COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE INTERLOCKING BLOCK AND CLAY BRICK MASONRY BUILDING

The Thirteenth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction (EASEC-13), September 11-13, 2013, Sapporo, Japan

Performance study of thermoelectric dehumidification system integrated with heat pipe heatsink

The thermoelectric (TE) cooler is a key component in a TE dehumidifier system. This study represents an experimental investigation on the performance of the TE dehumidifier system integrated with heat pipe heatsink. The system is composed of TE modules, fin heatsink, and heat pipe heatsinks. A rectangular fin heatsink is attached to the cold side of TE modules, while the heat pipe heatsink are mounted to the hot side. Air circulates from the test chamber through the cold-side heatsink to remove moisture, and heat pipe heatsink are used to dissipate heat from the hot side of the TE modules. The effect of relevant parameters such as electrical current input to the TE modules and cold air flow rate on the system's performance is studied. It is found that the cold air flow rate and the electrical current input to the TE modules have the highest impact on the system's performance. Improvements to the coefficient of performance (COP) and cooling capacity of the system can be achieved by using heat pipe heatsinks. Experimental results show that the optimum occurs at 3 A of electrical current input to the TE modules and 1.34 g/s of cold air flow rate with corresponding cooling capacity of 93.1 W, yielding an effectiveness of 2.638E-07 L/J and a coefficient of performance (COP) of 1.1

Performance analysis of a double-pass thermoelectric solar air collector

The thermoelectric (TE) solar air collector, sometimes known as the hybrid solar collector, generates both thermal and electrical energies simultaneously. A double-pass TE solar air collector has been developed and tested. The TE solar collector was composed of transparent glass, air gap, an absorber plate, thermoelectric modules and rectangular fin heat sink. The incident solar radiation heats up the absorber plate so that a temperature difference is created between the thermoelectric modules that generates a direct Current. Only a small part of the absorbed solar radiation is converted to electricity, while the rest increases the temperature of the absorber plate. The ambient air flows through the heat sink located in the lower channel to gain heat. The heated air then flows to the upper channel where it receives additional heating from the absorber plate. Improvements to the thermal and overall efficiencies of the system can be achieved by the use of the double-pass collector system and TE technology. Results show that the thermal efficiency increases as the air flow rate increases. Meanwhile, the electrical power output and the conversion efficiency depend on the temperature difference between the hot and cold side of the TE modules. At a temperature difference of 22.8 degrees C, the unit achieved a power output of 2.13 W and the conversion efficiency of 6.17%. Therefore, the proposed TE solar collector concept is anticipated to contribute to wider applications of the TE hybrid systems due to the increased overall efficiency. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Anti-Cancer Effect of Kaffir Lime (Citrus Hystrix DC) Leaf Extract in Cervical Cancer and Neuroblastoma Cell Lines

Previous study showed that kaffir lime leaf contains alkaloid, flavonoid, terpenoid, tannin and saponin. The objective of this study was to examine the cytotoxic effect of kaffir lime leaf extract on cervical cancer and neuroblastoma cell lines. The method used for this research to determine cell viability was an 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Results showed that an ethyl acetate extract had an IC50 for HeLa cells, UKF-NB3, IMR-5 and SK-N-AS parental cells of 40.7 ?g · mL–1, 28.4 ?g · mL–1, 14.1 ?g · mL–1, and 25.2 ?g · mL–1 respectively. Furthermore, the IC50 of chloroform extracts for HeLa cells, UKF-NB3, IMR-5 and SK-N-AS parental were 17.6 ?g · mL–1, 18.9 ?g · mL–1, 6.4 ?g · mL–1, and 9.4 ?g · mL–1 respectively. These data showed that kaffir lime extract reduces the viability of cervical and neuroblastoma cell lines and may have potential as anti-cancer compounds