Search Results (6)

The purpose of this study was to comprehend the escape intensity and its influencing factors in Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) that escaped through large mesh located at the front end of commercial trawl nets. Two pocket nets were employed to collect escaped krill that passed through the mesh opening in the first section (400 mm mesh size, without liner) and second section (16 mm mesh size liner) of the trawl body. The results show that krill escape primarily took place in the first section of the trawl body. Meanwhile, there was almost no krill escape observed in the second section of the trawl body, primarily attributable to the presence of a 16 mm mesh size liner. In terms of body length composition, the average PSI (percentage similarity index) was 67.31 (95% CI: 61.86–72.87) for krill from the pocket net on the larger mesh part and the codend. In addition, the PSI was significantly different (p < 0.05) between the day (60.96, 95% CI: 55.68–66.71) and night (83.62, 95% CI: 76.80–89.46). The escape intensity of krill ranged from 20.83 to 213.13 g·m⁻² per ton per hour in the area at the front end of trawl body, with a mean value of 76.52 (95% CI: 55.22–101.09) g·m⁻² per ton per hour during the daytime, and 144.66 (95% CI: 110.44–180.03) g·m⁻² per ton per hour at night. These results indicate that krill can see and avoid contacting the netting easily during the day, particularly for larger individuals. This provides insight into the design of krill trawls, specifically on the arrangement of liners, which should be integrated from the front part of the trawl body. Full article

A particle scale model based on a full two-way coupling of the Discrete Element Method (DEM) and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPHs) methods is applied to SAG mills. Motion and collisions of resolved coarser particles within an SAG mill are performed by the DEM component. Fine particles in the feed combine with the water to form a slurry, which is represented by the SPH component of the model. Slurry rheology is controlled by solid loading and fine particle size distribution for each volume of slurry. Transport, dispersion, and grinding of the slurry phase particle size distribution are predicted by solving additional coupled advection–diffusion equations in the SPH component of the model. Grinding of the finer particles in the slurry due to collisions and shear of the coarser particles (rocks and grinding media) is achieved via the inclusion of population balance terms in these equations for each SPH particle. This allows prediction of the transport of both coarser and finer material within the grinding and pulp chambers of an SAG mill, including the discharge performance of the mill. This particle-scale model is used to investigate the relative performance (throughput, product size distribution, resident particle size distribution, net power draw, wear) for an SAG mill at a pilot scale and a 36 ft industrial scale. The 36′ SAG mill considered is a geometrically scaled-up version of the 1.8 m Hardinge pilot scale mill but with a longer belly length, reflecting current SAG mill design preferences. The belly lifters are scaled to a lesser degree with a larger number of lifters used (but still many fewer liners than would typically be used in a large SAG mill based on conventional liner selection rules). The model shows that despite reasonable qualitative similarities, many aspects of the charge structure, slurry transport, coarse particle and slurry discharge through the grates, and the collision energy spectra vary in important ways. This demonstrates that a near purely geometric scale-up of an SAG mill is not sufficient to produce a comparable performance at the two physical mill scales. Full article

The general picture of most harbours in the Basque region (eastern Cantabrian coast) has changed during the last few decades, suggesting a decline in small-scale fisheries (SSF) activity which is carried out by vessels with LOA < 15 m. However, little is known in detail about this change, i.e., the recent development of the different fleet segments, or temporal changes regarding landed species. The present study shows that during the last decade (2010–2020) trolling lines targeting albacore in summer and especially handline fishery targeting mackerel in spring was the most important seasonal SSF in the region. Moreover, these fisheries intensified the fishing effort and showed the highest landings, especially for mackerel. In contrast, a decline in vessel numbers as well as fishing efforts and therefore landings was observed for netters, i.e., gillnets and trammel nets. The use of longlines and pots did not show any time trend. Regarding targeted species, the mean fish length landed by both long-liners and netters decreased with time, and so did their fish length-based niche breadth, indicating a lower length range in landed fish. In contrast, while fish diversity landed by hand-liners decreased, probably due to the mackerel fishing intensification, netters targeted a wider variety of small fish species. Technical optimization, probably related to specific market demands, suggests that Basque SSF fleet are shifting to specialized hookers, i.e., seasonal mackerel and albacore fishing, while netters, which are declining in number, are landing a wider range of target species. Given that knowledge on SSF has been trapped in a data-poor cycle, due to the lower importance in data collection when compared to other commercial fleets, understanding such developments might contribute to future management plans on a regional scale. Full article

Tomographic reconstruction allows for the recovery of 3D information from 2D projection data. This commonly requires a full angular scan of the specimen. Angular restrictions that exist, especially in technical processes, result in reconstruction artifacts and unknown systematic measurement errors. We investigate the use of neural networks for extrapolating the missing projection data from holographic sound pressure measurements. A bias flow liner was studied for active sound dampening in aviation. We employed a dense U-Net trained on synthetic data and compared reconstructions of simulated and measured data with and without extrapolation. In both cases, the neural network based approach decreases the mean and maximum measurement deviations by a factor of two. These findings can enable quantitative measurements in other applications suffering from limited angular access as well. Full article

Understanding the interactions between target species and netting is paramount for increasing the sustainability of trawling activities. The selectivity of the utilized netting depends on the sizes and opening angles of the mesh. The effects of the mesh size and mesh opening angle on the fishing selectivity of Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) were assessed via micro-cosmos experiments. The results show that both the absolute abundance and the incidence of larger krill individuals passing through experimental panels are proportional to the utilized mesh size. Krill individuals larger than 35 mm passed through experimental panels at mesh opening angles larger than 50° for a 15 mm mesh size, 35° for a 20 mm mesh size and 20° for a 30 mm mesh size. Additionally, all L50 values increased with an increasing mesh size and an increasing mesh opening angle at the same mesh size. Furthermore, the selection range increased with an increasing mesh size and with an increasing mesh opening angle at the same mesh size. This paper provides scientific guidance for the choice of liner mesh sizes of krill trawl with the aim to improve fishing efficiency while minimizing fishing losses and potential negative ecosystem impacts from fisheries. Full article

This contribution deals with an experimental investigation of the optimization potential of Stirling engines and similar regenerative machines by an enhanced design of the cylinder liner and the seal. The latter is mounted at the bottom end of the gap surrounding pistons and displacers that separate cylinder volumes at different temperature levels. The thermal loss associated with this gap may amount to more than 10% of the heat input into these machines. Mostly, its design is reduced to an estimation of the optimum width by analytical models, which usually do not account for further relevant optimization parameters, such as a step in the cylinder wall. However, a recently developed, enhanced analytical model predicts that this loss may be significantly reduced by such a step. In this work, this design was realized and investigated experimentally according to this prediction by modification of the cylinder liner and the seal of an extensively tested laboratory-scale machine. The results confirm that such a design actually reduces the thermal loss substantially, presumably by reducing the cyclic mass flows through the open end of the gap. Additionally, it even improves the net power output due to a reduced volumetric displacement by the piston or displacer, resulting in smaller flow losses and thermal regenerator losses, whereas the pressure amplitude remains virtually unchanged, contrary to initial expectations. This has led to the remarkable conclusion that the design of most Stirling engines is possibly suboptimal in this respect and may be improved a posteriori by a minor modification; i.e., a reduction of the effective displacer seal diameter. Full article