One of the major problems encountered in collecting data for use in analysing the internal environment of a greenhouse is the time required to read and record the many environmental parameters. This problem severely restricts the analysis of factors affecting the environment by limiting the number of locations that can be conveniently sampled and the frequency with which each location can be sampled. The time and cost factors also limit the number of parameters which can be measured at each location. A sensor module has been developed which will automatically measure environmental parameters at any number of pre-determined points along a fixed track. The module is capable of sampling 15 variables at a single location and transmitting via one cable all 15 signals for interpretation by a main decoding and recording station. The module is capable of automatically making 10 stops and measuring 15 parameters at each stop in about 10 minutes; a task which is very time consuming or expensive by other methods. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Chemical and Biological Engineering, Department of / Graduate

This paper investigates the use of conservatories within South African climatic landscape. It discusses several conservatories built in South Africa, their design and function. Conservatories are an enclosed ‘intermediate area’ used as a design measure to create a passive solar environment for a climate responsive measure. The design and use of climate responsive technology and materials in buildings reduces the need for space air-conditioning. Thus, then enhances efforts towards designing and operating energy efficient buildings. An attempt should be made to take advantage of the natural phenomena surrounding the building, instead of fighting the influence of nature with expensive and often environmentally destructive heating, cooling, and lighting equipment and the energy they consumes. The importance of this paper is to give to a literature review on conservatories built in South Africa. It highlights the potential of using conservatories within South African climatic conditions, and provides a structural observation on the integrity of such a system. The paper looks at three conservatories constructed in the country, their application and the principal of the greenhouse effects within conservatories.

Submitted by Maria Aparecida (cidazen@gmail.com) on 2017-08-16T13:36:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Nagem.pdf: 4780552 bytes, checksum: b5eb1b41dce8fc9e855f1bb49bfad2fa (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-16T13:36:27Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Nagem.pdf: 4780552 bytes, checksum: b5eb1b41dce8fc9e855f1bb49bfad2fa (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-02-06 / Nowadays the regulatory restrictions and global concern with the environment are leading the aluminum industry to develop a sustainable model production, with propose to reduce the environmental impacts of its economic activity. Thus, becomes necessary improvements in the operational and control standards for the aluminium production. These needs have major objectives, decrease green house gases (GHG) energy consumption and increase in productive. As technological alternatives such as smart feeders for Point Feeders pots and the development of new control for automatic adjust of the number of manifolds to be broke in the next cycle for Side Break pots will help to improve the decrease of Green Houses Gases. The smart feeders had a significant decrease in the anode effect frequency and consequently a decrease in anode effect time too. For the VSS Side Break pots were possible to create a decision matrix using the Least Square estimation (LS) of the resistance slope and curvature to adjust the number of manifolds. Another approach that showed promising results in the simulation was the neuronal networks for pattern recognition, especial class knows by probabilistic neural network. / Atualmente a maior regulamentação e preocupação mundial com o ambiente estão levando as indústrias de alumínio ao desenvolvimento de um modelo sustentável de produção, com o escopo de reduzir os impactos ambientais de sua atividade econômica. Assim, tornam-se imprescindíveis melhorias nas práticas operacionais e de controle de sua produção. Tais necessidades têm como foco principal a redução dos gases de efeito estufa (Green Houses Gases - GHG), redução do consumo de energia e aumento de produtividade. Como alternativas tecnológicas para mitigar o problema ambiental de Green Houses Gases, os “alimentadores inteligentes” para as cubas com alimentação Point Feeder e o desenvolvimento de novos controles para o ajuste automático da quantidade de “manifolds” a serem quebrados durante a alimentação para cubas Side Break são soluções viáveis. Os alimentadores “inteligentes” mostram uma redução da freqüência de efeito anódico e conseqüentemente no tempo em que a cuba fica em efeito anódico. Para as cubas VSS Side Break foi possível criar uma matriz de decisão através dos valores dos estimadores MQ utilizando a inclinação e curvatura da resistência para o ajuste de “manifolds”. Outra abordagem foi a utilização de redes neuronais para determinar a forma da curva de resistência, com a utilização de redes neuronais probabilísticas.