Fire toxicity – The elephant in the room?

Fire toxicity is the largest cause of death and injury from unwanted fires, yet it is the least well studied area of fire science and engineering. Fire toxicity increases by factors up to 50, as the fire becomes under-ventilated. This has proved difficult, but not impossible, to replicate in a controlled way on a bench-scale. Clear correlations have been observed between the stoichiometric equivalence ratio, and the yields of the major asphyxiants, carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide. In addition, irritant components of fire effluents, which have an instantaneous effect, can incapacitate fire victims, trapping them in a fire. However, the longer term toxicants present in fire effluents, such as the carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and the microscopic particulates which result from their agglomeration are probably responsible for hundreds or thousands more deaths than the acute asphyxiants and irritants.     

Parametric-planning model combining the transmission characteristics of network video service

To evaluate the network video quality, a parametric-planning model is presented. Combining the characteristics of the channel and video sequence, the proposed model evaluates the video distortion caused by packet loss. It can be applied to effective network design and optimization on the premise of the quality of the video services. Firstly, by a detailed analysis of the packet loss behaviors and the characteristics of the video coding, a sequence distortion factor and a frame distortion factor are derived by combining the probability distributions of the packet loss event, which can reflect the video distortion from the perspective of the sequence impairment and frame impairment. Utilizing these factors, the video distortion caused by packet loss is evaluated and finally the parametric planning model is established. Experimental results show that compared with G.1070 and T-V models, the proposed model gets an increment of about 0.042 and 0.064 in Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC) and a decrement of about 0.043 and 0.055 in Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE).     

Effect of lactose content on dielectric properties of whole milk and skim milk

Dielectric properties (dielectric constant ε′ and dielectric loss factor ε′′) of whole milk and skim milk with the lactose content of 4.56–6.44% and 4.57–6.47%, respectively, were measured over the frequency range of 20–4500 MHz at 25 °C using a vector network analyzer. The results showed that ε′ decreased with increasing frequency, and ε′′ changed with V shape and its minimum was noted at about 2000 MHz. Whole milk had lower dielectric properties than skim milk at almost same lactose content and a given frequency. ε′ had weak positive linear relationship with lactose content for whole milk, but had negative linear relationship for skim milk. No matter for which milk, ε′′ had very good negative linear relationship with lactose content below 1000 MHz and had good positive linear relationship above 2300 MHz. The study provides information on developing rapid lactose detector for milk in future.     

Study on Power Fluctuation Dispatch and Capacity Design of Short Period Power Fluctuation Compensation System in Consideration of Power Loss

Since the output of photovoltaic (PV) generation includes power fluctuations caused by natural conditions, the installation of PV on a large scale is expected to affect load frequency control of the power grid. One method of compensating power fluctuations is the use of energy storage (ES), such as batteries and capacitors. A power fluctuation compensation system composed of an electrical double layer capacitor energy storage system (ESS) and a Li‐ion battery energy storage system is considered. The power loss characteristics of both ESSs during power fluctuation compensation are modeled by equivalent circuits based on ES impedance spectra. The models are validated by experiments simulating power fluctuation compensation. Using these ES models, simulations were carried out to determine the power fluctuation dispatch method between the two ESSs and the capacity of the ESSs in consideration of power loss minimization.     

减少调度自动化设备通讯串口丢包率的措施

丢包率是指在使用系统检测过程中对数据进行访问时，数据包因为各种物理原因或者软件原因导致的信道丢失现象。在自动化通讯设备出现串口丢包的情况下，会导致设备通信不通畅，信号遗失等不良后果。本文从软硬件方面对通讯串口的丢包问题进行分析，并提出防范措施。     

Numerical modelling of load bearing light gauge steel frame wall systems exposed to realistic design fires

Fire safety has become an important part in structural design due to the ever increasing loss of properties and lives during fires. Conventionally the fire rating of load bearing wall systems made of Light gauge Steel Frames (LSF) is determined using fire tests based on the standard time–temperature curve in ISO834 (ISO 834-1, 1999 [1]). However, modern commercial and residential buildings make use of thermoplastic materials, which mean considerably high fuel loads. Hence a detailed fire research study into the fire performance of LSF walls was undertaken using realistic design fire curves developed based on Eurocode parametric (ENV 1991-1-2, 2002 [2]) and Barnett's BFD (Barnett, 2002 [3]) curves using both full scale fire tests and numerical studies. It included LSF walls without cavity insulation, and the recently developed externally insulated composite panel system. This paper presents the details of finite element models developed to simulate the full scale fire tests of LSF wall panels under realistic design fires. Finite element models of LSF walls exposed to realistic design fires were developed, and analysed under both transient and steady state fire conditions using the measured stud time–temperature curves. Transient state analyses were performed to simulate fire test conditions while steady state analyses were performed to obtain the load ratio versus time and failure temperature curves of LSF walls. Details of the developed finite element models and the results including the axial deformation and lateral deflection versus time curves, and the stud failure modes and times are presented in this paper. Comparison with fire test results demonstrate the ability of developed finite element models to predict the performance and fire resistance ratings of LSF walls under realistic design fires.     

Simplified structure of the condensed phase of fire retarded PA6 nanocomposites in TGA as related flammability

This paper concerns with the analysis of the nature of the mass residue of PA6 and its nanocomposites in nitrogen. To assess the structure of the condensed phase during pyrolysis, this study presents thermal (by TGA in nitrogen) and condensed phase analysis of the residue (by FTIR-ATR) of PA6 nanocomposites consisting of phosphorous based flame retardants (FR) and/or nanoparticles (based on modified Montmorillonite clay). The thermal analysis reveals that the nanoparticles do not change the pyrolysis kinetics of PA6 whereas the FR does. The FR and NC used in the polymer nanocomposites (PNC) are capable of changing the structure of the char compared with pure PA6, where the char structure consists of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) whereas the PA6 does not leave any considerable amount of mass residue. This residue analysis for decomposition samples in TGA in Nitrogen of the PA6/FR/NC composites complements previously published work for gas phase analysis ( FTIR-gas) as well as cone calorimeter characterization for their flammability. The overall aim, addressed here also, is to find out to what extent microscale measurements (e.g. TGA/FTIR/DSC/ATR) can be used a priori to delineate the flammability of polymer fire retarded composites. It is shown that FTIR-gas and FTIR (ATR) residue can be used to determine the fire retardant action (solid and/or gaseous) only qualitatively.     

Experimental Study on Difference in Reflood Core Heat Transfer among CCTF,FLECHT-SET and Predicted with FLECHT Correlation

It has been reported that the core heat transfer coefficients measured in the CCTF tests, which were conducted under the conditions expected to appear during the refiooding period in a PWR, can not be predicted well with the FLECHT correlation, which has been used in the safety evaluation. In order to investigate the reason for this, a CCTF test was conducted under the typical FLECHT-SET experimental conditions. Investigating results from both tests, the following has been clarified:

The FLECHT correlation can not describe the heat transfer for the refiooding situations with the initial Accumulator injection period, which is expected to appear in a PWR, and gives much lower values than the measured. The core heat transfer in the FLECHT-SET is similar to that in the CCTF, and they are well predicted with the Murao-Sugimoto correlation. When there is some core radial power distribution, which strongly affects the heat transfer in a large vScale core, the heat transfer coefficients in the CCTF can be well predicted with taking account of this effect in addition to the Murao-Sugimoto correlation.     

Study on silicon surface oxidation of post-implant resist cleaning

Minimum substrate loss is required for resist strip of high dose, ultra shallow junction implant for source/drain extensions. Silicon surface oxidation of downstream plasma resist strip results in silicon recess of the source/drain extension regions. This paper reports the study of silicon surface oxidation for different resist strip plasma chemistries and the effect of plasma strip process parameters such as power, pressure and temperature on silicon surface oxidation. A good agreement was found between optical ellipsometry, XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy) and TEM (transmission electron spectroscopy) for thickness measurement of very thin (<20 Å) oxide grown on silicon surface due to plasma exposure. Selectivity of crust breakthrough and resist removal over silicon oxidation was also discussed in this paper along with dopant loss.