Engineering Commons^™

Learning Pavement Surface Condition Ratings Through Visual Cues Using A Deep Learning Classification Approach., Waqar Shahid Qureshi, David Power, Joseph Mchale, Brian Mulry, Kieran Feighan, Dympna O'Sullivan

Articles

Pavement surface condition rating is an essential part of road infrastructure maintenance and asset management, and it is performed manually by the data analyst. The manual rating requires cognitive skills built through training and experience, which is quantitatively challenging and timeconsuming. This paper first analyses the complexity of the current manual visual rating system. This paper then investigates the suitability and robustness of a state-of-the-art convolutional neural network (CNN) classifier to automate the pavement surface condition index (PSCI) system used to rate pavement surfaces in Ireland. The dataset contains 3735 images of flexible asphalt pavements from Irish urban and rural …

Evaluating Large Delay Estimation Techniques For Assisted Living Environments, Swarnadeep Bagchi, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

Abstract Phase wraparound due to large inter-sensor spacings in multi-channel demixing limits the range of relative delays that many time–frequency relative delay estimators can estimate. The performance of a large relative delay estimation method, called the elevatogram, is evaluated in the presence of significant phase wraparound. This paper compares the elevatogram with the popular relative delay estimator used in DUET and the brute-force approach in D-AdRess and analyses its computational efficiency. The elevatogram can accurately estimate relative delays of speech signals of up to 800 samples, whereas DUET and D-AdRess were limited to delays of 7 and 35 samples, given …

Morton-Ordered Gpu Lattice Boltzmann Cfd Simulations With Application To Blood Flow, Gerald Gallagher, Fergal J. Boyle

Conference Papers

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is routinely used for numerically predicting cardiovascular-system medical device fluid flows. Most CFD simulations ignore the suspended cellular phases of blood due to computational constraints, which negatively affects simulation accuracy. A graphics processing unit (GPU) lattice Boltzmann-immersed boundary (LB-IB) CFD software package capable of accurately modelling blood flow is in development by the authors, focusing on the behaviour of plasma and stomatocyte, discocyte and echinocyte red blood cells during flow. Optimised memory ordering and layout schemes yield significant efficiency improvements for LB GPU simulations. In this work, comparisons of row-major-ordered Structure of Arrays (SoA) and Collected …

An Evaluation Of Ireland’S Sustainable Freight Transport Policy, Xu Zhang, Eoin Plant, Nikolaos Valantasis Kanellos

Articles

Background: The Irish government has put forth sustainable transport policy measures, yet the emphasis is mainly on the active travel and sustainable mobility for passenger transport. Contrariwise, freight transport has not received equal consideration in policy measures, regulatory frameworks, and support schemes towards the low-carbon transition. This study seeks to address this imbalance. Methods: The paper proposes an adaptation of the ASI framework for freight transport and assesses the applicability of a number of international sustainable transport measures based on their potential sustainability impact if adopted in Ireland. The research applied a Policy Delphi Method to a heterogeneous …

Modelling The Hydrating Behaviour Of Fly-Ash In Blended Cements Using Thermodynamics, Nikki Shaji, Niall Holmes Dr., Mark Tyrer

Conference papers

This paper presents a new method to thermodynamically model the hydration behaviour of fly-ash (FA) blended cements by deriving individual phase descriptions depending on the proportion of FA in the blended cement. The predicted hydrated phase assemblage, pore solution chemistries and pH over 1,000 days of hydration and with increasing FA proportions are presented. The thermodynamic data for the FA phases are derived using oxide proportions and mineral compositions are copied directly into the PHREEQC input file. The FA phases take account of all minerals to give a more accurate description of its behaviour during hydration. The calcium aluminosilicate hydrate …

Bio-Based Food Packaging Material For Intelligent Food Packaging Applications For Chicken Fillets, Kalpani Y. Perera, Amit K. Jaiswal, Swarma Jaiswal, Shubham Sharma

Articles

Bionanocomposite packaging is made up of bio- based materials that have high performance activity and are ecologically sustainable alternatives to packaging made of synthetic polymers. Intelligent packaging retains track of the state of the food and the environment in which it is stored, and communicates relevant changes to the consumer through visualization or other methods. The aim of this study was to develop a bionanocomposite intelligent packaging material by utilising sodium alginate, gelatin, nanoclay and curcumin. Sodium alginate, gelatin film incorporated with Curcumin (Cur), and Nanoclay (NC) in various concentrations (0% W/V, 0.5% W/V, 1% W/V and 1. 5% W/V) …

Key Aspects To Consider For The Hydrogen Strategy Of Ireland, Utkarsha Chavan

Other resources

Hydrogen will be the key player in achieving the net-zero carbon emission target but, some aspects need to be considered while formulating the hydrogen strategy for Ireland. In this article, the first aspect emphasises promoting hydrogen production technologies with low to nill carbon emissions followed by gauging the hydrogen demand for individual energy demand sectors. The second aspect focuses on the technical constraints revolving around the direct injection of hydrogen into the natural gas network. The government needs to play an important role as a policy maker and as an investor to achieve net-zero carbon emission through hydrogen.

A Framework For Sexism Detection On Social Media Via Byt5 And Tabnet, Arjumand Younus, Muhammad Atif Qureshi

Articles

Hateful and offensive content on social media platforms particularly content directed towards a specific gender is a great impediment towards equality, diversity and inclusion. Social media platforms are facing increasing pressure to work towards regulation of such content; and this has directed researchers in text mining to work towards hate speech identification algorithms. One such attempt is sexism detection for which mostly transformer-based text methods have been proposed. We propose a combination of byte-level model ByT5 with tabular modeling via TabNet that has at its core an ability to take into account platform and language aspects of the challenging task …

An Empirical Comparison Of The Security And Performance Characteristics Of Topology Formation Algorithms For Bitcoin Networks, Muntadher Sallal, Ruairí De Fréin, Ali Malik, Benjamin Aziz

Articles

There is an increasing demand for digital crypto-currencies to be more secure and robust to meet the following business requirements: (1) low transaction fees and (2) the privacy of users. Nowadays, Bitcoin is gaining traction and wide adoption. Many well-known businesses have begun accepting bitcoins as a means of making financial payments. However, the susceptibility of Bitcoin networks to information propagation delay, increases the vulnerability to attack of the Bitcoin network, and decreases its throughput performance. This paper introduces and critically analyses new network clustering methods, named Locality Based Clustering (LBC), Ping Time Based Approach (PTBC), Super Node Based Clustering …

How Will Heat Pumps Affect Electricity Load Profiles For Buildings In Ireland? Empirical Data Used To Model Possible Financial Impacts Facing Consumers, Michael Mcdonald

Conference papers

The current geopolitical situation is certainly challenging the colossal transition to Zero carbon Economy. In fact, in the coming years, the electricity sector will have to find new innovative ways to meet the ever increasing need for energy without the over reliance on fossil fuels and their country of origin. Over the next decade, oil and gas boilers will not be permitted in new buildings in Ireland, in line with the Irish Building Regulations, Technical Guidance Document L – Conservation of Fuel and Energy 2021. This is a major shift in traditional building services methodology and heat technology. …

Building Services Engineering September/October 2022

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Acoustic Source Localization Using Straight Line Approximations, Swarnadeep Bagchi, Ruairí De Fréin

Conference papers

The short paper extends an acoustic signal delay estimation method to general anechoic scenario using image processing techniques. The technique proposed in this paper localizes acoustic speech sources by creating a matrix of phase versus frequency histograms, where the same phases are stacked in appropriate bins. With larger delays and multiple sources coexisting in the same matrix, it becomes cluttered with activated bins. This results in high intensity spots on the spectrogram, making source discrimination difficult. In this paper, we have employed morphological filtering, chain-coding and straight line approximations to ignore noise and enhance the target signal features. Lastly, Hough …

Reality Analagous Synthetic Dataset Generation With Daylight Variance For Deep Learning Classification, Thomas Lee, Susan Mckeever, Jane Courtney

Conference papers

For the implementation of Autonomously navigating Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) in the real world, it must be shown that safe navigation is possible in all real world scenarios. In the case of UAVs powered by Deep Learning algorithms, this is a difficult task to achieve, as the weak point of any trained network is the reduction in predictive capacity when presented with unfamiliar input data. It is possible to train for more use cases, however more data is required for this, requiring time and manpower to acquire. In this work, a potential solution to the manpower issues of exponentially scaling …

Evaluating Safety And Productivity Relationship In Human-Robot Collaboration, Aayush Jain, Shakra Mehak, Philip Long, John D. Kelleher, Michael Guilfoyle, Maria Chiara Leva

Conference papers

Collaborative robots can improve ergonomics on factory floors while allowing a higher level of flexibility in production. The evolution of robotics and cyber-physical systems in size and functionality has enabled new applications which were never foreseen in traditional industrial robots. However, the current human-robot collaboration (HRC) technologies are limited in reliability and safety, which are vital in risk-critical scenarios. Certainly, confusion about European safety regulations has led to situations where collaborative robots operate behind security barriers, thus negating their advantages while reducing overall application productivity. Despite recent advances, developing a safe collaborative robotic system for performing complex industrial or daily …

Review Of Fly-Ash As A Supplementary Cementitious Material, Nikki Shaji, Niall Holmes Dr., Mark Tyrer

Conference papers

This paper presents a review of fly-ash as a Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM) in concrete in terms of its effects on hydration and durability. The climate change agenda has focused the cement and concrete industry on using low embodied CO2 materials and much effort has been made on incorporating industrial by-products into cement as SCMs. With worldwide cement production (circa 4 billion tonnes) currently accounting for approximately 8% of global CO2 emissions and 7% of industry energy use, the use of suitable SCMs to partially replace cement in concrete is extremely important. However, while coal-fired power stations are in the …

Correlations Between Dynamic Probe Blow Count And Undrained Shear Strength For Peat At A Well-Characterised Raised Bog In Ireland, David Mchugh, Ciaran Reilly, Juan Pablo Osorio

Articles

Peat deposits are generally heterogeneous, with large variations over small areas. Peat has an extremely high water content, high compressibility and low shear strength. This presents a major issue in studying the geomechanical behavior of peat. For this study, field and laboratory tests were conducted to establish the undrained shear strength (s_u) of peat at a cutover industrial peatland in Ireland which had been extensively characterized in the past. The new field work included TRL-type Dynamic Cone Penetrometer, Mackintosh probe and field vane shear tests. A correlation was developed between the Mackintosh probe “M-value” blow count and the …

Deriving Discrete Solid Phases From Csh-3t And Cshq End-Members To Model Cement Hydration In Phreeqc, Niall Holmes Dr., Colin Walker, Mark Tyrer, Denis Kelliher

Conference papers

This paper presents a cement hydration model over time using the CEMDATA thermodynamic database and a series of discrete solid phases (DSP) to represent calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) as a ternary (CSH-3T) and quaternary (CSHQ) solid solution. C-S-H in cement is amorphous and poorly crystalline with a range of molar Ca/Si ratios = 0.6-1.7 and displays strongly incongruent dissolution behaviour where the release of calcium into solution is several orders of magnitude greater than silicon. It is therefore important that any cement hydration model provides a credible account of this behaviour. C-S-H has been described in the CEMDATA thermodynamic database …

Optimising Existing Digital Workflow For Structural Engineering Organisations Through The Partnering Of Bim And Lean Processes, John Mclaughlin, Barry Mcauley

Conference Papers

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is now seen as one of the leading transformative processes within the Architectural, Engineering and Construction (AEC) sector and has the potential to assist in streamlining the structural design process. However, its practical implementation can often add another layer to the existing workflow and can result, to its detriment, in the primary objective of optimising structural workflows being hindered. This can lead to structural organisations producing 3D models in tandem with traditional drawings, a lack of human intervention regarding software interoperability, and a reluctance to move away from conventional work methods. This paper will explore how …

Improving The Reliability Of Visual Inspections Conducted By Fire And Rescue Services During Pre-Incident Planning Visits, Victor Hrymak

Conference papers

Fire and rescues services the world over commonly conduct pre-incident planning familiarisation visits. During such visits, fire crews typically look for observable fire safety hazards. Accordingly, two research questions were investigated in this study being; how many fire hazards are typically observed during such familiarisation visits and can the reliability of visual inspection conduct be improved by using a novel systematic visual inspection method. A fire and rescue service with 22 fire fighters was recruited, and they conducted 21 pre-incident planning visits to occupied apartments blocks. The experimental design involved one of the fire crew being tasked with observing fire …

Modelling The Thermoelectric Properties Of Cement-Based Materials Using Finite Element Method And Effective Medium Theory, Lorenzo Stella, Conrad Johnston, Javier Troncoso, Piotr Chudzinski, Esther Orisakwee, Jorge Kohanoff, Ruchita Jani, Niall Holmes Dr., Brian Norton, Xiaoli Liu, Ming Qu, Hongxi Yin, Kazuaki Yazawa

Conference papers

Because of the thermoelectric (TE) effect (or Seebeck effect), a difference of potential is generated as a consequence of a temperature gradient across a sample. The TE effect has been mostly studied and engineered in semiconducting materials and it already finds several commercial applications. Only recently the TE effect in cement-based materials has been demonstrated and there is a growing interest in its potential. For instance, a temperature gradient across the external walls of a building can be used to generate electricity. By the inverse of the TE effect (or Peltier effect), one can also seek to control the indoor …

Improving The Reliability Of Visual Inspections Conducted By Environmental Health And Safety Professionals, On A Hyperscale Data Centre Construction Site, Alex A. Schouten, Victor Hrymak

Conference papers

The conduct of visual inspections on construction sites is of crucial importance for workplace safety. This is because visual inspection is the primary method by which construction site hazards are routinely observed, monitored and controlled. However, there is no consensus guidance as to how such visual inspections should be conducted. This is resulting in many observable hazards going unseen and therefore not being appropriately managed on construction sites worldwide. In an attempt to improve the reliability of visual inspection, this study presents results from an innovative method called systematic visual inspection which utilises an iterative set eye scan pattern during …

Critical Evaluation Of Time And Cost Of Terrestrial Laser Scanning For Construction Automated Qa Analysis, Joao Rocha, Davitt Lamon

Capstone Reports

Many governments agencies and private owners are demanding up-to-date information related to the current conditions of their facilities. Conventional QA is time-consuming and inefficient; thus, 3D terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) technology has been adopted due to the fast speed and high accuracy in acquiring data. Automated QA analysis can reduce the labour and time needed, reduce the costs, and improve the overall project efficiency. However, very few research efforts have been made to study the benefits of the automated QA analysis in a quantitative way. The process of the TLS-based geometric QA based in an automated data analysis process is …

Could The Inclusion Of Certain Building Information And Modelling Aspects Into The Leaving Certificate Engineering Syllabus, Aid The Transition Of Students Into Third Level Education, When Choosing A Course Within The Construction Industry, Joseph Boyle, Deborah M. Brennan

Capstone Reports

The paper investigates the effects of implementing several Building Information and Modelling (BIM) aspects into the Leaving Certificate Engineering Syllabus and examines the impact this has on students choosing third level Architectural Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry courses with the desire of improving the shortage in the sector. The method and content of the study was based on academic research on second level education in other European countries through the lens of a Literature Review. A sixteen-week pilot program was trialed with over one hundred students at Senior Cycle. The outcomes of the study were critically evaluated through stakeholder interviews …

Experimental Performance Evaluation Of A Convective Thermoelectric Building Envelope For Building Heating And Cooling, Xiaoli Liu, Kazuaki Yazawa, Ming Qu, Orkan Kurtulus, Brian Norton, Niall Holmes Dr., Ruchita Jani, Jorge Kohanoff, Lorenzo Stella, Conrad Johnston, Hongxi Yin

Articles

The thermoelectric building envelope (TBE) integrates thermoelectric materials with the building envelope for active space heating and cooling. The advantage of TBE heating and cooling includes its significantly low-profile design and no refrigerant use. Although there are existing studies evaluating TBE performance, they were based on limited operating conditions. The study aims to experimentally evaluate the heating and cooling performance of a TBE prototype under various operating conditions. The TBE prototype was installed between two psychrometric chambers, which simulated indoor and outdoor conditions. The prototype was tested at an indoor temperature of around 22.35–23.58 degrees C and outdoor temperatures from …

Validating And Testing An Agent-Based Model For The Spread Of Covid-19 In Ireland, Elizabeth Hunter, John D. Kelleher

Articles

Agent-based models can be used to better understand the impacts of lifting restrictions or implementing interventions during a pandemic. However, agent-based models are computationally expensive, and running a model of a large population can result in a simulation taking too long to run for the model to be a useful analysis tool during a public health crisis. To reduce computing time and power while running a detailed agent-based model for the spread of COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland, we introduce a scaling factor that equates 1 agent to 100 people in the population. We present the results from model …

Reviewing The External Factors That Influence Pv Output Performance In The Irish Climate, Chibuisi Chinasaokwu Okorieimoh, Brian Norton Prof, Michael Conlon Prof

Conference Papers

The literature review presented in this paper centres on the external factors that influence PV output performance in the Irish climate.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels show long-term performance degradation, resulting in lower like-per-like efficiencies and performance ratios. Manufacturers of solar photovoltaic modules typically guarantee a life span of more than 20 years. But to meet such guarantees, it is necessary to track and mitigate PV module degradation during this period, and identify maintenance and repair requirements beyond this period. Solar PV modules degrade over time, becoming less efficient, less reliable, and, eventually, inoperable.

External factors such as solar irradiance, dust …

Comparison Of Predicted And Measured Annual Performance Of A Roof-Top Grid-Connected Pv System In The Irish Climate, Chibuisi Chinasaokwu Okorieimoh, Brian Norton Prof, Michael Conlon Prof

Conference Papers

The problem of energy scarcity has reached a global scale as a result of the majority of energy production relying on non-renewable sources of energy. Solar photovoltaic cells use the photovoltaic effect to convert solar energy into electrical energy. Solar energy can reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) associated with the generation from fossil fuels as the only CO₂ emissions are those embodied in their manufacture. A 268.8 m² area roof-top grid-connected PV system with a total capacity of 49.92kW_p was installed at Warrenpoint (54.11^oN and 6.26^oW) in Ireland. 192 “Renesola” …

A Physical Layer Security (Pls) Approach Through Address Fed Mapping Crest Factor Reduction Applicable For 5g/6g Signals, Somayeh Mohammady, David Malone Prof.

Articles

The privacy and security of 5G/6G infrastructures are receiving great attention together with power consumption and efficiency. Here, Physical Layer Security (PLS) is considered and a technique named Address Fed Mapping (AFM) is proposed which not only enhances the physical layer security, but also reduces the effect of high Peak to Average Power Ratio (PAPR), which results in efficiency improvement in OFDM based signals used in beyond 5G and 6G. The AFM is designed based on the idea of randomly generated signals, modifying the original signal to reduce PAPR. Instead of a typical randomization algorithm, a unique key is generated …

A Computational Approach To Evaluating Curricular Alignment To The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Philippe Lemarchand, Mick Mckeever, Cormac Macmahon, Philip Owende

Articles

The United Nations (UN) considers universities to be key actors in the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Yet, efforts to evaluate the embeddedness of the SDGs in university curricula tend to rely on manual analyses of curriculum documents for keywords contained in sustainability lexica, with little consideration for the diverse contexts of such keywords. The efficacy of these efforts, relying on expert co-elicitation in both subject-matter contexts and sustainability, suffers from drawbacks associated with keyword searches, such as limited coverage of key concepts, difficulty in extracting intended meaning and potential for greenwashing through “keyword stuffing.” This paper presents …

Accessdesign: An Inclusive Co-Design Toolkit For The Creation Of Accessible Digital Tools., Claudia Fernandez-Rivera, Sarah Boland, Eamon Aswad, John Gilligan, Dympna O'Sullivan, Emma Murphy

Articles

Existing toolkits and resources to support co-design are not always accessible to designers and co-designers with disabilities. In this paper we present a study based on an innovative co-design programme, in collaboration with St John of God Community Services, where 3rd year computer science students work with service users with intellectual disabilities to create digital applications together. We conducted a series of co-design focus group sessions involving the service users who were previously involved in the co-design collaboration with SJOG Services and TU Dublin. The data collected during these design sessions has been integrated to form an accessible design toolkit …