Search results for "forestry"
showing 10 items of 1998 documents
Athena Mars rover science investigation
2003
[1] Each Mars Exploration Rover carries an integrated suite of scientific instruments and tools called the Athena science payload. The primary objective of the Athena science investigation is to explore two sites on the Martian surface where water may once have been present, and to assess past environmental conditions at those sites and their suitability for life. The remote sensing portion of the payload uses a mast called the Pancam Mast Assembly (PMA) that provides pointing for two instruments: the Panoramic Camera (Pancam), and the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES). Pancam provides high-resolution, color, stereo imaging, while Mini-TES provides spectral cubes at mid-inf…
Soils with Specific Features
2016
This chapter deals with some specific features of soil that are relevant for interpretation of infiltration experiments. Infiltration in water repellent soils is first examined. After summarizing the causes of hydrophobicity, phenomena associated to infiltration in water repellent soil, including reduced infiltration rates and irregular wetting front advance, are illustrated. The Water Drop Penetration Time (WDPT), the Molarity of an Ethanol Droplet (MED) and the Repellency tests for quantitative assessment of soil water repellency are presented. Particular attention is given to estimation of subcritical soil water repellency by means of soil sorptivity measurements conducted with infiltrat…
Dielectric spectroscopy as a potential technique for prediction of kiwifruit quality indices during storage
2019
Dielectric spectroscopy has been employed as a simple, low cost and a non-destructive way for prediction of some physicochemical indices of kiwifruit during storage. A parallel-plate capacitor was developed and supplied with sinusoidal voltage waves within a frequency range of 40 kHz – 20 MHz. Dielectric properties of samples were measured by the dielectric sensor. Additionally, changes associated with fruit ripening properties, including firmness, total soluble solid (TSS) and pH were determined as a function of time at 2 °C. The results showed that storage time significantly affected the quality characteristics of kiwifruit. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) were employed to develop model…
A shear test for structural adhesives used in the consolidation of old timber
2001
A test method was developed specifically for structural adhesives used in thick joints. It is based on compressive shear loading of glued joints (GJ) and solid wood (SW) specimens, before and after a suitable accelerated ageing cycle. The evaluation of results is based on the ratios of wet strength to dry strength and on the comparison of GJ specimens to SW specimens which are prepared from the same batch of wood, in order to minimise the influence of the variability in wood characteristics. On a group of 10 epoxy-based adhesives, specifically marketed for the consolidation of old timber structures, the method has proved to be effective to differentiate the performances of each product. Amo…
On the influence of orientation upon the mechanical behavior of oakwood in a general state of stress
1995
Influence of orientation upon the mechanical behavior of oakwood has been studied. The approach within anisotropic medias mechanics supposes oakwood orthotropic with three orthogonal symmetry axes considered to be the privileged directions that occur during the growth of oaktree. Experimental tests consisted in compression tests under confining pressure realized on cylindric samples of oakwood chopped in 18 privileged directions. Although well known in solid mechanics, our approach is original in mechanics and rheology of wood. The obtained results disclosed an influence of the confining pressure upon the mechanical behavior of oakwood and its anisotropy including different types of anisotr…
Hygroexpansivity of anisotropic sheets
2015
Dimensional instability, more particularly its component hygroexpansivity, may cause problems in process or end-use situations in which paper or board is in contact with water or subject to changes in ambient relative humidity. Misregistration in printing, curl during copying and calender wrinkles are examples of such defects. In this paper, the in-plane hygroexpansivity of oriented laboratory sheets with different pulps and dried both freely and under restraint is studied. A linear relationship between the drying shrinkage and hygroexpansion coefficient of freely dried laboratory sheets having different fiber orientation anisotropies, was observed. Regardless of both the measurement direct…
Relaxation of wet paper by simulations and laboratory-scale experiments
2009
Numerical studies of fiber networks and experiments on wet paper show that tensile force relaxes linearly as a function of logarithmic time. Relaxation rate is faster for wet than dry paper. Simulated permanent deformation after relaxation is clearly higher than that measured in wet paper.
Influence of mode stirrer and air renewal on controlled microwave drying of sliced zucchini
2017
An on-line temperature-controlled microwave (MW) system, based on infrared thermography, was developed for drying zucchini slices. Moreover, the effects of different configurations, including turntable rotation, mode stirrer and air renewal, alone or in combination, on drying kinetics and quality of dried product were evaluated. The combination of stirrer and air renewal reduced the drying time of zucchini slices by about 48% with respect to the basic configuration and by 22% with respect to air renewal only. The lowest oscillation of temperatures about the fixed level (65 °C) was found when operating with the stirrer mode, because of the improved uniformity of the MW distribution. The sa…
Comparison of 3D structural characteristics of high and low resolution X-ray microtomographic images of paper
2005
The detailed 3D structure of paper was revealed applying both high and low resolution X-ray microtomography. The qualityof the two techniques with respect to resolution and volume size was compared by measuring various structural andtransport properties of the digital volumes.