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Devlin, Ger
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Devlin, Ger
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Devlin, Ger
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- PublicationDevelopment of a Spatial Decision Support System (SDSS) for Route Costing Calculations within the Irish Timber Haulage Sector(American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2008)
; ; Since the 1970s, decision support systems (DSS) have become popular as computer technology has developed. A DSS aims to support the solving of specific problems with both human and computer techniques. The purpose of this research was to design and develop a DSS for application to cost and revenue calculations of contracted timber haulage in Ireland. The DSS allows the costs and revenue of timber haulage to be calculated on a daily basis and on a route-specific basis. This implies that the user interface allows certain criteria to be selected, such as truck configuration, truck model, engine size, horsepower, and design gross vehicle weight. Both the revenue and running costs are directly related to the payload weight and the distance traveled. To generate the routes traveled and provide a sophisticated interface for spatial road map information, a Geographic Information System (GIS) was used; ESRI's ArcView 8.3 provides its own application programming in the form of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).445 - PublicationPerformance accuracy of real-time GPS asset tracking systems for timber haulage trucks travelling on both internal forest road and public road networksThe GPSTRACK project has arisen as a result of a recommendation in the Forest Industry Transport Group (FITG) Code of Practice for Timber Haulage, which was to 'Encourage closer co-operation between consignors and hauliers to plan routes in a manner which optimizes the economic returns within a legal framework'. The project involved the installation of Bluetree global positioning systems (GPS) asset tracking systems onto two timber haulage trucks: an articulated Iveco Stralis 530 6⋆2 tractor unit with tri-axle road friendly air suspension flatbed trailer with a design gross vehicle weight (dgvw) equal to 44 t and a Scania 124 (400) with a rigid (3 axle) + trailer (3 axle) + crane combination with an equivalent dgvw of 441. This paper discusses the background and use of real-time asset tracking devices in the context of timber haulage in Ireland. Real-time location information is a relatively new concept for Irish applications (less than 5 years), but there is an increasing deployment of the technology into the truck transport sector in Ireland. The goal of this study was to test the accuracy of the recorded GPS locations relative to the underlying travelled route network based on the criteria of: 1) a fixed GPS receiver location, 2) a truck travelling on public routes, and 3) comparing accuracy of public routes to the accuracy of the truck travelling in a more demanding environment such as the internal forest road network. The results analysis calculated the horizontal root mean square (HRMS) 63 percent GPS accuracy of both trucks tracklog on both the public road network and the internal forest road network over a period of 4 weeks which totalled approximately 15,000 GPS data points. The HRMS accuracy values ranged from 2.55 to 2.47 m for the public roads, while the forest road accuracy were approximately 27 m and 41 m for Iveco and Scania, respectively.
530 - PublicationForest Biomass Processing Glossary: English-Czech and Czech-English glossaryPráve je Vám predkládán výkladový slovník zabývající se terminologií vztahující se ke zpracování lesní biomasy. Vysvetlované výrazy jsou rozdeleny do 5 kategorií a to: charakteristika porostu a zdroju, težba a soustredování, zpracování, odvoz a jednotky. V rámci každé z uvedených oblastí jsou výrazy trídeny podle abecedy. Tam, kde byla identifikována synonyma je uprednostnovaný termín vysvetlen a termín, který je dle názoru autoru zastaralý a nevhodný se odkazuje na termín prioritní. Nekteré výklady pojmu jsou podporeny obrazovou prílohou a je umístena ve stredu publikace. We have the pleasure of presenting you with this explanatory dictionary-glossary of in-forest biomass processing related terminology. The explained terms are divided into five categories as follows: description of stand and raw material, logging, processing, haulage and units. In each of these fi elds, the terms are presented in alphabetical order. Where synonyms are identified, an explanation is given of the preferred term and the term which, in the authors’ opinion, is obsolete and inadequate, refers to the priority term. The interpretation of some terms is supported with illustrations in the figure section.
174 - PublicationDecision Support Systems for Truck Route Modelling (D-TRM)Since the 1970‟s Decision Support Systems (DSS) have become popular following the development in computer technology. A DSS aims to support in the solving of specific problems with both human and computer techniques. The purpose of this research was to design and develop a DSS for application involved with the cost calculations and revenue calculations of contracted timber haulage in Ireland.
243 - PublicationA Feasibility Analysis of Photovoltaic Solar Power for Small Communities in IrelandPhotovoltaic power generation is one of the cleanest sources for producing renewable energy, however to date its up take on the Irish renewable energy market has been extremely low. Through research carried out on regions where these technologies are widely used and developed, this project investigates the feasibility of using photovoltaic systems to generate power under Irish climatic conditions. This involved a comparative investigation between solar insolation in Ireland and in regions currently using Photovoltaic systems. This projects main aim was to identify if photovoltaic systems were a feasible source of power generation for a sustainable community of 130 eco-friendly homes based on the fact that they are built to B1 energy rating standards. B1 implies an energy use of between 75kwh/m²/yr and 100kwh/m²/yr. Results showed that houses of 140 m² have a PV area requirements ranging from 20 m² - 26 m², while the larger live/work units of 195 m² have an area requirement of 27 m² - 36 m². While the communal solar park has an area requirement of 2665 m² - 3553 m² without spacing, this however will differ when space requirements are calculated to prevent overshadowing. The results obtained prove that such systems are feasible, however may be dependent on governmental support or grants. The installation of such a system would not only provide benefits to the members of this eco-village through production of on-site energy, but also to national legislation relating to reduced CO2 emissions and increases in the percentage share of renewables in gross national electricity consumption. The results suggest that this system could produce between 1431000 - 1908000 kWh per year, enough to sufficiently supply the community, while producing excess energy for three-quarters of the year, while displacing between 283338 - 377784 kg/ CO2/yr.
3629 - PublicationPerformance Accuracy Of Low‐Cost Dynamic Non‐Differential GPS on Articulated Trucks(American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, 2007)
; ; The purpose of this study was to evaluate the positional accuracy of dynamic non‐differential global positioning system (Non DGPS) for tracking articulated trucks across the Irish road network. The study was carried out using a Trimble GeoXT handheld GPS unit in the non‐differential mode. The data was logged through Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcPad software. The GPS unit was operated in conjunction with an external magnetic antenna that was fitted to the cab of the articulated truck. The articulated truck was a DAF 95XF model, 4×2 tractor unit with a Fruehauf manufactured tri‐axle curtain side trailer measuring 13.6 m in length and 4.2 m from the ground. Routes were traveled from the east of Ireland to the south and southwest of the country on three separate occasions during August 2005 giving a total of six consecutive routes. Over 50 h of data, totaling approximately 6,000 data points, sampled at 30‐s intervals were recorded. Of these 50 h, over 30 h were recorded as dynamic points totaling approximately 4,000 sampling points. The Horizontal Root Mean Square (HRMS) accuracy was measured at a confidence of 63%. Results ranged from 6.9 m for the Cork 1 route to 3.2 m for the Cork 2 route. With this high level of positional accuracy available, it will be more than adequate to use low‐cost non‐differential GPS to track position and movement of timber trucks across the Irish public road network.332 - PublicationAssessing Real Time GPS Asset Tracking for Timber HaulageThis paper discusses the background to real-time GPS asset tracking in the context of 1) monitoring moving vehicles, 2) the content of the GPS data that is provided as part of the 2 systems that were tested, 3) the theory behind the installation of such tracking systems in terms of GPS, GPRS and internet communications and finally, 4) the assessment of the economic benefits of both systems is also discussed. This involved the installation of 2 different GPS asset tracking providers, Bluetree and Fleetmatics onto 2 timber haulage trucks – an articulated Iveco Stralis 530 6*2 tractor unit with tri-axle road friendly air suspension flat bed trailer with a design gross vehicle weight (d.g.v.w.) equal to 44 000kg. The Scania 124 (400) was a rigid (3 axle) + trailer (3 axle) + crane combination with an equivalent d.g.v.w. of 44 000kg.
578 - PublicationEconomic Analysis of Manufacturing Costs of Pellet Production in the Republic of Ireland Using Non-Woody BiomassAn economic analysis of a non-woody biomass pelleting process was performed for conditions in the Republic of Ireland. The analysis considered the establishment, harvest, storage and drying costs of the feedstock’s on-farm, together with transportation costs to the processing plant and the costs associated with the pelleting process. Capital and operating costs of the pelleting process were estimated at several plant capacities – 6t / h, 8t / h and 10t / h. The pellet production cost for the base case scenario of 8t / h was 102 / t of pellets produced. By decreasing production capacity to 6t / h an increase in the production cost of 10 / t was experienced while increasing capacity to 10t / h resulted in a decrease of 6 / t in the production cost of pellets. The cost of the raw material is the largest cost component (66%) of the total pellet production cost. Other major cost factors include pelleting and cooling plant (11%), straw grinding plant (10%) and personnel costs (9%). Considering current energy prices the equivalent energy cost of 7 / GJ (excluding profit margins) the potential production of non-woody biomass pellets competes favourably with oil and gas and was found to be economically viable.
1194 - PublicationThe evaluation of viscosity and density of blends of Cyn-diesel pyrolysis fuel with conventional diesel fuel in relation to compliance with fuel specifications EN 590:2009The production of synthetic fuels from alternative sources has increased in recent years as a cleaner, more sustainable source of transport fuel is now required. In response to European renewable energy targets, Ireland has committed, through the Biofuels Obligation Scheme of 2008, to producing 4% of transport fuels from biofuels by 2010 and 10% by 2020. In order to be suitable for sale in Europe, diesel fuels and biodiesels must meet certain European fuel specifications outlined in the EN 590:2004 and EN 14214:2009 standards. The aim of this project is to prepare blends of varying proportions of synthetic diesel fuel (Cyn-diesel), produced from the pyrolysis of plastic, versus regular fossil diesel. The viscosity (mm2/s) and density (kg/m3) of these blends as well as of the regular diesel fuel were analysed in relation to compliance with the European fuel standard EN 590.
1166Scopus© Citations 13 - PublicationPotential Bioethanol Feedstock Availability Around Nine Locations in the Republic of IrelandThe Republic of Ireland, like many other countries is trying to diversify energy sources to counteract environmental, political and social concerns. Bioethanol from domestically grown agricultural crops is an indigenously produced alternative fuel that can potentially go towards meeting the goal of diversified energy supply. The Republic of Ireland’s distribution of existing soils and agricultural land-uses limit arable crop land to around 10% of total agricultural area. Demand for land to produce arable crops is expected to decrease, which could open the opportunity for bioethanol production. Bioethanol production plants are required to be of a sufficient scale in order to compete economically with other fuel sources, it is important therefore to determine if enough land exists around potential ethanol plant locations to meet the potential demands for feedstock. This study determines, through the use of a developed GIS based model, the potential quantities of feedstock that is available in the hinterlands of nine locations in the Republic of Ireland. The results indicate that three locations can meet all its feedstock demands using indigenously grown sugarbeet, while only one location can meet its demands using a combination of indigenous wheat and straw as the two locally sourced feedstocks.
672Scopus© Citations 3