Despite the importance of fire and herbivory in structuring savanna systems, few replicated experiments have examined the interactive effects of herbivory and fire on plant dynamics. In addition, the effects of fire on associated ant-tree mutualisms have been largely unexplored. We carried out small controlled burns in each of 18 herbivore treatment plots of the Kenya Long-term Exclosure Experi...

Three large open pool fire experiments involving a calorimeter the size of a spent fuel rail cask were conducted at Sandia National Laboratories’ Lurance Canyon Burn Site. These experiments were performed to study the heat transfer between a very large fire and a large cask-like object. In all of the tests, the calorimeter was located above the center of a 7.93m diameter fuel pan, elevated 1m a...

Biodiesel is a promising non-toxic and biodegradable alternative fuel used in the transport sector. Nevertheless, the higher viscosity and density of biodiesel poses some acute problems when it is used it in unmodified engine. Taking this into consideration, this study has been focused towards two objectives. The first objective is to identify the effect of temperature on density and viscosity ...

Global climate models suggest enhanced warming of the tropical mid and upper troposphere, with larger temperature rise rates at higher elevations. Changes in fire activity are amongst the most significant ecological consequences of rising temperatures and changing hydrological properties in mountainous ecosystems, and there is a global evidence of increased fire activity with elevation. Whilst ...

The Pebble Bed Advanced High Temperature Reactor (PB-AHTR) is a liquid-salt cooled reactor that uses conventional TRISO fuel. Due to the high thermal inertia of the liquid salt coolant, the PB-AHTR allows for a much higher power-density core than traditional gas-cooled high temperature reactors. High power density has a favorable economic impact. In 2007, the baseline design 2400MWth PB-AHTR wa...

Pyrolysis experiments of n-hexane were performed and the product distribution and fuel consumption were measured as a function of temperature. The experimental temperatures ranged from 550-675 degrees C, with a pressure of approximately 1 atm, and residence times of approximately 5 s. N-Hexane was used as a model compound to represent the linear alkanes that might be found in practical hydrocar...

an essential requirement for an operating pem fuel cell is providing proper water content in the membrane. to avoid water flooding an appropriate water balance is required. here, an analytic model of a planar membrane humidifier for pem fuel cell is proposed where the effect of dimensional parameters includes membrane thickness, membrane area and channel hydraulic diameter are investigated. a n...

Numerical simulation of the vaporization of multi-component liquid fuels under high-pressure conditions is conducted in this study. A high-pressure drop vaporization model is developed by considering the high-pressure phase equilibrium which equates the fugacity of each component in both liquid and vapor phases. Peng-Robinson equation of state is used for the calculation of fugacity. To model t...

Internal combustion (IC) engines serve as a viable small-scale and portable option for electricity generation. While there are several aspects of IC engines that limit their efficiency, one of the major detractors is the unrestrained combustion reaction that is the initial step in the conversion of the chemical bond energy of the fuel into useful work. Another viable small-scale electricity gen...