Restoring deadwood habitat is vital in order to recreate fully functioning forest ecosystems. Letting this process occur naturally can take in excess of one hundred years, thus management practises typically try to ac...Restoring deadwood habitat is vital in order to recreate fully functioning forest ecosystems. Letting this process occur naturally can take in excess of one hundred years, thus management practises typically try to accelerate this via the artificial addition of deadwood. Since the species which rely on deadwood often have poor dispersal abilities, restoring deadwood habitat rarely results in the full restoration of the saproxylic fauna. Furthermore, standard deadwood monitoring protocol only records the amount and type of substrate available and is not capable of determining whether saproxylic insects have been restored. Full species inventories are time-consuming, costly and require great expertise. We present a rapid biodiversity assessment tool which we believe is the first protocol for measuring saproxylic activity which is accessible to non-specialists. Utilising the exit bore holes which saproxylics create on deadwood can provide an indication of the density, richness and diversity of species present;we call this the Saproxylic Activity Index. We show that this index can detect differences in the activity of insects between substrates. As saproxylic insects provide important ecosystem functions, such as aiding in the decay of deadwood and recycling nutrients, a measure of their activity levels may indicate the rate of restoration of these ecosystem processes. We believe that further exploration of this method provides an exciting opportunity for the functional restoration of saproxylic fauna to become incorporated into mainstream forest management.展开更多
Injector configuration and spray characteristics are important parameters that define diesel combustion and emissions performance. One of the critical spray inputs is the Rate-of-Injection (ROI) profile. The ROI profi...Injector configuration and spray characteristics are important parameters that define diesel combustion and emissions performance. One of the critical spray inputs is the Rate-of-Injection (ROI) profile. The ROI profile depends on the spray’s operating conditions, including nozzle geometry (e.g., nozzle diameter), injection pressure, and injection duration. Besides, the internal nozzle flow phenomenon and external ambient conditions can further impact fuel introduction characteristics. This study measured the ROI profile of a heavy-duty (multi-hole) diesel injector using the Bosch tube technique. Injection pressure and injection duration were varied from 600 to 2600 bar and 0.5–3.0 ms, respectively. After post-processing, measurement data were then used to train numerical models, including a developed machine learning (ML) model that can create very similar ROI profiles with experimental data. Next, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation used the ROI profile generated by ML model. For comparison, there are other simplified ROI profiles used in similar CFD simulation configuration. Results showed that the any difference in ROI profiles could affect the combustion and emissions significantly. This further emphasizes the need to provide high-fidelity spray input in terms of ROI profile for CFD simulation. The current ML model can deliver a realistic ROI profile for any given rail pressure and injection duration.展开更多
文摘Restoring deadwood habitat is vital in order to recreate fully functioning forest ecosystems. Letting this process occur naturally can take in excess of one hundred years, thus management practises typically try to accelerate this via the artificial addition of deadwood. Since the species which rely on deadwood often have poor dispersal abilities, restoring deadwood habitat rarely results in the full restoration of the saproxylic fauna. Furthermore, standard deadwood monitoring protocol only records the amount and type of substrate available and is not capable of determining whether saproxylic insects have been restored. Full species inventories are time-consuming, costly and require great expertise. We present a rapid biodiversity assessment tool which we believe is the first protocol for measuring saproxylic activity which is accessible to non-specialists. Utilising the exit bore holes which saproxylics create on deadwood can provide an indication of the density, richness and diversity of species present;we call this the Saproxylic Activity Index. We show that this index can detect differences in the activity of insects between substrates. As saproxylic insects provide important ecosystem functions, such as aiding in the decay of deadwood and recycling nutrients, a measure of their activity levels may indicate the rate of restoration of these ecosystem processes. We believe that further exploration of this method provides an exciting opportunity for the functional restoration of saproxylic fauna to become incorporated into mainstream forest management.
文摘Injector configuration and spray characteristics are important parameters that define diesel combustion and emissions performance. One of the critical spray inputs is the Rate-of-Injection (ROI) profile. The ROI profile depends on the spray’s operating conditions, including nozzle geometry (e.g., nozzle diameter), injection pressure, and injection duration. Besides, the internal nozzle flow phenomenon and external ambient conditions can further impact fuel introduction characteristics. This study measured the ROI profile of a heavy-duty (multi-hole) diesel injector using the Bosch tube technique. Injection pressure and injection duration were varied from 600 to 2600 bar and 0.5–3.0 ms, respectively. After post-processing, measurement data were then used to train numerical models, including a developed machine learning (ML) model that can create very similar ROI profiles with experimental data. Next, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation used the ROI profile generated by ML model. For comparison, there are other simplified ROI profiles used in similar CFD simulation configuration. Results showed that the any difference in ROI profiles could affect the combustion and emissions significantly. This further emphasizes the need to provide high-fidelity spray input in terms of ROI profile for CFD simulation. The current ML model can deliver a realistic ROI profile for any given rail pressure and injection duration.
