• Title/Summary/Keyword: conditions of evaporation

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Study on the Drying Characteristics of Poultry Manure for Its Dryer Development (계분건조기 개발을 위한 계분의 건조특성 연구)

  • 장동일
    • Korean Journal of Poultry Science
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    • v.20 no.3
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    • pp.141-149
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    • 1993
  • In order to develop a poultry manure dryer, a pilot dryer was designed and drying experiments were conducted to investigate the drying characteristics of poultry manure. According to the results, the pilot dryer could be operated without any air pollution problems. When poultry manure was dried from 79.2%(w.b. basis) moisture content, the final moisture content ranged from 38.7% to 57.9% depending upon the drying conditions. The drying results showed that drying rate was 189.8~198.0 kg/h and moisture evaporation rate was 124.0~125.4kg-$H_2$O/L. For this drying, electricity requirement was 9.5~19.3 Wh/kg and fuel consumption rate was 6.9~9.3 kg-$H_2$O/L with 50.2~65.1% thermal efficiency.

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Studies on the Consumptine Use of Irrigated Water in Paddy Fields During the Growing of Rice Plants(III) (벼생유기간중의 논에서의 분석소비에 관한 연구(II))

  • 민병섭
    • Magazine of the Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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    • v.11 no.4
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    • pp.1775-1782
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    • 1969
  • The results of the study on the consumptine use of irrigated water in paddy fields during the growing season of rice plants are summarized as follows. 1. Transpiration and evaporation from water surface. 1) Amount of transpiration of rice plant increases gradually after transplantation and suddenly increases in the head swelling period and reaches the peak between the end of the head swelling poriod and early period of heading and flowering. (the sixth period for early maturing variety, the seventh period for medium or late maturing varieties), then it decreases gradually after that, for early, medium and late maturing varieties. 2) In the transpiration of rice plants there is hardly any difference among varieties up to the fifth period, but the early maturing variety is the most vigorous in the sixth period, and the late maturing variety is more vigorous than others continuously after the seventh period. 3) The amount of transpiration of the sixth period for early maturing variety of the seventh period for medium and late maturing variety in which transpiration is the most vigorous, is 15% or 16% of the total amount of transpiration through all periods. 4) Transpiration of rice plants must be determined by using transpiration intensity as the standard coefficient of computation of amount of transpiration, because it originates in the physiological action.(Table 7) 5) Transpiration ratio of rice plants is approximately 450 to 480 6) Equations which are able to compute amount of transpiration of each variety up th the heading-flowering peried, in which the amount of transpiration of rice plants is the maximum in this study are as follows: Early maturing variety ; Y=0.658+1.088X Medium maturing variety ; Y=0.780+1.050X Late maturing variety ; Y=0.646+1.091X Y=amount of transpiration ; X=number of period. 7) As we know from figure 1 and 2, correlation between the amount evaporation from water surface in paddy fields and amount of transpiration shows high negative. 8) It is possible to calculate the amount of evaporation from the water surface in the paddy field for varieties used in this study on the base of ratio of it to amount of evaporation by atmometer(Table 11) and Table 10. Also the amount of evaporation from the water surface in the paddy field is to be computed by the following equations until the period in which it is the minimum quantity the sixth period for early maturing variety and the seventh period for medium or late maturing varieties. Early maturing variety ; Y=4.67-0.58X Medium maturing variety ; Y=4.70-0.59X Late maturing variety ; Y=4.71-0.59X Y=amount of evaporation from water surface in the paddy field X=number of period. 9) Changes in the amount of evapo-transpiration of each growing period have the same tendency as transpiration, and the maximum quantity of early maturing variety is in the sixth period and medium or late maturing varieties are in the seventh period. 10) The amount of evapo-transpiration can be calculated on the base of the evapo-transpiration intensity (Table 14) and Tablet 12, for varieties used in this study. Also, it is possible to compute it according to the following equations with in the period of maximum quantity. Early maturing variety ; Y=5.36+0.503X Medium maturing variety ; Y=5.41+0.456X Late maturing variety ; Y=5.80+0.494X Y=amount of evapo-transpiration. X=number of period. 11) Ratios of the total amount of evapo-transpiration to the total amount of evaporation by atmometer through all growing periods, are 1.23 for early maturing variety, 1.25 for medium maturing variety, 1.27 for late maturing variety, respectively. 12) Only air temperature shows high correlation in relation between amount of evapo-transpiration and climatic conditions from the viewpoint of Korean climatic conditions through all growing periods of rice plants. 2. Amount of percolation 1) The amount of percolation for computation of planning water requirment ought to depend on water holding dates. 3. Available rainfall 1) The available rainfall and its coefficient of each period during the growing season of paddy fields are shown in Table 8. 2) The ratio (available coefficient) of available rainfall to the amount of rainfall during the growing season of paddy fields seems to be from 65% to 75% as the standard in Korea. 3) Available rainfall during the growing season of paddy fields in the common year is estimated to be about 550 millimeters. 4. Effects to be influenced upon percolation by transpiration of rice plants. 1) The stronger absorbtive action is, the more the amount of percolation decreases, because absorbtive action of rice plant roots influence upon percolation(Table 21, Table 22) 2) In case of planting of rice plants, there are several entirely different changes in the amount of percolation in the forenoon, at night and in the afternoon during the growing season, that is, is the morning and at night, the amount of percolation increases gradually after transplantation to the peak in the end of July or the early part of August (wast or soil temperature is the highest), and it decreases gradually after that, neverthless, in the afternoon, it decreases gradually after transplantation to be at the minimum in the middle of August, and it increases gradually after that. 3) In spite of the increasing amount of transpiration, the amount of daytime percolation decreases gadually after transplantation and appears to suddenly decrease about head swelling dates or heading-flowering period, but it begins to increase suddenly at the end of August again. 4) Changs of amount of percolation during all growing periods show some variable phenomena, that is, amount of percolation decreases after the end of July, and it increases in end August again, also it decreases after that once more. This phenomena may be influenced complexly from water or soil temperature(night time and forenoon) as absorbtive action of rice plant roots. 5) Correlation between the amount of daytime percolation and the amount of transpiration shows high negative, amount of night percolation is influenced by water or soil temperature, but there is little no influence by transpiration. It is estimated that the amount of a daily percolation is more influenced by of other causes than transpiration. 6) Correlation between the amount of night percoe, lation and water or soil temp tureshows high positive, but there is not any correlation between the amount of forenoon percolation or afternoon percolation and water of soil temperature. 7) There is high positive correlation which is r=+0.8382 between the amount of daily percolation of planting pot of rice plant and amount and amount of daily percolation of non-planting pot. 8) The total amount of percolation through all growin. periods of rice plants may be influenced more from specific permeability of soil, water of soil temperature, and otheres than transpiration of rice plants.

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Comparative assessment and uncertainty analysis of ensemble-based hydrologic data assimilation using airGRdatassim (airGRdatassim을 이용한 앙상블 기반 수문자료동화 기법의 비교 및 불확실성 평가)

  • Lee, Garim;Lee, Songhee;Kim, Bomi;Woo, Dong Kook;Noh, Seong Jin
    • Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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    • v.55 no.10
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    • pp.761-774
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    • 2022
  • Accurate hydrologic prediction is essential to analyze the effects of drought, flood, and climate change on flow rates, water quality, and ecosystems. Disentangling the uncertainty of the hydrological model is one of the important issues in hydrology and water resources research. Hydrologic data assimilation (DA), a technique that updates the status or parameters of a hydrological model to produce the most likely estimates of the initial conditions of the model, is one of the ways to minimize uncertainty in hydrological simulations and improve predictive accuracy. In this study, the two ensemble-based sequential DA techniques, ensemble Kalman filter, and particle filter are comparatively analyzed for the daily discharge simulation at the Yongdam catchment using airGRdatassim. The results showed that the values of Kling-Gupta efficiency (KGE) were improved from 0.799 in the open loop simulation to 0.826 in the ensemble Kalman filter and to 0.933 in the particle filter. In addition, we analyzed the effects of hyper-parameters related to the data assimilation methods such as precipitation and potential evaporation forcing error parameters and selection of perturbed and updated states. For the case of forcing error conditions, the particle filter was superior to the ensemble in terms of the KGE index. The size of the optimal forcing noise was relatively smaller in the particle filter compared to the ensemble Kalman filter. In addition, with more state variables included in the updating step, performance of data assimilation improved, implicating that adequate selection of updating states can be considered as a hyper-parameter. The simulation experiments in this study implied that DA hyper-parameters needed to be carefully optimized to exploit the potential of DA methods.

Andic Properties of Major Soils in Cheju Island -III. Conditions for Formation of Allophane (제주도(濟州島) 대표토양(代表土壤)의 Andic 특성(特性)에 관한 연구(硏究) -III. Allophane 생성조건(生成條件))

  • Song, Kwan-Cheol;Yoo, Sun-Ho
    • Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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    • v.27 no.3
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    • pp.149-157
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    • 1994
  • The conditions for formation of allophane in volcanic ash soils in Cheju Island were investigated. Soils of toposequence distributed along the sourthern slope of Mt. Halla, and the major soil groups such as dark brown soils, very dark brown soils, black soils, and brown forest soils were colleted and analyzed for Al, Fe and Si extracted with solutions of pyrophosphate and oxalate. Mean annual temperature decreased $0.8^{\circ}C$ and mean annual precipitation increased 110mm with increase elevation of 100m. Organic carbon content increased and soil pH decreased with elevation, and the formation of allophane in soils formed a climosequence. Dark brown soils widely distributed in the northern and western coastal areas, where the mean annual precipitation ranged 1,240~1,420mm and the evaporation ranged 1,290~1,320mm, contained only small amounts of allophane and Al-humus complexes. For other soils, organic carbon content, pyrophosphate extractable Al, and $Al_p/Al_o$ were inversely correlated with $pH(CaCl_2)$. Allophane content showed close relationships wlth $pH(CaCl_2)$, and inverse relationships with organic carbon content and $Al_p/Al_o$.

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Perfluoropolymer Membranes of Tetrafluoroethylene and 2,2,4Trifluofo- 5Trifluorometoxy- 1,3Dioxole.

  • Arcella, V.;Colaianna, P.;Brinati, G.;Gordano, A.;Clarizia, G.;Tocci, E.;Drioli, E.
    • Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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    • 1999.07a
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    • pp.39-42
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    • 1999
  • Perfluoropolymers represent the ultimate resistance to hostile chemical environments and high service temperature, attributed to the presence of fluorine in the polymer backbone, i.e. to the high bond energy of C-F and C-C bonds of fluorocarbons. Copolymers of Tetrafluoroethylene (TEE) and 2, 2, 4Trifluoro-5Trifluorometoxy- 1, 3Dioxole (TTD), commercially known as HYFLON AD, are amorphous perfluoropolymers with glass transition temperature (Tg)higher than room temperature, showing a thermal decomposition temperature exceeding 40$0^{\circ}C$. These polymer systems are highly soluble in fluorinated solvents, with low solution viscosities. This property allows the preparation of self-supported and composite membranes with desired membrane thickness. Symmetric and asymmetric perfluoropolymer membranes, made with HYFLON AD, have been prepared and evaluated. Porous and not porous symmetric membranes have been obtained by solvent evaporation with various processing conditions. Asymmetric membranes have been prepared by th wet phase inversion method. Measure of contact angle to distilled water have been carried out. Figure 1 compares experimental results with those of other commercial membranes. Contact angles of about 120$^{\circ}$for our amorphous perfluoropolymer membranes demonstrate that they posses a high hydrophobic character. Measure of contact angles to hexandecane have been also carried out to evaluate the organophobic character. Rsults are reported in Figure 2. The observed strong organophobicity leads to excellent fouling resistance and inertness. Porous membranes with pore size between 30 and 80 nanometers have shown no permeation to water at pressures as high as 10 bars. However high permeation to gases, such as O2, N2 and CO2, and no selectivities were observed. Considering the porous structure of the membrane, this behavior was expected. In consideration of the above properties, possible useful uses in th field of gas- liquid separations are envisaged for these membranes. A particularly promising application is in the field of membrane contactors, equipments in which membranes are used to improve mass transfer coefficients in respect to traditional extraction and absorption processes. Gas permeation properties have been evaluated for asymmetric membranes and composite symmetric ones. Experimental permselectivity values, obtained at different pressure differences, to various single gases are reported in Tab. 1, 2 and 3. Experimental data have been compared with literature data obtained with membranes made with different amorphous perfluoropolymer systems, such as copolymers of Perfluoro2, 2dimethyl dioxole (PDD) and Tetrafluorethylene, commercialized by the Du Pont Company with the trade name of Teflon AF. An interesting linear relationship between permeability and the glass transition temperature of the polymer constituting the membrane has been observed. Results are descussed in terms of polymer chain structure, which affects the presence of voids at molecular scale and their size distribution. Molecular Dyanmics studies are in progress in order to support the understanding of these results. A modified Theodoru- Suter method provided by the Amorphous Cell module of InsightII/Discover was used to determine the chain packing. A completely amorphous polymer box of about 3.5 nm was considered. Last but not least the use of amorphous perfluoropolymer membranes appears to be ideal when separation processes have to be performed in hostile environments, i.e. high temperatures and aggressive non-aqueous media, such as chemicals and solvents. In these cases Hyflon AD membranes can exploit the outstanding resistance of perfluoropolymers.

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Development of Prediction Model for the Na Content of Leaves of Spring Potatoes Using Hyperspectral Imagery (초분광 영상을 이용한 봄감자의 잎 Na 함량 예측 모델 개발)

  • Park, Jun-Woo;Kang, Ye-Seong;Ryu, Chan-Seok;Jang, Si-Hyeong;Kang, Kyung-Suk;Kim, Tae-Yang;Park, Min-Jun;Baek, Hyeon-Chan;Song, Hye-Young;Jun, Sae-Rom;Lee, Su-Hwan
    • Korean Journal of Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
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    • v.23 no.4
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    • pp.316-328
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    • 2021
  • In this study, the leaf Na content prediction model for spring potato was established using 400-1000 nm hyperspectral sensor to develop the multispectral sensor for the salinity monitoring in reclaimed land. The irrigation conditions were standard, drought, and salinity (2, 4, 8 dS/m), and the irrigation amount was calculated based on the amount of evaporation. The leaves' Na contents were measured 1st and 2nd weeks after starting irrigation in the vegetative, tuber formative, and tuber growing periods, respectively. The reflectance of the leaves was converted from 5 nm to 10 nm, 25 nm, and 50 nm of FWHM (full width at half maximum) based on the 10 nm wavelength intervals. Using the variance importance in projections of partial least square regression(PLSR-VIP), ten band ratios were selected as the variables to predict salinity damage levels with Na content of spring potato leaves. The MLR(Multiple linear regression) models were estimated by removing the band ratios one by one in the order of the lowest weight among the ten band ratios. The performance of models was compared by not only R2, MAPE but also the number of band ratios, optimal FWHM to develop the compact multispectral sensor. It was an advantage to use 25 nm of FWHM to predict the amount of Na in leaves for spring potatoes during the 1st and 2nd weeks vegetative and tuber formative periods and 2 weeks tuber growing periods. The selected bandpass filters were 15 bands and mainly in red and red-edge regions such as 430/440, 490/500, 500/510, 550/560, 570/580, 590/600, 640/650, 650/660, 670/680, 680/690, 690/700, 700/710, 710/720, 720/730, 730/740 nm.

Recent Progress in Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Research: A Review of Papers Published in the Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering in 2008 (설비공학 분야의 최근 연구 동향: 2008년 학회지 논문에 대한 종합적 고찰)

  • Han, Hwa-Taik;Choi, Chang-Ho;Lee, Dae-Young;Kim, Seo-Young;Kwon, Yong-Il;Choi, Jong-Min
    • Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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    • v.21 no.12
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    • pp.715-732
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    • 2009
  • This article reviews the papers published in the Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering during 2008. It is intended to understand the status of current research in the areas of heating, cooling, ventilation, sanitation, and indoor environments of buildings and plant facilities. Conclusions are as follows. (1) Research trends in thermal and fluid engineering have been surveyed in the categories of general fluid flow, fluid machinery and piping, new and renewable energy, and fire. Well-developed CFD technologies were widely applied in developing facilities and their systems. New research topics include fire, fuel cell, and solar energy. Research was mainly focused on flow distribution and optimization in the fields of fluid machinery and piping. Topics related to the development of fans and compressors had been popular, but were no longer investigated widely. Research papers on micro heat exchangers using nanofluids and micro pumps were also not presented during this period. There were some studies on thermal reliability and performance in the fields of new and renewable energy. Numerical simulations of smoke ventilation and the spread of fire were the main topics in the field of fire. (2) Research works on heat transfer presented in 2008 have been reviewed in the categories of heat transfer characteristics, industrial heat exchangers, and ground heat exchangers. Research on heat transfer characteristics included thermal transport in cryogenic vessels, dish solar collectors, radiative thermal reflectors, variable conductance heat pipes, and flow condensation and evaporation of refrigerants. In the area of industrial heat exchangers, examined are research on micro-channel plate heat exchangers, liquid cooled cold plates, fin-tube heat exchangers, and frost behavior of heat exchanger fins. Measurements on ground thermal conductivity and on the thermal diffusion characteristics of ground heat exchangers were reported. (3) In the field of refrigeration, many studies were presented on simultaneous heating and cooling heat pump systems. Switching between various operation modes and optimizing the refrigerant charge were considered in this research. Studies of heat pump systems using unutilized energy sources such as sewage water and river water were reported. Evaporative cooling was studied both theoretically and experimentally as a potential alternative to the conventional methods. (4) Research papers on building facilities have been reviewed and divided into studies on heat and cold sources, air conditioning and air cleaning, ventilation, automatic control of heat sources with piping systems, and sound reduction in hydraulic turbine dynamo rooms. In particular, considered were efficient and effective uses of energy resulting in reduced environmental pollution and operating costs. (5) In the field of building environments, many studies focused on health and comfort. Ventilation. system performance was considered to be important in improving indoor air conditions. Due to high oil prices, various tests were planned to examine building energy consumption and to cut life cycle costs.

Development of lumped model to analyze the hydrological effects landuse change (토지이용 변화에 따른 수문 특성의 변화를 추적하기 위한 Lumped모형의 개발)

  • Son, Ill
    • Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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    • v.29 no.3
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    • pp.233-252
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    • 1994
  • One of major advantages of Lumped model is its ability to simulate extended flows. A further advantage is that it requires only conventional, readily available hydrological data (rainfall, evaporation and runoff). These two advantages commend the use of this type of model for the analysis of the hydrological effects of landuse change. Experimental Catchment(K11) of Kimakia site in Kenga experienced three phases of landuse change for sixteen and half years. The Institute of Hydrology offered the hydrological data from the catchment for this research. On basis of Blackie's(l972) 9-parameter model, a new model(R1131) was reorganized in consideration of the following aspects to reflect the hydrological characteristics of the catchment: 1) The evapotranspiration necessary for the landuse hydrology, 2) high permeable soils, 3) small catchment, 4) input option for initial soil moisture deficit, and 5) othel modules for water budget analysis. The new model is constructed as a 11-parameter, 3-storage, 1-input option model. Using a number of initial conditions, the model was optimized to the data of three landuse phases. The model efficiencies were 96.78%, 97.20%, 94.62% and the errors of total flow were -1.78%, -3.36%, -5.32%. The bias of the optimized models were tested by several techniques, The extended flows were simulated in the prediction mode using the optimized model and the data set of the whole series of experimental periods. They are used to analyse the change of daily high and low-flow caused by landuse change. The relative water use ratio of the clearing and seedling phase was 60.21%, but that of the next two phases were 81.23% and 83.78% respectively. The annual peak flows of second and third phase at a 1.5-year return period were decreased by 31.3% and 31.2% compared to that of the first phase. The annual peak flow at a 50-year return period in the second phase was an increase of only 4.8%, and that in the third phase was an increase of 12.9%. The annual minimum flow at a 1.5-year return period was decreased by 34.2% in the second phase, and 34.3% in the third phase. The changes in the annual minimum flows were decreased for the larger return periods; a 20.2% decrease in the second phase and 20.9% decrease in the third phase at a 50-year return period. From the results above, two aspects could be concluded. Firstly, the flow regime in Catchment K11 was changed due to the landuse conversion from the clearing and seedling phade to the intermediate stage of pine plantation. But, The flow regime was little affected after the pine trees reached a certain height. Secondly, the effects of the pine plantation on the daily high- and low-flow were reduced with the increase in flood size and the severity of drought.

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Wilted Symptom in Watermelon Plant under Ventilation Systems (환기처리에 의한 수박의 시듦증 발생 기작)

  • Cho, Ill-Hwan;Ann, Joong-Hoon;Lee, Woo-Moon;Moon, Ji-Hye;Lee, Joo-Hyun;Choi, Byung-Soon;Son, Seon-Hye;Choi, Eun-Young;Lee, Sang-Gyu;Woo, Young-Hoe
    • Horticultural Science & Technology
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    • v.28 no.4
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    • pp.529-534
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    • 2010
  • Occurrence of wilted symptom in watermelon plant ($Citrullus$ $lanatus$ L.) is known to be caused by physiological disorder. The symptom results in the loss of fruit production and thus the economical loss of watermelon growers. The incidence of symptom is often found from the middle of March to the end of May in the major watermelon crop production areas of Korea (i.e. Uiryeong, Gyeongnam (lat $37^{\circ}$56'64"N, long $126^{\circ}$99'97"E)). Despite of extensive information about the physiological disorder, little study has been conducted to understand a relationship between the wilted symptom and accompanying environment factors (e.g. temperature). This study aimed to investigate effects of environmental conditions amended by a forced-ventilation system on physiological characteristics of watermelon and incidence of the wilted symptom. Watermelon plants were grown from January to May, 2009 with either the forced-or natural-ventilation treatment in a greenhouse located in the Uiryeong. In the result, the forced-ventilation treatment decreased the air, leaf and root-zone temperature approximately $4.5^{\circ}C$, $5^{\circ}C$ and $3^{\circ}C$, respectively, compared to the natural-ventilation. The fruit growth rate was maximized twice during the entire growing period. The higher rate of fruit growth was observed under the natural-ventilation than the forced one. Maximization of the fruit growth rate (approximately 430 g per day) was first observed by 12 days after fruiting under the natural-ventilation treatment, while the second one (approximately 350 g per day) was observed by 24 days after fruiting. The wilted symptom started occurring by 22 days after fruiting under the natural-ventilation, whereas no incidence of the symptom was found under the forced-ventilation treatment. Interestingly, the forced-ventilation lowered the fruit growth rate (approximately 320 g per day) compared to the natural one. Maximization of the fruit growth rate under the forced-ventilation was found at 4 days later than that under the natural one. This result coincided with a slower plant growth under the forced-ventilation treatment. These results suggest that the forced-ventilation slows down extension growth of fruit and plant, which may be associated with lowering leaf temperature and saturation deficit. We suggest the hypothesis that the forced-ventilation may alleviate stress of the wilted symptom by avoiding extreme water evaporation from leaves due to high temperature and thus by reducing competition between leaves and fruits for water. More direct and detailed investigations are needed to confirm the effect of the forced ventilation.

Application of CMP Process to Improving Thickness-Uniformity of Sputtering-deposited CdTe Thin Film for Improvement of Optical Properties (스퍼터링 증확 CdTe 박막의 두께 불균일 현상 개선을 위한 화학적기계적연마 공정 적용 및 광특성 향상)

  • Park, Ju-Sun;Lim, Chae-Hyun;Ryu, Seung-Han;Myung, Kuk-Do;Kim, Nam-Hoon;Lee, Woo-Sun
    • Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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    • 2010.06a
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    • pp.375-375
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    • 2010
  • CdTe as an absorber material is widely used in thin film solar cells with the heterostructure due to its almost ideal band gap energy of 1.45 eV, high photovoltaic conversion efficiency, low cost and stable performance. The deposition methods and preparation conditions for the fabrication of CdTe are very important for the achievement of high solar cell conversion efficiency. There are some rearranged reports about the deposition methods available for the preparation of CdTe thin films such as close spaced sublimation (CSS), physical vapor deposition (PVD), vacuum evaporation, vapor transport deposition (VTD), closed space vapor transport, electrodeposition, screen printing, spray pyrolysis, metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD), and RF sputtering. The RF sputtering method for the preparation of CdTe thin films has important advantages in that the thin films can be prepared at low growth temperatures with large-area deposition suitable for mass-production. The authors reported that the optical and electrical properties of CdTe thin film were closely connected by the thickness-uniformity of the film in the previous study [1], which means that the better optical absorbance and the higher carrier concentration could be obtained in the better condition of thickness-uniformity for CdTe thin film. The thickness-uniformity could be controlled and improved by the some process parameters such as vacuum level and RF power in the sputtering process of CdTe thin films. However, there is a limitation to improve the thickness-uniformity only in the preparation process [1]. So it is necessary to introduce the external or additional method for improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film because the cell size of thin film solar cell will be enlarged. Therefore, the authors firstly applied the chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process to improving the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin films with a G&P POLI-450 CMP polisher [2]. CMP process is the most important process in semiconductor manufacturing processes in order to planarize the surface of the wafer even over 300 mm and to form the copper interconnects with damascene process. Some important CMP characteristics for CdTe were obtained including removal rate (RR), WIWNU%, RMS roughness, and peak-to-valley roughness [2]. With these important results, the CMP process for CdTe thin films was performed to improve the thickness-uniformity of the sputtering-deposited CdTe thin film which had the worst two thickness-uniformities of them. Some optical properties including optical transmittance and absorbance of the CdTe thin films were measured by using a UV-Visible spectrophotometer (Varian Techtron, Cary500scan) in the range of 400 - 800 nm. After CMP process, the thickness-uniformities became better than that of the best condition in the previous sputtering process of CdTe thin films. Consequently, the optical properties were directly affected by the thickness-uniformity of CdTe thin film. The absorbance of CdTe thin films was improved although the thickness of CdTe thin film was not changed.

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