Engineering Commons^™

Experimental Study And Analysis Of A Polymer Fiber Bragg Grating Embedded In A Composite Material, Ginu Rajan, Manjusha Ramakrishnan, Yuliya Semenova, Eliathamby Ambikairajah, Gerald Farrell, Gang-Ding Peng

Articles

The characteristics of polymer fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) embedded in composite materials are studied in this paper and are compared with characteristics of their silica counterparts. A polymer FBG of 10 mm length which exhibits a peak reflected wavelength circa 1530 nm is fabricated and characterized for this purpose. A silica FBG with a peak reflected wavelength circa 1553 nm is also embedded in the composite material for a comparison study. The fabricated composite material sample with embedded sensors is subjected to temperature and strain changes and the corresponding effects on the embedded polymer and silica FBGs are studied. The …

New Insights On Free Energies And Saint-Venant’S Principle In Viscoelasticity, L. Diseri, G. Gentili, John Murrough Golden

Articles

This work was conceived in 1999 and brought near completion by 2003. Giorgio Gentili was deeply involved in this research until his untimely death. He is greatly missed. Work pressures on the other authors forced a postponement of research on this topic, originally envisaged as lasting a few months but in the event it turned out to be nearly ten years. We now dedicate this work to the memory of Giorgio and to his Family.

Ultrasound Assisted Hydration Of Navy Beans (Phaseolus Vulgaris), N. Misra

Articles

The use of ultrasound to enhance the transport phenomena in food processes has been well recognised in recent times. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of sonication on hydration rate and pasting profile of navy beans. The hydration kinetics for control and ultrasound assisted soaking was mathematically described using mechanistic (Fickian diffusion) and empirical (Peleg’s equation, Weibull model and First Order equation) models. Ultrasound enhanced the rate of hydration which was evident from the plot of kinetic data and model parameters. The effective diffusivities for water transport without and with ultrasound application were estimated to be …

Zein Film: Effects Of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Atmospheric Cold Plasma, Shashi Pankaj, Carmen Bueno-Ferrer, N. Misra, Paula Bourke, Patrick J. Cullen

Articles

Dielectric barrier discharge atmospheric plasma is a novel non-thermal technology for the food and packaging industry. The effects of dielectric barrier discharge plasma on the surface, structural, thermal and moisture sorption properties of edible zein films have been examined. Plasma treatment increased the surface roughness and equillibrium moisture content of the zein film in a direct relationship with the applied voltage level. No significant difference in the thermal stability of the zein film is also observed after plasma treatment. Dielectric barrier discharge plasma treatments of zein film lead to a change in the protein conformation which is confirmed by X-ray …

Human Factors Engineering At Design Stage: Is There A Need For More Structured Guidelines And Standards?, Farzad Naghdali, Maria Chiara Leva, Nora Balfe, Samuel Cromie

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Human Factors Engineering (HFE) focuses on the application of human factors knowledge to the design and construction of socio-technical systems. The objective is to ensure systems are designed so as to optimise the human contribution to production and minimise potential f r design-induced risks to health, personal or process safety or environmental performance (OGP, 2011). The ISO standard ISO 9241-210 (2010), Ergonomics of human-system interaction, requires that all new facilities projects apply the principles of Human Factors Engineering (HFE) during early design stages. In practice this means ensuring, as a minimum, that every new facilities project is screened in collaboration …

Total Safety Management: What Are The Main Concerns In The Integration Of Best Available Methods And Tools, Maria Chiara Leva, Nora Balfe, Tom Kontogiannis, Emmanuel Plot, Micaela De Michela

Articles

“BP released findings from its own internal investigation of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, revealed inefficient Organization interfaces among BP management, the rig crew and well site leader. Also according to the investigation, one important contributor to the accident was inadequate guidelines for critical tests and operations”. (Pires and Mosleh 2011) Over the recent past, the accumulation of major mishaps, crises and accidents have made it clear that organisations must still improve their capabilities to address safety “not as a stand-alone activity that is separate from the main activities and processes of the organization” but as an …

Perception Based Misunderstandings In Human-Computer Dialogues, Niels Schütte, John D. Kelleher, Brian Mac Namee

Articles

In a situated dialogue, misunderstandings may arise if the participants perceive or interpret the environment in different ways. In human-computer dialogue this may be due the sensor errors. We present an experiment system and a series of experiments in which we investigate this problem.

Harmonic Power Compensation Capacity Of Shunt Apf And Its Relationship To Design Parameters, Shafiuzzaman Khadem, Malabika Basu, Michael Conlon

Articles

VSI-based three-phase; power exchange mechanism; switching dynamics; three-phase systems; active losses; single-phase systems; power tetrahedron phasor diagram; shunt active power filter; harmonic power compensation capacity; four-wire systems; hysteresis band current control

Photonic Crystal Fiber Half-Taper Probe Based Refractometer, Pengfei Wang, Ming Ding, Lin Bo, Chunying Guan, Yuliya Semenova, Weimin Sun, Libo Yuan, Gilberto Brambilla, Gerald Farrell

Articles

A compact singlemode - photonic crystal fibre - singlemode fibre tip (SPST) refractive index sensor is demonstrated in this paper. A CO₂ laser cleaving technique is utilsed to provide a clean-cut fibre tip which is then coated by a layer of gold to increase reflection. An average sensitivity of 39.1 nm/RIU and a resolvable index change of 2.56×10^-4 are obtained experimentally with a ~3.2 µm diameter SPST. The temperature dependence of this fiber optic sensor probe is presented. The proposed SPST refractometer is also significantly less sensitive to temperature and an experimental demonstration of this reduced sensitivity is …

Cmos-Compatible 2-Bit Optical Spectral Quantization Scheme Using A Silicon-Nanocrystal-Based Horizontal Slot Waveguide, Zhe Khang, Jinhui Yuan, Gerald Farrell, Chongxiu Yu, Feng Li, Hwa Yaw Tam, P. K.A. Wai

Articles

All-optical analog-to-digital converters based on the third-order nonlinear effects in silicon waveguide are a promising candidate to overcome the limitation of electronic devices and are suitable for photonic integration. In this paper, a 2-bit optical spectral quantization scheme for on-chip all-optical analog-to-digital conversion is proposed. The proposed scheme is realized by filtering the broadened and split spectrum induced by the self-phase modulation effect in a silicon horizontal slot waveguide filled with silicon-nanocrystal. Nonlinear coefficient as high as 8708 W21 /m is obtained because of the tight mode confinement of the horizontal slot waveguide and the high nonlinear refractive index of …

Enhanced Broadband Parametric Wavelength Conversion In Silicon Waveguide With The Multi-Period Grating, Xianting Zhang, Jinhui Yuan, Jiaziu Zou, Boyuan Jin, Xinzhu Sang, Qiang Wu, Chongxiu Yu, Gerald Farrell

Articles

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Depolarization To Increase The Link Reliability For Wireless Sensors Operating In Hyper-Rayleigh Environments, Jeff Frolik, Vit Sipal, David J. Edwards

Articles

Wireless communications within enclosed environments such as aircraft and vehicles have been shown to experience fading with statistics that are worse than Rayleigh. Motivated by low-cost, low-complexity systems (e.g., wireless sensors) that may be deployed in such environments, this work explores the benefits of polarization diversity using very large data sets collected over a small area and over the 5-6 GHz band. The results also demonstrate that antennas capable of capturing depolarized signal components can significantly mitigate the harshest of fading environments.

Feed‐In Tariff Design For Domestic Scale Grid‐Connected Pv Systems Using High Resolution Household Electricity Demand Data, Lacour Ayompe, Aidan Duffy

Articles

The advent of large samples of smart metering data allows policymakers to design Feed‐in Tariffs which are more targeted and efficient. This paper presents a methodology which uses these data to design FITs for domestic scale gridconnected PV systems in Ireland. A sample of 2,551 household electricity demand data collected at ½‐hourly intervals, electricity output from a 2.82 kWp PV system over the same time interval as well as PV system costs and electricity tariffs were used to determine the required FIT to make it worthwhile for the households to invest in the PV system. The methodology shows that it …

Small Wind Turbines In Turbulent (Urban) Environments: A Consideration Of Normal And Weibull Distributions For Power Prediction, Keith Sunderland, Thomas Woolmington, Jonathan Blackledge, Michael Conlon

Articles

The urban terrain and the associated morphological complexities therein, present significant challenges for the deployment of small wind turbines. In particular, a considerable amount of uncertainty is attributable to the lack of understanding concerning how turbulence within urban environments affects turbine productivity. Current wind turbine power output measurements (particularly for small/micro wind turbines) are based on an average wind speed over an observation period; with limited accountability of the variability of wind speed within the observation time frame. This paper however, presents two models that can instead accurately consider such wind speed variation and how it affects the turbine, based …

Footwear Antennas For Body Area Telemetry, Domenico Gaetano, Patrick Mcevoy, Max Ammann, Jacinta Browne, Louise Keating, Frances Horgan

Articles

Antennas designed to link footwear sensors within body centric networks are introduced with two small UWB antennas, one directional and another quasi-omnidirectional. The radiating characteristics are evaluated for three positions on a sample sports shoe using a detailed simulation model and measurements with a homogenous foot phantom. Antenna performance is assessed for resilience to close proximity loading by the footwear materials and the phantom foot.

Dual Band Lte Planar Inverted-F Antenna For M2m Applications, Abraham Loutridis, Matthias John, Max Ammann

Articles

A Planar Inverted-F Antenna for M2M applications is presented. The antenna is located on a rectangular ground plane and operates across both LTE frequency bands (690-960 MHz) and (1710-2690 MHz). The low cost antenna has omni-directional characteristics. The efficiency is better than 86% in both bands and the gain is more than 1.38 dBi across the whole frequency range. A parametric study of key geometrical parameters is reported.

Maximising Value Of Electrical Networks For Wave Energy Converter Arrays, Fergus Sharkey, Elva Bannon, Michael Conlon, Kevin Gaughan

Articles

Currently there are the beginnings of a commercial wave energy industry and the ultimate ambition will be to deploy Wave Energy Converters (WECs) in arrays, or wave farms, in a similar fashion to offshore wind. These arrays will require electrical networks to collect and export the generated electrical power to shore and onto the electrical grid. For large scale wind farms the inter-array and export electrical networks can represent more than 20% of the project’s capital expenditure. Submarine power cables account for a large proportion of this cost. The same is expected to be the same for WEC arrays.

This …

Dual Circularly-Polarized Patch Antenna Using Even And Odd Feed-Line Modes, Adam Narbudowicz, Xiulong Bao, Max Ammann

Articles

This paper proposes a new patch antenna with dual circularly polarized capability at 2.575 GHz. The design exploits the even and odd modes in a coplanar waveguide transmission line and enables simultaneous right- and left-handed circular polarization, with two individual excitation ports. A patch antenna is fed by multimode transmission line and the advantages and disadvantages are discussed. A prototyped antenna realized up to 20 dB isolation between ports with S21 < -10dB bandwidth of 87 MHz. Realized gains for the two modes of operation are 5.77 and 7.23 dBic. The proposed structure is compact and easy to manufacture.

Analysis Of The Thermal Performance Of A Solar Water Heating System With Flat Plate Collectors In A Temperate Climate, Lacour Ayompe, Aidan Duffy

Articles

The thermal performance of a solar water heating system with 4 m² flat plate collectors in Dublin, Ireland is presented in this paper. The experimental setup consisted of a commercially available forced circulation domestic scale system fitted with an automated sub‐system that controlled hot water draw‐offs and the operation of an auxiliary immersion heater. The system was tested over a year and the maximum recorded collector outlet fluid temperature was 70.4 ^oC while the maximum water temperature at the bottom of the hot water tank was 59.9 ^oC. The annual average daily energy collected was 19.6 MJ/d, …

Single-Mode Tunable Laser Emission In The Single-Exciton Regime From Colloidal Nanocrystals, Christos Grivas, Chunyong Li, Peristera Andreakou, Pengfei Wang, Ming Ding, Gilberto Brambilla, Liberato Manna, Pavlos Lagoudakis

Articles

Whispering-gallery-mode resonators have been extensively used in conjunction with different materials for the development of a variety of photonic devices. Among the latter, hybrid structures, consisting of dielectric microspheres and colloidal core/shell semiconductor nanocrystals as gain media, have attracted interest for the development of microlasers and studies of cavity quantum electrodynamic effects. Here we demonstrate single-exciton, single-mode, spectrally tuned lasing from ensembles of optical antenna-designed, colloidal core/shell CdSe/CdS quantum rods deposited on silica microspheres. We obtain singleexciton emission by capitalizing on the band structure of the specific core/shell architecture that strongly localizes holes in the core, and the two-dimensional quantum …

Resource-Induced Voltage Flicker For Wave Energy Converters – Assessment Tools, Fergus Sharkey, Joe Macenri, Elva Bannon, Michael Conlon, Kevin Gaughan

Articles

For wave energy converters, the input resource has a typical period of 5–20 s depending on the site location and dominant seastates. Wave energy converters generally produce mechanical power twice per wave cycle and therefore depending on the storage available, the electrical power output has half the period of the input resource. These regular power changes induce a voltage change at the point of connection (POC) which is proportional to the amplitude of the power change and at the same frequency. Therefore the coupling of the input resource to the output power of a wave energy converter will cause voltage …

Footwear-Centric Body Area Network With Directional Uwb Antenna, Domenico Gaetano, Vit Sipal, Patrick Mcevoy, Max Ammann, C Brannigan, Louise Keating, Frances Horgan

Articles

A footwear-centric body area network employing a directional antenna is compared with waist-centric systems using omnidirectional and directional antennas. The impact of body movements on path gain is analysed for two bands at 3.99 GHz and 7.99 GHz. The path gain and data rate results demonstrate that footwear-centric configurations are equivalent or better than waist-centric body area networks.

Adaptive Ofdm For Wireless Interconnect In Confined Enclosures, Vit Sipal, Javier Gelabert, Christopher J. Stevens, Ben Allen, David Edwards

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This letter considers and recommends OFDM with adaptive subcarrier modulation as a suitable candidate for wireless UWB communication in computer chassis. A rigorous measurement campaign studies the guaranteed spectral efficiency. It concludes that enhancement of the existing WiMedia OFDM systems with a bandwidth of 528 MHz in order to support adaptive OFDM would enable data-rates above 1 Gbps over short ranges, i.e. the spectral efficiency would be doubled. Moreover, the guaranteed spectral efficiency is shown to increase with bandwidth, i.e. the guaranteed data-rate increases better than linearly with bandwidth.

Kinetics Of Tomato Peroxidase Inactivation By Atmospheric Pressure Cold Plasma Based On Dielectric Barrier Discharge, Patrick J. Cullen, Shashi Pankaj, N. Misra

Articles

Atmospheric pressure cold plasma technology is an emerging nonthermal food technology for microbiological decontamination of food and bio-materials. This study demonstrates the applicability of in-package cold plasma technology as a novel means to inactivation of enzymes. The kinetics of inactivation of tomato peroxidase as a model enzyme was studied at 30, 40 and 50kV, for up to 5’ of atmospheric air dielectric barrier discharge plasma treatments. The enzyme activity was found to decrease with both treatment time and voltage, the former variable exhibiting a more pronounced effect. Kinetic models viz. first-order, Weibull and logistic models were fitted to the experimentally …

Engineering Performance Of A New Siloxane-Based Corrosion Inhibitor, Niall Holmes, R. O'Brien, P. A. M. Basheer

Articles

This paper presents an evaluation of a new non-toxic corrosion inhibitor on selected engineering properties of concrete mixes with different cementitious materials following a corrosion and durability study on concrete samples. Corrosion inhibitors consist of powders or solutions which are added to concrete when mixed to prevent or delay corrosion of steel by their reaction with ferrous ions to form a stable and passive ferric oxide film on the steel surface. The new inhibitor functions slightly differently and its corrosion inhibition effect is due to the formation of a siloxane coating on the steel surface. Therefore, the performance of the …

Comparison Of Non-Coherent Linear Detection Algorithms Applied To A 2-D Numerical Breast Model, Giuseppe Ruvio, Raffaele Solimene, Antonio Cuccaro, Max Ammann

Articles

A comparative analysis of an imaging method based on a multifrequency Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) approach against two common linear detection algorithms based on noncoherent migration is made. The different techniques are tested using synthetic data generated through CST Microwave Studio and a phantom developed from MRI scans of a mostly fat breast. The multifrequency MUSIC approach shows an overall superior performance compared to the noncoherent techniques. This letter reports that this highly performing algorithm does not require any antenna calibration or phase response estimation and allows the use of efficient and complex antenna geometries without difficult algorithm redefinitions.

Lean Integrated Design And Production: A Contractor's Perspective, Fiacra Mcdonnell

Articles

The scenario I have chosen for my paper concentrates on my experiences while employed as a senior estimator with Aidan Elliott Construction Ltd in 2009. Aidan Elliott Construction Ltd was a medium sized building contractor based in the Republic of Ireland. The company in question had an annual turnover of €15m, and was engaged in procuring construction contracts through competitive tendering. The contracts in question ranged in value between €200,000 and €12m. My responsibilities included pricing individual tenders, and compiling all the necessary documentation surrounding the procurement process for that company.As a company, we were pricing work on a competitive …

Developing A Collaborative Virtual Learning Environment Between Students In Cross Disciplines In The Built Environment., Fiacra Mcdonnell, Ruairi Hayden

Articles

Integrated Project Delivery is a rapidly developing approach to Design and Construction.This approach uses business structures, new technologies, and newly developing practices to collaboratively utilise the talents and contributions of all participants in the Design and Construction process.This project replicated this approach by creating a collaborative project between the School of Construction and the School of Real Estate and Construction Economics. The term “collaborative learning” refers to a method of delivery in which students at various performance levels work together in small groups towards a common goal. The students were responsible for one another’s learning as well as their own. …

Cereal Grain Combustion In Domestic Boilers, Andrew Keppel, John Finnan, Bernard Rice, Philip Owende, Kevin Macdonnell

Articles

This study compared the combustion characteristics and the combustion behaviour of oats, barley, triticale and wheat to that of wood pellets. Sustained grain combustion in domestic boilers was feasible but problematic, the main impediment being clinker formation with ash agglomeration. Clinker formation was lowest for oats which burned easily with fewer operational problems. Triticale displayed reasonably good combustion characteristics and also ignited easily. In contrast, barley and wheat proved difficult to ignite while barley combustion was prone to self-extinguish. Thermal and combustion efficiency and heat output were considerably higher at a grain moisture content of 15% compared to a moisture …

Environmental Consequences Of A Power Plant Shut-Down: A Three-Dimensional Water Quality Model Of Dublin Bay, Zeinab Bedri, Michael Bruen, Aodh Dowley, Barthelomew Masterson

Articles

A hydro-environmental model is used to investigate the effect of cessation of thermal discharges from a power plant on the bathing water quality of Dublin Bay. Before closing down, cooling water from the plant was mixed with sewage effluent prior to its discharge, creating a warmer, less-saline buoyant pollutant plume that adversely affects the water quality of Dublin Bay. The model, calibrated to data from the period prior to the power-plant shut-down (Scenario 1), assessed the water quality following its shut-down under two scenarios; (i) Scenario 2: continued abstraction of water to dilute sewage effluents before discharge, and (ii) Scenario …