Experimental Analysis of the Thermal Performance of Wood Fiber Insulating Panels

During the last decades, attention to energy and environmental problems has significantly grown, along with the development of international and national policies addressing sustainability issues. In the construction sector, one of the most widespread energy efficiency strategies consists of thermal insulation of buildings thanks to external insulating panels. Among these, wood fiber is an insulating material characterized by a natural, eco-sustainable and biodegradable structure, coming from the recycling of waste wood from sawmills. The present study aimed to characterize small test building insulated with wood fiber panels from the thermal point of view, comparing the results with those of an identical, non-insulated reference test building. The experimental campaign highlighted several advantages and an excellent thermal performance provided by the eco-sustainable solution of wood fiber insulating panels: Lower values of the thermal transmittance (-57%), thus ensuring greater stability of the internal air temperature and better values in terms of attenuation (-60% in summer and -74 % in winter) and phase shift (+2 h in summer and +2.28 h in winter) compared to those obtained from the reference building. The material is also equipped with an Environmental Performance Declaration (EPD) that certifies its environmental benefits

Exploring relationships between soundscape and lightscape perception: A case study around the Colosseum and Fori Imperiali in Rome

Recently, there has been a growing interest to implement a holistic approach to study perception in urban settings with historic value, in which environmental factors such as acoustics and lighting play an important role. However, little research has addressed sound and light in combination. In this exploratory field study, a soundscape and lightscape protocol was implemented to gather both objective and subjective data. In all, 46 people joined a group walk around the historical sites of Colosseum and Fori Imperiali in Rome. Participants assessed the soundscape and lightscape quality via questionnaire at four locations, immediately before and after the sunset in April 2021. Acoustic parameters (A-weighted equivalent sound level, loudness, sharpness, roughness) and lighting parameters (luminance, colour rendering index and correlated colour temperature) were measured at each location while participants filled in the questionnaire. While there was little variation in the acoustic parameters measured before and after the sunset walks, changes were observed in perceptual data about the soundscape. These outcomes reveal a potential effect of lighting conditions on soundscape perception

METHOD FOR RAPID ON-SITE IDENTIFICATION OF VOCs IN EWE MILK

Use of a portable GC/MS for on-site identification of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in ewe milk is for the first time reported. Different VOCs tipically observed in milk were detected with a good repetitivity of the measurement

How reproducible is the acoustical characterization of porous media?

There is a considerable number of research publications on the characterization of porous media that is carried out in accordance with ISO 10534-2 (International Standards Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 2001) and/or ISO 9053 (International Standards Organization, Geneva, Switzerland, 1991). According to the Web of Science(TM) (last accessed 22 September 2016) there were 339 publications in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America alone which deal with the acoustics of porous media. However, the reproducibility of these characterization procedures is not well understood. This paper deals with the reproducibility of some standard characterization procedures for acoustic porous materials. The paper is an extension of the work published by Horoshenkov, Khan, Bécot, Jaouen, Sgard, Renault, Amirouche, Pompoli, Prodi, Bonfiglio, Pispola, Asdrubali, Hübelt, Atalla, Amédin, Lauriks, and Boeckx [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 122(1), 345-353 (2007)]. In this paper, independent laboratory measurements were performed on the same material specimens so that the naturally occurring inhomogeneity in materials was controlled. It also presented the reproducibility data for the characteristic impedance, complex wavenumber, and for some related pore structure properties. This work can be helpful to better understand the tolerances of these material characterization procedures so improvements can be developed to reduce experimental errors and improve the reproducibility between laboratories

Comparative environmental life cycle analysis of stone wool production using traditional and alternative materials

The mineral wool sector represents 10 % of the total output tonnage of the glass industry. The thermal, acoustic and fire protection properties of mineral wool make it desirable for use in a wide range of economic sectors especially in the construction industry for the creation of low energy buildings. The traditional stone wool manufacturing process involves melting raw materials, in a coke-fired hot blast cupola furnace, fiberization, polymerization, cooling, product finishing and gas treatment. The use of alternative raw materials as torrefied biomass and sodium silicate, is proposed as an alternative manufacturing process to improve the sustainability of stone wool production, particularly the reduction of gas emissions (CO2 and SO2). The present study adopts a life cycle analysis (LCA) approach to measure the comparative environmental performance of the traditional and alternative stone wool production processes; process data are incorporated into a LCA model using SimaPro 8 software with the Ecoinvent version 3 life cycle inventory database. The CML 2000 and Eco-Indicator99 methods are used to estimate effects on different impact categories. The Minerals and Land use impacts in Eco-Indicator99 and the Eutrophication impact in CML2000 increase between 2 and 4 % for the alternative process instead of the traditional one. Similarly, the ecotoxicity-related impacts increase between 9 and 24 % with the use of the alternative process. However these increases are compensated by concomitant impact decreases in other categories of impact; consequently, the three areas of impact grouped by individual Eco-indicator 99 impacts, show environmental benefits improvements between 6 and 15 % when using the alternative process based on torrefied biomass and silicate instead of the traditional process based on coke and cement use

A scale model to evaluate water evaporation from indoor swimming pools

The evaluation of water evaporation from indoor swimming pools is a topic of considerable practical interest, since evaporation may cause the highest energy consumption of the pool plant. A purposely designed experimental apparatus was used to measure the water evaporation rate from a pool scale model inserted into a climatic chamber to control environmental conditions. The experimental data were obtained varying various parameters such as water temperature, air temperature, relative humidity and air velocity. The results were used to propose a prediction model for water evaporation which was compared to other methods found in the literature, showing a good agreement

Mosaico Romano di Orfeo a Perugia: indagini ambientali e progetto di massima per un intervento conservativo

Il lavoro presenta i risultati di un esteso monitoraggio ambientale, volto ad individuare le cause di degrado del Mosaico Romano di Orfeo, situato a Perugia nell'atrio del Dipartimento di Chimica. Il Mosaico è un importante reperto archeologico del II sec. d.c., raffigurante il mito di Orfeo che incanta gli animali con il suono della lira; in virtù della sua ubicazione è purtroppo sottoposto a condizioni ambientali non ottimali e versa in cattive condizioni di conservazione. Le indagini eseguite (misure di temperatura e umidità relativa dell'aria, misure di temperatura superficiale, di illuminamento, di irraggiamento, indagini geofisiche) hanno consentito di individuare con precisione le cause di degrado e di formulare una articolata proposta per un intervento conservativo