Impact of the Meteorology Conditions on the Particulate Matter Dispersion from an Industrial Complex into Urban and Suburban Areas

The aim of this work was to assess the influence of meteorological conditions on the dispersion of particulate matter from an industrial zone into urban and suburban areas. The particulate matter concentration was related to the most important meteorological variables such as wind direction, velocity and frequency. A coal-fired power plant was considered to be the main emission source with two stacks of 225 m height. A middle point between the two stacks was taken as the centre of two concentric circles with 6 and 20 km radius delimiting the sampling area. About 40 sampling collectors were placed within this area. Meteorological data was obtained from a portable meteorological station placed at approximately 1.7 km to SE from the stacks. Additional data was obtained from the electrical company that runs the coal power plant. These data covers the years from 2006 to the present. A detailed statistical analysis was performed to identify the most frequent meteorological conditions concerning mainly wind speed and direction. This analysis revealed that the most frequent wind blows from Northwest and North and the strongest winds blow from Northwest. Particulate matter deposition was obtained in two sampling campaigns carried out in summer and in spring. For the first campaign the monthly average flux deposition was 1.90 g/m2 and for the second campaign this value was 0.79 g/m2. Wind dispersion occurred predominantly from North to South, away from the nearest residential area, located at about 6 km to Northwest from the stacks. Nevertheless, the higher deposition fluxes occurred in the NW/N and NE/E quadrants. This study was conducted considering only the contribution of particulate matter from coal combustion, however, others sources may be present as well, such as road traffic. Additional chemical analyses and microanalysis are needed to identify the source linkage to flux deposition levels.

Avaliação das melhores técnicas disponíveis relativas à refrigeração industrial e às emissões resultantes da armazenagem

Esta dissertação foi realizada em colaboração com o grupo empresarial Monteiro, Ribas e teve como principais objetivos efetuar uma avaliação das melhores técnicas disponíveis relativas à refrigeração industrial e às emissões resultantes da armazenagem. O primeiro objetivo teve como alvo todas as instalações da Monteiro, Ribas enquanto que o segundo objetivo se debruçou sobre Monteiro, Ribas, Embalagens Flexíveis, S.A.. Para cumprir estes objetivos, inicialmente efetuou-se um levantamento das melhores técnicas disponíveis apresentadas nos respetivos documentos de referência. Em seguida selecionaram-se as técnicas que se adequavam às condições e às instalações em estudo e procedeu-se a uma avaliação de forma a verificar o grau de implementação das medidas sugeridas no BREF (Best Available Techniques Reference Document). Relativamente aos sistemas de refrigeração industrial verificou-se que estão implementadas quase todas as medidas referenciadas no respetivo documento de referência. Isto prende-se com o facto dos sistemas de refrigeração existentes no complexo industrial Monteiro, Ribas serem relativamente recentes. Foram implementados no ano de 2012, e são caracterizados por apresentarem uma conceção moderna com elevada eficiência. No que diz respeito à armazenagem de produtos químicos perigosos, a instalação em estudo, apresenta algumas inconformidades, uma vez que a maioria das técnicas mencionadas no BREF não se encontram implementadas, pelo que foi necessário efetuar uma avaliação de riscos ambientais, com recurso à metodologia proposta pela Norma Espanhola UNE 150008:2008 – Análise e Avaliação do Risco Ambiental. Para isso procedeu-se então à formulação de vários cenários de riscos e à quantificação de riscos para à Monteiro, Ribas Embalagens Flexíveis S.A., tendo-se apurado que os riscos estavam avaliados como moderados a altos. Por fim foram sugeridas algumas medidas de prevenção e de minimização do risco que a instalação deve aplicar, como por exemplo, o parque de resíduos perigosos deve ser equipado com kits de contenção de derrames (material absorvente), procedimentos a realizar em caso de emergência, fichas de dados de segurança e o extintor deve ser colocado num local de fácil visualização. No transporte de resíduos perigosos, para o respetivo parque, é aconselhável utilizar bacias de contenção de derrames portáteis e kits de contenção de derrames. Relativamente ao armazém de produtos químicos perigosos é recomendado que se proceda a sua reformulação tendo em conta as MTD apresentadas no subcapítulo 5.2.3 desta dissertação.

A complex protocol layer as a linux user-space process

With the current complexity of communication protocols, implementing its layers totally in the kernel of the operating system is too cumbersome, and it does not allow use of the capabilities only available in user space processes. However, building protocols as user space processes must not impair the responsiveness of the communication. Therefore, in this paper we present a layer of a communication protocol, which, due to its complexity, was implemented in a user space process. Lower layers of the protocol are, for responsiveness issues, implemented in the kernel. This protocol was developed to support large-scale power-line communication (PLC) with timing requirements.

Two-production-period in a duopoly with nonprofit and for-profit firms

We investigate endogenous roles in a competition between a nonprofit firm and a for-profit firm in a homogeneous goods market, by allowing two production periods. We find that the Cournot-type equilibrium and one Stackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the follower exist; however, another tackelberg-type equilibrium where the nonprofit firm becomes the leader does not exist.

Power Law Behavior and Self-similarity in Modern Industrial Accidents

Advances in technology have produced more and more intricate industrial systems, such as nuclear power plants, chemical centers and petroleum platforms. Such complex plants exhibit multiple interactions among smaller units and human operators, rising potentially disastrous failure, which can propagate across subsystem boundaries. This paper analyzes industrial accident data-series in the perspective of statistical physics and dynamical systems. Global data is collected from the Emergency Events Database (EM-DAT) during the time period from year 1903 up to 2012. The statistical distributions of the number of fatalities caused by industrial accidents reveal Power Law (PL) behavior. We analyze the evolution of the PL parameters over time and observe a remarkable increment in the PL exponent during the last years. PL behavior allows prediction by extrapolation over a wide range of scales. In a complementary line of thought, we compare the data using appropriate indices and use different visualization techniques to correlate and to extract relationships among industrial accident events. This study contributes to better understand the complexity of modern industrial accidents and their ruling principles.

Fate Hazardous elements in soils surrounding a coal-fired power plant complex

Proceedings of the 13th International UFZ-Deltares Conference on Sustainable Use and Management of Soil, Sediment and Water Resources - 9–12 June 2015 • Copenhagen, Denmark