Treesearch

Wildfires are growing in destructive power, and accurately predicting the spread and intensity of wildland fire is essential for managing ecological and societal impacts. No current operational models used for fire behavior prediction resolve critical fire-atmospheric coupling or nonlocal influences of the fire environment, rendering them inadequate in accounting for the range of wildland fire behavior scenarios under increasingly novel fuel and climate conditions. Here, we present a new perspective on a dominant fire-atmospheric feedback mechanism, which we term wildland fire entrainment...

Increasing wildfire activity in mesic, temperate Pacific Northwest forests west of the Cascade Range crest has stimulated interest in understanding whether alternative forest management practices could reduce risk of stand-replacing fire. To explore how management can enhance fire resistance in these forests and assess tradeoffs among resistance enhancement, carbon sequestration and storage, and economic returns, we conducted 40-year simulations of stand development with BioSum, a framework for conducting landscape analysis with the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), utilizing a statistical...

Socio-ecological resilience recognizes that humans and nature are inextricably connected, and humans play an increasingly central and active role in determining the fate of ecosystem resilience. For decades, managers and scientists have sought effective approaches for managing forest composition, structure, and processes to improve resilience properties. Management actions that encompass large landscapes tend to engage a broad spectrum of stakeholders and perspectives about resilience. Translating resilience concepts into concrete and measurable objectives and outcomes and effectively...

This study reported laser induced graphene (LIG) fabricated from the distillation residues of bio-oil resulting from switchgrass pyrolysis. The bio-oil distillation residues as a precursor can significantly boost the efficiency of LIG synthesis by generating self-detachable and standalone LIG layers via direct laser writing toward high-throughput roll-to-roll manufacturing. For on-chip applications, the produced LIG had high specific surface area (375.30 m2/g) and excellent electrical conductivity, which can be facilely transferred onto adhesive substrates with fully preserved structural...

Recovering value, mainly as lumber, from windthrown trees is important. Toughness has been shown to be an early indicator of deterioration. To investigate, approximately 38-year-old loblolly pine trees, from the same forest stand, were felled. From these fallen trees, five trees were removed at 0, 3, 4, 5, and 6 months. Toughness specimens were prepared and tested from this material. Bending modulus of rupture (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE) of cross-laminated timber specimens from this same material (reported elsewhere) showed no significant differences. Results indicated that...

Increasing wildfire activity and uncharacteristically severe fires in fire-prone forests have intensified longstanding tensions between biodiversity conservation and wildfire risk reduction. In the Pacific Northwest, USA, fire exclusion has been practiced for over a century, driven largely by the perception of wildfire as a destructive force to be minimized. Over the past 35 years, northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) conservation has emphasized the protection of closed-canopy, structurally complex, older forests, which are habitat conditions associated with long-term populatio...

Increasing the thermal conductivity of the oil-paper insulation system can significantly extend the thermal life of transformers by enabling effective heat removal, which reduces high temperature-induced insulation degradation. This research shows that the addition of nominally 25 μm diameter boron nitride particles can achieve sufficient increase in through-plane thermal conductivity of insulation paper to an extent that doubles the transformer thermal life. Importantly, the dielectric breakdown strength can also be enhanced by adding boron nitride particles to the developed insulation...

This study introduces plasma-ALE as a precise post-treatment to replace performance-limiting fluorine terminations in Ti3C2Tx MXene with oxygen-dominated groups. When combined with cellulose nanofibrils, the engineered material enables light-driven soft actuators with enhanced force and motion. The method supports scalable, programmable robotic structures via both vacuum filtration and aerosol jet printing. Highlights: Plasma-ALE converts Ti3C2Tx surface from F- to O-dominated terminations Plasma-ALE boosts TMC conductivity by 80% and improves photothermal efficiency Plasma-ALE-treated...