Analysis of Indian Traditional Buildings using Passive Cooling through Natural Ventilation Techniques

There is a rapid increase in the use of active cooling strategies for ventilation and air circulation in the recent scenario, and hence an urge of climate-responsive buildings is a need of today. Taking the advantage of local climate and designing buildings that decrease energy use can be achieved by implementing passive cooling strategies in a building. The present study focuses on how various solar passive techniques have helped in designing climate-responsive structures in the past and how its implementation can enhance the structure in modern construction techniques. By analysing structures from the past and studying the science behind them, the passive cooling effect and its development in design implementation can be examined. The paper concludes by having incited on how solar passive strategies can help to create a flexible building, responding to climatic effects and its evolution over a period of time. Keywords: Climate responsive, Hot-dry climate, passive cooling, Traditional buildings

Exploring Owner Perceptions of the Impacts of Seasonal Weather Variations on Canine Activity and Potential Consequences for Human–Canine Relationships

Climate change is leading to more instances of seasonal weather variation. Studies have explored the impact of adverse winter weather on dog walking, but the impact on the dog’s overall activity levels have not been previously considered. This study explored dog owner perceptions of the effects of both summer and winter weather on their dog’s activity levels. An international online survey recruited 3153 respondents between May and December 2018, to explore the impact of summer and winter weather conditions on baseline activity levels. Owners reported their dogs were more impacted by cold (48.2% less likely to exercise their dog in the cold) and ice (64.0% less likely), than rain (25.3% were less likely). In hot weather, over 80% of owners reported reduced exercise duration and vigour for their dogs. Carrying water or walking near water to facilitate activity in the summer was the most popular mitigation strategy (90.8%). Participation in dog sports appeared to reduce the impact of winter weather on canine activity and increase owner awareness of cooling strategies to facilitate summer activity. Strategies to promote safe activity participation are needed to maintain canine activity levels amidst rising global temperatures, including better understanding of cooling strategies for exercising dogs.

Application of indirect evaporative cooling strategies for a warm-humid climate

Energy consumption in buildings for air conditioning has augmented worldwide by the escalation in global warming. The application of passive cooling is a promising approach to mitigate this situation. The aim of this research was to assess and characterize the performance of indirect evaporative cooling strategies combined with other passive cooling techniques, applied in experimental modules, aimed at providing hygrothermal comfort. Results showed that the investigated strategies presented lower temperatures than the external conditions and the control module. The alternative that combined indirect evaporative cooling with thermal mass, solar protection, and night radiative cooling was the most promising, with a temperature reduction of 4.2 K, relative to the mean exterior temperature, and a decrease of 8.3 K of its maximum temperature relative to the maximum exterior temperature. An additional strategy was implemented in this alternative using a phase change material, that further reduced its temperature by 6.3 K, relative to the mean exterior temperature and a reduction of 11.5 K of its maximum temperature compared to the maximum exterior temperature. It is expected that these findings are applicable in actual buildings in warm-humid regions to reduce energy consumption for air conditioning, whilst improving hygrothermal comfort and health of occupants.

Reconfigurable Stochastic neurons based on tin oxide/MoS2 hetero-memristors for simulated annealing and the Boltzmann machine

Neuromorphic hardware implementation of Boltzmann Machine using a network of stochastic neurons can allow non-deterministic polynomial-time (NP) hard combinatorial optimization problems to be efficiently solved. Efficient implementation of such Boltzmann Machine with simulated annealing desires the statistical parameters of the stochastic neurons to be dynamically tunable, however, there has been limited research on stochastic semiconductor devices with controllable statistical distributions. Here, we demonstrate a reconfigurable tin oxide (SnOx)/molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) heterogeneous memristive device that can realize tunable stochastic dynamics in its output sampling characteristics. The device can sample exponential-class sigmoidal distributions analogous to the Fermi-Dirac distribution of physical systems with quantitatively defined tunable “temperature” effect. A BM composed of these tunable stochastic neuron devices, which can enable simulated annealing with designed “cooling” strategies, is conducted to solve the MAX-SAT, a representative in NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Quantitative insights into the effect of different “cooling” strategies on improving the BM optimization process efficiency are also provided.

Twin Roll Casting and Secondary Cooling of 6.0 wt.% Silicon Steel

Iron–silicon alloys with up to 6.5 wt.% Si offer an improvement of soft magnetic properties in electrical steels compared to conventional electrical steel grades. However, steels with high Si contents are very brittle and cannot be produced by cold rolling. In addition to solid solution hardening, it is assumed that the B2- and DO3-superlattice structures are responsible for the poor cold workability. In this work, two cast strips with 6.0 wt.% Si were successfully produced by the twin roll strip casting process and cooled differently by secondary cooling. The aim of the different cooling strategies was to suppress the formation of the embrittling superlattice structures and thus enable further processing by cold rolling. A comprehensive material characterization allows for the understanding of the influence of casting parameters and cooling strategies on segregation, microstructure and superlattice structure. The results show that both cooling strategies are not sufficient to prevent the formation of B2- and DO3-structures. Although the dark field images show a condition which is far from equilibrium, the achieved condition is not sufficient to ensure cold processing of the material.