The Thermal Environment of Housing and Its Implications for the Health of Older People in South Australia: A Mixed-Methods Study

Older people are often over-represented in morbidity and mortality statistics associated with hot and cold weather, despite remaining mostly indoors. The study “Improving thermal environment of housing for older Australians” focused on assessing the relationships between the indoor environment, building characteristics, thermal comfort and perceived health/wellbeing of older South Australians over a study period that included the warmest summer on record. Our findings showed that indoor temperatures in some of the houses reached above 35 °C. With concerns about energy costs, occupants often use adaptive behaviours to achieve thermal comfort instead of using cooling (or heating), although feeling less satisfied with the thermal environment and perceiving health/wellbeing to worsen at above 28 °C (and below 15 °C). Symptoms experienced during hot weather included tiredness, shortness of breath, sleeplessness and dizziness, with coughs and colds, painful joints, shortness of breath and influenza experienced during cold weather. To express the influence of temperature and humidity on perceived health/wellbeing, a Temperature Humidity Health Index (THHI) was developed for this cohort. A health/wellbeing perception of “very good” is achieved between an 18.4 °C and 24.3 °C indoor operative temperature and a 55% relative humidity. The evidence from this research is used to inform guidelines about maintaining home environments to be conducive to the health/wellbeing of older people.

Probability studies of rainfall and crop production in coastal Tamil Nadu

Studies are made of the probability of Occurrence of annual and seasonal rainfall, wet and dry spells on monthly basis throughout the year and on weekly basis during the northeast monsoon season for various stations in coastal Tamil Nadu. It has been observed that amount of rainfall received is more in the stations north of Alangudi and north of Tondi in the northeast and southwest monsoon seasons respectively at all the probability levels. However, the quantum of rainfall is more in stations south of Adiramapattinam during the hot weather period. Number of wet spells are more from July to September in the stations of north costal Tamil Nadu. During the northeast monsoon season also wet weeks are mainly confined to the stations of north coastal Tamil Nadu. Analysis of production figures of some rainfed crops shows more productivity (k8I1\a) in north than in south coastal Tamil Nadu.

Analysis of Asphalt Geogrid Reinforced Pavement Rutting by Finite Element Method

Pavement is a complex structure consisting of several layers of different materials that influence its stressful behavior. Permanent deformation can occur in pavement layers of insufficient hardness at high temperatures. Significant rutting normally only occurs during hot weather, especially when the flexible pavement surface temperature is 60 ° C or higher. 2D model analysis using ABAQUS software can predict the rutting behavior. The modeling procedure assumes that all materials performance is a linear elastic. Surface, base, subbase and subgrade layers consist of models. Models in every pavement model, subgrade layers are supposed to have endless depth. This paper presents an element-finite model (FE) for the behavior analysis of the dynamic loading unreinforced and geogrid reinforced paving. Increased loading of the model and critical pavement responses for unreinforced or geogrid-reinforced flexible paving, such as vertical stress and vertical surface deflection, were determined. The results indicated a difference in the displacement results when adding the geogrid layer. The results also showed a significant improvement in the behavior of the pavement system. A parametric study was carried out on a type of Truck (3-S1) and the applied pressure was 36 tons with different thicknesses of the asphalt layer once 150 mm and again 25 cm at different temperatures of 20, 40 and 60 ° C. It was found that the higher the temperatures, the higher the displacement as well.

Economic Threshold Analysis of Supplementing Dairy Cow Diets with Betaine and Fat during a Heat Challenge: A Pre- and Post-Experimental Comparison

Ex ante economic analysis can be used to establish the production threshold for a proposed experimental diet to be as profitable as the control treatment. This study reports (1) a pre-experimental economic analysis to estimate the milk production thresholds for an experiment where dietary supplements were fed to dairy cows experiencing a heat challenge, and (2) comparison of these thresholds to the milk production results of the subsequent animal experiment. The pre-experimental thresholds equated to a 1% increase in milk production for the betaine supplement, 9% increase for the fat supplement, and 11% increase for fat and betaine in combination, to achieve the same contribution to farm profit as the control diet. For the post-experimental comparison, previously modelled climate predictions were used to extrapolate the milk production results from the animal experiment over the annual hot-weather period for the dairying region in northern Victoria, Australia. Supplementing diets with fat or betaine had the potential to produce enough extra milk to exceed the production thresholds, making either supplement a profitable alternative to feeding the control diet during the hot-weather period. Feeding fat and betaine in combination failed to result in the extra milk required to justify the additional cost when compared to the control diet.

Efficiency Enhancement of Photovoltaic Module Using An Aluminum Foam Matrix Filled With Phase Change Material (PCM) Under Hot Climate Conditions

In the present work, a passive cooling strategy combining an aluminium foam matrix (AFM) with PCM was employed to regulate the temperature of a photovoltaic (PV) system The comparison between three PV modules was established ,the first one was conventional without any changes ,the second one was PV combined with PCM (PV-PCM) and the last one was PV combined with modified PCM which contain an aluminum foam matrix embedded in it (PV-PCM/AFM).Outdoor experiments were carried out in the hot weather of Benha, Egypt, which is situated at latitude 30.466° North and longitude 31.185° East. A comparison of the three PV designs was given and analysed, based on PV surface temperature, PCM temperature, open-circuit voltage, output power generated, and electrical efficiency. It was observed that using composite PCM resulted in better heat absorption from the PV module and better temperature distribution inside the PCM enclosure. Furthermore, the results indicated that against the unmodified PV system, the average cell’s temperature in the PV-PCM system was dropped by 13.3% and its electrical power was enhanced by 9%. Meanwhile, the average cell temperature in the PV-PCM/AFM configuration was reduced by 21.6% while the enhancement of the electrical power was at 14%. Furthermore, the findings demonstrated that, as compared to unmodified PCM, AFM impregnation accelerated the melting of modified PCM by roughly 37%.