Daily Pioneer News

PLATTEVILLE - Winter in Wisconsin farm country is like no other place on earth with temperatures dropping below freezing and white sheets of snow blowing across open fields. In cooperation with the United States Geologic Survey, the University of Wisconsin-Platteville Pioneer Farm has installed a variety of agricultural runoff monitoring stations to collect data on nutrient and pesticide export during rainstorms as well as snowmelt. The runoff drains from fields to a stream through a flume. Pioneer Farm is known for collecting high quality snowmelt samples from their agriculture fields but are having trouble keeping the flumes from freezing during the cold season. Working with the innovative minds of senior design students Matthew DeAmico, Joseph Fischer, Lindsay Rogers and Bill Skovsted, Pioneer Farm is hoping to put these troubles behind them.

The students have been challenged to design a system that will prevent ice from forming or make chipping the ice off flumes easier. "The runoff into the channels freezes in the fiberglass flumes and a considerable amount of man-power is spent manually chipping and melting ice to clear the flumes," said Skovsted. Added DeAmico, "It takes two people all day to care for the 11 flumes. Some of the farm's attempts to solve this problem include plywood covers with canvas, different types of heaters and heaters that run off propane tanks." The students created multiple design options, but settled on a system based on heat storage principles. Bringing in heat from underneath via an electrical heating cable is the basis for their final design. Commented Skovsted, "Our design is basically polystyrene foam surrounding a heating coil. Concrete is poured over the foam and the flume is set into the concrete. Any exposed concrete is capped off with foam insulation." "The reason this works is because concrete releases heat slowly. The foam keeps the heat contained within the flume, heating the area around it," explained Rogers.

To test their theory, the students built a one square foot foam box, filled it with two inches of sand and a heating coil, and placed it in a chest freezer. The data collected from their experiment proved mathematically how this model works similarly to concrete. Properties of sand were exchanged with those of concrete in calculations, helping predict how hot the area would get and how long it would be able to keep cold water from freezing. "Our calculations are only a rough estimate. We must rely on intuition and over engineering to satisfy any challenges that may arise. We can't check the back of a textbook for the solution to this challenge and must have confidence in our data and decisions to tackle this problem," said Fischer.

The students haven't been working alone on the project. They received advice from Dave Owens, USGS employee; Tom Hunt and Randy Mentz, Pioneer Farm representatives; and Lynn Schlager, a UWP professor specializing in heat transfer. Concluded Rogers, "This was a great project with a focused engineering approach instead of the normal generic class scenario. It was truly a culmination of all aspects of our curriculum. Hopefully the farm can initiate it soon. It's nice to be working on a project that helps another aspect of the university and does something to directly impact campus." DeAmico, Fischer and Skovsted are mechanical engineering majors. DeAmico is the son of Bob and Barb DeAmico of Green Bay. Fischer is the son of Michael and Debbie Fischer of Eau Claire. Skovsted is the son of Russ and Cindy Skovsted of Racine. Rogers is a mechanical engineering major with an emphasis in computational methods. She is the daughter of Michael and Leah Rogers of Hortonville.

Contact: David Kunz, mechanical engineering, (608) 342-1431,kunzd@uwplatt.edu

Prepared by: Rachael Lehr, UWP Public Relations, (608) 342-1194,lehrr@uwplatt.edu