A Study to Explore the Dew Condensation Potential of Cars

The metal surfaces of a car exhibit favorable properties for the passive condensation of atmospheric water. Under certain nocturnal climatic conditions (high relative humidity, weak windspeed, and total nebulosity), dew is often observed on cars, and it is appropriate to ask the question of using a vehicle as a standard condenser for estimating the dew yield. In order to see whether cars can be used as reference dew condensers, we report a detailed study of radiative cooling and dew formation on cars in the presence of radiating obstacles and for various windspeeds. Measurements of temperature and condensed dew mass on different car parts (rooftop, front and back hoods, windshield, lateral and back windows, inside and outside air) are compared with the same data obtained on a horizontal, thermally isolated planar film. The paper concludes that heat transfer coefficients, evaluated from temperature and dew yield measurements, are found nearly independent of windspeed and tilt angles. Moreover, this work describes the relation between cooling and dew condensation with the presence or not of thermal isolation. This dependence varies with the surface tilt angle according to the angular dependence of the atmosphere radiation. This work also confirms that cars can be used to estimate the dew yields in a given site. A visual observation scale h = Kn, with h the dew yield (mm) and n = 0, 1 2, 3 an index, which depends whether dew forms or not on rooftop, windshield, and lateral windows, is successfully tested with 8 different cars in 5 sites with three different climates, using K = (0.067 ± 0.0036) mm.day−1.

Fire safety requirements for thermal isolation of LNG storage tank

Проведен анализ российских и международных нормативных документов, регламентирующих требования пожарной безопасности к тепловой изоляции стационарных резервуаров хранения сжиженного природного газа (СПГ). Рассмотрены результаты наиболее интересных крупномасштабных экспериментов по огневому воздействию на указанные резервуары. Найдено, что требования нормативных документов к тепловой изоляции направлены, как правило, на защиту резервуаров СПГ от теплового воздействия окружающей среды. Поэтому для защиты от теплового воздействия пожара следует дополнительно использовать водяное орошение наружных стенок резервуара. На основе результатов указанных экспериментов можно сделать вывод о перспективности применения вакуумно-перлитовой тепловой изоляции для защиты двухоболочечных резервуаров СПГ с полной герметизацией. Однако для практической реализации этого способа необходимо проведение экспериментов при плотности теплового потока на наружную оболочку резервуара не менее 200 кВт/м. There was carried out the analysis of Russian and international normative documents containing fire safety requirements for a thermal isolation of stationary LNG storage tanks. There were considered the results of the most interesting large scale experiments on a flame effect on these tanks published in literature. The main Russian normative document which contains the fire safety requirements for the LNG tanks of a volume higher than 260 m3 with a pressure not higher than 0.8 MPa is State Standard SP 240.1311500.2015. The thermal isolation of these tanks should be non-combustible. According to State Standad SP 156.13130.2014 which contains the fire safety requirements for car refueling stations, the thermal isolation should provide the integrity of LNG tank for action of a design fire during 60 min. There is required the vacuum thermal isolation for tanks according to State Standard SP 326.1311500.2017 which contains the fire safety requirements for the LNG tanks of a volume not higher than 260 m and a pressure not higher 0.8 MPa. The pearlite and vacuum thermal isolation of tanks is required except membrane tanks for which a combustible thermal isolation is possible according to international standards EN 1473: 2016, NFPA 59A: 2016, NFPA 57: 2002 which contain the fire safety requirements for various types of LNG tanks. It was found that the requirements for thermal isolation are generally aimed on protection of LNG from the thermal impact of environment. Therefore water deluge systems should be used for protection against thermal radiation from fires. It was concluded that application of thermal isolation only for protection from fires is hardly possible. The application of the vacuum-pearlite isolation is one of the possible ways for reliable protection of double-envelope LNG tanks from fires. The investigations of this type of thermal isolation have been carried out only for thermal radiation intensity up to 75 kW/m, but the thermal radiation intensity of LNG fires exceeds 200 kW/m.Therefore it is necessary to conduct experiments for such value of thermal radiation intensity. There can be created mathematical models on the basis of these experiments which can describe the behavior of LNG tanks during fire for various types of thermal isolation.

The Impact of Technological Changes of PVC Light Partitions and Glazing on the Risk Connected with the Organization of International Transport

The Author of the article proves that in practice the suitable result concerning the balanced development and the effective use of resources should be controlled simultaneously. The setting of the parameters of thermal isolation for constructional products such as light partitions and glazing (windows and doors) with respect to technological development of products is not enough. Production, the product and its transport makes the whole arrangement of processes that influence the entirety resulting from ecology, transport and the effective use of resources. The only way to meet the demands of the strategy described in the EU documents is to implement such product design that assumes for example the optimal transport possibilities.

Earth's supecontinental climate control

<p>Supercontinent assembly and breakup can influence the rate and global extent to which insulated and relatively warm subcontinental mantle is mixed globally, potentially introducing lateral oceanic-continental mantle temperature variations that regulate volcanic and weathering controls on Earth's long-term carbon cycle for a few hundred million years. In this talk we explore some remarkable consequences of this class of mantle climate control consistent with varied observational constraints. Whereas the relatively unchanging and ice sheet-free climate of the Nuna supercontinental epoch (1.8–1.3 Ga) is an expected consequence of thorough mantle thermal mixing, the extreme cooling-warming climate variability of the Neoproterozoic Rodinia episode (1–0.63 Ga), marked by discontinuous periods of global glaciation (snowball Earth), is a predicted effect of protracted subcontinental mantle thermal isolation.</p>