Numerical Simulation of Snow Deposition Around living Snow Fences

In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to investigate the air flow around porous snow fences to gain insight into snow transport and deposition in the vicinity of fences. Numerical simulations were performed to validate the CFD approach using experimental data from a wind tunnel study. Subsequent simulations were used to test the use of a porosity model to represent fence geometry and determine the effect of fence spacing for fences comprised of multiple rows. The results demonstrate that CFD simulations can reproduce the aerodynamics around porous fences. Additionally, the flow field generated with a porosity model is in close agreement with that from a model with explicit representation of fence porosity. Simulations of fences comprised of two rows spaced at various distances demonstrate that when the row spacing is small the fence behaves as a single row

“Constructal Theory: From Engineering to Physics, and How Flow Systems Develop Shape and Structure”

Constructal theory and its applications to various fields ranging from engineering to natural living and inanimate systems, and to social organization and economics, are reviewed in this paper. The constructal law states that if a system has freedom to morph it develops in time the flow architecture that provides easier access to the currents that flow through it. It is shown how constructal theory provides a unifying picture for the development of flow architectures in systems with internal flows (e.g., mass, heat, electricity, goods, and people). Early and recent works on constructal theory by various authors covering the fields of heat and mass transfer in engineered systems, inanimate flow structures (river basins, global circulations) living structures, social organization, and economics are reviewed. The relation between the constructal law and the thermodynamic optimization method of entropy generation minimization is outlined. The constructal law is a self-standing principle, which is distinct from the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The place of the constructal law among other fundamental principles, such as the Second Law, the principle of least action and the principles of symmetry and invariance is also presented. The review ends with the epistemological and philosophical implications of the constructal law

Geospatial analysis and living urban geometry

This essay outlines how to incorporate morphological rules within the exigencies of our technological age. We propose using the current evolution of GIS (Geographical Information Systems) technologies beyond their original representational domain, towards predictive and dynamic spatial models that help in constructing the new discipline of "urban seeding". We condemn the high-rise tower block as an unsuitable typology for a living city, and propose to re-establish human-scale urban fabric that resembles the traditional city. Pedestrian presence, density, and movement all reveal that open space between modernist buildings is not urban at all, but neither is the open space found in today's sprawling suburbs. True urban space contains and encourages pedestrian interactions, and has to be designed and built according to specific rules. The opposition between traditional self-organized versus modernist planned cities challenges the very core of the urban planning discipline. Planning has to be re-framed from being a tool creating a fixed future to become a visionary adaptive tool of dynamic states in evolution

The Role of Physics in Science Integration

Special and General theories of relativity may be considered as the most significant examples of integrative thinking. From these works we see that Albert Einstein attached great importance to how we understand geometry and dimensions. It is shown that physics powered by the new multidimensional elastic geometry is a reliable basis for science integration. Instead of searching for braneworlds (elastic membranes - EM) in higher dimensions we will start by searching them in our 3+1 dimensional world. The cornerstone of the new philosophy is an idea that lower dimensional EMs are an essential component of the living matter, they are responsible for our perceptions, intellect, pattern recognition and high speed signal propagation. According to this theory each EM has both physical and perceptive (psychological) meanings: it exists as our Universe-like physical reality for its inner objects and at the same time it plays perceptive (psychological) role in the external bulk space-time. This philosophy may help us to build up a science which explains not only inanimate, unconscious phenomena, but consciousness as well