Full‐size experimental assessment of the aerodynamic sealing of low velocity air curtains

Funding Information: The need of separating different environment zones (limiting heat and mass transfer) is normally addressed using walls and doors. However, in recent decades, the technology of air curtains has emerged as being capable of providing sufficient separation without impairing the movement of people. Air curtains have been used with several objectives, such as Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) [1–3], smoke control in pas‐ sageways [4,5] and airborne pollutant and biological control [6–8]. Regarding the need to avoid the contaminant spreading, several developments and applications have been re‐ ported, namely, in operating rooms [7,9–14], for tobacco smoke control [15,16], for protec‐ tion of art works in museums and of cultural heritage [17,18], in open refrigerated display cabinets [19–21], in offices [22], in personalized air curtains [23] and in public transporta‐ tion [24]. These studies show that air curtains have the potential to reduce the pollutants transferred from one compartment to another. The Nanoguard2ar project (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska‐Curie grant agreement N 690968) had, as its main objectives, the goal of developing, designing, testing, validating and demonstrating an innovative nanomaterial‐based ‘microbial free’ engineering solution to ensure indoor air quality in buildings,. The development of this engineering solution required not only an advanced nanomaterial‐based oxidation process to kill bacteria in the air in a compart‐ ment, but also an air curtain to provide a separation between the spaces that were to be kept free of cross contamination. The development of the nanomaterial‐based technologyVertical air curtains are often used to separate two different zones to reduce contaminant transfer or even to provide aerodynamic sealing from one zone to the other. In this isothermal full-size experimental research work, the contaminant transfer between zones is reduced using an air extraction from the “contaminated” compartment and an air curtain. This work correlates the min-imum exhaust air flow rate required to reach the aerodynamic sealing at the opening connecting two different zones with the jet nozzle velocity for small nozzle thicknesses (5 mm, 10 mm and 16 mm), particularly for Reynolds numbers below 3800. Following the experimental study, a general physical law that relates the jet parameters (angle, nozzle thickness and jet velocity at the nozzle) with the average velocity through the opening (for the condition of acceptable contaminant tight-ness) was obtained. The results showed that the average velocity of the flow across a door protected by an air curtain required to keep the aerodynamic sealing varies linearly with Re. The slope, how-ever, is different below and above Re = 3820.publishersversionpublishe

Condições de ventilação natural em meio urbano recorrendo a um modelo integrado

O artigo apresenta uma metodologia que permite aceder às condições de ventilação natural em meios urbanos, quer nos espaços exteriores quer no interior do espaço construído. Os resultados podem ser apresentados tendo em vista diferentes fins e formas que vão desde a representação gráfica dos padrões globais do vento a nível do solo (segurança e conforto de peões, definição de espaços de lazer e outros) à estimativa de fluxos e propriedades do ar (velocidade, temperatura e outros) dentro de um compartimento tendo em atenção pequenas fontes ou poços de calor e as condições no exterior impostas pelo vento local, passando pelas distribuições de pressão sobre paredes e coberturas, essenciais no dimensionamento de componentes e estruturas

Large-scale screening of unknown varieties in a grapevine intra-varietal variability collection

Since the last decade of the last century, it is known that many old grapevine varieties are descendants of other varieties through natural crossing. Portugal has an important program for the conservation of representative samples of intra-varietal variability of all autochthonous varieties, managed by the Portuguese Association for Grapevine Diversity (PORVID), which makes looking for genotypes with dubious identification an important activity from a perspective of its valorisation. This communication presents the results of the molecular analysis of 5,000 samples (accessions) from the PORVID’s collection, using nine microsatellite loci currently recommended by the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) for genetic grapevine identification. The results obtained confirmed the molecular identity of 4,220 samples corresponding to 214 varieties present in the official list of Portuguese varieties. In 780 samples, 95 profiles with a plural number of accessions revealed not to be listed in the Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) database, corresponding to possible varieties either descendent from natural crossing from at least one known parental variety, or from undetermined origin. Furthermore, the need for a comprehensive strategy aimed at uncovering other hidden varieties is discussed to prevent their imminent loss, deepen understanding of their origin, and add economic value and sustainability to the vine and wine sector

Large-scale screening of unknown varieties in a grapevine intra-varietal variability collection

Since the last decade of the last century, it is known that many old grapevine varieties are descendants of other varieties through natural crossing. Portugal has an important program for the conservation of representative samples of intra-varietal variability of all autochthonous varieties, managed by the Portuguese Association for Grapevine Diversity (PORVID), which makes looking for genotypes with dubious identification an important activity from a perspective of its valorisation. This communication presents the results of the molecular analysis of 5,000 samples (accessions) from the PORVID’s collection, using nine microsatellite loci currently recommended by the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) for genetic grapevine identification. The results obtained confirmed the molecular identity of 4,220 samples corresponding to 214 varieties present in the official list of Portuguese varieties. In 780 samples, 95 profiles with a plural number of accessions revealed not to be listed in the Vitis International Variety Catalogue (VIVC) database, corresponding to possible varieties either descendent from natural crossing from at least one known parental variety, or from undetermined origin. Furthermore, the need for a comprehensive strategy aimed at uncovering other hidden varieties is discussed to prevent their imminent loss, deepen understanding of their origin, and add economic value and sustainability to the vine and wine sector