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The use of additives, generally called DRAs (Drag Reducing Additives), has been proposed to re-duce the energy consumption in pressurized pipes. Although many research works have been conducted to analyze the effect of these additives, less attention have been devoted to the application of coatings to the pipe wall. This paper demonstrates that the application of a hydrophobic coating to the pipe can lead to a head loss reduction for a transition flow regime with moderate Reynolds number values (Re). For this purpose, an experiment was conducted to compare the performance of both coated and uncoated pipes by measuring the head losses and assessing the Drag Reduction Percentage (%DR) and the pipe friction factor (f). This was done for two Polyvinylchloride (PVC) pipes with different nominal diameters (PVC90 and PVC63). In addition, the flow velocity distribution was also measured in all these tests. The %DR decreased as the Re values increased, with the reduction being notably less pronounced for higher Re values. This could be explained by the fact that a partial slip condition is induced by the hydrophobic product. Its effect is significant for a transition regime where the effect of viscosity is important, but it becomes negligible for increasing levels of turbulence. No significant differences were observed in the flow distribution between coated and uncoated pipes, which seems to indicate that the velocity change could be limited to the near-wall viscous sublayer. The results of this work open an important research line aimed at reducing energy costs and the carbon footprint in pipe fluid distribution systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thermal analysis of some sericite clays, from several deposits in Spain, which are not exploited at this time, has been studied. The samples have been previously characterized by mineralogical and chemical analysis. Sericite clays have interesting properties, with implications in ceramics and advanced materials, in particular concerning the formation of mullite by heating. According to this investigation by differential thermal and thermogravimetric analysis (DTA-TG), the sericite clay samples can be classified as: Group (I), sericite-kaolinite clays, with high or medium sericite content, characterized by an endothermic DTA peak of dehydroxylation of kaolinite with mass loss, which overlapped with dehydroxylation of sericite, and Group (II), sericite-kaolinite-pyrophyllite clays, with broader endothermic DTA peaks, in which kaolinite is dehydroxylated first and later sericite and pyrophyllite with the main mass loss, appearing the peaks overlapped. X-ray diffraction analysis of the heated sericite clay samples evidenced the decomposition of dehydroxylated sericite and its disappearance at 1050 °C, with formation of mullite, the progressive disappearance of quartz and the formation of amorphous glassy phase. The vitrification temperature is ~ 1250 °C in all these samples, with slight variations in the temperatures of maximum apparent density (2.41-2.52 g mL−1) in the range 1200-1300 °C. The fine-grained sericite content and the presence of some mineralogical components contribute to the formation of mullite and the increase in the glassy phase by heating. Mullite is the only crystalline phase detected at 1400 °C with good crystallinity. SEM revealed the dense network of rod-shaped and elongated needle-like mullite crystals in the thermally treated samples. These characteristics are advantageous when sericite clays are applied as ceramic raw materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An irrigation performance analysis has been carried out in a horticultural greenhouse area located in the 'Campo de Níjar' (Southern Spain) in order to assess its irrigation productivity. Irrigation water productivity indicators were calculated for a wide sample of crops over the course of two different study periods. These productivity indices were similar in average to those reported in other nearby greenhouse irrigation districts although their variability was very high. The overall productivity ratio ( CYR) was 73.9 %. The low values for CYR were expected as irrigation water in this area has high salinity levels and low irrigation leaching fractions were applied. The influence of type of crop, greenhouse technology and agricultural season in the CYR values was analyzed. None of these factors had a statistically significant influence. A multivariate regression analysis was performed to model the crop yield as a function of several quantitative variables. The results showed that the most significant variable was the relative irrigation supply ( RIS). Other variables that had an influence of the productivity were the length of the growing cycle in the case of tomato and the number of greenhouses per farm in the case of watermelon. Results of this work are useful as they highlight the weaknesses of the system and suggest possible measures in order to improve its productivity and sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, the optimal design of water distrubution networks has been dealt with using single-objective constrained approaches, where the aim is to minimize the network investment cost while maintaining minimum pressure head constraints at all nodes. However, in the last decade some authors have proposed multi-objective approaches which optimize other objectives than network investment cost. In most cases, these objectives have been formulated using the concept of resilience index, which mimics the design aim of providing excess head above the minimum allowable head at the nodes and of designing reliable loops with practicable pipe diameters. Although several authors have proposed different resilience indexes for this pupose, to date there is no empirical study that analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of these proposals. This paper evaluates the performance of a well-known multi-objective evolutionary algorithm, the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2, using three different resilience indexes. The results obtained in two water supply networks under a large number of simulated over-demand scenarios show the advantages and disadvantages of these measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]