Engineering Commons^™

Developing A Flexible Materials Testing Curriculum For Future Engineers, Anja Pfennig

Practice Papers

Engineering students as future maker of things will face the challenge of keeping pace with rapidly evolving technologies and staying up-to-date with the latest innovations in their field. To cope with these demands a flexible course concept is developed for an undergraduate Materials Science lab course: Materials Testing at HTW Berlin based on a blended learning teaching concept implementing inverted classroom lecture scenarios. High quality micro modules are defined that may individually be combined or restructured and therefore offer sufficient flexibility to match the individual scientific background of the lecturer, the course learning outcome, main study subject or actual need …

An Autoethnography Of Becoming An Innovative Engineering Academic: Punk, Pirate And Guerilla Pedagogy, Michael Murray

Practice Papers

In this Autoethnography (AE) I consider, “becoming” the Most Innovative Teacher (2018) at my university. My identity as a university teacher, my epistemic beliefs, and my choice of vocational pedagogical techniques, have been influenced by my working-class background. No school qualifications, becoming the wrong sort of engineer (plumbing), and a twenty-three-year journey to a doctoral qualification. In 2013 my employer declared that I did not have a ‘significant responsibility for research’ (SRR). I was transferred to a teaching only contract as a punitive measure for not fulfilling my employers research expectations. My lateral migration to a teaching post was the …

Engineering Society: The Role Of Intersectional Gender And Diversity Studies For A Sustainable Transformation On The Case Of Interdisciplinary Engineering Education, Jennifer Bosen, Sebastian Bernhard, Evamaria Fauster, Marie Decker, Miriam Lämmerhirt, Carmen Leicht-Scholten

Practice Papers

Technological innovations are impacting societies in manifold ways and can accelerate a transformation toward sustainability. To enable a sustainable transformation through engineering, engineers educated to create technological solutions for global challenges must be educated in sustainability principles as postulated under ‘Education for Sustainable Development’ (ESD) in the Agenda for Sustainable Development. In technological fields, the ecological, as well as the economical perspective of sustainability, are often addressed, but as recent research has highlighted, sustainability needs to be addressed holistically; this means including the social dimension to a greater degree and applying an intersectional understanding of gender and diversity throughout all …

Problem-Based Learning Of Heuristic Methods For Decision Problems In Mathematics, Computer Science And Industrial Engineering, Felix Engelhardt, Christina Büsing, Sabrina Schmitz

Practice Papers

In a digitalized world, most processes can be formalised, measured and described mathematically. The use of analytical methods to optimise such models and decisions constitutes operational research (OR), developing new methods for a specific problem and analysing them are part of discrete optimisation (DO). However, there is limited research on OR and application driven DO in higher education. Furthermore, neither is well integrated into engineering education research.

In this work, we present a case study of an interdisciplinary Master’s course on heuristic methods in the context of OR and DO. We discuss to what extent wellestablished approaches from engineering education …

Continuous Assessment In Electric Power Engineering For Marine Engineers, Jimmy Ehnberg, Stefan Lundberg

Practice Papers

To tackle the climate challenge, all sectors need to contribute, including electrified shipping. Electrified shipping is not only propulsion but also loading and unloading equipment. This transformation requires increased skills and understanding of electric power engineering for the personal onboard, not least for the marine engineers. Therefore, a changed in the curriculum was needed. However, when more theoretical course content was added to two consecutive courses, the student view and passing rate dropped. Although the student view improved quickly, the passing rate recovered slower. To address this issue, continuous assessment was introduced to counteract the drops. The aim of this …

Insider Action Research On Ai Needs Within The Eit Innoenergy Ecosystem, Inge De Waard, Albert Gonzalez, Anouk Gelan

Practice Papers

This practice paper describes an ongoing insider action research within the EIT InnoEnergy ecosystem. Its goal is to inspire teaching staff from the seven EIT InnoEnergy double degree Master of Science programmes to integrate Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and knowledge into their courses based on joint learning. This insider action research runs from 2023 to the end of 2024. In late 2022, a problem statement of ‘AI tools for Education’ was identified by EIT InnoEnergy teachers as being crucial for their future learning and teaching processes. To align the needs of teaching staff with the complexity of emerging AI tools, …

Why And How Do Students Need To Have Their Mental Health Considered In Engineering Schools?, Shirley Bayle, Manon Bocahut, Loïc Champeau, Alya Muneaux, Cathel Zitzmann

Practice Papers

This paper addresses the students’ mental health in higher education and more specifically in engineering schools. Several studies have shown student mental health and wellbeing can affect students’ academic performance. We investigate how student’s mental health is considered in engineering schools as well as how it should be and study the case of our engineering school. First, we present several research and studies conducted on how mental health is considered in higher education and its impact on academic performance. In the second part, we study the case of our engineering school with the implementation of a survey among students and …

The Immersive Placement Experience: Sink Or Swim?, Mohammed Shaikh, Abed Alaswad, Sarah Junaid

Practice Papers

To excel in their respective engineering fields, engineering students need to be equipped with a combination of technical and interpersonal skills. Central to excellent interpersonal skills is good communication. The aim of the study is to evaluate how well-prepared mechanical and design engineering students felt entering into their industrial placements, using a UK university as a pilot case study. For the study interviews were carried out with final year students who had previously completed an industrial placement year, focussing on communication, workplace diversity, technical working methods and university teaching styles. Reponses were anonymised, coded and analysed using quantitative and qualitative …

A Scoping Review: Examples Of Mission-Driven And Mission-Oriented Innovation In Engineering Education Research, Svend Hauekrog Christiansen, Anna Overgaard Markman, Aida Guerra, Xiangyun Du

Practice Papers

Engineers of the future are being requested to become part of solutions for dealing with complexities in the world, exemplified by the adaptation of the 17 United Nations sustainable development goals (SDGs). Ensuring that engineering students are introduced to these is of the utmost importance, if sustainable solutions to grand challenges shall be developed, whether being of technological, social and cultural, and/or economic character. This paper entails a scoping review of the concept of mission-driven or mission-oriented innovation, as defined by the European Commission (EC) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in engineering education research (EER). Seven …

A Three-Year Academic Track Towards Literacy In Sustainable Development - A Computer Science Study Program Case, Kamilla Klonowska, Marijana Teljega, Daniel Einarson

Practice Papers

The 3-year Bachelor Programme in Software Development study program at Kristianstad University, Sweden, aims to integrate not only academic competencies and skills in subject courses but also critical thinking skills on how Computer Science can contribute to achieving the sustainable development goals.

Starting from an understanding of the sustainable development goals, students begin a process of designing and implementing applications for some specific goals. Through participation in various activities, students exchange the ideas and perspectives, and are challenged to consider multiple solutions to complex problems. The students' critical thinking, communicative abilities, and the ability to solve problems both individually as …

Unlocking Complex Vector Calculus Concepts For Engineering Students Using Geogebra, Pragashni Padayachee, Thabiso Khemane

Practice Papers

There is an increasing drive to exploit the power of technology to improve students mathematical conceptual understanding. This work is motivated by the authors research presented at the SEFI 2022 conference which reported on students experienced difficulties with the double integral, a concept central to vector calculus. Some of the difficulties included visualising and sketching three dimensional surfaces and regions of integration and changing coordinate systems from rectangular to polar. Vector calculus is a crucial subject for engineering students, but its abstract concepts can be challenging to grasp. This curriculum proposal is a response to improve visualisation and conceptual understanding …

Current Topics In Technology-Enabled Stroke Rehabilitation And Reintegration: A Scoping Review And Content Analysis, Katryna Cisek

Articles

Background. There is a worldwide health crisis stemming from the rising incidence of various debilitating chronic diseases, with stroke as a leading contributor. Chronic stroke management encompasses rehabilitation and reintegration, and can require decades of personalized medicine and care. Information technology (IT) tools have the potential to support individuals managing chronic stroke symptoms. Objectives. This scoping review identifies prevalent topics and concepts in research literature on IT technology for stroke rehabilitation and reintegration, utilizing content analysis, based on topic modelling techniques from natural language processing to identify gaps in this literature. Eligibility Criteria. Our methodological search initially identified over 14,000 …

Clutch Analysis And Design For The Wildcat Pulling Team Quarter Scale Tractor Drivetrain, Lauren Doyle

Lewis Honors College Thesis Collection

The University of Kentucky (UK) Wildcat Pulling Team competes in the annual ASABE International Quarter Scale Tractor Student Design Competition. In 2022 the team placed 3rd overall in the competition, missing 1st place by 23 points. The loss in points was due to the clutch subassembly having issues related to maneuverability, manufacturability, and serviceability. The goal of this project was to redesign the 2022 tractor’s drivetrain for the new 2023 competition tractor. Background research was conducted on three types of clutches: manual, electric, and centrifugal. The electric clutch and centrifugal clutch with manual override were tested to determine their viability …

Deep Learning Framework For Intelligent Pavement Condition Rating: A Direct Classification Approach For Regional And Local Roads, Waqar Shahid Qureshi, David Power, Ihsan Ullah, Brian Mulry, Kieran Feighan, Susan Mckeever, Dympna O'Sullivan

Articles

Transport authorities rely on pavement characteristics to determine a pavement condition rating index. However, manually computing ratings can be a tedious, subjective, time-consuming, and training-intensive process. This paper presents a deep-learning framework for automatically rating the condition of rural road pavements using digital images captured from a dashboard-mounted camera. The framework includes pavement segmentation, data cleaning, image cropping and resizing, and pavement condition rating classification. A dataset of images, captured from diverse roads in Ireland and rated by two expert raters using the pavement surface condition index (PSCI) scale, was created. Deep-learning models were developed to perform pavement segmentation and …

The Effects Of Inaccurate And Missing Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Inventory Data On Crash Model Estimation And Crash Prediction, Aemal Khattak, M. Umer Farooq

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

ABSTRACT: Most highway-rail grade crossing (HRGC) crash models in the US rely on the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) highway/rail crossing inventory database. Any errors and/or incomplete information in this database affects the estimated crash model parameters and subsequent crash predictions. Using 560 HRGCs in Nebraska, this study illustrates differences in crash predictions obtained from the FRA’s new (2020) Accident Prediction and Severity (APS) model when: 1) using the unaltered, original FRA HRGC inventory dataset as input, and 2) using a field-validated inventory dataset for those 560 HRGCs as input to the new APS model. Results showed that the predictions using …

Actividad 1: Más Fresco Que Yo, Patrick Young

Tema 4: Por favor, pásame la sal

La materia está formada por átomos y moléculas. Aunque no podremos verlas con nuestros ojos, estas pequeñas partículas se mueven constantemente. La temperatura de una sustancia es una medida de su energía cinética promedio (la energía que tiene debido al movimiento de las partículas). A medida que aumenta la temperatura, las partículas adquieren más energía, se mueven más rápidamente y se separan más.

No importa en qué lugar de Illinois viva, el clima invernal nos impacta a todos. El deshielo y la limpieza de nieve representan una gran parte del presupuesto para las carreteras estatales y locales. La sal se …

Activity 2: The Pb&J Project, Patrick Young

Theme 1: Structure and Process

Complex projects, such as bridge construction, require thoughtful planning. Project Management is the discipline of planning and controlling the work of a team to reach a specific goal. Successful Project Management requires a careful consideration of deadlines, budgets, and available resources.

The Gantt chart is a project management tool that shows tasks in terms of their time-to-complete, interdependency, and available resources. Developed by American engineer Henry Gantt, these charts were first employed in shipbuilding, the construction of the Hoover Dam, and the Interstate Highway System.

Today they are used for all manner of project management tasks. Computers have made the …

Actividad 2: Proyecto Pb&J, Patrick Young

Tema 1: Estructura y proceso

Los proyectos complejos, como la construcción de un puente, requieren una planificación minuciosa. La gestión de proyectos es la disciplina que consiste en planificar y controlar el trabajo de un equipo para alcanzar un objetivo específico. El éxito de la gestión de proyectos requiere una cuidadosa consideración de los plazos, los presupuestos y los recursos disponibles.

El diagrama de Gantt es una herramienta de gestión de proyectos que muestra las tareas en términos de su tiempo de ejecución, interdependencia y recursos disponibles. Desarrollado por el ingeniero estadounidense Henry Gantt, este diagrama se empleó por primera vez en la construcción naval, …

Actividad 1: ¡Construye Fuerte!, Patrick Young

Tema 1: Estructura y proceso

El hormigón es el material de construcción más común para estructuras grandes. El hormigón se compone de tres materiales:

• Áridos: Arena y grava.
• Cemento: Un pegamento químico que mantiene los agregados unidos con gran fuerza.
• Agua: El agua no solo ayuda a mezclar y verter el hormigón, sino que se une al cemento en una reacción química y se incorpora al hormigón terminado.

Las cubiertas de los puentes deben soportar el peso de todos los automóviles y camiones que transitan por ellos. Las diferentes partes de las cubiertas de los puentes experimentan distintos tipos de fuerzas. La compresión es una …

Actividad 1: Lo De Adela, Patrick Young

Tema 2: Por la ciudad

Si pregunta a algunos de los residentes más antiguos de su barrio cómo era la ciudad hace 30 o 40 años, le dirán que había muchos espacios o campos vacíos Si les pregunta si están contentos con las numerosas viviendas, comercios, carreteras e industrias que existen ahora, es posible que digan que han perdido parte de su comunidad, pero que, al mismo tiempo, han ganado en infraestructuras, carreteras, industrias, puestos de trabajo, valor de la propiedad y expansión de la comunidad.

Implantar más carreteras en una ciudad no es una decisión fácil. Para que el proyecto se lleve a cabo, …

Actividad 2: Ruta Óptima, Patrick Young

Tema 2: Por la ciudad

Los sistemas de navegación de los vehículos utilizan información de la ubicación para ayudar a los conductores a decidir qué ruta tomar. Muchos de los sistemas de navegación alertan a los conductores de peligros en la carretera. Los cierres de carreteras, los accidentes, el clima y otros peligros afectan tanto los tiempos de viaje como las rutas elegidas. La colaboración y el intercambio de información entre la autopista o carretera, los servicios públicos y los sistemas de navegación son necesarios para informar a los conductores.

Activity 4: High Visibility Signs, Patrick Young

Theme 2: Around Town

Highway signage has evolved over time in response to driving habits and advances in automotive technology and materials science. Although most informational signs have a nondescript appearance, the microscopic structure of their surfaces is complex. Many competing designs attempt to provide advantages when illuminated by headlights.

It is often true that designing a test to evaluate different items is as important and challenging as designing the items themselves. In this activity, students will design both highway signs and a reliable procedure for testing them.

Activity 1: Traffic Jam, Patrick Young, Peg Steffen

Theme 3: Traffic Management

Computer models can be excellent tools for analyzing complex systems. In this activity, students will use a web-based computer model to explore the relationship between the volume of traffic and the time it takes for vehicles to get from point A to point B. Then they will use the model to assess two potential solutions to their particular example of traffic congestion. Students will be comparing small samples with larger samples to appreciate the benefits of using large, random samples.

Architecture Of Heptagonal Metallo-Macrocycles Via Embedding Metal Nodes Into Its Rigid Backbone, A.M.Shashika D. Wijerathna, He Zhao, Qiangqiang Dong, Qixia Bai, Zhiyuan Jiang, Jie Yuan, Jun Wang, Mingzhao Chen, Markus Zirnheld, Rockwell T. Li, Yuan Zhang, Yiming Li, Pingshan Wang

College of Sciences Posters

Metal-organic macrocycles have received increasing attention not only due to their versatile applications such as molecular recognition, compounds encapsulation, anti-bacteria and others, but also for their important role in the study of structure-property relationship at nano scale. However, most of the constructions utilize benzene ring as the backbone, which restricts the ligand arm angle in the range of 60, 120 and 180 degrees. Thus, the topologies of most metallo-macrocycles are limited as triangles and hexagons, and explorations of using other backbones with large angles and the construction of metallo-macrocycles with more than six edges are very rare.

In this study, …

Properties Of Cement Mortar Containing Recycled High-Density Polyethylene (Hdpe), Amany G. Micheal Prof., Esraa Torky, Merna Amir

Centre for Advanced Materials

Millions of tones of plastic waste are generated globally and only less than 10 per cent has been recycled. It is crucial to segregate and circulate plastic waste and repurposing it for countless other uses. There are many ways to repurpose and reuse these discarded plastics. One use that can be examined is the use of plastic as partial sand replacement in mortar. To contribute to this important and valid discourse, the research studies the mechanical and thermal properties of recycled HDPE mortar as an active way of integrating plastic waste into the construction industry to partially eliminate some of …

Influence Of Physical And Mechanical Parameters On Cavitation Erosion And Antifouling Behaviour Of Multilayer Silica-Based Hybrid Sol–Gel Coatings On Aluminium Alloys, Manasa Hegde, Marta Mroczkowska, Joseph Mohan, Adriana Cunha Neves, Yvonne Kavanagh, Brendan Duffy, Edmond F. Tobin

Articles

Sol–gel coatings can provide anti-fouling and erosion resistance while being safe to use in the marine environment. MAPTMS/ZPO multilayer coatings deposited on the AA2024-T3 aluminium surface using the dip-coating method at three different thicknesses (2, 4, and 6 m) are investigated in this work. The coatings are characterised in terms of physical and mechanical properties, and these properties are investigated in comparison to previously obtained cavitation erosion resistance levels of the coatings. Additionally, the efficiency of the coatings against biofouling was assessed using Phaeodactylum tricornutum, a marine diatom. The influence of the formation of organic–inorganic hybrid materials (OIHMs) from the …

Lessons From Redefining Traditional Work Placements For University Students In Tu Dublin, Kevin Dominic Delaney, Norah Cussen, Deirdre Ryan

Practice Papers

There is strong support for ensuring all university students have an option to undertake relevant work placement. Work-placements enable students to engage with enterprise and develop experiential learning while linking their academic study and theory to real industrial practice. Such placements, or internships, offer students an opportunity to build their self-confidence while refining their transversal skills such as creativity, innovation, communication, team-working and problem solving. Furthermore, placements broaden students’ knowledge base and improve their employability upon graduation.

While student cohorts benefit from engaging with enterprise the enterprise also benefits, such as from the energy, new perspectives and ideas interns can …

Globally Scalable Approach To Estimate Net Ecosystem Exchange Based On Remote Sensing, Meteorological Data, And Direct Measurements Of Eddy Covariance Sites, Ruslan Zhuravlev, Andrey Dara, André Luís Diniz Dos Santos, Oleg Demidov, George Burba

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Despite a rapid development of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for carbon removal in recent years, the methods for evaluating NBS still have certain gaps. We propose an approach based on a combination of remote sensing data and meteorological variables to reconstruct the spatiotemporal variation of net ecosystem exchange from eddy-covariance stations. A Lagrangian particle dispersion model was used for upscaling satellite images and flux towers. We trained data-driven models based on kernel methods separately for each selected land-cover class. The results suggest that the proposed approach to quantifying carbon exchange on a medium-to-large scale by blending eddy covariance flux data with …

Role Of Social Determinants Of Health In Differential Respiratory Exposure And Health Outcomes Among Children, Jagadeesh Puvvula, Jill A. Poole, Yeongjin Gwon, Eleanor G. Rogan, Jesse E. Bell

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Background Attributes defining the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are associated with disproportionate exposures to environmental hazards and differential health outcomes among communities. The dynamics between SDoH, disproportionate environmental exposures, and differential health outcomes are often specific to micro-geographic areas.

Methods This study focused on children less than 20 years of age who lived in Douglas County, Nebraska, during 2016–2019. To assess the role of SDoH in differential exposures, we evaluated the association between SDoH metrics and criteria pollutant concentrations and the association between SDoH and pediatric asthma exacerbations to quantify the role of SDoH in differential pediatric asthma outcomes. …

The Use Of Peer Assessment And Group Peer Moderation To Develop ‘Soft’ Skills In Engineering Students Researching Sustainable Energy, Reena Cole

Practice Papers

Since the change to an outcomes-based approach in Engineers Ireland’s accreditation criteria almost 20 years ago there has been an emphasis placed on ‘soft’ skills such as teamwork and ensuring graduate engineers are not only well versed in their chosen discipline, but that they can communicate their knowledge – to other Engineers and also non-Engineers. Energy Management is a module taught to 4th year Mechanical Engineers, and the learning outcomes are best assessed by how students can communicate the energy topics they are researching. As an individual they will research an area that interests them and write a paper at …