Alberto Tascón

Universidad de La Rioja (Spain) | UNIRIOJA · Agriculture and Food

Dust explosions are a major concern in many industrial facilities and particularly in storage areas of biomass materials. Although venting standards (EN 14491 and NFPA 68) provide satisfactory safety levels for most industrial applications, they present some limitations and there exist situations that they do not contemplate. Vented dust explosions...

Most of the fatalities in the agricultural sector in developed countries are related to machinery use, particularly tractor overturning. Despite its importance, a lack of practical teaching about this topic has been detected in the Agricultural Engineering curricula. For this reason, an active learning activity was planned within a teaching innovat...

Silos are used worldwide to store granular and powdered materials. Agricultural, food and feed products are commonly stored in silos. However, many questions remain unanswered about how to estimate the pressures applied by the bulk material, which are needed to design and calculate the structure of the silo. The complexity of the laws that govern t...

Water deficit, especially during summer, is currently one of the most important stress factors that influence olive oil production in olive orchards. A precision irrigation strategy, based on daily trunk growth, was assessed and compared with one continuous deficit, one full irrigation, and two different regulated deficit irrigation strategies. All...

Unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly known as drones, have many potential applications in the building industry. Among the most evident of these is inspection of buildings during construction and commissioning and as part of the maintenance strategy throughout service life. Drones can also be combined with thermal imaging for energy assessment of bui...

El mildiu es una enfermedad causada por el patógeno Plasmopara viticola, que puede ocasionar daños muy graves si las condiciones le son favorables. Los modelos predictivos de la enfermedad se postulan como una herramienta más para la reducción de los tratamientos fitosanitarios. El objetivo del presente estudio es validar diferentes modelos a las c...

It is well known that the particle size of dusts and powdered materials exerts a strong influence on the various phenomena involved in self-heating, ignition and explosion processes. However, it is not only the median diameter (D50) that has an influence, but also the entire particle size distribution. Nevertheless, in many cases, little importance...

Winery design can be very varied - the consequence of different influences acting at different times of construction. Unlike the designs of other food industries, those of wineries are commonly influenced by aesthetics - sometimes to potentiate wine tourism, and sometimes to safeguard the agricultural landscape of which they are part. However, the...

In many universities, the engineering programs have included a culminating experience for students involving a substantive capstone project (or final-year project) that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated during the studies. At the same time, this project intends to be a realistic simulation of future design problems. However, the impl...

Vented dust explosions were simulated using the computational fluid dynamics code FLACS-DustEx. The results were compared with previously reported experimental tests performed with maize starch in a 5.2 m³ vessel with a length/diameter ratio equal to 1.05 using three different vent areas. In addition, a sensitivity study was conducted with respect...

The “Eurocode 1 – Actions on structures – Part 4: Silos and tanks” EN 1991-4 includes dust explosions as an accidental action for load combination in some design situations. Venting is the most widely used method to mitigate the effects of explosions. The area size of the venting devices installed in the silo will determine the development of inter...

Vented dust explosion tests have been conducted in an experimental test silo in order to analyse the effect of the length/diameter ratio (L/D). The modular design of the silo permitted the assembling of four different vessels with different geometries. The tests were carried out with wheat flour and maize starch, using three different vent area siz...

Vented dust explosions in a 16.3 m3 silo were simulated using a commercial CFD program. Simulations were carried out for vent panels without inertia and for a silo roof acting as a venting device, with inertia. For the latter, the influence of several parameters on the pressures generated was studied, including characteristics of the initial dust c...

Society demands the adaptation of engineering degrees to the needs of the labor market. This study was designed to investigate the level of expertise in the various competencies acquired by graduates of Agricultural Engineering in the course of their studies and the level required of them in their jobs. Online questionnaires aimed at graduates and...

Abstrat It is common to find storage installations in the agri-food industries. The processes of filling and discharge carried out in these installations usually lead to dust clouds, and therefore potential explosive atmospheres. It is known that prevention and protection are the main measures to be followed in these situations. Nowadays, there are...

Dust explosions represent a serious hazard in industries and silo facilities that handle combustible materials. Venting devices are commonly used to try to mitigate the damage caused by any dust explosion. To calculate vent area size, the recommendations given in European standard EN 14491:2006 can be used. However, the protection of silos is not a...

Dust explosions represent a serious hazard to personnel and equipment in industries and silo facilities that handle combustible materials. Venting devices are the most common protective systems employed in silos, although their use may pose problems in large and low-strength silos. The main aim of the present work was to simulate dust explosions in...

Production of residues from industries and construction and demolition sectors has increased during last years. The total amount of debris produced according to different estimations reaches values close to 42 million tonnes yr–1. Much of this waste has been thrown to landfill, without considering its potential for reuse, recycling or valuation. Th...

Agricultural products stored in silos, and their dusts, can undergo oxidation and self-heating, increasing the risk of self-ignition and therefore of fires and explosions. The aim of the present work was to determine the thermal susceptibility (as reflected by the Maciejasz index, the temperature of the emission of flammable volatile substances and...

Venting devices are commonly used to try to reduce the damage caused by any dust explosion that may occur in silo systems. In North America and Europe the sizing of these vent areas is governed by standards NFPA 68 and EN 14491, respectively, both of which have recently come into force. The aim of the present work was to compare these standards in...