Submitted by Emanuel Varela Cardoso (emanuel.varela@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-09-28T20:00:01Z No. of bitstreams: 1 JOEL SILVA DOS SANTOS - TESE (PPGRN) 2011.pdf: 5220762 bytes, checksum: 35f8c4b7ea7bb6b3e7c706a4b11bea0d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-09-28T20:00:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 JOEL SILVA DOS SANTOS - TESE (PPGRN) 2011.pdf: 5220762 bytes, checksum: 35f8c4b7ea7bb6b3e7c706a4b11bea0d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-19 / As alterações ocorridas no sistema climático urbano das grandes cidades são processos relacionados ao adensamento urbano e às diferentes formas de uso e cobertura do solo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi analisar o campo térmico urbano e a sua relação com as diversas formas de uso e cobertura do solo em cidade tropical úmida, especificamente a cidade de João Pessoa, PB. As medições da temperatura do ar e umidade relativa foram realizadas em dois períodos distintos de três meses (seco e chuvoso), utilizando-se termo-higrômetro da marca Hobos em nove pontos representativos da malha urbana de cidade. O nível de estresse térmico foi avaliado com base no índice de desconforto de Thom (IDT) para regiões tropicais, ajustado através de questionários de avaliação da sensação térmica das pessoas nos pontos monitorados. O teste de Mann-Kendall foi utilizado para avaliar a tendência temporal das séries climatológicas de temperatura, umidade relativa do ar e do IDT no período de 1963 a 2011. Os tipos de cobertura de solo de cada ponto monitorado foram classificados dentro de nove classes de acordo com a percentagem de vegetação e de materiais permeáveis e impermeáveis utilizando métodos quantitativos e qualitativos. Os resultados do trabalho indicam que a faixa de classificação do índice de desconforto de Thom não é apropriada para regiões tropicais úmidas. A ilha de calor urbano é um fenômeno que ocorre preferencialmente durante o período noturno enquanto a intensidade máxima dos gradientes de temperatura e umidade relativa do ar são fenômenos essencialmente diurnos. Os cenários dos níveis de conforto térmico indicam condições de forte desconforto ambiental para os anos de 2050 e 2060 durante o período seco e desconfortável para o período chuvoso no ano de 2060 em toda área de estudo. / The changes in the urban climate system in great cities are processes related to urban density and the different forms of use and land cover. The objective of this study was to analyze the thermal urban field and its relation to the various forms of use and land cover in a humid tropical city, specifically Joao Pessoa city, PB, Brazil. Measurements in air temperature and relative humidity were carried out in two distinct periods of three months (dry and wet seasons), using thermo-hygrometer Hobos located in nine representative areas of the city. The level of heat stress was evaluated based on Thom's discomfort index (IDT, in Portuguese), adjusted for tropical regions based on questionnaires for assessing the thermal sensation that people have in function to the parameters that determine the environment in which they live. Mann-Kendall test was used to assess the temporal trends of time series in temperature, relative humidity and IDT for the period from 1963 to 2011. The types of ground cover of each monitored point were classified into nine classes according to the percentage of vegetation coverage and permeable and impermeable materials by utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods. The results of the study indicated that the classification range of the Thom’s discomfort index is not suitable for humid tropical regions. The urban heat island is a phenomenon that occurs preferentially during the night while the maximum intensity of the temperature and relative humidity gradients are essentially diurnal phenomena. The scenarios of the thermal comfort levels indicated a strong discomfort for the 2050 and 2060 years during the dry season and uncomfortable condition during the rainy season in the 2060 year throughout the study area.

Human body detects potentially damaging stimuli by specialized sensory nerve endings in the skin, the nociceptors. Their membranes are equipped with ion channels, molecular sensors, coding the outside stimuli into the trains of action potentials and conducting them to the higher brain centers. The most prominent group of transduction ion channels is the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel family followed by ion channels responsible for generation and conduction of action potentials from the periphery to the brain, the voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs). Understanding the mechanisms how particular stimulus is encoded and processed is of particular importance to find therapeutics for various types of pain conditions. We characterized the properties of VGSC subtypes NaV1.9 and NaV1.8 at high temperatures. We showed that NaV1.9 undergo large increase in current with increasing temperatures and significantly contribute to the action potential generation in dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons. Ciguatoxins (CTXs) are sodium channels activator toxins causing ciguatera fish poisoning, a disease manifested by sensory and neurological disturbances. We elucidated the mechanism of CTX- induced cold allodynia, a pathological phenomenon where normally innocuous cool temperatures are perceived as pain. We...

Liquid crystals (LCs) are important materials for flat panel display and photonic devices. Most LC devices use electrical field-, magnetic field-, or temperature-induced refractive index change to modulate the incident light. Molecular constituents, wavelength, and temperature are the three primary factors determining the liquid crystal refractive indices: ne and no for the extraordinary and ordinary rays, respectively. In this dissertation, we derive several physical models for describing the wavelength and temperature effects on liquid crystal refractive indices, average refractive index, and birefringence. Based on these models, we develop some high temperature gradient refractive index LC mixtures for photonic applications, such as thermal tunable liquid crystal photonic crystal fibers and thermal solitons. Liquid crystal refractive indices decrease as the wavelength increase. Both ne and no saturate in the infrared region. Wavelength effect on LC refractive indices is important for the design of direct-view displays. In Chapter 2, we derive the extended Cauchy models for describing the wavelength effect on liquid crystal refractive indices in the visible and infrared spectral regions based on the three-band model. The three-coefficient Cauchy model could be used for describing the refractive indices of liquid crystals with low, medium, and high birefringence, whereas the two-coefficient Cauchy model is more suitable for low birefringence liquid crystals. The critical value of the birefringence is deltan~0.12. Temperature is another important factor affecting the LC refractive indices. The thermal effect originated from the lamp of projection display would affect the performance of the employed liquid crystal. In Chapter 3, we derive the four-parameter and three-parameter parabolic models for describing the temperature effect on the LC refractive indices based on Vuks model and Haller equation. We validate the empirical Haller equation quantitatively. We also validate that the average refractive index of liquid crystal decreases linearly as the temperature increases. Liquid crystals exhibit a large thermal nonlinearity which is attractive for new photonic applications using photonic crystal fibers. We derive the physical models for describing the temperature gradient of the LC refractive indices, ne and no, based on the four-parameter model. We find that LC exhibits a crossover temperature To at which dno/dT is equal to zero. The physical models of the temperature gradient indicate that ne, the extraordinary refractive index, always decreases as the temperature increases since dne/dT is always negative, whereas no, the ordinary refractive index, decreases as the temperature increases when the temperature is lower than the crossover temperature (dno/dT<0 when the temperature is lower than To) and increases as the temperature increases when the temperature is higher than the crossover temperature (dno/dT>0 when the temperature is higher than To ). Measurements of LC refractive indices play an important role for validating the physical models and the device design. Liquid crystal is anisotropic and the incident linearly polarized light encounters two different refractive indices when the polarization is parallel or perpendicular to the optic axis. The measurement is more complicated than that for an isotropic medium. In Chapter 4, we use a multi-wavelength Abbe refractometer to measure the LC refractive indices in the visible light region. We measured the LC refractive indices at six wavelengths, lamda=450, 486, 546, 589, 633 and 656 nm by changing the filters. We use a circulating constant temperature bath to control the temperature of the sample. The temperature range is from 10 to 55 oC. The refractive index data measured include five low-birefringence liquid crystals, MLC-9200-000, MLC-9200-100, MLC-6608 (delta_epsilon=-4.2), MLC-6241-000, and UCF-280 (delta_epsilon=-4); four middle-birefringence liquid crystals, 5CB, 5PCH, E7, E48 and BL003; four high-birefringence liquid crystals, BL006, BL038, E44 and UCF-35, and two liquid crystals with high dno/dT at room temperature, UCF-1 and UCF-2. The refractive indices of E7 at two infrared wavelengths lamda=1.55 and 10.6 um are measured by the wedged-cell refractometer method. The UV absorption spectra of several liquid crystals, MLC-9200-000, MLC-9200-100, MLC-6608 and TL-216 are measured, too. In section 6.5, we also measure the refractive index of cured optical films of NOA65 and NOA81 using the multi-wavelength Abbe refractometer. In Chapter 5, we use the experimental data measured in Chapter 4 to validate the physical models we derived, the extended three-coefficient and two-coefficient Cauchy models, the four-parameter and three-parameter parabolic models. For the first time, we validate the Vuks model using the experimental data of liquid crystals directly. We also validate the empirical Haller equation for the LC birefringence delta_n and the linear equation for the LC average refractive index . The study of the LC refractive indices explores several new photonic applications for liquid crystals such as high temperature gradient liquid crystals, high thermal tunable liquid crystal photonic crystal fibers, the laser induced 2D+1 thermal solitons in nematic crystals, determination for the infrared refractive indices of liquid crystals, comparative study for refractive index between liquid crystals and photopolymers for polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) applications, and so on. In Chapter 6, we introduce these applications one by one. First, we formulate two novel liquid crystals, UCF-1 and UCF-2, with high dno/dT at room temperature. The dno/dT of UCF-1 is about 4X higher than that of 5CB at room temperature. Second, we infiltrate UCF-1 into the micro holes around the silica core of a section of three-rod core PCF and set up a highly thermal tunable liquid crystal photonic crystal fiber. The guided mode has an effective area of 440 ƒÝm2 with an insertion loss of less than 0.5dB. The loss is mainly attributed to coupling losses between the index-guided section and the bandgap-guided section. The thermal tuning sensitivity of the spectral position of the bandgap was measured to be 27 nm/degree around room temperature, which is 4.6 times higher than that using the commercial E7 LC mixture operated at a temperature above 50 degree C. Third, the novel liquid crystals UCF-1 and UCF-2 are preferred to trigger the laser-induced thermal solitons in nematic liquid crystal confined in a capillary because of the high positive temperature gradient at room temperature. Fourth, we extrapolate the refractive index data measured at the visible light region to the near and far infrared region basing on the extended Cauchy model and four-parameter model. The extrapolation method is validated by the experimental data measured at the visible light and infrared light regions. Knowing the LC refractive indices at the infrared region is important for some photonic devices operated in this light region. Finally, we make a completely comparative study for refractive index between two photocurable polymers (NOA65 and NOA81) and two series of Merck liquid crystals, E-series (E44, E48, and E7) and BL-series (BL038, BL003 and BL006) in order to optimize the performance of polymer dispersed liquid crystals (PDLC). Among the LC materials we studied, BL038 and E48 are good candidates for making PDLC system incorporating NOA65. The BL038 PDLC cell shows a higher contrast ratio than the E48 cell because BL038 has a better matched ordinary refractive index, higher birefringence, and similar miscibility as compared to E48. Liquid crystals having a good miscibility with polymer, matched ordinary refractive index, and higher birefringence help to improve the PDLC contrast ratio for display applications. In Chapter 7, we give a general summary for the dissertation.

In this thesis, we study the phenomenon of thermally induced polarisation using a combination of theory and computer simulation. Molecules of sufficiently low symmetry exhibit thermo-molecular orientation when subjected to a temperature gradient, leading to considerable electrostatic fields in polar liquids. Here, we first use non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations to study this interesting effect numerically. To this end, we propose an integration algorithm to impose a constant heat flux in simulations and show that it greatly improves energy conservation compared to a previous algorithm. We next investigate the thermal polarisation of water and find that truncation of electrostatic interactions can lead to severe artefacts, such as the wrong sign of polarisation and an overestimation of the electric field. We further show that the quadrupole-moment contribution to the electric field is significant and responsible for an inversion of its sign. To facilitate the theoretical description of electrostatic interactions, we propose a new dipolar model fluid as a perturbation of a Stockmayer fluid. Using this modified Stockmayer model, we provide numerical evidence for the recently proposed phenomenon of thermally induced monopoles. We show that the electrostatic field generated by a pair of heated/cooled colloidal particles immersed in such a solvent can be trivially described by two Coulomb charges. Finally, we propose a mean-field theory to predict the thermo-polarisation effect exhibited by our model fluid theoretically, and demonstrate near quantitative agreement with simulation results.

Le transfert radiatif dû aux gaz joue un rôle important dans les applications industrielles comme les chambres de combustion, les sciences atmosphériques, etc. Plusieurs modèles ont été proposées pour estimer les propriétés radiatives des gaz. Le plus précis est l'approche dite Raie Par Raie (RPR). Cependant, cette méthode implique un coût de calcul excessif qui la rend inappropriée pour la plupart des applications. Néanmoins, elle reste la méthode de référence que nous utiliserons pour l'évaluation d’autres modèles approchés. Le modèle de coefficient d’absorption corrélé (Ck) est généralement suffisant pour de nombreuses applications. Cette méthode est réputée précise lorsque petits gradients de température sont rencontrés au sein du gaz. Toutefois, si le milieu gazeux est soumis à d'importants gradients de température, la méthode Ck peut conduire à des erreurs qui peuvent atteindre 50% en termes de flux radiatifs par rapport à des simulations de RPR. Le but de cette thèse est de proposer une version améliorée de la méthode Ck, appelée l'approche de coefficient d’absorption corrélé en multi spectral (MSCk). La principale différence entre les modèles Ck et MSCk est que, dans l'approche Ck les intervalles spectraux sur lesquels les propriétés radiatives des gaz sont moyennées sont choisis contiguës alors que, dans l’approche MSCk, ces intervalles sont construits afin d'assurer que le coefficient d'absorption soit corrélé sur ces intervalles. Par conséquent, l'hypothèse de corrélation dans l’approche MSCk est mieux adaptée que dans l’approche Ck. La construction de ces intervalles spectraux (en utilisant la méthode de classification automatique de données fonctionnelles) est détaillée. Cette approche est évaluée par rapport à la référence RPR dans plusieurs cas test. Ces cas traitent de mélanges de gaz (H2O-N2 et H2O-CO2-N2) dans l’intervalle de température [300-3000K]. Les résultats montrent que la méthode MSCk permet d'obtenir de meilleures précisions que les méthodes Ck tout en restant acceptable en termes de coût de calcul. / Radiative heat transfer of gas plays an important role in industrial applications such as in combustion chambers, atmospheric sciences, etc. Several models [11] have been proposed to estimate the radiative properties of gases. The most accurate one is the Line-By-Line (LBL) approach. However, this technique involves excessive computation cost which makes it inappropriate for most applications. Nevertheless, it remains the reference approach for the assessment of other approximate models. The Correlated k-distribution method (Ck) [11] was shown to be a relevant choice for many applications. This method performs usually well, when only small temperature gradients are involved [21]. However, if the gaseous medium is subject to large temperature gradients, it may lead to errors that can reach 50% in terms of radiative heat fluxes when compared to LBL simulations [21]. The aim of the present paper is to propose an enhanced version of the Ck method, called the Multi-Spectral Correlated k-distribution approach (MSCk). The main difference between Ck and MSCk models is that in the Ck approach spectral intervals over which the radiative properties of the gas are averaged are chosen contiguous whereas, in the MSCk technique, those intervals are built in order to ensure that the absorption coefficient are scaled over them [27]. Accordingly, the usual assumption of correlated spectrum used in k-distribution approaches for the treatment of non uniformities is more acceptable in the MSCk case than in the Ck one. The building of those spectral intervals (using Functional Data Clustering, [52]) is detailed and the approach is assessed against LBL reference data in several test cases. These cases involve H2O-N2 and H2O-CO2-N2 mixtures in the [300-3000K] temperature range. Results show that the MSCk method enables to achieve better accuracies than Ck methods while remaining acceptable in terms of computational cost.

This thesis is developed as a proposal for heating for a primary school and kindergarten in the region of Brno-countryside. For the insulated building, a combination of heating and air-conditioning is proposed. The concept is designed so that the air-conditioning preheats the exterior air and the heating system warms the incoming air to a comfortable temperature. For the required thermal performance, sources of heat (for gas and pellets) and a layout solution for the boiler room is designed. Drainage of combustion products is proposed for both solutions. The project solution is per the extent of the construction permit. The theoretical part is linked with the practical part through the condensation boilers, their function and division, and drainage of combustion products. The experiment for the given topic was conducted on the drainage of combustion products. The pressure loss of the reverse knob was determined in relation to the flow rate of air in the condensation boilers as this loss is essential in assessing the drainage of combustion products.