Treesearch

This case study presents measurements of radon and moisture infiltration from soil gases into the basement of an unoccupied research house in Madison, Wisconsin, over two full years. The basement floor and exterior walls were constructed with preservative-treated lumber and plywood. In addition to continuous radon monitoring, measurements included building air tightness, indooreoutdoor pressure difference, indoor and outdoor temperature and relative humidity, wood moisture content, and tracer gas decay. A single-zone air infiltration model was calibrated based on tracer gas measurements....

For more than 70 years, the USDA Forest Service’s Termite Team has engaged in research to extend the life of wood in service by studying chemical (and a few nonchemical) subterranean termite control products. These efficacy data are produced in distinct field trials on experimental forests across the USA, and are used by industry cooperators to register their products with the Environmental Protection Agency. Experimental forests and ranges allow long-term undisturbed efficacy examinations of termiticides in preventing subterranean termite attack on wood. This chapter provides historical...

Use of woody biomass from sustainably managed sources to produce energy is considered an important strategy to mitigate climate change because the resource is renewable (biomass regrowth on land recaptures emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) due to biomass burning) and can substitute for fossil-fuel-based energy such as coal and natural gas. However, consensus on the degree of contribution of woody biomass to climate change mitigation is lacking. The reason for this lack of consensus is that different analysts include different carbon (C) stock changes (e.g. C stock change where feedstock is...

The existence of thousands of soft-story woodframe buildings in California has been recognized as a disaster preparedness problem resulting in mitigation efforts throughout the state. The considerable presence of these large multi-family buildings in San Francisco prompted the city to mandate their retrofitting over the next seven years. The NEES-Soft project, whose full title is “Seismic Risk Reduction for Soft- Story Woodframe Buildings,” is a five-university multi-industry three-year project which has many facets including improved nonlinear numerical modeling, outreach, retrofit...

An inter-laboratory comparison of a UV-Vis spectroscopic method (TAPPI T 282 om-13 “Hexeneuronic acid content of chemical pulp”) for hexeneuronic acid measurements was conducted using three eucalyptus kraft pulps. The pulp samples were produced in a laboratory at kappa numbers of approximately 14, 20, and 35. The hexeneuronic acid contents of the three pulps were approximately 55–65 ìmol/g, or with a variation of approximately 15%. Five laboratories from four different countries participated in this round-robin study as part of the evaluation of the TAPPI provisional method for upgrading...

The existence of thousands of soft-story woodframe buildings in California has been recognized as a disaster preparedness problem with concerted mitigation efforts underway in many cities throughout the state. The NEES-Soft project, whose full title is “Seismic Risk Reduction for Soft-Story Woodframe Buildings,” is a five-university multi-industry three-year project which has many facets including improved nonlinear numerical modeling, outreach, design method development, and full-scale system-level experimental validation of soft-story retrofit techniques. This paper summarizes the...

OECD economies, in aggregate, have been sluggish; unemployment remains high in several countries, and minimal gross domestic product gains are forecast for the Euro area through 2016. Recession, sovereign debt problems and lethargic economies continue to constrain Europe’s housing construction market; no improvement is expected before 2015 or 2016; Germany’s positive housing market is an exception. Housing completions in the Russian Federation achieved record levels in 2013, with a total of 912,100 new dwellings built, an increase of 10.3% over 2012 and the largest number of new dwellings...

Influences of thermal treatment conditions of temperature, reaction cycle and time, and purge gas type on nanocarbon formation over bio-chars from fast pyrolysis and effects of thermal reaction cycle and purge gas type on bio-char surface functional groups were investigated by temperature-programmed desorption (TPD) and temperature programmed reduction methods. Nanospheres occurred on bio-chars under the activation temperature of 700ºC; more nanospheres occurred when temperature increased to 900ºC. Further increase of temperature to 1100ºC yielded bio-char surfaces covered with a layer of...

Three dimensional (3D) nanostructures with extremely large porosity possess a great promise for the development of high-performance energy harvesting storage devices. In this paper, we developed a high-density 3D TiO2 fiber-nanorod (NR) heterostructure for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. The hierarchical structure was synthesized on a ZnO-coated cellulose nanofiber (CNF) template using atomic-layer deposition (ALD)-based thin film and NR growth procedures. The tubular structure evolution was in good agreement with the recently discovered vapor-phase Kirkendall effect in...

The research areas of mutiaxial robotic testing and design optimization have been recently utilized for the purpose of data-driven constitutive characterization of anisotropic material systems. This effort has been enabled by both the progress in the areas of computers and information in engineering as well as the progress in computational automation. Although our efforts have begun three decades ago, in this chapter we are presenting our progress on this synergistic combination of technologies developed in the last five years. Specifically, in this chapter we are reporting on the first...