An Analysis of Global Timber Markets

This paper presents a model of global timber markets that captures the evolution of a broad array of forest resources and timber market margins over time. These margins include the inaccessible northern and tropical margins, plantation establishment, and timberland management. A baseline case is presented and discussed. Five alternative scenarios are then presented. These scenarios allow us to consider several important questions about timber market behavior and the future supply of industrial fiber: (1) What happens along the northern and the tropical inaccessible margins? (2) What role do timber plantations play? and (3) How do shifts in management intensity interact with market forces? The baseline case suggests that both prices and harvests rise over the next 150 years, with most of the increased harvest coming from existing and newly established plantations. Future gains in harvests result mainly from intensification of management, through additional plantation establishment and higher levels of management on selected forests rather than higher harvests in currently inaccessible forests. Prices and harvests are most sensitive to alternative demand and plantation establishment scenarios, and less sensitive to costs of accessing extensive forests.

Tensile properties of textile composites

The importance of textile composite materials in aerospace structural applications has been gaining momentum in recent years. With a view to better understand the suitability of these materials in aerospace applications, an experimental program was undertaken to assess the mechanical properties of these materials. Specifically, the braided textile preforms were infiltrated with suitable polymeric matrices leading to the fabrication of composite test coupons. Evaluation of the tensile properties and the analyses of the results in the form of strength moduli, Poisson's ratio, etc., for the braided composites are presented. Based on our past experience with the textile coupons, the fabrication techniques have been modified (by incorporating glass microballoons in the matrix and/or by stabilizing the braid angle along the length of the specimen with axial fibers) to achieve enhanced mechanical properties of the textile composites. This paper outlines the preliminary experimental results obtained from testing these composites

Failure analysis informing intelligent asset management

With increasing demands on the UK’s power grid it has become increasingly important to reform the methods of asset management used to maintain it. The science of Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) presents interesting possibilities by allowing the online diagnosis of faults in a component and the dynamic trending of its remaining useful life (RUL). Before a PHM system can be developed an extensive failure analysis must be conducted on the asset in question to determine the mechanisms of failure and their associated data precursors that precede them. In order to gain experience in the development of prognostic systems we have conducted a study of commercial power relays, using a data capture regime that revealed precursors to relay failure. We were able to determine important failure precursors for both stuck open failures caused by contact erosion and stuck closed failures caused by material transfer and are in a position to develop a more detailed prognostic system from this base. This research when expanded and applied to a system such as the power grid, presents an opportunity for more efficient asset management when compared to maintenance based upon time to replacement or purely on condition

The development of downtown Winnipeg : historical perspectives on decline and revitalization

Report: viii, 200 p., maps, digital fileThis report examines the ancestry of some of the current major policy concerns relating to Winnipeg's downtown area. These policy concerns are among the foci of the Core Area Initiative (CAl) program presently in operation in Winnipeg. The CAl is an attempt by the federal, provincial and municipal governments to revitalize Winnipeg's Core Area through a five-year public expenditure program totalling $96 million. The report traces the development of housing/residential issues; central business district (CBD) issues-- retail, commercial and industrial; and urban and municipal planning issues. The impact of various historic forces leading to diffusion of activity throughout an overly large downtown area is examined, as is the dispersion of CBD functions to suburban areas. The resulting failure of the redevelopment process in the downtown area is seen as a major source of the contemporary problems which stimulated the CAl in the area. The resolution of these contemporary problems requires that the behaviour patterns stimulated by these historic forces be altered to reflect changed times. Until this need for change is widely accepted, it is unlikely that the downtown of Winnipeg will be fully revitalized

The Caltech Intermediate Form for LSI Layout Description

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