Scaling Success: Lessons from Adaptation Pilots in the Rainfed Regions of India

"Scaling Success" examines how agricultural communities are adapting to the challenges posed by climate change through the lens of India's rainfed agriculture regions. Rainfed agriculture currently occupies 58 percent of India's cultivated land and accounts for up to 40 percent of its total food production. However, these regions face potential production losses of more than $200 billion USD in rice, wheat, and maize by 2050 due to the effects of climate change. Unless action is taken soon at a large scale, farmers will see sharp decreases in revenue and yields.Rainfed regions across the globe have been an important focus for the first generation of adaptation projects, but to date, few have achieved a scale that can be truly transformational. Drawing on lessons learnt from 21 case studies of rainfed agriculture interventions, the report provides guidance on how to design, fund and support adaptation projects that can achieve scale

FEASIBILITY OF A DIRECT COUPLED TURBINE-COMPRESSOR POWER BLOCK FOR S-CO2 BRAYTON CYCLES

This paper explores the feasibility of a direct coupled turbo-compressor power block for a simple recuperated S-CO2 Brayton cycle. The turbine inlet temperature is fixed at 600 degrees C and the maximum working pressure is restricted to 300 bar due to material constraints to enable use of conventional steel alloys. Analysis is performed for a single stage radial flow turbine and a centrifugal compressor configuration. Mean-line flow is individually analyzed for the turbine and compressor to generate contour maps of optimum operating speeds for a range of power levels at various isentropic efficiencies. While performing the mean-line analysis real gas properties and friction coefficients of S-CO2 have been considered. The mean-line flow code is coupled with thermodynamic model of the simple recuperated S-CO2 Brayton cycle for generating a range of optimum operating conditions where direct coupled power blocks can be used

Deformation of bioinspired MXene-based polymer composites with brick and mortar structures: A computational analysis

In this work, the deformation behavior of MXene-based polymer composites with bioinspired brick and mortar structures is analyzed. MXene/Polymer nanocomposites are modeled at microscale for bioinspired configurations of nacre-mimetic brick-and-mortar assembly structure. MXenes (brick) with polymer matrix (mortar) are modeled using classical analytical methods and numerical methods based on finite elements (FE). The analytical methods provide less accurate estimation of elastic properties compared to the numerical one. MXene nanocomposite models analyzed with the FE method provide estimates of elastic constants in the same order of magnitude as literature-reported experimental results. Bioinspired design of MXene nanocomposites results in an effective increase of Young’s modulus of the nanocomposite by 25.1% and strength (maximum stress capacity within elastic limits) enhanced by 42.3%. The brick and mortar structure of the nanocomposites leads to an interlocking mechanism between MXene fillers in the polymer matrix, resulting in effective load transfer, good strength, and damage resistance. This is demonstrated in this paper by numerical analysis of MXene nanocomposites subjected to quasi-static loads

Dynamic Response Study of Piezoresistive Ti3C2-MXene Sensor for Structural Impacts

MXenes are a new family of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials. They are inorganic compounds of metal carbides/nitrides/carbonitrides. Titanium carbide MXene (Ti3 C2 -MXene) was the first 2D nanomaterial reported in the MXene family in 2011. Owing to the good physical properties of Ti3 C2 -MXenes (e.g., conductivity, hydrophilicity, film-forming ability, elasticity) various applications in wearable sensors, energy harvesters, supercapacitors, electronic devices, etc., have been demonstrated. This paper presents the development of a piezoresistive Ti3 C2 -MXene sensor followed by experimental investigations of its dynamic response behavior when subjected to structural impacts. For the experimental investigations, an inclined ball impact test setup is constructed. Stainless steel balls of different masses and radii are used to apply repeatable impacts on a vertical cantilever plate. The Ti3 C2 -MXene sensor is attached to this cantilever plate along with a commercial piezoceramic sensor, and their responses for the structural impacts are compared. It is observed from the experiments that the average response times of the Ti3 C2 -MXene sensor and piezoceramic sensor are 1.28±0.24 μ s and 31.19±24.61 μ s, respectively. The fast response time of the Ti3 C2 -MXene sensor makes it a promising candidate for monitoring structural impacts.ISSN:1424-822