The onset of fire within a compartment can pose a hazard to the occupants and the structure containing the compartment. Fire suppression systems aim to either extinguish or suppress an incipient fire before loss of life or damage to the structure can occur. The geometry and use of the compartment as well as the fuel packages within must be taken into account when choosing an appropriate fire suppression system. This thesis explores novel suppression methods inside of compartments. Los Alamos National Laboratories came to the University of Texas Fire Research Group (UTFRG) to characterize and investigate the fire danger inside of nuclear gloveboxes. The first suppression method discussed explores activation tests of a commercial automatic fire suppression system (Fire Foe [superscript TM]) containing heptaflouropropane (FE-36) fire suppressant conducted within a glovebox at the UTFRG's burn structure. Temperature and time to activation data of ten tests at four different fire sizes, three 13 kW, one 20 kW, three 25 kW, and three 50 kW, was taken. Gas temperatures from experiments were compared against NIST's Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) gas temperatures with good agreement. The time and spatially averaged net heat flux on a virtual Fire Foe [superscript TM] tube from the FDS simulations were passed to a thermo-physical, semi-empirical, sub-model to predict activation with poor agreement from experimental activation times. A Bayesian parameter inference was later run on the sub-model. While the Bayesian inference approach is able to match sub-model temperatures to experimental temperatures, some non-physical values for heat transfer coefficients and view factors were observed at the lower heat release rate fires. Micro combustion calorimetry (MCC) was used to determine heat of combustion of glovebox glove material and cone calorimetry tests were run to find ignition time versus incident heat flux. Using standard ignition time models, effective model parameters were calibrated. Thermal characterization of the glove material showed that the heat of combustion found from MCC was within the range of heats of combustion for other non-halogenated materials found in the literature. Analysis of the time to ignition tests showed that the glove material should be modeled as thermally thick when one would expect thin behavior. This behavior was attributed to possible heat losses from the back of the glove material. Dry water is expected to have similar suppression characteristics as water mist systems because the dry water particle sizes are on the order of water mist droplet sizes. The major benefit with dry water is the low pressures needed to drive the aerosol. An issue encountered with the dry water was flowing it in the way one would flow normal water. It was found that at low normal and shear stresses, the dry water clathrates would release the water held inside. A possible low shear delivery mechanism was discussed that avoids the ratholing effect. A continuous dry water production system was also designed. Filter loading tests were conducted to determine the quality of the dry water collected from the batch and continuous cases. It was observed that the ratio of water to silica for the continuous case reaches the batch value and is similar to results found in the literature. For the batch dry water it was observed that the particle size of the dried clathrates does vary with rotational speed of the blender and is independent of the type of water used (tap or deionized). / text

La alta frecuencia de cultivos de oleaginosas con moderados aportes y persistencia de residuos podría limitar la normal productividad de los suelos. La inclusión de cultivos invernales (utilizados como cultivos de cobertura, CC) en la región semiárida y subhúmeda pampeana sería una alternativa para proveer de residuos ricos en C y promover al desarrollo y al mantenimiento de la cobertura de los suelos. Pero se reconoce que el consumo hídrico de éstos podría interferir en la oferta de agua para el cultivo siguiente. El objetivo de este estudio fue evaluar la eficiencia en la producción de materia seca (MS) de cereales de invierno utilizados como CC y sus efectos sobre los contenidos de agua útil y nitratos en suelos diferenciados por el régimen hídrico. Los estudios se desarrolla-ron en 4 sitios experimentales [Luan Toro (LP) (Haplustol Entico, precipitación 624 mm), Dorila (LP) (Haplustol Entico, precipitación 873 mm), General Villegas (BA) (Hapludol Thapto Árgico, precipitación 906 mm) y General Pinto (BA) (Argiudol Típico, precipitación 1116 mm)]. Los tratamientos fueron: Secale cereale (C), Lolium multiflorum (R), Avena sativa (A) y un tratamiento Testigo, sin CC (T). La producción de MS al momento del secado de los CC varió entre 1226 y 10500 kg ha-1. Se observó una gran influencia del régimen hídrico de los suelos sobre la producción del MS de los CC. El contenido de agua total al momento de la siembra explicó el 57 % de la variabilidad de la producción de MS, mientras que el contenido de agua total en el suelo a la siembra más las precipitaciones durante el ciclo de desarrollo de los CC, explicó el 89 % de la variabilidad. En todos los sitios el centeno produjo la mayor cantidad de MS, seguida por la avena y el rye grass. La mayor variación se dio dentro del mismo sitio, entre los años de evaluación. El uso consuntivo hasta el momento del secado varió entre 88 y 299 mm. La especie con mayor eficiencia de uso de agua fue el centeno, alcanzando su máximo valor en el sitio de General Pinto (54 kg MS mm-1). Los valores de resistencia a la penetración fueron mayores bajo los tratamientos con CC y tuvieron una relación significativa con los contenidos hídricos del suelo. Sólo en el sitio Dorila los mayores valores fueron registrados en el tratamiento T, sin comprobarse relación significativa entre variaciones en la RP y los contenidos hídricos del suelo. Los contenidos de N-NO3- en el suelo fueron mayores en los tratamientos testigos, independientemente del sitio, en tanto que los contenidos de N de la biomasa variaron entre 29 y 275 kg ha-1; con mayores valores para el centeno. La producción de soja varió entre 1069 y 5346 kg ha-1 y no se afectó por la inclusión de CC. Estudios futuros deben, en el largo plazo, contemplar el beneficio de la incorporación de CC sobre las propiedades físicas y químicas del suelo en sistemas agrícolas de la región semiárida y subhúmeda pampeana dedicados al cultivo de soja. / The soil productivity can be limited because of a frequent presence of oil crops and because of their little residue cover production and persistence on the soils. In the semiarid and subhumid Pampas region, the use of winter cover crops (CC) could provide residues with high C contents and maintain an adequate soil residue cover. But, the soil water use of the CC during the winter season can modify the normal soil water availability for the follo-wing crop. The objective of this research was to evaluate the dry matter (MS) production efficiency of winter cereals cultivated as CC and their effect on the soil available water and soil nitrates under two soil moisture regimes. The study was performed in four experimental sites: Luan Toro (La Pampa) (Entic Haplustoll, mean anual rainfall of 624 mm), Dorila (La Pampa) (Entic Haplustoll, mean anual rainfall of 873 mm), General Villegas (Buenos Aires) (Thapto-argic Hapludoll, mean anual rainfall of 906 mm)and General Pinto (Buenos Aires) (Typic Argiudoll, mean anual rainfall of 1116 mm). The treatments were: Rye [Secale cereale (C)], Rye grass [Lolium multiflorum (R)] and oat [Avena sativa (A)] and an untreated control without CC (T). The MS production at the moment of killing the CC varied between 1226 and 10500 kg ha-1. A strong effect of the soil water regime on the MS production of the CC was observed. The soil water content at the moment of seeding the CC explained 57 % of the MS production and the soil water content at seeding and rainfalls during the CC growing season explained almost 89 % of the variability in MS production. In the four locations, rye showed the greater MS production followed by oat and rye grass. The greater variability was observed within each of the sites and the studied seasons. The water uptake at the moment of killing the CC varied between 88 and 299 mm. Rye was the cereal with greater water use efficiency with a highest value in General Pinto with 54 kg of MS mm-1. The soil penetration resistance (RP) values were higher under CC treatments and negatively related with the soil mois-ture contents. Only in Dorila the highest values of RP were observed in the control treatment without a significant relationship between them and the soil water contents. The soil N-NO3- contents were greater in the T than in the CC treatments. The N content of the CC biomass varied between 29 and 75 kg ha-1 achieving greater values with rye. The soybean grain production varied between 1069 and 5346 kg ha-1 without differences due to the CC treatments. Future studies should study the effects of the CC use of physical and chemical soil properties in agricultural systems from the semiarid and subhumid pampas region under continuous soybean crop production.