Uma proposta de metodologia para o ensino de Física usando robótica de baixíssimo custo

This paper presents methodology based on Lev Vigotsky`s social interactionist theory through investigative activities, which integrates the teaching of physics to robotics, directed to students of the Physics degree course, seeking to provide further training for future teachers. The method is organized through educational robotics workshops that addresses concepts of physics through the use of low-cost educational robots along with several activities. The methodology has been presented and discussed and put into practice afterwards in workshops so that these future teachers may be able to take robotics to their classroom. Students from the last and penultimate semester of the Physics degree course of the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Rio Grande do Norte, Caicó campus participated in this project

Viabilidades térmica, econômica e de materiais de um sistema solar de aquecimento de água a baixo custo para fins residenciais

An solar alternative system for water heating is presented. Is composed for one low cost alternative collector and alternative thermal reservoir for hot water storing. The collector of the system has box confectioned in composite material and use absorption coils formed for PVC tubes. The box of hot water storage was confectioned from a plastic polyethylene drum used for storage of water and garbage, coated for a cylinder confectioned in fiber glass. The principle of functioning of the system is the same of the conventionally. Its regimen of work is the thermosiphon for a volume of 250 liters water. The main characteristic of the system in considered study is its low cost, allowing a bigger socialization of the use of solar energy. It will be demonstrated the viabilities thermal, economic and of materials of the system of considered heating, and its competitiveness in relation to the available collectors commercially. Relative aspects will be boarded also the susceptibility the thermal degradation and for UV for the PVC tubes. It will be shown that such system of alternative heating, that has as main characteristic its low cost, presents viabilities thermal, economic and of materials

Estudo da Potencialidade da produção de tijolos de adobe misturado com outros materiais: uma alternativa de baixo custo para a construção civil

The production of the red pottery brick, made traditionally with clay, is a technique that is already stabled. However, in spite of the little complexity that involves the conventional process of these bricks production, it are exposed to many problems that begin in the fase of exploration of the mines, the problems get worse because of the lack of the clay's characterization, and they continue through the steps of the dough preparation, conformation of the products, the drying and the burning process. The wastefulness is shown and so is the low quality of the material produced. Among other factors, the high use of energy in the burning makes the cost of this material inaccessible to the low income consumer. Besides this, the destruction of the environment around the mines and the use of native vegetation to produce wood - the most used fuel in the pottery industry - make serious environmental damage. The production technique of a new type of simple brick (adobe), that has low cost and no environmental damage, can be the viable altemative to lower the cost of this part of the civil construction, and, consequently, in the building of cheaper houses. In this paper, the results of the mechanical resistance of the adobe brick are shown, using in its composition, clay, natural vegetable fibers, cement and plaster in a process that is completely handcrafted and manual. It is intented to make clear that are possible alternatives to be put in practice, with the simple process, using "raw earth" that has been used in the construction of houses in thousands of years, trying to solve these severe problems. Analysis and tests were performed to find results that could prove the possibility of the utilization of this kind of material. Other studies are in progress, and the new researches are necessary to enrich this work, but it stays the certainty that there is potential to produce bricks from adobe, as an alternative that has low cost to civil construction

Construção, calibração e análise de desempenho de um piranômetro de baixo custo, baseado no modelo Kimball-Hobbs

In this work a pyrometer using the classic model of Kimball-Hobbs was developed, tested and calibrated. The solar radiation is verified through the temperature difference between the sensible elements covered by absorbing (black) and reflecting (white) pigmentations of the incoming radiation. The photoacoustic technique was used to optimize the choice of the pigments. Methodologies associated with linearity, thermo-variation, sensibility, response time and distance are also presented. To correctly classify the results, the international standard ISO 9060 as well as indicative parameters of World Meteorological Organization (WMO) are used. In addition a system of data acquisition of two channels with 12 bits, constructed during the this time, was used to measure the global solar radiation on the ground by the pyrometer and also by another pyrometer certified in the case of Keep & zonen. The results statistically show, through the hypothesis test presented here, that both equipments find population average with 95% of correctness

Projeto, construção e análise de desempenho de um forno solar alternativo tipo caixa a baixo custo

An alternative box-type solar oven constructed from the scrap iron of a gas conventional cook is presented, which functions principles are the effect greenhouse and the concentration. The oven of the conventional cook is the baking enclosure where the absorber (pot) of the solar oven is located, being re-covered for a glass blade for the generation of the greenhouse effect isolated lateral and having deep its and for a composite the plaster base and EPS. Segments of plain mirrors had been placed in the laterals of the oven for the concentration of the radiation and a reflecting parabola was introduced in the baking enclosure for the exploitation of the incident reflected radiation in the interior of the oven. The oven is mobile to allow one better aiming of exactly in relation to the apparent movement of the sun. The thermal economic and of materials viabilities of the stove in study will be demonstrate The average internal temperature of the absorber was around 150°C and the internal temperature around 120°C. Will demonstrate that its low cost and good thermal performance represents basic characteristics for the viability of large use of such archetype, mainly for cooking the decreases and averages temperatures. One will reveal that the archetype in study is competitive with the box-type solar cooker conceived in the whole world

Desenvolvimento e caracterização de nanocompósito de resina epóxi com nanopartículas de sílica para revestimento de dutos para transporte de petróleo

The use of polymer based coatings is a promising approach to reduce the corrosion problem in carbon steel pipes used for the transport of oil and gas in the oil industry. However, conventional polymer coatings offer limited properties, which often cannot meet design requirements for this type of application, particularly in regard to use temperature and wear resistance. Polymer nanocomposites are known to exhibit superior properties and, therefore, offer great potential for this type of application. Nevertheless, the degree of enhancement of a particular property is greatly dependent upon the matrix/nanoparticle material system used, the matrix/nanoparticle interfacial bonding and also the state of dispersion of the nanoparticle in the polymer matrix. The objective of the present research is to develop and characterize polymer based nanocomposites to be used as coatings in metallic pipelines for the transportation of oil and natural gas. Epoxy/SiO2 nanocomposites with nanoparticle contents of 2, 4, and 8 wt % were processed using a high-energy mill. Modifications of the SiO2 nanoparticles‟ surfaces with two different silane agents were carried out and their effect on the material properties were investigated. The state of dispersion of the materials processed was studied using Scanning and Transmission Electron Microscopy (SEM and TEM) micrographs. Thermogravimetric analysis (TG) were also conducted to determine the thermal stability of the nanocomposites. In addition, the processed nanocomposites were characterized by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) to investigate the effect of nanoparticles content and silane treatment on the viscoelastic properties and on the glass transition temperature. Finally, wear tests of the pin-on-disc type were carried out to determine the effects of the nanoparticles and the silane treatments studied. According to the results, the addition of SiO2 nanoparticles treated with silane increased the thermal stability, the storage modulus and Tg of the epoxy resin and decreased wear rate. This confirms that the interaction between the nanoparticles and the polymer chains plays a critical role on the properties of the nanocomposites

Análise do desempenho térmico de um sistema de aquecimento solar de baixo custo

It presents a solar collector to be used in a system for heating water for bathing, whose main characteristics are low cost and easy manufacturing and assembly. The system operates under natural convection or thermosiphon. The absorbing surface of the collector is formed by twelve PVC pipes of 25 mm outside diameter connected in parallel via connections in T of the same material. The tubes were covered with absorbing fins made with recycled aluminum cans. We studied eight settings between absorber plate, thermal insulating EPS boards and thermal reservoirs 150 and 200 liters. It was determined the most efficient configuration for the correct purpose. We evaluated thermal parameters that proved the viability of the heating system studied

Projeto, construção e análise de eficiência térmica de um sistema de aquecimento solar de água de baixo custo

We studied the feasibility of using a system of Solar Water Heating (SAS) with low cost, for three configurations. In configurations I and II have the collector grid absorber composed of six PVC tubes placed in parallel on the tile cement. In configuration II, the PVC tubes were transparent cover made of plastic bottles. Configuration III uses a collector composed of 12 black HDPE pipes, supported on four cement tiles 2.44 m x 0.50 m, two by two overlapping and interspersed with a filling of glass wool, comprising an area exposed to the global radiation incident of 2.44 m2, with the top two tiles painted matte black. In this configuration, the HDPE pipes replace conventional PVC pipes painted black. The total cost of SAS for configuration III, the most economical, was around $ 150.00. For the configurations tested the system of operation was thermosyphon collector. The study showed that the proposed systems have good thermal efficiency, are easy to install and handle and have low cost compared to conventional.

Obtenção e caracterização de farinha de frutas e vegetais através do uso de um sistema de secagem solar de baixo custo

In this work a solar drying system for food dehydration was developed. It is a direct exposition drying apparatus that uses solar energy to heat the circulating air. First, the construction and assembly of this apparatus was described, in which was used scrap wraps of used tires for thermal insulation, allowing the reuse of solid waste, being an ecologically correct recycling option. After, the results obtained in experiments for cashew drying showed the thermal and economical feasibility of the proposed solar drying system, focusing on the process of flour production and in its chemical characterization. It was also demonstrated the social importance of this production for socially excluded people, since the value added to this fruit, in relation to its in nature form, may represent an option for job and income generation. The main features of the proposed dryer are its low cost and its easy fabrication and assembly process. After cashew drying, the obtained product was processed into flour by using a knife mill and it was added crushed rapadura to reduce the rancid taste caused by tannin

Análise da sensibilidade do biodiesel B5 em frotas de transporte coletivo com motorização diesel

The aim of this study was investigate the consolidation of the biodiesel fuel used in (a) engines of urban and intercity bus companies, (b) a stationary engine. It was necessary to investigate and analyze, technologically, if the biodiesel fuels were presenting troubleshooting relative to wear of parts lied to fuel and to evaluate the consumption fluctuations of this fuel. The urban and intercity bus companies, localized in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte state, Brazil, had 41 and 12 vehicles, respectively. It were analyzed datasheet of each one vehicle during three years, since 2008 until 2010 and were interviewed the management of the maintenance team of bus companies relative to aspects concerning the substitution of the diesel fuel by the B5 biodiesel. The second aim of this study was visually inspect the wear of the parts directly lied to combustion process. For this reason, it was investigated a stationary engine, manufactured by Branco BD5, 5 HP of power, fueled by (a) diesel, (b) biodiesel B5, (c) biodiesel B20 and (d) diesel or biodiesel, both contaminated by distilled water. In this engine, its power utilizing biodiesel B5 versus diesel was lower about 5.2% and, in the investigated case of B20 versus diesel, it was lower around 11.5%

Avaliação da remoção de sulfeto de hidrogênio do gás natural em uma coluna de absorção

Natural gas, although basically composed by light hydrocarbons, also presents in its composition gaseous contaminants such as CO2 (carbon dioxide) and H2S (hydrogen sulfide). Hydrogen sulfide, which commonly occurs in oil and gas exploration and production activities, besides being among the gases that are responsible by the acid rain and greenhouse effect, can also cause serious harm to health, leading even to death, and damages to oil and natural gas pipelines. Therefore, the removal of hydrogen sulfide will significantly reduce operational costs and will result in oil with best quality to be sent to refinery, thereby resulting in economical, environmental, and social benefits. These factors highlight the need for the development and improvement of hydrogen sulfide sequestrating agents to be used in the oil industry. Nowadays there are several procedures for hydrogen sulfide removal from natural gas used by the petroleum industry. However, they produce derivatives of amines that are harmful to the distillation towers, form insoluble precipitates that cause pipe clogging and produce wastes of high environmental impact. Therefore, the obtaining of a stable system, in inorganic or organic reaction media, that is able to remove hydrogen sulfide without forming by-products that affect the quality and costs of natural gas processing, transport and distribution is of great importance. In this context, the evaluation of the kinetics of H2S removal is a valuable procedure for the treatment of natural gas and disposal of the byproducts generated by the process. This evaluation was made in an absorption column packed with Raschig ring, where natural gas with H2S passes through a stagnant solution, being the contaminant absorbed by it. The content of H2S in natural gas in column output was monitored by an H2S analyzer. The comparison between the obtained curves and the study of the involved reactions have not only allowed to determine the efficiency and mass transfer controlling step of the involved processes but also make possible to effect a more detailed kinetic study and evaluate the commercial potential of each reagent

Viabilidade técnica de uma rota não convencional para a produção de leite de cabra em pó em cooperativas do Rio Grande do Norte

Nowadays, Brazil has both the greatest goat herd and the greatest goat milk production of South America. The state of Rio Grande do Norte, located in northeast of Brazil, has an average year production of three thousand cubic meters of goat milk in natura. Part of this milk production is homemade and it comes from small farms, which unite in rural cooperatives created to encourage the production and implementation of industrial processes for preservation and processing of milk. Results presented by literature and obtained from preliminary essays in this thesis show that non conventional dryer of spouted bed with inert particles is able to produce powder milk from in natura milk (cattle or goat), with the same quality of spray dryer, however, operating at low cost. The method of drying in spouted bed consists of injecting milk emulsion on the bed of inert particles gushed by hot air. This emulsion covers the particles with a thin film, which dries and is reduced to powder during the circulation of inerts inside the bed. The powder is dragged by exhaustion air and separated in the cyclone. The friction among particles resulted from the particles circulation, encourages high taxes of shear in the thin film of emulsion, breaking the cohesive forces and making this process possible. Studying the drying process and the powder goat milk production in one unit of spouted bed with inert particles, seeing the development of a low cost technological route for powder milk production is the aim of this thesis. The powder milk produced by this route must attend the local demand of food industries which need an intermediate product to be used as a food ingredient (ice-cream, milk candy). In order to reach this aim, this thesis approaches the aspects related to physical, thermodynamics and physic-chemicals characteristics of goat milk, whose complete data are still inexistent in the literature. The properties of materials are of great importance to the project of any process which involves the operations of transportation of movement, heat and mass quantity, such as the dryers which operate in fluid dynamically active regime, like the spouted bed. It was obtained new data related to the goat milk properties in function of concentration of solids and temperature. It is also important to mention the study developed about the kinetic of solids retention in the bed of inert particles during the drying of goat milk. It was found more adequate processes conditions to the proposed technological route to be implemented in small and micro-industries, with simplifications in the system of milk injection as well as in the form of operation of the dryer. Important data were obtained for a posterior stage of this research which involves the v modeling, simulation, control and optimization of the process. The results obtained in this thesis, in relation to process performance as well as to the quality of produced powder milk validate the proposal of using the spouted bed dryer in the production of powder goat milk

Estudo dos óxidos A2B2O7 e ABO3 a base de terras raras, para aplicações térmicas e catalíticas a altas temperaturas

Rare earth elements have recently been involved in a range of advanced technologies like microelectronics, membranes for catalytic conversion and applications in gas sensors. In the family of rare earth elements like cerium can play a key role in such industrial applications. However, the high cost of these materials and the control and efficiencies associated processes required for its use in advanced technologies, are a permanent obstacle to its industrial development. In present study was proposed the creation of phases based on rare earth elements that can be used because of its thermal behavior, ionic conduction and catalytic properties. This way were studied two types of structure (ABO3 and A2B2O7), the basis of rare earths, observing their transport properties of ionic and electronic, as well as their catalytic applications in the treatment of methane. For the process of obtaining the first structure, a new synthesis method based on the use of EDTA citrate mixture was used to develop a precursor, which undergone heat treatment at 950 ° C resulted in the development of submicron phase BaCeO3 powders. The catalytic activity of perovskite begins at 450 ° C to achieve complete conversion at 675 ° C, where at this temperature, the catalytic efficiency of the phase is maximum. The evolution of conductivity with temperature for the perovskite phase revealed a series of electrical changes strongly correlated with structural transitions known in the literature. Finally, we can establish a real correlation between the high catalytic activity observed around the temperature of 650 ° C and increasing the oxygen ionic conductivity. For the second structure, showed clearly that it is possible, through chemical processes optimized to separate the rare earth elements and synthesize a pyrochlore phase TR2Ce2O7 particular formula. This "extracted phase" can be obtained directly at low cost, based on complex systems made of natural minerals and tailings, such as monazite. Moreover, this method is applied to matters of "no cost", which is the case of waste, making a preparation method of phases useful for high technology applications

Avaliação e modelagem da absorção de H2S do gás natural em coluna de leito estagnado

Natural gas, although basically composed by light hydrocarbons, also presents contaminant gases in its composition, such as CO2 (carbon dioxide) and H2S (hydrogen sulfide). The H2S, which commonly occurs in oil and gas exploration and production activities, causes damages in oil and natural gas pipelines. Consequently, the removal of hydrogen sulfide gas will result in an important reduction in operating costs. Also, it is essential to consider the better quality of the oil to be processed in the refinery, thus resulting in benefits in economic, environmental and social areas. All this facts demonstrate the need for the development and improvement in hydrogen sulfide scavengers. Currently, the oil industry uses several processes for hydrogen sulfide removal from natural gas. However, these processes produce amine derivatives which can cause damage in distillation towers, can cause clogging of pipelines by formation of insoluble precipitates, and also produce residues with great environmental impact. Therefore, it is of great importance the obtaining of a stable system, in inorganic or organic reaction media, able to remove hydrogen sulfide without formation of by-products that can affect the quality and cost of natural gas processing, transport, and distribution steps. Seeking the study, evaluation and modeling of mass transfer and kinetics of hydrogen removal, in this study it was used an absorption column packed with Raschig rings, where the natural gas, with H2S as contaminant, passed through an aqueous solution of inorganic compounds as stagnant liquid, being this contaminant gas absorbed by the liquid phase. This absorption column was coupled with a H2S detection system, with interface with a computer. The data and the model equations were solved by the least squares method, modified by Levemberg-Marquardt. In this study, in addition to the water, it were used the following solutions: sodium hydroxide, potassium permanganate, ferric chloride, copper sulfate, zinc chloride, potassium chromate, and manganese sulfate, all at low concentrations (»10 ppm). These solutions were used looking for the evaluation of the interference between absorption physical and chemical parameters, or even to get a better mass transfer coefficient, as in mixing reactors and absorption columns operating in counterflow. In this context, the evaluation of H2S removal arises as a valuable procedure for the treatment of natural gas and destination of process by-products. The study of the obtained absorption curves makes possible to determine the mass transfer predominant stage in the involved processes, the mass transfer volumetric coefficients, and the equilibrium concentrations. It was also performed a kinetic study. The obtained results showed that the H2S removal kinetics is greater for NaOH. Considering that the study was performed at low concentrations of chemical reagents, it was possible to check the effect of secondary reactions in the other chemicals, especially in the case of KMnO4, which shows that your by-product, MnO2, acts in H2S absorption process. In addition, CuSO4 and FeCl3 also demonstrated to have good efficiency in H2S removal

A influência do esqueleto açúcar-fostato no transporte da molécula de DNA

This dissertation analyses the influence of sugar-phosphate structure in the electronic transport in the double stretch DNA molecule, with the sequence of the base pairs modeled by two types of quasi-periodic sequences: Rudin-Shapiro and Fibonacci. For the sequences, the density of state was calculated and it was compared with the density of state of a piece of human DNA Ch22. After, the electronic transmittance was investigated. In both situations, the Hamiltonians are different. On the analysis of density of state, it was employed the Dyson equation. On the transmittance, the time independent Schrödinger equation was used. In both cases, the tight-binding model was applied. The density of states obtained through Rudin-Shapiro sequence reveal to be similar to the density of state for the Ch22. And for transmittance only until the fifth generation of the Fibonacci sequence was acquired. We have considered long range correlations in both transport mechanism