Search results for "Moisture"

Molecular Sensors for Moisture Detection by Mössbauer Spectroscopy

2002

A parameter of importance in various industrial and commercial applications is sensitivity to moisture. A new class of molecular sensors which enable the qualitative and quantitative determination of air moisture (high selectivity and sensitivity) by application of Mossbauer spectroscopy as the probe technique has been investigated. The electronic properties of the iron-containing sensor depend upon the presence of moisture which is taken up by it and this process is accompanied by a change in electronic spin ground state which can be detected by Mossbauer spectroscopy. The sensor is suitable for in-field and industrial application using the recently developed Mossbauer spectrometer MIMOS I…

Physical modeling of heat and moisture transfer in wet bio-sourced insulating materials.

2018

Simultaneous heat and moisture transfers in bio-sourced insulating materials are significant phenomena in thermal metrology. The present study focuses on these phenomena by experimental and numerical approaches based on the asymmetric hot-plate method. In this paper, a bio-sourced insulating material based on flax fibers is developed. The thermal and hygric properties of the sample are then investigated in the humid atmosphere. The temperature is maintained at 30 °C, and the relative humidity varies between 30% and 90% RH. A physics-based model of simultaneous heat and moisture transfer is developed for thermal conductivity estimation. This model is discretized with finite difference method…

Analysis of gas sensors array signals for evaluation of mold contamination in buildings

2018

Mold is considered to be one of the most important features of Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) and is an important problem in building sector. In numerous cases it is caused by the rising moisture of building envelopes and overstated humidity of indoor air. Fungal contamination is normally evaluated using standard biological methods which are time-consuming and require a lot of manual labor. But also, fungi emit Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) that can be detected in the indoor air using several techniques of detection e.g. chromatography. VOCs can be also detected using gas sensors arrays. All arrays of sensors generate particular electric signals that ought to be analyzed using statistical …

Risks of condensate formation and mould growth in buildings under Latvian climate conditions

2013

Modeling of perched leachate zone formation in municipal solid waste landfills.

2010

The paper presents a 1D mathematical model for the simulation of the percolation fluxes throughout a landfill for municipal solid waste (MSW). Specifically, the model was based on mass balance equations, that enable simulation of the formation of perched leachate zones in a landfill for MSW. The model considers the landfill divided in several layers evaluating the inflow to and outflow from each layer as well as the continuous moisture distribution. The infiltration flow was evaluated by means of the Darcy’s law for an unsaturated porous medium, while the moisture distribution evaluation has been carried out on the basis of the theory of the vertically distributed unsaturated flow. The solu…

Moisture effect on deformability of epoxy/montmorillonite nanocomposite

2010

In this article the moisture effect on deformability of epoxy/montmorillonite nanocomposite was investigated. The change of fracture character and drop of elastic characteristics due to moisture absorption was observed. The estimation of filler morphological peculiarities (platelet stack constitution) in composite and its effect on nanocomposite elastic properties was undertaken. It is shown that the higher number of filler platelet per stack consistently leads to the decrease of nanocomposite elastic properties. Nevertheless prediction by micromechanical model is rough for moistened nanocomposite because of resin structural changes. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010

Water transport in epoxy/MWCNT composites

2013

Moisture and water uptake of epoxy/multi-wall carbon nanotube (MWCNT) composites was studied in a wide range of atmosphere relative humidity and temperatures. Addition of up to 1 wt.% of MWCNTs into the neat epoxy resulted to the twofold decrease of the diffusivity, while the levels of moisture/water uptake remained unchanged. The positive effect on the reduction of the diffusion coefficient diminishes with the increase of temperature. Differences in the water transport properties and plasticization ability of the neat polymer and its nanocomposites are explained by the free volume considerations and the polymer–water interactions, which are verified by the results of thermomechanical analy…

The SMAP and Copernicus Sentinel 1A/B microwave active-passive high resolution surface soil moisture product

2019

Abstract Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission of NASA was launched in January 2015. Currently, SMAP has an L-band radiometer and a defunct L-band radar with a rotating 6-m mesh reflector antenna. On July 7th, 2015, the SMAP radar malfunctioned and became inoperable. Consequently, the production of high-resolution active-passive soil moisture product got hampered, and only ~2.5 months (April 15th, 2015 to July 7th, 2015) of data remain available. Therefore, during the SMAP post-radar phase, many ways were examined to restart the high-resolution soil moisture product generation of the SMAP mission. One of the feasible approaches was to substitute the SMAP radar with other available SAR…

Moisture absorption, thermal conductivity and noise mitigation of clay based plasters: The influence of mineralogical and textural characteristics

2016

Abstract Three pre-mixed clay based plasters successfully employed in green building practices in several European countries (Spain, France, Germany, and United Kingdom), mainly used for interior wall coating and finishing, were tested in this paper. Their compositional and textural characteristics as well as plastic behaviour were investigated through a multi-analytical approach in a previous paper. A natural earth (Terra Rossa red soil sampled in north-western Sicily), theoretically appropriate for the production of earthen plaster, was also subjected to the same analytical routine and compared with the three commercially available products. Humidity control capacity by the determination …

Moisture dependence on mechanical properties of pine nuts from Pinus pinea L.

2012

Abstract Mechanical properties of pine nut shell are very important in the cracking process. Before industrial cracking shell moisture is adjusted by water soaking in order to avoid the breaking up of the nuts. In this work the moisture dependence of the mechanical properties of pine nut shells were studied in order to improve the industrial cracking process. Relationship between nut size and moisture content was studied and no significant differences were found for shell dimensions at four different moisture levels, 9.79%, 16.71%, 20.98% and 25.05% (dry basis). Compression tests were carried out on pine nuts at nine different moisture contents between 1.38% and 25.48% (db) and their main m…