Regional Refined Grid Modeling of Acidic and Mercury Deposition over Northeastern US and the Contribution of New York Power Point Sources

<p>The new generation of super slender high-rise buildings first appeared in New York City. Due to inner-city concentration, it has become desirable to construct slender high-rise buildings, something which poses significant challenges in dealing with the susceptibility of such structures to the dynamic wind excitation. In this paper, innovative adaptable connections integrated with electromagnetic (EM) devices replace the conventional fixed connections between the main structure and its facades. Therefore, the wind excitation that previously acted directly on the main structure will be transmitted to the main structure through the adaptable facade so that the vibration of main structure can be reduced. Simultaneously, the vibrational kinetic energy of the moving facade will be partly transduced to electricity by EM devices. This concept will be parametrically investigated in the frequency domain using a two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) system under harmonic excitation to find the most influential parameters for its vibration reduction and energy harvesting performance. The result shows that the vibration of main structure can be effectively reduced but it also brings the excessive facade vibration. For practical considerations, the excessive facade vibrational amplitude needs to be restricted within a certain range. Increasing the facade mass ratio and facade damping ratio can reduce facade vibration. However, for energy harvesting, the more severe the facade vibrates, the more energy can be possibly harvested. It has been mathematically strict proved that the maximum power point occurs when electrical damping ratio is equal to mechanical damping ratio. Further research is required for real application.</p>

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Contributions of global and regional sources to mercury deposition in New York State

Environmental Pollution ◽

10.1016/s0269-7491(03)00027-7 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 123 (3) ◽

pp. 365-373 ◽

Cited By ~ 40

Author(s):

Christian Seigneur ◽

Kristen Lohman ◽

Krish Vijayaraghavan ◽

Run-Lie Shia

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

New York State ◽

Mercury Deposition ◽

York State ◽

Regional Sources

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Terrorist Attacks: Do We Know How to Assess the Results?

The Scientific World JOURNAL ◽

10.1100/tsw.2001.319 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

pp. 588-589

Author(s):

William J. Manning

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Fine Particles ◽

World Trade Center ◽

Point Sources ◽

Know How ◽

Particulate Air Pollution ◽

Volatile Organic ◽

Dust Fraction ◽

Trade Center ◽

Complete Collapse

On September 11, 2001, terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York City. Explosions and fires resulted in the complete collapse of the two WTC towers. The collapsing towers served as enormous point sources of gaseous and particulate air pollution, seen as huge plumes of smoke and dust. The smoke contained volatile organic compounds and fine particles and aerosols. The dust fraction contained parts of ceiling tiles, carpets, concrete, adhesives, asbestos, chromium, lead, titanium, and many other elements and materials. Whether there were unusually toxic ingredients in the plumes is largely unknown.

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The Puzzle of Drastic Reduction of Point Source Emissions and Continuing High Deposition of Mercury in Florida

13th North American Waste-to-Energy Conference ◽

10.1115/nawtec13-3148 ◽

2005 ◽

Author(s):

N. J. Themelis

Keyword(s):

Power Plants ◽

Climatic Conditions ◽

South Florida ◽

Point Sources ◽

Mercury Deposition ◽

Similar Reduction ◽

Deposition Rates ◽

Mercury Emissions ◽

Co Precipitation ◽

Precipitation Season

This report shows that the combined emissions of mercury from major point sources of mercury in Florida decreased from about 4.8 short tons in 1994 to 1.3 tons in recent years. A similar reduction of mercury emissions was reported by Florida DEP for south Florida where the Everglades Park is located: Point sources of emissions decreased from a high of 3.4 short tons (3,100 kg) of mercury in 1991 to 0.22 tons (204 kg) in 2000. The Florida DEP study of the Everglades also showed that the mercury concentrations in largemouth bass and in great egret nestlings decreased by a factor of six between 1991 and 2000. On the other hand, our analysis of 330 sets of weekly mercury deposition data, obtained by the Everglades station of the national Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) showed that the annual average deposition in the Everglades did not change significantly from December 1995 to January 2004. Two other interesting findings were that 73% of the total mercury deposition during those eight years occurred in the high precipitation season, between May and October; and that 40% of the weekly samples taken during this eight-year period represented only 3.8 % of the recorded total deposition of mercury. This paper examines the reasons why the substantial decrease of local and regional point sources of mercury emission has not affected substantially the local deposition rates. A likely answer is that climatic conditions in Florida, associated mainly with the warmer months and higher rates of precipitation and evaporation, have a large effect on a) re-emission of previously deposited mercury and b) co-precipitation of global mercury from the atmosphere. This may also explain why Florida, where the present annual rate of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants (in kilograms per square kilometer) is one fifth that of Pennsylvania, has mercury deposition rates that are twice those reported by MDN for Pennsylvania.

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