Comparative life cycle costs for new steel portal frame building systems

Life cycle costs of a new steel portal frame building system incorporating energy efficient sandwich panels are compared with those of a conventional steel portal frame building system for use in industrial and commercial buildings. The economic benefits of the new building system have been demonstrated through cost assessment of energy in use. The results from life cycle cost analysis of both the new and conventional portal frame building systems indicate that, despite slightly higher initial costs, the new building system costs significantly less than the conventional system over its complete life cycle of 50 years. The new system provides improved economic performance along with a more energy-efficient model for commercial/industrial building design in the Australian climate. Le coût du cycle de vie d'un nouveau système de bâtiment à portique en acier comportant des panneaux en sandwich efficaces au plan énergétique est comparé à un système classique pour un emploi dans des bâtiments industriels et commerciaux. Les avantages économiques du nouveau système ont été démontrés par une évaluation des dépenses énergétiques. Il ressort de l'analyse comparative du coût du cycle de vie du nouveau et de l'ancien système qu'en dépit d'une légère augmentation du coût de départ, le nouveau système est nettement moins onéreux que l'ancien sur un cycle de vie complet de 50 ans. Les performances économiques du nouveau système sont supérieures à celles du système classique, avec de meilleures performances énergétiques pour la conception de bâtiments commerciaux et industriels sous le climat australien.     

Analysis of radionuclide retention in water pools

An analysis is presented of the removal of aerosol particles and gaseous fission products from steam-noncondensable gas mixtures rising through water pools. The pool is divided into a gas injection zone, a bubble rise zone and a pool surface zone. The formulation of the governing conservation equations is relatively general with a quasi-steady one-dimensional formulation for the gas phase, and an unsteady, well stirred, formulation for the liquid phase. An associated computer code for performing the calculations, SUPRA, is described. Results of parametric calculations are given for conditions expected in a BWR severely degraded core accident sequence. Parameters studied include aerosol particle size and distribution, mass fraction of noncondensable gas, gas mass flow rate, quencher submergence depth, and pool water temperature.     

Impact of grey energy on optimal wall insulation thickness

For decades efforts have been made to reduce the greenhouse gases emissions of buildings by reducing their energy demand with governmental regulations in Europe, pushing towards very low thermal transmittances (U-values) with ever thicker insulation layers for new buildings. However, there is no linear relationship between the insulation thickness and the heat losses. Therefore, above a certain thickness the consumption of buildings does not decrease significantly. Hereafter a life cycle analysis, including emissions before the building becomes operational is applied to evaluate the impact of the increasing thickness of components on the overall emissions. Publicly available product data sheets are used to compare four insulation materials under three scenarios. These analyses yield interesting results showing that energy-intensive insulation materials lead to a negative impact in the overall energy balance after a certain thickness. Even though there is not always a pronounced optimum insulation thickness, it is logical that further reductions in U-value for new buildings should hence be carefully evaluated. The results show that the optimal thickness is around 20 cm for most materials, while the important major savings come from the first 10 cm.     

On the parameters of performance of combined refrigeration and power plants

Combined Refrigeration and Power (CRP) plants generate power and refrigerate a thermal load simultaneously from the same fuel. The overall efficiency is a parameter based on the first law generally used to quantify the fuel saving, in the sense that a plant that has greater overall efficiency saves more fuel than others to generate the same useful energy. However, the literature shows that the overall efficiency and other parameters of performance are defined in several different ways. This heterogeneity is not desirable when considering a coherent and universally accepted parameter of performance based on the first law. In this work, some parameters found in the literature are critically analyzed in order to indicate the most proper one. The indicated parameter is then formally analyzed in order to verify its mathematical consistency. The primary energy rate is considered the most well-suited parameter based on the first law to characterize the performance of a CRP plant.     

Design and construction of a micro‐indenter for tribological investigations

Characterisation of erosion contact conditions remains a challenge due to the chaotic morphology of eroded surfaces. The present work presents details on the design and construction of a low load micro‐indenter to investigate the initial stages of particle impact. Spherical ZrO₂ particles and angular SiC particles have been fitted onto stainless steel indenter tips to simulate contact between eroding particles on an aluminium surface. Contact loads between 50 and 1800 mN were utilised to elucidate the effects of load and indentation depth. Indented craters were subsequently imaged by the scanning electron microscope (SEM), revealing its particle dependent morphology. Crater area and depths from both types of particles were also quantified and subsequently correlated to the indentation load. It was demonstrated that contact pressure generated by angular particles are 1.5 times higher than those from spherical particles, resulting in greater plastic deformation and larger crater area at high loads. The work carried out during indentations were also calculated, it was shown that indentation experiments can be utilised for simulating dynamic erosion experiments under a large velocity range.