• Energy Research
• 2021-2025close
• natural sciences close
• Hyper Article en Ligne close

Most of wireless sensors are dynamically changing and execute two types of tasks: hard deadline periodic ones and aperiodic ones with no deadline. The emergence of energy harvesting technologies makes it possible to design self-powered sensors through environmental energy. Nevertheless, classical scheduling techniques need to be reconceived so as to take into account the fluctuating energy source and energy consumptions of tasks. Hence, we firstly describe the called TB-H and TB*-H aperiodic task servers which are extensions of the famous Total Bandwidth server. We show how TB-H and TB*-H permit to provide short response times for the aperiodic tasks by computing adequate virtual deadlines taking into account both time and energy constraints. Our second contribution lies in extensive simulations to bring to light the effectiveness of these two novel Bandwidth based servers in comparison to basic background approaches.

The Acoustic Black Hole (ABH) effect refers to a special vibration damping technique adapted to thin-walled structures such as beams or plates. It usually consists of a local decrease of the structure thickness profile, associated to a thin viscoelastic coating placed in the area of minimum thickness. It has been shown that such structural design acts as an efficient vibration damper in the high frequency range, but not at low frequencies. This paper investigates how different types of vibration absorbers, linear and nonlinear, added to the primary system can improve the low frequency performance of a beam ABH termination. In particular, the conjugated effects of the Acoustic Black Hole effect and a Tuned Mass Damper (TMD), a Nonlinear Energy Sink (NES), a bi-stable NES (BNES), and a vibro-impact ABH (VI-ABH) are investigated. Forced response to random excitation are computed in the time domain using a modal approach combined with an energy conserving numerical scheme. Frequency indicators are defined to characterize and compare the performance of all solutions. The simulation results clearly show that all the proposed methods are able to damp efficiently the flexural vibrations in a broadband manner. The optimal tuning of each proposed solution is then investigated through a thorough parametric study, showing how to optimize the efficiency of each solution. In particular, TMD and VI-ABH show a slight dependence on vibration amplitude, while the performance of NES and BNES have a peak of efficiency for moderate amplitudes.

Abstract An effective encapsulation solution for flexible CIGS is urgently needed to ensure a competitive market entry of the technology. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility to effectively encapsulate module-level (10 × 10 cm2) CIGS/glass solar cells by employing a thin Al2O3 barrier layer grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD). As determined by a direct methodology, 10 nm ALD-Al2O3 is proved to be sufficient in preventing electrical degradation of the Al:ZnO (AZO) window layer upon exposure to damp heat test (DHT) and equally effective to encapsulate 10 × 10 cm2 CIGS/glass mini-modules by efficient blockage of moisture ingress. CIGS mini-modules encapsulated by ALD-Al2O3 barrier layer retain an average of 80% and 72% of initial efficiency after 1000 and 2000 h of DHT, respectively. Whereas unencapsulated modules drop to an average of 67% (1000 h DHT) and 22% (2000 h DHT) of initial efficiency. Thanks to the presence of ALD-Al2O3 barrier layer, less electrical degradation occurred in AZO window layer and P3 interconnection; also less shunting paths appeared – both led to a lower FF drop in encapsulated CIGS mini-modules. However, an issue of Na migration out of the CIGS layer is observed, which negatively impacts the module stability during DHT.

Abstract The vegetation optical depth (VOD), a vegetation index retrieved from passive or active microwave remote sensing systems, is related to the intensity of microwave extinction effects within the vegetation canopy layer. This index is only marginally impacted by effects from atmosphere, clouds and sun illumination, and thus increasingly used for ecological applications at large scales. Newly released VOD products show different abilities in monitoring vegetation features, depending on the algorithm used and the satellite frequency. VOD is increasingly sensitive to the upper vegetation layer as the frequency increases (from L-, C- to X-band), offering different capacities to monitor seasonal changes of the leafy and/or woody vegetation components, vegetation water status and aboveground biomass. This study evaluated nine recently developed/reprocessed VOD products from the AMSR2, SMOS and SMAP space-borne instruments for monitoring structural vegetation features related to phenology, height and aboveground biomass. For monitoring the seasonality of green vegetation (herbaceous and woody foliage), we found that X-VOD products, particularly from the LPDR-retrieval algorithm, outperformed the other VOD products in regions that are not densely vegetated, where they showed higher temporal correlation values with optical vegetation indices (VIs). However, LPDR X-VOD time series failed to detect changes in VOD after rainfall events whereas most other VOD products could do so, and overall daily variations are less pronounced in LPDR X-VOD. Results show that the reprocessed VODCA C- and X-VOD have almost comparable performance and VODCA C-VOD correlates better with VIs than other C-VOD products. Low frequency L-VOD, particularly the new version (V2) of SMOS-IC, show a higher temporal correlation with VIs, similar to C-VOD, in medium-densely vegetated biomes such as savannas (R ~ 0.70) than for other short vegetation types. Because the L-VOD indices are more sensitive to the non-green vegetation components (trunks and branches) than higher frequency products, they are well-correlated with aboveground biomass: (R ~ 0.91) across space between predicted and observed values for both SMOS-IC V2 and SMAP MT-DCA. However, when compared with forest canopy height, results at L-band are not systematically better than C- and X-VOD products. This revealed specific VOD retrieval issues for some ecosystems, e.g., boreal regions. It is expected that these findings can contribute to algorithm refinements, product enhancements and further developing the use of VOD for monitoring above-ground vegetation biomass, vegetation dynamics and phenology.

Abstract Pure and even-aged (PEA) forests of fast-growing conifer species have for a long time been key providers of industrial raw material. Despite recent concerns regarding their greater sensitivity to major natural disturbances, their impacts on biodiversity and their funding efficiency, PEA conifer forests could remain a major economic target given the ongoing European strategy for bioeconomy. These forests are encountered in contrasted climates and in both native and introduced contexts across Europe, giving rise to high uncertainties regarding their growth responses to current climate change. Using the French National Forest Inventory data, we studied the radial growth of eight major conifer species in European forestry across 16 regional native and introduced PEA forest systems (n > 10 000 trees). Growth trends over the 2006–2016 period exhibited a significant negative association with the absolute growth level in 2006, with the strongest negative growth trends found for emblematic PEA forestry species (e.g. Norway spruce and Douglas fir), and the strongest positive trends for pine species (e.g. Scots pine). While the greater growth rate advantage of some species may shorten rotation and lower risk exposures for future decades, their recent lowered productivity may affect the forest sector in the long run. The prevalence of PEA forests across European forest landscapes and their increasingly reported lower resilience to climate change compared to more complex forest systems call for the establishment of a long-term European forest policy strategy. Maintaining the environmental, social and economic benefits of forests should remain a priority in the European agenda, regardless of the financial costs at stake.

Complex air pollutant sources and distinct meteorological conditions resulted in unique wintertime haze pollution in the Harbin-Changchun (HC) metropolitan area, China's only national-level city cluster located in the severe cold climate region. In this study, field observation and air quality modeling were combined to investigate fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution during a six-month long heating season in HC's central city (Harbin). The model significantly underpredicted PM2.5 and organic carbon (by up to ∼230 μg/m3 and 110 μgC/m3, respectively, in terms of daily average) when levoglucosan concentrations were above 0.5 μg/m3. Based on a synthesis of levoglucosan concentrations and fire counts, the large gaps were attributed to underestimation of open burning emissions by the model. However, the model tended to overpredict elemental carbon (more significantly at higher NO2), likely pointing to an overestimation of vehicle emissions. With increasing levoglucosan, the difference between observed and simulated nitrate (nitrateobs ‒ nitratemod, i.e., Δnitrate) showed a transition from negative to positive values. The positive Δnitrate were attributed to underprediction of the open-burning related nitrate, whereas the negative Δnitrate were likely caused by overprediction of nitrate from other sources (presumably vehicle emissions). The dependence of Δnitrate on levoglucosan indicated that with stronger impact of open burning, the overprediction effect was gradually offset and finally overwhelmed. Influence of open burning on sulfate formation was evident as well, but less apparent compared to nitrate. This study illustrates how the uncertainties in open burning emissions will influence PM2.5 simulation, on not only primary components but also secondary species.

Biogas is a process for producing renewable energy, which has recently gained interest in contributing to a territorial strategy for the deployment of the circular economy. The projects, which are ...