Clothing thermal insulation and moisture vapour resistance are the two most important parameters in thermal environmental engineering, functional clothing design and end use of clothing ensembles. In this study, clothing thermal insulation and moisture vapour resistance of various types of clothing ensembles were measured using the walking-able sweating manikin, Walter, under various environmen...

In the reforestation program now being carried on by various state and federal agencies, many millions of tree seedlings are planted each year. An extremely large number of these planted seedlings are killed within the first year or two after planting. One of the major causes of the fatalities is the inability of seedlings to resist drought. If the properties involved in drought resistance of s...

The monitoring of temperature and moisture changes in response to different micro-environment of building stones is essential to understand the material behaviour and the degradation mechanisms. From a practical point of view, having a continuous and detailed understanding of micro-environmental changes in building stones helps to assist in their maintenance and repair strategies. Temperature w...

Using the analogy between heat and mass transfer processes, the recently developed entransy theory is extended in this paper to tackle the coupled heat and mass transfer processes so as to analyze and optimize the performance of evaporative cooling systems. We first introduce a few new concepts including the moisture entransy, moisture entransy dissipation, and the thermal resistance in terms o...

The stabilization of slopes by vegetation has been a topical issue for many years. Root mechanical characteristics significantly influence soil reinforcement; therefore it is necessary to research into the indicators of root tensile properties. In this study, we explored the influence of root moisture content on tensile resistance and strength with different root diameters and for different tre...

Natural fibers are gaining the interest of scientist and engineering in packaging, low cost housing and other general applications. In the present study, adhesive tensile and moisture absorption properties of randomly distributed areca fibre and maize powder reinforced urea formaldehyde composites has been investigated. Composites were prepared by hydraulic hot press at 150C and 100 bar pressur...

Composites based on natural cellulose fibres are susceptible to moisture. The fibres as well as the composite will inevitably soften and swell as moisture is absorbed. The intention of the present paper is to shed some light on the mechanisms behind softening and swelling. Also references to modelling work are made, to predict the moisture-induced dimensional stability. Characterisation techniq...

Ž . The land-surface flux model PROGSURF designed jointly at the Universities of Vienna and Budapest is reviewed; it belongs to the broad spectrum of PILPS 1 models. PROGSURF comprises one vegetation layer and three soil layers. Temperature prediction is made by the heat conduction equation in conjunction with the force-restore method. Turbulent heat fluxes are parameterized by gradient laws us...