S urface solar radiation is a major component of the surface heat budget. Diurnally and seasonally averaged over the entire Earth, 188 ± 7 W m–2 reach the surface to be either absorbed (~165 ± 6 W m–2) or reflected back to the atmosphere (Trenberth et al. 2009; Stephens et al. 2012). Changes in the amount of solar radiation received at the surface are intrinsically tied to the total amount of p...

This study investigated if clothing material with reflective properties has an effect on heat gain in pilot, specifically, under solar radiation. Two materials, conventional pilot suit material (Old) and material coated with coldblack® (New, Schoeller Technologies AG, Switzerland) were tested over variety of underwear layers and in a box simulating cockpit. A hot plate was used to measure t...

There has been a marked decline in the summer extent of Arctic sea ice over the past few decades. Data from autonomous ice mass-balance buoys can enhance our understanding of this decline. These buoys monitor changes in snow deposition and ablation, ice growth, and ice surface and bottom melt. Results from the summer of 2008 showed considerable large-scale spatial variability in the amount of s...

Thermal performance of a solar water heater mainly depends on the thermal stratification. Thermal stratification in solar water tanks is essential for a better performance of energy storage systems where these tanks are integrated. In this research work, the performance of a solar water heater with a mantle heat exchanger is investigated experimentally. The heat exchanger is assessed for a rang...

Renewables portfolio standards (RPS) encourage large-scale deployment of wind and solar electric power. Their power output varies rapidly, even when several sites are added together. In many locations, natural gas generators are the lowest cost resource available to compensate for this variability, and must ramp up and down quickly to keep the grid stable, affecting their emissions of NOx and C...

An evaluation of a variety of efficient water heating strategies for an all-electric single family home located in a mixed-humid climate is conducted using numerical modeling. The strategies considered include various combinations of solar thermal, heat pump, and electric resistance water heaters. The numerical model used in the study is first validated against a year of field data obtained on ...

Spectrally-selective solar absorbers harvest solar energy in the form of heat. Solar absorbers using cermet-based coatings demonstrate a high absorptance of the solar spectrum and a low emittance in the infrared (IR) regime. Extensive work has been done to optimize cermet-based solar absorbers to achieve high performance by exploring different cermet (ceramic-metal composite) materials and film...

Shell and tube heat exchangers are widely being used in many of industrial and power engineering applications. Different techniques have been employed in order to enhance the performance of the heat exchanger. Air bubble injection is one method to increase the turbulence of the flowing fluids which in turn enhance the heat transfer performance. Injecting air bubbles is one of the promising tech...