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This edited volume examines the opportunities to think, do, and/or create jointly afforded by digital storytelling. The contributors discuss digital storytelling in the context of educational programs, teaching anthropology, and ethnographic research involving a variety of populations and subjects that will appeal to researchers and practitioners engaged with qualitative methods and pedagogies that rely on media technology.

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd Free cooling of buildings uses the nocturnal outdoor air as a heat sink via a ventilation process. This could be performed by storing the night coolness for use during the daytime as appropriate. Due to the latent heat capacity, phase change material (PCM) could play anessential role in the effective operation of the free cooling systems by shifting the daytime peak load to the night. However, there is a scarceness on the technology application in hot climates. This paper presents results of a parametric investigation into the application of PCMs as thermal energy storage (TES) to provide sustainable cooling to buildings in hot arid climate by making use of the night-time free cooling. The proposed TES medium comprises an arrangement of metallic modules filled with RT28HC PCM. Numerous geometrical configurations and operational parameters have been assessed. A transient CFD simulation has been employed using ANSYS Fluent software. Validation of the numerical results with experimental data has shown a good agreement. The results have demonstrated that the temperature difference between the PCM and the air, at appropriate air flow rate would have a significant impact on the performance of the system. A free cooling system based on the proposed arrangement has the potential to meet around 42% of a typical building cooling load and has the ability to save up to 67% of building cooling energy load in summer season compared to conventional air-conditioning systems in hot arid climates.

Decarbonizing the building sector is extremely important to mitigating climate change as the sector contributes 40% of the overall energy consumption and 36% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Net-zero energy buildings are one of the promising decarbonization attempts due to their potential of decreasing the use of energy and increasing the total share of renewable energy. To achieve a net-zero energy building, it is necessary to decrease the energy demand by applying efficiency enhancement measures and using renewable energy sources. Net-zero energy buildings can be classified into four models (Net-Zero Site Energy buildings, Net-Zero Emissions buildings, Net-Zero Source Energy buildings, and Net-Zero Cost Energy buildings). A variety of technical, financial, and environmental factors should be considered during the decision-making process of net-zero energy building development, justifying the use of multi-criteria decision analysis methods for the design of net-zero energy buildings. This paper also discussed the contributions of renewable energy generation (hydropower, wind energy, solar, heat pumps, and bioenergy) to the development of net-zero energy buildings and reviewed its role in tackling the decarbonization challenge. Cost-benefit analysis and life cycle assessment of building designs were reviewed to shape the priorities of future development. It is important to develop a universal decision instrument for optimum design and operation of net-zero energy buildings.

Currently active suspension system is more applicable than passive for improving the suspension performance, ensuring the stability and passenger safety in modern automotive suspension system. However, high energy consumption is one of the main disadvantages of implementing this system in real applications. In this paper, the energy consumption of electromagnetic actuators used for an active suspension system controlled by proportional-integral-derivative (PID), fuzzy adaptive PID, and neuron adaptive PID are investigated through simulation studies. Based on the energy consumption and the performance analysis, it has found that it is potential to develop a vibration energy recovery system to achieve the energy balance requirement in active suspension systems.

In the present study, we explored the temperature evolution and hydrogen desorption properties of the Mg50Ni50 alloy through both numerical simulation and experimental analyses. Desorption kinetics characterization was carried out using the volumetric method, specifically employing a Sievert's-type apparatus to investigate solid-gas reactions. The experiments covered a temperature range from 313 K to 353 K, with an initial hydrogen pressure of 12 bar. Simultaneously, a mathematical approach was employed to numerically investigate the temperature evolution within the hydride bed. Using COMSOL Multiphysics as a simulator, a numerical simulation was conducted based on experimental data. The study examined the impact of cooling temperature on hydride temperature evolution. Results revealed that hydrogen desorption kinetics of the amorphous Mg50Ni50 alloy are more significant compared to those of Mg2Ni compounds. Moreover, the effect of the warming temperature on the equilibrium pressure can also be observed in the hydrogen desorption isotherm curves. The experimental study of the Mg50Ni50 alloy provided activation energy data, along with determination of hydride formation enthalpy and entropy. On the other hand, we showed that the hydride temperature is maximum at the hydride-hydrogen interface within the hydride center.

AbstractPreparation of uniform, spherical Li4Ti5O12 with high tap density is significant to achieve a high volumetric energy density in lithium‐ion batteries. Herein, Li4Ti5O12 microspheres with variable tap density and tunable size distribution were synthesized by a newly designed industrial spray‐drying approach. The slurry concentration, sintering time, sintering conditions after spraying, and the effect of lithium/titanium molar ratio on the lithium‐ion (Li+) storage capability were investigated. A narrow particle size distribution of around 10 μm and a high tap density close to 1.4 g cm−3 of the Li4Ti5O12 spheres can be obtained under the optimized conditions. The Li4Ti5O12 spheres can deliver a much higher capacity of 168 mAh g−1 at a rate of 1 C and show a high capacity retention of 97.7 % over 400 cycles. The synthetic conditions are confirmed to be critical for improving the electron conductivity and Li+ diffusivity by adjusting the crystal and spatial structures. As‐prepared high‐performance Li4Ti5O12 is an ideal electrode for lithium‐ion batteries or capacitors; meanwhile, the presented approach is also applicable for preparing other kind of spherical materials.