15,786 research outputs found
Increased temperature in urban ground as source of sustainable energy
This paper is part of the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Urban Regeneration and Sustainability (Sustainable City 2015). http://www.witconferences.comDensely urbanized areas are characterized by special microclimatic conditions with typically elevated temperatures in comparison with the rural surrounding. This phenomenon is known as the urban heat island (UHI) effect, but not restricted exclusively to the atmosphere. We also find significant warming of the urban subsurface and shallow groundwater bodies. Here, main sources of heat are elevated ground surface temperatures, direct thermal exploitation of aquifers and heat losses from buildings and other infrastructure. By measuring the shallow groundwater temperature in several European cities, we identify that heat sources and associated transport processes interact at multiple spatial and temporal scales. The intensity of a subsurface UHI can reach the values of above 4 K in city centres with hotspots featuring temperatures up to +20°C. In comparison with atmospheric UHIs, subsurface UHIs represent long-term accumulations of heat in a relatively sluggish environment. This potentially impairs urban groundwater quality and permanently influences subsurface ecosystems. From another point of view, however, these thermal anomalies can also be seen as hidden large-scale batteries that constitute a source of shallow geothermal energy. Based on our measurements, data surveys and estimated physical ground properties, it is possible to estimate the theoretical geothermal potential of the urban groundwater bodies beneath the studied cities. For instance, by decreasing the elevated temperature of the shallow aquifer in Cologne, Germany, by only 2 K, the obtained energy could supply the space-heating demand of the entire city for at least 2.5 years. In the city of Karlsruhe, it is estimated that about 30% of annual heating demand could be sustainably supplied by tapping the anthropogenic heat loss in the urban aquifer. These results reveal the attractive potential of heated urban ground as energy reservoir and storage, which is in place at many places worldwide but so far not integrated in any city energy plans.This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) under grant number 200021L 144288, and the German Research Foundation (DFG), under grant number BL 1015/4-1
Submillimetre-sized dust aggregate collision and growth properties
The collisional and sticking properties of sub-mm-sized aggregates composed
of protoplanetary dust analogue material are measured, including the
statistical threshold velocity between sticking and bouncing, their surface
energy and tensile strength within aggregate clusters. We performed an
experiment on the REXUS 12 suborbital rocket. The protoplanetary dust analogue
materials were micrometre-sized monodisperse and polydisperse SiO2 particles
prepared into aggregates with sizes around 120 m and 330 m,
respectively and volume filling factors around 0.37. During the experimental
run of 150 s under reduced gravity conditions, the sticking of aggregates and
the formation and fragmentation of clusters of up to a few millimetres in size
was observed. The sticking probability of the sub-mm-sized dust aggregates
could be derived for velocities decreasing from 22 to 3 cm/s. The transition
from bouncing to sticking collisions happened at 12.7 cm/s for the smaller
aggregates composed of monodisperse particles and at 11.5 and 11.7 cm/s for the
larger aggregates composed of mono- and polydisperse dust particles,
respectively. Using the pull-off force of sub-mm-sized dust aggregates from the
clusters, the surface energy of the aggregates composed of monodisperse dust
was derived to be 1.6x10-5 J/m2, which can be scaled down to 1.7x10-2 J/m2 for
the micrometre-sized monomer particles and is in good agreement with previous
measurements for silica particles. The tensile strengths of these aggregates
within the clusters were derived to be 1.9 Pa and 1.6 Pa for the small and
large dust aggregates, respectively. These values are in good agreement with
recent tensile strength measurements for mm-sized silica aggregates. Using our
data on the sticking-bouncing threshold, estimates of the maximum aggregate
size can be given. For a minimum mass solar nebula model, aggregates can reach
sizes of 1 cm.Comment: 21 pages (incl. 6 pages of appendix), 23 figure
Low-velocity collision behaviour of clusters composed of sub-mm sized dust aggregates
The experiments presented aim to measure the outcome of collisions between
sub-mm sized protoplanetary dust aggregate analogues. We also observed the
clusters formed from these aggregates and their collision behaviour. The
experiments were performed at the drop tower in Bremen. The protoplanetary dust
analogue materials were micrometre-sized monodisperse and polydisperse SiO
particles prepared into aggregates with sizes between 120~m and
250~m. One of the dust samples contained aggregates that were previously
compacted through repeated bouncing. During three flights of 9~s of
microgravity each, individual collisions between aggregates and the formation
of clusters of up to a few millimetres in size were observed. In addition, the
collisions of clusters with the experiment cell walls leading to compaction or
fragmentation were recorded. We observed collisions amongst dust aggregates and
collisions between dust clusters and the cell aluminium walls at speeds ranging
from about 0.1 cm/s to 20 cm/s. The velocities at which sticking occurred
ranged from 0.18 to 5.0 cm/s for aggregates composed of monodisperse dust, with
an average value of 2.1 cm/s for reduced masses ranging from 1.2x10-6 to
1.8x10-3 g with an average value of 2.2x10-4 g. From the restructuring and
fragmentation of clusters composed of dust aggregates colliding with the
aluminium cell walls, we derived a collision recipe for dust aggregates
(100 m) following the model of Dominik \& Thielens (1997) developed
for microscopic particles. We measured a critical rolling energy of 1.8x10-13 J
and a critical breaking energy of 3.5x10-13 J for 100 m-sized
non-compacted aggregates.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure
Numerical simulation of viscous supersonic flow over a generic fighter configuration
A procedure is presented, as well as some results, to calculate the flow over a generic fighter configuration. A parabolized marching Navier-Stokes code is used to obtain the solution over a wing-canopy body. The flow conditions simulate supersonic cruise with a freestream Mach number of 2.169 and angles of attack of 4 and 10 deg. The body surface is considered to be an adiabatic wall and the flow is assumed to be turbulent for the given Reynolds number
The Refractory-to-Ice Mass Ratio in Comets
We review the complex relationship between the dust-to-gas mass ratio usually estimated in the material lost by comets, and the Refractory-to-Ice mass ratio inside the nucleus, which constrains the origin of comets. Such a relationship is dominated by the mass transfer from the perihelion erosion to fallout over most of the nucleus surface. This makes the Refractory-to-Ice mass ratio inside the nucleus up to ten times larger than the dust-to-gas mass ratio in the lost material, because the lost material is missing most of the refractories which were inside the pristine nucleus before the erosion. We review the Refractory-to-Ice mass ratios available for the comet nuclei visited by space missions, and for the Kuiper Belt Objects with well defined bulk density, finding the 1-σ lower limit of 3. Therefore, comets and KBOs may have less water than CI-chondrites, as predicted by models of comet formation by the gravitational collapse of cm-sized pebbles driven by streaming instabilities in the protoplanetary disc
Some mechanisms for a theory of the reticular formation Final report, 15 Nov. 1965 - 14 Nov. 1966
Nonlinear, probabilistic hybrid computer concepts for specifying operational schemata of central nervous system model
A many-fermion generalization of the Caldeira-Leggett model
We analyze a model system of fermions in a harmonic oscillator potential
under the influence of a dissipative environment: The fermions are subject to a
fluctuating force deriving from a bath of harmonic oscillators. This represents
an extension of the well-known Caldeira-Leggett model to the case of many
fermions. Using the method of bosonization, we calculate one- and two-particle
Green's functions of the fermions. We discuss the relaxation of a single extra
particle added above the Fermi sea, considering also dephasing of a particle
added in a coherent superposition of states. The consequences of the separation
of center-of-mass and relative motion, the Pauli principle, and the
bath-induced effective interaction are discussed. Finally, we extend our
analysis to a more generic coupling between system and bath, that results in
complete thermalization of the system.Comment: v3: fixed pdf problem; v2: added exact formula (Eq. 42) for Green's
function and discussion of equilibrium density matrix (new Fig. 2); 10
figures, 21 pages, see quant-ph/0305098 for brief version of some of these
result
Resonant Processes in a Frozen Gas
We present a theory of resonant processes in a frozen gas of atoms
interacting via dipole-dipole potentials that vary as , where is
the interatomic separation. We supply an exact result for a single atom in a
given state interacting resonantly with a random gas of atoms in a different
state. The time development of the transition process is calculated both on-
and off-resonance, and the linewidth with respect to detuning is obtained as a
function of time . We introduce a random spin Hamiltonian to model a dense
system of resonators and show how it reduces to the previous model in the limit
of a sparse system. We derive approximate equations for the average effective
spin, and we use them to model the behavior seen in the experiments of Anderson
et al. and Lowell et al. The approach to equilibrium is found to be
proportional to ), where the constant is explicitly related to the system's parameters.Comment: 30 pages, 6 figure
Initial nucleon structure results with chiral quarks at the physical point
We report initial nucleon structure results computed on lattices with 2+1
dynamical M\"obius domain wall fermions at the physical point generated by the
RBC and UKQCD collaborations. At this stage, we evaluate only connected quark
contributions. In particular, we discuss the nucleon vector and axial-vector
form factors, nucleon axial charge and the isovector quark momentum fraction.
From currently available statistics, we estimate the stochastic accuracy of the
determination of and to be around 10%, and we expect to
reduce that to 5% within the next year. To reduce the computational cost of our
calculations, we extensively use acceleration techniques such as low-eigenmode
deflation and all-mode-averaging (AMA). We present a method for choosing
optimal AMA parameters.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figures; talk presented at the 32nd International
Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, 23-28 June, 2014, Columbia University, New
York, US
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