Search results for "Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering"
showing 10 items of 1866 documents
Vegetation growth parameters and leaf temperature: Experimental results from a six plots green roofs' system
2016
Abstract The paper provides a contribution for populating database of three physical parameters needed to model energy performance of buildings with green roofs: “coverage ratio” ( σ f ), leaf area index (LAI) and leaf temperature ( T f ). On purpose, six plant species were investigated experimentally: Phyla nordiflora, Aptenia lancifolia , Mesembryanthenum barbatus , Gazania nivea, Gazania uniflora , and Sedum . Proper ranges of the cited parameters have been found for each species. The here indicated ranges of σ f values refer to different growth levels of the species in the same lapse of time, that is four months. Single measured LAI values are also reported for the same plants. As for t…
Full-scale validation of bio-recycled asphalt mixtures for road pavements
2019
Abstract Recycling of asphalt has become a well-established practice in many countries, however the road pavement industry remains a bulk consumer of extracted raw materials. Novel solutions that find root in circular economy concepts and life-cycle approaches are needed in order to enable optimisation of infrastructure resource efficiency, starting from the design stage and spanning the whole value chain in the construction sector. Itis within this framework that the present study presents a full-scale validation of asphalt mixtures specifically designed to ensure durability of flexible road pavements and at the same time enabling the reuse of reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) through the i…
Segmented Flow-Based Multistep Synthesis of Cadmium Selenide Quantum Dots with Narrow Particle Size Distribution
2015
A continuous-flow microreactor was used to synthetize II-VI semiconductor quantum dots (CdSe). In order to improve the size distribution of the nanoparticles, the synthesis was carried out in a two-step procedure. A seed solution was obtained in a separate nucleation step, followed by a controllable growth step. Quantum dots that are synthesized with the two-step method show a much narrower size distribution in comparison to those obtained in a conventional batch synthesis.
Experimental assessment of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a shale caprock during CO2 injection
2021
Abstract The presented experimental study focuses on the hydro-mechanical characterisation of a shale caprock (Opalinus Clay) in contact with carbon dioxide. The objective of this paper, consists in the evaluation of the material's sealing capacity in terms of entry-pressure, mechanical behaviour and sensitivity of the transport properties to chemo-mechanical effects induced by gaseous and liquid CO2 injection. Two types of Opalinus Clay core samples are tested; shaly and carbonate-rich. The sealing capacity has been evaluated on the shaly OPA according to the stepwise and the residual methods and compared to the results from mercury intrusion porosimetry. The obtained results and the diffe…
A novel thermoeconomic analysis under dynamic operating conditions for space heating and cooling systems
2019
Abstract Thermoeconomic analysis allows for a deep understanding of the cost formation process within an energy system, providing insights into the possible routes for improvement. Several thermoeconomic approaches are well-established for application in systems with steady operating conditions, such as power plants, while a limited number of applications to air-conditioning systems in buildings have been proposed, due to the difficulties in dealing with very irregular load profiles and unsteady plant operating conditions. This study investigates the potential of Thermoeconomics as a support for decision making in building energy systems, proving its capability to identify trade-offs betwee…
Reverse electrodialysis heat-engine: Case studies of improving energy efficiency through recovery of low temperature excess heat
2018
Reverse Electrodialysis (RED) is a technology for generating electricity from the difference in salinity between two solutions. RED is usually applied to natural water streams with different salinities, like seawater vs. freshwater. In the RED Heat-to-Power project we explore the option of using artificial water solutions operating in a closed loop where the difference in salinity is regenerated in a separation step powered by heat at temperature ranges between 60 and 100°C. We call this system Reverse Electrodialysis Heat Engine (RED HE). In this paper, first we summarise the possible system configurations and the overall amount of excess heat available in Europe for powering the RED HE pr…
Hydration of alite containing aluminium
2011
Abstract The most important phase in Portland cement is tricalcium silicate, which leads during its hydration to the nucleation and growth of calcium silicate hydrate [referred to as C–S–H, (CaO)x–SiO2–(H2O)y]. The development of this hydrate around the cement grains is responsible for the setting and hardening of cement pastes. The general term for designating the tricalcium silicate in cements is alite. This name relates to all polymorphs containing various foreign ions inserted in their structure. These ions may influence the intrinsic reactivity, and once released during the dissolution, they may interact also with C–S–H. One of the most likely species to be inserted in the alite struct…
Assessment of Postharvest Dehydration Kinetics and Skin Mechanical Properties of “Muscat of Alexandria” Grapes by Response Surface Methodology
2016
The dipping of berries in a dilute solution of sodium hydroxide during a short time was evaluated as pretreatment undertaken prior to convective dehydration of wine grapes. The impact of the sodium hydroxide content and dipping time on weight loss (WL) at different dehydration times was thoroughly assessed using central composite design (CCD) and response surface methodology (RSM). Furthermore, the effects of these two variables were also investigated on the skin mechanical properties of dehydrated grapes. The effect of these two pretreatment factors on the dehydration kinetics and skin hardness was satisfactorily fitted to regression models. The berry pretreatment with low sodium hydroxide…
Color encoding for polychromatic single-channel optical pattern recognition
2010
The common multichannel system for recognizing colored images is replaced by a color-encoded single-channel system. Amethod inspired by the Munsell color system is used for encoding the different colors as phase and amplitude functions. It is shown that for many practical cases the phase information part of the color code is sufficient for obtaining good results. An implementation based on a liquid-crystal television panel that works in a phase-modulation mode is suggested. Computer simulations that demonstrate the capabilities of the suggested method are given as well as a comparison with previously published multichannel performance.
Nonlinear pattern recognition correlators based on color-encoding single-channel systems.
2004
In color pattern recognition, color channels are normally processed separately and afterward the correlation outputs are combined. This is the definition of multichannel processing. We combine a single-channel method with nonlinear filtering based on nonlinear correlations. These nonlinear correlations yield better discrimination than common matched filtering. The method codes color information as amplitude and phase distributions and is followed by correlations related to binary decompositions. The technique is based on binary decompositions of the red, green, and blue and the hue, saturation, and intensity monochromatic channels of the reference and of the input scene, after which the bin…