The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a powerful tool for studying the motion of air and target pollutants in naturally ventilated (NV) livestock barns. In this kind/type of barn, there exists an interest in studying the spatial and... more
The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is a powerful tool for studying the motion of air and target pollutants in naturally ventilated (NV) livestock barns. In this kind/type of barn, there exists an interest in studying the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of air flows and gaseous concentration profiles of, for instance, carbon dioxide (CO2). Most CFD models in-clude mainly, or only, air as a working fluid and don´t take into consideration the generation and motion patterns of specific gases such as CO2, which is directly linked to animals´ meta-bolic activity including production from manure. The objective of this study was to combine a CFD model with a metabolic CO2 production model with the purpose to predict air flows and CO2 distribution in a NV dairy cow barn. The studied NV dairy cow barn is a free stall with cubicles, slatted floors and manure storage below the slats. Its housing capacity is 136 dairy cows, 25 dry cows and 33 young pregnant cows, all kept inside y...
A great deal of effort has been given through intensive research toward studying the sources of gaseous emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs) and their influencing factors. Ammonia (NH3) is the most predominant noxious gas... more
A great deal of effort has been given through intensive research toward studying the sources of gaseous emissions from animal feeding operations (AFOs) and their influencing factors. Ammonia (NH3) is the most predominant noxious gas released from poultry production facilities and it is mainly affected by diet composition, manure temperature, moisture content and stacking configuration and manure surface area exposed
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The physic nut (Jatropha curcas L.) is native specie from Brazil, belonging to the family Euphorbia. This study aimed to evaluate the plant height and stem diameter of the physic nut irrigated with water in different levels of salinity in... more
The physic nut (Jatropha curcas L.) is native specie from Brazil, belonging to the family Euphorbia. This study aimed to evaluate the plant height and stem diameter of the physic nut irrigated with water in different levels of salinity in five periods. The experiment was developed in lysimeters of drainage under protected environment at Federal University of Campina Grande (UFCG),
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The tracer gas ratio method, using CO2 as natural tracer, has been suggested as a pragmatic option to measure emissions from naturally ventilated (NV) barns without the need to directly estimate the ventilation rate. The aim of this... more
The tracer gas ratio method, using CO2 as natural tracer, has been suggested as a pragmatic option to measure emissions from naturally ventilated (NV) barns without the need to directly estimate the ventilation rate. The aim of this research was to assess the performance of a low-cost Non-Dispersive Infra-Red (NDIR) sensor for intensive spatial field monitoring of CO2 concentrations in a NV dairy cow house. This was achieved by comparing NDIR sensors with two commonly applied methods, a Photo-Acoustic Spectroscope (PAS) Gas Monitor and an Open-Path laser (OP-laser). First, calibrations for the NDIR sensors were obtained in the laboratory. Then, the NDIR sensors were placed in a dairy cow barn for comparison with the PAS and OP-laser methods. The main conclusions were: (a) in order to represent the overall barn CO2 concentration of the dairy cow barn, the number of NDIR sensors to be accounted for average concentration calculation was dependent on barn length and on barn area occupation; and (b) the NDIR CO2 sensors are suitable for multi-point monitoring of CO2 concentrations in NV livestock OPEN ACCESS Sensors 2015, 15 11240 barns, being a feasible alternative for the PAS and the OP-laser methods to monitor single-point or averaged spatial CO2 concentrations in livestock barns.