₂ group. The [Bu₂SnPhen₂)], with tin atoms in trans-octahedral sites, had the Phen-coordinated by both carboxylic oxygen atoms.

Intelligent fault diagnosis techniques have replaced the time-consuming and unreliable human analysis, increasing the efficiency of fault diagnosis. Deep learning model can improve the accuracy of intelligent fault diagnosis with the help of its multilayer nonlinear mapping ability. This paper has proposed a novel method named Deep Convolutional Neural Networks with Wide First-layer Kernels (WDCNN). The proposed method uses raw vibration signals as input (data augmentation is used to generate more inputs), and uses the wide kernels in first convolutional layer for extracting feature and suppressing high frequency noise. Small convolutional kernels in the preceding layers are used for multilayer nonlinear mapping. AdaBN is implemented to improve the domain adaptation ability of the model. The proposed model addresses the problem that currently, the accuracy of CNN applied to fault diagnosis is not very high. WDCNN can not only achieve 100% classification accuracy on normal signals, but also outperform state of the art DNN model which is based on frequency features under different working load and noisy environment.

In urban area, one of the great problem is the rise of temperature, which leads to form the urban heat island effect. This paper refers to the trend of the urban surface temperature extracted from the Landsat images from which to consider changes in the formation of surface urban heat island for the north of Ho Chi Minh city in period 1995-2015. Research has identified land surface temperature from thermal infrared band, according to the ability of the surface emission based on characteristics of normalized difference vegetation index NDVI. The results showed that temperature fluctuated over the city with a growing trend and the gradual expansion of the area of the high-temperature zone towards the suburbs. Within 20 years, the trend of the formation of surface urban heat island with two typical locations showed a clear difference between the surface temperature of urban areas and rural areas with space expansion of heat island in 4 times in 2015 compared to 1995. An extreme heat island located in the inner city has an area of approximately 18% compared to the total area of the region. Since then, the solution to reduce the impact of urban heat island has been proposed, in order to protect the urban environment and the lives of residents in Ho Chi Minh City becoming better

Instead of simplified steady-state models, with modern computers, one can solve the complete aero-thermodynamics happening in gas turbine engines. In the present article, we describe a mathematical model and numerical procedure to represent the transient response of a PT6A gas turbine engine operating at off-design conditions. The aero-thermal model consists of a set of algebraic and ordinary differential equations that arise from the application of the mass, linear momentum, angular momentum, and energy balances in each engine's component. The solution code has been developed in Matlab-Simulink using a block-oriented approach. Transient simulations of the PT6A engine start-up have been carried out by changing the original Jet-A1 fuel with biodiesel blends. Time plots of the main thermodynamic variables are shown, especially those regarding the structural integrity of the burner. Numerical results have been validated against reported experimental measurements and GasTurb simulations. The computer model has been capable to predict acceptable fuel blends, such that the real PT6A engine can be substituted to avoid the risk of damaging it.

Almost all single-family detached house in Canada consume huge electricity for space heating and domestic hot water (DHW) purposes. There are many possibilities to design an energy-efficient house. A solar water heating system can be used for domestic water and space heating. Water temperature can be kept constant always by connecting a heat pump or oil burner because solar energy is intermittent. Proper and optimized solar photovoltaic and collector design, tank design, heat pump selection, house insulation, total demand calculation in each section are essential. Energy-Efficient house design has been proposed with water heating and space heating system and compared with the existing system, solar PV based systems, and solar collector based system. The tracking and non-tracking based solar thermal collector based and the solar photovoltaic based system has been compared in this paper and investigate the suitable one for practically applicable and acceptable by the people. Simulation has been done by using the PolySun software. It found that by implementing the proposed PV based system with tracking is highly suitable considering lower cost, high output power, flexibility, easy installation.

Modelling water vapour flow, heat transfer and porosity in porous adsorbent is somewhat challenging simulation problem. Primary macroscopic water vapour flow models, such as Darcy's law, fail to predict the pressure drop entirely correctly for the reason that many of flow parameters not considered because of the simplifications that remain made for the multi-scale structure of the porous adsorbents. For one to develop a good physical understanding of such water vapour flows and the accuracy of existing 3D simulation models, there is a need for some accurate 3D geometry to be studied. This present work describes two-phase water vapour flow and adsorption/ desorption performed on porous adsorbent by a Dynamic vapour sorption (DVS). The CFD simulation results are associated with experiments results. It is decided that for such complex porous adsorbent CFD simulation problems the use of COMSOL Multiphysics and SolidWorks flow simulation will be utilised.

The cell case temperature versus time profiles of a multistage fast charging technique (4C-1C-CV)/fast discharge (4C) in a 2.3 Ah cylindrical lithium-ion cell are analyzed using a 1D thermal model. Heat generation is dominated by the irreversible component associated to cell overpotential, although evidences of the reversible component are also observed, associated to the heat related to entropy from the electrode reactions. The final charging stages (i.e., 1C-CV) significantly reduce heat generation and cell temperature during charge, resulting in a thermally safe charging protocol. Cell heat capacity was determined from cell specific heats and cell materials thickness. The 1D model adjustment of the experimental data during the 2 min. resting period between discharge and charge allowed us to calculate both the time constant of the relaxation process and the cell thermal resistance. The obtained values of these thermal parameters used in the proposed model are almost equal to those found in the literature for the same cell model, which suggests that the proposed model is suitable for its implementation in thermal management systems.

Distributed Energy Resources might have a severe influence on Power Line Communications, as they can generate interfering signals and high frequency emissions or supraharmonics that may cause loss of metering and control data. In this paper, the influence of various energy resources on Narrowband Power Line Communications is described and analyzed through several test measurements performed in a real microgrid. Accordingly, the paper describes the effects on smart metering communications through MAC layer analysis. Results show that the commutation frequency of inverters and the presence of battery chargers are remarkable sources of disturbance in low voltage distribution networks. In this sense, the results presented can contribute to efforts towards standardization and normative of emissions at higher frequencies higher, such as CENELEC EN 50160 and IEC/TS 62749.

Arsenic, an element of environmental impact, can be incorporated into jarosite–type compounds and remain stabilised within the structure under a wide range of environmental conditions. In this study, a sample of ammonium–arsenic jarosite was synthesised by precipitation in sulphate medium at controlled pH of 1.2–1.8. The behaviour of arsenic during the thermal and chemical decomposition of jarosite was analysed; the degradation in alkaline medium of jarosite was also studied. According to the results, the synthesised jarosite is composed of joined rhombohedral crystals, forming tightly spherical shaped particles, 37–54 μm size. The ammonium jarosite produced possessed a high arsenic concentration; its calculated stoichiometry being (NH₄)Fe_2.45[(SO₄)_1.80(AsO₄)_0.20][(OH)_4.15(H₂0)_1.85]. It was found that arsenic is stabilised in the jarosite structure; upon heating, it remains in residual solids above 700°C, whilst in alkaline medium an incongruent dissolution takes place, with the arsenic retained in the solid phase along with iron. These solids, when exposed to high temperatures (1200°C), transform into a type of iron oxide known as hematite, so with arsenic it is retained an iron compound forming a stable compound which withstands high temperatures.

In this study, 10%PTFE/PEEK blend were modified by potassium titanate whisker (PTW) and chopped glass fiber (GF), respectively. The blends were prepared by three-screw extruder. Through the investigation of thermal stability, tribological properties, mechanical properties and rheological behavior, the effects of reinforcing agents were determined. The results illustrated that the mechanical properties of 10%PTFE/PEEK blend can be dramatically improved by adding reinforcing agent of PTW or GF, and the reinforcing effect of GF was especially obvious. As for tribological properties, 1% addition was the best proportion. The friction coefficient and wear rate of the blend with 1% PTW were 0.283 and 4.97 × 10^-6 mm³/N · m, which decreased by 7.2% and 21% compared with those of the blend without reinforcing agent.

A compact Mach-zehnder interferometer with a novel design of directional couplers and a phase shifter has been presented as a thermo-optical sensor. With the aim of reducing device size to micro and nano dimension silicon-on-insulator technology was employed. That allowed miniaturization of device size through the reduction of its cross sectional area to 0.066 µm² and the radius of curvature of both the arms of the directional coupler and S-bends of the phase shifter to 5 µm and C-bends to 3 µm. These nano size device dimensions made it possible to reduce the coupling gap to 0.2 µm, which resulted in a significant reduction in the coupling length. The device geometry and its performance characteristics were analyzed and optimized using coupled mode analysis and finite difference time domain simulation tools, respectively. The wavelength dependent transmission loss of the device was measured at different temperature to verify and validate its performance characteristics. Tested devices showed a remarkable temperature dependent transmission characteristic offering significant changes in transmission loss band – with as low as 0.45 ⁰C change in substrate temperature. The extinction ratio and the free spectral range of the device were 26 dB and 0.26 nm respectively in the wavelength range of 1549.5 nm – 1550.5 nm. These results imply that the devices presented here can be used as compact and highly sensitive thermal sensors and optical switches.

Lithium batteries and an increasing focus on CO₂ reduction have become an integral part of daily life and business for many people. Boron and boron compounds have been widely studied together in the history and development of lithium batteries. With a broad examination of battery components and systems but a boron-centric approach to raw materials, this review seeks to summarize past and recent studies on the following: which boron compounds are studied in lithium battery, in which parts of lithium batteries, what improvements are offered for battery performance, and what improvement mechanisms can be explained. The uniqueness of boron and its extensive application beyond batteries contextualizes the interesting similarity with studies on batteries. The paper predominantly focuses on lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) but also mentions other lithium batteries. At the end, the article aims to predict prospective trends for future studies that may lead to the successful and extensive use of boron compounds on a commercial scale.

When focusing on materials science in civil engineering, the current trend is to investigate the use of innovative solutions in order to enhance thermal and energy performances. This trend is amplified with the need for a sustainable development strategy for the construction sector. This paper assesses the integration of a Phase Change Material (PCM) in cement intended for building construction. The key characteristic of PCMs is their capacity to absorb energy and restore it. In building construction, this feature could be harnessed to save energy by incorporating PCMs in the materials used. In this study, passive integration of PCM in cement was tested and thermal properties of such an integration was assessed. The results provide insights into how PCMs affect cement as part of the concrete mixture, thus identifying the contribution of PCM-based cements in concrete mixtures.

This paper presents a thermal runaway prognosis scheme based on the big-data platform and entropy method for battery systems in electric vehicles. It can simultaneously realize the diagnosis and prognosis of thermal runaway caused by the temperature fault through monitoring battery temperature during vehicular operations. A vast quantity of real-time voltage monitoring data was collected in the National Service and Management Center for Electric Vehicles (NSMC-EV) in Beijing to verify the effectiveness of the presented method. The results show that the proposed method can accurately forecast both the time and location of the temperature fault within battery packs. Furthermore, a temperature security management strategy for thermal runaway is proposed on the basis of the Z-score approach and the abnormity coefficient is set to make real-time precaution of temperature abnormity.

Metamaterials, man-made composites scaled smaller than the wavelength, have demonstrated a huge potential in their applications in acoustics, opening up for sub--wavelength acoustic absorbers, acoustic invisibility, perfect acoustic mirrors and acoustic lenses for hyper focusing, acoustic illusions and enabling new degrees of freedom in the control of the acoustic field. The zero, or even negative, refractive sound index of metamaterials offers possibilities in control of the acoustic pattern and sound at sub--wavelength scales. Despite the tremendous growth of the research on acoustic metamaterials during the last decade, the potential of metamaterial-based technologies in aeronautics is still not fully explored and its utilization is still in its infancy. Thus the principal concepts mentioned above could very well provide means to develop devices that would allow the mitigation of the impact of the civil aviation noise on the community. This paper gives a review of the state of the art of the most relevant works on acoustic metamaterials, analyzing them against their potential applicability in aeronautics, and in this process identifying possible implementation areas and interesting metabehaviors. It also identifies some technical challenges and possible future directions for research with the goal of unveiling the potential of metamaterials technologies in aeronautics.

The advancement in science and technology has led to luffa sponge (LS) being widely used as a natural material in industrial application as its polyporous structure and light texture. In order to enhance the utility of LS fibers as the reinforcement of lightweight composite materials, this study investigate its water absorption, mechanical properties, anatomical characteristic and thermal performance. Hence, moisture regain, tensile properties of LS fiber bundles were measured in accordance with standards and the structural characteristics were investigated via microscopic observation. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to observe the surface morphology and fracture surface of fiber bundles. Test results shows that the special structure where the phloem tissues degenerate to cavities had a significant influence on the mechanical properties of LS fiber bundles. Additionally, the transverse sectional area occupied by fibers in a fiber bundle (SF), wall thickness and ratio of wall to lumen of fiber cell, and crystallinity of cellulose had an impact on the mechanical properties of LS fiber bundles. Furthermore, the fiber bundles density of LS varies range of 385.46-468.70 kg/m³, much less than that of jute (1360.40 kg/m³) and Arenga engleri (950.20 kg/m³) while LS fiber bundles has superior specific modulus.

The railway industry focus in the past years was to research, find and develop methods to mitigate noise and vibration resulted from wheel/rail contact along track infrastructure. This resulted in a wide range of abatement measures that are available for the professionals of the industry today. However, although there are many options in the market, their practical implementations depend upon general constraints that affect most technological application in the engineering world. The progression of these technologies have facilitated the selection of more adequate methods for each best case scenario, but further studies are ought to be made to proper assess if each one is fit for their purpose. Every method implementation must be analyzed through budget and timeframe limitations, which includes building, maintenance and inspection costs and time allocation, while also aiming to meet different benefits, such as environmental impact control and wear of the whole infrastructure. There are several situations and facilities in a railway project design that need noise and vibration mitigation methods and each design allocates different priorities for each one of them. Traditionally the disturbance caused by railways to the community are generated by wheel/rail contact sound radiation that expresses in different ways, depending on the movement of the rolling stock and track alignment, such as rolling noise, impact noise and curve noise. More specifically, in special trackworks such as turnouts, the main area of this study, there are two noises types that must be evaluated: impact noise and screeching noise. With respect to the second, it is similar to curve squeals and, being such, its mitigation methods are to be assigned as if it was to abate curve squeal in turnouts and crossings. The impact noise on the other hand, emerges from the sound made by the rolling stock moving through joints and discontinuities (i.e. gaps) that composes these special components of a railway track. A life cycle analysis is therefore substantial for this reality and in this case will be applied to Squeal and Impact Noise on Special Trackwork. The evaluation is based on a valid literature review and the total costs were assumed by industry reports to maintain coherency. The period for a life cycle analysis is usually of 50 years, hence it was the value assumed. As for the general parameters, an area with high density of people was considered to estimate the values for a community with very strict limits for noise and vibration.

This study was undertaken to investigate and analyze noise pollution in a large Chinese governmental hospital’s medical intensive care unit and compare to the WHO guidelines.This cross-sectional study was conducted in a MICU at a public governmental teaching hospital in Fujian province between July and August of 2017. A WENSN® WS1361 Integrated Sound Level Meter (China) was used for continuous every five seconds one week noise levels recording. After this measurement, the decibel meter was used for recording different location of isolation rooms and open bays, including occupied and unoccupied patient, and recording sound events occurs in the ICU to identify sources of noise. Peak and average noise levels were obtained from the meter, and data were downloaded from the WS1361 into a laptop computer. The measured mean equivalent sound pressure levels (L) and standard Aeq deviation over one week period were 66.64±7.57 dB(A), with acute spikes reaching 119.7 dB(A), the average sound level for a 24 hour period in a work day was 68.03±5.07 dB(A). These are higher than the current daytime environmental noise limit of 40-45 decibels in China and WHO. Mean work day noise was significantly louder than weekend time, there was a significant difference in work days and weekend (t=16.85;P=0.000).There was a statistical difference between the day time and night time shifts (t=34.67;P=0.000). The isolation rooms were significantly quieter than the open-bay rooms(t=46.15; p=0.00), sound levels in the occupied and unoccupied rooms also had significant difference(t=17.26; P=0.000).Two types of noise resources, including twenty kinds sources were identified and measured, mean noise levels ranged from of 61.33 to 79.21 dB(A). This study shows noise levels in intensive care units were exceeded the recommended. The study of the influence of noise on patient and staff is needed, and noise reduction strategies must be conduct in ICU.

Utilization of wasted heat instead of fuel combustion is effective to reduce primary energy consumption for mitigating global warming problem. Because wasted heat sources are not necessarily located close to areas of heat demand, one of the difficulties is that wasted heat has to be transferred from heat source side to heat demand side, which may require heat transportation over long distance. From this point we proposed and have examined new idea of heat transportation using ammonia-water as the working fluid which system is named Solution Transportation Absorption chiller, in short STA. Our previous studies of STA were mainly the experimental investigation with STA facility which cooling power was 25RT (90kW). As a result, the COP of STA was found almost same value 0.65 with the conventional absorption chiller without depending on the transportation distances. The simulation using AspenHYSYS also examined with same experimental condition. The experimental data showed good agreement with the simulation calculation. In this study, we examined the large-scale cooling power STA on simulation. The examination cooling powers were from 90 kW(25RT) to 3517 kW(1000RT). All cooling power achieved around COP 0.64 including pump power consumptions. In addition, we performed the dynamic simulation. As the results, there was no effect of pipeline size on the cooling capacities and mass flow rates. Furthermore, the stability time of the cooling capacities and mass flow rates were almost same regardless of the pipeline size and cooling capacity. In other words, STA may be achieved the same COP even though having various complex conditions compared with the conventional absorption chiller.

In research applications across several areas, noise removal is indispensable for accuracy of final results. Noise is caused due to physical principals, such as background electronic noise, quantum effect, and wave rebound effect to name a few. Noise removal can help improve results in medical, astronomy, defense, and numerous other fields. Addressing this limitation would result in potentially low cost, automatic, and reliable systems. In this paper, a generalized new approach i.e. Multi-Frame Noise Removal (MFNR) is proposed for noise removal. Given any type of data, the probability density function (PDF) of the noise can be determined. Herein, we extracted the noise PDF parameters using KDE (Kernel Density Estimation). Because the data is corrupted by “deterministic” noise, hence can be cleaned. This could be used as a general purpose noise removal tool. The data point with same position in multiple frames helps us determine the noise PDF characteristics and hence making it possible to remove noise. The conventional wisdom which states that noise removal and detail preservation are contrary to each other is not true for MFNR. Experimental results validate our proposed method which showed practically complete noise reduction based on number of frames used, as compared to existing benchmark methods.

The objective of the prototype is to eliminate the polluting contamination of water sources, due to the leak of industrial waste without any kind of treatment, mainly generated by the industries and home sector. In this project, a prototype of water purification by plasma technology has been designed. The prototype will convert contaminated water into the plasma stream and eliminate the pathogens from the water by exposing it to ultraviolet radiation and plasma sterilisation. The polluted water will be accelerated at high speed using a water pump in order to convert it into a liquid-gas mixture for ease plasma generation. This process will be achieved when the electric supply from a source of alternating current (AC) is applied to the water by means of high voltage electrodes. After which, the mixture slows down to return into liquid form and the clean water is obtained. The whole process takes place without significantly raising the temperature also knows as non-thermal plasma. The device also has an automatic flow and pressure control system. Finally, a short feasibility study has been conducted on the water samples collected and report obtained from Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewage boards are reported. It has been concluded that this new plasma-based water treatment system will be more efficient and cheaper than the current wastewater treatment techniques and can be used in the future as the replacement of current secondary and tertiary treatments of industrial wastewater.

The recyclability of polystyrene, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, polystyrene and polyvinylchloride waste and using them as a source for 3D printing were studied. Filaments of about 3 mm in diameter were extruded successfully with a small-size extruder. The processed filaments were tested on a broad range of parameters - glass transition temperature, tensile properties and a pyrolysis scenario were obtained. The measured parameters were compared with parameters of virgin counterparts presented in the literature. In order to estimate the toxicity of the recycled material, elemental analysis of the samples was done.

Thermal-expandable microcapsules (TEMs) for water-based coatings were synthesized with co-polymer of Acrylonitrile (AN) - Methyl methacrylate (MMA) - Ethylhexyl acrylate (EHA) - Divinylbenzene (DVB) as shell and toluene-p-sulfonyl hydrazide as core by suspension polymerization method. It was found that the microcapsules with desirable thermal expansion property and good heat stability could be obtained with a shell monomers composition of 70% AN /20% MMA /9% EHA /1% DVB. When 2% styrene-maleic acid copolymer (SMC) as emulsifier and 3% poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) (PVP) as dispersing agent were used, well defined spherical and more uniform microcapsules could be prepared. It was also found that when the shell/core mass ratio was 3:1, an encapsulation efficiency of ca. 94.5% could be achieved. Beyond this ratio, the increase of encapsulation efficiency reached a plateau. The 100 μm thickness film of water-based coating containing 5% microcapsules could be expanded to the thickness of 450 μm after exposed at 150 °C for 2 minutes. TG analysis revealed the mass loss start temperature of coating increased by more than 30 °C when 5% microcapsules were added to water-based coatings, which demonstrated the flame-retardant function of the coatings.

A well-known but also very complicated problem in room acoustics is the ambient noise when many people are gathered for a reception or in a restaurant, a bar, a canteen or a similar place. In such social gatherings, people want to speak with each other, but for the same reason the place can be very noisy, and verbal communication can be difficult or even impossible, especially for people with reduced hearing capacity. The noise depends on at least the following parameters; the volume, the reverberation time, the number of people, and the type gathering. Verbal communication in a noisy environment is a complicated feed-back situation, which implies two interesting phenomena; the Lombard effect and the cocktail-party effect. Solutions are presented both as a simplified model assuming a diffuse sound field and as an advanced computer simulation model. The concept ‘Acoustic Capacity’ of a facility is introduced, defined as the maximum number of persons in order to achieve a sufficient quality of verbal communication. In order to avoid poor acoustics in restaurants and similar places, it is necessary to design with bigger volume and more absorption material than usual in current building design practice.

During HVDC earth return operation systems, a high magnitude current will be injected into soil through earth electrode, the potential on the surface would change widely and produce unfavorable effects on the AC systems around. This paper presents an effective finite element method (FEM) coupling electric field with thermal field to evaluate the electrical field induced by the injected DC current. Firstly, owe to the characteristic of FEM, this method can consider arbitrary soil and earth electrode structure. Secondly, by setting the electrical and thermal parameters of soil as a function of temperature at the same time, the dynamic coupling process of electric field and thermal field is simulated accurately. Thirdly, to deal with the singular point in FEM subdivision and the huge computation in traditional three-dimensional FEM, the FEM coupling 2-D earth electrode with 3-D soil based on "shell" theory is introduced. Finally, based on the suggested method, the effect of abnormal resistance region (ARR) near DC earth electrode on electric field distribution is analyzed.

As a new kind of highly compact and efficient micro-channel heat exchanger, printed circuit heat exchanger (PCHE) is a promising candidate satisfying the heat exchange requirements of liquefied natural gas (LNG) vaporization at low and high pressure. The effects of airfoil fin arrangement on heat transfer an flow resistance were numerically investigated using supercritical liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a working fluid. The thermal properties of supercritical LNG were tested by utilizing a REFPROF software database. Numerical simulation was performed using FLUENT. The inlet temperature of supercritical LNG was 121 K,and its pressure was 10.5MPa. The reference mass flow rate of LNG was set 1.22 g/s for the vertical pitch L_v = 1.67 mm and the staggered pitch L_s = 0 mm, with the Reynolds number of about 3750. The SST k-ω model with enhanced wall treatment was selected by comparing with the experimental data. The airfoil fin PCHE had better thermal-hydraulic performance than that of the straight channel PCHE. Moreover, the airfoil fins with staggered arrangement displayed better thermal performance than that of the fins with parallel arrangement. The thermal-hydraulic performance of airfoil fin PCHE was improved with increasing L_s and L_v. Moreover, L_v affected on the Nusselt number and pressure drop of airfoil fin PCHE more obviously. In conclusion, a sparser staggered arrangement of fins showed a better thermal-hydraulic performance in airfoil fin PCHE.

To implement renewable energy resources, microgrid systems have been adopted and developed into the technology of choice to assure mass electrification in the next decade. Microgrid systems have a number of advantages over the conventional utility grid systems, however, it faces severe instability issues due to continually increasing constant power loads. To improve the stability of the entire system, load side compensation technique is chosen because of its robustness and cost effectiveness. In this particular occasion, a sliding mode controller is developed for microgrid system in the presence of CPL to assure certain control objective of keeping the output voltage constant at 480V. After that, the robustness analysis of the sliding mode controller against parametric uncertainties is presented. The sliding mode controller robustness against parametric uncertainties, frequency variations, and additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) are illustrated in this paper. Later, the performance of the PID and sliding Mode controller is compared in case of nonlinearity, parameter uncertainties, and noise rejection to justify the selection of Sliding Mode controller over PID controller. All the necessary calculations are reckoned mathematically and results are verified in the virtual platform such as MATLAB/Simulink with the appreciable outcome.

Theory of the Thermal Response Testing (TRT) is a well-known part of sizing process of the geothermal exchange system. Multiple parameters influence accuracy of effective ground thermal conductivity measurement; like testing time, variable power, climate interferences, groundwater effect etc. To improve accuracy of the TRT we introduced procedure to additionally analyze falloff temperature decline after power test. Method is based on a premise of analogy between TRT and petroleum well testing, since origin of both procedures lies in diffusivity equation with solutions for heat conduction or pressure analysis during radial flow. Applying pressure build-up test interpretation technique to the borehole heat exchanger testing, greater accuracy could be achieved since ground conductivity could be obtained from this period. Analysis was conducted on coaxial exchanger with five different power steps, and with both direct and reverse flow regime. Each test was set with 96hr of a classical TRT, followed by 96hr of temperature decline, making it almost 2000 hours of cumulative borehole testing. Results showed that ground conductivity value could vary as much as 25% depending on test time, seasonal period and power fluctuations while thermal conductivity obtained from a falloff period gives more stable values with only 10% value variation.

High redshift blazars are among the most powerful objects in the Universe. Although they represent a significant fraction of the extragalactic hard X-ray sky, they are not commonly detected in gamma-rays. High redshift (z>2) objects represent <10 per cent of the AGN population observed by Fermi so far, and gamma-ray flaring activity from these sources is even more uncommon. The characterization of the radio-to-gamma-ray properties of high redshift blazars represents a powerful tool for the study of the energetics of such extreme objects and the Extragalactic Background Light. This contribution will present results of multi-band campaigns, from radio to gamma-rays, on PKS 0836+710, PKS 2149-306, and TXS 0536+145. The latter is the highest redshift detection of a flaring gamma-ray blazar so far. At the peaks of their respective flares these sources reached an apparent isotropic gamma-ray luminosity of about 10^50 erg/s, which is comparable with the luminosity observed from the most powerful blazars. The physical properties derived from the multi-wavelength observations of these sources are then compared with those shown by the high redshift population.

The Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) and the Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) indices are used to assess the indoor environment in terms of human thermal comfort-discomfort. In this study, an experimental combined objective and subjective investigation of thermal comfort perception has been performed in students between 16-18 years old, in a non-air-conditioned school building. The objective approach included instrumentation measurements and data processing according to ISO 7730, whereas, the subjective one was based on answers collection following ISO 10551. The study is mainly devoted to the verification of Fanger’s approach in a building, in free running conditions, under a mild (moderate) climate.The comparison between instrumentation data and questionnaire results presented an underestimation of the mean vote, predicting a cooler sensation than the actual one.

QSO B0218+357 is a blazar located at a cosmological redshift of 0.944. The source is gravitationally lensed by a spiral galaxy located at the redshift of 0.68. Strong gravitational lensing splits the signals emitted by the source into two components separated by 10-12 days, as observed in radio and gamma-ray bands. In July 2014 a GeV flare was observed by Fermi-LAT, triggering follow-up observations with the MAGIC telescopes at energies above 100 GeV. The expected time delay between the components allowed us to plan broad band MWL observations before, during and after the trailing component of the emission. The MAGIC observations at the expected time of arrival of the trailing component resulted in the first detection of QSO B0218+357 in Very-High-Energy (VHE, >100 GeV) gamma rays. It is both the farthest known VHE object and one of only a few Flat Spectrum Radio Quasars detected in this energy range. We report here the observed multiwavelength spectral and temporal properties of the emission during the 2014 flare.

Titanium’s accelerating usage in global markets is attributable to its distinctive combination of physical and metallurgical properties. The key to best utilizing titanium is to exploit these characteristics, especially as they complement one another in a given application, rather than to just directly substitute titanium for another metal. Titanium alloy are extensively used in aerospace applications such as components in aero-engines and space shuttles, mainly due to their superior strength to weight ratio. For these demanding applications functionality and reliability of components are of great importance. To increase flight safety, higher sensitivity inspections are sought for rotating parts. Increased sensitivity can be applied at the billet stage, the forging stage, or both. Inspection of the forging geometry affords the opportunity to apply the highest sensitivity due to the shorter material paths when compared to those required for billet inspections. Forging inspection is typically performed for titanium (Ti) rotating parts with immersion inspection and fixed-focus, single-element transducers. Increased gain is required with depth because the ultrasonic beam attenuates with distance and diverges beyond the focus position that is placed near the surface. The higher gain that is applied with depth has the effect of increasing the UT noise with depth. The relationships between the UT noise, selection of the examination technique and the smallest detectable defect are presented in this material.

Thermal infrared imagery provides temperature information on target objects, and has been widely applied in non-destructive testing. However, thermal infrared imagery is not always able to display detailed textures of inspected objects, which hampers the understanding of geometric entities consisting of temperature information. Although some commercial software has been developed for 3D thermal model displays, the software requires the use of expensive specific thermal infrared sensors. This study proposes a cost-effective method for 3D thermal model reconstruction based on image-based modeling. Two smart phones and a low-cost thermal infrared camera are employed to acquire visible images and thermal images, respectively, that are fused for 3D thermal model reconstruction. The experiment results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to effectively reconstruct a 3D thermal model which extremely approximates its corresponding entity. The total computation time for the 3D thermal model reconstruction is intensive while generating dense points required for the creation of a geometric entity. Future work will improve the efficiency of the proposed method in order to expand its potential applications to in-time monitoring.

The oscillating heat pipe (OHP) is a new member in the family of heat pipes, and it has great potential applications in energy conservation. However, the fluid flow and heat transfer in the OHP as well as the fundamental effects of inner diameter on them have not been fully understood, which are essential to the design and optimization of the OHP in real applications. Therefore, by combining the high-speed visualization method and infrared thermal imaging technique, the fluid flow and thermal performance in the OHPs with inner diameters of 1, 2 and 3 mm are presented and analyzed. The results indicate that three fluid flow motions, including small oscillation, bulk oscillation and circulation, coexist or, respectively, exist alone with the increasing heating load under different inner diameters, with three flow patterns occurring in the OHPs, viz. bubbly flow, slug flow and annular flow. These fluid flow motions are closely correlated with the heat and mass transfer performance in the OHPs, which can be reflected by the characteristics of infrared thermal images of condensers. The decrease in the inner diameter increases the frictional flow resistance and capillary instability while restricting the nucleate boiling in OHPs, which leads to a smaller proportion of bubbly flow, a larger proportion of short slug flow, a poorer thermal performance, and easier dry-out of working fluid. In addition, when compared with the 2 mm OHP, the increasing role of gravity induces the thermosyphon effect and weakens the 'bubble pumping' action, which results in a little smaller and bigger thermal resistances of 3 mm OHP under small and bulk oscillation of working fluid, respectively.

Based on PVDF (piezoelectric sensing techniques), this paper attempts to study the propagation law of shock waves in brittle materials during the process of three-wavelength laser irradiation of polysilicon, and discusses the formation mechanism of thermal shock failure. The experimental results show that the vapor pressure effect and the plasma pressure effect in the process of pulsed laser irradiation lead to the splashing of high temperature and high density melt. With the decrease of the laser wavelength, the laser breakdown threshold decreases and the shock wave is weakened. Because of pressure effect of the laser shock, the brittle fracture zone is at the edge of the irradiated area. The surface tension gradient and surface shear wave caused by the surface wave are the result of coherent coupling between optical and thermodynamics. The average propagation velocity of laser shock wave in polysilicon is 8.47×103m/s, and the experiment has reached the conclusion that the laser shock wave pressure peak exponentially distributes attenuation in the polysilicon.

The building envelope has the most significant contribution in the reduction of the building energy consumption. Application of new, alternative and improved materials and systems has an important impact on the buildings performances. This paper is focused on the thermal transmittance, as an indicator of the thermal conductance of the construction element. It includes comparisons of the U-values, calculated by software, with those measured in situ on three representative façade walls. The walls have been constructed with the new wall system Fragmat NZ-1, a new product in Macedonian buildings. This research provides basic information on the thermal transmittance of the system. The results of the analysis show that the in situ measuring is a useful tool in validation of the precision of analytically calculated values, since it was difficult to obtain precise results from the analytical calculations only, especially when the layers are with non-uniform thickness.

This study investigates the land surface temperature (LST) distribution from thermal infrared data for analyzing the characteristics of surface coverage using the Vegetation-Impervious-Soil (VIS) approach. A set of ten images, obtained from Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper, between 2001 and 2010, were used to study the urban environmental conditions of 47 neighborhoods of Porto Alegre city, Brazil. Porto Alegre has had the smallest population growth rate of all 27 state capitals in the last two decades in Brazil, with an increase of 11.55% in inhabitants from 1,263 million in 1991 to 1,409 million in 2010. We applied the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) theory in order to test the influence of the economically-related scenario on the spatial nature of social-environmental arrangement of the city at neighborhood scale. Our results suggest that the economically-related scenario exerts a non-negligible influence on the physically driven characteristics of the urban environmental conditions as predicted by EKC theory. The linear inverse correlation R2 between household income (HI) and LST is 0.36 and has shown to be comparable to all other studied variables. Future research may investigate the relation between other economically-related indicators to specific land surface characteristics.

An ultra-low power (ULP), power gated static random access memory (SRAM) is presented for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, which operates in sub-threshold voltage ranges from 300mV to 500mV. The proposed SRAM has tendency to operate in low supply voltages with high static and dynamic noise margins. The IoT application involves battery enabled low leakage memory architecture in subthreshold regime which has low power consumption. Therefore, to improve power consumption along with better cell stability, a power gated 10T SRAM is presented. The proposed cell uses a power gated p-MOS transistor to reduce the leakage power or static power in standby mode. Moreover, due to the schmitt triggering and read decoupling of 10T SRAM the static and dynamic behavior in read, write and standby mode has shown enhanced tolerance at different process, voltage and temperature (PVT) conditions. The proposed SRAM shows better results in terms of leakage power, read static noise margin (RSNM), write static noise margin (WSNM), write-ability or write trip point (WTP), read-write energy and dynamic read margin (DRM). Further, these parameters are observed at 8-Kilo bit (Kb) and compared with already existing SRAM architectures. It is observed that the leakage power is reduced by 1/81×, 1/75× of the conventional 6T (C6T) SRAM and read decoupled 8T (RD8T) SRAM, respectively at 300mV VDD. On the contrary, RSNM, WSNM, WTP and DRM values are improved by 3×, 2×, 11.11% and 31.8% as compared to C6T SRAM, respectively. Similarly, proposed 10T has 1.48×, 25% and 9.75% better RSNM, WSNM and WTP values as compared to RD8T SRAM, respectively at 300mV VDD.

Land Surface Temperature (LST) is routinely retrieved from remote sensing instruments using semi-empirical relationships between top of atmosphere (TOA) radiances and LST, using ancillary data such as total column water vapor or emissivity. These algorithms are calibrated using a set of forward radiative transfer simulations that return the TOA radiances given the LST and the thermodynamic profiles. The simulations are done in order to cover a wide range of surface and atmospheric conditions and viewing geometries. This work analyses calibration strategies, considering some of the most critical factors that need to be taken into account when building a calibration dataset, covering the full dynamic range of relevant variables. A sensitivity analysis of split-windows and single channel algorithms revealed that selecting a set of atmospheric profiles that spans the full range of surface temperatures and total column water vapor combinations that are physically possible seems beneficial for the quality of the regression model. However, the calibration is extremely sensitive to the low-level structure of the atmosphere indicating that the presence of atmospheric boundary layer features such as temperature inversions or strong vertical gradients of thermodynamic properties may affect LST retrievals in a non-trivial way. This article describes the criteria established in the EUMETSAT Land Surface Analysis – Satellite Application Facility to calibrate its LST algorithms applied both for current and forthcoming sensors.

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), each sensor node can estimate the global parameter from the local data in distributed manner. This paper proposed a robust diffusion estimation algorithm based on minimum error entropy criterion with self-adjusting step-size, which are referred to as diffusion MEE-SAS (DMEE-SAS) algorithm. The DMEE-SAS algorithm has fast speed of convergence and is robust against non-Gaussian noise in the measurements. The detailed performance analysis of the DMEE-SAS algorithm is performed. By combining the DMEE-SAS with diffusion minimum error entropy (DMEE) algorithms, an Improving DMEE-SAS algorithm is proposed, in non-stationary environment where tracking is very important. The Improving DMEE-SAS algorithm can avoid insensitivity of the DMEE-SAS algorithm due to the small effective step-size near the optimal estimator, and obtain a fast convergence speed. Numerical simulations are given to verify the effectiveness and advantages of these proposed algorithms.

Currently, narrowband Power line communication (PLC) is considered as an attractive communication system in smart grid environments for applications such as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). In this paper, we will present a comprehensive comparison and analysis in time and frequency domain of noise measured in China and Italy. In addition, impulsive noise in these two countries are mainly analyzed and modeled using two probability based models, Middleton Class A (MCA) model and \(\alpha\) stable distribution model. The results prove that noise measured in China is rich in impulsive noise, and can be modeled well by \(\alpha\) stable distribution model, while noise measured in Italy has less impulsive noise, and can be better modeled by MCA model.

Radio loud active galactic nuclei are composed of different spatial features, each one characterized by different spectral properties in the radio band. Among them, blazars are the most common class of sources detected at gamma-rays by \fermi, and their radio emission is dominated by the flat spectrum compact core. In this contribution, we explore the connection between emission at high energy revealed by \fermi\ and at radio frequency. Taking as a reference the strong and very highly significant correlation found between gamma rays and cm-$\lambda$ radio emission, we explore different behaviours found as we change the energy range in gamma rays and in radio, therefore changing the physical parameters of the zones involved in the radiation emission. We find that the correlation weakens when we consider (1) gamma rays of energy above 10 GeV (except for high synchrotron peaked blazars) or (2) low frequency radio data taken by the Murchison Widefield Array; on the other hand, the correlation strengthens when we consider mm-$\lambda$ data taken by ALMA.

A turbomachinery is essential part in the power generation cycle. But, it is main noise source to annoy workers and users and to make environmental problem. Thus it is important to reduce this noise for operating the power generation cycle. This noise is created by flow instability on rotor blade trailing edge. An airfoil that becomes a section of a rotor blade of a rotating machine is manufactured as a blunt trailing edge (TE) with a round or flatback shape rather than the ideal sharp TE shape for the purposes of producibility and durability. This increases the tonal noise and flow-induced vibration at low frequency owing to vortex shedding behind TE when compared with a sharp TE. In order to overcome this problem, this study investigates the oblique TE shape using numerical simulation. In order to do so, the flow was simulated using large eddy simulation (LES) and the noise was analysed by acoustic analogy coupled with LES result. Once the simulation results were verified using the flatback airfoil measurements of Sandia National Laboratories, numerical prediction was performed for airfoils modified to have oblique trailing edge angles of 60°, 45°, and 30° to analyse the flow and noise characteristics. From the simulation results for an airfoil having an oblique TE, it could be seen that the vortex shedding frequency moves in accordance with the oblique angle and that the vortex shedding noise characteristics change according to this angle when compared to the flatback TE airfoil. Therefore, it is considered that modifying the flatback TE airfoil to have an appropriate oblique angle can reduce noise and change the tonal frequency to a bandwidth that is suitable for mechanical systems.

The paper presents the design and the implementation of different advanced control strategies that are applied to a nonlinear model of a thermal unit. A data–driven grey–box identification approach provided the physically meaningful nonlinear continuous–time model, which represents the benchmark exploited in this work. The control problem of this thermal unit is important since it constitutes the key element of passive air conditioning systems. The advanced control schemes analysed in this paper are used to regulate the outflow air temperature of the thermal unit by exploiting the inflow air speed, whilst the inflow air temperature is considered as an external disturbance. The reliability and robustness issues of the suggested control methodologies are verified with a Monte–Carlo analysis for simulating modelling uncertainty, disturbance and measurement errors. The achieved results serve to demonstrate the effectiveness and the viable application the suggested control solutions to air conditioning systems. The benchmark model represents one of the key issues of this study, which is exploited for benchmarking different model–based and data–driven advanced control methodologies through extensive simulations. Moreover, this work highlights the main features of the proposed control schemes, while providing practitioners and heating, ventilating and air conditioning engineers with tools to design robust control strategies for air conditioning systems.

Thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of virgin low-density polyethylene (LDPE), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polypropylene (PP) and mixtures of LDPE/PP were carried out in a 200 ml laboratory scale batch reactor at 460 °C in a nitrogen atmosphere. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out to study the thermal and catalytic degradation of the polymers at a heating rate of 10 °C/min. The amount of PP was varied in the LDPE/PP mixture to explore its effect on the reaction. In thermal degradation (TGA) of LDPE/PP blends, a lower decomposition temperature was observed for LDPE/PP mixtures compared to pure LDPE, indicating interaction between the two polymer types. In the presence of a catalyst (CAT-2), the degradation temperatures for the pure polymers were reduced. The TGA results were validated in a batch reactor using PP and LDPE respectively. Thermal cracking results showed that the oil product contains a significant amount of gasoline (C7 − C12) and diesel (C13 − C20) hydrocarbon fractions. The catalyst enhanced cracking at lower temperatures and narrowed the hydrocarbon distribution in the oil towards the gasoline range fraction (C7 – C12). The result suggests that the oil produced from catalytic pyrolysis of waste plastics has a potential as an alternative fuel.

This paper evaluates the potential of solar concentration technologies—compound parabolic collector (CPC), linear Fresnel collector (LFC) and parabolic trough collector (PTC)—as an alternative to conventional sources of energy for industrial processes in Latin America, where high levels of solar radiation and isolated areas without energy supply exist. The analysis is addressed from energy, economic and environmental perspective. A specific application for Argentina in which fourteen locations are analyzed is considered. Results show that solar concentration technologies can be an economically and environmentally viable alternative. Levelized cost of energy (LCOE) ranges between 2.5 and 16.9 c€/kWh/m² and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions avoided range between 33 and 348 kgCO₂/(m²·year). CPC technology stands out as the most recommendable technology when the working fluid temperature ranges from 373K to 423K. As the working fluid temperature increases the differences between the LCOE values of the CPC and LFC technologies decrease. When 523K is reached LFC technology is the one which presents the lowest LCOE values for all analyzed sites, while the LCOE values of PTC technology are close to CPC technology values. Results show that solar concentration technologies have reached economic and environmental competitiveness levels under certain scenarios, mainly linked to solar resource available, thermal level requirements and solar technology cost.

This paper reports the overall thermal performance of a cylindrical parabolic concentrating solar water heater (CPCSWH) with inserting nail type twisted tape (NTT) in the copper absorber tube for the nail twist pitch ratios 4.787, 6.914 and 9.042 respectively. The experiments are conducted for a constant volumetric water flow rate and during the time period 9:00 h to 15:00 h. The useful heat gain, hourly solar energy collected and hourly solar energy stored of this solar water heater are found higher for nail twist pitch ratio 4.787. The above said parameters are found to be a peak at noon and observed to follow the path of variation of solar intensity. At the starting of the experiment, the value of charging efficiency is observed to be maximum. Whereas the maximum value of instantaneous efficiency and overall thermal efficiency are observed at noon. The key finding is that the nail twist pitch ratio enhances the overall thermal performance of the CPCSWH.

Flux-switching permanent magnet (FSPM) motors have gained increasing attention in the electric vehicles (EVs) applications due to the advantages of high power density, high efficiency. However, the heat sources of both permanent magnet (PM) and armature winding are located on the limited stator space in the FSPM motors, which may result in the PM overheated and irreversible demagnetization caused by temperature rise and it is often ignored in the conventional thermal analysis. In this paper, a new electrical-thermal two-way coupling design method is proposed to analyze the electromagnetic performances, where the change of PM material characteristics under different temperatures is taken into consideration. Firstly, the motor topology and design equations are introduced. Secondly, the demagnetization curves of PM materials under different temperatures are modeled due to PM materials are sensitive to the temperature. And based on the electrical-thermal two-way coupling method, the motor performances are evaluated in details, such as the load PM flux linkage and output torque. Then, the motor is optimized, and the electromagnetic performances between initial and improved motors are compared. Finally, a prototype motor is manufactured, and the results are validated by experimental measurements.

Blood perfusion quantification is important vital parameters in different diagnostic procedure, using infrared thermography imaging; it is reliable to use this technique as non-contact, non-invasive blood flow measurement method. Therefore, we developed a measurement protocol for blood flow over the arm's anterior surface. By using the superficial brachial and radial veins to be monitored under the impact of cold-excitation of (2 °C to 5 °C), the blood perfusion signal was detected using thermal imager of long-wave infrared spectral range (LWIR, 7μm - 14 μm). The simulation of Penne's bioheat transfer equation was performed to be compared with results obtained from the infrared thermography. Furthermore, the proposed blood flow monitoring using external adjusting of the excitation temperature, by using (cold-compress, or cold air-stream) applied to the region under testing. The signal detected resembles to the hemodynamic pulse of the superficial veins, in the definition of systolic and diastolic phases of the cardiac cycle. Moreover, statistical analysis applied to the BFIRT signals from 24 subjects to estimate the skin's mean temperature after recovery from the thermal excitation.

There are currently around 78 Nuclear Power Plants (NPP) in the world based on Boiling Water Reactors (BWR). The current parameter to assess BWR instability issues is the linear Decay Ratio (DR). However, it is well known that BWRs are complex non-linear dynamical systems that may even exhibit chaotic dynamics that normally preclude the use of the DR when the BWR is working at a specific operating point during instability. In this work a novel methodology based on an adaptive Shannon Entropy estimator and on Noise Assisted Empirical Mode Decomposition variants is presented. This methodology was developed for real-time implementation of a stability monitor. This methodology was applied to a set of signals stemming from several NPPs reactors (Ringhals-Sweden, Forsmark-Sweden and Laguna Verde-Mexico) under commercial operating conditions, that experienced instabilities events, each one of a different nature

Building envelope can play a crucial role in building improvement efficiency and the adoption of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) coupled with transparent elements may (i) allow a better control of the heat flows from/to the outdoor environment, (ii) increase the exploitation of solar energy at building scale and (iii) modulate the light transmission to avoid glare effects. Starting from a literature review of experimental works, this research identifies the main possible integration of PCM in transparent/translucent building envelope components (in glazing, in shutters and in multilayer façade system) drawing a global picture potentials and limitations of these technologies. Transparent envelopes with PCMs have been classified from the simplest “zero” technology, which integrates the PCM into the double glass unit (DGU), to more complex solutions – with different numbers of cavities of the glass (TGU), different position of PCM layer (internal/external shutter), and in combination with other materials (TIM, aerogel, prismatic solar reflector, PCM curtain controlled by an electric pump). The results of the analysis are resumed in a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats) analysis table to underline strengths and weaknesses of transparent building envelope components with PCMs, and to indicate opportunities and threats for future research and building application.

Thunderstorm electrification has been studied for hundreds of years. Several mechanisms have been proposed to elucidate the electrification, including convective charging, inductive precipitation charging, and ice crystal-graupel collision charging. Field observations and model studies have demonstrated the vital roles that graupel and ice crystals play in the electrification, but the mechanism of the collision charging is still unclear. The fundamental essence of relative growth rate theory used for explaining the tripole charge structure in thunderclouds also needs a further exploration. We analyze the processes of ice crystal-graupel collision charging from charge migration inside hydrometeors to charge separation between two hydrometeors. The driving effects of temperature gradient and chemical potential gradient in charge migration are clarified, as well as the applicability of the relative growth rate theory, thermoelectric effect and surface tension gradient in different humidities. Based on the understanding from these electrification mechanisms, we propose that the essence of charge separation is driven by non-thermal equilibrium, and future studies on thunderstorm electrification should focus on the dynamical non-thermal equilibrium of cloud particles.

This study assesses Human Thermal Comfort in two selected areas: a Green Infrastructure (GI) area represented by a garden and a high-rise building area, in the Central Business District (CBD) of Melbourne, Australia. Three-dimensional microclimatic modelling software, ENVI-met version 4 was used to simulate the microclimate. The indices of Predicted Mean Vote (PMV), Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) and Universal Temperature Climate Index (UTCI) were used to quantify the level of thermal comfort in the research areas. The simulation results showed that at midday, the difference in temperature between the garden area and the high-rise building area was approximately 1°C. Increasing temperatures at midday led to a change in the level of thermal comfort for both the areas, even though it was not significant. In general, the thermal perception in the GI area was slightly ‘cooler’ than in the high-rise building area. The results of the study indicated the important role of GI in improving the thermal comfort in urban areas.

This article is a big picture of how electrical noise or conducted Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) is generated and mitigated in power converters. It gives an overview of what EMI in power converters is – from generation through to conduction and mitigation. It is meant to cover the complete subject as a summary so that the reader will have an outline of how to control conducted EMI by design (where possible) and how to mitigate by filtering. A clear distinction is made between Differential Mode (DM) and Common Mode (CM) EMI generation and mitigation. By using a boost converter as an example the trade-offs for DM noise control are discussed. It is shown how CM EMI is generated in a boost converter using the concept of the “Imbalance Difference Model” (IDM). Practical measurements for an in-line power filter is given showing the effect of the filter on the total EMI of a boost converter. Measurements for the CM current produced due to the imbalance difference for different values of the boost conductor are also shown. The main contribution of this study is linking CM noise generation to DM EMI. It is shown that CM noise is a direct consequence of DM noise (although circuit imbalance and coupling to a common ground also play a role). This paper will be useful to designers seeking the “bigger picture” of how EMI is generated in power converters and what can be done to mitigate the noise.

In this paper, the effect of microstructure on the thermal conductivity of plasma-sprayed Y₂O₃ stabilized ZrO₂ (YSZ) thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) is investigated. Nine freestanding samples deposited on aluminum-base superalloy are studied. Cross-section morphology such as pores, cracks, m-phase content, grain boundary density of the coated samples are examined by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD). Multiple linear regressions are used to develop quantitative models which describe the relationship between the particle parameters, m-phase content and the microstructure such as porosity, crack-porosity, the length density of small-angle-crack and the length density of big-angle-crack. Moreover, the relationship between microstructure and thermal conductivity is investigated. Results reveal that the thermal conductivity of the coating is mainly determined by the microstructure and grain boundary density at room temperature (25 ℃) and by the length density of big-angle-crack, monoclinic phase content and grain boundary density at high temperature (1200 ℃).

This paper proposes a Mixed Integer Conic Programming (MICP) model for community microgrids considering the network operational constraints and building thermal dynamics. The proposed multi-objective optimization model optimizes not only the operating cost, including fuel cost, purchasing cost, battery degradation cost, voluntary load shedding cost and the cost associated with customer discomfort due to room temperature deviation from the set point, but also several performance indices, including voltage deviation, network power loss and power factor at the Point of Common Coupling (PCC). In particular, the detailed thermal dynamic model of buildings is integrated into the distribution optimal power flow (D-OPF) model for the optimal operation. The heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems can be scheduled intelligently to reduce the electricity cost while maintaining the indoor temperature in the comfort range set by customers. Numerical simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed model and significant savings in electricity cost with network operational constraints satisfied.

Interleaved power factor correction (PFC) is widely used circuit topology due to good efficiency and power density for single-switch boost PFC. As the differential mode (DM) electromagnetic interference (EMI) noise magnitude depends upon the input current ripple, this research details a comprehensive study of DM EMI filter design for interleaved boost PFC with the aim of minimizing the component size. It is also demonstrated that the different numbers of interleaved stages and switching frequency influence the filter attenuation requirement and, thus, the EMI filter size. First, an analytical model is derived on the basis of the Norton equivalent circuit model for the differential mode noises of interleaved boost PFC within the frequency range of 9-500 kHz. The derived model can help identify the optimal phase shifting among the interleaved boost converters in order to minimize the considered differential mode noises at the filter design frequency. So, a novel phase-shift method is developed to get a minimized attenuation required by a filter in Band B. Further, a volume optimization of the required DM filter was introduced based on the calculated filter attenuation and volumetric component parameters. Based on the obtained results, unconventional and conventional phase shifts have demonstrated a good performance in decreasing the EMI filter volume in Band B and Band A, respectively. A 2-kW interleaved PFC case study is presented to verify the theoretical analyses and the impact of phase-shifting on EMI filter size.

This paper address the development of a new technic in the sleep analysis domain. Sleep is defined as a periodic physiological state during which vigilance is suspended and reactivity to external stimulations diminished. We sleep on average between six and nine hours per night and our sleep is composed of four to six cycles of about 90-minutes each. Each of these cycles is composed of a succession of several stages of sleep, more or less deep. The analysis of sleep is usually done using a polysomnography. This examination consists of recording, among other things, electrical cerebral activity by electroencephalography (EEG), ocular movements by electrooculography (EOG) and chin muscle tone by electromyography (EMG). The recording is done mostly in a hospital, more specifically in a service for monitoring the pathologies related to sleep. The readings are then interpreted manually by an expert to generate a hypnogram, a curve showing the succession of sleep stages during the night in 30-second epochs. The proposed method is based on the follow-up of the thermal signature that makes it possible to classify the activity into three classes: "awakening", "calm sleep" and "agitated sleep". The contribution of this non-invasive method is part of the screening of sleep disorders, to be validated by a more complete analysis of the sleep. The measure provided by this new system, based on temperature monitoring (patient and ambient), aims to be integrated into the tele-medicine platform developed within the framework of the Smart-EEG project by the SYEL - SYstèmes ELectroniques team. Analysis of the data collected during the first surveys carried out with this method showed a correlation between thermal signature and activity during sleep. The advantage of this method lies in its simplicity and the possibility of carrying out measurements of activity during sleep and without direct contact with the patient at home or hospitals.

Transparent electrodes (TEs) made of metallic nanowires, such as Ag, Au, Cu, and Ni, have attracted rising attention for several reasons: 1) they can act as a substitute for tin oxide-based TEs such as indium-tin oxide (ITO) and fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO); 2) various methods exist for fabricating such TEs such as filtration, spraying and meyer bar coating; 3) greater compatibility with different substrates can be achieved due to the variety of fabrication methods; and 4) extra functions in addition to serving as electrodes, such as catalytic abilities, can be obtained due to the metals that compose the TEs. There are a large number of applications for TEs, ranging from electronics and sensors to biomedical devices. This short review is a summary of recent progress, mainly during the past five years, on silver nanowire-based TEs. The focus of the review will be on theory development, mechanical, chemical and thermal stability and optical properties. The many applications of TEs are outside the scope of this review.

In developing countries, noise exposure and its negative health effects have been little explored. The present study aimed to assess the noise exposure situation in adults living in informal settings in the Western Cape Province, South Africa. We conducted continuous one-week outdoor noise measurements at 134 homes in four different areas. These data were used to develop a land use regression (LUR) model to predict A-weighted day-evening-night equivalent sound level (Lden) from geographic information system (GIS) variables. Mean noise exposure during day (6:00-18:00) was 60.0 A-weighted decibels (dB(A)) (interquartile range 56.9-62.9 dB(A)), during night (22:00-6:00) 52.9 dB(A) (49.3-55.8 dB(A)) and average Lden was 63.0 dB(A) (60.1-66.5 dB(A)). Main predictors of the LUR model were related to road traffic and household density. Model performance was low (adjusted R²=0.130) suggesting that other influences than represented in the geographic predictors are relevant for noise exposure. This is one of the few studies on the noise exposure situation in low- and middle-income countries. It demonstrates that noise exposure levels are high in these settings.

In this work, the Pumped Storage Unit (PSU) is proposed to be integrated with wind-thermal generation system owned by a company whose aim is to maximize its profit through optimal self-scheduling of its units by finding the best bidding strategy in day-ahead energy market. The mathematical formulation of the scenario based unit-commitment and coordinated trading problem is formulated as a stochastic mixed integer linear program. The formulation takes into account several uncertain parameters; such as the wind power generation, energy market prices, and imbalances up/down prices. The expected total profit obtained from energy trading with and without coordinating pumped storage system (PSS) with thermal-wind generation system were compared, and a significant improvement in profit resulted from coordination was observed. Furthermore, coordination between PSS and wind-thermal generation improve the conditional value at risk (CVaR) which monitors the biding risk level.

Li-ion cell designs, component integrity and manufacturing processes all have critical influence on the safety of Li-ion batteries. Any internal defective features that induce a short circuit, can trigger a thermal runaway: a cascade of reactions, leading to a device fire. As consumer device manufacturers push aggressively for increased battery energy, instances of field failure are increasingly reported. Notably Samsung made a press release in 2017 following a total product recall of their Galaxy Note 7 mobile phone, confirming speculation that the events were attributable to the battery and its mode of manufacture. Recent incidences of battery swelling on the new iPhone 8 have been reported in the media, and the techniques and lessons reported herein may have future relevance. Here we look deeper into the key components of one of these cells and confirm evidence of cracking of electrode material in tightly folded areas, combined with a delamination of surface coating on the separator, which itself is an unusually thin monolayer. We report microstructural information about the electrodes, battery welding attributes and thermal mapping of the battery whilst operational. The findings point to the most likely combination of events and highlights the impact of design features, whilst providing structural considerations most likely to have led to the reported incidences relating to this phone.

The application of the sensors optical fiber in the areas of scientific instrumentation and industrial instrumentation is very attractive due to its numerous advantages. In the industry of civil engineering for example, quasi-distributed sensors made with optical fiber are used for reliable strain and temperature measurements. Here, a quasi-distributed sensor in the frequency domain is discussed. The sensor consists of a series of low-finesse Fabry-Perot interferometers where each Fabry-Perot interferometer acts as a local sensor. Fabry-Perot interferometers are formed by pairs of identical low reflective Bragg gratings imprinted in a single mode fiber. All interferometer sensors have different cavity length, provoking the frequency-domain multiplexing. The optical signal represents the superposition of all interference patterns which can be decomposed using the Fourier transform. The frequency spectrum is analyzed and sensor´s properties were defined. Following, a quasi-distributed sensor was numerically simulated. Our sensor simulation considers sensor properties, signal processing, noise system and instrumentation. The numerical results show the behavior of resolution vs. signal-to-noise ratio. From our results, the Fabry-Perot sensor has high resolution and low resolutions. Both resolutions are conceivable because the FDPA algorithm elaborates two evaluations of Bragg wavelength shift

As the interface between human and machine becomes blurred, hydrogel incorporated electronics and devices have emerged to be a new class of flexible/stretchable electronic and ionic devices due to their extraordinary properties, such as soft, mechanically robust and biocompatible. However, heat dissipation in these devices could be a critical issue and remains unexplored. Here, we report the experimental measurements and equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of thermal conduction in polyacrylamide (PAAm) hydrogels. The thermal conductivity of PAAm hydrogels can be modulated by both the crosslinking density and water content in hydrogels. The crosslinking density dependent thermal conductivity in hydrogels varies from 0.33 to 0.51 Wm^-1K^-1, giving a 54% enhancement. We attribute the crosslinking effect to the competition between the increased conduction pathways and the enhanced phonon scattering effect. Moreover，water content can act as filler in polymers which lead to nearly 40% enhancement in thermal conductivity in PAAm hydrogels with water content vary from 23 to 88 wt%. Furthermore，we find the thermal conductivity of PAAm hydrogel is insensitive to temperature in the range of 25 ^oC – 40 ^oC. Our study offers fundamental understanding of thermal transport in soft materials and provides design guidance for hydrogel-based devices.

The performance of ground heat exchangers systems depends on the knowledge of the thermal parameters of the ground like thermal conductivity, thermal capacity and diffusivity. The knowledge of these parameters often requires quite accurate experimental analysis, known under the name of Thermal Response Test (TRT). In this paper, after a general analysis of the various available types of TRT and the study of the theoretical basics of the method, the perspective of the definition of a simplified routine method of analysis based on the combination of a particular version of TRT and the routine geotechnical tests for the characterization of soil stratigraphy and of the ground characteristics, mandatory before the construction of a new buildings, even if limited to quite short drilling depth (lower than 30 m). The idea of developing TRT in connection with geotechnical test activity has the objective of promoting a widespread use of in-situ experimental analysis and of reducing TRT costs and time duration of the experimental analysis. The considerations exposed in the present paper lead to reconsider a particular variety of the TRT in particular the version known as Thermal Response Test while Drilling (TRTWD).

Compared to conventional allothermal gasification of solid fuels (e.g. biomass, charcoal, lignite etc.), plasma-assisted gasification offers an efficient method to apply energy into the gasification process to increase the flexibility of operation conditions and to increase the reaction kinetics. In particular, non-thermal plasmas (NTP) are promising, in which thermal equilibrium is not reached and electrons have substantially higher mean energy than gas molecules. Thus it is generally assumed that in NTP the supplied energy is utilized more efficiently for generating free radicals initiating gasification reactions than thermal plasma processes. In order to investigate this hypothesis, we compared purely thermal to non-thermal plasma assisted gasification of biomass in steam in a drop tube reactor at atmospheric pressure. The NTP was provided by means of gliding arcs between two electrodes aligned in the inlet steam flow. Electric power of about 1 kW was supplied using a high voltage generator operating at frequencies between 70 and 150 kHz and voltage amplitudes up to 10 kV. A laser-assisted optical method (Raman spectroscopy) was applied for measuring the gas temperature both in the conventionally heated steam and flow-down of the visible plasma filaments of the gliding arcs. Reaction yields and rates were evaluated using these measured gas temperatures. The first experimental results have shown that the non-thermal plasma not only promotes the carbon conversion of the fuel particles, but also accelerates the reaction kinetics. The carbon conversion is increased by nearly 10% using wood powder as the fuel. With charcoal powder more than 3% are converted into syngas.

Almond is worldwide consumed and renowned as a valuable healthy food. In spite of this, it is also a potent source of allergenic proteins able to trigger several mild to life-threatening immunoreactions. Food processing proved to alter biochemical characteristics of proteins, thus affecting the respective allergenicity. In this paper we investigated the effect of autoclaving, preceded or not by a hydration step, on the biochemical and immunological properties of almond proteins. Any variation in the stability and immunoreactivity of almond proteins extracted from the treated materials, were evaluated by total protein quantification, ELISA assay and protein profiling by electrophoresis-based separation (SDS-PAGE). The autoclaving alone was found to weakly affect almond proteins stability, despite what observed for the combination of hydration and autoclaving, which resulted in a loss of approximately 70% of total protein content compared to untreated sample, and in a final negligible immunoreactivity, as well. The final SDS-PAGE protein pattern recorded for almonds hydrated and autoclaved disclosed significant changes. In addition, the same samples were further submitted to in vitro simulated gastro-duodenal (GI) digestion to evaluate potential changes induced by these processing on allergens digestibility. Digestion products were identified by HPLC-HRMS/MS analysis followed by software-based data mining, and complementary information were provided by analyzing the proteolytic fragments lower that 6 kDa in size. The autoclave based treatment was found not to alter the allergens digestibility, whereas an increased susceptibility to proteolytic action of digestive enzymes was observed in almonds subjected to the combination of prehydration and autoclaving. Finally, the residual immunoreactivity of the GI resistant peptides was investigated in-silico by bioinformatic tools, confirming that by following both approaches, no epitopes survived the almond digestion, thus demonstrating the potential effectiveness of these treatments to reduce almond allergenicity.

Computationally modelling a nuclear reactor startup core for a benchmark against the existing models is highly desirable for an independent assessment informing nuclear engineers and energy policymakers. This work presents a startup core model of the UK’s first Evolutionary Pressurised Water Reactor (EPR) based on Monte Carlo simulations of particle collisions using Serpent 2, a continuous-energy Monte Carlo reactor physics burnup code. Coupling between neutronics and thermal-hydraulic conditions with the fuel depletion is incorporated into the multi-dimensional branches, obtaining the thermal flux and fission rate (power) distributions radially and axially from the three dimensional (3D) single assembly level to a 3D full core. Shannon entropy is employed to characterise the convergence of the fission source distribution, with 3 billion neutron histories tracked by parallel computing. Source biasing is applied for the variance reduction. Benchmarking the proposed Monte Carlo 3D full-core model against the traditional deterministic transport computation suite used by the UK Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), a reasonably good agreement within statistics is demonstrated for the safety-related reactivity coefficients, which creates trust in the EPR safety report.

Flow sensing in hostile environment is of increasing interest for applications in automotive, aerospace, and chemical and resource industries. Compared to their counterparts, thermal flow sensors are attractive candidates due to the ease of fabrication, lack of moving parts and higher sensitivity. Recently, a number of thermal flow sensor prototypes have been reported in the literature demonstrating the measurement of fluid flows under hostile conditions. This paper summarizes the concept of thermal flow sensing, operational modes and transduction mechanisms. Then, the choice of materials and their corresponding properties are presented in details. The paper also reports recent progress in the development of thermal flow sensors for harsh environment. In addition, the issues and considerations in packaging are reviewed. Finally, we conclude the review with the future prospects.

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is an important index to evaluate radiation performance and image quality of optical imaging systems under low illumination background. Under the nighttime lighting condition, the illumination of remote sensing objects is low and varies greatly, usually ranging from several lux to tens of thousands of lux. Nighttime light remote sensing imaging requires high sensitivity and large dynamic range of detectors. Luojia 1-01 is the first professional nighttime light remote sensing satellite in the world. In this paper, we took the nighttime light remote sensing camera carried on the satellite as research object, proposed an in-orbit SNR test method based on time series images to overcome the problem of low spatial resolution. We first analyzed the process of luminous flux transmission between objects and satellite and established a radiative transfer model. By combining the parameters of large relative aperture optical system and high sensitivity CMOS device, we established SNR model and specially analyzed the effect of exposure time and quantization bits on SNR. Finally we used the proposed in-orbit test method to calculate SNR of lighting images acquired by satellite. And the measured result is in good agreement with the model predicted data. Under the condition of 10lx illumination, the SNR of typical objects can reach 27.02dB, which is much better than the requirement of 20dB for engineering application.

Thermophysical characterization of three paraffin waxes (RT27, RT21 and RT35HC) is carried out in this study using DSC, TGA and transient plane source technics. Then, a numerical study of their melting in a rectangular enclosure is examined. The enthalpy-porosity approach is used to formulate this problem in order to understand the heat transfer mechanism during the melting process. The analysis of the solid-liquid interface shape, the temperature field shows that the conduction is the dominant heat transfer mode in the beginning of the melting process. It is followed by a transition regime and the natural convection becomes the dominant heat transfer mode. The effects of the Rayleigh number and the aspect ratio of the enclosure on the melting phenomenon are studied and it is found that the intensity of the natural convection increases as the Rayleigh number is higher and the aspect ratio is smaller. In the second part of the numerical study, a comparison of the performance of paraffins waxes during the melting process is conducted. Results reveals that from a kinetically RT21 is the most performant but in term of heat storage capacity, it was inferred that RT35HC is the most efficient PCM.

Laboratory experiments and investigations into natural phenomena in this research series have unveiled the presence of a gravitational repulsion force that permeates our environment on both microscopic and macroscopic scales, contingent upon the thermal energy present. This paper presents a study exploring novel properties of gravitational forces among gas molecules, employing principles of thermodynamics. A model has been devised based on the interactions between pairs of gas molecules. While traditional models treat gravitational interaction as a singular force, our experimental approach validates it as the composite of two distinct forces: gravitational repulsion and attraction. By utilizing established experimental data on gas thermodynamics, our model demonstrates robust performance both analytically and experimentally. It verifies the coexistence of gravitational repulsion and attraction forces among gas molecules, showcases their Inverse-Cube relationship with distance, and elucidates the direct proportionality of the repulsion force to absolute temperature. This bridges a crucial gap between energy and fundamental forces. The order of magnitudes of gravitational repulsion and attraction forces are found to be considerably large, contrasting with the low values predicted by classical theory, which results from their amalgamation. Recognizing these forces as substantial in magnitude promises unprecedented outcomes and advancements.

Copper mine tailings are the residual products after the purification of precious copper from copper ores, and their storage can create numerous environmental problems. Many researchers have used copper mine tailings for preparation of geopolymer. This paper studies the enhancement of the cementitious activity of copper mine tailings in geopolymer system. First, copper mine tailings are activated through a mechanical grinding activation. Afterward, the mechanically activated copper mine tailings are further processed through thermal activation and alkaline roasting activating. The cementitious activity index of copper mine tailings is characterized through the degree of concentration of alkali leaching silicon and aluminum. It was observed that the Si and Al alkali leaching concentration of mechanical activated tailings was increased by 26.03% and 93.33%, respectively. The concentration of Si and Al was increased by 54.19% and 119.92%, respectively. For alkaline roasting activating, roasting time, temperature and (C/N ratio) were evaluated through the orthogonal test, and the best condition was activation for 120 min at 600℃ with C/N ratio is 5:1. In this study, the SEM, XRD and IR analysis show that mechanically activation, thermal activation and alkaline roasting activating can improve the cementitious activity index of copper mine tailings.

This study investigated the risk of lung and bladder cancers in people residing in proximity of a coal-oil-fired thermal power plant in an area of north-eastern Italy, covered by a population-based cancer registry. Incidence rate ratios (IRR) by sex, age, and histology were computed according to tertiles of residential exposure to benzene, nitrogen dioxide (NO2), particular matter, and sulfur dioxide (SO2) among 1076 incident cases of lung and 650 cases of bladder cancers. In men of all ages and in women under 75 years of age, no significant associations were observed. Conversely, in women aged >75 years significantly increased risks of lung and bladder cancers were related to high exposure to benzene (IRR for highest vs. lowest tertile: 2.00 for lung cancer and 1.94 for bladder cancer) and NO2 (IRR: 1.72 for lung cancer; and 1.94 for bladder cancer). In these women, a 1.71-fold higher risk of lung cancer was also related to a high exposure to SO2. The findings of this descriptive study indicated that air pollution may have a role with regard to the risk of lung and bladder cancers, limited to women aged ≥ 75 years. Such increased risk warrants further analytical investigations.

Using coherent optical detection and digital signal processing, laser phase noise and equalization enhanced phase noise can be effectively mitigated using the feed-forward and feed-back carrier phase recovery approaches. In this paper, theoretical analyses of feed-back and feed-forward carrier phase recovery methods have been carried out in the long-haul high-speed n-level phase shift keying (n-PSK) optical fiber communication systems, involving a one-tap normalized least-mean-square (LMS) algorithm, a block-wise average algorithm, and a Viterbi-Viterbi algorithm. The analytical expressions for evaluating the estimated carrier phase and for predicting the bit-error-rate (BER) performance (such as the BER floors) have been presented and discussed in the n-PSK coherent optical transmission systems by considering both the laser phase noise and the equalization enhanced phase noise. The results indicate that the Viterbi-Viterbi carrier phase recovery algorithm outperforms the one-tap normalized LMS and the block-wise average algorithms for small phase noise variance (or effective phase noise variance), while the one-tap normalized LMS algorithm shows a better performance than the other two algorithms for large phase noise variance (or effective phase noise variance). In addition, the one-tap normalized LMS algorithm is more sensitive to the level of modulation formats.

Dye sensitized solar cell technology is having an important role in renewable energy research due to its features and low cost manufacturing processes. Devices based on this technology appear very well suited for integration into glazing systems due to their characteristics of transparency, color tuning and manufacturing directly on glass substrates. Field data of thermal and electrical characteristics of dye sensitized solar modules (DSM) are important since they can be used as input of building simulation models for the evaluation of their energy saving potential when integrated into buildings. However still few works in the literature provide this information. The study here presented wants to contribute to fill this gap providing a thermal and electrical characterization of a DSM in real operating conditions using a method developed in house. This method uses experimental data coming from test boxes exposed outdoor and dynamic simulation to provide thermal transmittance and solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of a DSM prototype. The device exhibits an U-value of 3.6 W/m²K, confirmed by an additional measurement carried on in the lab using a heat flux meter, and a SHGC of 0.2, value compliant with literature results. Electrical characterization evidences an increase of module power with respect to temperature causing DSM suitable for integration in building facades.

Multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) and graphene oxide (GO) reinforced carbon foam (CF) composite were prepared by direct pyrolysis of MWCNTs, GO and mesophase coal tar pitch. The effect of additive amount of the mixture of MWCNTs and GO on the microstruture and properties of carbon foam was analzyed by transmission electron miscroscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Four-probe resistance meter, universal testing machine, and laser thermal conductivity tester respectively. The result shows that MWCNTs and GO had significant impact on the microstructure of carbon foam. Futhermore, the electrical, mechanical and thermal properties of carbon foam composites were significantly enhanced by increasing the additive amount. Maximum compressive strenght of 19.2 MPa and Young’s modulus of 56.8 MPa of CF composite were observed. Similarly, Highest thermal conductivity of 30.91 W/m.K and electrical conductivity of 27.2 ×103 S/m were observed at 2 wt. % of MWCNTs-GO additive loading.

Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) is the most active field in the design of current complex system engineering, which is possessed with such two difficulties as subsystem information exchange and analytical and computational complexity of systems. Therefore, an improved collaborative optimization algorithm based on ANN (artificial neural network) response surface was proposed dependent on the consistency constraint algorithm and concurrent subspace algorithm. As an optimization method with secondary structure, it satisfied only local constraints in discipline layer, but provided a coordinated mechanism for interdisciplinary conflict in system layer. Finally, it was applied in the multidisciplinary design optimization of autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). As shown from the result, the MDO convergence stability and reliability of low resistance, low noise and high maneuvering performance of the AUV shape can be ensured by the improved collaborative optimization algorithm, thus verifying the effectiveness of the algorithm.

The physicalchemistry properties and crystal structure of were nano-ZrO₂+3mol.%Y₂O₃ determined. The kinetics of the formation of H₂ as a result of the decomposition of H₂O on the surface of nano-ZrO₂+3mol.%Y₂O₃ was studied. Effects of adsorption and desorption process on ZrO₂+3 mol.%Y₂O₃ nanoparticles were studied at different (T=400÷1000⁰C) temperature. The study of H₂ in thermal processes at nano-ZrO₂+3 mol.%Y₂O₃ system increased. Such an increase in H₂ generation in comparison with a pure H₂O as thermal processes had formedactive centers for H₂O decomposition on the surface of the catalyst at the expense of δ-electrons emitted on the surface of nano-ZrO₂+3 mol.%Y₂O₃. This showed that the dimensions of the studied nanoscale particles systems are comparable to the free running distance of energy carriers generated by of nano-ZrO₂+3 mol.%Y₂O₃ as a result of thermal processes. These results are promising for hydrogen generation by waer spliting in near future.

Health and wellness tourism should be particularly valued in the post-pandemic phase, as a stra-tegic product to enhance the population's well-being and quality of life indicators, at social, phys-ical, and environmental dimensions, with different proposals for specialized experiences that complement the destination's offer, positioning regions as health and wellness destinations. Thermal tourism should be encouraged, as a specific product, due to the innovation and diversi-fication observed in the services made available and the benefits recognized at different age levels of tourists and destinations communities. Considering the relevance of thermal springs and thermal tourists for tourism destinations image, positioning, and development, this research aims to identify the specific motivations of tourists to the practice of thermal tourism, to understand how the benefits that thermal tourists search for, and their sociodemographic profile influence the motivations, and how the motivations determine the travel characteristics. This research was de-veloped on the North and Centre of Portugal, for their relevance in the context of thermal springs and related tourism activities. To achieve the research objectives, a questionnaire survey was ap-plied to thermal tourists, through a non-probability by convenience sampling, using bivariate tests, such as Pearson’s chi-squared test, one-way ANOVA, and t-student. The results highlight that most respondents practiced thermal tourism due to leisure and relaxation benefits, such as the escape from daily stress, spend time with family, and being "pampered"; relaxation is the most valued motivation, followed by the search for psychological and physical wellbeing. The research found relations between the benefits expected by thermal tourists, and their travel characteristics such as the composition of the group, the general travel motivation, the thermal destination cho-sen, and the number of nights spent. In thermal tourism, new challenges emerge, demanding the development of strategies, products, and services responding to the needs of specific market segments.

One of the most common limits to gas sensor performance is the presence of unwanted interference fringes or etalons arising, for example, from multiple reflections between surfaces in the optical path. Additionally, since the amplitude and the frequency of these interference depend on the distance and alignment of the optical elements, they are affected by temperature changes and mechanical disturbances, giving rise to a drift of the signal. In this work, we present a novel semi-parametric algorithm which allows the extraction of a signal, like the spectroscopic absorption line of a gas molecule, from a background containing arbitrary disturbances, without having to make any assumption on the functional form of these disturbances. The algorithm is applied first to simulated data and then to oxygen absorption measurements in presence of strong fringes.To the best of the authors' knowledge, the algorithm enables an unprecedented accuracy particularly if the fringes have a free spectral range and amplitude comparable to those of the signal to be detected. The described method presents the advantage of being based purely on post processing, and to be of extremely straightforward implementation if the functional form of the Fourier transform of the signal is known. Therefore it has the potential to enable interference-immune absorption spectroscopy. Finally, its relevance goes beyond absorption spectroscopy for gas sensing since it can be applied to any kind of spectroscopic data.

In this paper, a geometric body-centered model to simulate the periodic structure of unidirectional fibrous composites is presented. To this end, three prescribed configurations are introduced to predict in a deterministic manner the arrangement of internal and neighboring fibers inside the matrix. Thus, three different representative volume elements (RVEs) are established. Furthermore, the concept of the interphase has been taken into account, stating that each individual fiber is encircled by a thin layer of variable thermomechanical properties. Next, these three unit cells are transformed in a unified manner to a coaxial multilayer cylinder model. This advanced model includes the influence of fiber contiguity in parallel with the interphase concept on the thermomechanical properties of the overall material. Then, by the use of this model, the authors propose explicit expressions to evaluate the longitudinal and transverse thermal conductivity of this type of composite. The theoretical predictions were compared with experimental results, as well as with theoretical values yielded by some reliable formulae derived from other workers, and a reasonable agreement was found.

Plants are such important keys of biological part of our environment, supply the human life and creatures. Understanding how the plant’s functions react with our surroundings, helps us better to make plant growth and development of food products. It means the plant phenotyping gives us bio information which needs some tools to reach the plant knowledge. Imaging tools is one of the phenotyping solutions which consists of imaging hardware such as the camera and image analysis software analyses the plant images changings such as plant growth rates. In this paper, we proposed a preprocessing algorithm to eliminate the noise and separate foreground from the background which results the plant image to help the plant image segmentation. The preprocessing is one of important levels has effect on better image segmentation and finally better plant’s image labeling and analysis. Our proposed algorithm is focused on removing noise such as converting the color space, applying the filters and local adaptive binarization step such as Niblack. Finally, we evaluate our algorithm with other algorithms by testing a variety of binarization methods.

Lack of due attention to the orientation of streets and establishment of urban blocks without regard for climatic characteristics and conditions of the environment have an adverse effect on thermal comfort in open urban spaces. Construction of new settlements without taking into account climatic requirements undermines thermal comfort for pedestrians and other users, especially in cold regions. Considering the coldness of the region under study and the significance of the orientation of streets in absorbing radiation and providing heat to outdoor urban spaces, this study investigates the effect of the orientation of streets on microclimatic comfort in one of the residential towns of Hamadan City in Iran. For this purpose, microclimate simulation was performed using ENVI-met software. A residential block with four different orientations (the most common orientations of its surrounding buildings) were simulated in the coldest day of winter and the hottest day of summer. The results suggest that streets have different thermal behavior in different orientations. Orientation affects mean radiant temperature (Tmrt), the duration of exposure to direct sunlight, wind speed, and physiological equivalent temperature (PET), which are all important factors in thermal comfort. Based on these findings, north-south streets in Hamedan receive more radiant temperature during winter compared to other simulated orientations and provide more desirable thermal comfort. The average PET value on a winter day at a point on the north-south passage was 4.5-8 °C warmer than other orientations. In summer, streets with intercardinal orientations (i.e., northeast-southwest and northwest-southeast) provided the lowest PET (about 2 °C cooler than other orientations) and better thermal comfort

The effects of carbon fiber hybridisation on the thermal properties of woven kenaf reinforced epoxy composites kenaf fibre were studied. Woven kenaf hybrid composites at the different weave designs of plain and satin, and fabric count of 5 × 5 and 6 × 6 were manually prepared by vacuum infusion technique. Thermal properties of pure carbon fibre and hybrid composites were conducted by using thermogravimetric analyser (TGA) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). It was found that at high kenaf fibre content showed better thermal stability while the highest thermally stable was found in pure carbon fibre composite. The TG and DTG results showed that the amount of residue decreased in plain-designed hybrid composite compared to satin-designed hybrid composite. The DSC data revealed that the presence of woven kenaf increase decomposition temperature.

Plastics have become an indispensable part of modern life today. The global production of plastics has gone up to 299million tones in 2013, which is believed to be increasing in the near future. The utilization of plastics and its final disposal pose a tremendous negative significance impacts on the environment. The aim of this study was to investigate the thermal and catalytic pyrolysis for production of fuel oil from the polyethene plastic wastes. Catalysts used in the experiment were acid activated clay mineral and aluminum chlorides on activated carbon. The clay mineral was activated by refluxing it with 6M Sulphuric acid for 3hours. The experiment was conducted in three different phases: the first phase of the experiment was done without a catalyst where 88mL oil was obtained at a maximum temperature of 39 and heating rates of 12.5, reaction time of 4hours. The second phase involves the use of acid activated clay mineral where 100mL of oil was obtained and heating rates of 12.5 and reaction time of 3hours 30minutes. The third phase was done using aluminium chlorides on activated carbon and 105ml oil was obtained at a maximum temperature of 400 and heating rates of 15.5 reaction time of 3hours 10minutes. From the results, catalytic pyrolysis is more efficient than purely thermal pyrolysis and homogenous catalysis (aluminum chlorides) shows a better result than solid acid catalyst (activated clay minerals) hence saving the energy needed for pyrolysis and making the process more economically feasible.